Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [205]
They watched the console. Lights blinked, and the visuals went out.
There was a terrace on the second level with an aft view. Nobody was using it, and Kim strolled onto it and stood in the starlight looking at the sky. The banshee and its escorts were back there somewhere, less than two hours away.
“It was a good try, Kim.” The voice startled her. It was Matt’s, and she read concern in his face. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“I don’t,” she said.
His tone changed. Grew optimistic. “You’ve confirmed a major discovery. We know they’re here. And we have an artifact. That’s not a bad piece of work.”
“We also know,” she said, “that if we ever are able to talk to celestials, what their first question’s going to be.”
“Well, we’ll just have to explain as best we can.”
“Killed the crew and took the ship. Good luck to us, Matt.”
“Kim—”
“Let it go.”
He settled into a chair. “They’re scared, Kim. You really can’t blame Woodbridge. He’s just taking your advice.”
The great star-clouds glowed in the night.
“Don’t put this on me,” she said. “I’m tired of that game. He has as much information as I do. He knows what happened at Mount Hope. He knows what the Valiant crew did.”
“But he has more responsibility than you do. If you’re wrong, well, maybe we lose a ship. A few lives. If he gets it wrong, there could be a catastrophe. God knows what it could bring down on our heads. We haven’t really done a study to determine what contact would mean. Despite Beacon, despite all the missions, we never really thought through the potential consequences.” The chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “Let it go. In the long run, we’ll be better off.”
“You really believe that, Matt?”
From the adjoining corridor she heard the bleep that accompanied the scan marker. The whatever was looking at them again. Making sure they hadn’t changed course. She wondered what they made of the warships. The presence of the fleet, if it provided comfort to Ali and some of her colleagues, was as likely as not to scare off anything in the neighborhood.
“You know,” she said, “if we don’t get it right this time, we may not get another chance.”
“We do what we can.”
Kim looked out at the stars, at Matt, sitting now with his eyes closed, absorbing pain, doing what he’d always done, trying to make the best of things. In the long run, we’ll be better off. He’d left the door open, and she could see down the passageway, which ultimately led back to the Institute. “I don’t understand,” she said, “why they haven’t responded. I’d think they’d want to talk about the Valiant, if nothing else.”
He shrugged. “Who’s to say? Maybe they think we’re looking to grab another one if it shows itself. Or maybe just transmitting pictures doesn’t convey the message.”
“What would?”
“I don’t know. What’s the message?”
“Hello,” she said. “We’re sorry.”
“Then maybe they need to be informed we have the Valiant with us. They don’t really know that—”
“Yeah.” She thought about it. “You might be right, Matt. All we’ve done so far is send—”
“—A lot of images. Maybe we need to show them the ship.”
She opened a channel to the captain. “Ali, when’s the next scan due?”
“We just had one.”
“It’s still running at sixty-three minute intervals?”
“That is correct.”
“How much time have we left before the good captain arrives?”
“Hour and a half, give or take.”
“There’s still time,” she said.
“Time for what?” asked Matt and Ali simultaneously.
“To go outside. Ali, can you arrange things so that when the next probe comes, we’re in the shadow of the planet? We’ll need whatever shelter we can get from the sun.”
Matt didn’t like it, but he could not withstand her determination. “I go with you, though,” he said.
“You ever been outside one of these things?”
“Have you?”
At the other end of the corridor, a staircase ascended to an air lock. Kim and Matt took the Valiant from its display case. They set it on the floor and Kim wrapped it carefully in plastic.
Ali, speaking from the pilot’s room, tried to dissuade her. Neither of you has any EVA experience, he argued. It’s dangerous.