“I’d like very much to have it.”
“Seriously? The corporates could do better by you.”
“Are you going to try to talk me into accepting one of their offers, Rudy?”
“No, no,” he said. “Nothing like that. Yes, sure. The Preston is yours. But I think I told you we don’t have a pilot.”
“I’ve got one.”
“Who?”
“Matt.”
“Matt? Jon, Matt’s a real estate agent.”
“Yeah. Should make a little history.”
He let Jon see that he disapproved. Then he sighed. “Sirius? You’re really going to Sirius?”
“We don’t know yet. I’m just talking off the top of my head.”
“Of course.” He didn’t seem to know what to say.
“I’ve another question.”
“Yes?”
“Would you want to come along?”
He obviously hadn’t been expecting that. “Jon, it’s been years, decades since I’ve been outside the solar system.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to go?”
“No. Not at all. I’m just not sure what I could do to help.”
“You don’t have to help, Rudy. Just come along. For the ride.”
Rudy usually hid his emotions. But he broke into a gigantic grin. “Sure. Absolutely.” Then he frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’ll have to get more money to overhaul the Preston and make the installation.”
“I don’t think money will be a problem. Let’s get together and work out the details.”
“Okay. Sure.” Rudy’s eyes glowed. “Sirius.” He drew the word out, tasting its flavor. “How long’s it going to take to make the flight? We leave in the morning, get there for lunch?”
JON, FEELING VERY much the man in charge, called Hutch and told her what they were planning. “We wanted to invite you to come with us. If you’d like.”
She smiled, a little wistfully, he thought. “No, thanks, Jon. You guys go ahead. Have a big time. Make it work.”
RUDY WASTED NO time getting the word out to the Foundation’s supporters. Contributions poured in. It became a tidal wave.
Meantime, Jon led a team of engineers onto the Preston, and they began replacing the drive unit. Rudy also arranged to upgrade the passenger quarters.
At Stern & Hopkins, Matt informed Emma that he would be piloting the Locarno mission, and arranged to take a leave of absence. She was not happy. “If this drive unit is going to take you out there, wherever that is, so quickly,” she asked, “why do you need a leave of absence? Just take a few vacation days.”
Normally, one did not embrace the boss. On this occasion, Matt made an exception. “Emma,” he said, “we may be gone a bit longer than that.”
“Oh.”
He didn’t put it in words, but she understood. Sirius would be just the beginning. Not much more than another test run.
And, finally, there was Reyna.
“After this is over,” she asked, “what do you plan to do?” They were having dinner at their favorite restaurant, Culbertson’s, on Massachusetts Avenue.
There was no way to soften it for her. “Don’t know,” he said. “But I suspect we’ll be going out again.”
She nodded. Smiled. Didn’t ask how long the follow-up voyage might take. Didn’t ask whether he wanted her to wait. Tried, not entirely successfully, to look like the good soldier. Good luck to you. See you when you get back. Take care of yourself.
Maybe her feelings for him were stronger than he’d realized.
At the end of the evening, when she kissed him, her cheek was wet.
And she let him go.
There were a couple of occasions after that for which he invited her to lunch or dinner, but she explained she was busy. Another time, Matt.
He didn’t see her again until the Preston was ready to go, and she showed up at the Foundation’s farewell luncheon. He didn’t even realize she was there until, when he was leaving with Priscilla Hutchins and one of the board members, she simply appeared standing off to one side. She smiled through the moment and formed the words Good luck with her lips. Then, before he could get to her, she was gone.
LIBRARY ENTRY
SUPERLUMINAL READIES FOR HISTORIC FLIGHT
Work has been completed to prepare the Phyllis Preston for a flight that may change the way we think about our place in the universe. The mission will employ the Locarno propulsion system, which is far more efficient than its predecessor. It’s scheduled for a mid-September departure. The destination has not yet been announced, but officials close to the Prometheus Foundation, which is underwriting the effort, are saying the ship will travel to Sirius.
Sirius is 8.6 light-years from Earth. A one-way flight, using the Hazeltine technology, would require slightly more than 20 hours. The Preston expects to make it in about 40 minutes.
—Worldwide News Service, Thursday, August 23
chapter 17
WHEN JON AND his collaborators started talking about a target for the first flight out of the solar system, they’d considered Alpha Centauri and Procyon as well as Sirius. Somewhere close. But as the work on the Preston neared completion, they began to think in terms of spectacle. Why settle for something on the tour routes?
“Let’s go deep.” Later, nobody could remember who’d originally said the words, but it became their mantra. Let’s go deep. Let’s not screw around.
Let’s head outside the bubble.
The deepest penetration to date had been 3,160 light-years by the Patrick Heffernan, three decades earlier. Nobody went out that far anymore. Nobody even went close.
When Rudy mentioned it to Hutch, she shook her head. “Not a good idea.”
“Why not? Why mess around?”
“What happens if you go for a record, and there’s a problem? Nobody would be able to reach you for nine or ten months.”
They were at Rudy’s town house, enjoying the pool with Matt, Jon, and a half dozen other friends. Rudy was always a bit more bombastic at the town house. “We used to make flights like that all the time,” he said.
“That was during an era when we had missions all over the place. If something broke down, there was always somebody reasonably close. That’s not the case anymore.”
Rudy went into his I-wish-you-had-a-little-more-faith-in-us mode. “There won’t be a problem,” he said.
Matt would have liked to sell the guy some property. “She’s right, Rudy. I mean, if she weren’t, why would we need to run a test at all?”
In the end, with everyone either showing or pretending disappointment, they settled for Alioth.
The third star in from the end of the Dipper’s handle, it was eighty-one light-years from Earth. It would make a fair test without putting them at unnecessary risk.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Rudy got a call from C. B. Williams, a Worldwide executive. “Rudy,” he said, “we’d like to send someone along on the flight. Give you some decent news coverage.”
Rudy thought about it and decided it seemed like a good idea. “Okay,” he said. “We can make room for him. Or her.”
“Good. We’re talking about Antonio Giannotti. He’ll represent the entire pool.”
Antonio Giannotti. Where had Rudy heard the name before?
“He’s our science reporter,” said Williams.
No. It wasn’t that. Rudy knew the name from somewhere else.
“Thirty years ago, on the Black Cat, he was Dr. Science. Did a show for kids.”
Yes! Dr. Science. Rudy had grown up watching Dr. Science explain how gravity worked, and what climatologists were trying to do to compensate for changing weather patterns. He’d radiated so much enthusiasm about his various topics that Rudy had known by the time he was eight that he would give his life to the sciences. “Yes,” he said. “We’d enjoy having him along.”
THEY WERE WELL past the era during which summer in the nation’s capital provided some cool days in Septemb
er. Early fall remained hot in Virginia and Maryland, and Matt was happy to be getting away from it.
He took the shuttle from Reagan the day before their scheduled departure. Rudy was on the same flight, and he was like a kid. He kept talking about how he’d been looking forward to this his whole life, and that he still couldn’t believe it was happening. He extracted a promise from Matt that, as soon as they’d gotten checked into their hotel, they’d go down and inspect the Preston.
The flight to Union lasted less than ninety minutes. When they docked, Matt led the way out, walking with studied casualness, as if he did this sort of thing all the time.
An AI informed them of their room numbers, and their baggage showed up a few minutes after they did. Matt would have preferred to shower and change, but Rudy was anxious to go. So they went.
The Preston wasn’t much to look at. It had been in service too long. It was battered by two many chunks of rock and scored by cosmic dust. A pair of devices that resembled scanners had been added to the bow. These were scramblers, which would manipulate the space-time continuum, drive a wedge into it, and allow the ship to slide between dimensions.
The words PROMETHEUS FOUNDATION were emblazoned on the hull, with the organization’s symbol, a lamp and flame. “It’s appropriate,” said Rudy, looking through a twenty-foot-wide portal.
“What is?” asked Matt.
“Prometheus. The fire-bringer.”
Jon appeared at the main hatch, waved, and came up the tube to the concourse. He was all smiles. “Good to see you guys,” he said. “Matt, I think you’re going to like your new ship.”
“Is it ready to go?” Matt asked.
“They’re still tightening a few bolts and whatnot. But yes, it’s all set.”
“Can we take a look?” asked Rudy.
“Sure.” Jon stood aside to let Rudy enter the tube first.
“Beautiful ship.” Rudy’s eyes literally bulged. The tube was transparent, and they could look out at the docking area. The Preston was secured to magnetic clamps.
Only one other ship was in port. The place was designed to service eighteen.
“Time was,” said Matt, “it would have been filled.”
Rudy produced an imager. He took pictures of the Preston, pictures of Matt and Jon, handed the device to Matt and posed with Jon for more pictures. “I’ve been up here a good bit,” he said. “Even been inside the Preston a few times. But this is different.”
Matt clapped him on the shoulder, and they went through the hatch into the ship. Matt had already been on board during the refitting. He’d familiarized himself with the controls, gotten on first-name terms with Phyllis, the AI, and was anxious to launch.
Rudy strode onto the bridge and sat down in the pilot’s chair. “Nice feeling,” he said.
Matt agreed. He felt fifteen years younger.
Rudy pressed his fingertips against the control board. “How long did you say it was going to take to get there?”
“To Alioth?” asked Jon.
“Yes.”
“Five and a half hours.”
“My God, I still can’t believe it. It used to take”—he consulted his notebook—“more than a week.”
Matt had been there once, years ago. “Eight days,” he said, “two hours, eleven minutes in transit.”
Rudy was enjoying himself. “How long would it take us to get to Alpha Centauri?”
“About twenty minutes,” said Matt. “A little less, probably.”
MATT WAS TOO excited to sleep that night. He was up at about five, took almost two hours for breakfast, talked to some reporters, had coffee with Rudy in Cappy’s, talked to more reporters, and called Jon, who was with the technicians. “If they aren’t finished yet,” Matt remarked, “it’s not a good sign.”
But Jon was in the best of moods. “It’s not their fault,” he said. “You’re never really finished calibrating something like this.”
Antonio Giannotti wandered into the restaurant. Matt recognized him immediately, would have known him even if Rudy hadn’t alerted him he was coming. He was a muscular guy, average height, with a craggy face and the sort of beard favored by mad scientists. He looked bigger on the HV. Originally from Rome, he’d run the Dr. Science show from there, where he’d played his role wrapped in a white lab coat. He didn’t look much older than he had in those days. Rudy waved him over, introduced him, and Matt felt a bit awed in his presence.
What had happened to Dr. Science? One year, when Matt was about thirteen, he just suddenly wasn’t there anymore.
“It was a job with no future,” Antonio said. “I had nowhere to go from there.”
“I would have thought you could have done anything. You were great.”
“The science was great. I wanted to be a comedian.”
Matt could still recall his disappointment when Dr. Science disappeared. Along with his discovery he couldn’t hit a decent curveball, it had marked what he thought of as his arrival at the beginning of adulthood. Being a teen, he would think later, wasn’t all hormones and good times. There were some losses. Inevitably, there were always losses.
More reporters arrived, from the Post and Nature. He and Antonio were talking with them when Hutch called. “Where are you, Matt?”
“Cappy’s,” he said.
“Save me a seat.”
A few minutes later she walked in. The Post and Nature didn’t recognize her. “My understanding,” said the Post, “is that the drive system is not only much more efficient, but it’s safer than the Hazeltine. Is that true?”
“It’s less complex. Fewer things can go wrong.”
“How close was Barber to solving these issues?” asked Nature. “Does he get the credit? Or is it Jon Silvestri who did the brute work?”
Time was, Matt thought, Hutch would have been the center of attention.
Yesterday’s news.
“One of them, the guy with the muscles,” Matt told her, “is making the flight with us. He’s a pool reporter.”
“Good. Publicity never hurts.” She turned those dark eyes on him. “Matt, I wanted to come by to wish you luck.”
“Jon tells me you don’t want to come.”
“Yeah. I’m a little busy.”
“But not too busy to run up here?” She was silent. He let it play out. Then: “Wish you were coming?”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said.
“We have room.”
“I didn’t bring my gear.”
“What gear? We’ll be back tonight.”
“Matt, I’d love to, but—”
“But what? You have anything pressing to do today or tomorrow?” He could see some sort of internal struggle going on.
“Not really. I just—”
“Yeah?”
“—don’t—”
“—don’t what?”
“I promised myself I wouldn’t do this again.”
“Why?”
She hesitated. “My family, I guess.”
“Aren’t your kids both away at school?”
“Yes.”
“Not that it matters. You’ll be home tonight if you want to make the late run down to Reagan.” Matt paused, then added, “And we make the world’s best return jump.” After they arrived insystem, they’d still have to use the main engines to come the rest of the way in. It could take a while.
“Alioth and back in a few hours.”
“Yes.” Matt couldn’t resist a broad smile. “Welcome to the new world, Priscilla.”
LIKE MATT, SHE’D made a flight to Alioth once, years ago, hauling a team of researchers. When they got there, they’d spent three weeks insystem. The three weeks hadn’t been bad, because the researchers were busy taking temperatures and charting orbits, leaving her to read and watch shows. It had been painful nonetheless. That crowd, the Alioth crowd, had been hopelessly dull, and they’d spent much of their time trying to impress her. It hadn’t helped that she herself had been quite young then, just starting her career, and not
very bright.
That had been the mission during which an additional star had been discovered in the system. It had been a big event, setting the researchers into a celebration that had gone on, in one form or another, for several days. She’d been dismissive of it, informing one of them that it wasn’t as if there was a shortage of stars. It turned out that the discovery accounted for a series of orbital anomalies. It meant little to her. In those days she was hard to impress. Probably every bit as dull as the researchers.
Hutch had been unable to resist attending the Preston launch. Years ago, after she’d made her last flight, on the Amirault, she’d promised herself that she would not go back into space. She’d never been sure why she’d done that. Maybe the knowledge that her days in the superluminals had ended was too painful, and she’d wanted to pretend it didn’t matter. In any case, she’d kept her vow. Had even resisted a vacation aboard The Evening Star when Tor had wanted to treat her.
If I go out there, I’m not sure I’ll be able to come back.
Well, that was a bit over the top, but there was a modicum of truth to it. Still, she ached to do it again. To cruise past Canopus and touch down on Achernar II and glide through the rings at Deneb V. (Deneb, at approximately twenty-six hundred light-years, had marked the farthest she’d ever been from home. She’d loved that flight.)
And she was sorry she’d declined Jon’s offer. Wouldn’t admit it to herself, but she stood looking into Matt’s eyes, knowing she’d regret it forever if she didn’t go. Why not? Charge off for the day. Be back tonight.
She’d have to buy a change of clothes. Maybe a few other items. But why the hell not?
AN HOUR LATER, she worked her way through a mob of reporters and cameramen and well-wishers and walked onto the Preston with Matt. Jon laughed at her and said how he knew all along she’d break down and come. She put her gear away and sat down next to Antonio in the common room while Jon and Matt chatted on the bridge. That was where she really wanted to be, but she made up her mind to let them do whatever they had to do and give Matt a clear field. Last thing he’d need would be an ex-pilot hanging around. “So,” she said, looking for a topic, “what makes a good reporter, Antonio? What’s your secret?”
“Unbending intelligence and integrity.” Antonio smiled. “My mother always thought I was a natural.”
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