Джек Макдевитт - Odyssey

— Gregory MacAllister, “First Man Out of Town”

“Hutch, I keep thinking about the Heffernan. We’ll have to get rid of Louie Alvarez.” Asquith sucked in air, a gesture designed to indicate firing Louie was a painful necessity.

“Why?” she asked.

“It’s a maintenance failure.” He shook his head. Pity. “But there’s no way around it.”

“It’s not his fault.”

“How do you know? You haven’t looked into it yet.”

“Nor have you. Louie’s warned us repeatedly that something like this was inevitable. When it turns out that he can’t work miracles, that four of those ships have slipped past their termination dates, then we’ll have to find another excuse.”

“Is that true? Four of them?”

“Yes. You have several memos on the subject.”

“Is the Heffernan among them?”

“No. Not yet. Give it a few months.”

“Then we’re off the hook.” He came around the desk, vastly relieved. Everything’s going to be all right. “Hutch, you and I have been through a few problems over the last year or so. Let’s calm down. Keep cool about this.”

“People’s lives are involved, Michael.”

“I know that. And I’m not suggesting we put anyone at risk. Let’s just not get excited. What we need to do is concentrate more on maintenance.” He patted his stomach and let his gaze wander over the various plaques and trophies on display. It was the way he reassured himself of his capabilities. “Look, let’s get the Heffernan back. Then we’ll figure out where we go from here.”

She got up, started for the door, but stopped short of the sensor area. Didn’t want the door open yet. Asquith had already gone on to something else, was looking down at a stack of folders, signaling that the interview was over. He was not an impressive figure. Barely taller than Hutch. His thin brown hair was combed carefully over his scalp. He’d just been through a messy public divorce, one of those ugly things with his wife claiming adultery and demanding a huge settlement while he maintained she was deranged. Everything had been played out in the media amid rumors that there was pressure on him to resign. Hutch wouldn’t have been unhappy to see him go, but she knew what political appointments usually were, and she’d prefer dealing with Asquith, who was at least open to argument.

He knew she was standing there, and his eyes rose to meet her. “Something else?” he asked.

There was a silent plea in the way he asked the question. Please don’t make waves. “Louie stays where he is. And I’m starting the administrative procedure to take the Colbys out of service. You’ll have to sign off on some of it.”

He shook his head. “No. I told you we can’t do that. Not possible. Look, call them in if you want, check them as each one reports. Make sure they’re okay.”

“We already do, Michael. It’s the routine.”

When he got frustrated, he literally threw up his hands. He did that now. “We need to make sense,” he said. “We don’t have enough ships as it is to carry out the missions.”

She stood her ground. “Then do what you said you would. Put some pressure on the politicians. They want the programs, they have to be willing to fund them.”

“I’m doing that, Priscilla. What do you think I do up here?”

She wasn’t sure, but she knew it had nothing to do with pressuring people above him. “Talk’s not enough,” she said. “We need to cut back. We can reduce survey operations. Maybe stop them altogether until somebody comes up with some money.”

“Or they call our bluff.”

“Don’t make it a bluff, Michael.” That was the problem with him. Even if he did threaten, nobody would take him seriously. “We have to mean it. We can also stop hauling research and support personnel around. And shut down the Nok mission. We don’t need it. What are we learning from those idiots anyhow?” The Noks were eternally shooting at one another while humans mostly hid and took notes. “And I’ll tell you something we could cut that would make the point. Stop our support for the Origins Project.” Origins was a largely European effort, a hypercollider under construction out on the other side of 36 Ophiuchi.

He rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth. “I’m not sure I’d want to go that far.” Origins had the potential to confirm or reject various long-held speculations about the nature of the universe. Unfortunately, none of them held promise for showing a monetary profit. Because they were blue-sky operations, the most that could be said was that maybe there would be a practical benefit. Unfortunately, that sort of talk carried no weight with Congress or the World Council. “Priscilla, do you have any idea what the political price would be if we did that?”

“I don’t much care about the politics.”

“You damned well better. Check your job description.”

“Michael,” she said, “do what you want. You’ll have my resignation this afternoon.”

He looked pained. “I don’t want your resignation. I want you to help me get past this. This is a bad time for all of us. I know you too well to believe you’d walk out.”

There was nothing more pathetic than watching Asquith when he was genuinely scared. He had reason to be. A resignation by the director of operations at a time like this would point a finger directly at him. “It’s your call, Michael.”

He sat, staring up at her. “All right,” he said finally. “Let me think about what we can do, okay? I’ll get back to you.”

Hutch moved within range of the sensor, and the door opened. “The next Colby flight is the Kira, next week.”

“Okay. Sit tight for a bit. Let me figure out what we want to do.” His eyes settled on a note written on his calendar. “By the way, keep your schedule clear this afternoon. Senator Taylor will be here later, and he wants to see you.”

“He wants to see me?”

“He’ll have his daughter with him. She’s a big fan of yours, apparently.” His tone suggested he was puzzled why that might be.

“Things are pretty crowded today, Michael.”

He waved the problem away. “Make yourself available. He specifically wants his daughter to say hello to you.”

“Okay.”

“I think her name is Amy. She wants to be a pilot. And you might keep in mind that Taylor will have a lot to say about whether we get decent funding next year.”

SHE WAS IN conference with a couple of her department heads when the call came. “The commissioner says Senator Taylor’s on the grounds. Please go up to his office.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m on my way.” She made her apologies and reset the meeting for four o’clock. It was a cool day, and the heating system didn’t seem to be functioning. She grabbed a jacket out of her closet and headed up to the second floor. Asquith kept her waiting about ten minutes in his outer office, then rolled out, straightening his collar and giving directions to his AI, Don’t call me, I’ll be back in half an hour. Take care of the place.

He signaled her to follow, and they hurried down to the ground level and out of the building.

“Where are we meeting them?” she asked, as they descended the front steps and turned north on one of the walk-ways.

“In the courtyard.” Taylor was a Greenie senator from Georgia, a guy who had no time for the Academy, star travel, or the sciences generally. He had gone to Congress on one issue only: a promise to do whatever was necessary to get the greenhouse under control. He had grown up on St. Simons Island, off the Georgia coast. A resort back in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it wasn’t much more than a sandbar now. “He wants to talk about the future of the Academy.”

“I thought this was a social thing.”