Denine answered without turning. "Mint?"
"Right." He went into the kitchen and flicked a switch on the filtered water spigot. While the coil was heating, he readied two mugs, one with a tea bag, and one with instant coffee. A tiny red light winked on. He filled the mugs with boiling water, stirred both, and carried them into Denine's studio.
Denine sat back, hooking her feet on the bottom rung of her stool. She was a slender, sharp-boned woman with hazel green eyes and long brunette hair done up in a bandana. Payne set her mug down on the table and peered over her shoulder. "What do you think?" she said, tapping the edge of the computer screen with her finger.
Glowing in the screen was a female figure in a silvery gown, surrounded by fir trees. It was a two-dimensional roughcut for a holo-painting, part of the graphics for an ad package Denine was working on. "You think there's too much highlight on the gown?" she said, more to herself than to him. She touched several buttons and stroked at the image with her lightbrush, subduing the silver sheen by tiny degrees. Touching two buttons in succession, she flipped from one image to the other, comparing the change with the original. She sipped her tea. "I liked it better before," she said finally, and cancelled the change.
She turned to look at him. "Still no story?"
He shook his head, pulled up a rickety second stool, and perched himself on it, staring at Denine's painting.
"Does it have to be new?" she asked. "People do old stories all the time. Maybe you should just do something for the sake of getting something done."
He grunted. "I feel like I need to go out and do some digging. I need material. I thought I might run down to New Wash and drop in on some friends."
"Like that Teri Renshaw?" she said teasingly. "First you meet her in Connecticut, and now you want to go down to New Washington, all of a sudden?"
"Naw, there's nothing between her and me anymore. But she might help me come up with something, if I picked her brain a little. And anyway, I was thinking more of some old friends I haven't seen in a while, people in government. You know, have a few drinks, and talk, and see if anything's up." He blew on his coffee. "What do you think?"
"I suppose I have to stay here and earn a living for both of us?"
"You want to come?" he said in surprise.
"Nah. Just testing you. I have to stay and finish this project, anyway." She rested an arm on his shoulder and flashed him a tired smile. "Go and have a good time, okay? Just not too good a time."
He touched the tip of her nose, then leaned forward and kissed her. "Not possible."
"Not possible without me, you mean?" she said, laughing. "Or no time can be too good?" When he shrugged, she pinched him in the rear. "Go on, get out of here. Why don't you go make us dinner, since you're not working?"
He arched his eyebrows and went to do just that.
* * *
The New England foliage was in various stages of turning, the russets and browns of Massachusetts and Rhode Island changing to the reds and golds of Connecticut and New York, spinning by under a silvery blue sky. Payne watched the countryside, reviewed his notes, and dozed to the gentle rocking of the train. Two and a half hours out of Boston, the train eased into New York. Following a brief delay, it was soon speeding on its way again, through New Jersey, and into eastern Pennsylvania.
New Washington, barely twelve years old, was nestled in the Appalachian Mountains north of Harrisburg. Payne found himself reflecting on the city ahead, a city that prided itself on its sense of history as a continuation of its shattered predecessor, Washington, D.C.—destroyed by the two or three (officially, two) warheads that penetrated the space-based defenses in the Great Mistake. The designers of New Wash had expressed a determination to create not just a model city, but a memorial to the original capital. Controversy had surrounded virtually every aspect of the city's design—from the President's residence, sculpted into the side of a mountain, to the Library of Congress, which resembled a great flattened diamond. The House of Congress was a concession, of sorts, to those who had wanted the new city to be a replica of the old. Unlike the other buildings, the Capitol clearly reflected the style and form of the original, though the dome of translucent lunar silica had been called by some a monument to humankind's folly in space.
Payne had only seen Washington, D.C., once, as a boy before the war, but it was his guess that the new city represented in about equal measure the dignity and the absurdity, the grace and the ostentatiousness, even the poverty, of the old. It was a marvelous city to visit, and Payne peered out the window like a small boy awaiting the first glimpse of it as the train wound and tunneled through the last of the intervening mountains.
Seven minutes late, the train glided into the station, and Payne made his way out into the city's streets.
* * *
His first day was filled up making calls to production offices and to personal contacts in government, almost all of whom seemed to be out of their offices. He did reach his friend Zeke Teichner at the Commerce Department, and over dinner with Zeke, he learned that a twentieth-century rock music revival had just opened in town. Indulging himself in a longtime interest, he made plans to attend the next day.
The festival was in the Arena for the Arts, just off Connecticut Avenue, near the Smithsonian. The hall had been transformed into a musical carnival. The crowd was both young and old, conservative and flamboyant. There were hundreds of exhibits, in addition to the main performances. The crowd simmered with music. Most people wore the disposable receivers sold at the door—small neck pendants, with a pair of skin electrodes stuck over the collarbones. Some wore full headsets, and were lost in their own worlds as they walked about the exhibit areas.
Payne glanced over the festival program. There were to be revival performances of the work of some of the best of the oldtime groups: Jimi Hendrix, the Moody Blues, Studbucket, Qwelter, the Strawberry Alarmclock. In the central arena, swaths of laser light swept through the air. Holographic figures danced up and down the lengths of the beams, enacting scenes from classic rock music performances. Other beams carried psychedelic patterns of color. Payne blinked and looked away. It was hard on the eyes to watch too long.
Playing in his head now was a harshly dissonant performance by the later Beatles. He twiddled the dial on his pendant. One channel produced folk music. Another produced a vaguely familiar tune. Interlacing lyrics drifted through his head:
" . . .in the color of the night / the color of a dream / the color of my love . . ."
The title of the song escaped him. He pressed a tiny button on the edge of the pendant, and a synthesized voiceover said, "'Nightthoughts,' by the Twilight Express, 1993." He switched channels, and caught the end of another song, a pleasing fusion of blues and hard rock. He pressed the button again and heard, "'Dreaming,' by Cream. Fresh Cream, 1967. Written by Jack Bruce, featuring Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, and Ginger Baker . . . ."
He switched to: " . . .take the time to journey to the center of the mind . . . ." He knew that one: the Amboy Dukes.
Payne made his way to the main theater, where he caught a performance by a contemporary revivalist company, Slow Cobra, featuring the Outzone style of the nineties, with holos of zero-gravity choreography. He was a little dazed as he left the theater, and would never have seen his friend if a wiry arm hadn't snaked through the crowd and grabbed him by the shirt. He turned, startled—then saw who had grabbed him. "Donny!"
A slim, dark-skinned man with a mustache and bright, humorous eyes grinned at him. It was Donny Alvarest, an old college chum, now in government. "I tried to call you at your office," Payne said. "They told me you were on vacation. I might have guessed you'd turn up here."
"I called Zeke, when I got the message," Alvarest said. "He told me I could probably find you here. What brings you to our fair capital?"
"Oh, you know—looking for trouble."
"This is the town to find it in." They escaped down a side corridor and found an alcove with an empty bench.
&nb
sp; "So how are things at the Defense Intelligence Bureau?" Payne asked. "Are we still safe from our enemies?"
"Oh—" Alvarest made an indecisive gesture.
"That's reassuring. Where are you working now?"
"Space Systems Group," said Alvarest. "Mostly that means I diddle around here, helping to keep Big Daddy's secrets from the rest of the world."
"Oh yeah? Have any that would make a good story for me? I'm in the market," Payne said.
"I'll let you know," Alvarest said with a chuckle. "Maybe there's something unclassified I can throw your way."
"You're too ethical," Payne joked. "Can't you throw me something classified, so I could have a real coup?"
Alvarest laughed and studied Payne curiously. "How is the news business? I haven't seen your name around recently. Or is that the wrong question to ask?"
Payne shrugged. "Want to get some lunch?" he said.
Alvarest assented, and they wandered off to find the nearest coffee shop. As they were waiting to be seated, Alvarest said, "You know . . ." His voice trailed off. Payne looked at him curiously. "Well," he said, a moment later. "There's something I just thought of."
"That's nice. Were you thinking of telling me?" Payne asked. "Or are you just going to torment me with it?"
Alvarest looked around, pursing his lips. "Well . . . it's not really in the bureau's line, and so I don't know that much about it." He looked at Payne. "I don't know that it would be of any interest to you, anyway."
Payne gestured impatiently.
Alvarest nodded toward a table opening up. "Let's get seated, and I'll tell you about it."
When the hostess left them with their menus, Payne cleared his throat noisily. Alvarest looked up from scanning the menu. "Ever hear of a guy named Stanley Gerschak?" he asked.
Payne blinked.
"He's an astronomer, from up your way. I know him from some work I did last year."
"I think I met him," Payne murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. "Does he have something to do with what you're about to tell me?" He described the incident at the Mystic theater.
Alvarest laughed at Payne's expression. "Was he that bad? He must have been drinking. The guy can't hold his liquor. But when it comes to his field, don't mess with him. He knows his stuff. I had a conversation with him, a couple of months ago, that's been sticking in my mind . . . ."
* * *
"You're kidding," Teri Renshaw said. "The man was a loonie."
Payne laughed, pushing his dinner plate away to make room for coffee. "He may be—but my friend isn't—and he's in a position to be a reliable source—and he says the guy's on the level."
Teri tilted her head skeptically. "He's an astronomer, right?"
"Right. He was trying to tell us about some kind of signal from space, remember? Tachyon signals." Payne gulped his coffee. "I don't remember if he told us about the tachyons, but that's what my friend says. He has another connection, too, out on the West Coast—a researcher at the old Jet Propulsion Lab who has a similar story."
"Tachyon signals? Faster-than-light particles?"
Payne nodded. "You've heard of the Father Sky spacecraft? It's an unmanned probe that's supposed to be exploring the cometary zone, out beyond the edge of the solar system. It was the first spacecraft ever to be equipped with a tachyon communication device. Very cutting-edge-of-the-art stuff."
"So is that what they've been monitoring? What's the big deal?" Teri asked.
"The big deal is that their signals did not come from the spacecraft. From the same general direction, yes. But not from Father Sky."
"Mmm." Teri scratched the back of her head.
"Donny believes that Gerschak may be observing something else entirely—something unexplained."
"Wait a minute," Teri said. "Has this been written up in the scientific journals? I can't believe it's just one man—"
"Two—maybe more."
"All right, but have they published it?"
Payne hesitated, pressing a finger to his lips. She had just touched upon his own source of uneasiness. "That's what I asked Donny. He says that their work hasn't been accepted by the journals—but that a lot of people have trouble getting good work published these days."
Teri drummed the table skeptically.
"Well, you hear a lot about scientific communication being stifled, and maybe it's true. I guess we'd need to ask some scientists."
"We?"
"Well—me. And, if it pans out into something sizable, would you be interested in a possible collaboration?"
She studied him carefully, suddenly the professional journalist. "Maybe. But you ought to check it out very carefully. It's still your thing. If you want me to help you later, let me know. Okay?"
"Right." Payne smiled and set down his empty coffee cup. He felt better than he'd felt in weeks.
* * *
Denine picked him up at the train station and quizzed him as they got into the car. "Music festival? I'm glad one of us was home working," she said, pulling out of the parking lot onto the highway. She glanced over from her driving and touched his hand. "Missed you, kiddo."
Payne gripped back. "Missed you, too," he said. Denine drove in silence, while he described the leads he had garnered, including the connection at JPL, and the name of the headquarters for the space probe mission, in Arizona. "It's called Sandaran something." He checked his memo recorder. "Sandaran-Choharis Institute for the Study of Tachyonic Phenomena." He looked up. "Is that near where you used to live?"
"Sandaran Link Center?" Denine glanced at him in surprise, then looked back at the road, as she negotiated an exit ramp off Route 128.
"You've heard of it?"
Denine accelerated onto the secondary highway. "Sure, it's only fifteen or twenty kilometers outside of New Phoenix. I used to know someone who worked there."
Payne shook his head in rueful surprise. "Am I the only one who's never heard of this place?"
Denine laughed. "I'm not sure if she's still there. It's been a while since I last heard. I've told you about her. My friend from high school?"
"You mean the one you had that falling out with?"
"Right. I still get a letter from her once or twice a year." Denine glanced in the rearview mirror, then slowed for a turn. "I haven't seen her, though, since I left school and came east."
"Are you still on speaking terms?"
"Good question. I'm not sure if she writes to keep up the contact, or just to make me feel guilty."
Payne looked at her as the car accelerated again. There was a distracted expression on her face now. "Why would she—"
"Oh—" Denine sighed and gestured noncommittally. "It's a long story. I'm not sure I feel like dredging it up right now."
"Mmm." Payne let it drop, but continued thinking. A contact, any contact, at the institute could be extremely useful if it came to probing out information. "Are you on the kind of terms that you could put me in touch with her?" he said after a while. "Or at least find out if she still works there?"
"Well—"
"If it's going to be really awkward, I don't want to—"
Denine shrugged. "It would be awkward, yeah." She was silent for a few moments, then said, "But what the hell. If you think it'll help you with a story, it's probably worth a call. I don't know what she'll say, though."
"Well, it's a long shot," Payne said. "I don't even know what's out there, or if it would matter. But I should try to cover all the angles. What did she do there?"
Denine shook her head. "Probably a secretary."
"Well, sometimes they're the ones who know the most," he said. He rested his eyes, focusing inwardly on the motion of the car. He was tired, but it was a good feeling. Just don't hope for too much, he cautioned himself.
They made the call later that evening. Denine looked up the number and tapped it into the phone console as Payne pulled up a chair beside her. "Cross your fingers," she said nervously, pushing her hair back from her temples. "Maybe she'll be happy to hear from me."
Denine did not look as though she believed it.
There was a several-second delay, and then a click and a soft beep. A printed message appeared on the screen: "I cannot answer your call right now. If you plan to burglarize my apartment, be advised that I have a team of trained attack gerbils. Enter at your own risk. If you would like to leave a message, do the usual thing. —Mozy."
Payne and Denine looked at one another. "Attack gerbils?" Payne asked.
A smile flickered across Denine's face. She sat indecisively, fingering the console. "Well—shall we leave a message?" She pressed a button. Mozy's message scrolled up, and a line appeared beneath it, along with the time and date. Into that space, Denine typed: "Mozy, this is Denine. Long time no hear. I would like to talk to you, and have a favor to ask. Could you please call me, or let me know when I can reach you at home? Thanks. Dee." She hesitated, then pressed the button to send and turned the screen off.
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