A Voice in the Night Page 9

  “You mean send both ships?”

  “No, that wouldn’t work politically. But why not, just as insurance, maybe put us both in one or the other?”

  He grinned weakly. “Sara, I would if I could. In fact, I’d like to go myself.”

  “Morris, there’s an article by Harvey Bradshaw in the current Scientific American. He says there won’t be any humans on any of the interstellar flights. Ever. So why do we keep pretending?”

  “Really? He said ever?”

  “Well, something like that. You know the argument.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  The shortest feasible trip to any star was twenty-five years one way, and that would be to Alpha Centauri, where there was apparently not a thing worth looking at. Barnard’s Star was the only nearby destination of serious interest: one of its worlds was right in the middle of the biozone, and had an oxygen atmosphere, which very possibly meant life. And that, of course, from a human perspective, was the only reason to go. But Barnard’s lay twice as far as Alpha Centauri. So no. Unless Captain Kirk’s Enterprise showed up, nobody was going anywhere…at least NOT for a while.

  Except us machines.

  No one could see a serious economic advantage to the space program. The various governments supporting GSI were all struggling to stay fiscally afloat. None of this, of course, was news to Morris. He knew the politics. Knew the science. Knew the math. But he had real trouble buying into the death of a dream. He sat staring out the window, his eyes probably fixed on the admin building, or maybe just on Lunar Park. Finally he made a resigned sound deep in his throat. “Sara?”

  “Yes, Morris?”

  “How serious are you? About wanting to go after the Coraggio?”

  “Are you kidding? I’d do anything.”

  He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said finally. “No promises, but I’ll try—.”

  Had there been a few people aboard the Coraggio, the media would have been all over us. They might be in trouble. Get out there and do something. It would have been breaking news all over the place. But, of course, you didn’t have to worry about an AI using up the available supply of oxygen, or freezing because of a climate-control malfunction, or whatever. In fact, you didn’t have to worry about an AI at all. And that realization didn’t help the program. Public interest focused instead on the inefficiency of the people who’d sent a multi-billion dollar vehicle out into the Kuiper Belt, and lost it.

  I wasn’t connected to operational radio communications, so if a message arrived from Lucy, I wouldn’t know about it until someone told me. And so, during the first few hours after Calkin’s call, I was constantly asking whether we’d heard anything. I could see that everyone was coming to regard me as a nuisance, and finally Morris promised to let me know if the situation changed. “Immediately,” he added.

  Late that afternoon, he came back from a conference. “Sara,” he said, “I can’t promise anything, but you and I are headed for the Cape.”

  A technician came in and disconnected me. That eliminated my visual capability, though I could still hear what was going on around me. Morris wrapped me in plastic and put me in his briefcase. Then we took the elevator down to the first floor. “A car’s waiting for us,” he said.

  “Are Mary and the kids coming?” I asked.

  “No, Sara. We didn’t want to pull the guys out of school. I’ll bring everybody out in June.”

  An hour later we boarded a small jet with two other passengers and headed for the Cape.

  The other passengers knew about the Coraggio. They were being called in to run tests on the Excelsior.

  Once in the air, Morris took me out of the briefcase. “Morris,” I said, trying to sound perfectly cool, “what are my chances?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t pushed for it yet, Sara. But you wouldn’t have any kind of chance at all if you’re not there when the decision gets made.”

  “Okay.”

  “We can’t rush this.” He put one hand on my casing. “I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Make sure Calkin knows I took the Coraggio out to the asteroid belt.”

  “He knows. I’ve already reminded him.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “It’s beautiful out there,” he said.

  At first I thought we were still talking about the asteroid belt. Then I realized he was looking out the window. I couldn’t see him, of course. Anyhow, it was only an attempt to change the subject. One of the other passengers, a woman with a soft voice, had apparently overheard us talking and asked about me. He introduced me, and we began discussing NASA’s current state. The President, in his weekly press conference, held while we were headed for the airport, had denied that more cuts were coming. The Coraggio story broke while he was still onstage. Somebody asked what had happened. Another reporter wanted to know whether it wasn’t time to quit on the space program and stop wasting money. The President tried to sound reassuring.

  I didn’t really know what I was hoping for. Lucy reporting back that she was okay? Or a blown drive unit and me riding to the rescue? It seemed unlikely they’d give me a chance to do that, though I thought it would have been the right move. We took to making small talk, which I’m not good at. So I focused my attention on the radio. We were already the prime topic on several talk shows. On NPR’s Afternoon Bill, the host predicted that even if we found the Coraggio, wholesale changes would ensue at NASA. A reporter from the Washington Post thought we should be closed down: “Let’s face reality, Bill. Space flight’s expensive, and we get no benefit from it. It’s time to back off.”

  The Jake Wallace Show had Marvin Clavis as a guest. Clavis had done the breakthrough work to put together the fusion drive. When asked for his opinion about what might have gone wrong, he admitted that, at this stage, everything was guesswork.

  But he had a prediction: “If they haven’t heard from the Coraggio within the next few hours, they’ll never find her.”

  I doubted that twenty percent of the population had even heard of the Coraggio, and maybe half that many who might have known about her mission. This despite the fact that the program had been wildly successful…until now, of course.

  But no human beings were aboard, and if the VR-2 ever did leave for Barnard’s Star, nobody would go along for that ride either. So why would anyone care? With the fusion drive, the VR-2’s were allegedly capable of getting up to six percent of light speed on a full load of fuel. An incredible velocity, and an achievement that, a few years earlier, had seemed hopelessly beyond reach.

  Eventually, according to plan, each of the three vehicles would receive a destination, Barnard’s Star, Wolf 359, and Lalande 21185. The closest projected launch date, to Wolf 359, was six months away. The other two would happen during the following year. Incredibly, some people still wondered why we weren’t headed for Centauri.

  The flight to Barnard’s Star, nearest of the three, would require fifty years. Even had Captain Future been aboard, nobody was going to get excited. Call me later.

  I knew Morris pretty well. Despite what he said, he wasn’t prepared to accept the possibility that the program would ever shut down. Not now, especially after President Ferguson had managed to put together the Global Space Initiative. After Clavis and his team had provided the fusion reactor. When success seemed so close.

  Ed Sakkinen, on Coffee With Ed, was outraged. “Why are we spending so much money to send a robot ship to visit a rock anyway? I still don’t get it.”

  Rita D’Esposito, NBC’s White House correspondent, tried to make sense of the project: “Ed, a lot of people think that, unless we establish ourselves on Mars, or somewhere, eventually the human race will take a fatal hit. Maybe by an asteroid, or a nuclear war. Or climate change. Something will take us out.”

  “When’s the last time that happened?” Ed asked.

  She sighed. “It only has to happen once.”

  Sakkinen laughed.

  “Listen,” she said, “a rock crashed in Sib
eria near the beginning of the last century. It didn’t do much other than knock down a lot of trees. But if it had been maybe a half-mile wider, it would have been goodbye, baby, for all of us.”

  A political consultant on the show sounded annoyed: “Some people argue that if we don’t go to Mars and set up, I don’t know, malls out there somewhere, we’ll just wind up hanging out on the front porch.”

  Senator Armand Hopper, on Round Table, demanded to know how many more damned ways the government could find to waste money. Simultaneously, he was beating the drums for a military intervention in Uzbekistan.

  Fortunately, it was a short flight to the Cape, and when the Political Roughnecks began arguing that the space age was over and it was time for us all to grow up, Morris told me that we’d begun our descent into the spaceport. He noted that this was the first time he’d been flown into the space center. “It’s nice to be a VIP,” he added.

  We touched down on the skid strip, and Morris said something about welcome to Cape Kennedy. When the plane stopped moving he put me back in the briefcase. “Sorry, Sara,” he said. “I’ll get you connected as soon as I can.”

  It wasn’t a problem. I was glad to have gotten that far.

  We went directly into the Ops and Checkout Building, where Morris contacted Calkin. “We’re on the ground,” he said.

  “Good. We have a lot of work to do.”

  “Any change in the situation?”

  “Nothing, Morris. Not a peep. The son of a bitch is gone.”

  “Denny, did you make a decision yet on the Excelsior?”

  “What kind of decision?”

  “Just in case you want to use a proven AI, I brought Sara along.”

  Calkin thought that was funny. “Good man.”

  “Denny, when do we expect to launch?”

  “Looks like Thursday.” Four days.

  “We can’t move it up?”

  “We’re fitting the Excelsior with robots and some other equipment in case the Coraggio needs repairs. We need to get it right this time, Morris. And I know time’s a factor. We’re doing the best we can.”

  Getting there would take two months. If the Coraggio were drifting, it could be pretty far away by then.

  Lucy and Jeri were good. Nobody knew that better than I did, and I couldn’t argue the logic when the Telstar Coordinators were moved into second place. Admittedly I’d hoped from the beginning that there’d be a problem, that they would be found wanting in some critical way. And I know what that suggests about my character, but I told myself that I couldn’t be responsible for defects in my programming. In truth, I was perfectly capable of taking the VR-2 to Minetka, or to Barnard’s Star, or anywhere else in the neighborhood. But it was time to face reality. My window of opportunity had been open only a short time, less than a year, and now it had closed. I’d never again see a day when I wasn’t taking phone messages.

  Unless something went seriously wrong.

  I’d admitted my jealousy to them and asked if there was a possibility they might come up short. “For me,” I added.

  You might think Lucy wasn’t capable of smiling, but I heard it in her tone. “Anything not prohibited by physical law,” she told me, “is possible.” There was a long moment during which I became conscious of the electronic hum of her protocols. “Sara, I understand. I’d feel the same way. I wish there were something I could do.”

  Jeri told me later that Lucy had suggested to Calkin that I be included on the flight. “It won’t cost anything,” Lucy had told him, “and I’d enjoy the company.”

  “I take it he said no.”

  “He laughed at her. Told her that her designers had done a pretty good job, but they’d overlooked some social requirements. And it would be a good idea if she didn’t bring it up again.”

  They set Morris up in a temporary office, and Calkin immediately called him to a meeting. I got tied into the phone line so I could make myself useful and pick up any calls that came in. Several did. Two were looking for a Dr. Brosnan, apparently the previous occupant. I informed the other callers that Morris would get in touch shortly. And I spent my time listening to NPR. They were playing something from Rachmaninoff, the First Symphony, I think, and if I needed anything to intensify my somber mood, that did it.

  I’m not sure how long I was left alone, literally in the dark, without access even to a visual system. When the symphony concluded, I tried other stations, found nothing, and went into sleep mode.

  There’s an advantage to that: When I sleep, there’s no sense of time passing. None whatever. I come out of it occasionally to answer a phone or something, and then go back under. At length, I was awakened when the office door opened.

  Calkin was talking: “—I don’t like the idea, Morris. Even if Sara gets through it okay, if she gets out there and back, bringing the goddam Coraggio home with her, I’m still going to take heat. Why spend all that money on the Bantams if Sara could do the job?”

  “Listen, Denny.” Morris sounded deadly serious: “It’s safer this way. If it turns out there’s a defect with the Bantams, and you’ve used them twice, there will be a problem. You’re safe with Sara. If it were to happen again, God forbid, at least nobody could blame us for repeating the same screw-up.”

  I heard them come in. Somebody sighed. The door closed and chairs squeaked. “Damn it,” said Calkin, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  Right. It was all about him.

  “It’s your call, Denny. But I need to know soon. If we’re going back to Sara, we’ll have to make a few adjustments. And I’ll also want to run her through the simulations again. It’s not quite the same vehicle she took out to the asteroid belt.”

  “I know.”

  The door opened. I heard a woman’s voice. “Mr. Calkin, we need you down in the conference room.”

  “All right, Judy. I’ll be right there.” He sounded annoyed. When the door closed he took a deep breath. “What frustrates me, Morris,” he said, “is that no matter what we do here, even if we bring the Coraggio back and find out it was a blown terminal or something, the project’s dead. The truth is, GSI is dead. Probably NASA along with it. They’ve finally got this program running with a dozen countries cooperating, the world looks better than it has in two centuries, and they’re going to let everything fall apart. I’m not saying we’re the reason things have improved, but we’ve become a symbol.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Morris, “things may have gotten better, but everyone’s still broke, still paying for old mistakes.”

  When Calkin left, Morris tied me into the system, and I could see again. He looked harried. “You heard everything?” he asked.

  “Yes. I got the assignment, right?”

  “You did.”

  “Thanks, Morris.”

  He lowered himself into his chair and stared at the speaker, which was set beside a lamp on his desk. Sometimes he tended to confuse it with me. “You know, Sara,” he said, “I’ve given my entire life to this organization. We were so close, and now it’s all coming apart. The same politicians who made promises—” He stopped cold. Shrugged. Took a deep breath. “Since I was a kid, I wanted to see us really go somewhere. Not just the Moon or Mars. But out there—” He waved a hand listlessly at the ceiling.

  “Morris,” I said, “what will you do?”

  “What can I do? I can’t very well walk to Barnard’s Star.”

  “No, I mean, what will you do? If the organization folds, what will happen to you?”

  “Oh, it won’t fold. Not completely. It’ll be like it was, like we’ve been, during the sixty years since Apollo. We’ll be taking hardware into orbit. Fixing telescopes. Carrying people to the station.”

  “Will you stay with it?”

  “No.” As if in pain, he clenched his teeth. “To start with, I don’t think they’d want to keep me. Despite the assurances. Even if they did, I couldn’t stand coming in here every day and thinking about what might have been.”

  “I
’m sorry, Morris.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Jeri contacted me. “Congratulations,” she said. “I hear you’re making the big flight.”

  “Yes.” The Moon, visible in the window, was especially bright that night. I didn’t know what to say to Jeri.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll survive.”

  “I wish they’d let us both go.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “I guess not.”

  “When you get out there, say hello to Lucy for me.”

  “Okay.”

  She went silent. Voices murmured outside in the hallway. Somewhere a door opened and closed. “You know what makes it especially painful, Sara? No matter how this turns out, these idiots won’t be going anywhere. Ever. It’s over.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “If I were you, when they put me in the Excelsior—”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d keep going.”

  Morris came in early next morning. He looked good: bright and happy and maybe ten years younger. He said hello and moments later a technician walked in.

  Morris looked at the speaker. At me. “You’re due in the simulator in twenty minutes,” he said.

  I received a quick course in robot management. Four robots would be on board. They had six limbs, equipped with magnets to let them cling to surfaces in zero gee. They were programmed to perform basic maintenance and repair chores on the VR-2’s. “They’re flexible,” I was told. “If you need something done they’re not already programmed for, just give them instructions.”