Motherload | Page 8

problem, of course, whatever it was. In this piece of bowel
business, though, we'd have a flash, and the distinct smell of burning
plastic, and maybe even some visible smoke. Open it up, and you find
sixteen blackened and stinking spheres, good for absolutely nothing
now that their polymer coatings have been charred off by the plasma
flash."
"In other words," I commented, "there'd be no way to fix them at that

stage. I suppose I can take it as a given that there isn't a bucket of this
paint just lying around in stowage somewhere?"
She chuckled mirthlessly. "No, and it wouldn't work that way anyway.
That polymer would have to be applied by a computer that could spread
a uniform depth with a uniform distribution of iron atoms over the
entire surface. We couldn't hope to match that here, even if we could
whip up a batch of the stuff -- which we can't."
"Can't? We can't fix those scratches?"
"I don't know yet... lemme think..."
That was Sally-speak for "Don't bug me for a while", so I took the
opportunity to update the others. I found them both to the fore, in the
little cockpit that stood in for a bridge, and I hung out in the hatchway
while I talked. Bayern clucked and fretted, wondering aloud if he
should step in and handle things personally. Both Genness and I
ignored him, and I think he ignored himself too. I was about to leave
when I noticed a flashing light on Genness's board. It was a proximity
alert.
"What's that?"
He looked over and hurumphed, then jumped screens a few times.
"Hello..." he muttered, "...and where's my audible tone...gone with the
power-down? How long was this flashing, Ejoq?"
"I just noticed it now. I take it it's new?"
"Maybe," he replied, while focusing the boat's full suite of passives on
the coordinates.
"What's wrong?" Bayern asked, confused.
"What was the trigger?" I wanted to know. "What's prox-sen 5 set to?
Infrared?"

His brow furrowed uncharacteristically as he pulled up the sensor
datalog on one side of his screen. "Graviton," he replied.
We had company from outside the star system.
Bayern appeared grim and focused, which meant he couldn't follow this
at all.
"A ship," I told him, by way of explanation.
"A pirate...?" He suddenly looked anything but mean and determined.
"Do we have missiles active yet?"
"We can't open the hatches on the any of the bays without power. It's
way too early to fret over, anyway -- we don't have any idea who this is.
What's their transponder say, Genness?"
He had a deep frown on his face that I didn't like while he checked his
boards.
"I'm not getting a transponder. A quick diag says...no, we're good. They
just don't want anybody to know they're here. No active sensors from
them either." He swore, and turned to Bayern at last, saying, "I don't
like this. These guys are acting shady. This might be the real thing after
all."
I swore too. Bayern looked like someone told him nine months after a
really bad bender that he was a father; and I, anyway, felt like I'd been
punched in the stomach.
"We're in a bad way right now," I said, knowing even then just how
inane that was. "Genness, what's our EM output?"
"...uh, I don't know. How...?"
"Set your general passives all the way up and key a full-spectrum run,
but zero-out the bogey."
He played with the keyboard for a while.

"Um...I read 7.85% of normal. I assume that's us, but...?"
"Okay, no output...or dang little output, anyway. Bechels have an
average of seventeen centimeters of polynium alloy for the hull and
another twenty in composite armor -- all the wrong stuff for a stealth
vessel, but maybe it's enough to scatter our signature right
now...especially if that ship out there is only using passives like we
are..."
But then I thought of something scary, and turned to kick off down the
companionway, back to Engineering. Bayern grabbed my calf, and
stopped me.
"What's going on, Ejoq?" He looked genuinely scared and perplexed.
"They don't want anyone to know they're here, right? Well, neither do
we!"
I was gone from there before he could reply with something insipid,
hoping against hope that I'd be on time.
Sally was just switching on the laze when I came in, the errant emitter
sitting under it like a diseased grapefruit. The cramped space hampered
my movement, so all I could do immediately was scream at her to shut
it down, which she did with a startled jump.
"Ejoq, what the flux...?!"
"Pirate! Inbound. I don't think he's made us yet because of our
power-down, but any big draw might flag us."
Her eyes were big and very serious then,