She’s about to object, but I hold up one hand.
“Or,” I add, “you understand more of it than I do, and probably more than I ever will. I don’t have a scientific mind. I’m suited toward history and exploration, not contemplation.”
She moves slightly. I sense impatience, but she doesn’t say anything.
“I want a real, scientific examination of what can happen if we destroy that Dignity Vessel. I want to know the best case and the worst case, and everything you can think of in-between. I want to know if we’re going to unleash something awful into the universe. I want to know if we’re going to do what we’re trying to prevent the Empire from doing.”
She waits. I nod, indicating that I’m done, at least for the moment.
“What about the Room?” she asks.
“What about it?” I ask.
“Do you want to destroy that too?”
“Yes,” I say. “But I think we have to pick our targets correctly. Right now, scientists are working on that Dignity Vessel. Anyone can go into the ship. It’s just one small area that keeps them out. So the study is easier. But I know no one is working the Room yet. It’s still too dangerous.”
“You said they can create that marker,” she says. “Soon they’ll have scientists inside of it.”
“I don’t know if that’s a lie or not,” I say. “Riya Trekov told me that, and I got the impression that finding the genetic marker and making one that works is still in the experimental stages. Think about it, Squishy. Would you go into that Room knowing how many people died in there, just because someone promises you that the untested marker they’ve given you might work?”
“You went in with a lot less.”
I turn away from her. She’s right, of course. I had gone in with a lot less. But I had no desire to come out.
I haven’t told her that part.
“So did Karl,” she adds.
“I can’t speak for Karl,” I say. Then I realize how harsh that sounds. “When you put it in those terms, however, it does seem out of character for him. He was always cautious. I have to think he thought everything through.”
“Everything except the fact that the device might not work.”
I shake my head. “We talked about that. We knew going into the Room might be suicide.”
“I can understand why you would want to do it,” she says. “Your mother died in there. You probably felt guilty about that, figured you might deserve to die.”
I don’t move. She’s close, but not as close as she thinks. Because I wasn’t feeling guilty about my mother. I was thinking of Jypé and Junior and the other divers I’d lost over the years.
My failures over the years.
My failures. Not my parents’ failures or things that had happened to me as a child. But the things that I had done wrong.
“But Karl didn’t have that dark side to his personality,” Squishy says. “At his core, Karl was an optimist.”
I wouldn’t have called him that, but we each have our perceptions. And Squishy’s perceptions of me are closer than I like to think. So maybe she is close with Karl too.
“He was also an adventurer,” I say. “That’s his job. And as cautious as he was, he was cautious in the context of a job that could have killed him every time he put on that suit.”
She pauses. “True enough,” she says after a long moment.
“Most scientists aren’t risk takers. They—”
“That’s not true,” she says.
“But it is,” I say.
“Scientists take risks every day,” she says over me. “That’s what their experiments are. Daily risks.”
“In a controlled environment. With data that can be quantified and measured and moved forward. Every scientist I know hates it when something unexpected happens. You hated it, Squishy. That was one of the reasons you left the military program.”
Her face flattens. She gets that expression she had when I first saw her in Vallevu—protected, guarded.
Angry.
“No scientist is going to go to an uncontrolled environment like the Room—an environment none of us completely understands—and run experiments. That could compromise the experiments. You know that, Squishy.”
She stares at me.
“But scientists like you,” I say, “scientists who are also adventurers would go into the Dignity Vessel. People without the marker have gone into that ship and come out alive. They can send probes into it, maybe some kind of countermeasures. They can work with that level of stealth tech, but not the fully functional level of stealth tech.”
She doesn’t move for the longest time. Finally she glances at the image she has frozen. It’s just a corner of the Room, and it looks hazy because—well, I’m not sure why. Because something was happening to Karl’s equipment, maybe, or because the equipment couldn’t capture everything the human eye could see.
“You’re taking a lot of risk based on some supposition,” she says after a moment.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“What if you’re wrong? What if you destroy the Dignity Vessel and leave the Room intact, and the Dignity Vessel isn’t what they were interested in? What if the Room is?”
She has a good point. She always makes good points.
But there’s only so much I can do. And even though I’m an adventurer, there’s only so much I’m willing to risk.
At least at first.
“If we can successfully destroy the Dignity Vessel,” I say, “then we can consider destroying the Room. Let’s do this methodically. Let’s see what a small explosion will do before we contemplate a larger one.”
“We?” she asks.
“Me,” I say, “using some technology you’ve designed for me.”
“You want me to build a bomb?” She looks around the room we’re standing in. Her office, in a doctor’s quarters. She has spent the last several years saving lives. Now I want her to make something that might take them.
“Yes,” I say. “Haven’t I been clear?”
“Not that clear,” she mutters. “You haven’t been that clear at all.”
TWENTY-NINE
Squishy shuts off the images from Karl’s suit. Then she sinks into a nearby chair. She suddenly looks tired.
I’m not sure what she thought I wanted. It’s clear how involved she is in her life here. The children, the medical practice, the lovely house. It’s all something that radiates contentment.
Although Squishy doesn’t radiate contentment at the moment.
“Obviously we haven’t been communicating,” she says softly. “Tell me again why you’re here.”
I grab a nearby chair and sit down. “Before you left the Business, you insisted that we destroy the Dignity Vessel. I got the sense that you knew how to do it. I just wasn’t willing to listen.”
She nods.
“So now, I’m willing to listen. I’m going to destroy that damn ship, but I don’t know how to do it. I’m afraid if I do it wrong, I’ll make things worse. Or maybe I’ll just blow another hole in the hull and it won’t hurt the stealth tech at all. That piece will stay intact.”
She isn’t looking at me. She nods again, as if she understands what I’m saying.
“What I want from you,” I say, “what I’m hoping you can give me, is a foolproof way to destroy that ship.”
“Without destroying whoever takes the bomb inside,” she says.
I shake my head. “I’m taking it in. Alone. If I die, I die. But I don’t want to take a bomb in and die in vain. Do you understand now?”
She doesn’t say anything. She extends her hands and studies them as if she’s never seen them before, as if they belong to someone else. She’s hunched into herself, and I have the sense that I’ve disappointed her yet again.