The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [112]
Now it was Niamh Horne’s turn. “Who blew up the Yellowstone magma chamber?” Gray asked her.
“No one I know anything about,” she told him. “We were every bit as anxious as the Earthbound were. If it had been any of the factions, and we’d found out about it, we’d have come down hard. So far as we know, it really was a mechanical malfunction. That’s the truth, so far as I know it. I’m certain that Emily Marchant wouldn’t tell you anything different. None of the Outer System people I’ve had dealings with has anything to do with any of this. But like Lowenthal, I can only answer for the people I know. It wasn’t until I saw him face to face that I realized that there was any mystery about Zimmerman’s awakening. Someone’s playing us all for fools — and the fact that I don’t have the least idea who, or how, is frankly terrifying.”
Gray nodded, to signal his gratitude for her frankness. He looked troubled — but he also looked like a man who had figured out what was what. I began to feel a slight sinking sensation in my stomach as I realized that this might be exactly what Alice didn’t want — but the die was cast.
“Ararat’s where the first contact took place,” Davida put in, her terror finally having given way to thoughtfulness. “Some of you are old enough to have watched the tape when it was first broadcast in-system. That was supposed to be a defining moment in history. It should have been bigger news than it was. If Ararat’s the key to this…”
“The aliens were primitives,” Solantha Handsel countered. “They certainly can’t be behind this. They didn’t even have fire.”
Mortimer Gray let loose a little sigh. It was barely audible, but there was enough feeling in it to reclaim everyone’s attention.
This is it, I thought — but it wasn’t, quite.
“I can only think of one context in which my word might be thought to be worth more than anyone else’s,” Gray said, his voice saying that he hardly dared believe it. “Only one in which Adam Zimmerman and I might be thought to have equal symbolic weight.”
“You’re the author of the standard History of Death,” Davida observed — but Gray was shaking his head before she was halfway through the sentence. He was looking at Lowenthal now. “You were at the conference,” he said to the Hardinist. “We didn’t meet, but you were there. You listened.”
“The whole world listened,” Lowenthal said. “I wasn’t party to the decision to broadcast it, or to divert the ship. That was all Marchant’s doing. What’s your point?”
Gray seemed slightly surprised that the Hardinist still hadn’t caught on.
“What are they talking about?” Christine Caine complained — but when Lowenthal flashed an apology with his eyes it was directed toward Adam Zimmerman.
“There was an important meeting between representatives of the government of Earth and the embryonic outer system factions in twenty-nine ninety-nine,” Lowenthal explained. “It wasn’t a peace conference because we weren’t at war, but it was the first serious attempt to settle some questions that still remain annoyingly open. There had been a certain amount of bickering about where it ought to be held — the outer system people didn’t want to hold it on Earth in case that seemed to endorse the view that Earth was the eternal center of human civilization, and our people didn’t want to make our way out to Titan lest we seemed to be conceding the point that it wasn’t.
“In the end, the compromise was that the talks would be held in an Outer System ship in Earth orbit. Given that sort of buildup, it’s hardly surprising that they weren’t going very well. Then they stalled completely,