Starhawk

Chapter 30

“MOM, EVERYTHING’S OKAY. I won’t be going back to Princeton after all.”

“All right, dear. I guess I’m glad to hear it. What happened?”

“Well, it was just a misunderstanding. The problem’s gone away.”

“Listen, love, it was the boss, wasn’t it?”

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s always the boss, Priscilla. I met him that night at the party. I don’t think you want to work for somebody like that. I’ll tell you, you’d be a lot better off if you were a lawyer. Then you’re your own boss.”

“It’s not that big a deal, Mom. I did something he didn’t want me to. It was my own fault.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, we had an incident. Some people needed help, and I tried to go after them without proper authority.”

“Priscilla,” she said, “always play by the rules. Isn’t that what we taught you?”

“Yes, Mom, it is.”

“All right. If you’re going to stay there, please be more careful.”

“Okay.”

“And you know you always have a place to land if you need it.”

“I know, Mom. Thanks.”

“By the way, I think Tawny misses you.”

* * *

HER FIRST ACT when she arrived back in her office was to order an inspection of the star drive on the Baumbachner. “And affiliated systems,” she added. “If anything’s broken or questionable, fix it.”

Then she went in to ask Frank how the rescue was going. “Ross 248 should have received our message by now,” he said. “Grosvenor will be getting there by midafternoon tomorrow. At Ross 248, that is. They’ll be informed of the problem when they do, and they’ll make their turn and get started for Teegarden.”

“Tomorrow,” she said. “They’ll need four days to reach the system, and probably two more to get to those people after they surface.”

“Are we going to start again, Priscilla?”

“Damn it, Frank, we need a better way to do this stuff.”

“The system that’s in place works pretty well.”

“It doesn’t work at all.”

“All right. Look, that’s enough. I understand how you feel. To be honest, I feel the same way. But there’s nothing I can do. So let’s just back off, okay?”

* * *

FRANK HAD BEEN right about the star drive. The Baumbachner needed a new one. And, unfortunately, they didn’t come cheap. Priscilla forwarded the request to his office for approval and was surprised when he signed on.

At the end of the day, she wandered over to the operations center. Yoshie Blakeslee was on duty again. She was an attractive young woman, Asian, with black hair, dark eyes, and a captivating smile. She looked up when Priscilla walked in. “Hi, Hutch,” she said. “I’m surprised they let you in here.”

“What do you mean, Yoshie?”

“Usually, when they let somebody go, they revoke her clearance.”

“Oh. Well, it’s all right. They were just kidding. I’m back.”

“You’re serious?”

“More or less.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. I was rooting for you yesterday. Too bad you didn’t get out the door.”

“I think if that had happened, they would have let me go.”

A supervisor came into the space. He was an African-American, tall, bent, wrinkled, with a ridge of gray hair around a bald skull. “You’re Hutchins?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded. “I thought you were older.” His features softened, and he reached out to shake her hand. “I’m Morgan White.”

At that moment, she felt pretty good. “Pleasure to meet you, Morgan.”

“I owe you a drink.”

“Why’s that?”

He looked as if she’d asked a ridiculous question. “Talk to you later.” He passed a chip to Yoshie and left.

“That because of yesterday?” she asked.

“I think you made a few friends, Hutch. Is it okay if I call you that?”

She thought about it. Why not? “Hutch is good. I wanted to say thanks for the assist yesterday.”

“It was my pleasure.”

“You didn’t get into any trouble, did you?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Yoshie, do we have any news on the Teegarden thing?”

“Nothing new. They have probably been trying to stretch their food supply, but we think they’ll have used the last of it by tomorrow.” She put the Teegarden ground module on the display. “This is about three days old. Taken from the Proxmire.” The shelter consisted of a double dome. Lights were on, but they were smeared in the murky twilight.

“Not the most cheerful place. Is that as bright as the sky gets?”

“That’s it, Hutch. The planet’s almost in tidal lock. A day there is about three weeks long.”

“Yoshie,” she said, “if anything changes, let me know, okay?”

* * *

THE STORY ABOUT the marooned biologists at Teegarden made the news that evening. Rose Beetem, on the Black Cat network, talked with a retired pilot, Aaron Abdullah, about the dangers of spaceflight. “This stuff still seems to happen,” she said, “despite all the technology.”

“That’s true,” said Abdullah. “We’re in an exploration era a little bit like the fifteenth century was for ocean travel.” He was speaking from home, seated in an armchair in front of a wall decorated with a portrait of a forest at night with two moons overhead. “We don’t really have the technology or the resources to make these flights safe. People go out there, they’re a long way from anybody else, and just getting a message where it’ll do some good can take days. The people at Teegarden need fifty-two hours, roughly, to get a subspace transmission to the Wheel.”

“How long,” asked Beetem, “would a standard radio transmission need to get here?”

“Thirteen years,” he said. “It’s a long way. And we tend to forget that because we can take shortcuts through space. When you go out there, you take your life in your hands. Eventually, I think that’ll change, but I don’t expect to see it in our lifetime, Rose.”

Priscilla stared at the images. Abdullah was tall and sounded authoritative. There was something vaguely intimidating about him. But we could make it safer, she thought. If we tried harder. Made a serious effort. Tell them, damn it. Aaron, you have a platform. Say something.

* * *

MORE PICTURES ARRIVED from Teegarden Thursday morning. They were images from Tuesday, interiors from the ground station, clips of Alexander Quinn and his team, looking worried, weary, fragile. One of the two women commented, with a wry smile, that she’d been wanting to lose weight for years but not like this. “We’ll be able to eat until about Thursday,” she said. “Then we’ll be switching to the gelatin desserts.”

Quinn looked at the woman, then out at Priscilla. “Martha made another effort today to get the lander started. She’s our pilot, as you may know.” Martha smiled helplessly. “But the thing’s flat-out dead. In case anyone’s wondering, we can’t eat anything that grows here. So all we can do is wait.” His anger and frustration were palpable.

The transmission had been sent two days ago.

* * *

SHE BROUGHT UP the Teegarden mission file and read a little about the objective, which had something to do with cellular-energy restoration. She’d hoped the mission purpose would sound consequential. And probably it was. But it wasn’t anything that would excite the general public.

Quinn was one of the pioneers in his field, author of several books, and apparently one of the people who’d set the Academy Project in motion seven years before. Martha Manning, the pilot, was, coincidentally, also from Princeton. Well, almost. She had grown up in Bagwell, a small town a few kilometers east.

The other woman was Esther Comides, a biology professor at the University of Athens. She looked good, or probably would have with a decent meal under her belt. She had red hair and dark eyes. It was hard to imagine her male students concentrating on cellular reproduction while she was standing in the classroom.

And the two guys. They were postdocs, Gustav Lisak, from Oxford, and Bojing Chou, from Shanghai University. Both on their first assignments since getting their degrees. Bojing was another potential candidate for a leading-man assignment. Lantern jaw, intelligent eyes, good smile. It wasn’t hard to imagine how much enthusiasm they must have carried with them on that first visit to another world. She wondered how much they’d take home.

* * *

SHE WENT INTO her office Friday morning hoping to hear that the Grosvenor had surfaced at Ross 248, gotten the message, and was now on its way to Teegarden. But her inbox was empty, so she called Ops. “Nothing yet, Ms. Hutchins,” they told her. “We’ll get back to you as soon as something comes in.”

She was staring out at the stars when Jake called. “Able to talk?” he asked.

“Sure. How’s life in the Blue Ridge? You still on track with Alicia?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “I was happy to see you got your job back.”

“How’d you hear?”

“The Authority isn’t very good at keeping secrets, Priscilla. But I wanted to congratulate you on what you did. It was a gutsy move. And what Frank should have ordered in the first place.”

“Thanks.”

“Be careful, though. The only reason you’re still there is because they don’t want to be back on the news shows again. They screwed up, and it cost Joshua his life. If something were to happen at Teegarden, they wouldn’t want it to come out that they’d fired the young lady who tried to go to the rescue. They had to put you back on. But they’ll be looking for an excuse to get rid of you. Don’t give them one.”

“I’ll try not to, Jake. But I can’t make any promises.”

“How’s it going? You have word on the Grosvenor yet?”

“We’re waiting for it now. It should have arrived in the Ross area Tuesday. Let’s hope.”

“Other than that, how are you doing?”

“Okay.”

“You don’t sound enthusiastic.”

“Well, I’m still behind a desk.”

“Those people are idiots. But your time will come, Priscilla. Just hang in.”

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, Yoshie called: “Ross is reporting that the Grosvenor came in on schedule, Priscilla. They got the message. So they should be well on their way by now.”

* * *

PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL

I was glad to hear about Alicia. I didn’t think Jake would ever be happy down on the Blue Ridge. But he’s fallen in love, and that’s great. I was seriously worried about him when he left, but he seems to be adapting pretty well. He tells me he still misses life up here, but he sounds perfectly content. I can hear it in his voice. I hope he’s smart enough to hold on to her. She looks good, but she’s a lot younger than he is. So who knows? Well, I guess I should have realized all along that he would find somebody. I’m happy for him. And I don’t want to admit this, but I’m almost jealous.

Still no explosion from Monika. I guess she was all just talk.

—January 22, 2196