“When did it happen?”
“A little over five years ago. The original sighting, that is. Nobody thought anything of it at the time. I mean, we weren’t looking for Sanusar objects then. Nobody really even knew they existed. But when we saw it, we went out and tracked the signal down. It was aimed toward where Rimway would have been if this were still 1424.” The year when the Capella had vanished.
“So,” I said, “you know when it left Rimway, and when it reappeared. So you know—”
“—When we can expect it again and where it should be. Yes.” Both of them were beaming. I probably was, too.
“When’s it going to happen?”
JoAnn passed the question to Shara, who apparently handled the trivia. “In a bit more than three months,” she said. “It’ll be here on the first day of spring, give or take a day or two.”
“First day of spring? That sounds like a good omen.”
The callbox inquired whether we were ready to order. We took a minute to comply, then I asked the critical question: “What are we going to do when it happens? Judging from what we’ve seen with the other vehicles, we’ll only get a few hours’ access. That’s not much time to locate it, get to it, and take twenty-six hundred people off.”
Shara nodded. “That’s the bad news. We probably won’t be able to rescue everyone this time around. Although JoAnn’s been working on something.”
Our coffee arrived. JoAnn picked up her cup, looked out at the snow, which had eased off a bit, and put it back down without tasting it. “It might be possible,” she said, “to manipulate the drive unit and shut down the cycle.”
“You mean to keep the ship from going under again?”
“Yes. We might be able to stop the process dead in its tracks.”
“How optimistic are you?”
“We have a pretty decent chance, actually. Somewhere around a ninety percent probability.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s great news.”
JoAnn nodded, but didn’t look happy. “There’s a downside.”
“Oh.”
“There’s also a possibility we could send the ship out somewhere where we’d lose it again.” Her eyes blazed. “Or we might destabilize everything and destroy it altogether. That’s why we haven’t been making a lot of noise about it.”
“Is there any way you can eliminate that possibility? I mean, can you run an experiment or something?”
This time she did taste the coffee. “Unfortunately, there’s a level of uncertainty about all this that we may never get rid of. Not completely. I don’t know. The ranking genius on all this is Robert Dyke.”
“I’ve heard of him,” I said. “But wasn’t he—?”
“That’s correct. Like your uncle, he was also on the Capella. He’s maybe the one person in the Confederacy who could work all this stuff out.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Well, you said the right word, Chase. We’re going to run an experiment.”
“Good. I hope you guys will keep us informed.”
“We can do better than that,” said Shara. “You and Alex have been a big part of this since the beginning. You can come along if you like. We’re going to put a yacht into the warp, hopefully get it tangled, then see if we can unwrap it. Stabilize it.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “And we have an invitation? When?”
“We’ll be getting set up tomorrow,” said JoAnn. “So figure we leave the day after.”
Shara smiled uncomfortably. “Sorry about the short notice, Chase. But we just got clearance, and time is a priority.”
Two
The black hole is nature’s ultimate assault on the notion of a reasonable, friendly universe. No advantage can be extracted from its existence. It adds nothing to the majesty of the natural world. And if there is evidence anywhere that the cosmos does not give a damn for its children, this is it.
I called Alex that night and told him about the Capella. “That’s good news,” he said. “I hope they can make something happen. Suttner has a pretty good reputation.”
“She seemed kind of young for a genius.”
“That’s the way it usually goes with physicists, Chase. Make your mark before you hit thirty, or you’re out of the game.”
“They’re running a test of some sort in a couple of days,” I told him, “and they’ve invited us to go along.”
“In a couple of days? No way I can make that. But you’re going, right?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Everything in shape at the office?”
“Yes, Alex. Everything’s quiet.”
“What kind of test?”
“I don’t really have details. They want to find out whether they can tinker with the drive and stabilize the thing.”
“Okay. But be careful. Don’t volunteer for anything.”
“Relax, Alex. Everything will be fine.”
“I’ll see you when you get back.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “We might have found a Corbett transmitter.”
“A what?”
“A Corbett transmitter.”
“Would you want to brief me on what that is?”
That was an enjoyable moment. It’s not often I come in ahead of the boss on an archeological find. “It’s a twenty-sixth-century hypercomm transmitter. This was the breakthrough unit.”
“You mean for FTL transmissions?”
“Yes.” What else could I mean?
“Really? You sure?”
“According to the Brandenheim.”
“Where’d it come from?”
“That’s the really interesting part of the story. Marissa Earl showed it to me.”
“Marissa?” He grinned. “It has something to do with Garnett Baylee?”
“That’s correct.”
“I wasn’t entirely serious, Chase. Baylee? Really?” He scratched his temple. “He’s been dead about nine years.”
“Eleven, in fact. They found it in one of the closets in his house.”
“Nobody knew he had it?”
“Right. His family still lives there, and they came across it by accident. I have a picture of it if you want to take a look.”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
I love watching his eyes light up. “Chase, did you say whether the museum’s made an offer?”
“No, Alex. I don’t know about that. I didn’t really want to ask.”
He shook his head. Not surprised. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Our clients shouldn’t have any problem beating whatever the Brandenheim would be willing to pay. The whole story amazes me, though. Not much of that Golden Age stuff has survived. People have been looking for it for thousands of years. Baylee spent a substantial amount of his life searching for artifacts from that period.” He was frowning. “I met Baylee a couple of times. He was a nice guy, but he wanted to be the premier archeologist on the planet. I can’t imagine he’d have come up with something like this and stuck it in his closet and forgotten about it. I wonder if he was possibly suffering from delusional problems?”
“I don’t know. Marissa didn’t say anything to suggest that.” For a moment, we stared at each other. Alex was in a time zone three hours later than I was. He looked tired, and it was obvious he was ready to crash for the night. “So,” I asked, “do you want me to do anything about this? Should I make an offer? Just to make sure she doesn’t let it get away?” Normally, we restrict ourselves to playing middleman in these arrangements. But for something like this—