Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“What do you think, Alex?” asked Whitaker. “Is there any chance at all they might find a way to stop it from moving ahead another five years? Or has the Grainger incident ruled that out beyond any chance?”

Alex was clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t think there’s any chance now that we’ll find a quick fix,” he said. “If there’s any alternative plan in the works, I haven’t heard of it.”

“But they’re still saying that manipulation would probably work. Despite the Grainger , physicists are claiming that if we simply reduce the power in the engines, the odds are ninety-five percent that everything would be okay, and the process will stop. Am I right?”

“That’s what some of them are saying, Cal. But I don’t think the people who have to make the decision are willing to take that chance.”

Edward nodded. “It’s certainly a rational approach. I don’t know whether I agree with it or not, but I can understand it. Alex, if it were your call, what would you do? Would you mess around with these lifeboats? If you were a passenger on the ship, what would you want them to do?”

Alex’s eyes took on that distant look I knew so well. “If I were on board, with those odds, I think I’d want them to take the chance.”

Overnight, Project Lifeboat had become the focus of everyone’s attention. The news programs carried pictures of the “lifeboats,” and the various hosts walked us through them, counted the sixty-four seats in each, and assured their viewers that the vehicles seemed perfectly safe. Easy to say, of course, while they were perched on the landing strip at the Clayborn facility, where a substantial number of them were being manufactured.

Each lifeboat was folded into a gray, cube-shaped, plastene package with rounded edges. The cube measured slightly less than four meters on a side, which made it too large to fit into the Belle-Marie or most of the yachts that would be involved in the rescue effort. They were also too large to be carried by the shuttles that routinely took people and cargo to Skydeck. So special shuttles were being built. From Skydeck, the packages were loaded onto anything in the rescue fleet that could accommodate them. Some ships could carry two. A few of the cargo vehicles would be able to take an entire complement of forty-four, which would constitute enough to take care of everyone on the Capella . The complication was that there’d be only a few hours to find the Capella and load the lifeboats. If the operation was conducted successfully, which is to say if we were able to load forty-four lifeboats, then everybody should be able to get off when the ship returns in five years.

Each package was equipped with a pair of jets, which would be used to guide it into one of the Capella ’s three cargo decks.

We watched as a member of John Kraus’s team strolled around one of the packaged vehicles. The cube was marked TOP, BOTTOM, FRONT, and REAR. Four tanks were attached to the rear, and a half meter of black cord hung out of the front of the package. He reached for the cord, held it for a moment, then pulled on it.

The cube literally unrolled as it filled with air and morphed into a lifeboat. Two aides attached small jets to the rear and sides of the vehicle. That would enable the AI pilot to control movement.

A section of Skydeck had been set aside to manufacture the lifeboats, but because there was no way to know which ships would reach the Capella during the few hours they expected it to be accessible, thousands of them were needed, and that was far beyond anything that could be done on the station.

Also, operating out of Skydeck, rescue teams were practicing moving the lifeboat packages from rescue vehicles into a replica of the Capella ’s three cargo decks.

In a conversation with Alex and Shara, John Kraus admitted that he saw little likelihood they’d be able to get forty-four of the packages on board during the short time they would have. “If they get unlucky,” Alex told me afterward, “they might not get any in there, and the entire project could be pushed back still another five and a half years.”

“That would be a disaster,” I said.

“It would be. But the truth is there’s no way around it. The alternative is to go back to manipulating the drive unit. Nobody wants to do that.”

“No more ships available?”

“They apparently have as many as they can handle. Some Mute vehicles are coming in, too. John says a lot of people are unhappy about that. We still have politicians who think the Mutes can’t be trusted.”

“Alex, what about President Davis? He doesn’t buy into that, does he?”

“If he did, they wouldn’t have been invited in the first place.”

“Good. I’m glad we have somebody with some sense.”

“Absolutely. And I hope he’s got it right.”

“Alex—”

“Just kidding.”

Later that morning, Shara came by the country house. “I was talking to John,” she said. “They’re caught up in another battle.”

“About what?”

She took off her jacket and sat down in the love seat. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“It won’t go any farther.”

“Promise?” I put my hand over my heart. “I’m serious,” she said.

“I won’t say a word. What’s going on? Something about tinkering with the star drive again?”

“Yes.”

“I thought what happened with JoAnn had settled it.”

She laughed. “JoAnn’s responsible for launching the new round.”

“All right,” I said. “What happened?”

“It looks as if she did a lot of research while she was caught in the warp. Years’ worth, I guess. She left the results for us, along with a request it be made available to Robert Dyke.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Right.”

“And John doesn’t want to let him see it?”

“I think he’d be willing to go with it, but if he does, he’ll be bucking the President. Davis has taken a public position, and I don’t really know what’s going on behind the scenes, but I’d be shocked if, after what he said, he’d be giving John a green light. So John will probably not ask.”

“He’ll make the call on his own.”

“Yes.”

“You’re suggesting JoAnn thought she had the solution.”

“I don’t have specific knowledge, except that she wanted her work passed on to Dyke.”

“That tells me something else,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“She understood what had happened to her and Nick. She knew that time outside the ship was moving a lot slower.”

I heard no more about it after that, nor, as far as I could tell, did Shara. As the time wound down, we continued moving ahead with the Lifeboat Project. The Belle-Marie , of course, would be part of the rescue fleet. “So what’s the plan?” asked Alex.

“They want us in place four days before they expect it to appear.”

“Four days ?”

“They’re playing it safe, Alex. It would be a little embarrassing if the thing showed up early and was gone before anybody could get to it.”

“I guess so. I don’t think I’ve been paying as much attention as I should.”

“You’re still hung up on Baylee.”

“Well, there’s not much I can do about the Capella . But I’ll go with you when it’s time.”

“Actually, you’re not invited. They’re putting some limits on the yachts. Nobody but the pilot.”

“Because a passenger takes up space?”

“Right.”

“It makes sense. Well, okay. When are you leaving?”