Chapter 6

Barely a minute after leaving 'Cinda behind in her quarters, Esme found herself surrounded by glum-faced officers, a group that included not only the nightwatch bridge crew, but two of the senior ratings who had also been EVA with Marcus; it was apparent from the bulky pressure suits they still wore that the ratings had come to the bridge as soon as they reentered the ship. The group, which had gathered around a sensor panel on one side of the bridge, quieted immediately upon her arrival and parted slightly to admit her to their midst.

"Are we on the clock?" the captain asked quietly. Following standard "man overboard" procedure, one of the nightwatch was supposed to activate a timer as soon as the emergency alarm sounded on the bridge; that ticking clock would be their yardstick to determine whether rescue might even be feasible, given Marcus' finite amount of battery power and breathable air.

"We are plus 25 minutes since the emergency was declared, Captain." This came from Master Chief John MacDonald, who - for some reason known only to him - preferred to be called by his nickname, "McGee," rather than his given name.

"Thank you, McGee," Esme said, nodding at the older man. "Then, my first question is simple: why did it take so long to call me to bridge?" By Esme's estimation, at least 15 minutes had passed before the comm in her quarters had awakened her.

"That was my doing, Captain," said a tall, silver-haired man who leaned against the bulkhead. Commander Lawrence Sanders straightened as he addressed Esme, looking abashed. "When the emergency began, I instituted the standard rescue protocol for personnel still tethered to the ship, thinking that Lt. Bird would have followed SOP and simply needed to be hauled back to the ship. However, when the EVA crew reached the spot where the lieutenant's tether should have been and found no sign either of him or the tether, I then notified you." The commander met Esme's eyes briefly, then looked down at the deck. "I felt perfectly capable of handling the situation without disturbing your rest, Captain. I..."

Esme cut him off gently. "Larry, we'll talk about how this was handled later. Under the same circumstances, I might have done the same thing... but that's something we'll go into some other time. Right now, I want to hear our options. Master Chief?"

McGee, who had kept the Clarke's pressure suits operating despite a lack of replacement units, knew what the captain was asking. "Lt. Bird brought his own suit on board with him when he was posted here. It is one of the last of the EX series of mining exploration suits, designed for long EVAs in hostile environments. Even with the 6 hours he spent on the hull, he has a reserve of approximately 20 hours of breathable air and an equivalent amount of power for his suit."

Esme nodded to the senior chief, then turned her attention to her sensor officer. "Do we have a track for him?"

The ensign shook his head. "We had a track on his suit for about 10 minutes, captain, but then his signal got lost among the rest of the debris field. The best I can do," he said, pausing to put his finger against a transparent grid representing the space around the Clarke, "is describe the arc in which he was traveling from the time he left the hull to the point we lost his signal." As his finger traveled along the grid away from the ship, a red line indicated the curving path along which the sensors had been able to fix Marcus' location. However, that line abruptly ended as the suit passed from the relatively debris-free zone created by the ship's rear shielding into the constant rain of remains headed toward the singularity.

"Can you extend the parabola to create a likely search grid?"

The ensign nodded, and typed a series of commands into a keyboard located to the side of the grid. The ship's computer spent a moment calculating factors such as the rate of the suit's drift, the relative force of the singularity's pull, and the track of the debris passing the ship at the time sensors lost contact with Marcus. Finally, a rather large area of space forward of the ship lit up on the grid, bordered by a rather foreboding black line with the letters "PONR" inscribed in white atop it.

'PONR, ' Esme thought, shuddering internally. 'A nice little abbreviation; how nicely it hides its ultimate meaning. Once Marcus reaches the PONR - the Point of No Return - no one and nothing on this ship can do anything for him.' Forcing herself back into the moment, Esme asked the ensign, "Given the relative speeds involved, can the computer give us an estimated time window before Marcus crosses the PONR?"

The ensign typed again, and this time it took only seconds for the computer to respond with a countdown clock superimposed against the grid. 8:29:53... 52... 51... Esme watched the seconds tick backward, then looked into the faces of each officer gathered around her.