And here she was. With instructions to stand by and hold Dimenna’s hand and if there’s a problem, see that everyone gets off. But there shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, they’re the experts on protostars and they say everything’s fine. Just taking a precaution.
She’d checked the roster. There were thirty-three crew, staff, and working researchers, including three graduate students.
Accommodations on the Wildside would be a bit tight if they had to run. The ship was designed for thirty-one plus the pilot, but they could double up in a couple of the compartments and there were extra couches around that could be pressed into service during acceleration and jump phases.
It was a temporary assignment, until the Academy could get the Lochran out from Earth. The Lochran was being—armored, really—to better withstand conditions here and would replace her as the permanent escape vessel within a few weeks.
“Hutch,” said Bill. “We have incoming. From Renaissance.”
She was on the bridge, which was where she spent most of her time when riding an otherwise empty ship. “Patch them through,” she said. “About time we got acquainted.”
It was a pleasant surprise. She found herself looking at a gorgeous young technician with chestnut hair, luminous eyes, and a smile that lit up when there’d been time for the signal to pass back and forth and he got a look at her. He wore a white form-fitting shirt and Hutch had to smother a sigh. Damn. She’d been alone too long.
“Hello, Wildside,” he said, “welcome to Proteus.”
“Hello, Renaissance.” She restrained a smile. The exchange of signals required slightly more than a minute.
“Dr. Harper wants to talk to you.” He gave way to a tall, dark woman who looked accustomed to giving people directions. Hutch recognized Mary Harper from the media reports. She owned a clipped voice and looked at Hutch the way Hutch might have glanced at a kid bringing the lunch in late. Harper had stood shoulder to shoulder with Dimenna during the long battle to prevent the closing of the station.
“Captain Hutchins? We’re glad you’re here. It’ll make everyone feel a bit more secure to know there’s a ship standing by. Just in case.”
“Glad to be of service,” Hutch said.
She softened a bit. “I understand you were headed home before this came up, and I just wanted you to know that we appreciate your coming out here on short notice. There’s probably no need, but we thought it best to be cautious.”
“Of course.”
Harper started to say something else but the transmission was blown away by the storm. Bill tried a few alternate channels and found one that worked. “When can we expect you?” she asked.
“Tomorrow morning at about six looks good.”
Harper was worried, but she tried to hide it behind that cool smile while she waited for Hutch’s response to reach her. When it did she nodded, and Hutch got the distinct impression that back behind her eyes the woman was counting. “Good,” she said with bureaucratic cheerfulness. “We’ll see you then.”
We don’t get many visitors out this way, Hutch thought.
THE STATION MADE periodic reports to Serenity, recording temperature readings at various levels of the atmosphere, gravity fluctuations, contraction rate estimates, cloud density, and a myriad other details.
The Wildside had drifted into the hypercomm data stream between Renaissance and Serenity and was consequently able, for a few minutes, to pick up the transmissions. Hutch watched the numbers rippling across a half dozen screens, mixed with occasional analysis by the Renaissance AI. None of it was intelligible to her. Core temperatures and wind velocities were just weather reports. But there were occasional images of the protostar, embedded at the heart of the cloud.
“How sure are they,” she asked Bill, “that ignition won’t happen for a thousand years?”
“They’re not giving opinions at the moment,” he said. “But as I understand it, there’s a possibility the nuclear engine could already have started. In fact, it could have started as much as two hundred years ago.”
“And they wouldn’t know it?”
“No.”
“I’d assumed when that happened the protostar would more or less explode.”
“What would happen is that over a period of several centuries after its birth, the star would shrink, its color would change to yellow or white, and it would get considerably smaller. It’s not a process that just goes boom.”
“Well, that’s good to know. So these people aren’t really sitting on top of a powder keg.”
Bill’s uncle image smiled. He was wearing a yellow shirt, open at the neck, navy blue slacks, and slippers. “Not that kind of powder keg, anyhow.”
They passed out of the data stream and the signal vanished.
Hutch was bored. It had been six days since she’d left Serenity, and she ached for human company. She rarely rode without passengers, didn’t like it, and found herself reassuring Bill, who always knew when she was getting like this, that he shouldn’t take it personally. “It’s not that you aren’t an adequate companion,” she said.
His image blinked off, to be replaced by the Wildside logo, an eagle soaring past a full moon. “I know.” He sounded hurt. “I understand.”
It was an act, meant to help. But she sighed and looked out into the mist. She heard the gentle click by which he routinely signaled his departure. Usually it was simply a concession to her privacy. This time it was something else.
She tried reading for an hour, watched an old comedy (listening to the recorded audience laughter and applause echo through the ship), made herself a drink, went back to the gym, worked out, showered, and returned to the bridge.
She asked Bill to come back, and they played a couple of games of chess.
“Do you know anyone at Renaissance?” he asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.” A few of the names on the roster were vaguely familiar, probably passengers on other flights. They were astrophysicists, for the most part. A few mathematicians. A couple of data technicians. Some maintenance people. A chef. She wondered which was the young man with the luminous eyes.
They live pretty well, she thought.
A chef. A physician.
A teacher.
A—
She stopped. A teacher?
“Bill, what possible use would they have for a teacher?”
“I don’t know, Hutch. It does seem strange.”
A chill worked its way down her spine. “Get Renaissance on the circuit.”
A minute later, the technician with the eyes reappeared. He turned the charm on again, but this time she wasn’t having any. “You have a Monte DiGrazio at the station. He’s listed as a teacher. Would you tell me what he teaches?”
He was gazing wistfully at her while he waited for her transmission to arrive.
“What are you thinking?” asked Bill. He was seated in a leather armchair in a book-lined study. In the background she could hear a fire crackling.
She started to answer but let it trail off.
The technician heard her question and looked puzzled. “He teaches math and science. Why do you care?”
Hutch grumbled at her stupidity. Ask the question right, dummy. “Do you have dependents on board? How many people are there altogether?”
“I think you may be right,” said Bill, cautiously.
She folded her arms and squeezed down as if to make herself a smaller target.
The technician was looking at her with crinkled eyebrows. “Yes. We have twenty-three dependents. Fifty-six people in all. Monte has fifteen students.”
“Thank you,” said Hutch. “Wildside out.”
Bill’s innocuously content features hardened. “So if an evacuation does become necessary—”
“We’d have to leave almost half of them behind.” Hutch shook her head. “That’s good planning.”