The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [53]
Anne Edwards, hearing this on the radio as she and George fixed supper, was disgusted. "We paid for the damned program. We put all of the real money into it. The whole idea of SETI was American. If anybody makes any money off this, it should be the U.S., not the U.N., and certainly not Japan!"
George snorted. "Yeah, well, we’re about as likely to collect as Carl Sagan is, and he’s been dead for years. Of course," he said, wheedling slightly, "that’s why it would be so great if we—"
"Don’t start with me, George."
"No guts."
Anne turned very slowly from the sink and looked narrowly at her beloved husband of over forty years. After drying her hands on a towel, she folded it neatly and laid it on the counter. "Eat shit," she suggested, smiling prettily, "and die." George laughed, which irritated her further. "Oh, George, be serious! You’d be leaving everyone you know and love behind—"
"Right. And even if you got back alive, everyone you knew would be dead!" he admitted belligerently. "So what? They’ll be dead anyway. You want to hang around and watch?" Anne blinked. "Look. When your great-grandparents got on the boat from Europe, they may as well have been going to another planet. They left everyone behind, too! And Anne—who would we be leaving? Our parents are dead. We’ve got no kids. We don’t even have a cat, for chrissakes."
"We have each other—" Anne said, a little defensively.
"Exactly, which is why it would be so great—"
"Oh, God. Just stop. Okay? Just stop." She turned back to the sink. "They aren’t going to offer the job to a couple of old farts like us anyway."
"Wanna bet?" George asked, and she could hear the self-satisfied smile in his voice. "The priests won’t be kids either. And, anyway, sixty ain’t what it used to be."
"Dammit, George! I’ve really had enough of this!" Anne said, spinning around furiously. "So help me, if you say I’m beautiful when I’m angry, I will eviscerate you," she snarled, brandishing a dessert fork. He laughed and she cooled off. "All right. Enjoy the fantasy. Have fun. But, George," she said, eyes serious, "if they do make the offer? The answer is no, as far as I’m concerned. And that’s the end of it."
Supper was unusually quiet in the Edwards household that evening.
AT THE END of that long Sunday, Jimmy was called into the office of Masao Yanoguchi, who took note of the ludicrous rumpled clothing and the red-rimmed eyes and estimated that the boy had been awake for almost thirty-six hours. He waved Quinn into a chair and watched the comically elongated framework fold itself into a sitting position. The guard’s log was open on Yanoguchi’s desk.
"Mr. Quinn, I recognize the names of Ms. Mendes and Mr. Edwards. I assume Dr. Edwards is the wife of Mr. Edwards. Who is E. J. Sandoz, please?"
"A friend, sir, a priest. They are all friends of mine. I’m sorry. I should have called you first but it was four in the morning and I wasn’t really sure, not a hundred percent..."
Yanoguchi let the silence fill the room. Jimmy twisted his watch around and around his wrist in unconscious mimicry of Sofia, hours earlier. He stared at the floor for a few moments and then glanced at Yanoguchi but looked away almost immediately. "I was afraid I was wrong and I wanted someone else to listen—" Jimmy stopped and this time when he looked up, he didn’t turn away. "That’s not true. I knew. I was sure. I just wanted to share it with my friends first. They’re like family to me, Dr. Yanoguchi. That’s no excuse for poor judgment. I’ll resign, sir. I’m sorry."
"I accept your apology, Mr. Quinn." Yanoguchi closed the guard’s book and lifted a single small sheet of paper from his desk. "Ms. Mendes left this memo for me. She recommends that the AI project be restricted to request and return. I believe I agree. This will be carried out at considerable savings to ISAS because of your suggestion that the project be done as a wager." Yanoguchi put the memo aside. "I would like you to continue to cooperate with her, although you will