Джек Макдевитт - Odyssey

“How do you mean?”

“The science committee is going to be looking at our situation.”

“That’s the one Taylor sits on, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Hiram tells me they’re going to hold hearings, then they’ll recommend the reduction in our funding. He says they have no choice. Can’t throw good money after bad, he says.”

She felt helpless. “The funding cuts over the last few years are the reason we’re having the problem.”

“You know that. And I know it. For that matter, Taylor knows it, too. But they feel they have to cut somewhere.”

“You might point out to them that we’re a quarter of a percent of the federal budget.”

“I will. Have no fear.”

“If they do it, we’ll have to eliminate another round of missions. But we should arrange things to hit them where it hurts. We have to get the people who count on us to understand there’s a problem. If they don’t go after the Senate, Taylor and the rest of that crew will put us out of business.”

“I understand that. But, Hutch, we’ve never canceled missions before. We’ve built a reputation for reliability.” He looked seriously worried. “I really hate the way this is going.”

“Michael, we canceled a mission yesterday. And we’ll cancel five more by the end of the week.”

He stiffened, as if this was something he hadn’t heard before. “Most of those missions won’t happen for a while. Why not delay the decisions?”

“Because the people who are depending on us should get as much advance notice as possible.”

He mumbled something about a headache. Then: “I mean — ” He stopped, not sure what he meant. “We can’t go on like this.”

“We don’t have any choice. Until the politicians provide some resources, they’re going to have to face the consequences.”

“I know how you feel, Hutch. But somehow we have to maintain the service.”

“Like hell, Michael. We’re not a military organization. We don’t risk people’s lives. At least not deliberately.”

SHE WAS TEMPTED to catch a flight up to Union and follow the search from the operations center. It would look good when the inevitable investigation started to assess blame for the loss of the Heffernan. But there was really nothing she could add to the effort, so she resisted. The last thing Peter and his people needed was to have the boss looking over their shoulders.

Heavy clouds moved in from the west at midafternoon, and a violent lightning storm rolled across the capital. By five, the sky had cleared. Asquith called again, asking whether there was any news, whether there was anything more they could do. Some corporate ships were on the way. “It’ll take them a while to get there,” she said.

She sent out for pizza, called Tor to tell him she was going to stay at the office again, until she had word one way or the other. She talked to Maureen for a few minutes. “I miss you, Mommy,” her daughter said. “Where have you been?”

“I miss you, too, Sweetheart. Mommy’s had to work.”

“Why?”

As Maureen grew older, Hutch was feeling an increasing sense of unease over the amount of time she spent away from her daughter. The child was changing before her eyes, growing up, and the truth was that Hutch knew she would one day look back on these years and regret the lost time. That she’d wish she had done things differently.

Maybe it was time to step down. Let somebody else deal with Asquith and monetary shortfalls and outraged academics. Not for the first time, she asked herself what she really wanted out of her life.

EXPERTS AND CONSULTANTS were showing up across the media, unanimously predicting the Heffernan would not be found. Peter called to say that an independent commercial vessel, the Macarias, had arrived on the scene and joined the hunt. Hutch was second-guessing herself by then. Harry Everett had been right. She should have taken a stand when it first became evident that the fleet was deteriorating. There had been a string of incidents, and then the al-Jahani had driven the point home by blowing an engine during the Lookout rescue operation. The Academy’s stock had skyrocketed when its ships rescued the Goompahs, and a few weeks later took out the Earth-bound omega cloud. Riding a wave of Academy popularity, the administration had promised ten new ships, Flambeau models, top-of-the-line. But the economy had gone south and the president discovered that starflight was suddenly not a big item with the voters after all.

Hutch knew about the early days of spaceflight, when the Americans went to the moon and then took the better part of the next half century off. And the second burst, which had featured a few manned missions to Mars and points beyond. But there had seemed nothing particularly interesting in the solar system. At least not to politicians and ordinary voters. Who cared whether microbes might be found on the fourth planet or in Europa’s ocean? (As it happened, they weren’t.)

There was a good chance the cycle was about to repeat. Eventually, she knew, the human race would spread out around the Orion Arm. But it wasn’t going to happen quickly.

As for her, well, she imagined herself selling real estate or maybe running a physical fitness center somewhere. Hutch’s Gym.

She was wrapping up her work, getting ready to go home, when Peter called again. “We’ve got them.” He sounded as if the issue had never been in doubt. “They’re okay.”

“Thank God.” She uncharacteristically raised a jubilant fist over her head. “Who found them? Where were they?”

“Nobody. We got a radio signal from them. Here. At Union.”

“At Union? You’re telling me they never got out of the solar system?”

“That’s right.”

“How do you mean? What happened?”

“They’re well out past Sedna’s orbit.” The outermost known body in the sun’s family. “Seventy billion kilometers. Apparently, the drive never fully engaged. Or something.”

“That’s not supposed to be possible.”

“Well, there you are.”

“So, they bounced out and sent a radio signal.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

SHE CANCELED THE remaining corporate flights. Then she called Asquith at home.

“Well, I’m glad to hear they’re all safe,” he said without enthusiasm.

She’d expected him to be delighted. “So what’s wrong?”

“You say it was still in the solar system?”

“More or less. It was out near the orbit of Sedna.”

“Which is where?”

“About ten times as far as Pluto.”

“Incredible.” She wasn’t getting a picture, which meant he was sitting there in his pajamas. “So all along, we were looking in the wrong place.”

“That’s correct. Where they were, we’d never have found them. They radioed in.”

“It took two days for the radio transmission to get here?”

“Something like that.”

“You know, Hutch, from a public relations standpoint, this is almost as bad as losing the ship would have been.”

“What are we talking about, Michael? They’re alive. They all get to come home — ”

“But they were in the solar system. And we didn’t know it. Think how that makes us look.”

“That’s because something went wrong with the drive.”

“You and I understand that. But we have the whole world watching, every news organization on the planet following this thing, and it turns out nobody was ever in danger.”

“Michael, nothing like this has ever happened before. What we understood about Hazeltine space was that you could only travel through it at a fixed rate. It was always the same. You were in there one day, and you covered a little over ten light-years. You were there one second, and you did a billion klicks. That was it. No more, no less.”