JON SILVESTRI’S NOTEBOOK
Thank God.
—Friday, July 13, 11:52 P.M., EDT
chapter 15
IT WAS THE supreme moment of Jon’s life. Even the news that Henry Barber found him acceptable, thought he could help the Locarno research effort, paled into insignificance. But there was, of course, no time to celebrate.
Why was the radio signal almost eight hours late? “The lander’s pretty old,” the watch officer told him, in a tone that suggested it was a sufficient explanation.
“All right,” Jon said. “Can I send it a message now?”
The watch officer pushed a press pad and a light went on. “Go ahead, sir.”
Where are you, Henry? Jon folded his arms and took a deep breath. “Henry,” he said. “Come home. Signal when you get here.”
The chief of the watch had been standing off to one side. He was a thin guy with sharp eyes and a pointed brown beard. He’d betrayed no previous reaction, but now he came over and looked down at Jon. He didn’t know what to think. “Did it work?” he asked.
“Maybe,” said Jon. “We’ll see.”
Only one of the five stations in the ops center was manned. It had obviously been designed in a more optimistic time.
He called Rudy, woke him out of a sound sleep. He was still in his hotel room. “So what’s going on?” Rudy asked. “Why didn’t we get the reply this afternoon?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Probably a problem with the wiring. Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out after the lander gets back here. It’ll be in when? About five?”
“If it’s out near Pluto, yes. Maybe a little closer to six. It would have to recharge before starting back.”
“Okay. I’ll be down in the ops center.”
“I’ve a suggestion, Rudy.”
“Okay?”
“Don’t set any alarms. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
AS HUTCH HAD suggested, Rudy had been delighted to offer the use of the Preston to retrieve the lander. Jon had arranged to hire a pilot. But when no signal had been returned, he’d canceled. Now he rescheduled, listened to some grumbling about it being the middle of the night, and how they couldn’t make any guarantees about 6 A.M. “Not going to be easy to find anybody on this kind of short notice.” He said he’d do what he could, but warned Jon there’d be a substantial service fee.
Jon thought about it. He didn’t think anything was going to happen at six anyhow. “Let it go,” he said. “Can you set it up for tomorrow afternoon?”
The exhilaration that had come with the signal had drained off. He wasn’t sure why, but he just wanted the whole business to be over. Wanted to be sure everything was okay. To go out and bring in the lander.
He went back to his hotel room but was unable to sleep. At three thirty he called Union Ops. “The Preston’s ready to go,” they told him. “Whenever you are.”
At four, he went down to the Quarter Moon and had breakfast. Coffee, bacon, scrambled eggs, and home fries. He was getting ready to leave when Rudy came in. “Couldn’t sleep,” Rudy said.
“Me neither.”
Rudy settled for coffee. On the far side of the room, a Chinese group was celebrating something. There were speeches and periodic applause.
Rudy started talking about the future of the Foundation. How the Locarno Drive would change everything. Fire up everybody’s imagination. Jon said he hoped so. And eventually it was five thirty, and they finished up and went down to the operations center. The same watch officer was on duty. He looked up when they came in. “Nothing yet, Dr. Silvestri,” he said.
Of course not. It was still early.
Fifteen minutes later the chief of the watch showed up. He knew Rudy, told him he was glad to see him, and wished Jon good luck.
Jon was glad the place was empty this time. It had been horribly uncomfortable standing in front of all those people, waiting for a transmission that never came. Most embarrassing moment he could remember.
The clock ticked down to 5:58. Zero hour.
And crept past it.
To 5:59.
And five after six.
Rudy glanced at him. His mouth twisted. “It’s lost again.”
“No,” said Jon. “I think we’re getting good news.”
“How,” asked Rudy, “could this possibly be good?”
Jon considered the question. “Were you planning on going back down today?”
“Yes,” he said. “No point staying here.”
“Why don’t you hang on a bit?”
“Tell me why.”
“Change your reservation and stay for lunch,” he said. “On me.”
“What are you not telling me, Jon?”
“I think you’ll want to be here this afternoon.”
“Oh,” said Rudy. Jon could see his expression change. “It’s going to be late again?”
“I think so.”
Rudy brightened. “Oh.” The lander had made its transit to Pluto, or wherever, at 9:03 A.M. yesterday. Its transmission should have arrived at 3:17 P.M. But it had been almost eight hours late. “The vehicle went farther than we expected.”
“I think so.”
“A lot farther.” Jon sat quietly while Rudy looked around for a piece of paper, found a notepad, and started scribbling on it. “The signal came in at, what? Eleven o’clock?”
“11:07.”
“So it took a little more than fourteen hours to get here.”
“Either that, or the circuitry broke down.”
“Fourteen hours. My God. If that’s the case, this thing is about thirty times faster than the Hazeltine. Jon, that’s incredible.”
“We don’t know the details. It might simply have taken more time to make the jump. But if it did it in six seconds—”
THEY WERE IN the ops center when the transmission came in. Mac-Elroy lander reports arrival. It was 1:33. Time for transmission: fourteen hours and a minute.
Almost on the dime.
LIBRARY ENTRY
NEW STAR DRIVE SUCCESSFUL
…Took the vehicle almost 9 billion miles from Earth. Early reports indicate that the time needed to cross that distance was six seconds. A normal interstellar vessel, traveling the same distance, would have required two and a half minutes. Silvestri admitted to being surprised at the result, which far exceeded all expectations.
—Science Today, July 15
chapter 16
A SECOND TEST went off without a hitch, confirming Jon’s conclusions: The Locarno was far more effective than the original calculations had suggested. A Locarno-powered vessel could cross three hundred light-years in a single day. He was, to be conservative about it, happy. Ecstatic. Almost deranged.
He stood beside Rudy in the Foundation’s press area, while the director told a group of reporters how everything was now within reach. “The Dragon Cluster and the Omicron and the Yakamura Group.” The entire galaxy, filled with hundreds of millions of ancient class-G suns, eight, nine, ten billion years old. Who knew what lay waiting out there?
Speaking invitations came in from around the globe. Overnight Jon had become one of the most recognizable personalities on the planet. Wherever he went, people asked for autographs, took pictures, sighed in his presence. One young woman collapsed in front of him; another wanted him to autograph her breast. He was riding the top of the world.
Corporate entities called. Maracaibo offered its services and support, as did Orion and Thor Transport and Monogram and a dozen others. Their representatives showed up daily, tried to get through his AI. All were interested in helping, as they put it; all came armed with proposals for subsequent testing, licensing agreements, and “long-range mutual-benefit packages.” The latter phrasing was from Orion. The agents, who were sometimes executive officers, invariably produced offers that, by Jon’s standards, were generous. They wouldn’t be on the table forever, they cautioned, and several suggested, supposedly on a basis of I’m not supposed to tell you this, that people in their own development sections were working on technologies that, if successful, would render the Locarno obsolete. “Take it while you can get it, Jon.”