Part 18 (1/2)

Right Easy does it

And then, recalling the circumstances, he reached to the keyboard once more

”hello,” he typed, ”weapons check”

”I'M NOT A COMBAT pilot, either, Shadia I think we did as well as esture in ehting

”I swear to you, Clonak-they'veto take them apart piece by piece, and if they have killed me I'll haunt every last one of them to”

The muffled voice went suddenly away and the nal the separation

The woainst the shi+p's interior, bringing her Momson cloak back in contact with his as they sat side by side on the decking behind the control seats, using the leverage of their legs to hold the

”We bested them,” the man insisted ”We did, Shadia-since the fact that we're soues that their shi+p isn't anywhere”

There was a snort of sorts from within the transparent cloak ”I'm familiar with that equation-my instructor learned it fro to bring a destroyer against a shi+p likely to Jump? You don't have to be a Caylon to know that's”

Her gesture broke the contact again and the near vacuum of the shi+p's interior refused to carry her words

Shadia leaned back ht crinkle sounding fro fro his head, Terran-style

”Next shi+ft, Shadia, recall us both to put on a headset As delightful as these contraptions are, I'd like us to be able to converse as if eren't halflings in the first throes of puppy-heart”

She laughed gently, then quite seriously asked, ”So you think we'll have a next shi+ft, at least? No one on our trail?”

He sighed, this ti to look her full in the face

”Shadia, my love, I doubt not that all is confusion at Nev'Lorn, The bat is out of the bag, as they say, and I suspect the invaders have found theed”

He nodded into the di the situation they'd left behind so suddenly when the Department of Interior attacked them

”The shi+pstupidly when lastit-closing into your fire as well as the sphere of the Jump effect of the hysteresis of our maneuvers They would have been with us within h with us”

Clonak gestured as expansively as the Cloak allowed

”Nohat can I say? we've coentle and lucky the shi+p et us somewhere useful Perhaps we'll even be able to walk about uncloaked ere long; with hard work and sweat much is possible You will remember to tell people that you've seen me sweat and do hard hen this is over, won't you, Shadia? When our present situation is resolved-then ill consider the best Balance we hed visibly, used the hand-sign for ”back to work,” with a quick undernote of ”sweat, sweat, sweat”

She snaled ”work, work, work” back at hi hi his feet against the ceiling of the vessel he brought his face near hers and touched left arive you one more rather difficult set of orders, I'ood for you lately, but I pray you indulge me once more”

With his other hand he used the Scout hand-talk, signifying a life-or-death situation

She nodded toward his hand and he closed his eyes a ht again into the orbit of the Depart us-you must shoot me in the head”

He flicked an ankle, floated accurately to the floor again, belying the cultivated ie of old fool, and he looked into her startled, wide eyes

”Just dead isn't good enough, Shadia; they'll have medics and docs Do you understand? There must be no chance that they can question me They cannot knohat I know, and they cannot knoho else ently on her elbow, and she uncurled to stand beside hiht

His hand-talkassent; she responded in query, his in denial and he leaned toward her until cloaks touched again

”I know, Shadia, neither of us were raised to be combat pilots It is thrust upon us both as Scouts and as pilots My ly clear in this I can tell you only one thing right now-and little enough it is to Balance ain and his flicked the repeated ripple that norht, already”

”What I know,” he said into his cloak and through the double crinkly life-skins to her ears, ”is the na made this one pilot their enemy, they now h, if not quite exact, There were a dozen Momson Cloaks per canister; each of the two installed canisters had eleven left There were two replaceency kit built into each of the conning seats held a pair of individual Cloaks, as well, out of an original eight eights to start there were now five dozen and two to go

Math is a relentless discipline: It took Shadia down the rest of the path ale sized Terran just over 24 hours-Momson Cloaks were, after all, standard issue devices on cruise shi+ps plying the crowded space of the Terran home system-but they were conservatively rated at 30 hours by the Scouts

Perhaps 40 standard days then, Shadia thought, if usage was equal and none of the units bad, if

She saw the flutter of a hand at the edge of her vision as Clonak signaled for attention; he leaned forward and they touched shoulders as he spoke: ”Not as bad as all that, Shadia-we've got some shi+p stores too, and the spacesuits thelanced at hiht hand

”I' out loud”

Shadia rolled her eyes It was true She'd been waiting for the battery powered gyroscope in the auxiliary star-field scope to stabilize with half hermath on her hand

She bowed carefully a ”Thank you for your notice,” she said forn for ”Whyripple of a chuckle, was sih-trih the transparent Momson Cloak, and floated toward the open overhead panel, Shadia likewise turned back to her task in progress

The shi+p's tiny forward viewports were automatically sealed by Juet power back to those ht away from the shi+p

And now the star-field scope was stable enough to run: Despite Clonak's protestations, he'd ed to perform wizard's work on the back-up electrical systeht hope to be using to determine one's position after an interrupted Ju

As she bent to the scope she sighed a breath-and then another Breath's Duty, indeed Every child on Liad was randfather to ed through countless revisions of the code, unbidden, portions came to her now, recalled in the aard rhyth

”Breath's duty is to breathe for the clan as the clan allows, Breath's duty is to breathe the body whole, Breath's duty is to plan for the clan's increase, Breath's duty is to keep the Balance told, Breath's duty is to”

Carefully, she adjusted the star-field scope To be useful, she needed to recognize any of the several dozen common Guides-her usual choice was the brilliant blue-white Quarter anova-or find a star within disc-view Disc-view, of course, was optimum With the auxiliary scope even a basic scan could take a day

”Breath's duty is to keep the Balance told,” sheThere were a lot of degrees of space to cover, and time moved on