He looked shocked. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Sure I did. You just don’t listen unless I beat on the table. The whole Colby line is unsafe. We’re taking people’s lives in our hands. You and me. It’s time to go talk to your friends on Capitol Hill.”
“All right,” he said. “Okay. Keep calm. Take a look at what you think we have to do. Give me a plan, and we’ll go from there. I’ll do what I can.”
MOST OF THE reporters were scattered around the world in remote locations, but twenty or so showed up physically for the briefing, which was being held on the first floor of the conference center. Hutch watched from her office.
Eric, who pretended to believe Michael Asquith was a leader of uncommon ability, made a brief opening statement, reiterating what the journalists had by then already learned, that the Heffernan, while in hyperspace, had apparently developed a problem with her engines, and was currently unaccounted for. “The Wildside is on its way, and will be on-site within twenty-four hours. The al-Jahani is also close by. We’re optimistic everything will be okay.”
The first question, the one they all knew was coming, was asked by the New York Times: “Eric, there’ve been reports of breakdowns throughout the Academy fleet recently. Just how safe are the starships? Would you put your family in one?”
Eric managed to look surprised that anyone would ask. “Of course,” he said. “People are safer in Academy vessels than they are crossing the street in front of their homes.”
The Roman Interface inquired whether the Academy fleet might be getting old.
“The ships are tried and proven.” Eric smiled, as if the question was foolish. No reason for concern. “If we thought any of our ships had become untrustworthy, we’d pull them out of service. It’s as simple as that. Robert?”
Robert Gall, of Independent News: “What actually happened out there? Why’d the engines fail?”
“It’s too soon to say. We’ll conduct an investigation as soon as we’re able. And the results will be made public.” He signaled a young brunette in the front row.
Her name was Janet and she worked for the Sidney Mirror: “Is there any truth to the story that funding cuts are responsible for the recent spate of accidents?”
“Janet, a few cases of mechanical malfunction do not constitute a spate of accidents. No, we have everything we need to perform our mission.”
“And how do you perceive your mission, Eric?” This came from Karl Menchik, who represented one of the Russian outlets and who, Hutch suspected, was a plant, accredited to ask softball questions and get Eric off the hook.
“To take the human race to the stars,” he said. “To set out across the infinite sea, to land on distant shores, and to report what’s out there.”
It could have come right off one of the monuments.
Interstellar flight has run its course. It has been a harmless diversion for the better part of a century, but it is time to move on. Sea levels are rising, famine is common in many parts of the globe, thousands of people die every day from a range of diseases for which cures exist but for various reasons are not available, and population continues to outrun resources. A quarter of the global population is illiterate.
It is time to rearrange priorities. We should begin by recalling the superluminals, which contribute nothing toward creating a better life for the planet’s inhabitants. Let’s put the exploration effort aside for the present. Let’s concentrate on solving our problems at home before we go wandering off to other worlds whose existence have no impact on anyone other than a few academics.
— Venice Times, lead editorial, Monday, February 16
chapter 4
We’re a population of dunces. Consider the level of entertainment available to the home. The single most valuable skill in showbiz seems to be the ability to fall, with panache, on one’s face.
— Gregory MacAllister, Life and Times
“I believe him.”
MacAllister stared down out of the taxi at the network of bridges and islands that was modern Tampa. “No question in your mind, Wolfie?”
“Well, you know how it is, Mac. I wouldn’t bet the house, but yeah, I’d have a hard time believing it didn’t happen exactly the way he said it did.”
Below him, the city was a complex network of canals. Beautiful from the air. A prime example of the human capability to make art out of bad news. But the oceans were still rising, and they’d have to redesign the place yet again when the ice cap went into the water or the next big hurricane came along.
Homo imbecilus.
“So are we going to do the story?”
“Hell, Wolfie, what’s the story? What do we have to say? That somebody’s out there riding around in black ships?”
“That’s what it’s beginning to look like.”
“Wolfie, you have any idea how that sounds?”
“Yeah, I do. Doesn’t mean there isn’t something to it.”
“It’s bogus. You have a combination of slick corporate types who want the government to put more money into space, and a general population that will believe anything. But go ahead. Run with it. See what you can come up with.”
IT FIT WITH an idea for a new book, a history of human gullibility. In eighty-six volumes. How people make things up, and other people buy in. Organized religions. Notions of national or racial superiority. Political parties. Economic boobery. Whole armies, for example, who thought they could earn indulgences by killing Arabs. Or the seventeenth-century Brits who concluded they were intended by God to carry His truth to the benighted. Or the lunatic Jihadists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. People still believed in astrology. And in cures that medical science didn’t want you to know about.
He was on a book tour, promoting Guts, Glory, and Chicken Soup, a collection of his essays. It had been a profitable trip so far. Readers had lined up in fourteen cities across the North American Union to buy his book and tell him they shared his views on politicians, college professors, bishops, the media, school boards, corporate service centers, professional athletes, and the voters. Well, some of them did. Others came to yell at him, to call him a rabble-rouser and an atheist and a threat to the welfare of the nation. In Orlando the previous evening he’d been told his mother must be ashamed (which, curiously enough, was true), and that no decent person would read his books. One woman offered to pray for him.
But they were buying Guts and Glory. It was jumping off the shelves. I wouldn’t read it myself, but I have a deranged brother. Sometimes they brought pies or whipped cream, hoping to get a clear shot at him, but the dealers knew feelings ran high when he was in town, so they disarmed everyone coming in the door.
In Houston, the mayor, anticipating his arrival, had given an interview saying no person was so disreputable that he wasn’t welcome in that fine city. The Boston Herald advised readers planning to attend the signing at Pergamo’s to keep their children home. In Toronto, a church group paraded outside the bookstore with signs telling him he was welcome at service if he wanted to save his soul.
He was used to it. Enjoyed it, in fact.
The taxi started down. MacAllister realized he was hungry. It was getting on to midmorning, and he hadn’t had anything other than toast and orange juice. He was scheduled to appear as a guest on Marge Dowling’s Up Front before going over to Arrowsmith’s later that afternoon for the signing. The show was at ten.
It was a bright, pleasant day. In February, Florida was always bright and pleasant. He hated pleasant weather. A little of it was all right, but he liked storms and snow, heavy winds, downpours. He didn’t understand why its residents didn’t move north.