"Chapter 13" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Dickson - Forever Man)

THE LAAGI SHIP MADE A PHASE-SHIFT JUST AS JIM SAM THIS,
and suddenly it was big enough to be pictured as something more than a dot on their longest-looking screen.
"I'm wrong," said Jim. "It's not us he's aimed at. 6n this angle he'll pass us but only at better than instrument midrange. Either he's got a destination off to one side of the centerline, or. . ."
He fell silent.
"You mean we could be in among the star systems having Laagi-occupied planets?" Mary asked.
"Your guess on that's as good as mine," said Jim slowly. "But it looks like he's going to pass us by at a distance which could mean his instruments don't see us."
"Don't Laagi instruments see as far as ours?"
"We don't know for sure-just the way we don't know so much about them," said Jim. "But it's a good angle. I mean, like I said, we've noticed that when we're at an angle to them, they don't seem to see us as well as from more head-on angles-or up close; distance helps, too. It's all guesswork because on most things their ships can do as well, or better, and our own ships are under orders to act on that premise. Actually, fighting them, I get the impression there're weak
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spots in their observation. And that's the way most combat pilots feel. If we're right, it could explain why sometimes they turn and run-if you want to call it running-when .you're sure they're ready to joust."
"You're thinking of just letting him go by?" Mary said. "But aren't we a sitting duck here, if he suddenly starts turning toward us?"
"If we move we might attract his attention, as I mentioned," said Jim. "Remember, we're where no Laagi ship is going to expect to run into something like us-particularly just a ship alone, the way we are. If he's really not seen us, and if he's really headed by us, we can sit still and he'll never know we were here. Or if he does, maybe he'll take us for an experimental new design of Laagi ship. Or-oh, I don't know . . . ."
"I've never known you to hesitate like this," Mary said. "Why're you willing to take such a chance he'll go by without seeing us, or even seeing us without attacking us?"
"Because," said Jim slowly, "I don't think he's armed:"
There was a second or two of pause.
"Why? What makes you think that?" she said. "More to the point, what makes you think it so strongly you're ready to gamble our whole mission on it?"
"I can't tell you exactly why. It's the way he's acting. Look at him. He's three-quarters on to us-his whole side's a target. Just a little more on that same course and I could cut him wide open with a beam. Then it'd take less than a minute to stand in beside him close enough to drop a mine that'd blow him apart a second after we were out of range of it, ourselves. Why's he taking a chance like that, unless he's unarmed and doesn't see us?"
"You're still gambling," said Mary flatly.
"But with something at stake," muttered Jim. "Suppose he's expected somewhere and they come out looking for him when he doesn't show up . . . and scoop up some dust they can identify as part of his ship? Wouldn't that mean killing him would be like a flag planted to tell them we've been here?"
There was another pause.
"It could be. All right," Mary said. "You're the expert on alien ships. It's up to you."
"We'll sit," said Jim.


THE FOREVER MAN / 139

They sat.
The Laagi ship went by in one phase-shift and vanished from their instruments with a second.
"Of course," said Mary when it was gone, "you know it might just have pretended to go innocently by because it was unarmed; and it's right now reporting us to the nearest equivalent of military authorities the Laagi have."
"In which case," said Jim, "the sooner we get out of here, the better."
He was setting up a phase-shift for AndFriend as he spoke.
"Down-galaxy, I think," he said, "now that we've found Laagi space traffic this far up. As far as his reporting us goes, if you were a Laagi military commander and you heard of a human ship where we just were-just which way do you think that ship might have jumped after it was last seen? And how far away from that point where it was seen could it be, by the time you can get your own fighting ships out after it?"
• Mary said nothing.
"So if you were such a military commander," said Jim as they shifted, "wouldn't you find it a lot easier and safer just to file a report and let it get tangled up in the bureaucratic wheels, rather than take a chance on something that might possibly be the figment of a civilian pilot's imagination?"
"You're really assuming they're like humanity," said Mary.
"Well, we've got nothing else to base assumptions on," said Jim. "And a lot of what we've seen of them does parallel what we've got and what we do. We use a theoretical centerline. They seem to, too. Our ships are shaped differently from theirs, but they phase-shift to cover large distances just as we do. They use cutting weapons that seem developed from lasers, like we do. Their fighter ships are only big enough for a crew of two individuals. They seem to think in terms of a Frontier in space, just like we do . . . ."
He got tired of thinking up comparisons and ran down.
"Et cetera," he said.
"All very fine," said Mary. "But you could be wrong because there're things you don't know. And there've got to be things you don't know-that we don't know."
"Right enough," said Jim. "How about it? Drop the subject?"
"Subject dropped."


140 / Gordon R. Dickson