“Hutch.” Ed Jesperson, up front. A medical researcher. “My understanding is that we know where the omega clouds come from. Is that right?”
“Ed, actually we’ve known for a long time. More or less. We’ve been able to backtrack them. And yes, the point of origin seems to be in a cluster of dust clouds near the galactic core. We can’t get a good look at the area. So we don’t know precisely what’s happening.”
Spike Numatsu was next. Spike was the last survivor of a band of physicists from Georgetown who’d organized campaigns on behalf of the Foundation for years. “Is there any possibility of sending a mission there to find out? I know it would take a long time, but it seems as if there should be a way to do it.”
There was a lot of nodding. “We can’t stretch the technology that far,” she said. “A flight to the galactic core would take seven years. One way.” She paused. “We’ve thought about an automated flight. But we don’t have the funds. And we’re not sure it could be made to work anyhow. Basically, we need a better drive unit.” More hands went up. “Margo.”
Margo Desperanza, Margo Dee to her friends, hosted parties and galas and a wide range of benefits for Prometheus. It struck Hutch that there were few new faces that day. Mostly, only the true believers were left. Margo Dee didn’t know it yet, but Rudy was going to ask her that afternoon to serve on the board of directors. “Hutch, do you see any possibility of a breakthrough? Whatever happened to the Locarno Drive?”
What, indeed? “There’s always a possibility, Margo. Unfortunately, the Locarno didn’t test out.” It had been the brain child of Henry Barber, developed in Switzerland, an interstellar propulsion system that was to be a vast improvement over the Hazeltine. But it had gone through a string of failures. Then, last year, Barber had died. “I’m sure, eventually, we’ll get a better system than the one we have.”
“You hope,” said Jenny Chang in a whisper from her spot immediately to Hutch’s left.
Eventually, the big question showed up. It came from a young blond man near the back of the dining room: “If we did develop the capability to go there, to find out who was sending the omega clouds, wouldn’t it be dangerous? Wouldn’t we be telling them we’re here? What happens if they follow us home?” It was a question that had been gaining considerable credibility among American voters, and, for that matter, worldwide. Politicians around the globe had seized on the issue to scare the general public and get themselves elected on promises to restrict interstellar travel.
“The clouds were produced millions of years ago,” Hutch said. “Whoever manufactured them is a long time dead.”
The crowd divided on that one; some supportive, many skeptical. The blond man wasn’t finished: “Can you guarantee that? That they’re dead?”
“You know I can’t,” she said.
Someone wanted to know whether she believed the theory that an omega had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
Someone else asked whether the clouds were connected with the moonriders.
The moonriders, known in various ages as foo fighters, flying saucers, UFOs, and beamrunners, had, until modern times, been perceived as myth. But the Origins incident of two decades earlier had removed all doubt. More recently, a flight of the objects had been seen, scanned, recorded by a team of physicists. “We don’t know that either,” she said. “But it feels like a different level of technology. If I had to put a bet down, I’d say they’re separate phenomena.”
Did she know François St. John, the pilot of the Jenkins? Or the Langstons? Or Eagle or Tolya?
“I know them all,” she said. “We’ll be glad to see them safely back.”
When it was over, she thanked her audience for their donations and for being receptive. They applauded. She stayed behind to answer more questions, signed a few copies of her book (actually written by Amy Taylor, a senator’s daughter who’d grown up to achieve a lifelong ambition to qualify as a star pilot only to find no positions available), and wandered out into the lobby. She was pulling her jacket around her shoulders when an extraordinarily good-looking young man asked if he might have a moment of her time.
“Of course,” she said. He was probably the tallest person in the room, with dark skin, dark eyes, leading-man features. The kind of guy who made her wish she was twenty again. “What can I do for you?”
He hesitated. “Ms. Hutchins, my name is Jon Silvestri.” He said it as if he expected her to recognize it. “I have something the Foundation might be interested in.”
They were standing in the lobby. Another man, a guy she thought she’d seen somewhere before, hovered off to one side, obviously also interested in speaking with her. “I don’t work for the Foundation, Mr. Silvestri. I’m just a fund-raiser. Why don’t you stop by the offices later today or tomorrow? They’d have someone available to talk to you.”
She started to move away, but he stayed in front of her. “I’m Dr. Silvestri,” he said.
“Okay.”
“They asked you about the Locarno.”
“And—?”
He moved closer to her and lowered his voice. “The Locarno is legitimate, Ms. Hutchins. Henry hadn’t quite finished it before he died. There was still testing to be done. A few problems to be worked out. But the theory behind it is perfectly valid. It will work.”
Hutch was starting to feel uncomfortable. There was something a bit too intense about this guy. “I’m sure, whatever you need, they’ll be able to take care of it for you at the Foundation offices, Doctor. You know where they’re located?”
He must have realized he was coming on a bit strong. He stopped, cleared his throat, straightened himself. And smiled. There was a tightness to it. And maybe a hint of anger. “Ms. Hutchins, I used to work with Henry Barber. I helped him develop the system.”
Barber had been working for years, trying to develop a drive that could seriously move vehicles around the galaxy, something with more giddyup than the plodding Hazeltine. “Riding around the galaxy with a Hazeltine,” he’d once famously said, “is like trying to cross the Pacific in a rowboat with one oar.”
The other man was checking his watch. He was maybe forty, though with rejuvenation techniques these days it was hard to tell. He could have been eighty. She knew him from somewhere. “Dr. Silvestri,” she said, thinking she shouldn’t get involved in this, “how much work remains to be done? To get the Locarno operational?”
“Why don’t we sit down for a minute?” He steered her to a couple of plastic chairs facing each other across a low table. “The work is effectively done. It’s simply a matter of running the tests.” A note of uncertainty had crept into his voice.
“You hope.”
“Yes.” He focused somewhere else, then came back to her. “I hope. But I see no reason why it should not function as expected. Henry did the brute work. It remained only to make a few adjustments. Solve a few minor problems.”
“He died last spring,” she said. “In Switzerland, as I recall. If you’ve an operational system, where’s it been all this time?”
“I’ve been working on it.”
“You have.”
“Yes. You seem skeptical.”
He looked so young. He was only a few years older than Charlie. Her son. “Barber hadn’t been able to make it work,” she said. She looked back to where the other man had been standing. He was gone.