“Look, Kim, I know it hurts. But if you want my advice, let go.”
“You had a call from Dr. Flexner, Kim.”
She took off her jacket and dropped it over the sofa. “Okay, Shep. See if you can reach him.”
“It was just a few minutes ago. He was in his office.”
She picked up a glass of apple juice and slipped into her commchair.
“He seemed upset,” Shepard added.
“In what way?”
“Irritable. Angry. Anyway, we have a connection.”
The walls vanished and she was sitting in Matt’s office. He did indeed look a trifle mussed. “Hi, Matt,” she said.
“Hello, Kim.” He was seated behind his desk, writing. “I’ve got a question for you,” he said, not looking up but putting the pen down.
“Go ahead.”
Now his eyes rose to meet hers. “What did you do to Benton Tripley?”
“What do you mean?”
“I got called in by Phil this morning. He apparently got a call from Tripley. Tripley is in a rage.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t exactly clear why. But it has to do with you. When you were making the presentation, did you ask him about the Mount Hope incident?”
“We talked about it.”
“Did you imply that his father was involved in criminal activity?”
She tried to remember the conversations. “No,” she said. “Why would I do something like that?”
“That was going to be my question.”
“It didn’t happen.”
“Good. Because whatever benefit we got from giving him the Morton Cable Award, we’ve more than lost.”
“Matt—”
“Did you really break into his house?”
“No!”
“He says you did.”
Kim felt her temper rising. Take a deep breath and don’t lose control. “I looked at the property in the Severin Valley. But it’s not his place anymore. That whole area’s abandoned.”
“Are you sure about the details? Did you check out the ownership before you went in?”
“No—”
“That’s what I thought. The director had to apologize to him this morning.”
“Apologize?” Tripley’s image took shape in her mind. He was smiling. “What for? Whatever the paperwork says, the place is abandoned.”
“Tripley thinks the Institute’s sticking its nose into his business.” Matt sighed. “Kim, we’ve assured him there’s a misunderstanding somewhere, and that the matter is ended. I don’t know what this is all about. But it is ended, right?”
“Matt, this is something I’ve been doing on my own.”
“No, Kim. You don’t do anything on your own. You’re a representative of the Institute. For God’s sake, you speak for us a couple of times a week.” His gaze hardened. “You will back away and not go near any of this again. Do you understand?”
She returned his stare. “Matt, I talked to one of the Interstellar technicians yesterday. About the repairs made on the Hunter after they came back. He lied to me.”
“How do you know?”
“I could see it in his face.”
“Good. That’ll hold up if anybody questions you—”
“Listen, if there’s nothing to any of this, why is Tripley so bent out of shape? What’s he hiding?”
“That’s easy. A lot of people died out there. In the explosion. If it were to be shown that his father was in some way liable, there’d be a hundred lawsuits against the estate.”
“After all these years?”
“I’m not a lawyer. But, yeah, I’d say he stands to lose quite a lot if you were to find something that makes his father culpable.”
Somebody apparently entered the office. The interruption was behind her, so she couldn’t see who it was. But Matt glowered over her shoulder at the visitor. She heard the door shut, and his attention returned to her. “Matt, I don’t see how I can just walk away from this.”
He cleared his throat. “Kim, I have a pretty good idea what this means to you—”
“Matt, you have no idea what it means to me—”
“All right. I’m sorry. I hear what you’re saying. But the problem is there’s no proof anywhere to support an investigation. All that’s going to happen if you persist is that the Institute will get burned, you’ll wind up out on the street, and nothing will have been accomplished.”
She took a minute to get control of her voice. “How do we get evidence if we don’t look?”
He looked pained. “I don’t know, Kim. But you have to realize that you represent the Institute. Round-the-clock. Whatever you do reflects on us.” He braced both elbows on his desk and set his chin atop his clasped hands. “I understand that we’re not being fair to you. But you have to understand there’s just too much at stake.”
“Money.”
“A lot of money.”
She let her eyes close. “Anything else?”
“No. That’s about it.”
“Thanks,” she said. And broke the connection. Her living room re-formed around her. She got up, retrieved the jacket, and walked out onto the deck.
The sea looked cold and gray.
9
O come with me to the misty veils Beyond the sunset, west of St. Johns…
The big push at the Institute was to lay out a strategy for exploiting interest in Beacon. Matt had already arranged interviews with the crew of the Trent. It was awkward because the hypercomm signals required time to make the round-trip. Journalists had, in effect, to submit their questions and come back the next day for the answers. So much for spontaneity, or for playing off a scientist’s response and letting it lead naturally to the next question.
Consequently nobody really wanted to talk to the Trent crew. No one from the media had accompanied the mission, because travel time was excessive and it just wasn’t perceived as that big a story. It was too far away. And nobody took celestials seriously anymore. The interest was not generated by the reason for the experiment, but by the fact that we had demonstrated we could trigger a nova.
Consequently, the Institute’s public information group decided to concentrate on that aspect of the story, and the benefits the human race might eventually derive from the capability. Unfortunately no one could think of any. Improvements in magnetic bottle design, maybe. We were getting better at antimatter containment. And maybe gravity deflection systems, which allowed electronic devices to function in ever-more-concentrated gravity fields.
Cray Elliott, a public relations specialist who was a junior member of the team, nodded and wrote it all down. Kim showed her disquiet. “We are forever trying to sell science because somebody somewhere will get a better toothbrush,” she grumbled. “Whatever happened to sheer curiosity?”
“You have to be practical,” Cray said. He was bright, ebullient, cheerful. She really didn’t want to have to deal with cheerful.
Nevertheless it was all there if one wanted to look: long-range star travel was rendered more efficient, the cells that provided fuel to heating and lighting systems for entire cities would increase their capacity, and safety would be enhanced.
“But,” said Kim, “star travel is being cut back everywhere, we’ve already got more power than we can possibly use, and there hasn’t been any kind of accident, that I know of, involving fuel cells. Ever.” Other than Mount Hope, probably.