Tor had gone with her to Union, had helped carry her bags, had gone on board the Phyllis Preston with her. It was then brand-new. Eventually, after years of service, it would be transferred to the Prometheus Foundation. At the time, she’d almost been in tears when she took her seat on the bridge, said hello to the AI, and began running down her preflight check-off list. It had been one of the most emotional moments in her life. There was a time she’d thought that a sad commentary, but that was years ago. She was wiser now. She loved the superluminals and the vast deeps between the stars and she was simply never going to get past that.

Tor had stayed while her passengers, one by one, filed in. They’d introduced one another, and he’d lingered until it was time to start. She still remembered him as he went out through the hatch, and moments later appeared at one of the station viewports. He’d waved, and she’d waved back, and the Preston had come to life. The countdown had hit zero, and she eased the yoke forward. She’d taken it out herself, rather than let the AI do it. She’d waited too long not to milk the situation for every ounce of pleasure. But she’d watched Tor, with his right hand raised, sliding past the viewport until he was gone. Outside the launch bay, she’d accelerated, poured the juice to the main engines, but she kept seeing Tor drifting away. Less than a year later she’d been back full-time at the Academy.

She had no regrets.

Not really. Had she stayed in space, her marriage could not have survived. She’d have missed all those years with her husband. Maureen and Charlie would not exist. And she’d have gone down with the Academy, as so many others had.

Tor, of course, was gone now. Yet something else was missing in her life.

She’d have liked to take the Preston out again.

When she was a teen, her father had schooled her on the importance of setting priorities. “I could have had a decent career cataloging star clouds and speculating on the properties of black holes,” he’d once told her. It would have brought prestige, recognition, better money.

Instead, he’d spent his time at the Drake Center listening for that first intelligent murmur from the stars. While his colleagues learned not to take him seriously. Even after it had actually happened, after the historic signal had come in and the first link with an advanced civilization had been established, he was written off as a kind of bystander to an event that was a matter of pure luck.

Anyone could have done it. All that was necessary was a little persistence.

He’d told her that everything else paled beside first contact. In the end, who would really care what the temperature range was inside the Korialus Cloud?

Like Tor, he’d been taken from her too soon. Her dad had died young of a heart ailment no one knew he had. Disquieting similarity there, too. But he’d lived long enough to know his life had mattered. As had her husband.

It occurred to her that, if the Locarno Drive actually worked, if it gave them a decent range, they could send somebody out to Sigma 2711. Maybe find out who had sent that long-ago signal. To her dad.

ARCHIVE

THE DOWNSIDE OF INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL

A general sense of well-being set in around the world when we were able to destroy that oncoming omega cloud a few years back. In the wake of that happy event, though, we’ve had time to consider the level of technology that produced the object, and the malice, or indifference, of its makers. It’s hard to say which is worse. Which more threatening. But never mind what the intent might be. We know what the effect has been.

Shortly afterward, we concluded, or most of us did, that the moonriders were really out there, and not simply computer malfunctions or delusions. And they, too, seemed to have a hostile streak.

The world beyond the solar system is largely unknown country. A dangerous place. The discovery of a billion-year-old starship in the Jenkins incident should warn us that there are presences, beyond the solar system, that are enormously far ahead of us. And, as much as we would like to believe that the passage of time necessarily tempers the natural hostilities we bring with us out of the jungle, or out of whatever passes for a jungle in remote places, it does not appear to be the case. If our recent encounter with the moonriders proves anything, it is that they are no friends of ours. Are they a danger to us? We’d be prudent to assume so. However much those with a more liberal view would like to reassure us, we cannot rely on the goodwill of extraterrestrials.

Earth has been a safe haven for thousands of years. It is a very small place in a very big galaxy. We now have every reason to suspect our security lies principally in the fact that we are effectively unknown. We should keep it that way. We should withdraw our starships, and keep our heads down. In a universe that may house hostile creatures with technologies millions of years beyond ours, it is the surest road to survival.

—Martin Kobieleski, “The Long Night,”

in Weapons of War, edited by Bryan DosCirros, 2255

chapter 6

FOR RUDY, THE Locarno Drive presented the moment of truth. The loss of the Jenkins had severely damaged the Foundation’s reputation. Despite the response to Hutch’s luncheon appearance, support had dropped off significantly.

The first call had come from Lyle Cormier, the organization’s most generous single supporter. He was in his office, dressed in one of his trademark black-and-white ensembles. “Probably best to give it up, Rudy,” he’d said. “The world is moving on. There are historical forces at work here, and there’s just no point trying to fight them.” Cormier always talked that way. He hadn’t said outright that he would cut his support, but it was implicit.

There’d been a flood of others. During the first few days, longtime contributors had gotten in touch, had called or come by, and the message had always been the same: Rudy, you know I’ve always been a hundred percent behind you and the Foundation. But times are changing. No point beating a dead horse. It’s just money down a rathole. No matter what we do, does anyone expect we’re really going back out to the stars? When was the last time a new superluminal rolled off the production line?

That was another expression he heard all the time. Going back to the stars. As if we’d ever really been out there. The deepest penetration had been the Trifid, three thousand light-years away. An eleven-month flight. They had never really gotten clear of the immediate neighborhood.

Environmental problems had proved to be every bit as intractable as originally predicted. The solutions were expensive. No real value was forthcoming from the interstellar effort. So it was inevitable that it would come to be perceived as a boondoggle. Boondoggle became the title of the book by Gregory MacAllister that had so effectively summed up the arguments against the superluminals. It was a worthwhile effort, he’d said. Acquiring knowledge is always worthwhile. But we need to leave it to another generation. First we have to get the planetary house in order.

MacAllister was right, to a point. But there was a good chance that, when this generation died off, people would forget how it had been done. Give it up now, Rudy thought, and we may be giving it up forever.

They needed a jump start. And the Locarno might provide that. If it worked.