Contact - Carl Sagan [170]
"Ellie, how can you be so sure your story really happened? If, as you claim, all this isn't a hoax, couldn't it be a…delusion? It's painful to consider, I know. Nobody wants to think they've gone a little crazy. Considering the strain you've been under, though, it's no big deal. And if the only alternative is criminal conspiracy…Maybe you want to carefully think this one through." She had already done so.
Later that day she met with Kitz alone. A bargain had in effect been proposed. She had no intention of going along with it. But Kitz was prepared for that possibility as well.
"You never liked me from the first," he said. "But I'm going to rise above that. We're going to do something really fair.
"We've already issued a news release saying that the Machine just didn't work when we tried to activate it. Naturally, we're trying to understand what went wrong. With all the other failures, in Wyoming and Uzbekistan, nobody is doubting this one.
"Then in a few weeks we'll announce that we're still not getting anywhere. We've done the best we could. The Machine is too expensive to keep working on. Probably we're just not smart enough to figure it out yet. Also, there's still some danger, after all. We always knew that. The Machine might blow up or something. So all in all, it's best to put the Machine Project on ice-at least for a while. It's not that we didn't try.
"Hadden and his friends would oppose it, of course, but as he's been taken from us…"
"He's only three hundred kilometers overhead," she pointed out.
"Oh, haven't you heard? Sol died just around the time the Machine was activated. Funny how it happened. Sorry, I should have told you. I forgot you were…close to him."
She did not know whether to believe Kitz. Hadden was in his fifties and had certainly seemed in good physical health. She would pursue this topic later. "And what, in your fantasy, becomes of us?" she asked. "Us? Who's `us'?"
"Us. The five of us. The ones who went aboard the Machine that you claim never worked."
"Oh. After a little more debriefing you'll be free to leave. I don't think any of you will be foolish enough to tell this cock-and-bull story on the outside. But just to be safe, we're preparing some psychiatric dossiers on the five of you. Profiles. Low-key. You've always been a little rebellious, mad at the system-whichever system you grew up in. It's okay. It's good for people to be independent. We encourage that, especially in scientists. But the strain of the last few years has been trying-not actually disabling, but trying. Especially for Doctors Arroway and Lunacharsky. First they're involved in finding the Message, decrypting it, and convincing the governments to build the Machine. Then problems in construction, industrial sabotage, sitting through an Activation that goes nowhere…It's been tough. All work and no play. And scientists are highly strung anyway. If you've all become a little unhinged at the failure of the Machine, everybody will be sympathetic. Understanding. But nobody'll believe your story. Nobody. If you behave yourselves, there's no reason that the dossiers ever have to be released.
"It'll be clear that the Machine is still here. We're having a few wire service photographers in to photograph it as soon as the roads are open. We'll show them the Machine didn't go anywhere. And the crew? The crew is naturally disappointed. Maybe a little disheartened. They don't want to talk to the press just yet.
"Don't you think it's a neat plan?" He smiled. He wanted her to acknowledge the beauty of the scheme. She said nothing.
"Don't you think we're being very reasonable, after spending two trillion dollars on that pile of shit? We could put you away for life, Arroway. But we're letting you go free. You don't even have to put up bail. I think we're