They waited, not talking much, watching the screens for incoming visuals, keeping track of the broadcast status of their own package.
Not long after it had run a second time, Ali reported another scan.
And more than an hour later, still another. “Every sixty-three minutes, looks like,” he said.
The afternoon wore on. Eventually Tesla wandered off to the washroom.
They had dinner at six. It was quieter than usual and they exhorted one another on the need for patience. Ali, who usually ate in the pilot’s room, dined with them.
The scans continued through the evening, always separated by sixty-three minutes and seventeen seconds. “We’re probably going to have to wait while whatever’s out there communicates with its home base,” said Matt. “If they have nothing better than hypercomm, that could take a while.”
That possibility cheered no one. But Kim thought that the present situation was a distinct improvement over the response she and Solly had encountered.
She gave up at eleven-thirty and went to bed, read for an hour from a collection of political essays, and finally dropped off to sleep. She woke again around three, wandered out into the corridor and made for the washroom. Downstairs she could hear voices in the mission center, Sandra and Eric, and somebody else she couldn’t make out.
Sandra was laughing.
A few minutes later she was just returning to her compartment when Ali’s voice crackled over the comm. “Kim, I hate to wake you—”
“Go ahead, Ali. I’m here.”
“We haven’t had a response. But there’s something else you should see. Can you come over for a minute?”
She threw on a robe and crossed the hall to the pilot’s room.
Ali sat in front of one of the auxiliary screens. As she entered, he turned toward her. “The fleet’s arrived,” he said.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. But that brought a stab of disappointment. “Our fleet?”
“Yes, indeed. A banshee and a pair of escorts.”
“Coming this way?”
He nodded.
“How much time do we have?”
“Before they get here? About eight hours.”
“That’s not so good,” said Kim.
“They appeared on the scopes a few minutes ago.”
“But they couldn’t have been the source of the scans?”
“Negative. No way.”
Well, she thought, at least somebody’s coming to talk to us.
34
Silence is deep as Eternity.
By morning nothing had changed. “To tell you the truth,” Ali said, “being watched by something I can’t see is uncomfortable. I’m glad the banshee’s here. Makes me feel a lot safer.”
Kim drank her coffee without replying. By now everyone on board knew that the fleet had arrived. Some admitted feeling the way Ali did. But they all knew it spelled the end of the mission.
The scan warning blinked on, burned steadily for three seconds, and went off. They were always three-second flashes now, still coming on their precise schedule. “You think the banshee’s getting the same treatment?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“I wonder what they make of it.”
“For sure they’re not happy. They’re probably keeping everybody close to battle stations.”
“Incoming from the fleet,” said the AI.
Ali glanced at Kim. “Maybe they’ll tell us. Okay, Mac, let’s hear it.”
“Audio only. Relaying.”
Kim sank back in her cushions.
“McCollum, this is the commanding officer of the RE Dauntless.” The voice rumbled with authority. “You’re directed to leave this area immediately.”
She looked at Ali. “They don’t have any authority out here, do they?”
Ali made a face. “Technically, no,” he said.
“So tell him to go harass somebody else. He’s interfering with a civilian enterprise. Here, I’ll tell him—”
She reached for a headset but All held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Kim. I have to cooperate. It would be my license.”
“But you said—”
“I said technically they have no authority. But we’re Greenway registry. They have lawyers.”
“Everybody’s worried about his job,” she grumbled.
“Well, what do you expect?” he demanded, frustrated. “We’ve had almost a week out here. What’s happening that’s worth making major sacrifices for?” He switched on the speaker. “Captain, we’ll start preparations for departure immediately.”
“Not just yet, Captain Kassem,” said the Dauntless. “Do you have a Dr. Kimberly Brandywine on board?”
Ali looked sidewise at her.
“Go to visual,” said Kim.
The warship’s commander was tall, blond, with wide-set blue eyes and a neatly trimmed mustache. There was no evidence of flexibility in his rock-hard features. This was not a man with whom she would want to negotiate. “Go ahead, Captain. This is Dr. Brandywine.”
“Doctor, I’m informed you’re in possession of a piece of government property. Is it with you now?”
She looked toward Ali.
He shook his head. No use lying. They’d only board and search. “It is,” she said.
“Very good. Please use care with it. We’ll be drawing alongside shortly. I’ll expect you to have it ready for me.”
He signed off.
“It probably doesn’t matter anyhow,” Ali said. “You can’t give the Valiant back to the owners if they don’t even want to say hello.” He looked subdued.
“Are we still sending out the vocabulary package?”
“Every sixty minutes.”
Everything was coming apart. The Valiant would go into a government laboratory somewhere, search efforts for the civilization which produced it would be misdirected, and Kim would not hear about butterflies and shrouds again during the course of her lifetime. The world would never learn of the sacrifice made by the celestials at Mount Hope. And when we do finally meet, at whatever remote date that might be, it will be as potential antagonists. “Every hour,” she said. “That seems stupid, doesn’t it? Under the circumstances? I mean, we’re not getting any results.”
“We don’t seem to be.”
“Shut it down, Ali. We’ve still got some time. Let’s try something else.” She brought up the Valiant package, the Valiant running beneath crescent moons, the Valiant hovering in the sky over the nightside of a world illuminated by vast pools of light, the Valiant fleeing before an exploding nova. Kim had done her work well, and the ship looked by turns regal and exotic and elegant. The only thing it lacked was a clean red-orange flame from a pair of thrusters. “Send these,” she said. “Send them all.”
Ali passed the instructions to the AI. “Canceling second-phase package,” it said. “Proceeding with Valiant transmission.”
They watched the console. Lights blinked, and the visuals went out.
There was a terrace on the second level with an aft view. Nobody was using it, and Kim strolled onto it and stood in the starlight looking at the sky. The banshee and its escorts were back there somewhere, less than two hours away.
“It was a good try, Kim.” The voice startled her. It was Matt’s, and she read concern in his face. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“I don’t,” she said.
His tone changed. Grew optimistic. “You’ve confirmed a major discovery. We know they’re here. And we have an artifact. That’s not a bad piece of work.”
“We also know,” she said, “that if we ever are able to talk to celestials, what their first question’s going to be.”
“Well, we’ll just have to explain as best we can.”
“Killed the crew and took the ship. Good luck to us, Matt.”