The black hole is nature’s ultimate assault on the notion of a reasonable, friendly universe. No advantage can be extracted from its existence. It adds nothing to the majesty of the natural world. And if there is evidence anywhere that the cosmos does not give a damn for its children, this is it.
I called Alex that night and told him about the Capella. “That’s good news,” he said. “I hope they can make something happen. Suttner has a pretty good reputation.”
“She seemed kind of young for a genius.”
“That’s the way it usually goes with physicists, Chase. Make your mark before you hit thirty, or you’re out of the game.”
“They’re running a test of some sort in a couple of days,” I told him, “and they’ve invited us to go along.”
“In a couple of days? No way I can make that. But you’re going, right?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Everything in shape at the office?”
“Yes, Alex. Everything’s quiet.”
“What kind of test?”
“I don’t really have details. They want to find out whether they can tinker with the drive and stabilize the thing.”
“Okay. But be careful. Don’t volunteer for anything.”
“Relax, Alex. Everything will be fine.”
“I’ll see you when you get back.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “We might have found a Corbett transmitter.”
“A what?”
“A Corbett transmitter.”
“Would you want to brief me on what that is?”
That was an enjoyable moment. It’s not often I come in ahead of the boss on an archeological find. “It’s a twenty-sixth-century hypercomm transmitter. This was the breakthrough unit.”
“You mean for FTL transmissions?”
“Yes.” What else could I mean?
“Really? You sure?”
“According to the Brandenheim.”
“Where’d it come from?”
“That’s the really interesting part of the story. Marissa Earl showed it to me.”
“Marissa?” He grinned. “It has something to do with Garnett Baylee?”
“That’s correct.”
“I wasn’t entirely serious, Chase. Baylee? Really?” He scratched his temple. “He’s been dead about nine years.”
“Eleven, in fact. They found it in one of the closets in his house.”
“Nobody knew he had it?”
“Right. His family still lives there, and they came across it by accident. I have a picture of it if you want to take a look.”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
I love watching his eyes light up. “Chase, did you say whether the museum’s made an offer?”
“No, Alex. I don’t know about that. I didn’t really want to ask.”
He shook his head. Not surprised. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Our clients shouldn’t have any problem beating whatever the Brandenheim would be willing to pay. The whole story amazes me, though. Not much of that Golden Age stuff has survived. People have been looking for it for thousands of years. Baylee spent a substantial amount of his life searching for artifacts from that period.” He was frowning. “I met Baylee a couple of times. He was a nice guy, but he wanted to be the premier archeologist on the planet. I can’t imagine he’d have come up with something like this and stuck it in his closet and forgotten about it. I wonder if he was possibly suffering from delusional problems?”
“I don’t know. Marissa didn’t say anything to suggest that.” For a moment, we stared at each other. Alex was in a time zone three hours later than I was. He looked tired, and it was obvious he was ready to crash for the night. “So,” I asked, “do you want me to do anything about this? Should I make an offer? Just to make sure she doesn’t let it get away?” Normally, we restrict ourselves to playing middleman in these arrangements. But for something like this—
“It’s too early. We don’t want to look anxious. Call Marissa tomorrow, though, and tell her not to do anything without checking with us first. Tell Jacob that if she tries to call me, he should put it through.”
“Okay. But I should probably mention that she didn’t seem to be consulting us about a sale.”
“Really? What do you think she wanted?”
“I think she just wanted to get a sense how much it was worth. And maybe talk with somebody who might have an idea why her grandfather would forget he had something like this.”
“I can’t imagine why she’d expect us to know.”
“You’ve a reputation, Alex. But anyhow, if you prefer, I can call and tell her we can’t be of any assistance.”
He laughed. “Ask her to make the transmitter available to us so we can run some tests. Let’s just be sure this is what it seems to be.”
The following morning, I called Marissa and relayed Alex’s wishes. She told me that she wasn’t planning on taking any action for the moment and would wait until we’d had a chance to examine the transmitter. Then, while I was having breakfast, an announcement came over the HV that Ryan Davis, the president of the Confederacy, would be making a statement at the top of the hour. The president was visiting Cormoral, and there was, of course, no way he could speak to us directly from a distance of forty light-years. That meant the message had already been received, and they were trying to expand their audience.
President Davis was a charmer, with brown hair, brown eyes, chiseled features, and a smile that always gave me a sense that he was talking directly to me. But there was no smile this time. “Friends and citizens,” he said, “we are all concerned about recovering, if we can, the people on board the Capella. I want to assure you that we have a topflight scientific team, the Sanusar Recovery Force, working to bring its twenty-six hundred passengers and crew home. You can be certain that we are doing everything possible to make it happen.
“Unfortunately, we are in unknown territory. We have not encountered warped space and time before. I know there is much concern across the Confederacy about this lost ship. And about the others that may be adrift out there somewhere. We are told that time seems to pass at a different rate on the lost ships than it does for us. That is, time passes much more quickly for us. Judging from what we have seen on the other three lost ships that have been recovered, it is likely that only a few days will have passed on the Capella since they left Rimway eleven years ago. That’s difficult to grasp, but our scientists assure us it is a valid picture of what has been happening. It is, they say, likely to be the case with the Capella. The situation could be even more extreme. We rescued two girls from the Intrépide last year. Cori and Sabol Chaveau. They boarded the ship seven thousand years ago. But while they were in flight, only a few weeks passed. Let me reiterate that we are doing everything possible to protect the lives of the passengers and crew. It is our first priority. We will take no action that will endanger them. And we will do everything possible to bring them home.”