In the aft cabin, lank hairy-wristed Croker pinned another blanket
around black Jackson as the latter shivered in his trance. Then Croker
turned on a small light at the head of the hammock.
"Captain won't like that," plump pale Ness observed tranquilly from
where he floated in womb position across the cabin. "Enemy can feel
a candle of _our_ light, captain says, ten million miles away." He
rocked his elbows for warmth and his body wobbled in reaction like a
polly-wog's.
"And Jackson hears the Enemy think ... and Heimdall hears the grass
grow," Croker commented with a harsh manic laugh. "Isn't an Enemy for
a billion miles, Ness." He launched aft from the hammock. "We haven't
spotted their green since Saturn orbit. There's nowhere for them."
"There's the far side of Uranus," Ness pointed out. "That's less than
ten million miles now. Eight. A bare day. They could be there."
"Yes, waiting to bushwack us as we whip past on our way to eternity,"
Croker chuckled as he crumpled up against the aft port, shedding
momentum. "That's likely, isn't it, when they didn't have time for us
back in the Belt?" He scowled at the tiny white sun, no bigger a disk
than Venus, but still with one hundred times as much light as the full
moon pouring from it--too much light to look at comfortably. He began
to button the inner cover over the port.
"Don't do that," Ness objected without conviction. "There's not much
heat in it but there's some." He hugged his elbows and shivered. "I
don't remember being warm since Mars orbit."
"The sun gets on my nerves," Croker said. "It's like looking at an
arc light through a pinhole. It's like a high, high jail light in a
cold concrete yard. The stars are highlights on the barbed wire." He
continued to button out the sun.
"You ever in jail?" Ness asked. Croker grinned.
* * * * *
With the tropism of a fish, Ness began to paddle toward the little
light at the head of Jackson's hammock, flicking his hands from the
wrists like flippers. "I got one thing against the sun," he said
quietly. "It's blanketing out the radio. I'd like us to get one more
message from Earth. We haven't tried rigging our mirror to catch radio
waves. I'd like to hear how we won the battle of Jupiter."
"If we won it," Croker said.
"Our telescopes show no more green around Jove," Ness reminded him. "We
counted 27 rainbows of Enemy cruisers 'burning.' Captain verified the
count."
"Repeat: if we won it." Croker pushed off and drifted back toward the
hammock. "If there was a real victory message they'd push it through,
even if the sun's in the way and it takes three hours to catch us.
People who win, shout."
Ness shrugged as he paddled. "One way or the other, we should be
getting the news soon from Titania station," he said. "They'll have
heard."
"If they're still alive and there ever was a Titania Station," Croker
amended, backing air violently to stop himself as he neared the
hammock. "Look, Ness, we know that the First Uranus Expedition arrived.
At least they set off their flares. But that was three years before the
War and we haven't any idea of what's happened to them since and if
they ever managed to set up housekeeping on Titania--or Ariel or Oberon
or even Miranda or Umbriel. At least if they built a station that could
raise Earth I haven't been told. Sure thing _Prospero_ hasn't heard
anything ... and we're getting close."
"I won't argue," Ness said. "Even if we raise 'em, it'll just be
hello-goodby with maybe time between for a battle report."
"And a football score and a short letter from home, ten seconds per
man as the station fades." Croker frowned and added, "If Captain had
cottoned to my idea, two of us at any rate could have got off this
express train at Uranus."
"Tell me how," Ness asked drily.
"How? Why, one of the ship's launches. Replace the fusion-head with
the cabin. Put all the chem fuel in the tanks instead of divvying it
between the ship and the launch."
"I haven't got the brain for math Copperhead has, but I can subtract,"
Ness said, referring to _Prospero's_ piloting robot. "Fully fueled, one
of the launches has a max velocity change in free-fall of 30 miles per
second. Use it all in braking and you've only taken 30 from 100. The
launch is still going past Uranus and out of the system at 70 miles a
second."
"You didn't hear all my idea," Croker said. "You put piggyback tanks
on your launch and top them off with the fuel from the other four
launches. Then you've 100 miles of braking _and_ a maneuvering reserve.
You only need to shed 90 miles, anyway. Ten miles a second's the close
circum-Uranian velocity. Go into circum-Uranian orbit and wait for
Titania to send their jeep to pick you up. Have to start the maneuver
four hours this side of Uranus, though. Take that long at 1 G to shed
it."
"Cute," Ness conceded. "Especially the jeep. But I'm glad just the same
we've got 70 per cent of our chem fuel in our ships' tanks instead of
the launches. We're on such a bull's eye course for Uranus--Copperhead
really pulled a miracle plotting our orbit--that we may need a
sidewise shove to miss her. If we slapped into that cold hydrogen soup
at our 100 mps--"
Croker shrugged. "We still could have dropped a couple of us," he said.
* * * * *
"Captain's got to look after the whole fleet," Ness said. "You're
beginning to agitate, Croker, like you was Grunfeld--or the captain
himself."
"But if Titania Station's alive, a couple of men dropped off would do
the fleet some good. Stir Titania up to punch a message through to
Earth and get a really high-speed retrieve-and-rescue ship started out
after us. _If_ we've won the War."
"But Titania Station's dead or never was, not to mention its jeep. And
we've lost the Battle of Jupiter. You said so yourself," Ness asserted
owlishly. "Captain's got to look after the whole fleet."
"Yeah, so he kills himself fretting and the rest of us die of old age
in the outskirts of the Solar System. Join the Space Force and See the
Stars! Ness, do you know how long it'd take us to reach the nearest
star--except we aren't headed for her--at our 100 mps? Eight thousand
years!"
"That's a lot of time to kill," Ness said. "Let's play chess."
Jackson sighed and they both looked quickly at the dark unlined face
above the cocoon, but the lips did not flutter again, or the eyelids.
Croker said, "Suppose he knows what the Enemy looks like?"
"I suppose," Ness said. "When he talks about them it's as if he was
their interpreter. How about the chess?"
"Suits. Knight to King Bishop Three."
"Hmm. Knight to King Knight Two, Third Floor."
"Hey, I meant flat chess, not three-D," Croker objected.
"That thin old game? Why, I no sooner start to get the position really
visualized in my head than the game's over."
"I don't want to start a game of three-D with Uranus only 18 hours
away."
Jackson stirred in his hammock. His lips worked. "They...." he
breathed. Croker and Ness instantly watched him. "They...."
"I wonder if he is really inside the Enemy's mind?" Ness said.
"He thinks he speaks for them," Croker replied and the next instant
felt a warning touch on his arm and looked sideways and saw
dark-circled eyes in a skull-angular face under a battered cap with a
tarnished sunburst. Damn, thought Croker, how does the captain always
know when Jackson's going to talk?
"They are waiting for us on the other side of Uranus," Jackson
breathed. His lips trembled into a smile and his voice grew a little
louder, though his eyes stayed shut. "They're welcoming us, they're
our brothers." The smile died. "But they know they got to kill us, they
know we got to die."
The hammock with its tight-swathed form began to move past Croker and
he snatched at it. The captain had pushed off from him for the hatch
leading forward.
* * * * *
Grunfeld was losing the new star at 2200 miles into Uranus when he saw
the two viridian flares flashing between it and the rim. Each flash was
circled by a fleeting bright green ring, like a mist halo. He thought
he'd be afraid when he saw that green again, but what he felt was a
jolt of excitement that made him grin. With it came a touch on his
shoulder. He thought, the captain always knows.
"Ambush," he said. "At least two cruisers."
He yielded the eyepiece to the captain. Even without the telescope he
could see those incredibly brilliant green flickers. He asked himself
if the Enemy was already gunning for the fleet through Uranus.
The blue telltales for _Caliban_ and _Starveling_ began to blink.
"They've seen it too," the captain said. He snatched up the mike and
his next words rang through the _Prospero_.
"Rig ship for the snowbank orbit! Snowbank orbit with stinger! Mr.
Grunfeld, raise the fleet."
Aft, Croker muttered, "Rig our shrouds, don't he mean? Rig shrouds and
firecrackers mounted on Fourth of July rockets."
Ness said, "Cheer up. Even the longest strategic withdrawal in history
has to end some time."