Starplex

“Not much of a choice, is it?” said Keith. “Here on the periphery of a black hole in intergalactic space; off in a globular cluster—presumably full of old, lifeless stars; or over to that ring nebula.”

“No,” said Jag.

“No what?”

“No, we cannot be limited to those choices.”

Keith let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Why not?”

“Because the God of Alluvial Deposits is my patron,” said the Waldahud. “She would not abandon me.”

Keith felt his heart sink. He stopped himself before he snapped out something nasty.

“There has to be a way back,” said Jag. “We came here, and therefore we must be able to return. If only we—”

“Speed!” shouted Lianne.

Keith looked at her.

“Speed!” she said. “We went through the shortcut at very high speed. Perhaps the velocity range at which you enter a shortcut selects which other family of shortcuts you have access to. We’ve always previously done it at very low relative velocities in order to avoid impacts. After all, one does go through a shortcut blind, not knowing for sure what’s on the other side. But this time, we whipped into it at substantial fraction of light-speed. We may have keyed into another level of shortcuts by doing so.”

Keith turned to Jag. He lifted all four shoulders. “It’s as good an explanation as any.”

“Rhombus, launch another probe,” said Keith. “Put it on a long trajectory that will let it accelerate to the same speed we were at when we passed through the shortcut, and aim for the exact latitude and longitude that corresponds to where we came from.”

“Doing so with transcendent joy,” said the Ib.

The probe was launched, built up speed, pierced the shortcut. They all held their breaths. Even Rhombus’s pump, which operated without guidance from the pod, apparently sensed that something important was happening. Its central orifice temporarily halted its constant sequence of open, stretch, compress, and close.

And then the probe returned. Rhombus’s ropes whipped his console, making loud slapping sounds as they did so, and the framed-off area filled with the probe’s recorded images.

Thor was grinning from ear to ear. “I never thought I’d be glad to see that thing again,” he said, jerking a thumb at the image of the green star.

Keith breathed a long sigh of relief. “Thank—thank the God of Alluvial Deposits.”

“According to the probe’s hyperscope, the darmats have moved well away from the exit point,” said Rhombus.

“Excellent. Thor, take us home. Execute the course we discussed earlier. I want to have a word with Cat’s Eye.”

Chapter XXI

Starplex moved through the intergalactic abyss toward the shortcut. The ship—seeming minuscule amidst all the emptiness—gathered speed as it approached, Thor revving up the thrusters. When it touched the shortcut, a ring of violet fire passed over the vessel as it traversed six billion light-years—60,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers—in the blink of an eye. There was a spontaneous cheer from those on the bridge as the holographic bubble was filled again with countless stars.

Keith felt his eyes stinging, the way they had the last time he’d returned to Earth.

Thor immediately began making manual adjustments; they hadn’t been monitoring the green star long enough to know its exact trajectory away from the shortcut, and his guess of where it would be was somewhat off. He soon had the ship settled into the parabolic course Keith wanted—a much wider parabola than their previous passing, avoiding any dangerous proximity to the green star, which now once again dominated the holo bubble.

“Scan for the Rumrunner’s transponder,” said Keith.

“Doing so,” said Lianne. But then, a moment later, “I’m sorry, Keith. There’s nothing.”

Keith closed his eyes. She could be safe, he told himself, she could have gone through to another exit, she could—

“Tachyon pulse!” said Rhombus in what PHANTOM translated as a shout.

Keith swiveled around to look at the shortcut, now swelling into a purple-limned shape—in the exact cross sectional outline of a Commonwealth probeship.

“It’s the Rumrunner!” crowed Thor.

“Incoming signal,” said Lianne. She touched keys and a hologram of Rissa’s beaming face appeared inside a floating frame.

“Hello, everyone,” said Rissa. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Rissa!” said Keith, rising to his feet.

“Hello, darling,” said Rissa, smiling radiantly. “Rhombus,” said Keith, “can they dock with us, given the course we’re on?”

“They can if I give them a tow with a tractor beam.”

Keith was grinning widely. “Please do so!”

“Okay, guys,” said Rhombus, “prepare to be grabbed by a tractor.”

Longbottle’s gray face popped up next to Rissa’s. “Prepared are we! Home we come!”

“Locking on,” said Thor.

“Thor,” said Keith, “do you have a fix on Cat’s Eye?”

“Yes. He’s about ten million klicks ahead, at about nine o’clock to the green star.”

“I’ve located a vacant frequency in the darmat babble, in case you want to talk to him,” said Lianne. “Somebody must have left the conversation recently.”