That gives us a chance—but what in all nine of Palain’s purple hells is that machine doing with that data?
He started to climb out of his bucket seat to go around to talk to Joan right then, but changed his mind at his first move. Even if Margie could handle this little one it wouldn’t be a real test, and it’d be a crying shame to give Joan a success here and then kick her in the teeth with a flat failure next time. No, the next one, the only one left and Vegia’s worst, would be the one. If Margie could handle that, she could snuff anything the galaxy had to offer.
Hence Cloud extinguished this one, too, himself. The Vortex Blaster II darted to its last Vegian objective and lined itself up for business. Joan put Margie to work as usual; but Storm, for the first time, did not take his own place. Instead, he came around and stood behind Joan’s chair.
“How’re we doing, little chum?” he asked.
“Rotten!” Joan’s block was still up; her voice was choked with tears. “She’s come so close half a dozen times today—why—why can’t I get that last fraction of a second?”
“Maybe you can.” As though it were the most natural thing in the world—which in fact it was—Cloud put his left arm around her shoulders and exerted a gentle pressure. “Bars down, chum—we can think a lot clearer than we can talk.”
“That’s better,” as her guard went down. “Your differential ’scope looks like it’s set at about one centimeter to the second. Can you give it enough vertical gain to make it about five?”
“Yes. Ten if you like, but the trace would keep jumping the screen on the down-swings.”
“I wouldn’t care about that—closest approach is all I want. Give it full gain.”
“QX, but why?” Joan demanded, as she made the requested adjustment. “Did you find out something I can’t dig deep enough in your mind to pry loose?”