“I was willing to stay behind. A small team could—”
“Could starve to death, yeah. There won’t be a backup expedition for decades, maybe longer. I can’t spare crew.”
Nigel gestured. “They’ve been calling a long time. Now we’ve made contact, and then like a flash cut it off. Imagine what that will do to them.”
“Sure, and imagine what those Watchers could do to us. There’s more riding on Lancer than I can risk just to—”
“Shore up some scruffy washouts and have nought to show for it?”
“Damn! You’re a sore loser, aren’t you?”
“Right, now that you mention It. It’s a long way to the next stop, and I have to go whether I want to or not.”
Ted touched his front teeth together and rubbed them carefully back and forth, clearly calculating. “I’ll put you in charge of our continuing radio link with the EMs.”
Nigel sniffed. “A token. I’ll take it, but you know full well we’ll get damn little through the ramscoop noise.”
Ted shrugged. “Them’s the breaks.”
“The maths types have already determined that we’re the first contact the EMs have had. If we break off, even for a while the blow to their—”
“Nigel, the decision’s made.”
“By an array of experts.”
“Essentially, yeah. You got a better way? We can’t run Lancer as a seat-of-the-pants showboat. Everybody’s glad as hell to get away from the Watchers safely.”
“Something tells me they’re not a significant danger—”
“Changing your tune! Funny, I remember you were the one who warned us not to touch down on that Watcher, and now you’re—”
“As I was about to say, not significant unless they’re provoked.”
“Why? With dozens dead—?”
“A hunch.”
“I can’t run a ship on hunches,” Ted said sourly. “I need you to help process the data feed we’re just starting to get from the gravitational lens back Earthside. You can have your hunches on the side.”
Nigel smiled. “I’m getting too many votes in the ship-wide congress, eh?”
“I’m not worried.”
“I’d scarcely want your job anyway.”
“There’s always a faction that’ll follow your line of thinking. If you could bring them around—”
“Around to what? I’m not maneuvering against you, Ted.”
“If the people you influence don’t go along with our general policy, that’s divisive.”
“Uh-huh. Science is like that. Full of incorrigibles.”
“This isn’t science, it’s leadership we’re talking.”
“Maybe the best way to lead is to do nothing.”
“What in hell’s that mean?”
“You don’t see that Watcher jumping to conclusions.”
“I don’t see it doing anything.”
“Quite. Patience is a strategy, too.”
“I’m getting full up to here with you, Nigel.”
“You’re at the end of a long queue. My whole career’s been shot through with that sort of thing.”
“You’re pretty goddamn cavalier about it.”
“At my age you have to be.”
“Smug, aren’t you!”
“You’re not getting the message, Ted.”
“Which is?”
“Why can’t I get on with Americans? Lets put it this way—we’re not talking foreign policy, we’re talking alien policy. Listen to that EM song for a moment.”
“Yeah. Indecipherable without computers.”
“I doubt that computers alone could turn the trick. I doubt the Watcher did.”
“It’s had the time.”
“Right, but not the hormones, y’see.”
“So?”
“So maybe it’s not there to decipher at all. Think about the design of such a thing. It has to last millions of years. Sure, it can repair itself within limits—but who fixes the fixers? You can’t rely on redundancy alone for insurance. So your strategy becomes molelike. You make your Watcher careful, conservative. Don’t waste energy. Don’t risk damage of materials.”
“Then why not try to knock us all off, once it killed some of us?”
“Beyond repelling boarders, maybe there are more important objectives. Perhaps it had something more to learn.”
“Like what?”
“Where we came from? What we intend?”
“Look, there wasn’t time for that Watcher to trigger landings on Earth. Elementary—”
“Granted. So something knew before.”
“What?”
“Perhaps the Snark?”
“You know ISA doesn’t accept your interpretation of that.”
“Quite.”
“This is just a bunch of speculation, Nigel!”
“For once, I agree.”
“Not worth undermining my position.”
“I believe this is where I came in.”
Nigel stood silent, watching the dwindling light of Isis. “Look,” Ted said to break off, “I’ve got to run. Think all this over, huh? Come by for a drink.”
He left quickly. Nigel had let the soft swelling notes of the EM fugue fill the room, thinking it would have the same effect on Landon as it did on him, but the tactic had proved pointless. Others did not seem to hear the same plaintive wail in the widely spaced clicks and jarring clatter. The sounds would fade now, as Lancer boosted to near light speed. Perhaps he could have learned something from their songs of vast and empty times, the rolling centuries of sameness.
So now Lancer scratched a line across the darkness, fleeing the Watcher, which had won. In this strange strategy, Nigel glimpsed, information was worth more than mere bodies. It was in the nature of organic beings, forged by evolution’s hand, to survive for the moment. To flee. While the Watcher could track Lancer by its fusion flame. And no matter how swiftly Lancer flew, communications at light speed would always outrace her.
PART FOUR
2081 Earth
One
The wind had backed into the northeast and was coming up strong again. Warren watched the sullen clouds moving in. He shook his head. It was still hard for him to leave his sleep.
It was three days now since he had passed the island. He had thought much about the thing with Rosa. When his head was clear he was certain that he had made no mistake. He had let her do what she wanted and if she had not understood it was because he could not find a way to tell her, it was the sea itself which taught and the Skimmers too and you had to listen. Rosa had listened only to herself and her belly.
On the second day past the island, the air had become thick and a storm came down from the north. He had thought it was a squall until the deck began to pitch at steep angles and a piece broke away with a groan. Then he had lashed himself to the log and tried to pull the plywood sheet down. He could reach it, but the collar he had made out of his belt was slippery with rain. He pulled at the cracked leather. He thought of using the knife to cut the sheet free but then the belt would be no good. He twisted at the stiff knot and then the first big wave broke into foam over the deck and he lost it. The waves came fast then and he could not get to his feet. When he looked up it was dark overhead and the plywood was wrenched away from the mast. The wind battered against the mast and the collar at the top hung free. A big wave slapped him and when he next saw the sheet it had splintered. A piece fell to the deck and Warren groped for it and slipped on the worn planking. A wave carried the piece over the side. The boards of the deck worked against each other and there was more splintering among them. Warren held on to the log. The second collar on the mast broke and the sheet slammed into the deck near him. He reached for it with one hand and felt something cut into his arm. The deck pitched. The plywood sheet fell backward and then slid and was over the side before he could try to get to it.