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(Page 2 of 3) The Flight of the Trace by Steve Jones -B5
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He turned the boat to match the heading, and waited, savoring the moment.
"The assimilatory is ready and standing by," Curtiz said. "According to the tests, I should feel nothing, and see a bit of a bright afterimage in my eyes. Then I will be in the neighborhood of Jupiter. Here I go."
Curtiz pushed down the lever to activate the engine, there was a moment where he felt disoriented, and was seeing a strange afterimage in his eyes, as if he saw something very bright for just a moment. He looked back over his shoulder, Mars was gone. He looked ahead and started his braking thrusters. His boat should be drifting at a pretty impressive speed, even if it didn't look like it, and Jupiter should be filling the sky ahead in mere moments.
Only, it didn't.
The thrusters slowly pulled his speed back to normal levels, and there was still nothing ahead of him.
"I'm not seeing Jupiter at all," Curtiz said. "I'll get the computer to download a location from the Eurika 2 network, and read my distance from Sol."
There was no information from the Eurika 2 network, which puzzled Curtiz until the distance number came back, 1403 AUs. Curtiz gasped. He was well beyond the outer system. Then he turned the boat around to look at the fairly bright star which the computer had checked and confirmed was Sol.
The signals from the Eurika 2 network would not have traveled this far yet.
"It works better than I thought," Curtiz muttered to the recorder.
The system had already started rebuilding energy in the matrix assimilatory, he would be able to jump again in just a few minutes.
"I'm going to turn around and get back into the solar system," Curtiz said. "I have about five minutes before I'm charged up again."
Curtiz waited, turning the Trace's nose to the exact opposite of the direction he'd been traveling, it looked like he would just graze past the edge of Sol. He should return not too far from where he had started. From wherever he landed, he would fly back to his neighborhood station, then perhaps a little snack, and to bed. Tomorrow he was going to become famous.
"Okay," he said to the recorder. "I'm all charged up and ready to go."
He pushed the lever again.
Curtiz didn't take time to consider the effects of the second jump. The moment he knew he'd moved he was having the computer check the Eurika 2s and the distance to Sol. He knew he shouldn't be too far from home.
He looked around. There was one prominent star in the sky. He knew it was Sol, and that he was closer than he had been before, but even before the computer told him the numbers he knew he wasn't close enough.
"I'm not home," He finally said out loud. "I missed. I should have known. You can't fly by line of sight out here. The universe is curved, more curved than we have been taught. I can figure up the exact numbers later."
He almost said, "If I can get home." But he didn't want to say that out loud, not yet.
Curtiz had a moment to think, and he knew he had to, there was no way he could haphazardly make his way back home.
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