“And now, here is my specific proposaclass="underline" you three are invited to go to that facility, with the best support that we can offer from anywhere in our network of colonies and stations. You will not merely be participants in the facility’s research; you will direct it, setting priorities and allocating resources.” She smiled. “I am sure you feel suspicious. Why would I, without taking leave of my senses, entrust a huge new undertaking to three near-strangers? I will tell you why. Your performance to date has been highly impressive, but my real reason is far more compelling: we are becoming desperate here. Something must be done, and something new has to be tried.”
She looked along the table. “You are silent. I am not surprised. I would be silent also. But when you have questions, I will do my best to answer all of them.”
Sy did not move. He had been nodding his head a tiny fraction as she spoke, but now he was motionless. Wolfgang and Charlene were looking at Peron and Elissa, and avoiding Judith Niles’ eye. Charlene seemed more tense than ever. “Why us?” said Peron at last. “Why didn’t you do it with the last group of people to find their way to Gulf City?”
“For two reasons. First, I did not feel they could do it — I feel that you can. And second, I had not yet reached my own flashpoint. Now I feel a great need for action. Our present approach is too slow. We must have at least two facilities working in parallel.”
Peron looked at each participant in turn, taking his time. Finally he turned again to Judith Niles. “When do you propose this would begin?”
She smiled with her mouth, but her eyes remained tense. “I am now about to fail one test of a good manipulator. Take it, if you will, as evidence of the depth of my concern on this issue. The process for creating the second facility has already begun. A station from Sol is on the way to form the facility’s nucleus, and other equipment is in shipment from three Sector Headquarters. If you agree, it will be ready for operation as soon as you arrive there. I hope that you will begin your journey at once. You can become familiar with details of equipment on the way there.”
Peron nodded. “And what experiments would we do?”
“You will tell us that — remember, too much direction from here and the second facility becomes useless.” She smiled again, and this time there was humor there. “Talk to Wolfgang and Charlene, if you want to know how much it costs me to remove myself from the direction of the new effort. All my working life I have insisted in hands-on knowledge of any experiments under my control. Now I am promising to turn my back on you.”
Judith Niles touched the controls on the table top, and the room began to darken. Behind her, panels in front of the display slid open, and a flickering pattern showed on the screen.
“You will need time to make a decision. I expect that, but I urge you to minimize that time. The most important job in human civilization is waiting for you. And for that reason, I do not hesitate to use unfair tactics of persuasion. I have one more argument to present to you. If you are the people that I believe you to be, it cannot fail to sway your opinions.
“A few days ago we received at Gulf City a video message from one of our Sector Headquarters, out near the planet of Paradise. It was sent via Earth, and addressed to you. It appears to be in clear form — though I know your penchant for hiding coded messages in with clear ones. The clear message is quite enough. Watch closely.”
The screen behind Judith Niles showed the image of a man. He was a stranger to Elissa, gray-bearded and balding, with a prominent nose, pale gray eyes, and a craggy, lined face. A faint scar ran across his forehead, diagonally from the upper right to his left eyebrow. He grinned, looked directly into the camera, and raised his hand in greeting.
“Hello again. Greetings from Paradise — or near it.”
Elissa heard Peron grunt, at the same moment as she felt her own rush of recognition. There could be no mistaking that strained, husky voice and precise diction.
“It’s Kallen!” said Peron. “My God, Sy, that’s Kallen.”
“Yes, quite right,” said the face on the screen, exactly as though he could somehow hear the comments in the conference room. He grinned again. “This is Kallen, the one and only. Long time no see. But now get ready for a bigger shock.”
The camera field of view slowly panned across from him to a large photograph, then zoomed in to take a close-up of a group of eight people. In the foreground, sitting cross-legged on cushions, were two teenage girls. Behind them, on a bench, were two men and two women in early middle age. An elderly couple stood at the back in the center of the picture. The old man was white-haired and stooped, with heavy shoulders and a substantial paunch. The woman, also white-haired, was thin and wiry. Everyone was smiling.
“More greetings,” said Kallen’s thin voice. “And also a farewell. From Lum and Rosanne, their children, and their oldest grandchildren. There are four little ones, not in the picture. They are all still living on Paradise at the time I send you this message. When you receive it, they expect to be long dead.” He shrugged. “Sorry, friends, I know we told you that we’d follow you to Earth in a few S-days. As you can see, it didn’t quite work out that way.
“I expect that this will take a while to reach you. I know you’re not on Earth, even though this message will be routed that way. But I’ve heard more than you might think about what you’ve been doing. Sy will tell you that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light, but let me tell him that doesn’t apply to rumors. There are great rumors about you three, and what you did to Sol’s data bases and computer network — I wish I’d been there to help cheat the system. Don’t give up on me, though. I expect that I’ll see the three of you eventually. “Rosanne and Lum asked me to give you their love, and to tell you not to grieve on their behalf. I pass that message, and agree with the sentiment.” Kallen smiled. “I suspect that you are feeling horrified with the way that Lum and Rosanne look in this picture, and probably horrified also with the way that I look. But don’t make the mistake of feeling sorry for them, or for me. Their lives have been the most rewarding of anyone I know. They lived happy, and they are happy now. And if you think of us as old people, remember that we think of you as children. Smart children, sure, and we love you like our own sons and daughters; but still children. Don’t confuse calendar time and experience. While two or three hundred Pentecost years flash by in a month of S-space, you don’t get the knowledge of life that comes with that many years of living. You all have a lot of real living to do.
“I promised Lum and Rosanne that I would tell you what happened here. I’m back in S-space, in orbit around Paradise. I’ve been here for twenty-five Earth years. But I couldn’t persuade them to join me. Sy, do you remember the arguments we had, after Planetfest was over, on the strongest force in the universe? Well, I can tell you now, it’s not gravitation, or the force governing hadronic interactions. It’s a force unique to living organisms. When Lum and Rosanne went down to Paradise, it was a frightening world, where all the humans had died. They wanted to stay there long enough to study the problem thoroughly. And after a few months, Rosanne became pregnant. They wanted the baby, but they knew they couldn’t raise a child in S-space. And the idea of leaving their children was unthinkable to them. They stayed, to raise the family. That’s the strongest force. After a while I joined them, down on the surface. I was there when each of the children was born.
“We were trying to find out what had killed off the previous colony on Paradise, and we had the best possible incentive. Unless we found an answer, we could go the same way, along with the children.