Regin Naylo faced his superior with a scowl. "That rips it wide open,"
he said.
Viggon Sarri smiled confidently. He glanced at Linus Brein and asked,
"Just how competent do you think this new thing is?"
Linus shrugged. "We've analyzed the infrawave pattern they've
developed. It is obvious that this is their first prototype of an
infrawave space detector. The pattern is of the primitive absorptive
type, which is both inefficient as a detector and is also inclined to
produce spurious responses. From our observations, their equipment
must be extremely complex too. It must be loaded to the scuppers with
fragile circuits and components, because the search pattern keeps
breaking down, or becoming irregular. An efficient detector cannot
be made of the infrawave bands until the third order of reflective
response is discovered. I doubt that any research team, no matter how
big, can start with the primitive absorption phase of the infrawaves
and leap to the higher orders of infrawave radiation in less than a
lifetime of study."
"So, gentlemen?" asked Viggon of his two aides. "Can you predict
whether or not their new detector will deliver the goods?"
All looked expectantly at Linus Brein.
"We've been recalculating our probabilities at the introduction of each
new phase of their behaviour," Linus Brein said seriously. "From their
actions, I would say that they do not know, grasp, or perhaps even
guess that space has flaws and warps in the continuum. They have been
going at their search in a pattern of solid geometrical precision, but
have been paying no attention to those rifts, small as they are, that
actually make a straight course bend aside for a distance. So due to
the fact that their search pattern has already passed over one of these
rifts in which the one lifeship lies, and passed beyond in their line
of search, we have produced a nine-nines probability that they will not
locate this lifeship."
"And the other?" prompted Viggon Sarri, with interest.
"I'm not done with the first yet," Linus Brein said quietly. "There
remains the random search group. Therein lies the eight-oughts-one
positive probability."
Viggon snorted. "I call ten to the minus ten chances rather hopeless.
But go on, Linus."
"The other has a sixty-forty chance," he said. "If the infrawave
detector locates the space rift that lies along our coordinate three
seventy-six, when the ship is near seven sixty-seven, then the scout
craft will pass within magnetic detection range of the lifeship. That's
a lot of 'ifs', I know, but they add up to a sixty-forty chance. I
say this because space rifts tend to produce strong responses in any
of the primitive detecting gear. They've certainly been busy running
down space warps, which indicates that they've been getting a lot
of spurious responses." He smiled. "If space were entirely clear of
foreign matter and space rifts, they'd find their new detector vaguely
inefficient. I--"
Viggon waved a hand to indicate he had heard enough.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I've been criticized for waiting, but
what one man calls study the other man calls timidity. We'll continue
to wait for the final factor. Then we'll know...."
* * * * *
The stereo pattern in the Information Center of Commodore Ted Wilson's
flagship was slowly being filled with the hazy white that indicated
that these volumes had been combed carefully. As he watched, he could
see how the search was progressing, and it was painfully obvious that
the search was not going good at all.
The flights of spacecraft in set patterns back and forth through the
stereo had covered nearly all of the truncated space cone. The random
search ships were slowly cutting secondary lines through the regions
already covered. There was a green sphere combing the stereo pattern
now, indicating the new infrawave detector ship and its expected volume
of detector coverage.
Space was filled to overflowing with the fast patter of the
communications officers, using infrawave for talks between flights, and
ordinary radio for talks between ships of the same flight.
Wilson had appointed Chief Communications Officer Haggerty to police
the bands. Haggerty had done a fine job, removing the howling confusion
and interference caused from too many calls on the same channel. But
the result was still a high degree of constant call and reply and
cross talk. Most of the chatter came from the infrawave detector ship,
sending the scout craft flitting hither and thither on the trail of
spurious responses.
It was almost impossible to grasp the extent of the operation. Only in
the stereo pattern could anybody begin to follow the complex operation,
and those who watched the stereo knew that their pattern was only an
idealized space map of what they hoped was going on.
It was worse than combing the area of an ocean from maps that contained
a neat grid of cross rules. Much worse. For the uncharted ocean is
gridded with radio location finders so accurate that the position of
two ships a hundred yards apart shows a hundred yards of difference in
absolute position in the loran.
Some day in the distant future space would be solid-gridded with
infrawave navigation signals. Then the space coordinates of any
spacecraft could be found to a fine degree of precision. But now all
that Wilson and his nav-techs could do was to keep sighting the fixed
stars, and from them compute their position.
This sort of space navigation was good enough to keep a ship on course,
but far from precise enough to pinprick a true position. But, after
all, a crude positioning in the middle of interstellar space is good
enough. One literally has cubic light years to float around in. Once
the spacecraft begins to approach a destination, the space positioning
can be made.
Again, few spacecraft pause in mid-flight between stars long enough to
care about their interstellar position. After all, space flight does
provide a mode of travel where the destination lies within eyesight.
Or rather, it has lain within eyesight ever since it became commonly
accepted that these ultimate destinations were places, instead of holes
poked in an inverted ceramic bowl.
Then, in the middle of the communications confusion, came a call from
one of Commander Hatch's scout flights.
"Pilot Logan, Flight Eighteen, to Commander Hatch. Report."
"Hatch to Logan. Go ahead. Find something, Will?"
Will Logan said, "Solid target detected on radar, Commander. Approached
and found. I am now within five thousand yards of what appears to be
Lifeship One."
The entire fleet went silent, except for the detector ship, the scout
craft, and Wilson's flagship.