Odyssey

by Jack McDevitt

  He sat, staring up at her. “All right,” he said finally. “Let me think about what we can do, okay? I’ll get back to you.”

  Hutch moved within range of the sensor, and the door opened. “The next Colby flight is the Kira, next week.”

  “Okay. Sit tight for a bit. Let me figure out what we want to do.” His eyes settled on a note written on his calendar. “By the way, keep your schedule clear this afternoon. Senator Taylor will be here later, and he wants to see you.”

  “He wants to see me?”

  “He’ll have his daughter with him. She’s a big fan of yours, apparently.” His tone suggested he was puzzled why that might be.

  “Things are pretty crowded today, Michael.”

  He waved the problem away. “Make yourself available. He specifically wants his daughter to say hello to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think her name is Amy. She wants to be a pilot. And you might keep in mind that Taylor will have a lot to say about whether we get decent funding next year.”

  SHE WAS IN conference with a couple of her department heads when the call came. “The commissioner says Senator Taylor’s on the grounds. Please go up to his office.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m on my way.” She made her apologies and reset the meeting for four o’clock. It was a cool day, and the heating system didn’t seem to be functioning. She grabbed a jacket out of her closet and headed up to the second floor. Asquith kept her waiting about ten minutes in his outer office, then rolled out, straightening his collar and giving directions to his AI, Don’t call me, I’ll be back in half an hour. Take care of the place.

  He signaled her to follow, and they hurried down to the ground level and out of the building.

  “Where are we meeting them?” she asked, as they descended the front steps and turned north on one of the walk-ways.

  “In the courtyard.” Taylor was a Greenie senator from Georgia, a guy who had no time for the Academy, star travel, or the sciences generally. He had gone to Congress on one issue only: a promise to do whatever was necessary to get the greenhouse under control. He had grown up on St. Simons Island, off the Georgia coast. A resort back in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it wasn’t much more than a sandbar now. “He wants to talk about the future of the Academy.”

  “I thought this was a social thing.”

  “With politicians, Hutch, social things are always business.” He used the word politician with contempt, as he always did. You would never have thought he was one himself.

  Ahead, a flyer descended into the parking area beside the courtyard. Two people got out, and the vehicle lifted away. She recognized Taylor. The girl with him looked about fifteen. She was pretty, as kids of that age invariably are. She glanced around at the administration building while her father spotted Hutch and Asquith and started in their direction, leaving her in the rear.

  “The kid admires you,” said Asquith. “She thinks you’re a hero.” He smiled at the absurdity of the notion.

  “Okay.”

  “She wants to see the lander.” The lander from the Shanghai was on display at the far end of the courtyard. It gleamed in the sunlight.

  AMY HAD BROWN hair combed into bangs and wide brown eyes and restless energy and a smile that was both charming and unsteady. Hutch felt sorry for her. Growing up with the senator would not be easy. What she knew of him suggested he wasn’t flexible enough for parenting, and the wife had taken off years ago with somebody. Another political figure, but she didn’t recall whom.

  “Good to see you guys,” Taylor said, with a hearty handshake. Quick smile in Hutch’s direction, but his eyes leveled on Asquith. “Pretty scary with the Heffernan, Mike. What’s the latest?”

  “We haven’t heard anything yet, Senator. We’ll have a couple of ships arriving in the area tomorrow to look for them.”

  “But you really don’t know where they are?”

  “Not for certain, no.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “We don’t know that either. Yet. But we’re on top of it. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Old ships,” said Hutch, as Amy joined them.

  Taylor turned a quizzical look in her direction. “You’re telling me they’re a hazard?”

  “The commissioner has ordered them grounded,” she said. Asquith studied the tops of the trees.

  “When were you going to tell me, Mike?” he asked.

  The commissioner smiled. One of those smiles you get from a guy who’s just fallen off his cycle and is telling you he’s okay, it’s not as bad as it looks. “Senator, it’s one of the reasons I was glad you decided to come by today.”

  Taylor let them see he was surprised that they might have defective ships. Then he shrugged. It was of no consequence. “Priscilla,” he said, “this is my daughter Amy. Amy is quite an admirer of yours.”

  The child blushed and squirmed. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Hutchins. I’ve read all about you.”

  Hutch took her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Amy. And my friends call me Hutch.”

  Amy’s smile widened. “I was reading Janet Allegri’s book about you.”

  “The Engines of God.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not really about me, Amy. It’s about the omegas.”

  “And Quraqua. I’d like to go there someday.”

  It was a world of ruins. She recalled how they’d looked in the moonlight. She’d been young then, only a few years older than Amy. Most of the ruins were gone, swallowed by the terraforming effort, begun and later abandoned when it got too expensive, and things went wrong. “How much do you know about Quraqua, Amy?”

  “I’ve seen the holos. But it would be different actually to go there. To touch some of those places.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to be a pilot.”

  “She doesn’t really want to do that,” the senator said, talking as if Amy had gone for a walk. “It’s too dangerous. And there’s no future in it.”

  “It’s not dangerous, Dad.”

  “Tell that to the people on the—what is it?—the Bannerman?”

  “The Heffernan, sir,” said Asquith.

  “Whatever. Anyhow, Amy, you’re young yet. We’ll see how things go.” He patted her on the shoulder. His expression suggested she was basically a good kid. Just a bit slow. “We’re planning law school for her.”

  Taylor’s first name was Hiram. He was tall and aristocratic. He didn’t so much have a Southern accent as a distinct Southern flavor emanating from an education at Yale or Harvard. His hair was darker than Amy’s, as was his smile. It lasted longer, though. In fact, it never really went away. It was as if the world always contained something that Taylor thought mildly amusing.

  Amy asked when Hutch had begun her piloting career, asked to see the lander, wanted to know what it felt like to walk on another world.

  Hutch saw a signal pass between the senator and Asquith. The commissioner relayed it to her and glanced toward the lander. A few tourists stood in a short line, waiting to go inside. “Come on, Amy,” Hutch said. “Let’s go take a look.”

  The girl led the way. They got into the line, and Hutch did not look back, but she knew they’d be talking seriously, or rather Taylor would and Asquith would be listening. It wasn’t hard to guess the way it was going, either. If you have to take the ships off-line, do it. We don’t want any more of these Heffernan things. The work’s just not that important.

  The Academy wasn’t high on the list of things the public was worried about. Taylor had presidential ambitions, and he was laying groundwork for the future. The environmental damage done over the past two centuries had been the major issue in the past several presidential campaigns. If you thought rising water was okay, that warm winters were temporary, and a wheat belt that kept heading north would correct itself, you could forget about the White House. Those days were long over. If you advocated spending money on frivolous causes, like the interstellar missions that never seemed to produ
ce anything, you could be made to look irresponsible.

  The controls were roped off. Tourists were able to look into the cabin, try the seats, even bring the harness down to secure themselves. Hutch would have liked to bypass the lines, put the child in the pilot’s seat, let her touch the yoke, maybe even activate the AI so she could talk with it, but with people waiting it wouldn’t set a very good precedent.

  Maybe another time.

  WHEN SHE RETURNED Amy to her father, he looked pleased. The commissioner was nodding, a man in the process of accepting something he didn’t like. He was saying okay, we’ll do what we have to.

  The conversation stopped dead on their arrival. Hutch waited a moment, but no one spoke. Time to lighten the mood. “Senator,” she said, “if you’d like to bring Amy over sometime when things aren’t so rushed, I could take her on a personal tour. Better yet, if you like, I could even arrange to take her up to Union.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Hutch, but it’s really not necessary.”

  “I’d be happy to,” she said.

  He studied her, the smile still playing about his lips, pointless, as if he’d forgotten it was there. “Would you like to go to the space station, Amy?”

  Would she? Does the sun rise in the east? “Yes, Dad. Please. I’d love to go up there again.” And back to Hutch: “Would you really do that?”

  “Tell you what,” Hutch said. “I have a daughter, too. She’s a bit younger than you. But if you’ll help me keep an eye on her, we’ll all go. Okay?”

  Taylor thanked her. His flyer reappeared and descended onto the tarp. They climbed in while Amy waved. Hutch and the commissioner waved back, the door closed, and the vehicle lifted into the late-afternoon sun and circled out over the Potomac.

  “I think you’ve made a friend,” said Asquith.

  “Maybe a new pilot.” They started back. “How bad was it?”

  A shadow settled on his face. “It was pretty much what I expected. He’s not going to support us.”

  “No increase at all?”

  “Another cut. He says they need the money elsewhere.”

  “They waste enough on construction projects and military bases and naval vessels. When’s the last time anybody tried to threaten the NAU?”

  “I know, Hutch. You’re preaching to the choir.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “He says we may be near the end of the interstellar program. Suggested I get my résumé ready.”

  The basic problem, she knew, was that the corporate effort intended to carry space exploration through the century had never happened. The corporations were there, but the only profits to be made came from government contracts. The sole exceptions were a couple of transport companies and Orion Tours.

  “You know,” he said, “none of this is going the way we thought it would forty years ago. Before your time, Hutch. Once the drive became available, we thought we were opening up the stars. That there’d be no stopping us.”

  It was a time when people assumed everyone would want to go out and look at the Big Show, but transportation, even with Hazeltine technology, simply took too long. It wasn’t like a cruise to the Bahamas, where you could wander across the deck at night and enjoy the sounds of the ocean. Tourists were locked inside steel hulls. Shipboard VR was okay, but it was still VR, and they could do that at home. Everybody’s favorite was the Goompahs, the race we’d saved at Lookout. But Lookout was a couple thousand light-years away, and it took almost nine months to get there. It was three months to Rigel. Even nearby Betelgeuse, the destination of the Heffernan, was close to three weeks away.

  There was considerable interest in black holes. But none was known that could be reached inside a year. And these were all one-way numbers.

  There was a lot of talk about developing a better drive. Periodically, somebody announced a breakthrough, but it never seemed to lead anywhere. “You might want to start looking around for a new career yourself, Hutch,” Asquith said. “Maybe write your memoirs.”

  They started up the steps to the main entrance. She expected him to complain that she’d taken the initiative with the senator, but he said nothing about it. Maybe he’d had enough confrontation for one day.

  He stopped in front of the entrance. “Listen, Hutch, I appreciate what you tried to do back there. But it’s going to take a lot more than that.”

  “What I tried to do?” He was obviously not talking about grounding the fleet. “You mean Amy?”

  He nodded. “You were pretty good with her.”

  “For the record, Michael, it had nothing to do with politics.”

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  The current effort to reduce Academy funding can only accelerate with the Heffernan incident. Insiders have been reporting for years that the Academy’s ships are not safe. A decision will have to be made whether the interstellar program is to continue or be abandoned. We hope the Congress and the World Council will have the foresight to recognize that the human future lies in the stars, that they will not give in to those who want to spend the money on their own projects. We’ve seen only a very small piece of what Ory Kimonides calls The Far Shore. To conclude there’s nothing significant left to find, as some so-called experts are suggesting, would be terribly remiss.

  —Yokohama Calling, Monday, February 16

  chapter 6

  Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while the morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don’t complain when the roof comes down.

  —Gregory MacAllister, “Ten Rules for a Happy Senility”

  Hutch stayed late in her office, ate almost nothing, thought about going home, finally called Tor and asked whether everything was all right. “Can you take care of Maureen tonight?”

  “Sure,” he said. “You’re not going to stay there all night, are you?”

  “The Wildside is due to hit the search area at about 0200. I want to be here when it does.”

  “You haven’t heard anything from them yet? From the Heffernan?”

  “No.”

  “That pretty much means they’re dead, doesn’t it?”

  “No. What it means is they don’t have a working hypercomm. That wouldn’t be a surprise if they’d lost their drive. But they should still be able to use the radio.”

  “What happens if you don’t hear a radio signal?”

  She didn’t want to think about it. “To be honest, Tor, I don’t expect to. At least not right away. The search area’s too big. I’m hoping we’ll get lucky.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “We’ll keep looking until we do.”

  He took a deep breath. “You okay?”

  “Ask me after we find them.” There wasn’t really anything she could do here that she couldn’t do equally well from home. But this was where she should be.

  “Let me know if I can do anything, Love.”

  She kept him on for a while, to have someone to talk to. But eventually he had to get to Maureen, and Hutch was alone.

  She tried doing some work, then tried reading. She checked in with Peter to let him know where she was. He was putting in overtime, too. She switched on the VR and watched three people arguing politics.

  At around eleven she dimmed the lights and sank onto the couch. She’d just closed her eyes when she was startled by footsteps in the corridor. And a knock at the door. “You in there, Hutch?”

  It was Eric. She opened up, and he came in. With a box of brownies. “I saw the light and thought you could use some company.”

  “What are you doing here at this hour?”

  “Same as you, I guess. Waiting for news.” He sat down opposite her, opened the box, and held it out to her. “They’re good.”

  She took one.

  “What are we hearing?”

  “So far, not a thing.”

  “I’ve written two statements for the pool,” he said.

  “Press conference tomorrow?”
/>   “At nine.”

  “Two statements? One if we find them; one if we don’t?”

  “Yes.”

  “It may take a while before we have anything definite.”

  “I know.” He hesitated. “Hutch, I heard you’re going to close down some of the flights. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which ones?”

  She told him. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it quiet until I give you the all clear. I want to talk to the people who will be affected before they hear about it over their VRs.”

  He questioned her about the search pattern, shook his head while she described it. “Doesn’t sound hopeful,” he said.

  “It depends on whether Abdul was able to do what he was supposed to do.”

  He nodded. It would be the first question he’d face in the morning.

  After a while he commented that she looked sleepy, that he was tired himself, and he got up and headed for the door. “When you hear something,” he said, “I’ll be upstairs.” Then he was gone, and the silence closed in.

  TWO O’CLOCK CAME and went. She knew not to expect immediate information. But when the clock struck four, and there was still no word, she started thinking about calling Peter. She was about to when Marla told her he was on the circuit.

  “Hutch,” he said, “the Wildside has exited hyperspace. So far, though, no signal.”

  Damn.

  “Okay.” Moonlight filtered through the curtains. Maybe the al-Jahani would hear something.

  “They’re three hours out. Hutch…”

  “Yes, Peter?”

  “I’m not optimistic.”

  She called Eric and passed the word. He grumbled something about bad luck. But you can’t expect to find them right away. As if he knew something about it. She kept him on the circuit, talking about nothing of consequence. She just wanted the company. Probably they both did, and her respect for him, which had never been very high, went up.

  She opened a window and looked out at the sky. She debated calling Tor, but he had an exhibition in the morning. Better to let him sleep. So she went back to the sofa and lay in the dark, listening to the hum of insects, wondering why she insisted on putting herself through this. Maybe, when it was over, it would be time to move on.