The getaway special Read Online Free

head. "Too far," she said. "We'd never make ourselves heard from this distance. You'll have to take us closer."
    Allen was starting to sweat. "Look," he said. "I can't keep moving us around without calibrating this thing. Every time we jump we're compounding our error, and we get farther and farther from knowing where we are."
    "I know exactly where we are," Judy said. "We're too far for radio communications. Take us closer." She waited about two seconds while Allen hesitated, then added, "Now."
    "All right," he said. He tried to throw his hands up in a shrug, but he overbalanced and had to grab on to the overhead panel to steady himself. He pulled himself down again and began to work with the keyboard.
    Judy heard the radio pulse and the view changed again. Earth was larger, about the size that it would be when seen from the Moon, though it showed only a crescent now. She didn't see the Moon out the front windows, but when she looked back through the cargo bay windows she found it. It was bigger than the Earth. Much bigger. They couldn't have been more than a couple thousand miles from it. She watched the surface for a few seconds, trying to determine their relative motion. Was it getting closer?
    She couldn't tell.
    All the same, as she plugged her headset into the radio she said, "Get ready to move us again." This time Allen didn't argue.
    "Control, this is Discovery , do you copy?"
    She had forgotten about the time lag. She was about to call again when she heard, "Roger Discovery , we copy, but your signal is weak and you have disappeared from our radar. What's happening up there?"
    "We're not in orbit any longer. Doctor Meisner's experiment has moved us to the general vicinity of the Moon. I repeat, Doctor Meisner's experiment is responsible for our change in position. There is no cause for alarm. Do you copy?"
    A pause. "We copy, Discovery . No cause for alarm. You bet. We'll tell the President to get his finger off the button, then. Hold on a second—uh. . ." The timbre of Control's voice changed, and Judy realized he was reading. Someone had evidently handed him a note. He read: "Due to a state of national emergency, the Pentagon has taken control of this mission. You are now a military flight. Any information concerning the nature of Doctor Meisner's experiment is now classified top secret. Do you copy?" Judy had been expecting that. She laughed into the microphone and said, "Don't tell the world that we've got hyperdrive? You know where you can tell them to put it, Control. Kindly remind the idiots at the Pentagon that I am a civilian pilot, and that my loyalty goes to humanity first, nation second. What they request is tantamount to suppressing knowledge of the wheel, so you can tell the Pentagon to stuff it deep, over."
    Judy saw motion out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Allen applauding silently. He said, "I sent e—"
    Judy held up her hand to quiet him as Mission Control responded. She could hear the cheering in the background. "Roger, Discovery . We copy and concur. Your, ah, hyperspace jump seems to have messed with the telemetry. We're getting low pressure readings in the hydraulics and APUs. Do you confirm, over?"
    "Your readings are correct. We have sustained damage to the vertical stabilizer. We won't be able to reenter. Request you reserve space for us on the next flight down."
    "Roger, Discovery . What kind of damage to the stabilizer?"
    "It's been vaporized. Completely melted away. We assume it was either a particle beam or laser antisatellite weapon, automatically fired. We do not consider ourselves to have been attacked. Please be sure the Pentagon understands, over."
    "Roger, Discovery . I'm sure they'll be glad to hear that." Allen butted in. "Uh, Commander?"
    "I'll bet they will. Hold on a sec." She turned off the mike. "What, Allen?"
    "I think we should get away from here. We're picking up velocity being this close to the Moon. It'll make it hard to put us back into