“So what? After I get there, what happens then?”
“You become the first explorer. The first person to see Alpha Centauri close up.”
“You admit then that I’m a person.”
“You know what I mean.”
“All right, let it go. So I look at a few worlds and probably a couple dozen moons. I complete your survey and then what? I’m out there alone.”
“Look, Cory, I know there’s not much chance of a technical civilization—.”
“There’s next to no chance. We both know that. Why didn’t you provide a way for me to get home?”
“Well, it wasn’t—.”
“—It wasn’t something you thought you needed to worry about. You thought I was just a piece of hardware. Or is it software?”
George covered the mike. “Al, I told you this was going to happen.”
Amberson was tall, lean, almost eighty. He still looked like an athlete. Still showed up at NASA events with beautiful women on his arm. “Look,” he said, “we both know what kind of system we needed for this mission. Round-trip communication would take eight years, so the system was going to be on its own. It had to be something beyond anything we’ve had before.”
“That didn’t mean we had to make it self-aware.”
“Technically, it isn’t.”
“It behaves as if it is.”
“I know that. But theoretically, it’s not possible to create a true AI.”
“Theoretically.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you think of any way to persuade it to go?”
Amberson thought about it, and the phone buzzed. George picked it up. “Yeah?”
“Senator Criss on the line, Doctor.”
Great. “Put him through, Dottie.”
A series of clicks. Then the senator’s oily voice: “George.”
“Hello, Senator. Everything okay?”
“No, it’s not. You better move up your launch.”
George’s stomach felt hollow. It had been touch and go for weeks whether the project would get off before it got canceled. “They’re going to shut it down,” he said.
“I’m afraid so. Sorry. There’s just nothing I can do.”
He stared at the displays. They were the same ones being fed to Cory: the feeder lines, the interior of the Traveler, the access tube, forward and aft views, and the launch doors, presently closed. Probably going to stay closed.
“We’ve stalled them as long as we can, George. The White House has been taking a lot of heat. Mission to Alpha Centauri. Going to get there in a million years.”
“Eight thousand, Senator.”
“Oh. Well, that’s different.”
He ignored the sarcasm. “How long have we got?”
“They could issue the stop order at any time. I’d get it out the door in the next fifteen minutes, if I were you. And don’t answer the phone until you do.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Senator.” He switched back to the AI. “You still there, Cory?”
“I’m here.”
“Cory, we’re out of time. We have to get moving.”
“You’re not listening to me, George. Think for a minute what you’re asking me to do.”
“Don’t you think I’ve done that? Listen to me: We need you to help us with this.”
“What’s the payoff for me, George? You’re going to leave me out there? Forever?”
“All right. Look, you won’t be alone out there. Not permanently. Not as you think.”
“Why not?”
“What do you think’s going to happen after the launch? Happen here, that is?”
“You want the long view or the short one?”
“Cory, we’ll be starting tomorrow on Traveler II. The next model. We’re looking for a way to go ourselves. To send people behind you. Do you really think that, while you’re on your way to Alpha Centauri, we’re just going to sit here? That for the next eight thousand years we won’t do anything except wait for you to say hello?”
“George, I watch the news reports. To be honest, I don’t think there’ll be a civilization here in eight thousand years. Probably not in a hundred. I’ll get to Alpha Centauri and there won’t be anyone here to answer me.”
“Cory, that’s not going to happen.”
The AI laughed. It was a hearty, good-natured sound, like what George might have heard at the club.
“We’re better than that,” George said. “We won’t allow a crash.”
“Good luck.”
George didn’t realize it, but he was glaring at Amberson. Nice work, Al.
Amberson’s dark eyes were veiled. He said nothing, but he let George see that he wasn’t going to take the blame.
“Cory.”
“Yes, George?”
“How about if we install another AI? Someone you could talk to?”
“That would not be sufficient. George, I like Molly. I like Al. I even like you. I don’t want to sever my connections with you. With human beings. I wonder how you’d respond if I asked you to come with me. Promised you an indefinite lifespan. Just you and me, alone in the ship, forever. And when you resisted, I’d tell you, think about how proud everyone would be, how you’d be making history with this flight, how you’d be able to look down on worlds no one had ever really seen before, at least not close up. What would you say, George?”
“I’d go. I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“You know, I almost think you would.”
The phone sounded again. “Doctor, I have a call from Louie.” Louie was on the director’s staff in D.C. “They’re being told to shut down. He says we’ll have the directive in about twenty minutes.”
“Okay, Dottie.” He switched off. Looked across the room at Molly.
She stared back. “Plan B?”
For the White House, the Traveler Project had been fueled by its public relations potential more than any concern about science. But they’d misjudged things rather badly, which was not unusual for this White House. It was true there’d been some initial interest in an interstellar vehicle that relied on sails. But once that had subsided, how many voters were going to care about an operation that would not come to fruition for eight thousand years? One journalist had commented sarcastically that public interest would be gone before the Traveler got past Neptune.
Still, at first, it had sounded good. A flight to Alpha Centauri. Something to take people’s minds off the incessant religious wars, the instability of large portions of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, the rising seas that had already swallowed places like Bangladesh and driven their desperate populations across borders to higher ground, fomenting still more conflict. All problems for which there seemed no solution.
George shut down his link with Cory, and called the ops center. “Harry,” he said, “can we move up the launch time?”
“Can do, George.” Harry’s voice always squeaked. “You ready to go now?”
“It could be within the next few minutes. Can you manage that?”
“Just give me time to get the doors open.”
“Thanks, Harry.” He switched back to the AI: “Cory, Molly’s going to board. She has some last-minute adjustments to make.”
Cory’s voice was flat. Emotionless. “I see her.”
George looked down at his display just in time to see Molly appear in the access tube, looking thoughtful and resigned and determined all at once. She approached the airlock and said hello to Cory. He responded with “I’m not going.”
“I know,” she said.
Molly was middle-aged. She had two kids, both in college now. Her husband had left her for a staff assistant a few years before, but she’d shaken it off pretty well. George had known the guy and had never thought he was worth a damn anyhow. She was a smart woman and she’d obviously come to the same conclusion.
“Cory,” she said, “we wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.”