Then Headline News, with Roster McCauley, came on. He was seated at a table opposite a black box. “Earlier this week,” he said, “a test mission by the government could have left an AI stranded on a ship that might have disappeared into the warp. Our guest this afternoon”—he glanced at the black box—“is Charles Hopkins, representing the National Association for Equal Rights for All Sentients. Charles, what’s your reaction?”
“Roster, I am outraged.” I recognized the voice. Charlie, the AI whom Alex and I had brought home from Villanueva, had acquired a last name. “And I can assure you, we’ll be taking action to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
“Okay, Jacob,” I said, “you can shut it down.”
“There is one more clip you might want to see.”
It was Alex. He was also a guest on Brim’s show.
“Alex,” said Walter, “you were one of the principals who discovered what had happened to the Capella. And you have a relative on board. Did you have a suspicion all along that your uncle was still alive?”
“No. We’d assumed he was gone. We were looking for a missing physicist. Chris Robin. He was the guy who made the discovery about the lost ships.”
“Well, Alex, in any case, I know you’re happy at least that your uncle has been accounted for. And that eventually, if not in the immediate future, you’ll get to see him again.”
An odd thing happened then. Alex seemed to look directly at me. “Yes,” he said. “I can’t believe it’s happening.”
He was careful to say nothing about the delay that would be involved. That the rescue was probably going to go on piecemeal over the better part of a century.
“I was surprised to see the interview,” I told him.
“Chase, this is the biggest story the press has had in our lifetime. Of course they’re going to give it massive coverage.”
“Do you buy the admiral’s story? That they’re committing the entire fleet to this?”
“I don’t think there’s any question. President Davis tried to calm the people who are still scared of the Mutes, but that’s a hard case to make. People don’t forget.” He propped his chin on one hand and sighed. “We need a better solution.”
“Which is—?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Shara said something about a backup plan, but she didn’t explain it.”
He was frowning. “I hope they have something.” A cold rain was drumming against the window. “You know, the media have been talking about the effect it will have when people we’d written off as dead are suddenly back in our lives.”
“I know. I’m trying to imagine how it would feel to have Gabe walk in.”
“Yes. Gabe and the rest of them. Or from their perspective. What will it be like to return to friends and relatives who are at least eleven years older than they were just a few days ago? It won’t be so bad for the ones we can get off this time around. But imagine the people who will be stuck out there for another quarter century or more. They will have lost the world they know.”
Five
It’s hard to imagine what it will be like opening homes to sons and daughters, to mothers and fathers written off years ago as dead. To seeing again old friends thought lost. There will be a powerful effect from this strange event because we can hardly help being reminded of the impact on our lives of the people around us.
Casmir Kolchevsky showed up the following day on Jennifer in the Morning. Kolchevsky was small and compact, a guy who always looked as if he were about to explode. He had scruffy black hair and eyes like those of a cat watching a squirrel. That was when he was feeling friendly. He liked to preach, to make it clear that very few could meet his high intellectual and ethical standards. Whenever he showed up on one of the talk shows, I got uncomfortable because Alex was one of his favorite targets.
Kolchevsky was an archeologist. He claimed to have been a friend of Gabe’s though I never saw any evidence of it, and he resented Alex because he made a living trading and selling artifacts that he felt belonged to everyone. He’d said on several occasions that Alex had betrayed the family name. That he was nothing better than a grave robber. But this time, he did not come after us.
The conversation was about the historical information that had already been gleaned from the passengers who’d been aboard the Intrépide. “We’re now able to talk to people who were actually alive during the Dark Age. Think about that for a minute. We can acquire some historical knowledge, some serious insights, by sitting down with someone who was there. I’ll tell you, Jennifer, we live in a remarkable time.”
Kolchevsky’s tone made it clear that he knew everything of significance. No one else’s opinion mattered. Which was why listening to him go on about somebody else’s perspective came as something of a jolt. Jennifer agreed that he had a point, and asked what he thought could be learned from people who’d begun life in a different era.
“So far,” he said, “they’ve shown us they were as indifferent about what was happening in their time as we are in ours. Imagine being alive during the Dark Age, when civilization was crumbling. When it looked as if everything was coming apart. When we had starships but no control over the economic and political systems. All I’ve heard these survivors talk about is what was going on in their personal lives. Were they concerned that things were getting worse and would probably deteriorate completely? That humanity might never recover? I’ve heard almost nothing about that. It was all about whether they had a job.”
“Come on, Casmir,” said Jennifer, “there’ve only been two people who go back that far. And they’re only kids. You’re going to have to wait awhile to talk to the adults from that period. The Intrépide won’t be back for, what, seventy or eighty years?”
“That’s true, Jennifer. But do you really think the parents of these kids will be any different? No. We know what these people did. How they just stood around and let the world go to hell. Let the oceans rise. Let whole species go extinct. You think they’re going to care? They probably won’t have even noticed unless their paychecks got cut off.”
I stayed with the show not because I wanted to hear what he had to say but because I was waiting for him to give Alex some credit. Without him, I wanted to scream at the little idiot, none of this would be happening.
And finally, near the end, he actually reached out. “I guess we owe all this to Alex Benedict. I’ve been a bit hard on him in the past. Although he certainly deserved it. But to be fair, I should admit that he’s done a serious service for these people. Saved their lives.” He smiled across the room at me, that wooden, forced grin that moved his lips without creating any sense of warmth.