Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [106]
They took over the briefing room for their first onboard dinner and put out a few candles. The windows, had they been real windows, could have revealed nothing other than the glow of the ship’s running lights, had Solly chosen to put them on. Instead he programmed a view of the Milky Way as it would have appeared to an approaching intergalactic vehicle.
The meal itself was quiet. Solly usually carried more than his share of the conversation, but he had little to say that evening. The candles and the wine and the galactic disk provided an exquisite atmosphere. The food was good. Yet Kim felt the weight of her decision, and worried that she might be wrong, that she might have overlooked something, that she might have destroyed Solly’s career. And her own. They were probably swearing out warrants at this moment. “I wish,” she said, “that I could come up with any kind of explanation why they would have kept it quiet. I mean, contact would be the story of the age.”
“Don’t know,” said Solly.
She looked up from a piece of corn. “We’ve more or less assumed that everybody feels the same way about celestials that we do. That everybody wants to find them if they’re out there. Except maybe Canon Woodbridge and probably the Council. But there might be a lot of people who’d prefer the status quo. Who’d just as soon we not discover that we have company.”
Solly’s face was framed by the candles. “I’m one of them,” he said.
“You’re kidding.”
“I never kid. Look, Kim, life is pretty good right now. We have everything we could possibly want. Security. Prosperity. You want a career, it’s there. You prefer lying around the beach for a lifetime, you can do that. What can celestials give us that we don’t already have? Except things to worry about?”
“It might be a way to find out who we are.”
“That’s a cliché. I know who I am. And I don’t really need philosophy from some thing that may in fact look on me as a potential pork chop. There’s a real downside with this, especially considering your experience in the Severin. And I’m sorry, but I can’t see much upside. For you and me, maybe, if this pays off. But I think the human race, in the long run, would not benefit.”
She pushed back from her food and stared at him. “Considering how you feel, I can’t understand why you came.”
“Kim, if they’re out there, then it’s just a matter of time before we meet them. I don’t like it, and I’d stop it if I could. But it has the feel of inevitability about it. If it happens, it’ll be a big moment. I’d just as soon be there. And we’re probably better off if we know it’s coming.”
“Hunter instinct,” said Kim.
“How do you mean?”
“Hide in the bushes. Kill or be killed. Are those the kind of conditions you really think would exist between interstellar civilizations?”
“Probably not. What I said was, it could happen. And since things are pretty good right now, I can’t see why we’d want to change anything. Why take chances? Leave well enough alone.”
“Solly, why do you think we went to Mars?”
He dipped a roll into his soup, bit off a piece, and chewed it thoughtfully. “We went to Mars,” he said, “because we recognized that exploitation of the solar system would have long-term economic benefits.”
“You really think that was the motivation? Long-term economic benefits?”
“It’s what the history books say.”
“The history books say Columbus headed out because he wanted to establish trade routes to India.”
“Last I heard, that was the explanation.”
“It was a cover story, Solly. It was intended to help Isabella make the right decision. To hock her jewels, have an argument ready for her councilors, and at the same time to follow the call of her DNA.”
“The call of her DNA?” He looked amused. “You always did have a talent for poetry, Kim.”
She waited patiently while he finished his wine.
“So,” he asked at last, patting his lips with his napkin, “what was the call of her DNA?”
“It wasn’t trade routes,” said Kim.
“So what was it?”
“Outward bound,” she said. “Exploration. To set foot, either in person or by proxy, in places that have never been seen before.