Starhawk Read Free

stuck out here,” she said.
    â€œNo, Priscilla, me neither.”
    There had been a few ships that had vanished over the years. Vehicles that simply went out somewhere and were never heard from again. It was, she supposed, inevitable. If you were going to travel to seriously remote places, you took your chances.
    Â * * * 
    JUMP TECHNOLOGY WAS notoriously inexact. They jumped three more times to get readings on the signals.
    Benny put a chart on the navigation display. He marked their initial position and drew a line from it indicating the direction from which the transmission had come. He showed their current location.
    Jake brought some coffee back from the dispenser. “You want some?” he asked.
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    â€œSorry it’s taking so long,” said Benny. “It’s difficult to sort everything.”
    â€œIt’s okay, Benny. No hurry.”
    â€œI think we have it now.”
    Priscilla kept her eyes on the screen. They were able to establish the course and velocity of the radio source during a period of about six weeks during which it had been actively transmitting signals. After that, there was nothing. The system had shut down.
    â€œRange,” said Benny, “is slightly more than nine light-years. Continue the vector for the balance of the nine years, and the source should presently be—”
    He showed them.
    Â * * * 
    â€œMAYBE SOMEBODY GOT to them,” said Jake. “Let’s hope.”
    â€œSo what do we do?”
    â€œYou’re the captain, Priscilla. Call it.”
    She wondered momentarily if, despite Jake’s denial, the signal was a plant. Part of the exercise. Maybe they were testing her judgment. “Benny,” she said, “do we have a record of any lost ships nine years ago?”
    â€œThe
Forscher
,” he said. “It was last reported at Talios in the spring of ’86. Carrying an exobiologist and an actor. Started home and was never heard from again.”
    An actor? Priscilla’s heart rate began to pick up. “Jake, that would be Dave Simmons.” The ultimate action-hero vid star turned explorer. Simmons had turned out to be even bigger than the characters he portrayed. He’d financed scientific missions, founded schools in remote places, once famously challenged the African dictator Kali Anka to have it out man-to-man. Anka had declined and been driven from the country a year later.
    â€œThe exobiologist was Paul Trelawney,” said Benny. Trelawney had won the Cassimir Award the year before. “And, of course, there would also have been a pilot.”
    The ship had sent a movement report when it left Talios. A long search had yielded nothing. “Why would they send a radio transmission?” she asked, before answering her own question: “The hypercomm must have gone down.”
    Jake nodded.
    It was hard to imagine the tall, lantern-jawed Simmons dead. The guy had been the epitome of the leading man, in charge, indestructible, always one step ahead of events. One entertainment commentator had remarked that his loss had “reminded us all of our mortality.”
    â€œSo what are we going to do?” she asked.
    â€œMake the call, Priscilla.”
    â€œOkay. We make a report, and then head for Caliban, right? We can’t do anything for the
Forscher
, so we just give the Wheel what we have and continue the mission.”
    He nodded. “That’s by the book.”
    She read disapproval in his eyes. Maybe another test of her judgment. “Jake, there’s no possibility here of anyone’s life being endangered. So we report what we’ve found and get back to what we’re supposed to be doing.”
    â€œOn the other hand—” he said.
    â€œOn the other hand, what?”
    â€œWe’re close. And our mission isn’t under time constraints. We can go have a look and send back additional details.”
    â€œDo we