“I can’t let you do this, Alex. I insist on paying. Please?”
“It’s no problem,” Gabe said. “There was no expense involved.” He glanced at Alex, waiting for him to break in and divert the conversation in another direction.
“How did you manage that? When I spoke with him, Paul told me the price would be high.” Paul was the guy who’d put us on track to find the chess set.
“We got lucky.” Now that it had become clear that Alex was just going to let everything play out, Gabe was obviously enjoying himself and I could see he was proud of his nephew.
Olivia was about to protest again, but Alex broke in: “You’ve already paid enough, Olivia. Your daughter gave her life for scientific research, which is a sacrifice for all of us. It’s enough.”
VII.
.
I never really discovered whether it was connected with Olivia, but in the morning Gabe was all about wormholes. “Housman establish that they exist, right?” he asked.
“Actually,” I said, “they’d had evidence of their existence for thousands of years. But actually pinning one down took a while. I don’t know why that was. But yes, he was the guy who found it.”
“And what kind of result did we get from the discovery?”
“How do you mean?”
“What did we learn?”
“Well, there one major breakthrough.”
“And what was that?”
“It happened two years after Octavia disappeared.”
“So what was it?”
“We have the media coverage, Gabe. If you like I can run it for you.”
We went into my office.
Two years after the loss of Octavia, DPSAR put a mission on board the and sent them out to examine the wormhole. As a result of Housman’s work, they knew where one opening into the wormhole was, so it had become simply a matter of inserting probes that would do analytic work. The probes were more complex than the ones Housman and Charlotte had used. Stacy Harper showed one of them to her audience on the day of the breakthrough.
Harper was an Earth reporter from the Interstellar Network, on board the with the scientists. She held one of the probes in her hand. It was about the size of a commlink, or maybe a flattened tennis ball. It had a drive unit and an autocontrol. They were planning to release eighty-six of them that day. The probes would enter the tunnel and begin immediately to analyze interior conditions. And to search for exits. she said, She was sitting with one of the physicists, identified as Cornelius Giusando, of MIT. she said,
he said. He looked pleased, a guy in the right place at the right time.
She returned his smile.
Stacy was attractive, as all the female pundits are, and obviously quick on her feet. She was usually involved in covering politics, but she had no trouble adjusting to physics. She was also blessed with a sense of humor, and understood when the conversation was getting overly technical.
he said. Cornelius was small, with something of a weight problem and features that wouldn’t have stood out in a crowd. But his manner generated a sense that he understood what he was talking about.
she asked.
slower
Cornelius’s eyes widened.
Stacy smiled and let it go. She looked down at the probe, which she’d set on a table.
Cornelius checked the time.
He grinned.