They all looked at her, and she realized the three of them had talked earlier, had debated the issue, had been divided, and that somehow they’d agreed to abide by her opinion. They could make for one of the nebulas filled with ancient class-G suns. Who knew what they might find there?

Or they could head for Cygnus X-1, the original black hole, the historic one. And thereby become the first mission ever to tread on that particular sacred ground. So to speak. It was, what, six thousand light-years away? Three weeks’ travel time.

Or maybe Eta Carinae, the mad star. Occasionally four million times as bright as Sol, bright enough to outshine Sirius, even though it lay ten thousand light-years from Earth. At other times, invisible. With luck they could get there in time to watch it explode.

“Hutch?” Rudy looked at her, waiting for an answer.

The omegas were the great mystery of the age. “Make for the core,” she said. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”

They exchanged glances. Nods. Jon delivered an unspoken I told you.

“Good enough,” said Rudy. “Hutch, I’ll need you to help raise the money.”

CAMPAIGNING FOR THE Foundation became sheer joy. Money poured in. They were also getting requests for passage on the Mordecai flight from around the world. It seemed as if everybody on the planet wanted to go.

Much of the enthusiasm could be credited to Antonio, who depicted the mission to Alioth as one of the great human achievements, up there with the invention of democracy, the discovery of Jupiter’s moons, and Hamlet. For a while, it was impossible to turn on the VR without seeing Antonio modestly explaining how it had felt to travel with the Locarno. And what the implications were.

She also found time to conduct an inspection of the McAdams. She took Matt with her. The ship seemed serviceable, so Rudy completed the deal with Orion. No money changed hands. The corporate giant got some good public relations and a tax break.

When that had been completed, work began to mount extra shielding on both ships.

Rudy pressed her about piloting one of the ships. “It’s been a long time,” she said.

“Are you still licensed?”

“No.” She laughed. “It’s been a while.”

“Can you requalify?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you hire somebody who’s a bit more current?”

“I’d prefer having you to bringing a stranger on board.”

“You figure you get more publicity this way?”

“That wouldn’t hurt,” he said. “But it’s not the reason. This will be a historic flight. And we don’t really know what we might run into. You’ve been through some wild stuff already.”

“And—?”

“I trust you.”

HUTCH HAD ENJOYED herself thoroughly during the Alioth flight and its aftermath. When they’d returned, she was still on a high, and could have gotten down from the space station without a shuttle. It obviously showed because she’d quickly become the media’s darling for interviews. They’d decided before they came home that they’d try to downplay the Mordecai aspect of things. Antonio agreed to go along with it, although he insisted the omegas were simply too big a story to be hidden. “I won’t push it,” he’d promised, “but if it takes off on its own, I’ll have to jump on board.”

It had. And he did.

All the exciting stuff was at the core. Stars crammed together like commuters on a train. Giant jets. Black holes. Astronomers had been arguing for centuries about details at the center. It was the big boiling point for the galaxy, the Cauldron.

This was the time when the term came into wide use. They’re going into the Cauldron.

God knows what’s being cooked up.

The Texas Rangers, a popular singing group of the period, even came up with a song, “The Cookpot Blues,” which went right to the head of the charts.

Hutch would have discouraged it had she been able. It was the wrong image.

The reporters loved the story and kept it alive. They even covered the crash training program she underwent to get her license renewed.

Hutch was asked constantly whether they’d get close enough to see the central black hole?

No, she said.

That was a pity. You go all that way and don’t get to see the core.

Too much radiation, she explained.

Can’t you put more shielding on the ship? And what about the omegas? You keep denying the mission is about them. But aren’t they the real reason you’re making the flight?

That last question surfaced at every press conference, at every appearance.

Well, she said, we’ll probably take a look, see what it’s about. If we get time. Mostly what we want is to demonstrate that the new star drive can manage this type of initiative.

Yes. Initiative. That doesn’t sound dangerous. Have to be careful how you respond to these things.

SHE TREATED HERSELF to some new clothes for the flight. In the old days, she’d have been running around in one of those jumpsuit uniforms that made her look like a boy. Not this time. She might have to perform as pilot, but she was not going back into uniform.

The people at Orion, at the signing ceremony that handed the McAdams to the Foundation, suggested to Rudy that he was making a mistake allowing her on the bridge. “It’s not that they don’t trust you,” Matt told her over dinner the following night at Max’s German Restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue. “They’re just concerned because you’ve been inactive for so long. They think you should step down.”

“I’ve requalified,” she said.

“I know. And I have complete confidence in you.” That comment irritated her more than the advice from Orion.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“That you haven’t kept up. You’ve done it all at Dawson.” That was the center in Ohio where pilots could requalify virtually. It made no practical difference whether you sat in the VR carrier or took something out to Vega, but you couldn’t always explain that to the world’s bureaucrats.

“So what are you telling me?” she asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice.

“I was just passing it along.”

“Good. Fine. For the record, Matt, if Rudy wants me to walk away from this, all he has to do is say something and I will.”

“No. No, please. That’s not what I meant at all.”

“Then what—?”

“I just wanted to be sure you were comfortable.”

“I was.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. Now that we’ve got that out of the way: “Do you care which ship you run?”

“The Preston.” It was older. Like her. And more familiar.

“Okay. By the way, did you hear Antonio’s coming along again?”

“No,” she said. “Worldwide is going to let him do it?”

“He says nobody else wants the job. Big story or not, seven or eight months inside a ship doesn’t appeal to the other reporters. At least that’s what Antonio says.”

JON REPORTED PROGRESS on targeting. “On an initial jump, we’ll always miss our destination by a substantial amount,” he said, “because we’re covering such enormous distances. But we should be able to do a second TDI and get reasonably close.” The Transdimensional Interface was official terminology for a jump. “We’ll also have a hypercomm.”

He and Matt went out in the Preston, took it to Jupiter, an eye blink, and then to Uranus, another eye blink. In both cases they got within four hundred thousand klicks of the target. On short range it was as good as the Hazeltine. Actually, a bit better.

ON A BLEAK, unseasonably cold day in early November, they sat down in the Foundation conference room to plan the mission. The walls were covered with star charts and pictures of superluminals gliding through starlit skies.

The Mordecai Zone was hidden behind vast agglomerations of dust, enormous clouds, some measuring in the light-years, orbiting the galactic core. For all they knew, the source of the omegas might be located in the center of a cloud. Or in a cluster of artificial modules. Who knew?