Odyssey Read online

  “Yes, they are.”

  “I hope you find something. It would be nice to know whether there’s anything to these stories.”

  “I doubt there is,” she said.

  “I take it this is Michael’s idea.”

  “Pretty much.”

  His standard smile widened. Became genuine. “He claimed you were behind it.”

  “Ah,” she said. “He likes to give credit to the help.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” He held up a hand to stall the conversation, exchanged comments with someone at the other end, then turned back to her. “Sorry, Hutch. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “Senator, I was thinking we might do something nice for Amy.”

  “That’s very generous.” He looked wary. “What did you have in mind?”

  “She’s mentioned that she’d enjoy making an Academy flight. Most of the missions go too far. They’re out too long. But the Salvator, which is doing the moonrider flight, is just going to be making a tour of local star systems. Anyhow, we have space if you’d approve, and I thought it would be something she’d enjoy.”

  Taylor looked reluctant. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “She’d get to see the Origins Project. And the Galactic Hotel at Capella, and the Hightower Museum. And Terranova, and—”

  “Hold on, Hutch. That sounds good. But I’m not comfortable having her away from school that long.”

  “Once-in-a-lifetime experience, Senator.”

  “Also, I’m not sure I can accept this kind of favor.”

  “That’s a call you’d have to make, sir.”

  “Yes. Hutch, let me get back to you.”

  It took less than twenty-four hours. Hutch got a call from an excited Amy the next morning minutes after she’d arrived in her office. “Hutch,” she said, “thank you.”

  CLEARY’S WAS A small, posh coffee shop overlooking the Retreat, the alien habitat that had been disassembled and transported from the Twins and reconstructed on the banks of the Potomac in Pentagon Park. It was midmorning, and Hutch was sitting at a corner table snacking on coffee and bagels when Valya walked in.

  The Greek pilot scanned the interior, spotted her, and came over. “Hi,” Valya said. “Sorry I’m late. I lost track of the time.” She was wearing a flowery yellow blouse and gray plaid slacks. “What’s up?”

  The moonrider flight was a mission to nowhere. Oddly, though, Hutch was beginning to regret she wouldn’t be on the bridge. “Not much. We’re losing missions left and right.”

  “So I hear.” Valya had soloed with Hutch. It had been her qualifying flight. “The bagels look good.” She collected one from the counter and sat down. Fresh coffee came. She smeared grape jelly on the bagel and took a bite. “Well,” she said, “I hear we’re going out looking for gremlins.”

  “Moonriders,” Hutch corrected gently. “The mission’s scheduled to leave April second.”

  “Sounds intriguing.”

  “I understand you’d like the assignment.”

  “Yes, I’d be interested in doing it.” She tried the coffee. “Truth is, with what’s happening to the missions, I was afraid I’d be grounded for a while.”

  “If there are any other flights that interest you—”

  “Yes?”

  “Talk to me first. Don’t go over my head again.”

  “Hutch,” she said, “that’s not the way it was—”

  “However it was, don’t do it again.”

  “Okay.” She lowered the cup slowly onto the table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to create a problem.” For a long moment neither spoke. Then: “What’s going to happen? Are they going to shut down the Academy?”

  “I don’t think they’re that dumb.”

  “You don’t sound hopeful.”

  Hutch shrugged. “I just don’t know.” Valya shared her passion for the Academy. She recalled their brief time together on the Catherine Perth with a sense of pride. It was a time when the Academy was sending missions in all directions, when people still talked about finding what they called a sister civilization. Someone we could talk to. Compare experiences with. The term had fallen into disuse in recent years. And the hunt for the sister civilization had by and large been replaced by teams that went out to inspect stars, to measure their characteristics, and to place them in categories. Necessary work, she supposed, from the point of view of astrophysicists, but boring to the general public. The imagination and the electricity had gone out of starflight, had drained away like a receding tide. And now the Academy wondered why Congress was talking about cutting its subsidy once again. Maybe Michael was right. Maybe the only real course they had was to take a chance, go with a shot in the dark, and hope the Salvator found something. Hope the ship turned out to be appropriately named.

  It would be uniquely satisfying if, after all the probing hundreds of light-years away, we found that the sister civilization had come to visit us.

  “I think the Academy will survive,” Hutch said, “but we’re in for some rough times in the short run.”

  Valya sat back. Hutch had to concede that Michael had picked the right pilot for a PR flight. She had lovely features, luminous eyes, congenial personality. And she was quick on her feet. “I hope you’re right,” she said.

  “Valya, have you ever seen any of these things?”

  “No. I haven’t.”

  “That’s probably a good thing.”

  “I thought so, too. So you want me to place the monitors. Do you know precisely where, in each system?”

  “Bill knows.” The AI.

  “Okay. Now, let me ask the next question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Suppose we were actually to spot one of these things—”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “But if we do, do you want me to try to contact it? To give chase? What?”

  “That’s simple enough. Try to find out what they are. Record everything you can. Get an explanation. Sure, if you get a chance to pull alongside and say hello, do so.”

  “Absolutely. Maybe we’ll bring them home for dinner.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Who’s going to be on the team?”

  “There is no team. You’re it. Eric Samuels will be on board.”

  “The public affairs guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants to go. Give him a chance, Valya. He’s a good man.”

  “Okay. Anybody else? Don’t I get a specialist?”

  “There are no moonrider specialists. At least none we want to be associated with. But there are two other passengers. One’s a friend of yours.”

  “Really? Who’s that?”

  “The guy you did the show with last week. Gregory MacAllister.”

  She stiffened. “You’re kidding.”

  “I thought you did a good job, by the way. Held your own against a pretty tough character.”

  “What on earth is MacAllister doing on this flight? He’s a windbag.”

  “Actually, he’s one of the more influential people in the country.”

  “He’s still a windbag, Hutch. You’re not really going to lock me up with him, are you? He’s out to sink the Academy.”

  “You’re right that he doesn’t think what we do is very important. That’s one of the reasons he’s going. He hasn’t traveled much off-world. In fact I think this is only his second flight, and the other time out he damn near got killed. He’s offered to go along and take a look around. You’ll be showing him some of the more spectacular local sights. It’s a chance to win him over. If you could manage that, you’d be doing us all a major good turn.”

  “Hutch, I’ve seen this guy up close. I don’t think his mind is open.”

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  THE CASE FOR A NAVY

  The sightings in recent years of strange vehicles in faraway systems, and in some cases over Arizona, are probably attributable to drifting gas, to overwrought imaginations, to people seeing what they wa
nt to see. Is anyone other than ourselves really out there flying starships? The answer to that however is most certainly yes. Just within a hundred light-years or so, we have several technological civilizations, or their artifacts. And an additional handful of places with recognizably intelligent creatures. The old notion that the universe was essentially ours to do with as we please was never tenable.

  If the moonriders are illusory, just reflections in the vastness of space, then so be it. But we owe it to common sense to determine whether that is so. In the meantime, we would be prudent to consider what our position would be if we encounter others, and they turn out to be hostile. Most experts maintain that any civilization smart enough to cross the stars will have long since dispensed with warfare. But we’ve already seen that idea trashed by the omega clouds. Who knows what else awaits us?

  It’s only common sense that we begin to construct a fleet of warships. It would be costly, but not nearly as costly as finding ourselves trying to head off extraterrestrial creatures who think we would look good on a menu.

  —Crossover, Thursday, February 26

  PART TWO

  amy

  chapter 16

  Certain types of decisions can be safely ignored. Some issues will go away with the passage of time, others will be so slow developing that the decision-makers will depart before the results of their neglect become manifest. Which brings us to the environment.

  —Gregory MacAllister, “No Rain Again Tomorrow”

  MacAllister told Wolfie to take over while he was gone on what he called his “grand tour.” His last official act before leaving was to write an editorial arguing that the Origins Project be shut down. Primarily he cited the cost. In addition, he noted, we are not going to get a better can opener from it. He tried to work in the danger that lay in the project, but no matter how he phrased things, the notion that a facility nineteen light-years away could be a hazard to people living in South Jersey just didn’t make the cut for serious commentary.

  He’d made a few calls to physicists with whom he’d come in contact over the years, but they all took the same tack Ellen Backus had. There was just enough of an admission to raise the hair on the back of his neck. But nobody was willing to speak for the record. The idea was just too far-out.

  So he’d let the editorial go without bringing in the Armageddon feature. If it turned out he was right, and everything blew up, he wouldn’t be able to take much satisfaction in it anyhow.

  Several major stories were developing. A best-selling novel, it appeared, had been written by an AI. A group of fanatics claimed to have found an ark halfway up Ararat. MacAllister had been having a good time all his life at the expense of the pious; but if indeed there was only one universe, and all the parameters had been set exactly right to permit the birth and development of living things, then it was hard to see how else it could have happened save by deliberate intent. He wondered whether he would spend his twilight years in a monastery.

  The president was caught in an influence scandal that was sapping his ability to govern, and the American Catholic Church was talking about reuniting with the Vatican. Another cloning bill had surfaced. (The technology had gone worldwide, but was still banned in the North American Union.) Almost 75 percent of kids grew up missing at least one parent. Crime rates were down, but violent crime—murder, rape, and assault—was up sharply. It had been climbing for almost ten years. Why was that?

  As the date for departure neared, he grew less enthusiastic about the project. For one thing, he’d discovered the pilot would be the overbearing Greek he’d had to deal with on Up Front. For another, he began to feel he’d been carried away by the emotion of the moment. He tried to persuade himself he’d enjoy the tour, would get to places he’d never see otherwise, but he was going to be sealed up alone with Valentina Whoever; Eric Samuels, who was an idiot; and a fifteen-year-old girl. He’d committed to it, so there was no getting out. But after this, he and Hutch were even.

  Other than delivering a few snickers, the media had paid no immediate attention to the announcement that the Academy was undertaking a mission to look for moonriders. It was “simply an assessment of the situation,” according to the Academy’s press handout. “An effort to determine whether there’s a factual basis for reported sightings.” Magnificently noncommittal. The fact that he would be on board was leaked later, suggesting there was more to the story than the Academy was prepared to admit. As a result, a few barbs had come his way. The Hartford Courant considered itself surprised that any serious journalist would be party to a moonrider hunt. Moscow Forever wondered whether he’d “finally gone over the horizon.”

  The deviousness left MacAllister feeling compromised. He’d complained to Hutch, who’d assured him everything would be fine, and advised that he “just ride it out.” “You’re bulletproof,” she’d added later, when the media began suspecting the government was keeping some sort of terrible secret and MacAllister was in on it.

  He’d responded by issuing a statement that the media were right, that there was something MacAllister knew that the world was not yet ready to hear. “We’ve been analyzing moonrider activities,” he said. “It looks as if the aliens are every bit as dumb as we are.” He took to calling them UCMs. Unidentified Cruising Morons.

  There was a popular fantasy series at the time, Quantum Street, which had a distinctive musical theme, and people began warbling it in his presence. The two women he was seeing socially couldn’t resist knowing smiles. And he even started getting requests for interviews on the subject, all of which he turned down.

  MACALLISTER WAS PROUD of his reputation as a major-league crank. People who didn’t know him assumed he was the same way socially, cantankerous with friends, and generally hard to get along with. None of that was true. Susan Landry, who was the closest thing to a romantic interest in his life, was fond of describing him to friends as a pussycat. He knew Hutch thought him a soft touch.

  The lesson to be gleaned from all this was that he needed to start behaving seriously like the crank whose image he so assiduously cultivated.

  A small group of friends threw a party for him the night before departure. During the course of the evening, they smiled and drank to the moonriders and wished him luck. It was almost as if he were going on a one-way mission. He understood the implication: Make a flight like this and expect never to be taken seriously again. At least not as a journalist.

  Susan assured him she’d love him no matter what.

  One of his reporters gave him a complete bound Shakespeare and talked as if MacAllister was not coming back. Another observed how good it had been to work with him all these years, and that he would never forget him. The guy was actually close to tears.

  When it was finally over—thank God—they stumbled out into an unseasonably chilly night, shaking his hand as they went. Geli Goldman gave him a wet kiss. Geli had tried once to get him into her bedroom. She was forty years younger than he was, just becoming an adult at the time, and it would have been unspeakable to take advantage of her. Especially in light of the fact she was a talented writer who would undoubtedly have recalled the incident in some future memoir. He kept reminding himself of that possibility. It was the linchpin of his virtue.

  SHORTLY BEFORE DAWN, he took a last look around the apartment, went up to the roof, and climbed into a taxi. It was warm and muggy, with no stars. Occasional flashes of lightning played along the western horizon. But the ride was smooth and quick.

  At Reagan he checked his bags, had breakfast, paged through the Post, and, just after six, boarded the shuttle.

  The vehicle, which had a capacity for twenty-eight, was half-empty. Among the other passengers he saw two families, both with kids, obviously heading for a vacation. He checked to see whether one of the big cruise liners was scheduled out. But there was nothing currently in port. So they were probably just treating the kids to the space station. See what the world looks like from orbit. Well, in that way, at least, there was profit to be had. N
obody could look down at the planet, green and blue, with no borders in evidence and no sign of human habitation, and not get his perspective forever altered.

  Twelve years earlier, MacAllister had walked the ground of Maleiva III, a world as large as the Earth, during the last few days before it plunged into the clouds of a gas giant. Aside from the fact that the experience had terrified him, his perception of planetary stability had changed radically. He’d returned home with a heightened awareness of how delicate the seemingly indestructible Earth really was. It had made him a dedicated Greenie. Now he had only contempt for people who thought the world was forever and it was all cyclical and human beings were too puny to cause any lasting damage.

  An hour and a half after his departure from Reagan, the shuttle docked at the orbiter, and his harness released. MacAllister was off-world for the second time. He told himself to straighten up, that he’d enjoy the flight and catch up on his reading if nothing else. In fact he needed a break. This would be his first vacation in nearly nine years. (He prided himself on telling people he hated vacations.) But it would be good to get away from the routine for a while. He let the other passengers get off before he rose and headed casually for the exit.

  As he emerged from the boarding tube, he was surprised to find Hutch waiting. As always, she looked good. Crisp white blouse, dark blue slacks. There was a teenage girl with her. That would be Amy. “Good to see you, Mac,” she said. “Hope you had a good flight.”

  “Yes, indeed,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  “Good. I suspect you’ll enjoy yourself. Amy, this is Mr. MacAllister.”

  The girl was almost as tall as Hutch. She looked bright enough, but he could see a resemblance to her father. That was a problem since he didn’t like her father. Taylor’s politics were sensible; but he made too many speeches and clearly thought well of himself.

  Despite the resemblance, she was pretty. She extended her hand, and bracelets jingled while she told him she’d read The Quotable MacAllister. “I enjoyed it,” she said. “You have a marvelous sense of humor.”