Dark as Day

by Charles Sheffield

  “Are you sure it was the Ganymede office? The signal you sent to the Odin Station wasn’t enciphered.”

  “It didn’t need to be. Odin Station is locked as tight as the Bastard’s ass. He’d kill anyone on his project who leaked this kind of information, because even though he lost on the initial discovery he’s hoping to get there first with interpretation.”

  “I thought the race was over.”

  “Not until we know what the signal means.”

  “Then why did you send any message at all to Odin Station?”

  “A calculated risk. We need the Bastard’s inputs for verification. It’s either that, or sit around for years while we change orbit position. And I’m too impatient to wait for things.” He followed Milly’s eyes, to where an array of little servers were creeping through from the kitchen and positioning themselves by the low table. “Well, the hell with all that. I didn’t ask you to dinner to obsess about work. Let’s eat. Help yourself.”

  Milly wondered what to expect as she opened the server lids. Her earlier inspection of the kitchen suggested a level of cuisine beyond anything she had ever encountered. It was a relief to find exactly the same kinds of food that she had grown up with.

  No, put it differently. This looked like what she was used to. Milly placed a minimal amount of food on her plate. She thought of Hannah’s warning, the seduction of new female workers, and Jack’s own I’m too impatient to wait for things. If he were planning to put a move on her, was he above adding a little psychotropic additive to affect her mood? She speared a small green bean on her fork and tasted it.

  Jack Beston was watching closely. “Are you all right? You’ve hardly taken any.”

  “I suppose that I’m a bit surprised.” Milly gestured with her fork at her plate. “This is fine, but it’s the same sort of food as we used to eat at home.”

  “You mean it’s too plain, rather than high-class?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “But you might think it.” Jack had loaded his plate with about ten times as much as Milly, though so far he hadn’t taken a single bite. “I’m sorry, but when it comes to eating I’m a low-brow. I think I developed my food tastes early in life, and I wasn’t born rich. I had richness thrust upon me.”

  “I know.”

  “Hannah told you?”

  “Right.”

  “You’ve not taken enough food to feed a mouse. And so far you have nibbled on one very small bean. What else did Hannah tell you?”

  Milly put down her fork. “Since you insist on asking, she warned me to be very careful. You have a habit, she said, of making passes at women on your staff, especially ones who are new. And I’m the most recent arrival.”

  He was staring at her and nodding his head thoughtfully. This was probably where she got fired.

  “So you’re nervous,” he said, “and that’s spoiling your appetite?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And maybe there’s more to it than that.” Jack reached across the table to take her hand, but she pulled it back out of reach. He nodded. “You really are nervous. Maybe you are worried about the food and think there could be something wrong with it. Now I’m going to tell you a few things, Milly Wu, and whether you believe me or not, and whether after I talk we sit here and eat a civilized dinner together, or whether you leave and lock yourself in your cabin for the rest of the trip, is up to you. Either way, I won’t hold it against you.

  “First, I do find you very attractive, and I have since your original interview. Also, I know I have a reputation, and there’s some truth to what Hannah told you. But I wish Hannah had told you something else. I have never, ever, tried to use position or money or influence to pressure someone into having sex if she doesn’t want to. I’m not interested in any form of coercion. Also, I have never tried to drug a person, man or woman, to do anything for any reason.”

  He paused and Milly saw that his hands, still extended across the table, were trembling. “Hannah didn’t tell me most of that,” she muttered. “I’m glad you did. And I believe you.”

  “Good. Because now we reach the hard part so far as I’m concerned. I told you I find you attractive, and I do. But if you had come on strong to me tonight and suggested that we have sex—I’m not saying that you ever had any such thought—I’m sure I would have been a big disappointment. Can’t you see that I’m tense and nervous as hell, and have been for days, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with you? I asked you to dinner to get my mind off something else.”

  “The visit to Odin Station?”

  “You can be more specific than that. It’s not the station I’m worried about. It’s Philip. You know—the Bastard.”

  “I know. But I’ve never heard you use his name before.” Milly was feeling a lot better, even as his discomfort seemed to grow. “But I don’t understand. I thought we were in an unbeatable position. We discovered the signal, and we announced the discovery. He doesn’t even know where to look.”

  “We’ll have to tell him that, to get verification.”

  “But the signal direction is just a tiny fraction of what we have learned. We’ll still be far ahead. What can he possibly do to change that?”

  “If I knew, I’d be a lot less worried. Do you have an older sister?”

  “No. Two younger ones, and a young brother.”

  “You’re lucky. The oldest ones always believe they’re the boss. Philip is just a couple of years older than I am, but right from the time we were little kids, in everything we ever did, he always managed to work it so he came out ahead—even when the whole project was my idea. It’s the same now. He’s got me so psyched that I’m convinced he’ll do it this time, even though I can’t think of any way it can possibly happen.”

  It was strange. Watching him across the table, Milly saw a different Jack Beston. He was the Ogre, the hard taskmaster who cracked the whip over everyone and everything on the Argus Project at Jovian L-4. But he was also a nervous little kid, scared of what his devious older brother might do to spoil his plans. Milly felt like putting her arms around him and telling him that everything would work out all right.

  That would be, for a dozen different reasons, a mistake. It’s when you feel sympathy for the Devil that you’re in trouble. Milly believed everything that Jack had said to her, with the possible exception of his impotence. On that subject a man was not a reliable source. But she did go so far as to reach out across the table and pat his hand.

  “You’ll win. I’m sure of it.” She bent over and began to lift covered dishes onto the table. “I’m sorry I was suspicious about the food, and to tell the truth I was starving before I came in here. I think it’s the effect of the higher gravity, our bodies are trying to double their muscle mass in a few days.”

  Milly pushed Jack’s plate out of the way. “That’s all cold, you need to start over.” She took a clean plate for him, opened the covered dishes, and began to serve both of them liberal helpings of everything. “We’ll eat now, and since you want distraction I’m going to give it to you. You asked about my family. Well, they’re the least interesting group in the System. I’ll tell you about Uncle Godfrey and Aunt Mary, and Ginger and Sara and Lola and dopey Cousin Peter, and I’ll go on until you beg for mercy.”

  20

  … AND TIME WITH THE BASTARD

  In little more than eight days, an acceleration of one Earth gravity had gone from feeling oddly wrong and perhaps unendurable to oddly right. You could live your whole life in the outer reaches of the solar system, but something deep inside you remembered where humans had begun. Milly gazed ahead at the nearing bulk of the Odin Station and felt half-regretful that she was once again in a micro-gee setting.

  Jack was drifting around the cabin, pausing now and again to stare out at their destination. He seemed more relaxed than during their first dinner together. Maybe Milly had been able to persuade him that there was no way his brother Philip could achieve an advantage, or maybe he simply accepted that he
was close to a confrontation. For whatever reason, the rest of the trip had been a lot easier than the first days.

  Milly kept her eyes on the nearing station. It was remarkably similar in appearance to the station that they had left at Jovian L-4. There were the same distributed antenna arrays, the same skeletal lattices to detect the ghostly passage of high-energy neutrinos, and the same central bulk of the main habitat. Halfway across the System, and here she was facing a facsimile of the station that they had left. Who had copied from whom? If Jack were to be believed, the Bastard had stolen every idea from his younger brother.

  Unlike Jack, Milly felt a huge desire to meet Philip. She had never seen a picture of Jack’s brother. She had one sister who was very like her, and one with no apparent resemblance at all—though other family members claimed to see one. What would Philip look like? More important, what would he be like inside? She felt that she was slowly beginning to understand Jack. He was an odd mixture of total self-confidence and total insecurity. The combination was intriguing and highly attractive. It was easy to see the reason for his supposedly-numerous affairs on Argus Station. Milly was no longer sure that Jack had always been the instigator.

  “We are ready to begin docking. If you wouldn’t mind preparing for arrival …” The pilot Fax waited until Milly was seated and Jack, reluctantly, stopped his wandering and strapped in. The bulk of Odin Station hung enormous beyond the port, eclipsing half the star field. They eased their way in toward a set of gantries on the side.

  The docking was performed with inhuman precision. Milly felt barely a tremor of contact, and then the illuminated signs to remain seated went out. Moments later, a green flashing light indicated that the umbilical had been connected and pressures equalized.

  “Here we are.” Jack was already unstrapped, and he sounded breathless. “Let’s do it.”

  He sounded jittery. Milly, on the other hand, felt enormously excited and filled with anticipation. Her hopes had been on hold for more than a week, but within the next few hours there was a chance that the signal she had discovered—the Wu-Beston anomaly—would be confirmed as extra-solar, a real signal from interstellar distances.

  She followed close behind as he headed for the hatch. When it opened she found herself at the beginning of a long umbilical, exactly like the one through which she had left Argus Station. Thirty meters away, at the other end of the tube, a figure was moving their way which at first glance could easily be mistaken for Jack Beston.

  Philip the Bastard.

  Jack advanced, Milly close behind, until the two brothers faced each other no more than half a meter apart. Neither one reached out a hand.

  “Jack.” Philip Beston nodded his head. Now that she was close, Milly could see differences. Philip was almost the same height, but more heavily-built. He had the same red hair, but in place of Jack’s lidded green glint, his eyes were blue and wide and innocent. And, unlike Jack, the smile on his face seemed easy and genuine.

  “And this”—Philip stepped past his brother—“must be the famous Milly Wu, discover of the Wu-Beston anomaly.” He paused and frowned. “Are you really Milly Wu?”

  “I am. Is something wrong?”

  “Not at all.” He reached out, took her hand in his, and shook it firmly. “My apologies. I was merely surprised to find someone so young—and, if I may be a little gauche, so very attractive—making so important a discovery. I am delighted to welcome you to Odin Station, and I look forward to the opportunity of working with you.”

  His brother’s air of bonhomie made Jack sound sour and nervous as he said, “On verification. Only on verification.”

  “Jack, my dear young sibling, would I ever suggest anything else?” Philip turned again to Milly. “As you can see, my brother remains regrettably suspicious of me and my intentions.”

  “Damn right I do,” Jack growled, and moved on along the umbilical toward the interior of Odin Station. “With plenty of reasons. How soon can we talk verification?”

  Philip shrugged at Milly, as though to say “What can you do with him?” and ushered her forward. “As soon as you like, Jack,” he said. “My staff has been eagerly awaiting your arrival. As have I.”

  “That, I do believe.” Jack, at the end of the tube, had to wait for his brother to come up to him and point out the way they should go. The outside of Odin Station resembled Argus Station, but within there would surely be big differences. Milly didn’t propose to find out what they were. It had taken weeks to learn the chambers and crisscrossing corridors of Argus Station, and she would not be here long enough to make the effort worthwhile.

  Even assuming, that is, that she would be given the freedom to do so. Philip Beston took them only a few more meters, then led them into a suite of rooms.

  “This is where you will be staying. As Jack will no doubt explain to you, we do not feel free to offer the full run of Odin Station. If you do leave these quarters, I request that you be accompanied by one of my staff members.”

  “In other words, he doesn’t want us to see too much.” Jack stepped forward and moved across to sit at the long table. “Let’s not mess around here. You know what we came here for and what we want, and we know exactly what you want.”

  Philip Beston raised an eyebrow at Milly. “I had intended to proceed with the usual civilities, and offer you refreshments after your long journey. However, if you feel the urge to get down to business at once …”

  “We do.” Jack seemed as nervous as Philip was relaxed. “Are you set up already for verification?”

  “As ready as we can be, given the absence of critical information. The arrays are all in position, we merely have to set them to their correct phases.”

  Even Philip showed a trace of tension with those words. Milly felt the atmosphere in the room slowly tightening. The problem from Jack Beston’s point of view was quite simple. Odin Station had receiving equipment as good as that at Argus Station. There would be little to choose between them when it came to sensitivity. The big question was, to which direction in space should the array of receivers be tuned? Without that information, Philip Beston would be hunting blind.

  On the other hand, as soon as Jack provided the signal direction to his brother, the two of them would be on an equal footing. Odin Station would presumably skip the detection analysis that Milly and the team at L-4 had performed; if the signal were verified, they would be equally well-equipped to tackle the all-important problem of signal interpretation.

  There was a long silence. Jack Beston, having hurried so far and so fast, appeared to be having second thoughts. At last his brother prompted him: “I assume that the signal is still there? That it didn’t show up for awhile, and then go away?”

  Jack merely gave him a cynical glance. Milly could see Jack’s point. If the signal had vanished, the array of sensors in Odin Station had not previously been tuned to the right direction. Therefore, there could be no verification. The signal needed to be observed simultaneously from both the L-4 and L-5 locations.

  “Look,” Philip Beston said at last. “I know exactly how you feel about this. I’d feel the same way myself if our positions were reversed. But I’ve had my top team in position and awaiting your arrival for hours. If you want to change your mind, get back into your ship, and return to Argus Station …”

  “No, I’m suspicious—just like you—but I’m not dumb. The signal is still there, of course it’s still there. Or at least, it was an hour ago when I checked back to base from our ship.”

  “Regular light speed signals?” Philip Beston shook his head. “You know, if we wanted to do this as accurately as possible, we should arrange for entanglement between your computers and mine. That way, we would not have to compensate all the time for signal delays.”

  “Sure. I’d be willing—if you would.” Jack locked glances with his brother, and after a few moments both shook their heads. Milly realized she had just witnessed a significant interaction. Entanglement of the computers would zero out communication del
ays; but it would also vastly increase the risk that the secret information of one station would become accessible to the other. Neither brother was willing to permit that. Clearly, each felt that he had some sort of competitive edge, even though Jack had won the first round by detecting an anomaly.

  Jack was drumming his fingers on the tabletop staring at nothing. Finally he glanced up to Milly. “All right. Go ahead.”

  “Provide coordinates?”

  “You’ve got it.” Jack turned to Philip. “I assume it’s necessary for us to say this only once? Everything in this room is being recorded?”

  “Just imagine that the positions were reversed, think how you would proceed, and assume that the same applies here.” Philip Beston had lost any trace of his original relaxed air. He was tenser than his brother as he turned to Milly. “The coordinates of the signal source, if you would be so kind.”

  Milly didn’t need to consult notes. “As of 5:82:34 hours on 97/09/04, the source coordinates in the ecliptic standard reference frame of 2050 were as follows: declination, 38 degrees 22 minutes 17.3 seconds south, azimuth 231 degrees 54 minutes 52.6 seconds. The signal fall-off from the observed direction of signal maximum followed a circular normal distribution, with a one-sigma value of 1.3 arc seconds. No motion of the signal source was detected over a five week period of observation. However, for the first three weeks the array tuning was not exact, so a movement in position of less than twenty seconds of arc would have been undetectable.”

  “Thank you.” Philip sounded breathless. “What is the source direction relative to an L-4 to L-5 baseline?”

  “A little more than thirty-two degrees. The angle is not optimal.”

  “But it’s pretty good. We lose only a factor of two in angular resolution. It will take my staff approximately ten minutes to tune our most sensitive arrays to that direction, but after that they have to make preliminary observations and perform an optimizing scan. We have maybe an hour to wait for results. During that time, I would be very happy to offer a tour of Odin Station.” Philip glanced at Jack. “There will of course be a few places that I do not feel free to show you.”