Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [7]
Shepard woke her at seven. Orange juice and toast were waiting. “You know” he observed, “he’s not a responsible commander.”
“I know,” she said.
“Do you want me—?”
The juice was delicious. “Keep the program the way it is,” she said.
“As you wish, Kim.” He was laughing at her. “And you have an incoming call. From Professor Tolliver.”
At seven o’clock? “Put him through,” she said.
Sheyel Tolliver had aged. The energy seemed to have drained away. His face had grown sallow. His beard, black in the old days, had gone to gray. But he smiled when he saw her. “Kim,” he said, “I apologize for calling you so early. I wanted to get you before you left for work.”
“It’s good to hear from you, Professor. It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has.” He sat propped against a couple of cushions in an exquisitely carved chair with dragon’s-claw arms. “I saw you last night. You’re very good.” Kim had been on most of the newscasts. “I should congratulate you, by the way. You’ve done well for yourself.”
She let him see she did not like the job. “It’s not the field I’d have chosen.”
“Yes.” He looked uncomfortable. “One never knows how things will turn out, I suppose. You had planned to be an astronomer, as I recall.”
“An astrophysicist.”
“But you’re quite good behind a lectern. And I thought you’d have made a decent historian.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
His mood darkened, became somber. “I’d like to talk to you about something quite serious, and I want you to hear me out.”
“Why would I not do that?”
“Save the question for a few minutes, Kim. Let me ask you first about the Beacon Project. Have you any influence over it?”
“None whatever,” she said. “I just do their PR.”
He nodded. “Pity.”
“Why is that?”
He thought very carefully about his reply. “I’d like to see it stopped.”
She stared at him. “Why?” There’d been some protest groups who thought triggering stars was immoral, even though no ecosystem was involved. But she couldn’t believe that her tough-minded old teacher could be involved with that crowd.
He rearranged his cushions. “Kim, I don’t think it’s prudent to advertise our presence when we don’t know what’s out there.”
Her respect for him dropped several levels on the spot. That was the kind of sentiment she could accept from someone like Woodbridge, who never thought about the sciences other than as a route to better engineering. But Sheyel was another matter altogether.
“I really think any concerns along those lines are groundless, Professor.”
He pressed an index finger against his jaw. “We have a connection you probably don’t know about, Kim. Yoshi was my great granddaughter.”
“Yoshi—?”
“—Amara.”
Kim caught her breath. Yoshi Amara had been the other woman in Emily’s cab. She’d also been one of her sister’s colleagues on the Hunter, on its last mission.
Both women had returned with the Hunter after another fruitless search for extraterrestrial life, this one cut short by an equipment malfunction. They’d gone down in the elevator to Terminal City, where they were booked at the Royal Palms Hotel. They’d taken the cab and ridden right off the planet.
“You’re right,” Kim said. “I didn’t know.”
He reached beside him, picked up a cup, and sipped from it. A wisp of steam rose into the air. “I recall thinking when I first saw you,” he said, “how closely you resembled Emily. But you were young then. Now you’re identical. Are you a clone, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Yes,” said Kim. “There are several of us spread across four generations.” Save for nuances of expression and their hair styles, they were impossible to tell apart. “You knew Emily, then?”
“I only met her once. At the farewell party before the mission left. Yoshi invited me. Your sister was a brilliant woman. A bit driven, I thought. But then, so was Yoshi.”
“I think we all are, Professor,” Kim said. “At least everybody worth knowing.”
“Yes, I quite agree.” He studied her for a long moment. “How much do you know about the last voyage? On the Hunter?”
Actually, not much. Kim wasn’t aware there was anything to know. Emily wanted to find extraterrestrial