When it slacked off, we followed the trail the rest of the way to the top. Somebody had planted a WCC flag on the summit. The World Conservation Corps. I’m sure you’ve seen one, but in case you haven’t: It portrays a gomper with big round eyes sitting beneath a rosebush, and their axiom, SAVE THE PLANET. The WCC, of course, is actually a Confederacy-wide organization that tries to remind people about maintaining the environment.
There was nothing else at the summit.
Alex stared out at the lake far below. “Why did he come up here? Why didn’t he at least bring someone else along?”
Carensa Paterna asked the same question next day on Jennifer in the Morning. “I’m not denying,” she said, “that Casmir had a rough edge. He said what he thought. That hurts sometimes. But think how much better the world would be if we all behaved that way.”
Jennifer looked skeptical. “Are you sure about that?”
Carensa smiled. “Well, yeah, I know what you’re saying. But we claim to be all about truth, don’t we? I’d like to be able to believe that when people say nice things, they mean it. Rather than that they have some ulterior motive. That they’re trying to get something. Or they’re just sparing my feelings. And that’s my point about Casmir: You could trust him. He meant what he said. I’ll confess I loved the guy. There were times he hurt my feelings. But I’m really going to miss him, Jen. I hate to think of what his final hours must have been like. Wandering around on that mountain. What was he doing there anyhow? He knew his health was failing, and it just makes me wonder if he felt lost. That maybe he didn’t care anymore.”
The Hillside was an exquisite, lush club on the Riverwalk. They had a human hostess, which is standard in most of the better restaurants, and human waiters, which, of course, is not. They also had a pianist, who was playing the theme from Last Chance when I walked in. Jasmine candles glittered on the tables. Prints in the style of the last century, and dark-stained wooden tables and walls provided a sense of nostalgia. I sat down and ordered a pizza, propped my notebook in front of me, and was reading the newsclips when a familiar voice asked if she could join me. It was JoAnn. “Sure,” I said, folding the notebook. “How are you doing?”
“Not real well.” She eased into a chair.
“What’s wrong, JoAnn?”
She pressed her lips together. Shook her head. “I don’t trust it.”
“You mean tinkering with the drive?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
She sat quietly for a minute, staring out the window at the Riverwalk. Tourists were strolling past, kids with balloons, people in coaches. “Have you talked to Shara?”
“Not since the flight.”
She leaned close to me and lowered her voice. “I’m pretty sure we could make it work, Chase. Odds are extremely good we could stop the Capella right in its tracks. But damn it, I can’t be certain. And I just can’t bring myself to put all those people at risk. Shara wants me to run the experiment again. Her argument is that if we get it right twice, we should be okay.”
“Are you going to do it?”
A waiter arrived. “Could you give us a few minutes?” JoAnn asked. “I haven’t really had a chance to look at the menu yet.” Then she turned back to me. “There’s no point in repeating it, Chase. Even if it worked fine, if the timing on a second run was perfect, I still wouldn’t be in a position to guarantee it would work for the Capella.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice shook. “I can’t take that kind of chance. They want me to run a successful experiment, then assure them everything will be okay. Management is scared, Chase. There’s a lot of pressure on them now. The politicians want to get this thing settled. They want the problem to go away. John is the only one who’s resisting.”
“John Kraus?”
“Yes. He recognizes there’s a quantum factor in all this, that there’s no way we can be certain. He’s right. But try to explain that to the politicians.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. My gut-level reaction was that I should simply keep out of it. Which I guess is what I tried to do. “JoAnn, John’s ultimately responsible to make the call. Just do what you can and let him take it from there.”
“I know. But he’ll want my opinion, and I’m pretty sure that’s what he’ll go with.” She brought up the menu, but she wasn’t really looking at it. “You know, I came here thinking I could make this work. I understood from the beginning there was a slight possibility it could go wrong. But the chance seemed so infinitesimal that I thought we could live with it.”
“What changed? Did you find out something?”
“Seeing the families. That’s what changed. Seeing pictures of the passengers.” They’d been all over the news feeds. “It was always five percent. That just seems like a much bigger number now.” She looked in pain. “I don’t want to be responsible for killing these people.”
The waiter came back. JoAnn was still looking toward the menu, not really reading it. “I’ll have a Camara salad,” she said. It was a specialty of the house, and I suspected it was what she usually ordered.
“What does Shara think?”
“She wants to play the odds. Which is fine if it works. But it’s easy for her. I’m not sure she’d be so ready to do it if it were up to her to make the call.”
I wanted to tell her there’s always a level of uncertainty. In everything. Nothing’s a hundred percent in life. But I kept my mouth shut.
Her eyes darkened. “The stakes are too high.”
Seven
Solitude is okay, as long as you have a friend to share it with.
—Agathe Lawless, Sunset Musings, 9417 C.E.
Linda Talbott had been a special client because she had also lost someone on the Capella. Her husband, George, had been a talented novelist. He’d written narratives centered on politics and religion, had won some major awards, and had been a rising star in serious fiction when he boarded the cruise liner eleven years earlier. He was from Dellaconda originally, and, Linda had told me, he’d been an admirer of Margaret Weinstein, its president at the beginning of the century. Weinstein had captured his attention by pushing a term-limits bill through an antagonistic legislature. After that, according to the common wisdom, the universe had grown brighter. Government on Dellaconda had become more straightforward, and, significantly, similar bills had been passed or were periodically being introduced throughout the Confederacy. That achievement alone had raised her to the front rank of Dellacondan presidents and should have ended with her becoming chief executive of the Confederacy. It didn’t happen, of course. She shared a characteristic with Kolchevsky: She tended to say what she thought. She’d gotten away with it while rising to the top on Dellaconda, but there was no way she could have disregarded politics the way she did and become the Confederacy’s chief executive.
Consequently, when Weinstein’s chair became available, I contacted Linda. It would command a steep price, but she had resources. She and her husband had a palatial residence along the coast in Ocean Gate, a kilometer north of Andiquar. And they owned an asteroid home. It was the place, she’d told me, they always retreated to when George was making the final pass through his current novel.