"Yes," Irwin said, and hesitated. The group needed more help, unquestionably; furthermore, Adams worked in the primary transmission area, where he might be of substantial assistance. But to Irwin the man was a total stranger. A misjudgment could destroy everything the group had worked for, and leave no one to oppose the Oversight Committee's grip of secrecy on the project. It could also destroy a lot of careers. Finally, to break the silence, to say something, he said, "Where are you from, Mr. Adams?"
Adams answered softly, "Bettendorf, Iowa. Does that matter?"
"No. No, of course not," Irwin said uncomfortably. "I just wondered, that's all. I'm from New Hampshire, then England, myself." He paused, peering out of his helmet at his two golden-fishbowled companions floating beside him in space, and thought that this was a terribly odd setting for discussing hometowns. He shrugged to himself and continued, "Actually, I've been here at GEO-Four and Tachylab so long it's home to me. I was on the original tachyon search program when all this—" and he gestured toward the Tachylab complex—"was only half built, and we were just looking for cosmic sources of tachyons."
"I know," said Adams. "Robert has told me your background, Dr. Irwin, both your accomplishments and your—" he seemed to search for the right words—"unfortunate separation from the project. Robert argues persuasively that it was an injustice."
"Yes, well . . . we're not here to address my past grievances," Irwin said. "Still, I suppose it's better that you know about it now, rather than finding out later." He exhaled noisily. His own past was invariably the first thing to come up. He supposed he should be used to it by now. The memory had lost its sting, but a good deal of bitterness remained. Irwin had lost his security clearance a couple of years ago—in his opinion, for reasons relating to his sympathies with certain out-of-favor political organizations. He still worked at Tachylab; as one of the pioneering superluminal physicists in the world, he commanded respect for his research even from the officials who had cut his security status from him. His work, however—his above-ground work—was now confined to purely theoretical research.
He spoke again, acutely conscious of the silence. "Robert and Alicia have spoken highly of you, Mr. Adams. But I must ask you now, on your conscience, whether you will give me your promise—your oath—to keep what we discuss here in your strictest confidence . . ."
The gold-plated bowl stared at him eyelessly as he finished. "I'll promise not to betray you, yes," Adams said. "But I can't promise to join you, until I know more."
Irwin held his breath—and decided to trust him. He liked the bluntness of the man's reservation. "There are six of us," Irwin said. "You would make seven. There may be more before it is done."
"Yes—?" Adams said.
"Well—first I must explain what preceded the Father Sky mission—and, I believe, led directly to it. What I'm going to tell you has never been released to the public. It may be in violation of certain security regulations to discuss it." He paused. "Shall I continue?"
Adams stared at him facelessly. "Yes."
Irwin took a breath, felt the cool whisper of circulating air against his left cheek, and said, speaking in his tiny bowl of a helmet where only two men could hear him, "We found cosmic tachyons. We found a single source, which we pinpointed to a region of the constellation Serpens. It was regular, after a fashion—and in fact resembled a signal, with certain distinct patterns . . ."
As he described the early findings, which he had thought about so long and so often, Irwin began to feel that he was hearing his own disembodied voice in his ears. He thought of the three of them, spacesuited figures floating at the end of a tether miles from the nearest habitation, a full noontime Earth gazing over their shoulders as they talked. He thought of something in deep space sending tachyons toward Earth, and of the fact that Father Sky, ostensibly on another mission, was bound in the direction from which those signals were received—and the fact that security had been clamped on the project only days after the first suggestions were heard that the signals came from an intelligent source.
And he thought, also, with a certain dignified anger, of his own removal from the project.
"I'm concerned about the secrecy, too," Adams said. "But is it that important—important enough to risk everything, just to uncover whatever's happening here?"
"We think so," Irwin said. "If that source of tachyons is what we think it might be, this could just be one of the most damned important events in human history. Remember—no natural source of tachyons has ever been observed. At least, not above the level of background radiation. So, if there's any possibility that there's an intelligence behind those signals, we should be investigating it with the greatest possible care."
"And," Johanson interjected, speaking for the first time since introducing the men, "we don't care much for the idea that only a few military and political authorities know about it. These decisions are too important, and too far reaching, to be left to the generals."
Adams considered the matter silently. "Granting your point," he said finally, "and assuming that, at least, the scientific community should be involved, is it important enough that I should risk my career—and quite possibly my freedom—to engage in what could easily be construed as conspiracy? A case could be made, you know, that this is precisely the sort of job that the armed space forces should handle. Suppose that this intelligence, if there is one, is not of the friendly sort?"
"We recognize that," Johanson said. "We're not aiming to have the military excluded altogether—as if we could, even if we wanted to. But do you think they should be operating in total secrecy?"
Adams made no reply. Then Irwin said, "Do you remember, about ten years ago—the incident of the Perseid asteroid?"
"You mean the one destroyed in the mining conflict?" Adams asked.
"That's right. The Indians, the Russians, and the Chinese all wanted to bring the same asteroid into Earth orbit for mining. They couldn't compromise, so instead they fought over it. They ended up blasting the asteroid, and I don't know how many men, to pieces."
"True enough," Adams said. "But you can't assume—"
"There were indications in the preliminary reports that the miners might not have been the first to visit that asteroid," said Irwin. "No one got the chance to analyze the surface before it was destroyed, but it may have been landed on, and perhaps mined—by someone—a thousand or a million years ago."
Adams took a moment to answer. "Well—but is there conclusive evidence? It's one thing to say what might have happened, but another to use it to justify your own actions."
"If you're thinking of what a court of law might say, I'm sure you're right," said Irwin. "But we don't have to consider that incident alone. "Take the Great Mistake—"
"A polite word for the greatest and most insane collection of stupid acts in human history," Johanson remarked.
"Call it what you will," said Irwin. "But we can thank the shortsightedness of our authorities for the fact that there's a lot of radioactive debris now where there used to be cities."
"You can't blame the military alone for that," Adams said. "There were complicated reasons for that war."
"I'm not blaming the military alone. But it was the national leaders of the world who let international tensions reach the point that one terrorist bomb caused the loss of eleven cities and I don't know how many millions of lives." Irwin shut his mouth and floated uncomfortably, his thoughts turned bitter. Finally he added, "I don't know if you lost anyone in that war, but it cost me my father and a brother. And for what? It was nothing more than a reflex, a case in point of bureaucratic and military bungling."
He paused, realizing that his jaw was becoming set in an angry glare. He was grateful for the privacy of his helmet. A monitor inside his suit beeped quietly, as though to remind him that the time was past for dwelling on that memory. "I don't want to see something like that happen again, ever—and especially not here—with no one on the outside even aware that something terribly important might be g
oing on," he said quietly. "I think millions of people might be grateful to us, and if it comes to being tried for what we're doing, I guess I'm willing to take that risk."
Adams made a muted muttering sound. Irwin waited patiently for him to decide, and he was not surprised that he had to wait a full minute or longer. Finally Adams moved a little, flexing his arms. Irwin heard him take a breath. Then Adams said, "What is it you're planning to do, and how can I help?"
Irwin glanced at Johanson's face, at his golden visor, and smiled a little. "Mostly, we're planning to listen and watch," he said. "Once I've explained it, you can decide for yourself how you want to help."
* * *
The conversation completed, the three spacesuited figures touched gloved hands one more time. The com-link cables were disconnected, and the figures returned to their vehicles—two to the shuttlebus and one to the scooter. The shuttlebus jets glowed, and the vehicle moved forward on its day-long inspection tour of the tachyon receiving antenna. The scooter accelerated and disappeared in the other direction, toward the Tachylab operations center.
Chapter 13
Come and go. Questions, always questions. Let them be blind, he thinks; let them wonder.
. . .The board winks, flickers, spasms just so. Sends her on her way: Godspeed, Mozy. Going, going, gone. Be happy out there, where the sun never shines bright, never falls dark.
Far, far away. I did it for you, Mozy—because I love you. Do you even know that I love you?
But wait—back to business! Clear the boards! Zip, zip. Done. Wipe the program records, up and down the line: trickier, but it's all prearranged, one gate after another, code locks snapping shut. All void. All done. And last of all, the program directing all the others. Clear. Clean. Who could tell now?
Except Forbes, damn Forbes walking in before it's done—and then going and finding—
—Mozy—
—Why won't you speak, Mozy? What's wrong?—
And then Forbes, he remembers, dark and shadowy at the door, going to call Jonders . . .
A snowy shadow walks through the door now, followed by others. Jonders again, and who else? he wonders. The doctor. The shrink. What this time—bamboo shoots under the nails? Can't they figure anything out for themselves? They're going to say things about Mozy again, things that can't be true.
Here they come. And Kelly, that security chief.
"Hello, Hoshi," Jonders says, sitting across from him at the table, giving him that little smile that's supposed to warm him up. Drumming his fingers on the table.
Seems worth a nod, so he nods.
"I have to ask you something, Hoshi. I hope you'll tell me—"
Out with it, he thinks. And stop that drumming.
Jonders's hand rises to scratch his chin. "We just got a report from Tachylab, Hoshi. They say that there was an unexpected surge in the deep-space tachyon beam the other night." Jonders's face grows brighter as he raises his eyes. "Would you know anything about that—why they might have gotten a surge in their transmission relay?"
Is he supposed to know everything? That face is tense, hot in the infrared. He sees anger there, just beneath the surface; controlled, but only just. He wonders if Jonders or the others suspect the subtleties in his kind of vision, the nuances of behavior and emotion that he can detect through wavelength intensity alone. He looks at the others. The doctor is more inscrutable, more reserved; a look of concentration about her, but no heat in the face. Interested, but not emotionally involved. And the security chief—
"Are you listening to me?"
He moves his eyes back to Jonders. Nods. Thinks, I've been listening to him for years. Why stop now?
"Then what can you tell me about that transmission?"
Shrugs. Looks away. At the doctor; she's less troublesome, at least when she's not sharpening her claws on him.
Jonders will not be put off. His face grows brighter and hotter than ever, as he leans closer. "That transmission originated here at this center, Hoshi—and there was something in it that was unlogged, a dense packet of information—and it occurred exactly when you were operating the scanning program on Mozelle. Is that a coincidence, do you think? Is it a coincidence that we can't find any record of Mozy's scan in the system here?"
He flinches as Jonders's voice grows harder, sharper. Stop it, he thinks, stop it. A dull ache is building in the top of his head, and he doesn't want to talk about this anymore. Please, stop!
"We need to know if the project has been damaged," Jonders is saying.
The doctor speaks, as Jonders runs out of breath. "There's Mozy to think of, too," she says. "We need to help her."
He jerks his gaze to look at her. There is a swelling in his throat, and a pressure in his forehead. It hurts too much to think of Mozy; he meant her no harm, he didn't know this was how it would end, he loved her.
"If you could see Mozy now," the doctor says, "I believe it would move you, Hoshi. She can't speak now, or feed herself, or keep herself clean. And yet she's alive, we know she's in there thinking, and hurting, and trying to get out. Won't you help us help her? Don't you care for her enough to do that? Don't you love her?"
No, yes, I do love her, but don't make me—
Jonders and the doctor are exchanging glances, and Jonders's voice shakes with hushed surprise as he says, "Hoshi, do you love her?"
Nods, trying fiercely to let nothing more out.
"I'm sorry, Hoshi," Jonders says, startling him with the gentleness in his voice. "If I had known—well. I didn't realize—the attraction, or your—friendship with her." He sounds genuinely sorrowful. "I suppose I was—I don't know, but the point is that her condition is very—"
The tears come in a sudden, astonishing rush. He tries desperately to contain them, but they're flooding over his eyelids and down his cheeks. The pain grows sharper, not duller, and he feels his chin sinking, fists clenching and unclenching and then rubbing, jabbing at his eyes. It's as though a fiery nerve gas has enveloped him, choking and blinding him.
I gave you what you wanted . . . I gave you . . . gave you . . . won't you still be here with me, the way you promised?
"We can see how much you care for her," Jonders says. The man is making no sense at all. Can't he see, doesn't he know—that I killed her, that I knew all along it wouldn't work? That I wanted her so badly I would kill to—
"Yes! I transmitted her!" The words erupt from his throat. Jonders's voice cuts through him like a scalpel. "What exactly did you do, Hoshi? Tell me every detail. Where did you send her, and how?"
The dam is broken: there is no holding back now. He babbles; he can hear pens scratching on paper, recorders clicking on; he doesn't mind, that is all past now. "To the spacecraft," he says. "I scanned her and—"
"Why?"
"—transmitted her—to the Kadin receiving point—so she'll be there—for him—"
Jonders's face is searing hot. People are moving around beside him, but all he can see, squinting, is the blurry white heat of Jonders's face. The tears and the pain are wreaking havoc with the visual amplification, and Jonders's silhouette shimmers between dazzling bright and aching dark. It is the face of a harlequin mask, leering at him—or laughing—he can scarcely tell which.
"You sent her—into the receiving programs—?" Jonders's voice is muddled. Maybe it's his own confusion; he can scarcely understand what is being said anymore.
"How did you get the transmission codes?" another voice seems to be asking.
He would laugh if he were not already crying. So easy, so easy!
"Easy?" someone else mutters.
He had not realized that he had spoken aloud, but he nods, grinning in spite of it all. "You thought I couldn't do it," he whispers. "You thought I could do nothing but plug into your boards and do your work, and you would tell me nothing—nothing—not even why it was secret. But I learned anyway—and the codes were the easiest part of all."
He stops—and realizes that everyone is looking at him in astonishment. "Don
't you see?" he cries, looking from one blurry face to another. "She was in love with him. I had to." The tears flow as he whispers, "Don't you see I had to . . . I had to do it for her?"
* * *
One face after another turned to watch him as he walked into the conference room. Jonders dropped into a vacant seat, took a sheaf of papers from his briefcase, and placed them neatly on the table before him. Then he looked up into the eyes of Slim Marshall, Fogelbee, Kelly, and several of their respective aides. Marshall, a heavyset black man with bristly hair and thick-rimmed glasses, glanced at the holoscreen on the far wall. "We'll talk when Mr. Hathorne is ready on the conference line."
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