‘Bored now,’ said Andy, slumping back into his couch.
‘I spy, with my little eye,’ said Phil, smirking.
‘Don’t even think about it, pilot boy,’ said Andy, pointing at Phil with a wiggly finger. ‘I was bored with that three hours ago.’
‘Now you know how we felt, waiting over three thousand years for you guys to grow up.’
‘If you’d given Iron Age man some rocket technology, you’d have saved yourselves a thousand years.’
‘Yeah, cast iron rockets – they’d fly well.’
‘Will you two stop talking bollocks for a minute,’ said Cleo. ‘I just need you to turn onto this course please, Phil.’
A slightly altered trajectory appeared in front of Phil. He thought his way onto the new course and the helm holographic display flashed green as it locked on.
‘Have you found something?’ asked Andy.
‘Just the merest sniff of – ah – now, that’s more promising,’ she said. ‘I’ll display the possible track as a tube on the holomap.’
What looked like a short pipe materialised in clear space near the Traxx system and pointing in the direction of system 9264701b.
‘An uninhabited system?’ said Andy.
‘But, it does have a gas giant – two in fact – and a nice healthy star to recharge with,’ said Phil, surveying the scan results.
‘Not their final destination then?’
‘Oh shit,’ said Phil.
‘Oh shit, what?’
‘It’s six point six light years from Traxx to 9264701b,’ said Phil, looking at Andy with a concerned face. ‘Judging by how far they’ve got in the time since they entered the wormhole, they’re travelling at three point two times the speed of light.’
‘Oh shit,’ said Andy. ‘That’s not too hard to work out, is it?’
‘Just over two years, isn’t it?’ said Phil.
‘Yeah.’
‘Crap.’
‘What’s crap?’ asked Rayl, appearing on the tube lift.
They showed her the evidence and she sat back on her control couch and sighed.
‘Cleo, is there any way we can influence that ship out of the wormhole and get it to drop back into real time?’ she asked.
‘Theoretically, maybe,’ Cleo said. ‘But deliberately collapsing a wormhole, anything could happen. It’s never been done before and could even cause the ship to break up, disappear into another dimension or worse.’
‘What could be worse?’ said Andy, rolling his eyes.
‘I’m sure Ed and Linda have everything under control,’ said Rayl. ‘There are worse things than waiting a couple of years.’
‘They could be lying unconscious,’ said Phil. ‘And relying on us to do something.’
The three of them sat and stared at the holomap for a few moments.
‘I vote we wait a few days,’ said Rayl. ‘It’s a big ship and they might need some time to sort themselves out.’
‘Just learning that pictorial language would be a time-consuming enterprise, even if they have found the bridge,’ said Andy.
‘Cleo,’ called Rayl. ‘How long do you think we should give them?’
‘Before doing what?’
‘That’s as yet to be decided.’
‘Come on, Cleo,’ said Andy. ‘No sitting on the fence. How long do we wait?’
‘Ten days.’
‘Why ten days?’ asked Rayl.
‘You asked for a timescale – I gave you one.’
‘So, no scientific reason for the length of time?’ asked Phil.
‘No.’
They all looked at each other before Andy shrugged.
‘Ten days it is then,’ he said.