His face wrinkled and he made growling noises in his throat. “That could get a little uncomfortable, couldn’t it?”
“We’d probably have to violate the Protocol.”
He waved the problem away. “No,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. There’s no one there.”
“How can you be sure?”
“There’s never anybody there.” He smiled paternally at her and studied his glass. “I’ve been in this office, or otherwise associated with the Academy, for more than twenty years. Do you know how many times we’ve gotten reports that somebody thought they’d found someone? And you know how many times it actually happened?”
“Twice,” she said. That would be the Angels. And the Hawks.
“That’s right. And you were there for one of those. Now if we go back another twenty-five years, there are two more. That makes four. In all that time. Out of thousands of systems visited. Four. I suggest we put it aside and find more important things to worry about.”
The door opened behind her, as if by magic, and he was ushering her out of the room.
“If it happens,” she persisted, “we’re going to be pressed for time.”
“We’ll worry about it when it does, Priscilla.” His smile disappeared as if someone had thrown a switch.
HUTCH CALLED UP the archive files on the Pasquarella, the first vehicle lost researching the clouds. That had been twenty years before. It was a voice-only, the voice belonging to Meg Campbell, the only person on the ship. Hutch had seen Meg once, from the back of a lecture hall. She’d been a tall woman, dark hair, lots of presence. Very sure of herself.
Hutch played it through, listened to the voice she remembered, not from the long-ago presentation, but because she’d played that same record any number of times. Meg had gone three times into the cloud, each descent deeper, each time encountering more electronic interference.
She hadn’t come back from the third descent. A search had revealed nothing, and on July 14, 2211, the Pasquarella was officially designated lost.
In the middle of the recording, Barbara’s voice broke in. “Transmission for you, ma’am. From Serenity.”
She switched off the recording. “Put it up, Barb.”
As soon as she saw Audrey’s face, she knew there was bad news. “Hutch,” Audrey said, “we lost contact with the Quagmor at 0014 hours 24 February. The AI went down without warning. They found an artifact yesterday in the vicinity of the Bumblebee and were investigating. The Heffernan has been diverted and will arrive in the area in three days. Record from Quagmor is attached.”
Her stomach churned. It was possible there was nothing more to it than a communication breakdown. Then she watched the attached report.
NEWSDESK
PITCHERS, CATCHERS REPORT TO SPRING TRAINING
Forty-six Teams Start Today
STRANDED ORCA RESCUED IN PUGET SOUND
AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS STILL LOSING GROUND
Who Was Churchill? Nobody Knows
GOMORRAH COUNTY RESIDENTS SUE TO CHANGE NAME
MASKED ROBBER WEARS NAME ON ARM
Tattoo Leads to Arrest
ORBITAL AMUSEMENT PARK GETS OKAY
ZeroGee Will Open in Two Years
UNN SURVEY: HALF OF ALL AMERICANS BELIEVE ASTROLOGY WORKS
WHO WILL BE ONE-HUNDREDTH PRESIDENT?
Campaign Gets Under Way in Utah, Ontario
BASEBALL: MOVE TO OUTLAW ENHANCEMENTS GAINS STEAM
Evidence Mounts of Long-term Damage
GREAT GATSBY FIRST EDITION SELLS FOR 3.6 MILLION
IBC WARNS OF STRONGER HURRICANES
Southern Coast Overdue for Big One
chapter 4
On board the William B. Jenkins.
Tuesday, February 25.
EXCEPT FOR ONE person, the research team on the Jenkins was delighted to be diverted. The fact that an omega had veered into a planetary system might mean they were close to finding the grail, a living alien civilization. A real one, something more exotic than the Angels, who were pretechnological barbarians, or the Noks, who were industrial-age barbarians. The exception was Digby Dunn, who would ordinarily have joined in the general elation. But Digby was in love with the captain. Her name was Kellie Collier, and Digby’s passion for her was both intense and unrelenting.
On the whole, it had been a painful experience. Love affairs always include an element of discomfort; it is part of what makes them life-changing ventures. But this one had been extraordinarily difficult. Passengers may not touch the captain. Bad for morale and all that. Impossible situation, Digger. We’ll just have to wait until we get clear. Be patient and everything’ll be fine.
She smiled, that gorgeous, alluring smile, rendered even more seductive because she was trying to make it impersonal, friendly, understanding. Lose my job, she’d added on occasion when he’d tried to press her.
They’d been headed back to the station when the call came. We’ve got an omega changing course. Turn left and find out what’s going on. See what it’s after.
So Digby, an anthropologist by trade, but riding as a volunteer with a survey mission that was gathering information about local stars and planetary systems, pretended to be pleased, exchanged platitudes with everybody, and aimed pained glances at Kellie.
“Sorry,” she told him. “But look, it’ll be quick. In and out, see what’s there, and then back to Broadside. We’re only talking a couple of extra weeks.”
She was tall and lovely with soft black skin and luminous eyes and she made every other woman in his life seem hopelessly dull. Ah yes, how he’d like to take her out on an expedition to unearth a few ancient cookpots. But he resigned himself to making an occasional grab, which she usually—but not always—declined with stern disapproval. “Be patient,” she told him. “Our time is coming.”
The Jenkins was more than three thousand light-years out, and they held the current record for going farther from Earth than any other ship. They’d been away from Broadside almost a year. It had been a long and lonely voyage by any standard, broken only by an occasional rendezvous with a supply vessel.
A rendezvous was always a special occasion. There had been a push at the Academy to automate replenishment, to send the sandwiches in a ship directed only by an AI. Asquith had been unable to see the point of sending a captain along since it cost a great deal more, and it was hard to visualize a situation in which human judgment might be needed. But somebody apparently understood what seeing a fresh face could mean when you were out in the deeps.
Jack Markover had thrown his weight into the fight by threatening to quit and hold a news conference if they took the human captains off the run. The commissioner had backed down, pretended it had been someone else’s idea, and it had been quietly put aside.
Jack was the chief of mission. He was a little man with a hawk face and too much energy. He loved his work and, if he’d been forced to follow through on his threat, would not have survived. He talked about retirement a lot, usually during the gray hours when the Jenkins was in hyperflight, and the hours were long and quiet. But Digger knew he’d never step down, that one day they’d have to haul him off and lock him away.
Digger had never quite figured out what Jack’s specialty was. He was from the American Midwest, a quiet, dedicated type with doctorates in physics and literature. There seemed to be no field of human knowledge in which he did not speak as an expert. Acquainted with all, he was fond of saying, knowledgeable in none.
The comment could hardly have been less true. Where Digger knew the ground, the man inevitably had his facts down. He was the only person Digger knew who could explain Radcliffe’s equations, quote Paradise Lost, discuss the implications of the Dialogues, play Mozart with panache, and hold forth on the history of the Quraquat.