Jack McDevitt - Cauldron

On impulse, he detoured into the grounds, following the long, winding walkway that used to be filled with joggers and physical fitness nuts. It was concrete until you got past the main buildings, where it converted to gravel, entered a cluster of trees, and circled the Morning Pool. At the far end of the pool, the trees opened out onto a stone wall. If he’d walked to the end of the wall, he would have been able to see his office.

Despite the fact it was located along the eastern perimeter of the old Academy grounds, this was the South Wall, on which were engraved the likenesses of the fifty-three persons who had given their lives during the Academy’s near half-century existence. Fourteen pilots and crew (the latter from the days when ships needed more than a pilot), and thirty-nine researchers. There was Tanya Marubi, killed in the Academy’s first year when she tried to rescue a paleontologist who’d blundered into a walking plant of some sort on Kovar III. The plaque stipulated that the paleontologist had escaped almost unharmed, and that Marubi had taken the plant down with her.

And George Hackett, who’d died during the Beta Pac mission, which had discovered the existence of the omega clouds. And Jane Collins and Terry Drafts, who’d found the first hedgehog and revealed its purpose when they inadvertently triggered it. And Preacher Brawley, who had run into a booby trap in a system that was referred to on his plaque simply as Point B .

Emma was waiting for him when he got to the office. She was watching the latest Jenkins reports. “Anything like that ever happen to you, Matt?” she asked. “You ever get stranded somewhere?”

“No.” He made immediately for the coffee. “My career was pretty routine. Just back and forth.”

She studied him. “Did you know the pilot?” she asked.

“I’ve met him.”

“Well, I’m glad he came out of it okay.”

“Me, too.”

They were in his office. The wind was rattling the windows, and rain had begun to fall. “You must be glad to be here,” she said. “Real estate’s not the most glamorous way to make a living, but it’s safe.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever know anybody out there who…?” Her voice trailed off.

“One,” he said. “I trained under Preacher Brawley.”

“Who?”

Brawley had been the best there was. But he’d lost his life when he got ambushed by an automated device that there’d been no way to anticipate. Matt had set out to be like his mentor. And gradually came to realize nobody could be like the Preacher.

She nodded and smiled and after a minute glanced at the clock. Time to get to work. “Do you have anything pressing at the moment, Matt?”

“No. What did you want me to do?”

“Take over the Hawkins business. I think it’s a little too complicated for Anjie.”

Too complicated for Anjie. “Why don’t I just give her a hand?”

THE JERRY TYLER SHOW

Guest: Melinda Alan, Astrophysics Director, AMNH

JERRY: Melinda, we were talking back in the lounge before we came on and you said the omega incident was the worst scientific setback in history. Do I have that right?

MELINDA: Absolutely, Jerry. I can’t think of anything that remotely compares with it.

JERRY: Okay. Do you want to explain why?

MELINDA: Sure. Previous to this, we’ve known that there was intelligence in the galaxy going back over a million years—

JERRY: Let’s take a moment here to explain to our audience. You’re saying we’ve known all along that, a million years ago, there were intelligent aliens.

MELINDA: That’s right.

JERRY: How did we know that?

MELINDA: The omega clouds. They come from the galactic core. They travel pretty fast, but they still need more than a million years to get here.

JERRY: What exactly are they? The omegas?

MELINDA: We have no idea, Jerry.

JERRY: But there’s no question in your mind they’re mechanical objects? Launched by somebody?

MELINDA: That seems to be a safe assumption.

JERRY: So whoever’s out there could be a lot older than a million years.

MELINDA: That’s so, yes.

JERRY: Okay. Now talk about the loss of the artifact.

MELINDA: One point two billion years, Jerry. That ship, station, whatever it was, was so old the mind has trouble grasping it. We’ll probably not see anything like it again. It was older than the dinosaurs. In fact, that vehicle dates from a time before any multicellular life had developed on Earth. Think about it: There was nothing on the planet you would have been able to see. Who knows what the artifact might have revealed had we been able to retrieve it?

JERRY: It’s okay. Take a second to catch your breath.

MELINDA: ( Wipes her eyes. ) I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like this on camera before.

Priscilla Hutchins looked out across the tables and saw a lot of empty places. Maybe her act had gotten old. But the diminishing crowds had been a long-term trend, and the Foundation’s other speakers were running into the same problem. The loss of the Jenkins wasn’t helping. She saw Rudy Golombeck slip in through the side door, take a quick look around, shake his head, and leave as quickly as he’d come. “I’ll take questions now,” she said.

“Hutch.” Ed Jesperson, up front. A medical researcher. “My understanding is that we know where the omega clouds come from. Is that right?”

“Ed, actually we’ve known for a long time. More or less. We’ve been able to backtrack them. And yes, the point of origin seems to be in a cluster of dust clouds near the galactic core. We can’t get a good look at the area. So we don’t know precisely what’s happening.”

Spike Numatsu was next. Spike was the last survivor of a band of physicists from Georgetown who’d organized campaigns on behalf of the Foundation for years. “Is there any possibility of sending a mission there to find out? I know it would take a long time, but it seems as if there should be a way to do it.”

There was a lot of nodding. “We can’t stretch the technology that far,” she said. “A flight to the galactic core would take seven years. One way.” She paused. “We’ve thought about an automated flight. But we don’t have the funds. And we’re not sure it could be made to work anyhow. Basically, we need a better drive unit.” More hands went up. “Margo.”

Margo Desperanza, Margo Dee to her friends, hosted parties and galas and a wide range of benefits for Prometheus. It struck Hutch that there were few new faces that day. Mostly, only the true believers were left. Margo Dee didn’t know it yet, but Rudy was going to ask her that afternoon to serve on the board of directors. “Hutch, do you see any possibility of a breakthrough? Whatever happened to the Locarno Drive?”

What, indeed? “There’s always a possibility, Margo. Unfortunately, the Locarno didn’t test out.” It had been the brain child of Henry Barber, developed in Switzerland, an interstellar propulsion system that was to be a vast improvement over the Hazeltine. But it had gone through a string of failures. Then, last year, Barber had died. “I’m sure, eventually, we’ll get a better system than the one we have.”

“You hope,” said Jenny Chang in a whisper from her spot immediately to Hutch’s left.

Eventually, the big question showed up. It came from a young blond man near the back of the dining room: “If we did develop the capability to go there, to find out who was sending the omega clouds, wouldn’t it be dangerous? Wouldn’t we be telling them we’re here? What happens if they follow us home?” It was a question that had been gaining considerable credibility among American voters, and, for that matter, worldwide. Politicians around the globe had seized on the issue to scare the general public and get themselves elected on promises to restrict interstellar travel.