Jack McDevitt - Infinity Beach

She took a minute to get control of her voice. “How do we get evidence if we don’t look?”

He looked pained. “I don’t know, Kim. But you have to realize that you represent the Institute. Round-the-clock. Whatever you do reflects on us.” He braced both elbows on his desk and set his chin atop his clasped hands. “I understand that we’re not being fair to you. But you have to understand there’s just too much at stake.”

“Money.”

“A lot of money.”

She let her eyes close. “Anything else?”

“No. That’s about it.”

“Thanks,” she said. And broke the connection. Her living room re-formed around her. She got up, retrieved the jacket, and walked out onto the deck.

The sea looked cold and gray.

The big push at the Institute was to lay out a strategy for exploiting interest in Beacon. Matt had already arranged interviews with the crew of the Trent. It was awkward because the hypercomm signals required time to make the round-trip. Journalists had, in effect, to submit their questions and come back the next day for the answers. So much for spontaneity, or for playing off a scientist’s response and letting it lead naturally to the next question.

Consequently nobody really wanted to talk to the Trent crew. No one from the media had accompanied the mission, because travel time was excessive and it just wasn’t perceived as that big a story. It was too far away. And nobody took celestials seriously anymore. The interest was not generated by the reason for the experiment, but by the fact that we had demonstrated we could trigger a nova.

Consequently, the Institute’s public information group decided to concentrate on that aspect of the story, and the benefits the human race might eventually derive from the capability. Unfortunately no one could think of any. Improvements in magnetic bottle design, maybe. We were getting better at antimatter containment. And maybe gravity deflection systems, which allowed electronic devices to function in ever-more-concentrated gravity fields.

Cray Elliott, a public relations specialist who was a junior member of the team, nodded and wrote it all down. Kim showed her disquiet. “We are forever trying to sell science because somebody somewhere will get a better toothbrush,” she grumbled. “Whatever happened to sheer curiosity?”

“You have to be practical,” Cray said. He was bright, ebullient, cheerful. She really didn’t want to have to deal with cheerful .

Nevertheless it was all there if one wanted to look: long-range star travel was rendered more efficient, the cells that provided fuel to heating and lighting systems for entire cities would increase their capacity, and safety would be enhanced.

“But,” said Kim, “star travel is being cut back everywhere, we’ve already got more power than we can possibly use, and there hasn’t been any kind of accident, that I know of, involving fuel cells. Ever. ” Other than Mount Hope, probably.

“It doesn’t matter,” Matt said. “Those are just details. Nobody notices details ”

Maybe he was right. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d stretched things a bit. Two years before, the Institute had not challenged rumors that a breakthrough in antigravity was imminent, even though no such thing was in the works, and in fact every physicist that Kim knew of thought antigravity an impossibility. The story retained credence because people believed that if you could induce artificial gravity, you could surely nullify its effects. But it was a different matter altogether. One didn’t need to bend time and space, but only to establish magnetic fields, to create the condition that allowed people to walk about in starships.

Kim thought that the public relations division might even have started the rumor. When she’d mentioned it to Matt, he had piously denied everything. Piety was always how you knew Matt was lying.

Now she listened to his instructions and wondered why she didn’t just walk out. The money was good, the Institute was a decent cause, and the truth was she got a lot of satisfaction simply from the fact that she was so talented at what she did. But as long as she stayed here, the career she’d wanted, dreamed about, prepared for, would not happen.

She recalled the defensiveness with which she’d told Sheyel what she was doing. “ It’s not the field I’d have chosen. ”

And he’d been embarrassed for her. “ One never knows how things will turn out. ”

It was always like that. She was among those who never went to reunions.

Back in her office she found a communication from Shepard. “ There’s a response to your message to St. Johns, ” he said.

“Onscreen, please, Shep.”

“ Yes, Kim. Please note I have adjusted all dates to Greenway Central Time. ”

FROM: Chief, Records Branch

TO: Dr. Kimberly Brandywine

DATE: Monday, January 15, 600

SUBJECT: HUNTER Flight Plan

Per your request, following information is provided re: EIV4471886 Hunter flight plan, filed February 11,573.

Depart St. Johns Feb 12, 573 0358.

Arrive QCY4149187 April 17, 573, to begin general survey Golden Pitcher.

Projected departure from Golden Pitcher was to have been reported when known, but was expected at approximately June 1, 574. J. B. Stanley, Records Chief

The entire mission was to have lasted fifteen months. Kim pressed Solly’s key.

“Hi, Kim.” His image brightened the screen. “How’d the meeting go?”

“As usual. Got a question for you.”

“Go ahead.”

“I should have asked this before: When the Hunter left St. Johns, would they have inspected the jump engines?”

“You mean the station?”

“Yes.”

“Only if asked. The engines should have been looked at by the Foundation’s own people before leaving Sky Harbor. If you’re asking me whether a breakdown is likely early in a voyage that was going way out into the deeps, I’d think not. But it happened. And to be honest, jump engines take a beating. It doesn’t take much of an oversight to cause a problem.”

“What happens if the engines die while they’re in hyperspace?”

“Bye-bye, baby,” he said. “Unless they can make repairs.”

“What about communications?”

“They won’t have any. The ship has to make the jump back into realspace first before they can talk to anybody.”

“That doesn’t show a great deal of foresight.”

He shrugged. “Realities of basic physics, m’dear.”

“Has it ever happened?”

“Don’t know. We’ve lost a ship from time to time.” He watched for a reaction, but she didn’t provide one. “Why? What have you got?”

“Not a thing,” she said.

She put the projected route on her screen, drawing a line between St. Johns and the 187 target star. Somewhere along that line, the engines had shut down and they’d come out of hyperspace, made temporary repairs, and returned to Greenway. So they’d gotten nowhere close to the Golden Pitcher. In fact, since it was approximately a forty-day flight back to Sky Harbor from the closest points along that line, they couldn’t have been much more than a week out of St. Johns when the problem developed.

A week.

That was still a long distance. A starship would cover about 270 light-years in a week.

She marked off the line at that point. Somewhere between the mark and St. Johns, the engines had brought them out of hyper.