Crashlander

«But how did you come into it?» Carlos slid into the booth beside him. «You're not police. You're in the Extremely Foreign Relations Bureau.»

«The ship belonged to General Products Corporation, which is owned by Pierson's puppeteers, not human beings.»

Carlos turned on me. «Bey! Shame on you.»

«Damn it! They were trying to blackmail me into a suicide mission! And Ausfaller let them get away with it! And that's the least convincing exhibition of tact I've ever seen!»

«Good thing they soundproof these booths,» said Carlos. «Let's order.»

Soundproofing field or not, people were staring. I sat down. When our drinks came, I drank deeply. Why had I mentioned the bomb at all?

Ausfaller was saying, «Well, Carlos, have you changed your mind about coming with me?»

«Yes, if I can take a friend.»

Ausfaller frowned and looked at me. «You wish to reach Earth, too?»

I'd made up my mind. «I don't think so. In fact, I'd like to talk you out of taking Carlos.»

Carlos said, «Hey!»

I overrode him. «Ausfaller, do you know who Carlos is? He had an unlimited parenthood license at the age of eighteen. Eighteen! I don't mind you risking your own life; in fact, I love the idea. But his?»

«It's not that big a risk!» Carlos snapped.

«Yeah? What has Ausfaller got that eight other ships didn't have?»

«Two things,» Ausfaller said patiently. «One is that we will be incoming. Six of the eight ships that vanished were leaving Sol system. If there are pirates around Sol, they must find it much easier to locate an outgoing ship.»

«They caught two incoming. Two ships, fifty crew members and passengers, gone. Poof!»

«They would not take me so easily,» Ausfaller boasted. «The Hobo Kelly is deceptive. It seems to be a cargo and passenger ship, but it is a warship, armed and capable of thirty gees acceleration. In normal space we can run from anything we can't fight. We are assuming pirates, are we not? Pirates would insist on robbing a ship before they destroy it.»

I was intrigued. «Why? Why a disguised warship? Are you hoping you'll be attacked?»

«If there are actually pirates, yes, I hope to be attacked. But not when entering Sol system. We plan a substitution. A quite ordinary cargo craft will land on Earth, take on cargo of some value, and depart for Wunderland on a straight-line course. My ship will replace it before it has passed through the asteroids. So you see, there is no risk of losing Mr. Wu's precious genes.»

Palms flat to the table, arms straight, Carlos stood looming over us. «Diffidently I raise the point that they are my futzy genes and I'll do what I futzy please with them! Bey, I've already had my share of children, and yours, too!»

«Peace, Carlos. I didn't mean to step on any of your inalienable rights.» I turned to Ausfaller. «I still don't see why these disappearing ships should interest the Extremely Foreign Relations Bureau.»

«There were alien passengers aboard some of the ships.»

«Oh.»

«And we have wondered if the pirates themselves are aliens. Certainly they have a technique not known to humanity. Of six outgoing ships, five vanished after reporting that they were about to enter hyperdrive.»

I whistled. «They can precipitate a ship out of hyperdrive? That's impossible. Isn't it? Carlos?»

Carlos's mouth twisted. «Not if it's being done. But I don't understand the principle. If the ships were just disappearing, that'd be different. Any ship does that if it goes too deep into a gravity well on hyperdrive.»

«Then … maybe it isn't pirates at all. Carlos, could there be living beings in hyperspace, actually eating the ships?»

«For all of me, there could. I don't know everything, Bey, contrary to popular opinion.» But after a minute heshook his head. «I don't buy it. I might buy an uncharted mass on the fringes of Sol system. Ships that came too near in hyperdrive would disappear.»

«No,» said Ausfaller. «No single mass could have caused all of the disappearances. Charter or not, a planet is bounded by gravity and inertia. We ran computer simulations. It would have taken at least three large masses, all unknown, all moving into heavy trade routes simultaneously.»

«How large? Mars size or better?»

«So you have been thinking about this, too.»

Carlos smiled. «Yeah. It may sound impossible, but it isn't. It's only improbable. There are unbelievable amounts of garbage out there beyond Neptune. Four known planets and endless chunks of ice and stone and nickel-iron.»

«Still, it is most improbable.»

Carlos nodded. A silence fell.

I was still thinking about monsters in hyperspace. The lovely thing about that hypothesis was that you couldn't even estimate a probability. We knew too little.

Humanity has been using hyperdrive for almost four hundred years now. Few ships have disappeared in that time, except during wars. Now eight ships in ten months, all around Sol system.