James Axler Outlander 10 Outer Darkness

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twenty-eight seconds before the tenth-of-a-second indicator changed.
"What happens if we miss the exit point?" Domi asked. "Would we just travel
through hyperspace forever?"
Baptiste shrugged. "I surmise we would eventually become patterns of energy to
be absorbed by the portal's matrices."
"Your surmise is correct," Fand's voice said. Kane hadn't seen her arrive on
the command deck. "My concern is sensing the exit point in time, or the result
will be as Domi said we will indeed travel forever."
"I hope you can sense it soon."
' 'I will. One of the curious characteristics of such
Outer Darkness
237
tunnels through the quantum field is that the farther one must travel, the
less distance one has to go."
Baptiste smiled wryly. "Lewis Carroll logic if I ever heard it. I could give
you the geometries."
"Thanks anyhow," Grant put in hastily.
The interior of the ship seemed dead silent, without even the rumble of
engines to relieve the unnerving quiet.
The command crew stared in awed silence at the pyrotechnics arcing and
revolving on the main viewer.
Even muted and filtered, they were still spectacular. Suddenly, so suddenly
that everyone jumped in their seats, a scanner began emitting a steady
electronic chime.
Kane saw the glowing indicator, with its LCD needle flicking to and fro.
"Approaching area of extreme ionization," Cotta warned.
"The exit point, " Fand announced. "It's still in a state of flux from the
passage of Thrush's vessel."
"Exit to where?" asked Farrell nervously.
"We won't know till we get there," she replied calmly.
With a startling abruptness, all the systems came on again. Engines rumbled,
sensors and computers hummed, chronometers picked up speed.
The comm board crackled with static.
"Okami-Maru is still with us," Cotta noted.
The
Sabre rocked. "Tactical," Kane said. "Adjust for the flux."
The tactical plot screen displayed a 360-degree view at extreme range. The
relative positions of the
Okami-Maru and the
Sabre were shown approaching a seething, color-coded mass.
238
JAMES AXLER
"Exit point in twenty-seconds...mark," Domi reported.
The radiance that had filled the main monitor wasn't quite as brilliant as
before. Streaks of gray and dark blue were interspersed with the colorful
swirls.
"Extremely complex patterns of energy impulses," Cotta said. "Also a number of
opposing magnetic fields."
"We must ride it out." Fand's calm voice was a soothing balm to the crew's
wire-tense nerves.
"Exit point," said Domi.
"Now."
The
Sabre lurched violently. Bursts of light flared in a garish, eye-stinging
display on the screen. The ship was hammered, tossed and buffeted by
concussions of energy.
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The
Sabre seemed to plunge through an alternately brightly lit and shadow-shrouded
abyss, an endless fall into infinity. It took all of Kane's will to prevent
him from gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes.
Then the sensation of a free fall lessened. Slowly, as if veils were being
drawn away one by one, the darker colors on the screen deepened and finally
became star-speckled sepia. Far in the distance, a red sun shone like a
malignant cyclopean eye in the midst of a great black emptiness. Kane guessed
it to be a 1.4-magnitude star. Two dimmer stars bracketed it.
Grant gusted out a deep sigh of relief. "I
hate these fucking things."
Chapter 19
Kane ordered the drive and interphaser disengaged and thrusters to be put at
station keeping. The crew recalibrated the instruments and ran diagnostics on
the systems. According to the chron, only 5.3
seconds had elapsed since they entered the portal. The final status report was
reassuring there were no casualties or damage.
The
Okami-Maru had exited only a few seconds after the
Sabre.
A cursing Jozure claimed that all was well. Kane ordered a comprehensive scan
of the constellations.
He turned to Fand. "I don't suppose you know where we are?"
She smiled and shook her head. "I think we're still in the galaxy."
Kane frowned. "That's a little vague, Fand." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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