“Time set.”

“Got it. Do you have it lined up yet?”

“Negative. Don’t trust the coordinates.”

“Neither do I. Check the statrep.”

“Doing it now. Ready to start the clocks?”

“Give me a minute. Phyl, how’s the charge rate look?”

Rudy knew some of it had to do with the Locarno. Because it jumped such enormous distances, it was difficult to arrange things so the ships would arrive within a reasonable range of each other. So they had to calibrate the jumps with a degree of precision unknown before in multiple-ship operations. A minor deviation on this end, in either course setting or time in transit, could result in the ships being unable to find each other at the destination.

“Okay,” said Hutch. “Ready with the clocks.”

“Do it.”

“Phyl, we’ll lock it in at four minutes.”

Rudy understood Phyl and the McAdams AI were working in tandem.

“It’s at four minutes on my mark, Hutch.” Phyl commenced a ten-second countdown.

“Four minutes to TDI, gentlemen,” Hutch said.

Rudy’s heart picked up a beat.

“Mark.”

Jon had said he didn’t think the two ships would be able to communicate in Barber space, but he admitted he didn’t know for sure.

Union had long since dropped off the screens. Earth floated blue and white and familiar on the rear view. Ahead there was nothing but stars.

From the bridge, Hutch asked how they were doing.

They were doing fine. Antonio was studying the starfields on the display. “Which one?” he asked. “Which is Makai?”

“You can’t see it from here. It’s too far.”

“Good.” He was consulting his notebook. “Rudy, do you know what’s the record for the longest flight from Earth?”

Rudy knew. He’d looked it up several weeks ago. “Mannheim Kroessner got out to 3340 light-years in 2237. Travel time one way was eleven months, nine days, fourteen hours.”

“Where did he go?”

“The Trifid.”

“Why?”

“As I understand it, he just wanted to set the record.”

Phyl counted them down through the last minute. At zero the thrum of the engines changed, shifted, while the Locarno took over. The lights dimmed, blinked off, came back. The acceleration went away abruptly, and they seemed to be floating.

“That’s it,” said Hutch. “TDI is complete.”

Rudy looked up at the monitor and out the port. With the armor out there, it was like looking through a tunnel. But it didn’t matter. He was still overawed. The sky was utterly black. Not a light, not a glimmer, anywhere.

“Matt.” Hutch’s voice again. “Do you read me?”

Rudy discovered he was holding his breath.

“Matt, this is Preston. Do you read?”

Nothing.

Antonio made a sucking sound. “Guess we’re out here by ourselves.”

FOUR WEEKS INSIDE a few compartments. Rudy had known he’d be in good company with Hutch. She could hold up her end of a conversation, didn’t take herself too seriously, and had a lot of experience being cooped up for long periods. “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she told them, with an easy grin. “Some people can’t deal with it, and get cabin fever during the first few hours. I don’t think you guys are going to have a problem. But you will get tired hanging out with the same two people every day. Doesn’t matter who you are, or how much charisma you have, you’ll get sick of it. So you need to break away periodically. Just go find a good book.”

“Or,” said Antonio, “head for the VR tank and spend an evening at Jaybo’s.” Jaybo’s was a celebrated New York club frequented by the era’s showbiz personalities.

Hutch nodded and said sure, that would work. But Rudy knew she was just playing along. She’d told him that VR settings did not pass for real human beings. Not for more than a few days. You knew it was all fake, and that realization only exacerbated the condition. “At least,” she said, “it always has for me.”

“I’ve been through it before,” Rudy said. “Not for this long. But I can’t see a problem. I’m just glad to be here.”

Antonio was in full agreement. “Story of the decade,” he said. “Most of those guys back at Union would have killed to be in my place.” He laughed. It was a joke, of course. Rudy hadn’t seen anyone among the older reporters who’d shown anything but relief that they weren’t going. The age when journalists were willing to sacrifice themselves for the story had long passed. If indeed it had ever existed.

“I tell you what,” said Hutch, “I don’t think we could do much better at the moment than have dinner. It’s after six o’clock, and I brought some Russian wine along.” Russian wine. The temperate climate in Europe had been moving north, too.

SHE WAS RIGHT, of course. The glamor faded early. He didn’t think it would happen, had in fact expected that he’d welcome the time to read and relax. He discovered Hutch was an enthusiastic chess player, but she turned out to be considerably more accomplished than he. By the end of the third day, he was playing Phyl, who set her game at a level that allowed him to compete.

He wasn’t excited about doing physical workouts, but Hutch insisted. Too much time at low gee—the level in the Preston was maintained at point three standard—would weaken various muscle groups and could cause problems. So she ordered him to go in every day and do his sit-ups. He hated it. “Why don’t we raise the gravity?”

“Sucks up too much energy,” she said.

He made it a point to watch something from the library while he was back there. It was a small area, barely large enough for two people, best if you were alone. He’d always enjoyed mysteries and had a special taste for Lee Diamond, a private investigator who specialized in locked room murder cases and other seemingly impossible events.

He decided that Antonio was more shallow than he’d expected. He didn’t seem all that interested in anything other than how to enhance his reputation and get the mortgage paid. Rudy was disappointed. He’d expected, maybe subconsciously, to be sharing the voyage with Dr. Science.

He remembered Antonio’s alter ego vividly, had enjoyed watching the show, especially when his sister showed up with her kids. There were two of them, a boy and a girl, both at the age where a popular science program, delivered with flair, could have a positive effect. It hadn’t really worked, he supposed. One had grown up to be a financial advisor, the other a lawyer. But Rudy had enjoyed the experience. Now here he was on a ship, headed for the other side of M32, with the great advocate himself on board, and he’d turned out to be something of a dullard.

By the end of the first week, even Hutch had lost some of her glitter. She was becoming predictable, she occasionally repeated herself, she had an annoying habit of spending too much time on the bridge. He didn’t know what she was doing up there, although sometimes he heard her talking to Phyl. But he knew there was nothing for the pilot to attend to while they drifted through Barber space, trans-warp, or whatever the hell they eventually decided to call the continuum. Barber space was dumb. Had no panache. He needed to talk to Jon about that.

They ate their meals together, while Antonio chattered with annoying cheerfulness about politics. He didn’t like the current administration, and Hutch agreed with him. So they took turns sniping at the president. Rudy had never been much interested in politics. He more or less took the North American Union for granted, voting in presidential years, though he tended to base his decision on how much support, if any, he thought the candidates would lend to star travel. He was a one-issue voter.

He’d known Hutch for years, but never on a level as intimate as this. Being locked up with someone round the clock tended to strip away the pretenses that made most social interaction bearable. If you could use that kind of terminology out here. (The shipboard lights dimmed and brightened on a twenty-four-hour cycle, providing the illusion of terrestrial time.) By the end of the second week, his opinion of Priscilla’s intellectual capabilities had also receded. She was brighter than Antonio, but not by much.