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—Mark Ingals, The Washington Post, June 5, 2255

Chapter 9

Hutch had taken care to see that she and Rudy sat together on the shuttle flight back to Reagan. However things went, she wanted to be with him. Either to celebrate the moment. Or to limit the damage. Jon was staggering a bit, but he was young, and seemed strong enough to rebound. In fact, he was already talking about where he thought the problem lay. Rudy was another matter.

As the vehicle fell away from the station and began its descent, she saw that, beneath the brave front he’d put on for the media, the guy was stricken. “Rudy,” she told him, “we knew all along the odds were against us.” She almost said long shot. In fact, she was the only one of the inner circle who’d believed that.

He was staring listlessly out the window. “I know.”

Rudy was an optimist, the kind of guy who thought you could do anything if you put your mind to it. The immediate problem was less that the test had failed than that they’d lost the Happy Times. “Listen,” she said, “why don’t you take the day off tomorrow? Come over to the house? I’ll make dinner.”

Rudy managed a smile. “Do I look that desperate?”

“Hey,” she said. “I’m a decent cook.”

He squeezed her hand. “I know. I mean, that’s not what I meant.”

Whatever. “You need to get away from it for a bit. You and Jon both. We’ll make a party out of it.”

He still avoided looking at her. “You know that business up there today all but destroyed the Foundation.”

She knew. “What’s our situation?”

“It leaves us with payments to make on a ship we no longer have.”

“It wasn’t insured?”

“Insurance was out of sight. Everybody knew what we were trying to do.” The eyes finally found her. “It’s a pity. Imagine what a working drive would have meant.”

“We’ll need to find new donors.”

“In this atmosphere…” His voice trailed off.

“They’ll be there,” she said. “This isn’t the first time the Foundation’s been a little short.”

“A little?” He laughed. It was a harsh, ugly sound, not at all characteristic of the Rudy she knew.

“There is one possibility,” she said.

They punched in drink orders, and she thought he hadn’t heard her. “What’s that?” he asked finally.

“If Jon can figure out what went wrong, we still have the Preston.”

“What? Let him lose our other ship?” He squeezed his forehead. “No, Hutch. We aren’t going to do that.”

She was quiet, for a time. “Look,” she said at last, “it’s a gamble, sure, but it could pay off.”

“No. I’m not giving him another ship to play with.”

“It’s there,” Jon insisted. They were standing on the roof of the terminal, watching Hutch climb into her taxi. She waved as it lifted off, and her eyes brushed his. He caught a faint smile. She knew he’d been waiting for a chance to speak to Rudy alone, and she knew why. “We just have to make some adjustments. Run the tests until we get it right.”

But Rudy looked beaten. His eyes were bleary, and he had adopted a manner that was simultaneously apologetic and resentful. “I don’t think you understand the position the Foundation is now in, Jon,” he said. “We invested a lot in the Locarno. We were counting on your getting it right.”

That hurt. “Some of these things,” he said quietly, “don’t lend themselves to exact calculations. We have to try them. See what works.”

“That isn’t what you’ve been saying.”

“Sure it is. You just haven’t been listening.”

Rudy’s eyes were closed. He was trying not to sound bitter. “I know, Jon,” he said finally. “It’s not your fault. Not anyone’s fault, really. You’re human, and humans screw things up. It happens. It’s as much my doing as anybody’s.”

“Rudy, I didn’t screw things up.”

“Okay, Jon. You didn’t. Let’s let things go at that.”

“You don’t want to try again?”

“What? Risk losing the Preston? No, I don’t think so.” He jammed his fists into his pockets. “No. Not a chance.”

The air was heavy. “It will work, Rudy.”

He grunted. “Everything I’ve read, everybody I’ve talked to, they all say it can’t be done. They can’t all be wrong.” His cab drifted in and opened up. Rudy tossed his bag in back and climbed in.

“Paul thought it would work.”

“Paul was wrong.”

Jon held the door so Rudy couldn’t close it. “There was a time,” he said, “when everybody agreed that heavier-than-air flight would never work. And another time that we’d never get to the Moon. Sometimes you just have to do it.”

Rudy gave the driver his address. “I’m sorry, Jon. I really am. But let’s just let it go, okay?”

Jon routinely traveled with his commlink turned off. He didn’t like being subject to calls when he was out of his apartment or away from the lab. That was his own time. Consequently, when he walked into his apartment after returning from Union, his AI informed him the circuit had been busy. “You have 114 calls,” it said.

“From whom, Herman?”

Four from family, eleven from friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, fifty-two from persons identifying themselves as the media, eleven from assorted well-wishers, thirty-four I can only identify as cranks, and two from charities seeking donations.

He sank into a chair and sighed. “Nothing corporate?”

No, sir.

“Delete the media.”

Done.

“What kind of cranks?”

Some threatening your life because they think you are going to arouse whatever’s producing the omega clouds. Or similar concerns. I referred them for analysis. So far none looks dangerous, but you will wish to show some caution. Just in case.

“What else?”

Thirteen claiming they already have an ultra star drive. Seven claim to have devised it themselves, but say they can get no one to listen. Five say it was a gift from extraterrestrials.

“That’s twelve.”

One says he found a design in a vault inside a pyramid.

“Valley of the Kings?”

He didn’t specify.

He’d hoped Orion or Lukacs or somebody would have tried to get in touch to offer him testing facilities. Don’t these nitwits understand how valuable a decent drive would be? He mixed a bourbon and soda and responded to the personal calls. His mother. His uncle Aaron. Two cousins. Everybody offered sympathy. Assured him they knew that the Locarno would work next time. Ditto with his friends.

“Let’s see the well-wishers, Herman.”

A list scrolled onto the screen. He scanned the names. Nothing rang a bell. He sampled a few of the messages. Hang in there, Jon, they said. Man was designed for something greater than the Earth. (You could always tell the crazy ones. They talked about ‘Man’ rather than ‘people.’ They couldn’t go two sentences without citing ‘destiny.’)

The world was full of lunatics. Herman had trouble sorting them out. If they didn’t rave and threaten, the AI didn’t see them for what they were. And Jon was reluctant to provide a list of key words and phrases. Sometimes perfectly sane people also said those things. His father was fond of saying that his destiny was to be overwhelmed by unintelligible kids. Dad wasn’t big on physics, and Jon’s sister was a lawyer.