Firebird

TWENTY-NINE

“Same routine,” Alex said. “We'll send Belle out to the launch point and give it two weeks. If she doesn't see anything, we move on.”

“Okay.” I sat down at my desk, ready to call Belle.

“One more thing before we get started. I've been trying to get through to Shara. She's in conference, and I want to run this black-hole thing by her first before we take it any further. Make sure it makes sense. That we didn't overlook something.”

“All right, Alex. Just let me know.”

He was going out the door when Jacob broke in: “Call coming in now, Alex.”

Shara loves a good party. But when she's talking physics, she keeps her emotions locked down. So I was entranced watching her eyes widen as Alex explained what he'd been doing. “I've sent you everything I have,” Alex said. “The Sanusar events consistently occur along the black-hole tracks. Not all of them, but that's probably because we don't have enough information on the black holes.”

He put it on a display.

Shara stared at it. “That's incredible, Alex.” She touched the screen in front of her, her fingers spread out, as if it were a sacred object. “You have, what, eleven sightings, and seven of them are located along the tracks. No way that can be a coincidence.” She broke into a huge smile. “If this is correct, you could win the Walton Award.”

Alex tried to look modest. “When,” I asked, “was the last time an antique dealer won the top science prize?”

“Well, I'll tell you: Carolyn Walton would have been proud of you. And you'll get my vote.” She couldn't get her eyes off the display. “I still can't believe this, Alex.”

“Why?”

“The basic time-space fabric is supposed to be immutable. You can bend it, but you can't permanently damage it. You can't warp it. I don't know how to phrase it, but it's not supposed to be capable of behaving this way.”

“Well, maybe that's a position that's going to have to be reconsidered.”

“That may be.” Her eyes closed momentarily, then opened even wider. “The Capella/' she said.

“Yes.”

“The dates match. Rimway was near the track when they launched.” The look she gave Alex made it pretty clear she'd have been delighted to drag him into a bed at that moment. “Beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“Where'd it come from?”

“Winter's notebooks.”

“Well,” she said, “I'm impressed. And by the way, I've got another piece of evidence that supports your idea that these Sanusar objects are ancient vehicles.”

“What's that, Shara?”

“I've been doing some research. Some of the early drive units did fade in and out. Same way they've been reporting from the sightings.”

Alex nodded. “It looks as if, once Robin confirmed that the ships were actually ancient, he tried to duplicate the process. So he took the junk yachts out, put them in the middle of the track, and directed the AI to make a jump. I think one of them, maybe the third attempt, didn't emerge where it was supposed to. If it happened that way, he would have known he was right.”

“The next step,” she said, “would have been to try to get control of the process. Send it out somewhere and try to find it afterward. But how would you do that?”

Shara looked at me. “I'd want,” I said, “to have the AI call Skydeck when it surfaced again. That means you have to arrange for a short jump, if you have any control at all. But if it uses the hyperlink to call in, then it's no problem.”

“I wonder,” she said, “if the jumps are consistent? Same duration? And same distance covered each time?”

“They are consistent,” said Alex.

Shara looked surprised again. “How do you know?”

“Robin showed up twice in advance of sightings. He knew when and where. That sounds like consistency to me.”

“Excellent,” she said. “So what's the next step?”

“We're going after the Firebird.”

“Again?”

“Yes. We should do better this time. We know the launch point now. All we have to do is follow the track.”