23

If he’d blacked out, Gap figured it couldn’t have been for more than a few seconds. He tried to roll over, but Hannah was sprawled across his legs. He could hear her groan and begin to stir, and after a few moments she sat up. He rolled into a sitting position and took stock of his condition.

A lump was already bulging on his forehead, and he could taste blood from undoubtedly biting his lip. His right wrist ached from bracing for the impact with the wall. On top of that he felt slightly nauseated, but that appeared to be the extent of his wounds.

He began to fumble with his hands to locate Hannah when the lights flicked back on at what seemed half power. Hannah sat against the wall, a small trail of blood stretching from beside her right eye to just below the jawline. She was grasping her right elbow and wincing. She blinked to adjust to the light, then looked over at Gap with wide eyes.

“Was that … what I think it was?” she said.

Gap didn’t answer. He stood up gingerly, wringing his hand to work the kinks out of his wrist, then looked over at Merit, who was lying facedown, his arm twisted unnaturally beneath him. He wasn’t moving.

Gap heard Hannah say something about getting help, then she was gone, limping around the bend to the nearest intercom. He knelt beside the fallen figure and saw that Merit was breathing but unconscious. There was no visible blood. Until trained medical help arrived, Gap thought it unwise to move him.

He was anxious to get up to the Control Room and was grateful when Hannah hurried back.

“Manu said they’re swamped with calls right now,” she told him. “He said someone will be down in just a few minutes.”

“I’ve gotta go,” Gap said. “Stay here until they arrive, and check in with me later.” He threw a quick glance down at Merit, and then back to Hannah. Her face had a pleading look.

“Gap, believe me—”

He cut her off. “We can talk later.” Without another word he turned and rushed towards the lift.

Ascending to the top level, he summoned the ship’s computer. “Roc, do you have a damage report yet?”

“Just filtering everything now. The radiation shield dropped again, as you might expect, and when it stayed down for five seconds I automatically diverted power from the ion drive, as you proposed. It seems to have done the trick … for now. The shield is back up, but I can’t promise for how long.”

Gap burst out of the lift on Galahad’s upper level and immediately saw crew members assisting others towards Sick House. Most of the injured were either cradling an arm or holding a compress of sorts over a bleeding wound. None appeared too serious, but Gap wondered what the final casualty list would look like.

The Control Room buzzed with activity. Gap logged into his Engineering work station and surveyed the data. As he did so, the ship’s lights came back to full power.

“Shield still holding?” he asked Roc.

“Yes,” the computer said. “I took it upon myself to clip one percent of power from the drive. I’m sure you understand the significance of that amount.”

Despite the nausea, Gap managed a thin smile. During the initial encounter with the Cassini, the alien presence had attempted to “improve” the starship that was rocketing through their neighborhood by boosting the ion drive. Although their intentions were good, the ship’s engines were not designed to handle the stress, and ultimately the maneuver came dangerously close to destroying the ship. In the end, Bon was able to communicate with the Cassini and prevent the disaster. And yet, for reasons unknown, the ship managed to escape with a fractional increase in power.

“Our little one-percent gift from the Cassini,” Gap muttered. “Knowing how much you care about them, I’m sure it pained you to siphon that away.”

“If your sarcastic comment is meant to imply that I somehow derive joy by regifting their contribution, nothing could be further from the truth. It merely seemed a practical solution.”

“Uh-huh,” Gap said. “I have to say, Roc, your snippy attitude about the Cassini is quite immature.”

“Me? Immature?” Roc said. “You can’t see it, but I’m virtually sticking my tongue out at you. Back to business: other than the shield, the ship’s primary systems check out okay; Lita and Manu are treating approximately twenty crew members so far in Sick House, mostly scrapes and bruises; and the lump on your forehead gives you a somewhat Quasimodo-like appearance. Very rugged looking, something you normally don’t pull off too well.”

Gap lightly brushed his forehead with his fingers, then cringed. “Well, obviously we need to talk about the shock wave. Probably no big mystery about what caused that. Would I be correct in assuming that we are now graced with the opening of another wormhole nearby?”

“Much closer, in fact, than the others we experienced,” Roc said. “That explains the extremely violent concussion. Almost like it was tracking us through space better than last time, and placed itself in the perfect position to intercept us. A perfect pass, you might say.”

“What’s your calculation for contact?”

Roc paused for a few seconds, then said: “One hour, four minutes. However, assuming Hannah’s theory is correct, we should experience a few of those delightful shock waves before that.”

Gap pulled his chair over and sat down. The nausea had subsided, but his head and wrist still throbbed. He looked up and nodded appreciation when one of the Control Room personnel handed him a cup of water.

His mind scrambled through the information Roc had provided. If another wormhole had ripped through the fabric of space, and with pinpoint accuracy in order to intercept the ship, it was quite obviously there for a reason. Could it be an attack on Galahad? Were the beings responsible for the vultures out to avenge their fallen soldier, perhaps by launching a fleet of the ominous dark creatures?

Or would the vultures’ caretakers be arriving to personally take matters into their own hands?

The next five minutes were spent diagnosing the rejuvenated radiation shield, the effect of the ion drive power shift, and the expanding injury update from Sick House. Lita reported that the toll had climbed to twenty-nine.

“Lots of bumps and bruises,” she said over the intercom. “Four people are going to be admitted to the hospital ward for a bit, though.”

Gap paused, staring at the console. “Uh … does that include Merit?”

“It does,” Lita said. “His arm is broken, and he cracked a couple of ribs. I’m about to run a scan for any internal damage.”

Gap felt his emotions twist. Less than an hour earlier it had taken everything in his power to keep from lashing out at Merit. What did it say about his character, he wondered, that news of Merit’s injuries caused him to feel a twinge of satisfaction? Did that make him a monster?

And if he felt those sinister feelings for Merit, why did he not feel the same way about Hannah? She had deceived him, and she had teamed up with Merit Simms. Merit Simms! Shouldn’t he, after all, have the same dark thoughts about her?

But he didn’t. Despite the blow to his heart, he knew that he still cared about her. What did it all mean?

He decided that it was not the time for a self-inspection of his soul. “What about Hannah?” he said to Lita. “She had some blood—”

“She’s fine. Might have a tiny scar to remember it all by, but otherwise she’s okay. Let’s talk about you.”

“I’m okay,” Gap said.

“That’s not what I heard. Hannah said that you slammed your extremely thick skull into the wall. Well, she said your head; I added the thick part. When can you stop in to let us at least check you out?”

Gap again dabbed at the lump. “I’m all right. Besides, we’ve got another wormhole coming up fast. I can’t leave right now.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Lita said. “Manu should be walking in your door any second. Don’t be stubborn, let him spend three minutes looking at you.”

“I didn’t know you guys made house calls,” Gap said. “Let me know how things are going later.” He ended the conversation as the door slid open, admitting Manu. True to Lita’s estimate, it took only a few minutes to pronounce Gap fit for duty.

“You’ll be sore for a day or two,” Manu said. “If you feel the need for a pain pill, let me know.” He gave Gap a wry smile. “In the meantime, you kinda look like that hunchback character. What’s his name? Quasimodo?”

“Ha ha ha!” Roc blurted from the speaker. “Do I know my classic literature, or what? Ring the bell, Gap, ring the bell!”

Gap shook his head and thanked Manu. “If I need a pill, it will be because of a completely separate headache.”

“Unappreciated, that’s what I am,” the computer said. “Steering the conversation back to the tiny matter at hand, namely our humble ship galloping towards a gaping gash in the universe…”

“Yes?”

“We’re about fifty-two minutes out. I’ve nudged the ship so that we’ll cruise past the opening rather than down the hatch. Even so, it’s much closer than before, and even with my dazzling intellect it’ll be hard to predict what effect that will have on the ship. If Hannah’s bruise theory is correct—and this will be a good test—we’re in for a bumpy ride.”

Gap imagined a water skier, bouncing over the wake of a boat, riding out the turbulence.

“Can you nudge us outward a little more, please?” he said. “Let’s try to give ourselves the biggest cushion we can.” He dropped back into his chair and began to calculate just how close they would be coming to the wormhole.

He realized that six o’clock had slipped past. The election results should have been announced by this point, but Roc, it seemed, had shuffled that bit of business down several notches. Gap was thankful; after what he’d stumbled across on the lower level, he couldn’t stand the idea that the team of Hannah and Merit might have defeated him. He opened his mouth to suggest that Roc hold the results until this latest emergency was over and done with, but held off. That was a decision for the entire Council.

Focus, he told himself. He bent back over the console and directed his energies to a new area: the radiation shield. If Galahad was minutes away from a furious storm, it might be time to divert even more energy to the shield.

As if on cue, the ship’s lights dimmed again, and within seconds a call came from Engineering. It was Julya.

“Let me guess,” Gap said. “What’s the status of the shield right now?”

“Well,” she said, “stable, I suppose. It dropped out for just over a second, then came back, then out for another second.”

“Roc,” Gap said, “I think it’s time for one of those executive decisions. Let’s drop another two percent into the shield. Can it handle that input?”

“If not, we’ll return it to the manufacturer with a very stern letter. Should take about three minutes.” The computer paused, and then added, “Uh-oh.”

Gap recognized the tone. Roc had only shifted to that tone on a few occasions, and it had always preceded bad news.

“The space around us has just become a bit more congested,” Roc said.

“Explain,” Gap said.

“We know that the wormholes are not used for decoration; they’re passageways. And it seems that a few things have spilled out of this passageway, right into our path.”

A knot instantly materialized in Gap’s stomach, and he felt an icy streak race through his veins. “How many things are we talking about?”

“Lots,” Roc said. “As in…” After a few seconds delay, he added, “Roughly two thousand.”

Gap not only felt a stab of fear himself, he swore that he could feel the collective fear roiling through the atmosphere of the Control Room as each crew member absorbed the news. Two thousand? His mind conjured up images of a vast squadron of pitch-black vultures, circling ahead, waiting to intercept and latch on to Galahad. He imagined that each person in the room had painted a similar picture.

He brought himself upright in his chair and injected as much composure into his voice as possible. He was still the commander of the ship. “Do you have enough data yet to determine the size and trajectory?”

“Scanning again,” Roc said. “No doubt that all but one of them are vultures.”

Gap gazed up at the room’s giant vidscreen, but saw only the blazing star field. “All but one?”

“Well, isn’t this interesting,” the computer said.

“Roc, tell me!”

“It would seem that we might be getting some of our property back. Besides the nasty critters, that’s our pod that just popped out of the wormhole. It’s back.”