“Limited,” he said.

“So you base your conviction on what? Silvestri’s sincerity? His optimism?”

“Ms. Hutchins, I’ve talked to a physicist who says it’s possible.”

“That’s a step forward. I suppose we could have a power failure at any moment, too.”

He was beginning to get annoyed. “I was hoping to find you a bit more open-minded.”

“Open-minded to what? An outside chance that maybe, just maybe, Silvestri has it right? You want me to invest an evening to go down there and try to persuade people to kick in money on an outside chance?”

“If you do it, the high school will get a new science lab. Isn’t that worth an evening of your time?”

“Don’t even try it, Matthew. I won’t be hustled into this thing. If I participate, I become part of the project. It blows up again, and my reputation takes a beating.”

“You’re already part of the project, Priscilla. You were standing with the others in the control room on Union, weren’t you, when they lost the Happy Times?”

She smiled at him, but there was something menacing in that look. “There’s a difference between participating in a failed experiment and participating in the same failure a second time.”

“I’m sorry to have bothered you, Priscilla. I’ll try to get somebody else.”

“I’m waiting to be persuaded. Why should I do this?”

“Because,” he said, “it might work. Do you really need another reason?”

Somewhere, down the street, he heard kids laughing and shouting.

“When and where?” she asked.

ARCHIVE

This AKV Spartan model, from the William Jenkins, is awarded to the Thomas MacElroy High School by Armis Reclamation, in recognition of the accomplishments of staff and student body, and of their many contributions to the community. Presented this date, June 3, 2250. Fly High, Explorers.

—Engraved on the marker at the lander site,

Thomas MacElroy High School, Alexandria, Virginia

chapter 12

ONE THING COULD be said about Priscilla Hutchins: She didn’t do anything halfway. She let Matt know that when she came for the fund-raiser, she’d be bringing guests. Eight of them. Could he arrange to seat them up front? They would be, she said, part of the show.

With no idea who was coming, or what she was planning, Matt and the Liberty Club accommodated her. So on the second Wednesday of June she arrived with a small contingent, consisting of six men and two women. Matt recognized two of them, the British actress and singer, Alyx Ballinger; and the gadfly editor, Gregory MacAllister.

Hutch shook his hand, introduced him to everyone—several of the names rang bells—and told him she was looking forward to the evening.

They had a choice of roast beef or chicken dumpling, with broccoli and mashed potatoes. It was a detail that, for whatever reason, he would always remember.

They had drawn a substantial crowd, bigger than they’d had in a long time. When the dinner was finished, the club president went to the lectern. There was some business to take care of, a treasurer’s report and announcements about one thing and another. Then she paused and looked down at Hutch’s table. “As you’re aware,” she said, “we made a late change in our guest speaker for the evening. We have with us tonight the former director of operations for the Academy of Science and Technology, a woman who has been about as far from home as it’s possible to go. Please welcome to the Liberty Club, Priscilla Hutchins.”

Hutchins rose to polite applause, exchanged a brief word and a hand clasp with the president, and took her place at the lectern. She nodded to someone in the audience, thanked the club for inviting her, and paused. “It’s a pleasure to be here tonight,” she said in a clear, casual voice. She had no notes. “Ladies and gentlemen, we all know the interstellar program has gone into eclipse. That hasn’t happened because of a conscious decision by anyone. It’s simply the result of a reallocation of resources. Which is to say, we don’t consider it important anymore. We know, however, that eventually we’ll be going back. The question before us now is whether we will do it, or whether we plan to leave it to our grandkids.”

She looked around the room. Her gaze touched Matt, lingered, and moved on. “Matt Darwin tells me you’re community leaders. Businesspeople, lawyers, planners, teachers, doctors. I see my old friend Ed Palmer over there.” Palmer was the Alexandria chief of police. Darwin was surprised she knew him. “And Jane Coppel.” Jane ran an electronics business in Arlington. She greeted a few other people. Then: “I know, as long as organizations like the Liberty Club exist, the future’s in good hands.”

That brought applause, and from that point she had them.

“You may have noticed I brought some friends. I’d like you to meet them. Kellie, would you stand, please?”

An African-American woman in a striking silver gown rose. “The lander from the Bill Jenkins is on display at the high school. The Jenkins is a famous ship. It led the rescue effort at Lookout when an omega cloud arrived and threatened to engulf the nascent civilization there. Kellie Collier”—she nodded toward the woman in the gown—“was its captain.”

It was as far as she got. The audience rose as one and applauded. She let them go, then collected another round of applause: “An entire civilization lives today because of her courage and ingenuity.”

During those years, everybody’d loved the Goompahs, pretechnological creatures who had gotten their name from their resemblance to popular children’s characters. Most speakers at this point would have asked the audience to hold their applause. But Hutchins was too canny for that. She wanted everybody revved up.

Eventually the noise subsided, and Kellie started to sit down, but Hutch asked her to stay on her feet. “Her partner at Lookout,” said Hutchins, “was Digby Dunn. Digger to his friends. It was Digger who discovered that Goompahs believed in devils, and that the devils looked a lot like us.” The place rocked with laughter, then, as Digger stood, broke into more cheering.

“The gentleman on Digger’s right is Jon Silvestri. Jon has been working on an interstellar drive that, we hope, will give us access to the entire galaxy.”

Silvestri was reluctant to stand. Digger pulled on him, and the crowd laughed and gave him an enthusiastic hand. They were on a roll and would have cheered anyone at that point.

“Eric Samuels,” said Hutchins. “Eric was a major part of the rescue at the Origins Project.” Eric stood, waved, smiled. He was moderately overweight, and he looked not at all heroic. More like somebody who’d want to stay out of harm’s way.

“The gentleman to Eric’s left is Gregory MacAllister. Mac was one of the people who got stranded on Maleiva III a week before it got sucked into a gas giant.” MacAllister, a global celebrity on his own, rose to a fresh wave of enthusiasm. “Mac was there because he’s never stopped being a good reporter. There were moments, though, when I suspect he wished he’d stayed on the Evening Star. I should point out by the way, that the Evening Star was stripped a few years back and set in orbit around Procyon. There is no Evening Star anymore. Nor any ship remotely like it.

“Across from Mac is Randall Nightingale, who was also with us on Maleiva III. I owe Randall a special debt. If it weren’t for him, I would not have survived the experience. Ask him about it, and I’m sure he’ll tell you anybody would have done what he did. All I’m going to say is that he knows how to hold on to his women.”