Echoes of Earth (19 page)

So Samson arranged a simulated flat screen on which his physical image could be displayed, along with full access to audio and partial video for him to monitor.

“Picture yourself playing one of your father’s old PC role-playing games,” she said with a smile. “Just don’t pull out an assault rifle and start blowing people away, okay?”

Despite her efforts to make him feel at ease, however, he was still nervous. He was unsure how he would go at keeping up with the various threads of conversation that would inevitably take place and whether he’d be able to keep track of who was saying what to whom. More than anything, though, he didn’t want to make a fool of himself. Not now, not when he felt he was beginning to make progress. He was realistic enough to know that he was the one on trial as much as the plan itself to send the hole ship to Earth. If he demonstrated himself to be unreliable in a simple meeting, how could they trust him to travel seventy-six light-years away, into an unknown situation back home?

“Don’t worry about it,” said Samson, her virtual hands brushing back an imaginary fringe.

“Who are you? My mother?”

She lowered her hands to her sides and took a step back. “What was she like?”

Alander frowned. “What?”

“Your mother,” Samson said casually. “What was she like?”

The question took him completely off guard, and he found himself stammering a reply: “I... I don’t know. A lot like me, I think. She was very curious about things. Christ, I don’t remember that much about her, Cleo. She died in an accident when I was fifteen.”

“At least you knew her,” said Samson a bit sadly. “I never knew mine at all. I lived with an uncle until I was old enough to get away. Later, at university, I took a class with one of my cousins, but I don’t think he even recognized me. I had changed so much by then.”

He cleared his throat. She was clearly moved by the sudden recollection, but he was not. He looked back on his mother’s death with almost clinical dispassion. It really did feel as though it had happened to someone else. The only true memories he had were those recorded from the moment his original had entered the engram entrainment program, and the cameras had switched on.

Lucia...

“What brought this on, Cleo?” he said. “Some vain attempt to take my mind off things?”

“Do you miss Earth, Peter?” she asked, ignoring his comments. “The trees and the sky, the rain and the wind, and the people... ? Especially the people. I miss them so much at times.”

“Listen, Cleo,” he said. “I’m not really up to this at the moment. I’m finding it hard enough to concentrate as it is. Sorry.”

She seemed almost literally to shake herself out of it. “No, Peter, I’m sorry. An odd feeling came over me, that’s all.”

Slightly ashamed of his callousness, he gestured in a way that was vaguely, awkwardly, consoling. Without her permission, he would be unable to actually touch her, and he didn’t want to risk rejection.

“Like someone walked over your grave?” he said.

“That, or perhaps one of me, somewhere, just fell into one.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. At that moment, the chime rang to summon the executives to the meeting, and, thankfully, their conversation was over.

* * *

“Easy, easy!” The imaginary camera angle through which
Alander was watching the meeting swung up to look at Caryl Hatzis. She had stood, trying to bring the meeting to order. “I know this is an emotional issue, but that’s no excuse for acting like children. Either talk like adults, or I’ll close the meeting entirely.”

Cleo Samson was instantly on her feet, too. “You can’t make a decision like that, Caryl! It involves all of us.”

“Then just sit down, Cleo, and shut up so we can get on with the goddamn meeting
properly
.”

“The mission regulations clearly state—”

“I said, sit down!”

The shout had the intended effect. Samson stopped with her mouth open, hesitated for a moment, then fell heavily into her seat. Her eyes, seen via the virtual camera under his direction, were red.

“Now,” said Hatzis, more calmly, “if we have any further outbursts from anyone, they
will
be expelled from the meeting. And I don’t give a flying fuck about regulations. I have the authority to demand that the mission be conducted in an orderly fashion. Is that fully understood by everyone?”

No one contradicted her, and after a moment, she sat back down. Her eyes looked about the faces of the others, pausing slightly when her gaze fell upon the screen containing Alander’s image. Then she looked down the table to where Sivio sat.

“Right, then,” she said. “Jayme, you were saying?”

“I raised the possibility of sending
Arachne
to Earth without Peter on board.”

“The benefit of that being that we risk less,” she said, nodding. “I am aware that work will grind to a halt in some respects without Peter here to communicate with the Gifts. But I still believe that a great deal of work can still be done without the Gifts ever speaking another word to us. In fact, according to them, the ultimate intention is for us to learn from what they have given us to date, so that—”

“It’s too soon,” said Wyra. “We need Peter here
now
in order to do our job properly.”

“But
are
we even doing the job properly now, with him already here?” put in Kingsley Oborn. “I don’t know about you, but I’m likely to be as confused in ten years as I am now, with or without Peter.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of how well we can do,” said Donald Schievenin. “It’s more a matter of our resources being stretched so thin at the moment.”

“Which is the very reason we need to contact Earth,” said Hatzis. “And the sooner the better.”

Alander saw Samson open her mouth at that, but she shut it again without saying anything. Had she been surprised by Hatzis’s stand on the matter?

“We’ve already strayed off topic,” Hatzis went on. “What we’re discussing is whether sending the empty hole ship is a less costly way of getting the help we need right now. I mean
potential
costs, of course; we have no way of knowing what
Arachne
would be flying into until it arrives. And that, unfortunately, is the crux of the problem.”

“We could make a close flyby of Sol,” suggested Wyra, “to see what’s there.”

“Maybe,” Hatzis said. “Has anyone looked at the Map Room to see what that shows for Sol?”

“I have.” All heads turned to face an exhausted-looking Nalini Kovistra. “It shows the sun and the gas giants, but that’s all. I’m assuming it was surveyed from a distance, hence the absence of the smaller planets. A lot of the systems around here are listed like that, including Upsilon Aquarius.”

“So, perhaps a recon mission would be a good idea.”

“Assuming, of course, that we
can
send the hole ship on its own,” said Schievenin.

Alander jumped at the opportunity to join in the discussion. “I could always ask,” he said.

“Do that, Peter.” Hatzis waited while he relayed the question to the Gifts.

“The hole ship is capable of following complex instructions given in advance,” they confirmed.

“But the question remains open whether it
will
do as it’s told,” said Schievenin. “Just because they say it will doesn’t mean it actually will.”

“If we lose the hole ship,” said Samson from where she sat seething in the corner, “we lose our only remaining chance of contacting Earth.”

“But if we send Peter
and
the hole ship,” retorted Wyra, “we risk losing both of them! I don’t think the mission can afford that.”

Alander felt pleased for a moment, despite his misgivings, by Wyra’s suggestion that he was a valued member of the crew. Hatzis, however, was clearly not impressed by the direction the conversation was taking, and she sat at the head of the table, glowering.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Can we just move on from this point for the moment? Nalini, did you get a chance to look at many of the other survey systems?”

“A couple of dozen, actually,” the astrophysicist replied. “They seem to be like the map of Sol, though, containing little we didn’t already know.”

“So they were observed from a distance,” Hatzis mused.

“Or in haste,” said Kovistra.

Hatzis nodded. “Either way, it tells us something about the Spinners,” she said. “It tells us that they probably haven’t come this way before. More than likely, we are the first in the region to be contacted by them, and maybe the last. We can’t assume that they will continue toward Sol just because they have encountered us. We are, after all, out on the very edge of surveyed space; they may have detoured just far enough out of their way to leave us the gifts, on the assumption that we would pass them on to others of our species.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Caryl,” said Wyra. “But why does it have to be now? This instant? What’s the hurry? In a month we’ll know ten times as much as we do now; in a year we might know a hundred times. Rushing back to Earth might actually do us more damage than good.”

“Thinking of your Nobel prize, Otto?” Oborn chuckled deep into his beard, with no indication of rancor.

“Maybe we all should be,” returned Wyra humorlessly. “Because if we do send that ship to get help, Earth will immediately take over the operation, whether we like it or not.”

“How about we send an ftl transmitter back to Sol on board the hole ship?” suggested Sivio. “The ship can drop it off somewhere near Earth. We could send messages from here for the transmitter to relay normally without us having to risk anything more than a quick flyby.”

“That’s a good idea.” Hatzis scanned the room. “Any thoughts on that, anyone?”

“We only have two working transmitters,” said Nalini Kovistra. “The one in the hole ship, and the ring itself. Until we figure out how they work and build another one, we’re back where we started. The
only
way to communicate with Earth is to send the ship itself, preferably with Peter aboard to deal with any unpredictable situations.”

“I disagree that it’s so clear cut,” said Hatzis above an instant response from Wyra. “But I’m prepared to call for an interim show of hands. Who thinks we should send Peter in the hole ship, and who doesn’t? The ayes first.”

Samson’s hand went up, then Kovistra’s and Schievenin’s.

“Nays?”

Otto Wyra immediately raised his hand, followed by Kingsley Oborn and Jayme Sivio.

“A tie with four abstentions,” said Hatzis. “I abstained in deference to Cleo, who feels that I’m trying to influence the group. The rest of you have been notably quiet. Jene, Ali, Peter, what do you think?”

Jene Avery looked uncomfortable. “I guess I tend toward caution. I don’t see why we have to do anything about it right now—”

“A nay vote, then,” broke in Wyra.

“
But
,” Avery continued, shooting him a glare, “I
do
feel we should send him at some point. I’d probably vote with the ayes in a month’s time.”

“Okay,” said Hatzis, nodding. “Ali?”

“We need more data,” said Genovese. “We don’t have enough to cast an informed vote at the moment, and I certainly don’t think we can break it down to a for/against vote under any circumstances. It comes down to gut feelings, and I think that’s a terrible foundation on which to base such a decision.”

Hatzis nodded again. “And Peter? What about you? This concerns you more than anyone else here.”

He shifted awkwardly in the free-fall environment of the Dark Room. Hatzis stared impassively out of the screen at him. Did she really care what he thought? he wondered. Or was she just humoring him?

“I
want
to go,” he said, thinking of his own agenda. “But I’m prepared to go along with whatever decision the rest of you come to.”

“Why do you want to go? What’s in it for you?”

He felt decidedly uncomfortable under the scrutiny of everyone. All attention at that moment was upon him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t see that you have much to gain by putting yourself at risk like this. Christ, for all you know, you could be flying into a war or anything back there. Is communicating with Earth worth risking your life for, now that you’ve only just got yourself back together again?”

“I think it’s important,” he said, keeping his voice as level as he could. “It’s something I know I can do. And as I’m the only one who
can
do it, I feel like I owe it to the rest of you to give it a try.”

“But do you yourself think you should go?”

“Yes, I do.”

Hatzis closed her eyes for a second, then shrugged in a helpless gesture. “All right,” she said. “That makes four ayes, then, to three nays. I’d vote with the ayes, too, except that I’m not yet convinced Peter can be relied upon to carry out the mission properly.” She glanced at Alander. “I’m sorry, Peter, but it’s the way I feel.”

“That’s okay, Caryl,” he lied, knowing he shouldn’t blame her for being honest.

“You’ve improved dramatically in recent weeks,” she went on, “especially since the Spinners came, but this mission is too critical. If something goes wrong, if you make the smallest mistake, we could lose both you and the hole ship. And I’m not prepared to take that kind of chance.”

“So what do you vote?” pressed Samson.

“I defer on the grounds that we should wait and see. If Peter remains stable or another opportunity presents itself... then we’ll see.”

Samson looked suddenly smug. “That still gives us a clear majority.”

“Not at all,” Hatzis said. “If you count the abstentions as nays, given that they’re certainly not ayes, that means you lost four-six.”

“But...” Samson reined in her disappointment with some effort. “So what decision are you going to make?”

“None, Cleo. We’re deferring it until the entire crew has had a chance to discuss and cast a vote. Then we’ll discuss it again and finalize the details. I’m not prepared to let my own personal feelings get in the way of this, as I said before. It’s too complicated an issue for me to ignore the many informed opinions around me.”

“I think you’re doing the wrong thing.”

“I’m sure you do, Cleo,” she said tiredly. “And that’s your prerogative, of course.”