“That's correct, Senator. A good example would be the Capella.”
“The Capella. Yes.”
“I wish you luck.”
“You sound doubtful, Alex. And I guess you're justified feeling that way. Sometime between now and maybe the next election cycle or the one after that, somebody will introduce a cost-cutting measure and I'm concerned that the Deep-Time Rescue Provision will be among the first casualties.”
Alex shrugged. No surprise there. “Would they take any heat for that?”
“To be honest, I think we need something that isn't three decades away. If we don't do something now, the commission will get put on the back burner. It might not happen right away. In fact, it almost certainly won't. But, eventually, there'll be a serious need somewhere else, and it'll coincide with some economic problems, and that'll be the end of it.”
“So what do we do? Do you have a suggestion?”
“Would you be willing to make an initial grant? A nominal amount. Just something to get it started. Say, ten thousand?”
“To what purpose?”
“To establish the Alex Benedict Foundation, which would be dedicated to coordinating future rescue operations of vehicles lost on interstellar flights. You get it up and running, and I'll see that it's funded. That way it gets put on the calendar, it becomes a functioning entity, and it's considerably harder to shut down.”
A week later, we officially launched the effort. Melissa took over as volunteer chair, I signed on to do public relations, and contributions began rolling in. We named it the Dot Garber Foundation.
At about the same time, we attended a memorial service for Dot. I don't think the family was happy to see us there, but Melissa came over and embraced us, and returned a few minutes later with Dot's parents. “Alex tried to discourage her from making the attempt,” she told them. “But she rescued Sabol and Cori. And she was going back for more. Would you have been proud of her if she'd thought of herself first?”
The father's name was Stan, and he stared at the sky while Melissa talked. When she was done, he glared at Alex. Then he shrugged. “I don't guess there's much to be done about it at this point.”
“She's a hero,” I said.
The mother, whose name was also Dot, managed a smile. “I'm sorry, Mr. Benedict,” she said. “I know it wasn't your fault. I guess it wasn't anybody's fault.”
I think everybody who'd been on the rescue flight was also there, Allie, Jon, Cal, Michael, the other pilots, and their passengers. And Shara. “Dot was something else,” Shara told me at one point. “She was the woman I'd want to have at my back if things went wrong.” Then she grinned at me. “Not that you wouldn't do in an emergency.”
It was a cool, crisp morning. The sun floated through a cloudless sky, and a strong wind was coming out of the north. The service was conducted in a small chapel on the outskirts of Andiquar. They couldn't get everybody inside, but those who couldn't make it simply stood around on the chapel grounds. When the service ended, the mourners filed out and milled about, talking in low voices, shaking their heads- she was so young, let us know if there's anything we can do, stay in touch.
I don't much like memorial services and good-byes. I get annoyed when someone goes on about how, well, they're in a better place now. Frolicking in the green pastures. It reminds me how good we are at pretending. My bedroom, when I was growing up, had a picture of two kids, a boy and a girl, crossing a rickety bridge over a swollen river. The bridge looks about to give way, but it's okay, because there's an angel hovering immediately behind the kids, arms outstretched, ready to step in if necessary. As I grew up, I came to realize there were no angels, and kids did fall from bridges.
Then I thought of Cori and Sabol, and of Dot risking her life to carry them back to the McCandless. Maybe, sometimes, there were angels.
Alex was quiet on the way back to the country house. We'd been together a good many years by then, and I'd come to take my life with him for granted. And I guess I took him for granted. He was easygoing most of the time, an ideal boss, sometimes moody, always ready to head off for lunch. And I loved him. As we settled onto the pad that morning, I realized that the day would come when I'd do anything to be back in that moment, to have him at my side again. Everything's temporary, he liked to say. It was why Rainbow Enterprises prospered, people trying to recapture a piece of the past. To hang on as best they can.
FORTY-ONE
Truth is overrated. Sometimes it's better to believe the fable.
At about the same time the doctors told Melissa it was now safe for Cori and Sabol to mingle with the rest of the world, we got a call from Charlie. “We're coming home,” he said. He had made himself into a duplicate of Rod Baker, the vid action-adventure star. He was dressed like Rod, for the trail, with a blaster in his belt and a forest green canyon hat pulled low over his eyes. He looked great. “We're a few hours out from Skydeck. I was wondering if you guys would be up for a party tomorrow night? “
“Absolutely, Charlie,” I said. “I'll check with Alex. But I'll be there for sure. I take it the flight was successful.”
“We did pretty well. We recovered eight Betas. Including one that Alex will be especially interested in.”
“How do you mean?”
“Jorge can provide a play-by-play account of the last days at Parnassus House, when they were trying to get everybody off-world.”
“What's Parnassus House?”
“Alex will know. It was the world's nerve center when they were having their collapse. Anyhow, we're going to have a celebration tomorrow at Doc's place. You know where it is?”
“Yes.”
“We aren't going to make a formal announcement yet of what we have. The plan is to wait awhile.”
“Why's that?”
“At the moment, you and Alex and Dot are all the news. We don't want to crowd you. By the way, I was sorry to hear about her. About Dot. She must have been a remarkable woman.”
Parnassus House, Alex said, was the place where, during the final days on Villanueva, executive decisions got made. “We don't have a clear picture of events at the end. It's so long ago. There are all kinds of conflicting stories. Margus Virandi was a heroic leader who seized control from Philip Klaus, an indecisive idiot who operated inside a bubble and never seemed to know what was going on. Virandi lost an arm during the coup, but he made the right calls and saved a lot of lives, ultimately sacrificing himself by staying too long. Or, he was a power-crazy nut who thought the predictions about the encroaching cloud were a conspiracy designed to make Klaus look heroic. And in the end he got a lot of people killed unnecessarily.”
“I can't believe,” I said, “nobody ever went in there before this to pick up the AI.”
“In fact, there were at least two attempts. Both failed, and in one of them the entire mission got wiped out. Nobody really knew where the AI was. I suspect Doc succeeded because he had Charlie along.”
“Maybe,” I said, “they'll give Charlie an award.” Nothing like that had ever happened before. And, of course, it didn't happen that time. In fact, nobody got an award.
If Doc Drummond had any serious intention of keeping his find quiet, he was dreaming. Whenever someone goes out of Skydeck on an operation in which the media are interested, there's no way it can return without someone's blowing the whistle. Usually, it's the operations people. Or one of the bosses. In return, they get to meet and sometimes even hang out with people like Brockton Moore, the host of Round Table.
The result was that Drummond was confronted by reporters when they were still two hours out from Skydeck. He'd been subjected to some media attention when he'd left several weeks earlier, but that had been nothing compared with the reception on their return. The media were not, however, all that interested in the historical aspects of the mission.