Emma smiled. “That’ll be another warning to play it safe,” she said.
“Let’s see what she has to say for herself, Bill.”
The overhead screen blinked on, first the Academy seal, a scroll and lamp framing the blue Earth of the United World, and then Hutch. She was seated on the edge of her desk.
“Emma,” she said, “Sky, I thought you’d be interested in the preliminary results we’re getting. It looks as if, when these things blow up, they’re not ordinary explosions. I can’t explain this exactly, but I suspect Emma will be able to. The energy release is sculpted. That’s the term the researchers are using. They think it’s designed for a specific purpose.
“We hope, when you’re finished out there, we’ll have a better idea what the purpose is. And we appreciate what you’ve been doing. I know it’s not the most rousing assignment in the world.”
She lifted a hand in farewell, the seal came back, and the monitor shut down. Sky looked at his wife. “Sculpted?”
“Just like the lady says,” said Emma. “Think of it as a blast in which the energy doesn’t just erupt, but instead constitutes a kind of code.”
“To do what?”
She gazed at the image of the omega, floating serenely on the auxiliary screen. “Sometimes,” she said, “to excite nanos. Get them to perform.”
THE PACKAGES ARRIVED in the vicinity of the hedgehog and opened up. Twelve sets of thrusters assembled themselves, collected their fuel tanks, and circled the hedgehog. At a signal, each located the specific site it had been designed for and used its set of magnetic clamps to attach itself. The twelve sites had been carefully chosen, because on this most uneven object, the thrusters lined up almost perfectly parallel with each other. They would function as retrorockets.
“Everything’s in place,” said Bill. “Ready to proceed.”
“Execute, Bill.”
The thrusters fired in unison. And continued to fire.
Satisfied, Sky got himself a mug of Emma’s soup.
“You do good work, darling,” she said.
“Yes, I do.” He reclaimed his seat and slowly put away the soup. Bill screened the figures on deceleration rate, the fuel supplies left in the retros, and attitude control.
There had been some concern that the magnetic clamps would set the device off, but that had happily not occurred.
They were in a dark place, in the well between stars, where no sun illuminated the sky. It wasn’t like a night sky seen from Earth. You knew you were far out in the void. There was no charm, no bright sense of distant suns and constellations. The only thing he felt was distance.
“Retro fuel running low,” said Bill. “Two minutes.”
The important thing was to shut them all down simultaneously, and not let one or more run out of fuel and cause the others to push the thing off-course.
“Bill, where will we be if we shut down with thirty seconds remaining?”
“The hedgehog will have shed 30 kph.”
“Okay. That means the cloud will overtake it when?”
“In sixty days. June 27.”
“Good. Let’s do it.”
“I DON’T LIKE these things, Em.” He pushed himself out of the chair.
“Nor do I,” she said.
He gazed down at the navigation screen, which had set up a sixty-day calendar and clock, and begun ticking off the seconds.
“I’m going to turn in.”
She nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll be along in a minute.” She was looking at the cloud. It was dark and quiet. Peaceful. In the vast emptiness, it would not have been possible to realize it was racing through the heavens.
“What are you thinking, Em?”
“About my dad. I remember one night he told me how things changed when people found out about the omegas.”
“In what way?”
“Until then,” he said, “people always thought they were at the center of things. The universe was made for us. The only part of it that thinks. Our God was the universal God and He even paid a visit. We were in charge.
“I never really thought that way. I more or less grew up with the clouds.” She touched the screen, and the picture died. “I wish we could kill it,” she said.
LIBRARY ENTRY
The omegas are a footprint, a signal to us that something far greater than we is loose in the galaxy. Once we used our churches to demonstrate that we were kings of creation, the purpose for it all. Now we use them to hide.
— Gregory MacAllister
“The Flower Girl Always Steals the Show”
Editor-at-Large, 2220
chapter 18
On board the Jenkins.
Tuesday, May 6.
“NEVER SAW ANYTHING like it,” said Mark Stevens, the captain of the Cumberland, as he docked with the Jenkins. He was referring to the omega. “Damned thing’s got tentacles.”
That was the illusion. Jack explained how the braking maneuver tended to throw it around a good bit, tossed giant plumes forward as it slowed down. And more plumes out to port as it continued a long slow turn. “Gives me the chills,” said Stevens.
Jack Markover was a Kansas City product, middle-class parents, standard public school education, two siblings. He’d gotten engaged right after high school, an arrangement heartily discouraged by his parents, who had assumed all along that he’d go to medical school, succeeding where his father had failed.
Jack and the young woman, Myra Kolcheska, eventually ran off, sparking a battle between the families that ultimately erupted in full-blown lawsuits. Meantime, the subjects of the quarrel both lost their nerve at the altar. Let’s give it some time. See how it plays out. Last he’d heard, she was married to a booking agent.
Jack never got close to medicine. For one thing, he had a weak stomach. For another his mother was a hypochondriac and he always felt sorry for the doctor who had to listen to her complaints. He suspected that doctors’ offices were full of hypochondriacs. Not for him, he’d decided early on.
He’d gone to the University of Kansas, expecting to major in accounting, but had gotten bored, discovered an affinity for physics, and the rest, as they say, was history. No big prizes and no major awards. But he was a gifted teacher, good at getting the arcane out there on the table where students could either understand it or at least grasp why no human being anywhere could understand it. And now he’d acquired a place in history. He was the discoverer of the Goompahs. He could write his memoirs and toss down scotch and soda for the rest of his life if he wanted.
THE CUMBERLAND BROUGHT fuel, food, water, wine, all kinds of electronic pickups, some spare parts for the ship, and assorted trinkets that someone thought could be used as gifts to win over the natives. They consisted mostly of electronic toys that blinked and donged and walked around. Stevens smiled while he showed them to Jack. “Not exactly in the spirit of the Protocol,” he said.
Jack nodded. “We won’t be using them.”
The big item in the shipment, other than the pickups, was a set of six lightbenders. “Did you bring one for the lander?” asked Kellie.
Stevens looked blank. “For the lander? No, I don’t think so.” He opened his notebook and flipped through. “Negative,” he said. “Was there supposed to be one?”
“Yes,” said Jack. “They assured us it would be here.”
“Somebody screwed up. I’ll look around in the hold. Maybe they loaded it without making an entry, but I doubt it.”
He went back through the airlock while Jack and Digger grumbled about bureaucrats. It took less than five minutes before his voice sounded on the commlink. “Nothing here.”
“Okay,” said Jack.
“I’ll let them know. Get them to send it out right away.”
“Please.”