“It must have. We don’t know.”
“When? When did you hear it?” He was already annoyed that Jon had been so slow to let him know.
“A few minutes ago.”
“You’re kidding.”
He flicked on the visual. Jon was sitting in an alcove off one of the concourses. He looked tired, relieved, and puzzled. “Do I look as if I’m kidding?” he said.
“Good. Great. So the Locarno worked, right? It’s out where it’s supposed to be?”
“Matt. We don’t know that either.”
“When will we know?”
“It’ll take a while. The only thing I can figure is that the onboard system didn’t trigger the radio when it was supposed to.”
“Yeah,” said Matt. “That sounds like what happened.”
“There’s another possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“You remember we talked about uncertainties in the theory? It’s why we had the fudge factor in the timing. We weren’t sure precisely how far it would go.”
“Sure.”
“It might have gone a lot farther than we thought.”
“You mean it might have traveled longer than the six seconds it was supposed to?”
“Maybe. Or it might have stayed with the original program. And covered a lot more ground than we expected it to.”
Hutchins had spent the evening with friends and gotten in at about eleven. Her AI commiserated with her, and the house that night felt emptier than usual.
She’d never really put much confidence in the Locarno. It had been a shot in the dark. She’d spent her career with the Hazeltine, and it was hard to accept the idea that there might be a more efficient system. Getting old, she told herself. She’d become resistant to change. But still, going to Pluto in a few seconds was just too much. Nevertheless, she was glad to see someone trying. Even if she doubted the motivation. Jon seemed less interested in providing impetus to the interstellar effort than he did in garnishing his own reputation. She’d heard his claims about doing it all for Henry Barber, and maybe there was some truth to them. But she wondered whether, in his eyes, Henry Barber’s significance didn’t lie in the fact that he’d provided an opportunity for Jon to make a splash.
Well, however that might be, Jon was a decent enough guy, and maybe even a world-class physicist. There was no way she could judge that. Unless he managed to put something out on the edge of the solar system in about the same time that it took her to get to the kitchen.
She had too much adrenaline flowing to try to sleep, so she grabbed a snack and sat down with a murder mystery. George provided the appropriate musical score, and she was thoroughly caught up in it when Jon called with the news.
Thank God.
Chapter 15
It was the supreme moment of Jon’s life. Even the news that Henry Barber found him acceptable, thought he could help the Locarno research effort, paled into insignificance. But there was, of course, no time to celebrate.
Why was the radio signal almost eight hours late? “The lander’s pretty old,” the watch officer told him, in a tone that suggested it was a sufficient explanation.
“All right,” Jon said. “Can I send it a message now?”
The watch officer pushed a press pad and a light went on. “Go ahead, sir.”
Where are you, Henry? Jon folded his arms and took a deep breath. “Henry,” he said. “Come home. Signal when you get here.”
The chief of the watch had been standing off to one side. He was a thin guy with sharp eyes and a pointed brown beard. He’d betrayed no previous reaction, but now he came over and looked down at Jon. He didn’t know what to think. “Did it work?” he asked.
“Maybe,” said Jon. “We’ll see.”
Only one of the five stations in the ops center was manned. It had obviously been designed in a more optimistic time.
He called Rudy, woke him out of a sound sleep. He was still in his hotel room. “So what’s going on?” Rudy asked. “Why didn’t we get the reply this afternoon?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Probably a problem with the wiring. Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out after the lander gets back here. It’ll be in when? About five?”
“If it’s out near Pluto, yes. Maybe a little closer to six. It would have to recharge before starting back.”
“Okay. I’ll be down in the ops center.”
“I’ve a suggestion, Rudy.”
“Okay?”
“Don’t set any alarms. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
As Hutch had suggested, Rudy had been delighted to offer the use of the Preston to retrieve the lander. Jon had arranged to hire a pilot. But when no signal had been returned, he’d canceled. Now he rescheduled, listened to some grumbling about it being the middle of the night, and how they couldn’t make any guarantees about 6 A.M. “Not going to be easy to find anybody on this kind of short notice.” He said he’d do what he could, but warned Jon there’d be a substantial service fee.
Jon thought about it. He didn’t think anything was going to happen at six anyhow. “Let it go,” he said. “Can you set it up for tomorrow afternoon?”
The exhilaration that had come with the signal had drained off. He wasn’t sure why, but he just wanted the whole business to be over. Wanted to be sure everything was okay. To go out and bring in the lander.
He went back to his hotel room but was unable to sleep. At three thirty he called Union Ops. “The Preston’s ready to go,” they told him. “Whenever you are.”
At four, he went down to the Quarter Moon and had breakfast. Coffee, bacon, scrambled eggs, and home fries. He was getting ready to leave when Rudy came in. “Couldn’t sleep,” Rudy said.
“Me neither.”
Rudy settled for coffee. On the far side of the room, a Chinese group was celebrating something. There were speeches and periodic applause.
Rudy started talking about the future of the Foundation. How the Locarno Drive would change everything. Fire up everybody’s imagination. Jon said he hoped so. And eventually it was five thirty, and they finished up and went down to the operations center. The same watch officer was on duty. He looked up when they came in. “Nothing yet, Dr. Silvestri,” he said.
Of course not. It was still early.
Fifteen minutes later the chief of the watch showed up. He knew Rudy, told him he was glad to see him, and wished Jon good luck.
Jon was glad the place was empty this time. It had been horribly uncomfortable standing in front of all those people, waiting for a transmission that never came. Most embarrassing moment he could remember.
The clock ticked down to 5:58. Zero hour.
And crept past it.
To 5:59.
And five after six.
Rudy glanced at him. His mouth twisted. “It’s lost again.”
“No,” said Jon. “I think we’re getting good news.”
“How,” asked Rudy, “could this possibly be good?”
Jon considered the question. “Were you planning on going back down today?”
“Yes,” he said. “No point staying here.”
“Why don’t you hang on a bit?”