Their first target was about forty million klicks long, maybe a million across. The dust was less concentrated than it appeared from a distance, and the sensors were able to penetrate it quite easily. “Dust and rocks all the way through,” said Matt.
The Preston lay off at a safe distance while the McAdams went in close, within a few kilometers, and, in effect, took the cloud’s temperature. Jim reported that conditions inside, so far as the initial readings were concerned, showed results well within anticipated parameters. No anomalies.
They moved along the face of the cloud for about an hour, recharged the Locarno, jumped twelve million kilometers, and repeated the process.
“Within anticipated parameters,” said Jim.
They moved to the next cloud, this time with the Preston doing the honors while Matt and Jon watched.
The individual clouds are spectacular. Having to watch them on a display doesn’t do them justice. I wish it were possible to stick my head out the door and look at this thing, really look at it. In this close, I suspect it would appear like a wall across the universe.
Chapter 34
They named the clouds alphabetically as they progressed. The first one was Aggie, supposedly a morose aunt of Matt’s. The second was Bill, who had been a grouchy editor early in Antonio’s career.
They went to a round-the-clock search pattern, with one of the two pilots awake at all times. They stayed outside the clouds, one vehicle close in, the one with the functioning pilot, and the other at a respectful distance.
Hutch admitted to Antonio that she could not imagine how any directed operation could function out here. The place was indeed a cosmic cookpot, a cauldron of churning clouds and enormous jets. She suspected stellar collisions were not uncommon.
Toward the end of the second week, while they were completing their search of Charlotte, Phyl announced that she had sighted another group of omegas. Four this time.
They glittered like distant fires, flaring and dimming in the shifting light of the Cauldron.
“They track to Cloud F,” she said.
F for Frank.
Frank was a cloud of moderate size. Like all the others, it was long and narrow, aimed toward Sag A* by the relentless gravity. They passed a stellar corpse on approach. And several red stars.
“Length of the cloud,” said Phyl, “is eighty billion kilometers.” Almost seven times the diameter of the solar system. Like everything else at this range from Sag A*, it was orbiting the core at about 220 kps. Frank would need about 480,000 years to complete an orbit.
It was the Preston’s turn to go in close and look. But they changed the routine: Both pilots would remain awake during the search. At the end of the day, they’d simply call it off and start fresh in the morning.
Antonio watched nervously as Hutch took station about eighty kilometers out from the edge of the cloud. Matt retreated to six million klicks.
“We safe at this range?” asked Antonio.
“Probably not,” she said.
The cloud had become a vast, amorphous wall. It extended above and below the ship, fore and aft on the starboard side, to the limits of vision. It was alive with energy, riven near the surface by enormous lightning bolts, illuminated deep within by flashes and glimmerings.
Antonio knew the history, had read of that first encounter with an omega, when Hutchins and a few others at a place they called Delta had been attacked by lightning bolts, had tried to ride a lander to safety while directed lightning rained down out of the sky. He was impressed that she would tempt fate again.
Two red jets arced through the night, brightening the face of the cloud. “It’s probably a pulsar,” Antonio said. “This area must be littered with burned-out supernovas.”
Hutch had been unusually quiet. They were both on the bridge, belted down in case they had to leave in a hurry. She was checking something off in a notebook and simultaneously watching as the insubstantial wall rippled past. “Hutch,” he said, “answer a question.”
“If I can.”
“You’re disappointed, aren’t you? All this way, and there’s not really going to be anything we can do here. Even if this cloud really is the source, it’s just too big.”
She adjusted course, pulling a little closer. A sudden flash dazzled them. “We don’t know that yet,” she said. “To be honest, Antonio, I’m not entirely sure I want to meet whatever’s putting the omegas in play. I’m perfectly willing to let somebody else have that honor.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Her eyes looked far away. “This feels like the start of a new phase. I mean, the Locarno Drive and the possibilities it opens.”
“And—?”
Her eyes drifted back to the screen. The wall had gone dark. “I’d like to shut them down.” She realized how unrealistic that was, and shrugged. “The truth, Antonio, is that I never believed in this part of the operation. I went along with it because it was what Rudy wanted to do. And maybe he was right. At least we’ve come out here. Now we can shake our fist at them, I guess, and go home.”
It was Antonio’s turn to fall silent. He was thinking that if he could go back and make a few changes in his life, he’d do some things differently. He wasn’t sure what. He knew he could never have done the things she had. He couldn’t seriously imagine himself at the controls of a superluminal. Wouldn’t have wanted to make some of the life-and-death decisions she’d been forced to make. He’d been Dr. Science. A pretend astrophysicist. And he’d covered scientific developments for several news organizations. It hadn’t been a bad career, really. He’d been a minor celebrity, he’d been paid reasonably well, and he liked to think he’d been responsible for turning some kids on to scientific careers.
But he wasn’t really going anywhere. When his time came to retire, when he’d pulled the pin and gone back home, no one would ever remember him. Maybe they’d remember Dr. Science. But not Antonio Giannotti.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Hutch,” he said.
That brought a smile. “Thank you, Antonio. You’re a bit of a looker yourself.”
“That’s good of you to say, Priscilla. But I was never much able to turn heads.”
She studied him for a long moment. “You might have turned mine, Antonio.” She switched back to the AI. “Phyl?”
“Yes, Hutch?”
“Still no indication of activity?”
“Negative. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
The wall had become almost a blur. “How fast are we traveling?” he asked.
“Relative to the cloud, we’re moving at almost seventy-five thousand.” That was, of course, kilometers per hour.
“How long would it take us to look at the entire thing?”
“At this rate?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a long cloud.”
“Right. I know.”
She passed the question to Phyl. Phyl’s electronics picked up a notch, the equivalent of clearing her throat. “About 130 years.”
Antonio grinned.
“That would be just one side,” Phyl continued. “To do it properly, multiply the figure by four.”
The situation was not made easier by the fact that the cloud was simply too big for the sensors to penetrate adequately. “Somebody could be planting lemon trees in that thing,” Hutch said, “and we wouldn’t know it.” The displays showed murky and overcast. The ship’s navigation lights were smeared across the screens. “What do you want to do?” she asked him.