The stunned silence lasted maybe half a minute, then several people tried to talk at once.
Eran whistled softly. “Bloody hell!”
“No longer exists?” sputtered Jordi. “Our course no longer exists? How is that possible?”
Etsuo grunted.
Lexi asked, “Have you told the Council? What are they going to do about it?”
“Explain please,” protested Liriene. “What does this mean, the course no longer exists?”
Lu propped a hand on her hip. “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard! There must be a course. We’re obviously on our way to somewhere.”
Rune’s raised voice cut through the hubbub. “All right, pipe down!” The uproar died a quick death, as Gaspar nodded toward the navigator. “Let the man tell his story, then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do with the information. Go ahead, Sterling.”
Gregor’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Well, let’s see … I first noticed the anomalies about a week ago.”
“Anomalies?” interrupted Na’weh.
“Slight differences between current readings from the Novus S system and the master charts. Naturally, I figured the problem was on our end … it happens. So I ran the diagnostics, then ran them again—on the cameras, spectrographs, sensors, guidance system, you name it. Nothing turned up, the operating systems were shipshape. That’s when it finally hit me: If the problem wasn’t on our end, it had to be in the star system. I couldn’t believe it at first, so I went through the whole routine all over again. There was no mistake. Initial indications are faint, but unless I miss my guess, the entire quadrant has been rearranged.”
I held up a hand. “Wait. The entire quadrant has been rearranged?”
He nodded. “We’re still several hundred parsecs away, but … yeah, that’s what it looks like.”
“If you’re right, that means Novus S—”
“—isn’t where it used to be.”
“How could that be?” Na’weh wondered.
Gregor shrugged. “Best guess? A galactic collision is the only phenomenon I know of that would be powerful enough to throw things that far out of whack. Probably happened a thousand years ago, but because the distance was so great the light—”
“Forget the cosmology lesson, Sterling,” Ziv interrupted. “Let’s get back to the part where you said Novus S isn’t where it was. Where does that leave us?”
“Making a beeline to where it isn’t.”
“Well, there’s your problem,” Lu interjected, with a this-should-be-obvious roll of her eyes. “All we have to do is find Novus S and set a new course that will get us there.”
“It’s not as simple as finding Novus S, I’m afraid,” Eran told her. “If that sector underwent the kind of violent upheaval Sterling is describing, the planet’s orbit has probably changed. It may no longer be habitable.”
“Oh, dear.” Lu bit her lower lip in apparent consternation.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked.
“Adapt,” Gregor answered succinctly. “Identify another destination. I’ve already taken some preliminary readings on star systems in this region, and I think I’ve found a likely candidate.”
“Another planet?” I asked.
Gregor nodded. “Frankly, the only reason we didn’t spot it before is, we weren’t looking.”
Eran’s gaze sharpened. “What can you tell us about it?”
“As near as I can tell, it’s rocky, about the same size as Earth. Orbiting a yellow dwarf.”
“A star similar to the Earth’s sun,” Eran explained. “Will it support life?”
“I’d say odds are in our favor,” Gregor replied. “Like I said, I’ve only done preliminary readings, and they aren’t as clear as I would like, because the orbit is partially obscured by the outer rim of a cosmic dust cloud. We would need to swing around to another heading to get a good look. But the planet appears to be in the habitable zone.”
“Meaning it’s neither too near, nor too far from its star,” Eran clarified for the rest of us. “Either condition would make life on the surface impossible.”
Isidor spoke up for the first time. “Sounds like a reasonable alternative to me. We should at least check it out. What did the Council say when you suggested the change of course?”
Gregor shifted uncomfortably. Cleared his throat. “I haven’t talked to the Council yet.”
Eran’s eyebrows climbed almost to his hairline. “Why ever not?”
The navigator perched on the edge of Liriene’s desk and ran a hand over his thinning brown hair. “My psych evaluation is coming up in a few days,” he sighed.
Lu gazed at him in obvious perplexity. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Quite a bit, as it turns out,” Rune cut in. “Sterling is no longer among the party faithful.”
Eran nodded. “I thought as much. He’s one of us. Why else would you bring him here tonight?”
“Yeah,” said Gregor. “Too bad I didn’t know I had a ready-made support group when I made my discovery.” He grimaced. “But even if I had known, it wouldn’t have made any difference; I still wouldn’t have gone straight to the Council.”
“Why not?” asked Lexi. “It’s not like they can tell you’re one of us just by looking at you.”
“I’ll tell you why not,” Rune interjected. “Because this latest catastrophe is going to be murder for the Council to deal with on top of the social disaster already in progress. Face it, convincing them to completely revamp the flight plan wouldn’t be a cakewalk in the best of times. That bunch is nothing, if not set in their ways. Hell, that’s putting it mildly. We’re talking about people who’ve got a death grip on a four-hundred-year-old master plan. They won’t give it up without a fight—especially now.”
Eran nodded. “He’s right. The Council is already under tremendous strain, struggling to hold its world together. At this juncture, the mere suggestion they should make a major change will encounter violent resistance. With all their defenses up and bristling, I doubt Garan and the rest will be remotely receptive.”
“Even if we do manage to get them to listen,” Rune continued, “and there’s no guarantee we can—what happens if and when they find out about Sterling’s new outlook on life? We all know the answer to that, right? They won’t even investigate his data. They’ll blow off his observation as one more delusion, at least until the anomalies become undeniable. Who knows how long that will be?”
“I decided to turn myself into Gaspar,” Gregor explained, “because I knew I would never make it through the evaluation mentally intact; they would find out about me for sure, and erase the whole mental slate, including what I had seen. Before that happened, I figured I had to tell someone, and the chief of Intelligence struck me as the kind of guy who wouldn’t let this anomaly business drop, no matter how crazy it sounded. Not until he had gotten the facts for himself, anyway.”
“He asked me to come to his quarters,” Rune added, then glanced at the navigator. “That was a good move, by the way.”
Gregor shrugged. “I didn’t want to taint the process with a record of our conversation. Once they caught on to me, they would never believe me or anyone I talked to. But if I could convince you to find a way to investigate on your own, without bringing my name into it … well, a witness like you would be hard to ignore.” He smiled ruefully at Gaspar. “Some independent witness you turned out to be.”
Ziv’s previously troubled expression brightened. “If you’re looking for a corroborating witness, what about the second navigator? Get her to back you up! There’s no way the Council can dismiss both of you as delusional. They would have to listen!”
Gregor was already shaking his head. “Consuela came up from Deck Three less than six months ago. She’s busy getting her feet wet, keeping her head down, and dreaming of the day she’ll take over as first nav.”
“She also passed her psych evaluation with flying colors today,” Rune told us. “No way that poor, brainwashed kid is ready to rock the boat.”
“But the Council has to be told,” Lu insisted.
“She’s right,” Eran said.
Rune agreed with a brief nod. “I know.”
“Suppose they refuse to listen?” asked Alis. “What then?”
Isidor looked at her. “Ever hear of The Flying Dutchman?”
“No.”
“According to ancient folklore, she was a ghost ship, a glowing apparition of a vessel doomed to sail the seas forever. Oh, I know it sounds melodramatic but trust me, if the Council won’t listen and change our course, the Janus and will suffer the Dutchman’s fate, and take everyone on board with her.”
“Not everyone.” Rune paused. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to break the bad news to the Council. Granted, they’re not high on our list of pals right now, but they deserve at least a chance to make the smart choice. Sterling and I will talk to them on Wednesday.”
An undercurrent in his voice caught my attention and piqued my curiosity. “This is Saturday. Why wait three days? Why not tell them tomorrow?”
“Because I want things ready on our end before we take this to them. My gut tells me the immediate outcome of the Council meeting is a forgone conclusion—denial. Whether or not they eventually get wise, or whether they dig their heels in and keep searching for Novus S ….” He shrugged. “Win, lose, or draw, I want to make sure they can’t stop us.”
“Can’t stop us from what?” I asked.
His gaze kindled with fierce satisfaction. “From leaving.”
Ω
Chapter 43 coming next week!
© 2010, Kathy DiSanto, all rights reserved
