Shrugging, “Sure. And once they got the telescope working, NASA figured they didn’t need an expensive astrophysicist who did construction work anymore. So I got RIFfed.”
“What does that mean?”
“Reduction In Force. Laid off. Bounced. Fired.”
“And that’s when you came to the observatory?”
“Yes.”
“And your family…where are they?”
So she’s pumping me, Stoner told himself, knowing that sooner or later she would have asked him about his wife and children.
“My wife took the kids back to her parents in Palo Alto,” he said flatly. “The day I got the RIF notice, as a matter of fact. Strictly coincidence; poetic timing. We hadn’t gotten along in years.”
“How old…?”
“Fifteen and twelve,” he answered automatically. “The boy’s the oldest. I don’t see them at all. Last time I flew out to Palo Alto they wouldn’t even come to the front door to say hello to me. Let’s change the subject.”
Jo reached over and pulled him down to her and kissed him. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “It must hurt a lot.”
“It should, I guess. But mostly it just feels kind of numb.”
“You’re covering it over.”
“With work. Right. My work comes first. Doris always said that it did, and she was right.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m onto the biggest goddamned discovery in history. Nothing else matters. I’m going to prove that we’ve found extraterrestrial intelligence. No matter what Big Mac or the Navy or anybody else does—I’m going to prove it to the world.”
Jo leaned her head against his shoulder and made long, soothing, soft strokes of her fingertips down his chest.
“So fierce,” she said in a whisper. “Do you know, you’re just like me? We’re two of a kind.”
“You? You’re kidding.”
“I want them to notice me, too, Keith. I want to be somebody. I want to make the whole world know who I am.”
He found himself grinning. “Well, you’re on the right project for that.”
But Jo said, “Who’s going to notice a little technical assistant, next to the famous Dr. Keith Stoner or Professor McDermott. No. I’m going to become an astronaut. A real one.”
“NASA isn’t hiring.”
“They will be, sooner or later. And women will get special preference, you’ll see.”
“It’s not a romantic life. It’s more like being a bus driver. Just a lot of hard donkey work. And risk.”
“But you went into space. You became famous.”
“And unemployed.”
“Imagine making love in zero gravity!”
“Waterbeds are almost as good. Besides, astronauts don’t make love in orbit. They’re too damned busy. And scared. And exhausted.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s a dull life, I tell you.”
“No duller than being a computer programmer.”
“Is that what you’re studying?”
He could sense her smiling in the darkness, cradled next to his body. “That’s what my parents think I’m studying. They want me to go to school and learn a nice, sensible trade until I meet a nice, sensible guy and get married and start having babies.”
“And they’re paying your way…”
“The hell they are! I got myself a partial scholarship. And I work weekends and summers. How do you think I got into the observatory? I get paid for helping out.”
He grinned at the determination in her voice. “So now you’ve joined Big Mac’s supersecret ETI project. I hope he’s paying you well.”
“I get a full technician’s salary.”
“Not bad.”
“And I’m transferring to the Astronautics Department,” Jo added. “I’m going to be an astronaut and nothing’s going to stop me.”
“Fine,” Stoner said, fighting back a yawn. “But in the meantime let’s not freeze to death.” He peeled back the covers on his side of the bed.
“Don’t worry,” Jo answered. “We’re going to be nice and warm this winter. We’re going to Arecibo. I’m sure of it.”
“McDermott can’t swing that much weight,” Stoner said, sliding into the bed. The sheets were already warm from the press of their bodies.
But Jo was on her feet, searching through the moonlit room for her scattered clothes.
“What’re you doing?”
“I brought an overnight bag with me,” she said, yanking on the jeans without bothering about the panties. “It’s in my car. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She was still buttoning her blouse as she went out into the hall, heading for the stairs.
Stoner yawned and wondered briefly how she knew so much about McDermott’s plans. Then he thought about the overnight bag. The cocky little bitch! He didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. Yawning, he decided to do neither. He turned over on his side and drifted to sleep.
Chapter 9
It is said that the freezing temperatures on planets like Jupiter or Saturn, in the outer Solar System, make all life there impossible. But these low temperatures do not apply to all portions of the planet. They refer only to the outermost cloud layers—the layers that are accessible to infrared telescopes that can measure temperatures. Indeed, if we had such a telescope in the vicinity of Jupiter and pointed it at Earth, we would deduce very low temperatures on Earth. We would be measuring the temperatures in the upper clouds and not on the much warmer surface of Earth.
A cocktail party in official Washington has an inbred hierarchical cast to it. Senators usually outweigh congressmen, of course, but there are all sorts of gradations among both senators and congressmen. A committee chairman is obviously more important than a subcommittee chairman—most of the time. But what about a junior Republican who happens to be an attractive woman? What about a congressman’s aide who happens to be related to the governor of the congressman’s home state?
Lieutenant Commander Tuttle was sensitive to the subtlest nuances of these parties. He knew that lieutenant commanders were slightly lower, in cocktail party echelons, than the average bartender. Still, much good work could be done at the right party if the lieutenant commander properly briefed his commanding officer. Besides, this party had a special extra dimension to it: the guest of honor was Willie Wilson, the Urban Evangelist who was the brand new “catch” of the young social season.
The party was taking place in the old Sheraton-Park Hotel, still desperately trying to cling to its former elegance. The gilt decorations of the function room were worn thin, the old draperies dusty and frayed. But the rumor was that Wilson had arranged the party for himself and gotten a special low price from the hotel. The ostensible hostess had been dragooned into fronting for the Urban Evangelist.
Tuttle’s post for the evening was in a corner of the ornate, gilded function room, dutifully chatting with the wife of his commanding admiral.
“These parties are such a bore, don’t you think?” bellowed Mrs. Admiral O’Kelly. She held a heavy Bourbon on the rocks in one beringed hand and was fingering her rope of artificial pearls with the other.
Tuttle nodded. He was in dress uniform and felt slightly stiff and foolish standing next to this old matron with her bluish hair piled high atop her wrinkled, sagging face. But the admiral’s orders had been firm: “Let me do the talking; you keep my wife supplied with drinks but don’t let her get drunk.”
Not an easy task, thought Tuttle.
The big room was only half filled with guests in tuxedos and evening gowns. Willie Wilson was the newest “in” subject of Washington society, but the Sheraton-Park was not an “in” hotel anymore.