Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [4]
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Kim, “the pictures will be in tomorrow, and we’ll have them for you at the news conference.” She thanked them and stepped away from the lectern, and they began to file out of the room.
Woodbridge lingered, looking out the window at the Institute’s grounds. They were covered with a thin layer of snow. He waited for Kim to join him. “I wonder,” he said, “whether it’s a good idea to advertise our presence until we know who the neighbors are.” He wore a dark brown robe belted with a silver sash, and his sea green eyes were thoughtful.
“It’s a valid question, Canon,” she said, “but surely anyone intelligent enough to develop interstellar travel would be above shooting up strangers.”
“Hard to say.” He shrugged. “If we guess wrong, we could pay a substantial price.” He looked up at the clear, bright sky. “It’s obvious that Whoever designed the cosmos wanted to put distance between His creatures.”
They pulled on their jackets and walked out onto a terrace. The night was cold.
Seabright was only a few hundred kilometers north of the equator, but Greenway, despite its name, was not a particularly warm world. The bulk of its population was concentrated in equatorial latitudes.
An array of telescopes had been set up at the north end of the terrace, away from the buildings. A technician stood beside one, talking with a girl. The telescope was pointed toward the southeast, where Alpha Maxim was just one more pinpoint of light.
The girl’s name was Lyra. She was the technician’s daughter, probably ten years old, and could reasonably expect to live two centuries.
“I wonder if she thinks she’ll be able to see the nova,” said Woodbridge.
Kim stepped to one side. “Ask her.”
He did, and Lyra smiled one of those vaguely contemptuous smiles that children use when they think adults are being condescending. “No, Canon,” she said, while her mother looked pleased. “It will not change in my lifetime.”
Nor of her kids, thought Kim. Light was so slow.
Woodbridge turned back to her. “Kim,” he said, “may I ask you a personal question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to Emily?”
It was a strange question, coming apparently from nowhere. But maybe not, now that she thought about it. Emily would have wanted to be here tonight. Woodbridge had known her, and he understood that about her. “No,” Kim said. “She got in that taxi and never showed up at the hotel. That’s all I know.” She looked past the telescopes. Lyra’s mother had decided it was too cold to stay out any longer, and she was ushering the child inside. “We never heard a word.”
Woodbridge nodded. “It’s hard to understand how something like that could happen.” They lived in a society in which crime was almost unknown.
“I know. It was hard on the family.” She pulled her collar higher to ward off the night air. “She’d have supported Beacon, but she would have been impatient with it.”
“Why?”
“Takes too long. We’re trying to say hello in a scientific way, but nobody expects a reply for millennia. At best. She’d have wanted results tonight.”
“What about you?”
“What about what?”
“How do you feel about all this? I can’t believe you’re satisfied with Beacon either.”
She looked at the sky. Utterly empty, as far as the eye can see. “Canon,” she said, “I’d like to know the truth. But it isn’t something that drives my life.” I am not my sister.
“I feel much the same way. But I must admit I’d prefer it if we’re alone. Much safer that way.”
Kim nodded. “Why did you ask?” she said. “About my sister?”
“No reason, really. You look so much alike. And you’re both so caught up in the same issue. In there tonight, listening to you, I almost felt she were back.”
Kim called a cab and went up to the roof. While she waited she checked her mail and found a message from Solly: Don’t forget tomorrow.
Solly was one of the Institute’s pilots and a fellow diving enthusiast. They