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avoid being blown through it. If the flux jams we'll be so much smoke. And
half a million years ago at that.'
'OK,' said Rothgar calmly. I'd just told him to do the im-possible. Like a
good spacer, he didn't question the order.
'Count me down to the blast,' I told him. He began the count at twenty, which
was too high for my liking, but it was his drive. In the meantime, I tried to
balance on the edge of the vortex that was swirling in around us.
At five I began to run. Two thou, two-fifty, three. As the count closed in on
zero, I flipped her out to seven, opened the atomic cannon, and shut my eyes.
Less than a second, I held the leap. I shut the cannon and closed back to
three thou, holding tight and praying that I could keep her in the bounds of
the known universe.
With her body contorted like a spitted fish, we writhed in agony. I was held
by the clasps, I
couldn't yield to the tortuous demands of my muscles. I felt my spine bend and
my limbs tried to flail. I
knew that if a bone broke we'd be dead. The shield was all but stripped away
by the jump, but I pushed just enough power in to hold it while we
cartwheeled. Dust drilled into me, and I could feel blood on my arms. But the
ship didn't bleed - she was strong as well as lithe, her veins were bedded
deep. I could feel the power faltering, and I knew the flux was going to
catch. I prayed that Rothgar could take her through the crisis. I fought for
her as we climaxed, and we won. She rode the Shockwave.
I'd turned the perversion of Drift-space to our advantage. It was running
with us, helping us, carrying us.
'Damage?' I asked sharply.
'Don't do it again,' advised Rothgar. 'If you open the cannons at transcee
again, you'll lose them for good.'
I redirected my attention to feeling the exact strength and motion
of the storm-wind. The instruments indicated my speed at one-thirty,
but I reckoned, as far as reaching the
Hymnia was concerned, we were making the best part of two thou. If con-ditions
held, we'd be there in four hours.
Naturally enough, conditions didn't hold. They grew steadily worse as things
reverted to their previous state. I had only made a little hole. For hours I
was riding one set of waves and fighting another.
I slowed down, but I was still taking punishment, and so was the ship. But the
constant ache in my body was cancelled by the sheer determination to go where
I wanted to go. I was at war with the Drift now, and my respect for its
inherent dangers was becoming a far more personal feeling - aggression, even
hatred. There was an elation to be found in slashing through the cords of
contorted space. There comes a stage in any battle when you forget the pain,
and even the reason behind your motives. You just slog on and on, a creature
of pure direction.
I guess that having an empty, sterile, crippled mind helped me a lot just
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then.
It was as well that I wasn't too far away from the object of that particular
thrust, because the ship might have cracked up about me while I was in that
kind of a mood. There was no courage or heroism involved, any more than there
was caution or patience.
To be honest, I can remember very little of what happened during that ride. I
know that it took me exactly five hours and two minutes to reach the
Hymnias crack-up point, because the instruments later told me so. I wasn't
aware of the passage of the time.
The plasm apparently clogged twice, but both times Rothgar kept the relaxation
field steady and effective for the vital instants. I don't know how he did it.
He was working miracles.
All in all, we were very lucky.
The
Hymnia was drifting free - dead as could be, but still intact.
She was drifting fast on a tachyonic wind, so I couldn't slow to subcee and
call her. I had to use the drive to match her, at nearly total relaxation. I
knew we couldn't sustain that for long, after what we'd already thrown away
through the cannons.
I couldn't transfer from one ship to the other while we were travelling faster
than light. I couldn't hang around forever hop-ing that she'd lose momentum,
or that the wind would reverse its direction.
'I'm going to nudge her,' I announced, 'and take her off that wind.'
That was dangerous too, but the wind itself wouldn't hurt me, and I ran no
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