Coming Home

by Jack McDevitt

  Also, operating out of Skydeck, rescue teams were practicing moving the lifeboat packages from rescue vehicles into a replica of the Capella’s three cargo decks.

  In a conversation with Alex and Shara, John Kraus admitted that he saw little likelihood they’d be able to get forty-four of the packages on board during the short time they would have. “If they get unlucky,” Alex told me afterward, “they might not get any in there, and the entire project could be pushed back still another five and a half years.”

  “That would be a disaster,” I said.

  “It would be. But the truth is there’s no way around it. The alternative is to go back to manipulating the drive unit. Nobody wants to do that.”

  “No more ships available?”

  “They apparently have as many as they can handle. Some Mute vehicles are coming in, too. John says a lot of people are unhappy about that. We still have politicians who think the Mutes can’t be trusted.”

  “Alex, what about President Davis? He doesn’t buy into that, does he?”

  “If he did, they wouldn’t have been invited in the first place.”

  “Good. I’m glad we have somebody with some sense.”

  “Absolutely. And I hope he’s got it right.”

  “Alex—”

  “Just kidding.”

  * * *

  Later that morning, Shara came by the country house. “I was talking to John,” she said. “They’re caught up in another battle.”

  “About what?”

  She took off her jacket and sat down in the love seat. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “It won’t go any farther.”

  “Promise?” I put my hand over my heart. “I’m serious,” she said.

  “I won’t say a word. What’s going on? Something about tinkering with the star drive again?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought what happened with JoAnn had settled it.”

  She laughed. “JoAnn’s responsible for launching the new round.”

  “All right,” I said. “What happened?”

  “It looks as if she did a lot of research while she was caught in the warp. Years’ worth, I guess. She left the results for us, along with a request it be made available to Robert Dyke.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “And John doesn’t want to let him see it?”

  “I think he’d be willing to go with it, but if he does, he’ll be bucking the President. Davis has taken a public position, and I don’t really know what’s going on behind the scenes, but I’d be shocked if, after what he said, he’d be giving John a green light. So John will probably not ask.”

  “He’ll make the call on his own.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re suggesting JoAnn thought she had the solution.”

  “I don’t have specific knowledge, except that she wanted her work passed on to Dyke.”

  “That tells me something else,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “She understood what had happened to her and Nick. She knew that time outside the ship was moving a lot slower.”

  * * *

  I heard no more about it after that, nor, as far as I could tell, did Shara. As the time wound down, we continued moving ahead with the Lifeboat Project. The Belle-Marie, of course, would be part of the rescue fleet. “So what’s the plan?” asked Alex.

  “They want us in place four days before they expect it to appear.”

  “Four days?”

  “They’re playing it safe, Alex. It would be a little embarrassing if the thing showed up early and was gone before anybody could get to it.”

  “I guess so. I don’t think I’ve been paying as much attention as I should.”

  “You’re still hung up on Baylee.”

  “Well, there’s not much I can do about the Capella. But I’ll go with you when it’s time.”

  “Actually, you’re not invited. They’re putting some limits on the yachts. Nobody but the pilot.”

  “Because a passenger takes up space?”

  “Right.”

  “It makes sense. Well, okay. When are you leaving?”

  “I’ll give myself three days to get into the area. I don’t want to be charging around at the last minute.”

  He nodded. “Okay. How difficult will it be for the ships going out there to pinpoint their own positions? You’ve always said you can’t be too exact about where you are when there’s no star nearby.”

  “That’s part of the problem, Alex. Everything’s too far away from any landmarks, so a few million kilometers one way or another doesn’t make much difference in the way the sky looks.”

  “Then how—?”

  “It’s one of the reasons they need so many ships. There’s going to be some guesswork involved in establishing the location, so they’re trying to flood the area. They want to set up the fleet cruisers first. And the cargo vehicles. Both carry a load of lifeboats. They have to be able to get one of them close to the Capella with at least five hours available to transfer the boats.”

  “I hate to say this, Chase—” He didn’t look comfortable.

  “I know. We’re going to need some luck.”

  “Well, maybe JoAnn’s work will give them a breakthrough.”

  I took a deep breath. “Shara tells me they’re beginning to think there might be an uncertainty principle involved that would take any hope of a guaranteed solution out of it. They don’t have a method to analyze the structure of the warp. It can vary, and that makes it impossible to be sure about the details. She thinks the reality is that they’d be very likely to be able to shut down the process, but there’d never be a guarantee.”

  “So in the end—”

  “Take a chance. Or use the boats.”

  * * *

  Senator Angela Herman showed up on The Peter McCovey Show that afternoon. She was an attractive woman, or would have been had she not been so combative. She obviously had presidential ambitions, and belonged to the Union Party, which was then out of power. She liked to portray herself as one of the “ordinary folks” who were always getting trampled by government stupidity or its deliberate malfeasance. “Who do you think,” she asked Peter, “is going to see to it that this business with Sanusar ships doesn’t happen anymore? It turns out it’s been going on for literally thousands of years, and nobody noticed it until a physicist doing independent research and an antique dealer, for God’s sake, figured it out. And now we have to depend on the government to rescue the people stuck on the Capella. And they obviously don’t know what they’re doing. Look how this business with the Grainger went. Why didn’t they hire a good private corporation, like Orion or StarGate, to work out a solution? I just hope that they get it right this time.”

  “Aren’t you being a little harsh, Senator? I mean, there are a lot of lives at stake. Kraus and his people are trying to pull off a small miracle.”

  “Sure they are. And who do they put in charge? I don’t want to malign those who’ve been lost, but the reigning so-called genius was a twenty-seven-year-old who managed to get herself and her pilot stuck for thirty-some years on a ship that she disabled. Maybe they should have picked somebody with a little more experience?”

  The host was clearly uncomfortable. “Senator, I’m sure you’re aware that the most productive time for the great physicists down through the ages has always come before they hit thirty. That’s when they’ve had their major accomplishments. Do it in your twenties or forget it. JoAnn Suttner had an incredible career.”

  “Until it mattered. The notion that you have to be a kid to do physics is a myth, Peter. It’s never been true. Never will be.”

  “Jacob,” I said, “shut it down.”

  After it went off, I don’t recall that my office had ever seemed so quiet. Out
side, a few birds were chirping, and branches were swaying in a warm breeze. But somehow a general stagnation had infiltrated the country house.

  “You okay?” Alex was standing at the door.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “It’ll be all right,” he said. “She’s a crank.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about her.”

  “I know. You just have to have some time to get past this.”

  “It won’t be all right, Alex. It never will be.”

  * * *

  He took me to dinner that evening at Bernie’s Far and Away. We sat out on the enclosed terrace, ordered drinks and I’m not sure what else. The Moon was full. But seeing Earth’s oversized satellite had spoiled me. Lara looked almost insignificant by contrast.

  “I can’t help thinking,” he said, “how many artifacts will be created by everything that’s been happening.”

  “How do you mean, Alex?” I asked.

  “You remember the coffee cups you had made for Belle last year?”

  “Sure.” Belle-Marie was inscribed beneath a pyramid and the company name, Rainbow Enterprises.

  “If we get lucky and actually become part of the rescue—”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “I know. But if it happens, those cups will be worth a ton of money in a few years.”

  “How many years?”

  “Well, maybe a century or two.”

  “Okay. I’ll hang on to them, just in case.”

  The drinks came. Dark wine. I raised my glass toward the Moon. “JoAnn and Nick,” I said.

  Alex nodded. “Yeah. However things go, the price will have been pretty high.” We drank. And stared at each other. And put the glasses down. “I’ll tell you what has a chance of becoming a huge collectors’ item.”

  “I don’t really care, Alex.”

  “Okay.”

  I could see I’d offended him. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I shouldn’t be preoccupied with trivia.”

  We were both silent for a time. Then I finished my wine. “So what will, Alex?”

  “Will what?”

  “Become a big collectors’ item?”

  “Oh.” He didn’t want to pursue the issue. “Anything off the Casavant.”

  “Like its cups?”

  “Yes.” He studied me. “You don’t believe it?”

  “Eventually, everything becomes valuable.”

  “These are historical times, Chase.”

  I knew what he was doing, trying to get my mind off the losses we’d taken. “I know,” I said. “The ship’s name is inscribed on them, in handwritten form, beneath its silhouette.”

  “They’ll be worth a fortune.”

  “I hate to say this, but—”

  “What?”

  “I was thinking about human nature. They’d be worth more if things go badly, and nobody survives from the Capella. In fact, the value would go through the roof.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It would. It’s the darker side of the business.”

  “Yeah. While JoAnn and Nick—” My voice caught, and I couldn’t go further.

  “Unfortunately,” he said, “we have short memories. Most heroes are forgotten by the next news cycle.”

  * * *

  Alex restored Gabe’s office. He moved the artifacts up to the second floor and took all the stuff he’d been collecting back there down into the basement. The walls had been filled during Gabe’s years with plaques and pictures, most of which had been taken down. I know that sounds a bit coldhearted, but I think the truth was that they were a painful reminder of a time Alex didn’t want to think about. He told me once that he’d never thanked Gabe, who had taken him in at a critical moment in his life and had cared for him for almost twenty years. Anyhow, everything was now back on the walls. Alex had also located a photo of Gabe and himself at about ten years old and my mom at a dig site somewhere. It had been framed and now rested on the desk.

  He knew, of course, that the odds of bringing Gabe home anytime in the near future were remote.

  But just in case.

  I was standing at the doorway admiring how it looked when Jacob broke into my thoughts: “I hope,” he said, “that we get him back.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The storm has passed. Let’s go to lunch.

  —Kesler Avonne, Souls in Flight, 1114

  “Chase,” said Jacob. “You have a call from Mr. Conner.”

  I didn’t know anyone by that name, which in our business happens all the time. “Okay,” I said. “Put him on.”

  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was shocked when vid star Zachary Conner blinked on. He looked exactly as he had playing opposite Roma Carnova in Downtown. “Hello, Chase,” he said in that familiar deep baritone.

  “Okay,” I said. “Who are you really?” Then I realized. “Khaled.”

  Conner vanished, and my sailor buddy appeared. “Hi, Beautiful. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. You know, you don’t look as much like him as I thought.”

  “No, no. Too late to walk it back.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Skydeck. I got your message, so I thought I better come right away.”

  * * *

  Several hours later, when the shuttle arrived at the terminal, I was waiting. It was nice to see someone smiling again. We fell into each other’s arms. “I know you were a bit reluctant about this, Chase,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, no. I’m glad to see you.”

  “If you’re upset or anything like that, just tell me, and I’ll go away. But I hope you won’t.”

  “Khaled, you should have let me know. This is crazy.”

  “I know.” Suddenly he looked scared. “I can get out of your way if that’s really what you want me to do.”

  “That’s not the problem. The Capella’s close. I’m going to be leaving in a couple of days.”

  “Oh, God. I knew about that, but I didn’t expect you’d be going out again. I should have realized. Chase Kolpath to the rescue. How could I—?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault.” He stood there looking helplessly around the terminal as if he might find a solution in one of the service shops. “Dumb. Don’t know how I could have been so dumb.”

  “It’s okay, Khaled.”

  I led him to the skimmer. He threw a suitcase in back, and we took our seats. “Actually,” I said, “when I left Earth, I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “I know. And to be honest, I debated whether I should come. After I got your messages, I really thought about backing off, but I just didn’t want to let you walk away. And I couldn’t think of any subtle way to do this.”

  “I’m sorry this has been so difficult, Khaled.”

  He flashed that smile again. “Someone like you, Chase, I knew right away it wouldn’t be easy.” He buckled himself in. “I’m sorry you had to go through that experience with the Grainger. It must have been terrible.”

  “It was,” I said.

  “I had no idea you were doing this kind of dangerous stuff.”

  “You must have gotten a clue after that lunatic sank your boat.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what that was about. I thought that was aimed at you and Alex. Have you figured out yet why anybody might be trying to do that?”

  “No,” I said. “Maybe it was just a nitwit out for a good time.” I lifted us out of the parking lot. “Where are you headed, Khaled?”

  He raised both hands. “Can you recommend a hotel for me? Something not too expensive.”

  That, of course, was an invitation for me to take him in. But I wasn’t prepared to commit to that. “Sure,” I said. “I think you’d like the Cosmo. It’s a nice place, and the pr
ices are decent.”

  If he was disappointed, he managed not to show it. “Sounds good.”

  * * *

  He checked into the hotel, which was located in South Tasker, an Andiquar suburb. “The ride to the theaters and the historic sites is a bit longer than from some of the tourist hotels,” I explained, “but it would cost a small fortune to stay downtown.”

  “No, this is good. Can we do dinner?”

  “Sure,” I said. “You want to eat here? At the hotel?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind. I’ve had enough running around for one day.”

  We were shown to our table by a bot, who produced two glasses of water. “Andiquar’s a beautiful city,” he said.

  “Is this the first time you’ve been on Rimway?”

  “Yeah. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve been off the ground at all. I’m surprised.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, they say that a lot of people get sick on the star flights.”

  “That’s probably an exaggeration. Some people do, but not many.”

  “Well, anyhow, I was glad to come through it without a problem.” He rotated his shoulders. “The gravity’s a little higher here, isn’t it? I’d expected to feel heavier, but I don’t really notice anything.”

  “It’s only a couple of pounds,” I said.

  The callbox asked if we were ready to order. We looked at each other, and I went with spaghetti and meatballs. “Sounds good,” said Khaled. “I’ll have the same.” We added some wine. Then he sat back and looked seriously into my eyes. “Chase, this trip is obviously not going to go exactly as I’d hoped. But that’s okay. Even if I only get this hour or so with you, it will have been worth it.”

  “Khaled, that’s sweet.”

  * * *

  If he really was tired of traveling, he showed no sign of it through the balance of the evening. After we finished eating, we went dancing. I took him to the Moonlight Ballroom, then to the Golden Rose, and to Whitfield Park. Eventually, we stopped in at a small club off Lavender Row, where we finished the evening drinking cocktails beneath the stars. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “I could persuade you to run off with me to the Caribbean?” He smiled, to let me know he was kidding, but not really.