Three cut in and began whining. Cragin tried a speed check; they'd passed light-speed, and there was no more danger of her catching him in her electroscopes. The velocity needle began wider oscillations, and the hum from Four verified it ... the critical speed changes were getting trickier. Twenty minutes ticked off, and Cragin knew they were further out than when he'd picked her up two weeks ago. Light-speed trebled.
Back to double. Now times twelve.
Six was screaming. Seven started humming, and Cragin felt his clothes beginning to stick to his back. By himself, he'd never had more than seven comps to fly on, and had never taken the risk of flying past breakdown. That was suicide. The SP-15 had been fitted with ten as he had ordered. According to the books, if you tried to use more than that, the circuits in One would burn up. Nobody, except Fowler Griffin and his daughter, had ever tried past seven except himself. The risk wasn't worth what you got out of it, and listening to a bunch of comps getting ready to blow themselves to hell didn't net you anything but a bad heart.
Eight came on. One began to glow. Cragin knew he either had to break communications silence or kick himself clear into eternity.
His thumb slipped on the mike switch.
His fingers felt like wet sticks, and the mike was cold and greasy to his touch.
"Calling you Starwasp calling you. This is Cragin, Space Intelligence on a CB. On your track at 900,000 your six o'clock level. Let me hear you, Miss Griffin."
There wasn't any answer and he tried again. Nine was humming. "I've orders to burn you up if you refuse to acknowledge. Ack please." He tried to keep his voice flat and machine-like so he wouldn't give himself away, but he sounded like an hysterical schoolgirl compared to the voice that answered him. It was that of a woman; a woman who might have died and shriveled in the deserts a hundred years ago.
"Follow me, Patrolman, if you have the courage. Turn back if you'd rather be safe to choke your life away on the sterile place you call home. There's a lot of room beyond the Barrier, but little for men who worship merely their own perfection and stay blind to problems which they cannot solve. Or go ahead and burn me up if you think it will be of some help to you."