Odyssey

by Jack McDevitt

  “Yes,” he said. “Anytime you’re ready.”

  She laughed. It was a sound he enjoyed hearing. Damned women. Nature makes fools of us all. Valya told Bill to set course for Capella, then pushed back and exhaled. “I’ll be glad to get this over.”

  MacAllister nodded as the image of the museum in the navigation monitor shrank. “What did she say when you talked with her?”

  “Amy? She pretty much invited me to go away. Did it politely, but that was the message. What did you guys do? Tell her it was her imagination?”

  MacAllister decided he would never understand women. “It was her imagination.”

  “Of course,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you tell her that.”

  “What would you have done?”

  “Just listened. Agreed that it was a scary experience. She’s the one who has to decide it didn’t really happen.”

  “She wanted us to tell her what to do.”

  “And you did. Orea takanes. Now she knows exactly how to handle things.” She tried to shake it off. “I’m sorry. It really wasn’t your fault.”

  Right. Men are naturally slow-witted. “You’re a sexist,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, Mac, you just see right through me, don’t you?” Her eyes grew serious. “The museum must have been a little scary at night. You shouldn’t have let her wander around in there by herself.” She shook her head. “No wonder she started seeing things.”

  “Valya, she’s sixteen. I don’t think she wanted us following her around.”

  “She’s fifteen. And she’s still a kid.” She patted his arm. “It’s all right, Mac. You meant well.”

  It was the sort of comment he often made about politicians and bishops.

  They were both dead tired. They went back to the common room, where Bill provided some cheese and pineapple juice. It tasted okay, but it wasn’t exactly elegant. Valya fell asleep in her chair with the snack untouched.

  MacAllister was seated opposite her. He dimmed the lights, and she looked almost ethereal, her head resting on the back of the chair, red hair framing finely chiseled features, one arm in her lap, the other resting on a side table beside her juice.

  He returned to his quarters, found a quilt, brought it out, and draped it over her.

  He went back to his chair, killed the lights altogether, closed his eyes, and sat listening to her breathe.

  Yes, my dear, alone with you at last.

  SHE WOKE HIM. “Mac, you need to get into your harness. We’ll be making our jump in a few minutes.”

  The daylight illumination was on. He checked the time. It was almost ten.

  “It’ll be a twenty-two-hour run to the Capella system,” she said. “Which puts us in there at about 0800 Thursday.”

  “When does the asteroid arrive?”

  “Just after ten.”

  “That gives us plenty of time to get them off, doesn’t it?”

  “It would if the jump took us in close,” she said. “But we’ll be lucky to get within three hours. No, safest is to stick with Plan A: Assume the rock will get there first. They’ll use a shuttle to get out of harm’s way.”

  He followed her onto the bridge, took his seat, and activated the harness. He’d already begun imagining how the story would appear in the media. Prominent Editor Rides to Rescue.

  MacAllister Saves Four in Race with Asteroid.

  MacAllister Wins Americus for First-Person Account of Galactic Ordeal.

  “It’d be nice,” he said, “if we could get there before the asteroid. Take them directly off the gridwork.”

  She’d started the countdown with Bill. “Why?”

  “Makes a better story.”

  “If we didn’t get there in time, which we probably wouldn’t, there’s a good chance they’d be killed.”

  MacAllister grinned. “That would be a good story, too.”

  She leaned over and whacked him, and they both laughed. “But you’re not really kidding, are you?”

  “Not entirely,” he said. “If we were late, they could still get clear, right? I mean, they’ve got the shuttle.”

  “Forget it, Mac. The asteroid’s as big as a sizable chunk of Arizona.”

  “One minute,” said Bill.

  THE SALVATOR SLIPPED into the transdimensional mists, and so did the conversation. They retreated to the common room and talked about MacAllister’s journalistic passions and why Valya enjoyed piloting interstellars and would consider no other line of work. Why MacAllister liked giving trouble to people who, he argued, needed to be kept in line. Why Valya enjoyed solitude. “Most people only talk about themselves,” she said. “Which would be okay if they had some imagination. But I get tired listening to stories about spouses who don’t understand, or incomprehensible physics experiments, or what sims they watched recently. It’s empty chatter and, if you’re not careful, it can crowd you out of your life. Up here it’s quiet, and you’re alone with yourself.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For taking me along.”

  “Mac,” she said, “you have your problems, but you do make for entertaining flights.”

  He sat quietly, enjoying the moment. “You know, Valya, when we get home, I’d like to take you over to the Seahawk.”

  “The Seahawk?”

  Everybody in Arlington knew the Seahawk. But he played her game. “Nicest club on the Potomac,” he said.

  “Oh, yes. I have heard of it.” She looked out at the mist. “Yes, that would be nice.” Her eyes brushed over him, came back, locked. She was making up her mind about something.

  “You don’t think very highly of men, do you, Valya?”

  “They’re okay. Some of them.”

  “What’s their primary problem?” MacAllister was quietly amused, but tried not to show it.

  “Bottom line?” she said.

  “Please.”

  “Don’t take offense, Mac. Most guys aren’t very bright.”

  MacAllister saw no reason to be offended. “Most people generally aren’t very bright.”

  “There’s an extra dimension with men.”

  “Sex.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. But yes.”

  “What else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Maybe. But there’s more. You’re not good at hiding your feelings.”

  “Guys are more self-centered. It’s why you only hear males talking about What’s the meaning of it all?”

  “Explain.”

  “To a woman, it’s self-evident. Life is what it is. A brief stroll in the sunlight. A chance to enjoy yourself for a century or so. Love. Be loved. Have a few drinks before the fire goes out. But guys think there has to be something more. That’s why all the big religious figures are men. They’ll claim it just doesn’t make sense that the world could move on without them. Must be an afterlife. Has to be more than this. So they live on, as saints or whatever. The guys never really want to leave the table.” Her lips curved into a smile.

  MacAllister felt warm. “You are lovely, Valya,” he said.

  The smile widened. “There’s my point. Even you, Mac.”

  “What? Enjoying the company of a beautiful woman? It’s just part of the stroll in the sunlight.”

  She asked how it felt to be feared by so many politically powerful people. MacAllister realized she felt the conversation had wandered into deep water and was trying to get onto safer ground. Which was okay. “I really don’t think about it,” he said.

  She sighed. “Of course you don’t. After all, who would want to be a guy the power brokers are all afraid of?”

  “I think you’re overstating things a bit.”

  She was enjoying herself. She knew the effect of those luminous eyes. Add the high-voltage personality, and you had an extraordinary woman. Yet there was always a part of her that seemed aloof, that stayed outside the conversation, amused, detached. As if she’d done all this before.

  “I’m sorry
to interrupt,” said Bill. “We have an incoming transmission.”

  At home, Tilly could be shut down. He wasn’t always present, always lingering in the background as Bill seemed to be. Mac and Valya were not really alone after all.

  One of the construction workers appeared in the middle of the room. He was about forty. He had dark skin and a black beard, and he ate too much. He looked both scared and tired. “Valentina,” he said, “I just wanted you to know we’re lined up and ready to go. Appreciate it if you could let us know your TOA as soon as you can.” He hesitated, reluctant to break away. “We’ll be glad to see you.”

  The image clicked off. “I think you have a fan,” said MacAllister.

  “Yeah. Next time you ask me why I do this stuff for a living—”

  It was MacAllister’s turn to smile. “I’m sure you get to rescue people at least once a month.”

  “Well. Once is enough, kardoula mou.”

  “My Greek’s a little rusty.”

  “It means ‘opinionated one.’”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “I’m going to look it up.”

  “You are entitled to do so.” She sighed. “Bill.”

  “Yes, Valya.”

  “Response for the hotel.”

  “Ready.”

  The lighting shifted gently as Bill lined up her image. “Karim, we’ll make the jump into your space about eighteen hours after you receive this. As soon as we’re there, I’ll let you know. Hang in. You’ll get off with no problem.”

  The lights rose and fell again. Went back to normal. “You never married, Mac, did you?”

  “I was married,” he said. “Years ago. My wife died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It happens.”

  “You have a reputation as a misogynist. Carefully cultivated if I read you correctly. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have wanted a woman in your life.”

  He had no family, no one he could really talk to. He kept everyone at a safe distance. And here was this Greek pilot, standing at the edge of the clearing. “Jenny was special,” he said.

  Her eyes slid shut, closing off that azure gaze. “She must have been. You want to tell me about it?”

  “Nothing to tell,” he said. “She died young. Katzmeier’s Disease.”

  “Must have been a painful time.”

  “Yeah.”

  She could see he didn’t want to go any further, so, after a long pause, she retreated. Talked about the flight back from Capella with a crowded ship. Asked how the reports for The National were coming. Was he going to mention Amy’s claims?

  “No,” he said. “They’re not really relevant to anything.”

  “Unless the Origins Project blows up.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “If it does, if, and it happens without warning—”

  “Valya, they throw rocks you can see coming for a long time—”

  “Eric told me the apparition denied the asteroid stories. If Amy’s got it right, more than a hundred people will die out there.”

  “If something were to happen, there’d be time to get them off.”

  “Worst-case scenario. If it did happen, suddenly, a surprise, how would you feel? All those people dead?”

  “I don’t deal in hypotheticals, Valya.”

  “Sure you do. It’s bread and butter for the media. What if she’s right? I mean, the moonriders were there, weren’t they? In the vicinity of the museum?”

  “We didn’t see anything.”

  “The monitor picked them up.”

  “We dropped the monitor a long way from the museum.”

  “Hell, Mac, they could have been at the front door, and you wouldn’t have seen them.”

  “Are you really going to argue she actually talked with an alien?”

  “I’m talking like you said: hypotheticals.”

  He was tired of Amy’s story. “Look, assume for a minute the moonriders wanted to talk to us. Warn us they were going to take down a major facility. Why would they pass the message to Amy? Why not me? Or Eric?”

  “Maybe they thought she’d be the easiest one there to talk to.”

  “Ho-ho.” He kept his tone soft. Make it clear he was above taking offense. “Although there is something ominous about the Origins Project.”

  “Really? And what’s that?”

  He told her about the call from Anthony DiLorenzo.

  “I’ll be damned,” she said. “He really said that?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  She thought about it. “I just can’t believe it’s possible, Mac.” They sat looking at each other. “We need to change the mood,” she said.

  She went back to her quarters. He heard her talking with Bill. Then she returned with a bottle of wine. “With the noted Gregory MacAllister on board, I think the captain is justified in declaring a special occasion.”

  “Do I get to make a speech?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You are the loveliest captain this side of Sirius.”

  She reached for an opener while he examined the bottle. “I’m not sure, Mac, but that may not be much of a compliment.”

  “Accept it in the spirit intended.”

  “Indeed I will.”

  They opened it and filled two glasses. “You’re a remarkable guy, you know that?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You can be a bit of a strain sometimes, but God knows, as I think I said earlier, you’re always a kick to have around. Anyhow, if we’re about to be overrun by moonriders, or sucked down into the universal black hole, we should probably drink up while we can.” She filled their glasses. “When we get home, I’ll cook a meal for you. If you like.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”

  He began to suspect she was offering herself to him. MacAllister had never been quick on the social subtleties attendant on romantic relations. Still, there was no mistaking the luminous quality of her face, the body language, the growing huskiness in her voice. But something warned him off. He’d managed his share of intimate encounters over the years, so it wasn’t that he was a stranger to such things. But something restrained him. It might have been the eternal vigilance of the AI, the sense that any playing around on the Salvator was necessarily a ménage. Or maybe it seemed improper when they were supposed to be racing to the rescue of four stranded construction workers. Whatever it was, it seemed too soon. Laid her at the first opportunity. What would that say about him? And yet he wondered why he was hesitating. Why on Earth did he care about the proprieties?

  Sex with Valentina would mean more than a simple romp with one of the groupies who often sought him out. It would not be a quick roll in the hay, then back out into the workaday world. Even if there was a workaday world beyond the hatches. But there was more than that. Take Valentina into his bed, and he knew he would never again be free. It might already be too late. He found himself thinking of her at odd hours, wondering what she might be doing at any given moment, wondering how she would react if he admitted to being entranced by her.

  Hutch had told him once that captains were prohibited by regulation from improper relations with passengers. On consideration, it now seemed a wise, if unrealistic, restriction. So he held back.

  They talked politics, books, and vids they’d both liked. (MacAllister didn’t like many.) They speculated on the moon-riders, circled back to Amy’s dream, wondered whether anything intelligible would ever be learned at Origins. MacAllister mentioned how good she looked, and she observed that Mac had a lot of savoir faire for a reporter.

  Eventually it simply became too much. Probably she’d intended it from the beginning. Or maybe he had. However that might have been, she got too close, or he did, it was impossible later to remember which, and suddenly, her lips were pressed against his, and he was helping her out of her blouse. No buttons anywhere. Just sort of pull in the right places and clothes fell a
way. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.

  Mac, for once, was at a loss for words.

  She tugged at his belt, but stopped and asked him to wait a minute. She strode topless across the deck and onto the bridge. The lights dimmed and went out, leaving only a few glowing strips. She became a shadowy figure moving toward him, shedding clothes as she came.

  “Why didn’t you just tell Bill to do that?” he asked.

  “Bill’s in sleep mode,” she said.

  He hadn’t even known there was a sleep mode.

  The sofa wasn’t lush, but neither were the beds in their compartments. The sofa had the advantage of providing more space. He was thinking how the Salvator was not built for romance, but she certainly was. There was a last fleeting notion that he should not let this go any further. Then his good sense kicked in.

  LIBRARY ARCHIVE

  I don’t know whether I have ever felt quite the same degree of exhilaration as on that night, racing across the stars, knowing the whole time the asteroid was bearing down on that group of unfortunates stranded at the Galactic. It was one of those occasions when one ceases to be simply a reporter, and becomes instead a participant.

  —The Notebooks of Gregory MacAllister

  chapter 31

  The sheer size of the Capella asteroid, and the thought of the kind of technology it must have taken to redirect it and aim it at the Galactic, to arrange that it arrive at the precise time and place to intercept the hotel, carries one overwhelming message: The best way for the human race to handle the moonriders would be to hide under the table.

  —Gregory MacAllister, Journals

  He came out of a deep sleep to find her coming back off the bridge, wrapped in a sheet. “Anything wrong?” he asked.

  “Just waking Bill.” She stopped for a moment, pretending innocence, to let him get a better look.

  “‘Naked Singularity,’” said MacAllister.