“Look, Charlie, I can understand it’s been a difficult time for her. But I don’t see how she can feel responsible.”
“Okay. Look, she was warned that Del was driven by his ambition. That he wasn’t entirely stable. That putting him out on the station for a year and a half, in that kind of isolated environment, wasn’t a good idea. She didn’t listen.”
“You’re saying somebody predicted he would go on a killing spree?”
“No, nothing like that. But she was warned that he wouldn’t be a good player out there. She shook it off. Refused to buy it.”
“Why?”
“Because she thought he was the best man for the job. He’d spent his life doing wormhole research, and she wanted the program to succeed. At the time, he looked like our best option.”
“If I may?” I said. “Professor, how do you think Housman could have destroyed the station?”
“All he would have had to do would be to take the shuttle out. He could have done it while the station was in the silent zone, where they had no communication with anyone else. He takes it out a few thousand kilometers. They might have realized why he was doing it, but it wouldn’t have mattered. There would have been nothing they could do to prevent it. He turns it around, runs up the acceleration, and crashes it into them. I’m sure you’re aware”—he glanced toward me again—“that if he’d wanted to, he could have knocked the station out of orbit. We both know what that would probably have meant.”
“Into the black hole.”
“If he got the right angle.”
We ordered a round of drinks, and while we waited for them to arrive, Professor Clemens asked whether Alex had reached a similar conclusion.
“It’s still in the air,” Alex said.
“I understand,” I said, “that they had blasters that could have been used if there’d been a threat from an asteroid.”
“That’s correct,” said Clemens. “They could have destroyed the shuttle.”
“I suspect,” said Alex, “if something like that had happened, they’d have had a hard time believing Housman was putting them all at risk. I’m not sure anyone would have pulled the trigger in time. That would be a terrible decision.”
“Alex, he could have deactivated the system before he took the shuttle out.”
The drinks arrived. Clemens proposed a toast to Lashonda Walton, whom he described as the fifth victim of the Octavia incident. “There are others,” Alex said. “Housman’s family took a hit. As did all the families.”
Clemens drained his glass, set it down, and studied us for a few moments. He studied Alex, really. He took a long look in my direction and pretty much dismissed me. “You’ve been evading the issue, Alex,” he said.
My boss sat back in his chair. “I don’t believe in drawing conclusions until the evidence is in.”
“Have it your way. But I’ll ask you, if you will, please don’t go public with whatever conclusions you come to. There never will be a definitive finale to this. Give Lashonda a break.”
Charlie paid for the drinks, thanked us for our time, and excused himself. We watched him exit through the front door. Alex glanced at my empty glass. “You want anything more?”
“I’m good,” I said. And after a long pause, “So what do you think?”
“I’ve thought all along that’s exactly what happened. Though I’m not sure who was in the shuttle. We have no way to be certain. Unless we can get Charlotte to talk to us.”
“That would be tricky.”
“Maybe not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you know that one of the senior engineers on the cannon project was a guy by the name of Royce Poliks?”
“Really?”
“Yes. He lives on Chippewa. It’s possible he and Charlotte made contact at some point and she told him what was going on.”
I walked into Alex’s office moments after Gabe found out we were planning a flight to Chippewa. Both of them were seated in armchairs, separated by a circular table. “Why in heaven’s name are you so caught up in this, Alex?” he asked. “Why don’t you just let it go and take care of your responsibilities to your clients?”
Alex glanced in my direction. . That was probably an unfair interpretation because relations between them had improved considerably. As Gabe had said early on, they were both adults now. “Why am I doing this?” Alex said. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. What’s the point of it all?”
“Gabe, it’s one of the great mysteries of the age. Why wouldn’t we want to get a resolution?”
“How about : if you find out what happened, you’re very likely not going to want to tell anyone.”
“And why would that be?”
“It’s not likely they got attacked by aliens. Or pirates. Or whatever.”
“How can you be sure?”
“We can’t be sure. But we know they needed a hundred and forty-six days to complete an orbit. There were only that few hours when they were completely cut off. It could be a coincidence that the event happened during the cutoff period. But it’s extremely unlikely. So what does that tell us?”
Gabe bowed his head in my direction, inviting me to respond. But I didn’t want to get into the middle of it.
“It wasn’t an accident,” said Alex. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Of course it is,” said Gabe. Both of them were beginning to sound annoyed. “Somebody timed the incident to happen when any possibility of a transmission was blocked by the black hole. The problem is that if it really was one of the people at the station, he might have been able to arrange someone to come in quickly and rescue him, but he’d have had to abandon his life. The four people at Octavia had all spent their lives building their reputations, becoming . What I’m trying to say is that if you ever get to the truth, if you ever find out who’s responsible, you’re going to cause a lot of pain to that individual’s family. I don’t for a minute believe Archie could have been guilty of anything like that, killing his partners. But one of them is going to turn out to be responsible.” He was staring out at the trees, looking at something neither Alex nor I could see. “My advice, Alex: leave it alone.”
Gabe turned toward the door. “I just don’t see why you’d want to get involved in something this poisonous.” Then he was gone.
For a long minute neither of us spoke. Then Alex said, “I don’t guess that turned out very well.”
“Alex,” I said, “do you really think Housman did it?”
“Clemens probably has it right. Charlotte might have been threatening to demand credit for finding the pods. And rather than let that come out, Housman killed them. And himself. And it worked. His name is linked now with the giants. He might have thought it wasn’t too high a price.”
“So how do we establish something like that?”
“Find the Poliks message. At this point it’s all we have.”
XXXI.
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