ready.
The new factor in this jump was Brant.
He asked for permission to watch the jump from the bridge and
Catherine couldn’t think of a reason to say no. He stood at the far
back of the deck, by the door and well out of the way of anyone’s
work area, including Lilita’s dashboards and monitors along the
back wall.
He didn’t speak. He was a model
visitor, but even so, Catherine was very aware of him standing at
the back and watching everything, because he didn’t simply watch.
He absorbed things, like he had taken in the personality traits of
all of them the first night aboard.
Bedivere seemed unaffected by Brant’s
presence, but he was concentrating almost exclusively on the jump
preparation and barely said anything, which was usual.
Catherine had learned to rely more and
more on the AI to control most of the factors of the jump. They
just had to ensure that the raw data being fed to it was pure and
correct and as current as possible. Since acquiring the new
Itinerary with its license to access current gate data, a lot of
the stress of jumping had disappeared. If they were to return to
the fringes, updates would cease and the sophisticated guesswork
and recalculations would start up once more. In part, that was the
reason why there was only one AI and a powerful one at that. They
needed it to adjust for outdated gate data.
The jump executed without issue and
when Catherine stood and stretched and turned, she saw Brant with a
touch of surprise. She had forgotten he was there.
Lilita was chatting to him as he
listened gravely and Catherine hid her smile. Lilita had found her
next victim. If he would cooperate with her was open to question.
Catherine had a feeling she would have to spend far more time
getting to know Brant before she could begin to make a guess about
what he might do in any particular situation.
Catherine rested her hand on Bedivere’s
shoulder. She could feel the tension there. It would take him a
while to relax after the stress of the jump and get back to normal.
“I have some Soward chardonnay. I thought I’d serve it with dinner.
Sort of a welcome-home gesture for Kemp. Come and join us.”
Bedivere looked up from the console,
his eyes narrowed. She could see his thoughts were far away, but he
made himself focus on her, then shook his head. “Not until I’ve
checked everything.”
“You could do that from the table,” she
pointed out. That was the explanation they gave the inquisitive to
explain the sync link. Just two of them running a mid-sized cruiser
would be impossible if one of them had to stay on duty on the
bridge at all times. The sync link was a way to let Bedivere
monitor the arrays and let both of them move freely around the
ship.
“There’s an hour or so yet.” He tried
to smile. “I won’t promise, but I’ll see.”
“It won’t be anything too grand,” she
assured him. “I can already feel my bed calling. I think I’m going
to sleep for twelve hours. I’m not up to a big formal sit-down,
either.”
It ended up being one of the shortest
first-night meals Catherine could ever remember. Bedivere didn’t
show, which meant he was sleeping or still worrying over the
flight. Kemp was unsettled and anxious and when he asked for a
second time what the projected arrival date was, Catherine cocked
her brow at him. “Bad news from home?” she asked.
“It’s…worsening,” he said. His dark
eyes were troubled.
“We’re going as fast as we can,”
Catherine promised him. “You should find a way to work off all that
stress, Kemp, or this ship will start to feel claustrophobic inside
a week. We have a well-equipped gym room, for instance.”
Kemp drew in a breath. “My apologies.”
He tried to smile, his teeth looking very white next to his
chocolate brown skin. For the rest of the meal he was polite and
answered Brant’s questions gravely. Lilita preened in front of them
and laughed loudly and often.
By the time Kemp stood and excused
himself, Catherine
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