She pouted. “Well, maybe, but it turns out that someone cut my funding off.”
“Assuming Dr. Hastings can translate what you have here,” he said, holding up her suite, “and assuming he buys off on it, you can consider your funding restored, and this time as a direct employee of Windward.”
Her pout became an impish grin. “In that case, you bet your ass I can do it again, and a lot better this time. We’re going to the stars, Mr. Kelley!”
6: “OF PICTURES, PRAWNS, AND POSSIBILITIES”
December 10, 2039; Calvert’s Gumbo Room; Alexandria, VA
Nestled in the corner of one of Alexandria’s oldest buildings downtown, the quiet little restaurant existed as neutral territory in the battlegrounds of scandal and ideology, enjoying the coverage of an umbrella of discretion and anonymity that few establishments retained for as long. This sort of unspoken agreement of private civility between the press and the upper echelon patrons of the dark, wood-paneled Gumbo Room meant that Calvert’s would never be fabulously successful or famous, but it would allow the little place to become an important footnote in the unwritten history of the nation.
Here, senators could dine with their mistresses in style, without too great a fear of discovery. At this table, the majority and minority leaders could share a drink and a laugh over how divided their public personas had become, while the actual difference between them had never been narrower. At that table, the conservative talk show host, the liberal editor, and their respective publicists and advisors could all gather round heaping piles of steaming blue crab and divide up the political landscape, working out talking points and scathing rebukes of one another, all the time keeping a keen eye toward maximizing their individual market share.
As a direct consequence of Calvert’s unacknowledged place in the political universe, an unofficial non-meeting could be held there which might receive undue attention were the principles to meet in an actual government office. Many a nation-altering deal had been brokered secretly and safely above the Gumbo Room’s varnished tables and embroidered maroon tablecloths. Thus, at the table in the far corner, isolated from the rest even in this sanctuary of isolation, the Assistant National Science Advisor, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and their tardy guest could quietly change the course of the world and the human race.
Lydia Russ smiled softly and contemplated her glass of wine in silence while Carl Sykes, Lieutenant General, USAF (retired) seethed over their guest’s continued absence. He jabbed a toothpick violently into another olive from his small plate, swished it through his untouched martini, and devoured it with a growl and yet another look toward the entrance.
No one was there. Sykes shook his head and snapped his toothpick, tossing it negligently behind him. “Where the hell is he?”
Lydia took a sip of wine. “He’ll be here. Stop worrying.”
“I’m not worrying. I’m pissed. It’s unprofessional and rude to make us wait. You’d think that someone with his ego would jump at the chance to cackle at us.”
Lydia smiled more broadly. “You don’t know Gordon like I do. His ego wouldn’t allow him to be here on time even if he had nothing to crow about, and now that he does, he probably considers making us wait some form of payback. He’ll be here, though. It’s the opportunity he’s been waiting for, after all.”
Sykes grunted and snatched another toothpick from the small open jar among the condiments at the center of the table. He was just about to angrily spear an olive yet again when Gordon Lee’s smug voice behind him caused him to snap the pick instead.
“Imagine my surprise! After being persona non grata in this town for the past 16 years, suddenly, people are accepting my calls. Suddenly, the whispers that I’ve got one foot in the loony bin quiet down a bit. And if that wasn’t nice enough, I suddenly get myself a personal invitation to the Beltway Bandits’ own secret dinner club. Whatever could be the reason for this startling reversal of fortune?”
Sykes looked back and saw Gordon Lee, shedding an expensively tailored tan trench coat and straightening his jacket and tie, a tie, he noted, that was covered in little Flash Gordon-style rocket ships. Sykes shook his head and said, “Maybe Christmas arrived early this year.”
Gordon’s smile became tighter, more vicious. “Somehow I doubt that.” He approached Lydia’s side of the table and bent down to squeeze her hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek. His lips were cold from the chill wind blowing outside, but his eyes were warm with the embers of their past. “Lydia, you are lovelier than ever.”
She canted her head to one side and gave him a saucy grin. “And you are a manipulative, gloating liar, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. How have you been, Gordon?”
“Lonely … and angry, but excited, too. I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff to show you, both of you, stuff that you’ll never believe.”
Sykes smiled. “Something of a habit for you isn’t it, Lee? Showing off things no one in their right mind would ever believe in?”
Lydia held up a hand to forestall the barb Gordon was about to fire back. “We have things to show you as well, Gordon, but first let’s get the important stuff out of the way. Drinks?”
Unobtrusive waiters dressed all in black, with long, dark green aprons appeared. Within a minute, Gordon proceeded to banish the last of his chill with a cut crystal tumbler half filled with straight single-malt highland scotch. Lydia had taken the liberty of ordering for each of them already. Gordon’s tastes were known and she figured the Gumbo Room would be a special treat for him. Sykes was a bureaucratic insider with a lifetime of government service in war, in peace, and in the special infighting peculiar to the Pentagon and the Washington Beltway. Second in command of the nation’s defense or not, all he would care about was getting a free meal.
By the time the servers backed away, they had all had their drinks freshened, and steaming, spicy cups of Cajun gumbo had been placed in front of them. Different from the Creole gumbo Gordon was used to, he used his spoon to break up the ball of white rice in the center of the cup, mixing it with the dark brown soup and the plentiful shrimp, onions, and celery settled below the surface. Savory, piquant heat radiated out from the first spoonful, and Gordon smiled broadly to his hostess and friend, acknowledging her good choice.
Gordon wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin, and caught their eyes with his own. Sykes stopped endlessly stirring his gumbo and devoured another martini-dipped olive. Lydia wiped her own mouth and looked back at Gordon. The head of Windward Tech and the man she had helped to ostracize years ago grinned tightly. “So, what happened? Why the turnaround?”
She responded by reaching down to her purse and extracting her suite. Lydia laid it on the table between them and extended the screen from the side. Displayed on it was something he’d grown very familiar with over the years: the constellation Pavo. A familiar, chillingly enigmatic blue star shone next to the position of Delta Pavonis. This picture appeared to be recent—the separation between the blue light and the star it came from was the most pronounced he had seen, parallax making the approaching light oscillate wider and wider across its origin.
Gordon looked up at her again. “That’s not really any more compelling than the ones I showed NASA originally. I believe they downgraded it to a ‘stellar fragment’ and me to a nut-job crank.”
She nodded. “True, unfortunately, but how about this.” She tapped the suite and the image changed. Now, instead of all of Pavo, it zeroed in on Delta Pavonis and the blue light. Another tap and just the blue light filled the screen, fuzzy and indistinct. Another tap and the blue light shrank away, the fuzziness sharpened to distinct threads of light and optical glare, but there was something else there as well. It was a broken halo, something reflecting reddish in spots around the star of pale blue.