She looked at him.
“Priscilla,” he said, “it doesn’t matter. Whatever it turns out to be, there’ll be nothing you can do.”
“There might be somebody out there.”
“—In its path. I understand that.” He tasted his coffee, patted his lips with a napkin, shrugged. “If there is someone there, they’ll have to look out for themselves.”
He was trying to be detached, but she heard the resignation in his voice. “To be honest, Hutch,” he continued, “it’s not worth worrying about. Not if we can’t intervene. Anyway, at most it will probably turn out to be more ruins. That’s all they ever find out there anyhow.” The waitress was back. “Bacon and eggs,” he said. “Home fries and toast.”
She’d heard that he was supposed to be on a diet, egg whites and bran flakes, that sort of thing. But she said nothing, and ordered French toast. What the hell.
When the waitress was gone, he sat back and made himself comfortable. She liked Harold. He got the job done, never complained, and on Family Day had made a big fuss over Maureen. “Is that why you asked me here?” he said. “The omega?”
Hutch nodded. “Assume the worst happens. Somebody’s in the way. Is there really nothing we can do to disable this thing? Blow it up? Scatter it? Something?”
It was a lovely morning, crisp and clear. The Potomac, which had risen considerably during the last century, and was still rising, was not unlike a small inland sea. The Capitol, the White House, most of the monuments, were islands now. Hutch had been around long enough to remember when Rock Creek Park could be reached on foot, when you didn’t need a boat to get to the Washington Monument. You could stand out there now on one of the piers, and watch the river, and look out toward Sagitta, which was where the local cloud was, the one with Arlington’s number on it, and you got a sense that despite everything, despite the extended life spans and the superluminals and the virtual disappearance of organized violence on the planet, civilization was still losing ground.
“If it had a physical core of some sort,” Harold was saying, “a vital part, then yes. We could go after it. Take a hammer to it. But it seems to be holistic. Throw as many nukes at it as we like and it simply seems to pull itself back together.”
“We don’t know how it does that?”
His jaws worked. “It’s not my field. But no, as far as I’m aware, we have no idea. The technology is well beyond anything we know about. It uses nanos, but we haven’t been able to figure out how they work, what they do, even how they guide the cloud.” He took a long sip of orange juice. “I look at what those things can do, and I look at the fact they seem to be only dust and hydrogen, and I feel as if I should be sitting off somewhere beating a drum. It’s a whole new level of technology.”
Their food came. Harold dumped a substantial amount of catsup on his potatoes.
“Of course,” he continued, “the real problem is that we can’t seem to penetrate the cloud. Ships don’t come back. Probes disappear. Even scans and sensors don’t give us much.” He sampled the eggs, smiled with satisfaction, covered his toast with strawberry jam, and bit off a piece. “Good stuff,” he said. “This where you normally eat?”
“Usually at home,” she said.
“Yes.” He studied her. “You survived one of those things, Hutch,” he continued. “You were actually inside it, weren’t you? When it came down on Delta?”
Hutch had been with Frank Carson that day. Thirty years ago—my God, had it really been that long? — when they’d deliberately baited a cloud, had structured some plateaus to look artificial, and had watched with horror as the monster came after them. “Yes,” she said. “I was there.”
“You survived it.”
“Heaviest weather I’ve ever seen. Lightning. Tornado winds. Meteors. Not the way you’d want to spend a weekend.”
He used his toast and a fork to finish off the eggs. “Well, I can understand you might be worried. Where did you say this thing is?”
“Out near the Dumbbell.”
“My God. It’s really over in the next county, isn’t it? Well, look, your role, it seems to me, is simple. These things attack cities. If it turns out there are actually inhabitants, you just sail in, tell them what’s coming, and they can head for the hills. Or maybe they could build themselves some underground shelters.”
Out along the pier a gaggle of kids were trying to get a kite in the air and not having much luck. Beyond, a few sails drifted on the river.
The kite was red, and it had a dragon on it.
She needed a dragon.
WHEN SHE GOT back to her office, she called the Lunar Weapons Lab, which had been founded twenty years earlier for the express purpose of developing something that could be used against the omega clouds. The weapons lab was under the control of the Science Advisory Commission, which was a quasi-independent group overseen by the World Council. Like the Academy, it was underfunded.
Arky Chan, the assistant director, was an old friend. He greeted her with a cheery good morning. “We hear,” he said, “you’re taking over permanently up there.”
“They don’t tell me anything, Arky.” Thirty-three years ago, on her first flight beyond the solar system, Arky had been one of her passengers. His black hair had grayed only slightly since then, and his smile was as infectious as ever.
“What can I do for you, Hutch?” he asked.
“Find me the key.” It was code for a way to neutralize the clouds.
He nodded. “Anything else while I’m at it? Maybe produce the universal solvent? Or a time machine?”
“I’m serious. What’s on the table?”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“One of the damned things changed course.”
“I heard. You have anything yet on what’s in its path?”
“A G-class sun. Presumably a planetary system to go with it. We’re still waiting. I’m hoping it just picked up some natural formations and got confused.” That had happened once. A group of remarkably straight stress fractures on a satellite had been attacked. Whatever else the damned things were, they were not bright.
“I hope so too. But no, Hutch, I’m sorry to say we haven’t really made any progress.”
“Nothing at all?”
“They don’t give us any money, love. And the Academy doesn’t give us any ships.” That was pointed at her.
“You have one.”
“The Rajah spends more time in the garage than it does in the field.”
“That’ll change,” said Hutch. She’d been trying to free up some money for more than a year.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it, but to tell you the truth, I’ll believe it when I see it. What we need is for the cloud to be sitting up over the Capitol. Put a couple of bolts down the pants of the Congress. Then they’d damn soon get serious.”
“You have anything at all we can use, if it becomes necessary?”
“Not really.”
“How about nukes?”
“We tried that at Moonlight.”
“How about something bigger? A supernuke? Or maybe we shovel a load of antimatter into it?”
“The problem we keep having is that the thing seems always able to reconstitute itself. Somewhere it has a heart, a control pod, an AI, probably. But we don’t know where it is, we can’t probe it, we’re blind—” He held out his hands. “If you have an idea, I’d love to hear it.”
“Arky, if that thing’s bearing down on somebody, I don’t want to be in the position of having to just sit here and watch.”
“I understand completely.”
“Find me something. Just in case.”
“Look.” His voice got cold. “It’s easy enough for you to demand a miracle. But you people are the ones who keep saying there’s plenty of time, don’t worry about it, we have other priorities right now.”
SHE HAD LUNCH with Tom Callan, her number two guy. Tom was assistant director of operations for special projects. He’d been, in her opinion, the most capab
le of the applicants for the D.O.’s job, except herself, of course. Tom was young, ambitious, energetic, and if he hung around long enough, would undoubtedly succeed her. That would be as high as he could go in the Academy, however. The commissioner was a political appointment, and the position never went to anybody in-house.
Tom held a license to pilot superluminals, he could work under pressure, and he didn’t mind making decisions. He was about average size, with clean-cut good looks, but without the intensity one usually found in able young people who’d already climbed pretty high. Probably because he knew he was good. “I was thinking maybe,” he said, “if we had to, we could decoy the damned thing.”
“How would you go about it? A projection?”
“That’s what I had in mind.”
“Throw a big cube out there for it to chase.”
“Yes.” He bit into a turkey sandwich. “It might work. We’ve never experimented with it, so we don’t really know. It would help if we knew what kind of sensory system it uses.”
If it were strictly visual, then a big picture of a box might be enough. “Let’s look into it,” she said. “Check the literature. See if you can find anything that either supports the idea or negates it.”
“Okay.”
“And, Tom. Priority. If there’s a problem, we won’t have much time.”
“Consider it done.” He took a long pull at his iced tea and went after the sandwich again. The kid had an appetite. “There is a good chance it wouldn’t be fooled by a holocast.”
“I know.”
“We might try a backup.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Be ready to put a real box out there.”
THAT BROUGHT HER back to the kite with the dragon. Her first afternoon call went to Rheal Fabrics. Rheal specialized in producing a range of plastics, films, and textiles for industry. (They also had a division that operated a chain of ice-cream outlets.) Hutch had, on a number of occasions, taken their executives out to Serenity, and she had kept in contact with several over the years.
One of them was Shannon McKay, who had something to do with R&D. Shannon was tall, redheaded, and very much in charge.
They did a couple of minutes’ small talk, during which Hutch got congratulated on her forthcoming promotion. She was surprised that Shannon knew. “We keep track of the important stuff,” Shannon said. The Academy was a major customer for Rheal, so it made sense that they would.
“I need a feasibility study,” Hutch said. She explained what was happening, emphasized that it would probably amount to nothing, but that if a difficult situation arose, she wanted to be ready to deal with it. “I might need a kite,” she said. “A big one.”
Shannon nodded. “Give me the dimensions.”
Who knew? Who had the slightest idea? She tried some numbers and Shannon said okay. They could do it.
“How long will it take?” A blue lamp blinked on. And Harold’s name. He was on the line, waiting to talk to her.
“How long do we have?”
“From the time you get the go-ahead, not much more than a week. At best.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Can you manage it?”
“Let me look into it. I’ll get back to you.”
“YES, HAROLD.”
“Thought you’d like to know. We’ve got another one.”
“Another what?”
“Another tewk.” A quasi nova. It was the first time she’d heard him use the term his people had coined. Short for Tewksbury Object. The pride in his voice was evident.
“Okay.”
“Different spectrogram. Different color. But the same essentials.”
“Same area?”
“Other side of the sky. Different Weatherman.”
“Okay. You’re sure it’s a tewk and not a nova?”
“We’re sure.”
“All right, Harold. Keep me posted.”
“It’s very strange.”
“When you want to make an announcement, let me know.”
SHE DIRECTED THE AI to get Marge Conway for her at the International Bureau of the Climate in London. Twenty minutes later Marge was on the circuit. “Been a long time,” she said. “What can I do for you, Hutch?”
Marge and Hutch had been friends at Princeton a long time back, had once competed for a boyfriend, now best forgotten, and had kept in touch over the years. Marge had been thin and quiet in those days. Later she’d become a bodybuilder. She’d gone through several husbands. Wore them out, people said behind her back.
“Is there a way to generate a cloud cover?” Hutch asked. “For maybe a few days. Hide some stuff.”
“Cloud cover?”
“Yes. I’m talking about a terrestrial atmosphere—”
“Not Earth.”
“No.”
“Okay. How big would the coverage be?”
“Planetary.”
She shook her head. “No. A few thousand square klicks, maybe, yes. But that’s about the limit.”
“What would it take?”
“You’ll need some landers.”
“Okay. That’s no problem.”
“Four of them. Plus a hauler. An AV3 would probably be best.”
“All right. What else?”
“How much time do we have?”
“To put it together? Ten days. Maybe a week. No more than that.”
“That’s a bit of a rush.”
“I know.”
“And we’d need a helicopter.”
“A helicopter? What’s that?”
“Antique aircraft. Propellers on top.”
“Marge, where am I supposed to get a helicopter?”
“Work it out. Keep it small, by the way. The helicopter.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay. Let me take a look at things on this end. I’ll get back to you.”
Marge broke the connection and Hutch called Barbara, the Academy AI. “Find out where there’s an air show. Antique aircraft. I’ll want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”
SHE DISPOSED OF her routine work, handing most of it over to assistants. Eric called to remind her that she’d be expected to make a few remarks at Sylvia Virgil’s retirement.
That was tonight! She’d forgotten. “And you’ll be handing out one of the awards,” he added.
“Okay.”
She had started making notes on what she would say when the commlink blipped again. This time it was the commissioner’s three short bursts. She answered, was asked to wait, the commissioner would be with her momentarily, then Asquith’s plump, smiling features filled the screen.
“Hutch,” he said, “do you have a minute?”
“Yes, Michael. What can I do for you?”
“Why don’t you come over to the office? I need to talk to you.”
When she got there, the blinds were drawn. Asquith waved her in, got up, and came around to the front of his desk. It was a substantial walk because the thing was the size of a soccer field. The office was ringed with leather chairs and walnut side tables. The walls were decorated with pictures of the Andromeda Galaxy and the Twins and the North American Nebula and the Refuge sitting out on the Potomac. Several lamps glowed softly.
“Hutch.” He angled one of the chairs for her. “How are you doing today?”
“Fine, Michael,” she said, warily.
He waited until she’d sat down. “Well, last day for Sylvia, I guess.” He managed to look wistful while adjusting the blinds, brightening the room somewhat. Then he went back behind his desk. “The Academy’s going to miss her.”
“Yes, we will.”
“Pity about—” He stopped midsentence, shrugged, and she knew exactly what he was implying. Virgil was retiring under pressure after a couple of major embarrassments. Three people had died a year ago when the Yves Vignon had collided with Wayout Station. The problem had been traced to equipment maintenance, and ultimately to a negligent supervisor, but some of it had inevitably wa
shed off on the director of operations at the Academy. And then, just a few months later, a breakdown in scheduling had left the Berkeley mission temporarily stranded at Clendennon III. Not Sylvia’s fault, but she’d taken the hit anyhow, just as she had six years ago when Renaissance Station had been destroyed by a massive flare. Renaissance had remained operational for political reasons, and against her continued protests. But none of it had mattered. “Should have kept an eye on things myself,” Asquith had told a group of Academy researchers. “Sylvia tried to get it right. Not really her fault. Bad luck.”
Truth be told, Hutch’s opinion of Sylvia hadn’t been all that high, but that didn’t change the reality that she’d been left hanging in the wind. And that Hutch herself now worked for a guy who would go missing at the first sign of trouble.
“Hutch,” he said, “I know you’re busy, so I won’t take your time.”
“It’s okay, Michael. What can I do for you?”
He opened a drawer and brought out a cream-colored folder, which he opened and placed on his desk. She couldn’t see what it was. “You’ve done a good job here over the last couple of years.” He extracted a document from the folder and gazed fondly at it. It crackled in his hands. “Congratulations,” he said, holding it out for her.
She looked down at it. Saw the Academy’s coat of arms. And her name. Priscilla Maureen Hutchins. Promoted to grade fifteen. Director of Operations. Effective Tuesday, March 4, 2234.
In eight days.
He extended a hand across the desk and beamed at her. “I wish you a long and happy career, Priscilla.”
“Thank you.” It felt good.
“There’ll be a formal presentation early next week. But I wanted you to know.” He took the document back and returned it to its drawer. “We’ll give it to you then.”
“I appreciate your confidence, Michael.” While there had been a selection panel, she knew she would not have been chosen without the commissioner’s approval.
He broke out a bottle. “Vintage pavlais,” he said. And, reading the label, “Twenty-one ninety.”
Expensive enough to pay the mortgage for a month.
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