“Rigel’s is probably the worst in property damage and urgency. Before we decide, though, I wish you’d take a good look at this data from Dekanore III. See if you see what I do.”
“Huh? Dekanore III?” Cloud was surprised. “No trouble there, is there? They’ve only got one, and it’s ’way down in Class Z somewhere.”
“Two now. It’s the new one I’m talking about. It’s acting funny—damned funny.”
Cloud went through the data, brow furrowed in concentration; then sketched three charts and frowned.
“I see what you mean. ‘Damned funny’ is right. The toxicity is too steady, but at the same time the composition of the effluvium is too varied. Inconsistent. However, there’s no real attempt at a gamma analysis—nowhere near enough data for one—this could be right; they’re so utterly unpredictable. The observers were inexperienced, I take it, with medical and chemical bias?”
“Check. That’s the way I read it.”
“Well, I’ll say this much—I never saw a gamma chart that would accept half of this stuff, and I can’t even imagine what the sigma curve would look like. Boss, what say I skip over there and get us a full reading on that baby before she goes orthodox—or, should I say, orthodoxly unorthodox?”
“However you say it, that’s my thought exactly; and we have a good excuse for giving it priority. It’s killing more people than all three of the bad ones together.”
“If I can’t fix the toxicity with exciters I’ll throw a solid cordon around it to keep people away. I won’t blow it out, though, until I find out why it’s acting so—if it is. Clear ether, chief, I’m practically there!”
It did not take long to load Cloud’s flitter aboard a Dekanore-bound liner. Half-way there however, an alarm rang out and the dread word “Pirates!” resounded through the ship.