The Forever Man by Gordon R. Dickson Read Free Book Online

Mary paused. “That’s why you don’t want to grow old and be forced to leave out here, where Death lives.”
    Mary’s voice broke off. Jim sat, fighting for breath, his gloved fingers trembling on the access flap to the sidearm. After a little, his breath grew deeper again; and he forced himself to turn back to his computations. Aside from the habit-instructed section of his mind that concerned itself with this problem, the rest of him was mindless.
    I’ve got to do something, he thought. I’ve got to do something. But nothing would come to mind. Gradually the careening vessel of his mind righted itself, and he came back to a sense of duty—to Wander Section and his mission. Then suddenly a thought woke in him.
    â€œRaoul Penard’s dead,” he said quite calmly to Mary. “Somehow, what we’ve been hearing and what we’ve been watching drive and fight that ship is the semianimate control center. How it got to be another Raoul Penard doesn’t matter. The tissue they used kept growing, and no one ever thought to keep one of them in contact with a man twenty-four hours a day for his lifetime. So it’s the alter ego, the control center we’ve got to bring in. And there’s a way to do that.”
    He paused and waited. There was a second of silence, and then Mary’s voice spoke.
    â€œGo on. Maybe I underestimated you, Jim.”
    â€œMaybe you did,” said Jim. “At any rate, here it is. In no more than another half hour we’re going to be discovered here. Those planet-based big computers of theirs have been piling up data on our mission here and on me as leader of the Section, and their picture gets more complete every time we move and they can get new data. If we dodged away from here to hide again, next time they’d find us even faster. And after two more hides they’d hit us almost as soon as we got hid. So there’s no choice to it. We’ve got to go for the Frontier, now.”
    â€œYes,” said Mary. “I can see we do.”
    â€œYou can,” said Jim. “And the Laagi can. Everybody can. But they also know I know that they’ve got most of the area from here to the Frontier covered. Most anywhere we come out, they’ll be ready to hit us within seconds, with ships that are simply sitting there, ready to make jump to wherever we emerge, their computations to the forty or fifty areas within easy jump of them already computed for them by the big planet-based machines. So, there’s only one thing left for me to do, as they see it. Go wide.”
    â€œWide?” said Mary. She sounded a trifle startled.
    â€œSure,” said Jim, grinning mirthlessly to himself in the privacy of his suit. “Like I sent Fair Maid . —But there’s a difference between us and Fair Maid. We’ve got La Chasse Gallerie . And the Laagi’ll follow us. And we’ll have to keep running—running outward until their edge in data lets them catch up with us. Then their edge in ship numbers’ll finish us off. The Laagi ships won’t quit on our trail—even if it means they won’t get back themselves. As I said a little earlier, enemy ships can’t be allowed to get this deep into their territory and get home again.”
    â€œThen what’s the use of going wide?” asked Mary. “It just puts off the time—”
    â€œI’m not going wide.” Jim grinned privately and mirthlessly once more. “That’s what the Laagi think I’ll do, hoping for a miracle to save us. I’m going instead where no one with any sense would go—right under their weapons. I’ve computed ten jumps to the Frontier which is the least we can make it in. We’ll lock on and carry La Chasse Gallerie ; and when we come out of the jump, we’ll come out shooting. Blind. We’ll blast our way through whatever’s there and jump again fast as we can. If one of us