Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“How’d he make out?”

“He eventually got his heart replaced.”

“Yeah. Well, I don’t think Kolchevsky fits that kind of personality.”

“Really? Why not?”

“There was always a kind of coldness in the guy. Especially when he was on the attack. No, he was too methodical. He didn’t fly into a rage. That was all part of the act. I’m not saying he didn’t get legitimately angry, but he struck me as a control freak. I usually knew what was coming next with him, and I can’t recall ever seeing him get off script.” His eyes drifted toward the window. We had a view of the parking lot, and beyond it, the rising slope of Mt. Barrow, which was covered by heavy forest. A couple of men carrying camping gear had just come out of the trees and were getting ready to cross the highway. “No,” he said, “Kolchevsky had a reason for going up the slope.”

“Was he married?” I asked.

“His wife died twenty years ago.”

“Maybe,” I said, “he was going to meet a girlfriend.”

Barrow was by no means the highest mountain in the area, but I could see why it would have been popular with climbers: It was about fifteen hundred meters above the surrounding country, providing a magnificent view of Lake Accord, which is really a small ocean, stretching almost 140 kilometers to the west.

It’s wide-open country, with only a few houses scattered in remote places. I’ve always thought that, when the time came, this was the sort of area I’d want to retire into.

We finished eating, left Bartlett’s, and got our backpacks out of the skimmer. We crossed Route 11 and started up the hiking trail. About two kilometers in, it split in two. One track turned northwest into the heart of the mountain range. The other, the one on which Kolchevsky had been found, plunged into ever denser forest and headed for the summit. We stayed with it.

It grew steeper, until we were moving carefully, placing one foot in front of the other and sometimes using branches to pull ourselves uphill. And finally Alex pointed off to the right side at a cluster of trees and bushes. “This is it,” he said.

It was easy to visualize. Whether Kolchevsky was going up or coming down, this would have been a difficult patch of ground to navigate. He had apparently staggered off into the shrubbery and collapsed.

We stood quietly for several minutes. Finally, Alex shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s go up the trail for a bit.”

“Any particular reason?”

“What was he doing up here?”

“I have no idea.”

“Right.”

As we got higher, the slope eased off somewhat, the trees thinned, and the trail moved out along a cliff overlooking the lake. A group of rocks formed a cradle embedded at the rim. It was a place where you could sit down and enjoy a sandwich with a view. In fact, several people were there when we arrived.

Clouds had begun building while we were on the trail. And now a soft rain began to fall. The people on the cradle—there were five of them—looked up. They gathered their gear and, as we watched, moved out and started down the trail. They said hello as they passed. We stayed in the shelter of the trees.

When it slacked off, we followed the trail the rest of the way to the top. Somebody had planted a WCC flag on the summit. The World Conservation Corps. I’m sure you’ve seen one, but in case you haven’t: It portrays a gomper with big round eyes sitting beneath a rosebush, and their axiom, SAVE THE PLANET. The WCC, of course, is actually a Confederacy-wide organization that tries to remind people about maintaining the environment.

There was nothing else at the summit.

Alex stared out at the lake far below. “Why did he come up here? Why didn’t he at least bring someone else along?”

Carensa Paterna asked the same question next day on Jennifer in the Morning . “I’m not denying,” she said, “that Casmir had a rough edge. He said what he thought. That hurts sometimes. But think how much better the world would be if we all behaved that way.”

Jennifer looked skeptical. “Are you sure about that?”

Carensa smiled. “Well, yeah, I know what you’re saying. But we claim to be all about truth, don’t we? I’d like to be able to believe that when people say nice things, they mean it. Rather than that they have some ulterior motive. That they’re trying to get something. Or they’re just sparing my feelings. And that’s my point about Casmir: You could trust him. He meant what he said. I’ll confess I loved the guy. There were times he hurt my feelings. But I’m really going to miss him, Jen. I hate to think of what his final hours must have been like. Wandering around on that mountain. What was he doing there anyhow? He knew his health was failing, and it just makes me wonder if he felt lost. That maybe he didn’t care anymore.”

The Hillside was an exquisite, lush club on the Riverwalk. They had a human hostess, which is standard in most of the better restaurants, and human waiters, which, of course, is not. They also had a pianist, who was playing the theme from Last Chance when I walked in. Jasmine candles glittered on the tables. Prints in the style of the last century, and dark-stained wooden tables and walls provided a sense of nostalgia. I sat down and ordered a pizza, propped my notebook in front of me, and was reading the newsclips when a familiar voice asked if she could join me. It was JoAnn. “Sure,” I said, folding the notebook. “How are you doing?”

“Not real well.” She eased into a chair.

“What’s wrong, JoAnn?”

She pressed her lips together. Shook her head. “I don’t trust it.”

“You mean tinkering with the drive?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

She sat quietly for a minute, staring out the window at the Riverwalk. Tourists were strolling past, kids with balloons, people in coaches. “Have you talked to Shara?”

“Not since the flight.”

She leaned close to me and lowered her voice. “I’m pretty sure we could make it work, Chase. Odds are extremely good we could stop the Capella right in its tracks. But damn it, I can’t be certain. And I just can’t bring myself to put all those people at risk. Shara wants me to run the experiment again. Her argument is that if we get it right twice, we should be okay.”

“Are you going to do it?”

A waiter arrived. “Could you give us a few minutes?” JoAnn asked. “I haven’t really had a chance to look at the menu yet.” Then she turned back to me. “There’s no point in repeating it, Chase. Even if it worked fine, if the timing on a second run was perfect, I still wouldn’t be in a position to guarantee it would work for the Capella .”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice shook. “I can’t take that kind of chance. They want me to run a successful experiment, then assure them everything will be okay. Management is scared, Chase. There’s a lot of pressure on them now. The politicians want to get this thing settled. They want the problem to go away. John is the only one who’s resisting.”

“John Kraus?”

“Yes. He recognizes there’s a quantum factor in all this, that there’s no way we can be certain. He’s right. But try to explain that to the politicians.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. My gut-level reaction was that I should simply keep out of it. Which I guess is what I tried to do. “JoAnn, John’s ultimately responsible to make the call. Just do what you can and let him take it from there.”

“I know. But he’ll want my opinion, and I’m pretty sure that’s what he’ll go with.” She brought up the menu, but she wasn’t really looking at it. “You know, I came here thinking I could make this work. I understood from the beginning there was a slight possibility it could go wrong. But the chance seemed so infinitesimal that I thought we could live with it.”