“Anything else?”
“The waves are arcing outward in the general direction that the galaxy is turning. Joining the flow, I suppose.”
“And that’s it?”
“Pretty much.”
“It strikes me there’s not much we didn’t know twenty years ago. As to the questions that come to my mind, we don’t know where they come from. Or why they behave the way they do. We don’t even know if they’re natural objects.”
“That’s correct.”
“Or how to disable them.”
Hutch got up. She could feel energy radiating out of the woman. “They’re not easy to penetrate,” she said.
Alva smiled. “Like a virgin.”
Hutch didn’t reply.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The commlink blinked a couple of times, then shut off. Incoming traffic. Hyperlight from Broadside, personal for her.
Alva smiled politely and fixed Hutch with those dark eyes. The woman looked simultaneously amused and annoyed. “Are we making a serious effort?”
“Well,” said Hutch. “Of course.”
“But we’ve nothing to show. After twenty years. Thirty years, actually.”
“We’re working on it.” She was floundering.
Alva nodded. “We have to do better.”
“Alva—” She had to struggle to say the word. “There’s no hurry. I mean, the thing’s a thousand years away.”
Alva nodded again. But it wasn’t a concession, an acknowledgment that she had a point. Rather it was a recognition that Hutch was behaving exactly as expected, saying precisely what Alva had known all along she would say. She straightened her collar. “Hutch, you’ve been to Beta Pac.”
Home of the Monument-Makers, the lost race that had left majestic relics of their passing across several thousand light-years. Star-travelers while the Sumerians were learning to bake bricks. Nothing more than savages now, wandering through the ruins of their once-proud cities. “Yes, I’ve been there.”
“I have not.” Her eyes clouded. “I’ve seen quite enough decimation here at home.” Another long silence ensued. Then: “I understand the Monument-Makers knew about the omegas. Well in advance of their appearance at Beta Pac.”
“That’s correct. They even tried to divert the things at Quraqua and at Nok. To save the local inhabitants.”
“With no success.”
Hutch saw where this was going. “They cut cube moons and inserted them in orbit around Nok hoping the cloud would go for them instead of the cities.” She shrugged.
“In the end,” said Alva, “they couldn’t even save themselves.”
“No. They couldn’t. There’s evidence they packed up a substantial chunk of the population and cleared out.”
“Yet they had how long to prepare? Two thousand years?”
“A little longer, we think.”
She was on her feet now, moving to the window, drawn by the sunlight, but still not looking at anything. “How do you think that could have happened? Are the clouds so irresistible that even the Monument-Makers, given two millennia, couldn’t do something?”
“It’s probably not easy. To stop one of the omegas.”
“Hutch, I would suggest to you that two thousand years was too much time to get ready. That they probably put it off. Somebody else’s problem. Get to it next year. Or sometime during the next century. And they continued delaying until it became too late.”
“Maybe it’s too late already,” suggested Hutch. But she knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth that it had been the wrong thing to say.
Alva was a diminutive woman, but her presence filled the office. Overwhelmed it and left Hutch feeling like an intruder in her own space. “Maybe it is,” Alva said. “But we’d best not make that assumption.”
The office grew briefly darker, then brightened again. A cloud passing over the sun.
“You think,” said Hutch, “we’re going to let the situation get away from us.”
Alva’s eyebrows came together. “I know we are. What’s going to happen is that people are going to talk and think exactly as you do. And, Hutch, you’ve seen these things in action. You know what they do.” Her gaze turned inward. “Forgive me. I mean no offense. But the situation calls for honesty. We, too, are looking at the omegas as somebody else’s problem. But when it comes, it will be our children who are here.”
She was right, of course. Hutch knew that. Anyone who thought about the issue knew it.
Alva reached for a pad, scratched something on it, furrowed her brow. “Every day,” she said, “it advances on us by a half billion kilometers.”
It was late. It was past five o’clock and it had been a horribly long day. What did this woman want anyhow? “You understand,” Hutch said, “I don’t make Academy policy. You should be talking to Dr. Asquith.”
“I wasn’t trying to influence Academy policy. It’s too far down the scale to worry about, Hutch. Any serious effort to do something about the omegas is going to require political will. That doesn’t get generated here.”
“Then I don’t see—?”
“I didn’t come looking to get Academy support for this. It’s your support I want.”
“Mine?”
“You’re the public face of the Academy.”
“No. You’ve got the wrong person. Eric Samuels is our public affairs chief.”
“You, Hutch. You found the first cloud. You and Frank Carson and the others. Incidentally, someone told me you actually did the math. It was you who figured it all out. Is that true?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And you’re the woman from Deepsix. The woman who rescued her husband from that antique starship, the, what did you call it?”
“The chindi. But he wasn’t my husband then.”
“No matter. The point is you’ve been in the public eye for quite some time.” She was back in her seat, leaning toward Hutch, old friends who had been in combat together. “Hutch, I need you.”
“To—?”
“—become the public persona of the Omega Society.”
Well, it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out what the Omega Society was going to be doing. “Why don’t you do it, Alva? You’re a bit better known than I am.” She managed a weak smile.
“I’m the wrong person.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m associated with charities. With medical care. Nobody’s going to take me seriously when I start talking about long-range destruction. You aren’t taking me seriously and yet you know I’m right and I’m sitting in the same room with you.”
“No, that’s not true,” said Hutch. “I’m taking you seriously.”
The woman had an infectious smile. She turned it on Hutch, who bathed in its warmth and suddenly realized the secret of her success. The mental agility, the worthiness of her causes, her single-mindedness, none of it would have mattered without that pure living charm. Nobody ever says no to me. Nobody turns away. This is the moment of decision.
“I’d stay in the background, of course,” she said. “Board of directors stuff. But I’d be there if needed. We’d have a couple of major league scientific people out front to direct things, to run the organization. To provide the muscle. But you would be its face. Its voice.”
Alva was right. In a moment of startling clarity Hutch saw the centuries slipping away while the cloud drew closer. Not our problem. There’ll be a breakthrough. Don’t worry. How many times had she heard that already? But there probably wouldn’t be. Not without a concerted effort. And maybe there was a window that might close. There’d been talk of an all-out program when we’d first learned about the clouds. But when the initial shock wore off, and people began thinking how far away the thirty-second century was. Well, it was like worrying about the sun exhausting its fuel.
If she accepted, Hutch would have to give up all claim to being taken seriously ever again. The few who worried about the omegas, even if they were backed by Alva, provided the material for late-night comedians. They were greeted in academic circles with amused smiles and people shaking their heads. And she’d be out front.
Alva saw she was reluctant. “Before you answer,” she said, “I want to remind you that the public knows you’re a hero. You’ve put yourself at risk on several occasions, and you’ve saved a few lives. You’ve gotten credit for your acts.” The Academy’s Johanssen Award, which she’d received after Deepsix, hung on one wall. Other plaques commemorated her accomplishments at the Twins and in the rescue of her husband. And, of course, there’d been the sim, in which Hutch had been portrayed by the smoky-voiced, statuesque Ivy Kramer. “This time,” Alva continued, “there’ll be no credit and no applause. No sim and probably no books. No one will ever really know what you’ve accomplished, because you’ll have saved a world that’s quite far away. And we do have short memories. You have a heroic past, Hutch. But this time, there isn’t just one life, or a few lives, in the balance. Unless people like you come forward and act, we’re all going the same way as the Monument-Makers.”
The silence between them stretched out. The room seemed unsteady. “I’m sorry,” said Hutch at last. “But I can’t do this. It would involve a conflict of interest.”
Don’t look at me like that. It’s true.
“My obligations to the Academy—I can’t take up a cause like this and keep my job here. There’s no way I can do it.”
“We have adequate funding, Hutch. I’m sure you would find the compensation sufficient.”
“I really can’t do it,” said Hutch. “I have responsibilities here.”
Alva nodded. Sure. Of course you do. How could I not have seen it? Perhaps I misjudged you.
She gave Hutch time to reconsider her decision. Then she rose, and a business card appeared in her hand. “If you change your mind,” she said, holding it out for her.
“I won’t,” said Hutch. “But I thank you for asking.” And how hollow did that sound?
“I appreciate your hearing me out. I know you’re a busy woman.” Her gaze dissected Hutch and found her wanting. Not who I thought you were, it appears. Then she was gone, leaving Hutch with a feeling of rejection as overwhelming as any lover could have engendered.