Starhawk (A Priscilla Hutchins Novel)

by McDevitt, Jack

  “Really? You’re pretty young to be doing that, aren’t you?”

  “I wish.”

  “Are you going to be living here?”

  “For a while, anyhow.”

  “Well, good. I hope you’ll come over to Charlottesville to see me occasionally.”

  “I’ll do that, David.”

  “I’ll tell you something, though. If I could fly one of those things that you do, I don’t think I’d ever quit.”

  * * *

  WHEN HE’D FINISHED his dinner, Jake went back up to the cabin and turned on the HV. He needed to get a couple of women in his life. Maybe that would help him break out of this mood. There were a few places in the area he could try. But not tonight.

  He settled onto his sofa and looked for something to watch. He skimmed over cooking shows, talking heads going on about the presidential campaign, more talking heads discussing a woman who’d gotten dumped and responded by murdering her boyfriend, the boyfriend’s father, and a pizza-delivery guy who’d gotten seriously unlucky. He found an Ed Brisbane comedy, but he’d seen it. And a science-fiction thriller with a man and woman crawling through a pipe pursued by a spidery beast.

  Yuk.

  He was still looking when his link sounded. He lowered the volume on the HV. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Loomis? This is Sheila Pascal. I’m calling for ITI.” Interstellar Transport, Inc. “We understand you’ve retired.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Mr. Loomis, we need an experienced pilot. We’d like very much to talk with you. Maybe bring you on board.”

  “No, thank you, Sheila. I have no plans to go back.”

  “Well, yes, that’s what we heard.” Her voice warmed. “We’d make it worth your while, Mr. Loomis. We are moving people and cargo out to several stations. You’d find the work interesting and rewarding—”

  “Thanks, Sheila. But I’ll have to pass.”

  “Okay, Mr. Loomis. I’m sorry to hear it. We expect to keep the job open for another forty-eight hours or so. So you have time to get in touch with us if you change your mind. I’ll hope to hear from you.”

  * * *

  JAKE WAS STANDING on the front deck in a heavy jacket watching the sun dip below the mountains. It was cold. November in the Blue Ridge. A steady wind was roiling the tree limbs. He was about to go inside when his link sounded. The ID signaled an unknown caller. “Jake?” A male voice. Familiar.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “This is Leon.”

  “Leon?” His jaw dropped.

  “I need to see you.”

  For a long moment he stared at the link. “Leon, you didn’t really do that, did you?”

  The wind murmured in the trees. “Yes,” he said. The word hung in the vast mountain desolation. “God help me, Jake, yes. I did it. It wasn’t supposed to happen the way it did.”

  Jake was surprised that he felt no sudden rage. Only a cold lack of emotion. “You know about Joshua?”

  “Yes. I know.” Something cackled. “Jake, I’m just a couple of minutes away. Can I come by? I need to talk to you.”

  “You know where I am?”

  “Yes. Please, Jake.”

  “All right. Come on over.”

  * * *

  DESPITE THE COLD, he waited on the deck. The view was spectacular. Snow-covered mountains, Claytor Lake trailing away to the southwest. The woods were silent, but somewhere he heard kids laughing. Probably the Conway cabin, the only one nearby, though it wasn’t visible. Gradually, the laughter subsided and was replaced by the sound of a car coming up the mountain road. The only thing he could think of at that moment was the pleasure it would give him to throttle Leon Carlson.

  The car came in through the trees and pulled off into the driveway behind his two-door Ford Lance. Leon got out, looked up at him, closed the car door, and simply stood with slumped shoulders. “Hello, Jake,” he said.

  “You know the Feds are after you?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  They stood staring at each other until finally Jake reached back, opened his door, and held it. Leon climbed the three steps onto the deck. He hesitated at the entrance until Jake motioned him inside. “Jake,” he said, “I’d give anything if I could go back and change what I did.”

  “Yeah. I don’t guess you get a do-over, do you? Not when you kill somebody.”

  “No, you don’t. I’m going to have to live with that. I thought—Well, Jake, you don’t know what we’re doing out there. We’re destroying an entire world. Everything on it is dying.”

  “I understand about that, Leon. But how does that justify your putting a bomb on a goddam interstellar?”

  “I—I just got it wrong. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”

  “You could’ve taken out those kids, too.”

  “Damn it, Jake, there weren’t supposed to be any kids. There was only supposed to be Drake and the shipment. I had it set up so he’d dock at the Selika station, and an alarm would go off and warn him about the bomb. There would have been time for him to get away from it. I was trying to make a statement. It’s all I wanted to do. Find a way to alert people about what’s happening.”

  They sat down in the living room. Jake got some scotch and filled two glasses. “Here.” He set Leon’s on the side table. “What do you want me to do? You want me to help you get out of the country somewhere? Is that what this is all about?”

  “No, Jake. My life is over. I just want you to cut me some slack.”

  “In what way?”

  “I want to apologize. I know what you went through.”

  “No, you don’t. You have no idea what I went through. I stood aside out there and let Joshua kill himself. Who do I get to apologize to?”

  “I’m sorry, Jake. That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t just let this thing hang. I can’t do anything now except this—” He finished the drink in a swallow and stood. “I’m sorry. I’d change it if I could.” He started toward the door but stopped. “If you want to call the police, they can pick me up on the road.” His voice broke. He was almost in tears. “Or, if you want, I’ll wait here for them to come for me.”

  “You’re right, Leon. You really screwed it up.” Jake stayed unmoving in his chair.

  Leon opened the door and looked back at him. “Good-bye, Jake,” he said. Then he was gone.

  * * *

  NEWSDESK

  HOMICIDE RATE IN CITIES RISING AGAIN

  Philadelphia Worst in Nation with 63 Dead So Far

  Projected to Reach 70 by Year’s End

  EBERLE HAMPTON DEAD AT 122

  Cause of Death Uncertain

  Beloved Vocalist Founded Child Rescue

  SPACE STATION TO UPGRADE SECURITY

  New Systems Already in Place

  PRESIDENT NORMAN PARDONS TURKEY

  Representatives from Both Parties Attend New White House Dinner

  HIGH IQ LINKED TO COMIC BOOKS

  Early Childhood Activities May Count More Than Genes

  RED SOX SIGN BOOMER LYSON IN RECORD DEAL

  ISRAEL, PALESTINE HOST WORLD CHESS TOURNAMENT

  MCGRUDER BLASTS NORMAN ON ECONOMY AS RACE HEATS UP

  Tells Supporters “It’s All About Jobs”

  DENTIST DROWNS WHILE RESCUING KIDS

  Helps Two Girls Survive Overturned Canoe

  CHURCH ATTACK RENEWS PLASMA WEAPON DEBATE

  NLA Resists Attempts to Impose Ban

  ZANZIBAR FERRY OVERTURNS

  Six Dead; Captain Sought

  Chapter 15

  JAKE LISTENED WHILE Leon started his car and pulled out of the driveway. Joshua’s killer, and he was just sitting there. Wonderful. He removed his link, a silver bracelet, and put it on the side table. Cars were not silent, though the noise was artificially created, consisting of
a standardized droning so people could hear them coming. He stared at the link as the car descended the mountain road until, finally, he couldn’t hear it anymore. What would he tell Patricia if she found out he’d just sat while Carlson drove off? He didn’t work for her anymore, so technically she had no claim on him. Except maybe that he behave in a decent manner.

  He could happily have strangled the guy, but he couldn’t call the police.

  He put on the HV, located a talk show, three people debating whether the general public should have unfettered access to plasma weapons. The HV was valuable in that it filled the cabin with noise. But it did no more than that when he had to watch it alone.

  After a few minutes, he shut it down, pulled his jacket on, and went outside. The sun was gone, and the temperature was dropping rapidly.

  * * *

  HE MET ALICIA Conner the following evening at the Roundhouse. She was sitting with two other women when she caught Jake looking at her. She dropped her eyes, but she didn’t suck in her cheeks or tighten her lips or show any of the other turnoff reactions. It was come get me if you want me—

  Alicia was a brunette, energetic, bright, obviously a woman who enjoyed herself. Jake asked her to dance. She pretended to think about it, smiled, and got up. They floated around the floor, exchanged names and compliments, and found a table where they could sit and talk. “I work down at the bank,” she said.

  “An accountant?”

  “No. I’m in security. What do you do?

  “I used to be a pilot.” He didn’t want to use the word retired.

  “What kind of pilot, Jake? A boat?”

  “Interstellars,” he said, trying to sound modest. Her eyes went wide. Then skepticism flowed into her smile.

  “Come on,” she said. “What do you really do?”

  He returned the grin. “May I buy you a drink?”

  * * *

  ALICIA WAS JUST what he needed after the interaction with Leon. She was energetic, funny, and she grew more attractive as the evening wore on. She was about thirty, was a graduate of the University of Georgia, and had been living in the Radford area for about a year. She was a computer geek, charged with overseeing the protection of customer accounts.

  And she loved talking about outer space. What stars had Jake been to? Had he really seen some of the Great Monuments? Had he touched any of them? When he said yes, she squealed and wanted to know which one and how it had felt. “I’ve always wanted to go out to Iapetus,” she said. “I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  She was full of questions. What was the farthest place he’d ever visited? Had he seen any of the ruins on—where was it?—Quraqua? Then she connected his name to the Gremlin incident. Wasn’t he the captain involved in the rescue of the schoolkids? “Yes,” he said. “That was me.” It was a tense moment while he waited to see whether she’d dig deeper. But she moved on. What was the most compelling astronomical object he’d seen? (That one was easy: Earth, when you were coming home and got close enough to make out the oceans and continents.)

  So they danced and talked their way through the evening.

  * * *

  WHEN IT WAS over, and she commented that it had been a lovely night but she needed to get home, he made no effort to talk her into going back to the cabin. He liked her too much to chance spoiling things. They had by then visited several of the nightspots. He took her back to the Roundhouse, where she’d left her car. “Alicia,” he said, “I wonder if we could get together and do something like this again?”

  “It has been nice, hasn’t it?” she said.

  “Absolutely.” He looked down into those brilliant eyes. “Would it be okay if I called you later? Maybe we could set something up?”

  “I can live with that.” She smiled and gave him her code.

  They kissed, gently, with carefully contained passion on his side. He escorted her back to her apartment complex. He watched her park and waited until she was at the front door. She waved and went inside. Then Jake returned happily up his mountain road. Sex would have been good, he thought, would have been outstanding. He suspected he could not have made it happen, though. But it wasn’t what he needed at the moment anyway.

  What he needed was a friend.

  The guys in the Cockpit would have thought he’d lost his mind.

  * * *

  ALICIA’S DIARY

  Tonight, I might have struck gold. We’ll see.

  —November 26, 2195

  Chapter 16

  PRISCILLA AND TAWNY rode the shuttle down to the Philadelphia spaceport. She got off and gloried in the familiar tug of gravity, in being able to walk without paying attention to every step, in not having to be careful about the way she handled her coffee. One of the other passengers, a large middle-aged woman, read her eyes and smiled agreement. A young couple, probably finishing a honeymoon, were actually jumping up and down, deliriously happy to have their weight back.

  She took a taxi to the Thirtieth Street Station, where she boarded a glide train. Twenty-five minutes later, she got off in Princeton. Her mother was waiting in the station and greeted her with a big hug. “It’s so good to have you home,” she said. “We were following the news reports, but nobody seemed to be sure what was going on.”

  “It’s great to be back, Mom.”

  Mom had news. Reporters had been calling, asking how she felt about the way Captain Miller had died. “I didn’t get into that. Told them I didn’t know anything about it. They were also hoping to find you, but I didn’t tell them you were coming home.” She smiled.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Her eyes clouded. “I have to say that I wasn’t impressed by Loomis’s behavior.”

  “It was an impossible situation, Mom. We didn’t know. You might as well blame me.”

  “That’s hardly the case, love. But let it go. Did I tell you that Uncle Phil is finally going to get married? To a doctor, no less. Her name’s Miriam. You’ll like her. And Cousin Ed finally quit his old job with the city. He’s working over at Margo’s bakery. A chef. I think he’s finally satisfied. It’s really what he’s always wanted to do.”

  Ed was, in fact, the best cook in the family. He’d been a history major in school, but it hadn’t worked out. He’d tried teaching, had been a naval officer, and had talked about writing a history of the post-Islamic wars. He’d admitted to Priscilla that the era was too complicated and too chaotic for anybody to make sense of. “It might need twelve volumes,” he’d told her. When she’d left, he’d been a clerk at the county unemployment office. “For a while,” said Mom, “we thought he’d just gone around to the other side of the counter.” They both laughed.

  They left Tawny in the car and stopped for a snack at the Delmore Pizza. It was almost 3:00 A.M. for Priscilla, who’d been living on Greenwich time for almost three months. But the aroma of pizza had always been enough to keep her awake. They sat down at a table, and Mom said something about going off her diet, but it was worth it to have her daughter home again.

  Her mother, fortunately, had stopped calling her “Prissy.” Priscilla had never liked the name. Mom was the only one who used it, but, although Priscilla never said anything directly, she’d made no effort to hide her feelings. Obviously, the message had finally gotten through.

  She was living alone now. Had been since Daddy’s sudden death two years earlier. Sitting at the Delmore, trading stories with her mother, talking about Barton’s World and the frightened students, she realized that her mom was proud of her.

  * * *

  HER BEDROOM HADN’T changed much. The framed photo in which she stood between her parents in front of one of the monitors at the Drake Center still commanded attention from the top of her bureau. A photo of the Galileo, an early superluminal, hung over the bed, and a picture of her with her old boyfriend Charlie Cartwell at a Wildwood beach stood under a lamp. A calendar featuring
a wide-eyed parrot hung near the window. It was still set at September, when she’d left for her final weeks in training.

  Like anyone’s childhood bedroom, it encapsulated a lot of memories. Jerry the Hamster waving at her from the lamp shade, the upper shelf of her closet where she’d hidden Christmas gifts for her parents, the child’s desk in one corner where she’d started her first diary.

  On that night, because she was still running on Greenwich time, she awakened long before dawn. She started thinking about breakfast and decided to get up. It seemed like a good day for a bagel topped with strawberry jelly.

  She put on the HV and got a shock: The FBI had held a press conference and named the suspected bomber in the Gremlin incident. It was Leon.

  That was simply not possible. He was a friend. She’d shared meals with him and knew he would never deliberately injure anyone. But she remembered the evening on which there’d been the altercation in Skydeck. Still, it could not have been him. The interstellar pilots and techs had a sacred bond of sorts, a commitment to one another that everything was secondary to the safety of their passengers and each other. The notion that one of them would deliberately put a bomb on a ship was counter to everything she’d come to believe.

  She shook her head. Can’t trust anybody. But she just couldn’t buy it.

  * * *

  SHE CHECKED HER link, hoping to see a message from, maybe, Interstellar Transport attempting to buy her away from Kosmik. But there was nothing. She got up and looked out the window at the McClellands’ house across the street, clothed in darkness. A three-quarter Moon was framed just over its roof.

  Even now it was hard to believe she’d walked on its surface.

  * * *

  SHE GOT A call from Wally Brinkman that afternoon. She and Wally had run an on-again off-again romance over the past year. Wally had been shocked that past summer when she’d announced her intention to leave Princeton. “Princeton?” he’d said. “Priscilla, you’re going to be leaving Earth. You really sure you want to do that?”

  Wally had gone into investment banking. He was a good guy, but he thought life was exclusively about money. That was what his education had been for. He’d told her that she could do much better at home. “There’s no money in piloting,” he said. “For one thing, even if you had some resources to start with, you’re too far away from everything to be able to keep up with what’s going on. So you have to trust somebody else to manage your investments.” He’d shaken his head. “It’s just a shortsighted way to do things.”