Ben Bova - Voyagers

Spoke privately with our lame-duck President this afternoon, after the regular Cabinet meeting. I must confess he seems stronger, surer of himself, now that he’s removed the burdens of running for re-election from his rounded shoulders.

The Party is in an uproar, of course. The organization people are terrified that he’s just handed the election to the opposition. I’ve tried to point out to them that he’s created such a fluid situation that no one has a preferred position. It all depends on what we do from here on in—that’s all that counts now.

If our scientists make real contact with this alien spaceship, whatever it is, and it all turns out well and beneficial for the world, then the President will be a saint and his halo will cast a very favorable light on whoever’s running for our Party.

If it’s benign, I can head the Party’s ticket in November and win easily. But if the alien is trouble, then all bets are off.

Jo sat staring at her computer terminal’s readout screen. The numbers and letters glowing at her were meaningless; her mind couldn’t concentrate on them. She got up from her desk and walked out onto the balcony outside her office. Down in the Pit the computer hummed and winked its lights in intricate patterns, too fast for any human to understand.

With a shake of her head, she stepped back into her office, grabbed her worn leather shoulder bag from the desk and headed downstairs.

She stopped in the rest room first, pushed a comb through her thick hair and checked her face. Then she marched straight to Stoner’s office.

The door was open. He was on the phone, his back to her. She waited just inside the doorway.

“Sure,” Stoner was saying. “I can take all the physical checkups they want right here at the base hospital. If NASA wants their own people to run the tests then NASA can fly them out here. Right? Good. Okay. Thanks again. See you.”

He turned his chair around to hang up the phone and saw Jo standing there.

A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. “Hello, Jo.”

“Hi.” She stepped further into the office. It was still bare, new-looking. Voices echoed slightly off the freshly painted walls. Half the bookshelves were empty, the rest held stacks of photographs and a few thick looseleaf notebooks. Three unopened cardboard boxes rested on the carpeted floor beside the steel file cabinets. The desk was steel also, but its top was painted to look like walnut. It also was bare, except for the telephone and an incongruous coconut.

“Have a seat,” Stoner said, without getting up from his chair.

Jo took the nearest chair, chrome and plastic, cold and uncomfortable.

“You’re all right?” she asked.

He nodded slowly. “Bruised and aching, but okay. I checked the hospital a half hour ago; Schmidt’s in stable condition. No lung punctures, just some broken bones. He’ll mend.”

Clenching her hands on her lap, “I feel terrible about it.”

He said nothing.

“I mean…if I hadn’t been late for our dinner date,” Jo explained, “you wouldn’t have been at the club and Schmidt wouldn’t have found you.”

His face took on that grim, almost angry look that shut everyone else out. “He’d have found me, no matter where I was. It’s a small island, and he was looking specifically for me.”

“But why? What made him?”

“Where were you?” Stoner asked.

Jo’s heart quickened within her. He cares! It matters to him!

“I was stuck halfway across the lagoon,” she said, the beginnings of a smile curving her lips. “Markov and I took a canoe trip.”

“Kirill?”

Nodding, “We borrowed an outrigger and neither one of us could keep it from tipping over. You should have seen us! Soaked.”

“Kirill’s in love with you,” Stoner said, without hostility.

“Like Cyrano was in love with Roxane,” she replied. “I’m perfectly safe with him.”

“Unless you both get eaten by sharks.”

“We made it back okay.” She felt her smile fade into an apologetic look. “But I was late. By the time I got to the club…”

“It’s not your fault,” Stoner said quickly. “You mustn’t think that. Somebody pumped Schmidt to the gills with angel dust and sent him out to get me.”

“Who would do that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe the Russians.”

“The Russians? Do our Navy people…?”

“I haven’t told them a word, and I don’t want you to, either.” Stoner leaned across his desk, eyes fastened on hers. “If they start cloak-and-daggering each other, you can kiss this rendezvous mission good-by.”

“But if somebody tried to kill you…” Jo’s voice trailed off.

With a shrug, he answered, “I think they just wanted to knock me around so I wouldn’t be ready for the trip to Russia and the flight. Somebody doesn’t want an American to make the rendezvous mission.”

“The Russians,” she murmured.

“Not the Russian scientists,” Stoner pointed out. “Probably not the Russian Government, either. I think it’s just an element within their government. The hardliners. The KGB, most likely.”

Jo sagged back in the chair, her insides going hollow. “Then you’re in real danger.”

“Maybe. Kirill’s checking it out for me.”

“You’ve got to tell the Navy!” she urged. “Tuttle and the others, they’ve got to know about it so they can protect you.”

“No,” he said firmly. “They’ll fuck up the rendezvous mission once they start clomping around.”

“Better that than getting you killed.”

“Jo, I told you once that this is my life. I meant that, quite literally. Let me handle this my way.”

“And get killed.”

“I’ll take that risk,” he said.

“Keith…” But what can I say? she asked herself silently. That desk is between us. His work, his obsession. It’s more important to him than life itself. More important to him than I am.

“Besides,” he was saying, trying to make it sound less grim, “it was probably Cavendish’s doing. I don’t think his disappearance on the same night was a coincidence.”

She nodded slowly. “There are a lot of rumors going around about Dr. Cavendish.”

Stoner nodded back. “Yeah, I guess there are.”

“Was he really an agent for the Russians?”

“Back in New England he told me he was a double agent. I’m not sure that he knew which side he was really working for, now.”

“He was awfully sick.”

“Maybe. Maybe he was faking that.”

“Do you think any of the other scientists are working as intelligence agents for their governments?” Jo asked.

Stoner’s brows rose. “I don’t know. I never thought about it. Some would, I suppose.”

“Professor McDermott would,” she said, very deliberately.

Stoner gave a bitter bark of a laugh. “Big Mac? Some spy he’d make, with that mouth of his.”

“He’s sneakier than you think,” Jo said.

He gave her a long, searching look. “Yeah, I’ll bet he is.”

“His health isn’t very good,” Jo went on. “Ever since the aurorae started, he’s been a wreck.”

“So I’ve heard. I haven’t seen him for more than a week.”

“Neither have I,” she said pointedly.

He hesitated, then said evenly, “That’s good.”

For long moments neither of them said anything. Jo waited for Stoner to speak, to come out from behind his desk and reach toward her, touch her, do something to show that he cared for her. Instead, he merely sat there, looking uncertain, uncomfortable.

“I heard,” she broke the silence at last, “that you’re in charge of picking the personnel to go to Russia with you.”