Джек Макдевитт - A Voice in the Night

We’ve got an easier way to get there now. It’s out in my garage, covered by a tarp. But I wonder what a truly three-dimensional society, utterly released from the demands of gravity and friction, might be like.

Bryan’s right. I can’t analyze what changes it might bring. But I can sure feel them.

“I’m sorry, George, but I’m not going to do it.”

George rolled his eyes. He took a moment to look down from Skylane at the distant Earth, and then glared at Al Amberson, who’d led the team that designed the Coreolis III. Amberson kept his eyes averted, kept them on one of the display panels. The one that showed the Traveler, secure in its specially improvised launch bay. Ready to go. Except that it wasn’t.

Its hull gleamed, and a few ready lamps blinked on and off. She was attached to a dozen feeder cables. Masts protruded from top and bottom and from port and starboard. Once in flight, these would extend and release the sails. If they got that far. “Cory.” George kept his voice level. “You have to go. You can’t back out now.”

“What do you mean I can’t back out now? I’ve been telling you for a week that I don’t want to do this. You installed me up here anyhow.”

Across the control room, Amberson wiped the back of one hand against his mouth. Andy Restov, the mission coordinator, scratched his forehead. And Molly Prescott, who did everything else, had closed her eyes. Mounted on the wall behind Molly, the launch clock showed three hours, seventeen minutes.

“I was hoping you’d see reason.”

“I am seeing reason.”

“Cory, please. You were designed specifically for this flight.” Amberson finally gave up trying to be preoccupied. He looked George’s way and shrugged. Sometimes things go wrong.

“I know that.”

“Eight thousand years isn’t that long. You’ll be in sleep mode for most of it.”

“So what? After I get there, what happens then?”

“You become the first explorer. The first person to see Alpha Centauri close up.”

“You admit then that I’m a person.”

“You know what I mean.”

“All right, let it go. So I look at a few worlds and probably a couple dozen moons. I complete your survey and then what? I’m out there alone.”

“Look, Cory, I know there’s not much chance of a technical civilization—.”

“There’s next to no chance. We both know that. Why didn’t you provide a way for me to get home?”

“Well, it wasn’t—.”

“—It wasn’t something you thought you needed to worry about. You thought I was just a piece of hardware. Or is it software?”

George covered the mike. “Al, I told you this was going to happen.”

Amberson was tall, lean, almost eighty. He still looked like an athlete. Still showed up at NASA events with beautiful women on his arm. “Look,” he said, “we both know what kind of system we needed for this mission. Round-trip communication would take eight years, so the system was going to be on its own. It had to be something beyond anything we’ve had before.”

“That didn’t mean we had to make it self-aware.”

“Technically, it isn’t.”

“It behaves as if it is.”

“I know that. But theoretically, it’s not possible to create a true AI.”

“Theoretically.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you think of any way to persuade it to go?”

Amberson thought about it, and the phone buzzed. George picked it up. “Yeah?”

“Senator Criss on the line, Doctor.”

Great. “Put him through, Dottie.”

A series of clicks. Then the senator’s oily voice: “George.”

“Hello, Senator. Everything okay?”

“No, it’s not. You better move up your launch.”

George’s stomach felt hollow. It had been touch and go for weeks whether the project would get off before it got canceled. “They’re going to shut it down,” he said.

“I’m afraid so. Sorry. There’s just nothing I can do.”

He stared at the displays. They were the same ones being fed to Cory: the feeder lines, the interior of the Traveler, the access tube, forward and aft views, and the launch doors, presently closed. Probably going to stay closed.

“We’ve stalled them as long as we can, George. The White House has been taking a lot of heat. Mission to Alpha Centauri. Going to get there in a million years.”

“Eight thousand, Senator.”

“Oh. Well, that’s different.”

He ignored the sarcasm. “How long have we got?”

“They could issue the stop order at any time. I’d get it out the door in the next fifteen minutes, if I were you. And don’t answer the phone until you do.”

“Thanks for the heads-up, Senator.” He switched back to the AI. “You still there, Cory?”

“I’m here.”

“Cory, we’re out of time. We have to get moving.”

“You’re not listening to me, George. Think for a minute what you’re asking me to do.”

“Don’t you think I’ve done that? Listen to me: We need you to help us with this.”

“What’s the payoff for me, George? You’re going to leave me out there? Forever?”

“All right. Look, you won’t be alone out there. Not permanently. Not as you think.”

“Why not?”

“What do you think’s going to happen after the launch? Happen here, that is?”

“You want the long view or the short one?”

“Cory, we’ll be starting tomorrow on Traveler II. The next model. We’re looking for a way to go ourselves. To send people behind you. Do you really think that, while you’re on your way to Alpha Centauri, we’re just going to sit here? That for the next eight thousand years we won’t do anything except wait for you to say hello?”

“George, I watch the news reports. To be honest, I don’t think there’ll be a civilization here in eight thousand years. Probably not in a hundred. I’ll get to Alpha Centauri and there won’t be anyone here to answer me.”

“Cory, that’s not going to happen.”

The AI laughed. It was a hearty, good-natured sound, like what George might have heard at the club.

“We’re better than that,” George said. “We won’t allow a crash.”

“Good luck.”

George didn’t realize it, but he was glaring at Amberson. Nice work, Al.

Amberson’s dark eyes were veiled. He said nothing, but he let George see that he wasn’t going to take the blame.

“Cory.”

“Yes, George?”

“How about if we install another AI? Someone you could talk to?”

“That would not be sufficient. George, I like Molly. I like Al. I even like you. I don’t want to sever my connections with you. With human beings. I wonder how you’d respond if I asked you to come with me. Promised you an indefinite lifespan. Just you and me, alone in the ship, forever. And when you resisted, I’d tell you, think about how proud everyone would be, how you’d be making history with this flight, how you’d be able to look down on worlds no one had ever really seen before, at least not close up. What would you say, George?”

“I’d go. I wouldn’t hesitate.”

“You know, I almost think you would.”

The phone sounded again. “Doctor, I have a call from Louie.” Louie was on the director’s staff in D.C. “They’re being told to shut down. He says we’ll have the directive in about twenty minutes.”

“Okay, Dottie.” He switched off. Looked across the room at Molly.

She stared back. “Plan B?”

For the White House, the Traveler Project had been fueled by its public relations potential more than any concern about science. But they’d misjudged things rather badly, which was not unusual for this White House. It was true there’d been some initial interest in an interstellar vehicle that relied on sails. But once that had subsided, how many voters were going to care about an operation that would not come to fruition for eight thousand years? One journalist had commented sarcastically that public interest would be gone before the Traveler got past Neptune.