Julian Forward was a Jinxian, short and wide, with arms as thick as legs and legs as thick as pillars. His skin was almost as black as his hair: a Sirius suntan, probably maintained by sunlights. He perched on the edge of a massage chair. "Carlos Wu!" he said with flattering enthusiasm. "Are you the same Carlos Wu who solved the Sealeyham Limits Problem?"
Carlos said he was. They went into a discussion of mathematics--a possible application of Carlos' solution to another limits problem, I gathered. I glanced at Ausfaller--not obtrusively, because for Forward he wasn't supposed to exist--and saw him pensively studying his side view of Forward.
"Well," Forward said, "what can I do for you?"
"Julian Forward, meet Beowulf Shaeffer," said Carlos. I bowed. "Bey was giving me a lift home when our hyperdrive motor disappeared.
"Disappeared?"
I butted in, for verisimilitude. "Disappeared, futzy right. The hyperdrive motor casing is empty. The motor supports are sheared off. We're stuck out here with no hyperdrive and no idea how it happened."
"Almost true," Carlos said happily. "Dr. Forward, I do have some ideas as to what happened here. I'd like to discuss them with you."
"Where are you now?"
I pulled our position and velocity from the computer and flashed them to Forward Station. I wasn't sure it was a good idea; but Ausfaller had time to stop me, and he didn't.
"Fine," said Forward's image. "It looks like you can get here a lot faster than you can get to Earth. Forward Station is ahead of you, within twenty a.u. of your position. You can wait here for the next ferry. Better than going on in a crippled ship."
"Good! We'll work out a course and let you know when to expect us."
"I welcome the chance to meet Carlos Wu." Forward gave us his own coordinates and rang off.
Carlos turned. "All right, Bey. Now you own an armed and disguised warship. You figure out where you got it."
"We've got worse problems than that. Forward Station is exactly where the ship eater ought to be."
He nodded. But he was amused.
"So what's our next move? We can't run from hyperdrive ships. Not now. Is Forward likely to try to kill us?"
"If we don't reach Forward Station on schedule, he might send ships after us. We know too much. We've told him so," said Carlos. "The hyperdrive motor disappeared completely. I know half a dozen people who could figure out how it happened, knowing just that." He smiled suddenly. "That's assuming Forward's the ship eater. We don't know that. I think we have a splendid chance to find out, one way or the other."
"How? Just walk in?"
Ausfaller was nodding approvingly. "Dr. Forward expects you and Carlos to enter his web unsuspecting, leaving an empty ship. I think we can prepare a few surprises for him. For example, he may not have guessed that this is a General Products hull. And I will be aboard to fight."
True. Only antimatter could harm a GP hull ... though things could go through it, like light and gravity and shock waves. "So you'll be in the indestructible hull," I said, "and we'll be helpless in the base. Very clever. I'd rather run for it myself. But then, you have your career to consider."
"I will not deny it. But there are ways in which I can prepare you."
)
