“Sure you did. Not verbatim, maybe. But you’re aiding and abetting. Look, I can understand you don’t want to support us. But you owe Hutchins a lot. If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t be walking around. The least you could do is stay out of the fight. Just don’t say anything.”
“I can’t do that, Valya. I’m an editor. The National has an obligation to its readers.”
“Do your readers agree with you? About the Academy?”
“Some do.” He hesitated. “Most do. We’ve taken a reasonable position. Head off the imminent danger first. Then put money into starflight. Anything else would be irresponsible.”
She changed the subject. Talked about 36 Ophiuchi, and the Origins Project beyond.
TIME TO GO.
When the warning came to buckle up, MacAllister was ready. So was Amy, who’d lost interest in the monument and was doing a history assignment with Bill. But as they were pressed back into their seats, and the temple began to recede, she took a last look and smiled at MacAllister. “I’ll be back,” she said.
Acceleration continued several minutes, then went away. The green lights came on. It was okay to release the restraints and walk around. The lights were intended for those so feeble-minded they couldn’t tell when it was possible to stand up without getting thrown against the aft bulkhead.
Valya asked MacAllister to come up front.
“No problems, I hope,” he said as he slid into the right-hand seat.
“We’re fine, Mac.” She released her own harness and rotated her shoulders. “I wanted to ask a favor.”
“Sure,” he said. “What do you need?”
“While we’re out here, I’d like to take Amy to see the supernova.”
The statement puzzled him. “How do you take somebody to see a supernova?” He looked at the quiet sky. “Where is it?”
“I’m talking about the supernova of 2216.”
That was nineteen years ago. A monster event. It had brightened the night sky for days. “How are you going to do that? We have a time machine?”
“Yes,” she said. “We can pass the light, then turn around and look at it.”
Yes. He knew that. Just hadn’t stopped to think. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Mac, it was before Amy’s time. We all got to see it, but Amy wasn’t born yet. I think she’d enjoy it, and we don’t really have to go out of our way. It’ll cost a day or so, but that’s all.”
“I keep forgetting we can do this stuff.”
“So what do you say? Is it okay? It’s on the way to our next site.”
“Sure,” he said. “No moonriders associated with it?”
“No. It’s part of the Blue Tour, but no lights have been seen near it.”
MacAllister shifted his position. “Did you ask Eric?”
“He’s all for it.”
“Okay,” he said. “Sure. I’d enjoy seeing it again.”
THEY CAME BACK together and Valya put the question to Amy. “Would you like to take a ride into the past?”
“Into the past?” she said. “How do you mean?”
“Do you know about the supernova of 2216?”
“Sure.”
“Would you like to see it?”
The child, apparently brighter than MacAllister, lit up. “Would you really do that for me?”
“If you want.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
They made the jump into the mists that evening. When it was done, MacAllister announced he’d had enough excitement for one day and headed for his compartment. Amy was doing homework, and Eric had hunched down in front of his notebook, reading.
He was glad to hit the rack, to get by himself for a few hours. That was another problem with the Salvator. Everybody needed time alone, MacAllister more than most. But he knew he couldn’t take to hanging out in his compartment for long stretches without exciting comment and resentment. You go on a trip like this, you have to be willing to socialize. So it felt especially good when night came and the ship’s lights dimmed, as they did at ten P.M., and he could justify retreating.
He settled in with Ferguson’s latest, Breakout, a history of the first twenty years of interstellar flight. But it turned out to be dreary stuff. The most rousing piece of writing in the entire book was the title. The author had done substantial research, and he wanted the reader to be impressed. Consequently he loaded every page with irrelevant dialogue and descriptions of engine thrust, even to the point of listing the supply inventories for several early flights. Nobody went to the washroom without Ferguson’s recording it.
MacAllister made a few notes and decided it deserved to be reviewed. It was his duty to warn an unsuspecting public.
AT MIDAFTERNOON THEY transited out of the mist and glided back under the stars.
“We’re about six light-years beyond 61 Cygni,” said Valya, “moving in the general direction of the galactic core. Out here, it’s not easy to be precise about distances. Can’t be sure exactly where we are.”
“Which one is it?” asked Amy, looking at the stars on the displays. “The one that’s going to explode?”
“It’s not visible to the naked eye,” said Valya. She used a marker to indicate its location. “It’s right here. Thirteen hundred light-years the other side of Sol. Out toward the rim. They figure it exploded in A.D. 946.”
The light from the event reached Earth in 2216. “I was at Princeton,” said Eric.
MacAllister had been in the second year of his marriage. He was with the Sun then, and Jenny had been teaching American history at a local high school.
The supernova had happened on a warm Tuesday evening, just after sunset. MacAllister was clearing away the dishes from dinner. Jenny had been outside talking with neighbors, and suddenly she was at the kitchen door, urging him to come out. Look at this, Mac.
He’d gone outside, expecting to discover that a flight of ducks had landed or some such thing — Jenny was forever feeding stray animals, and they came in swarms — but he was surprised to see her and his next-door neighbors staring at the sky.
Directly overhead, a star had appeared.
The sky was still much too light for stars.
The “star” got brighter as they watched.
He wondered whether it might be a comet. But there’d been no announcement to that effect.
“What is it, Mac?” she asked.
He checked with the Sun office. Nothing was happening that they knew of.
And it kept getting brighter.
The sky darkened, and other stars appeared, but none burned with the sheer intensity of whatever it was hanging over Eastern Avenue. People were coming out of their houses and standing on their lawns and in the street.
Eventually, he went back inside and made more calls. Air Transport said it was not in the atmosphere. The Wilkins Observatory seemed surprised to hear there was an anomaly. They told him they’d get back to him, but never did. He was about to call the Deep Space Lab in Kensington when the city editor at the Sun contacted him: They think it’s a nova.
By then the entire neighborhood was outside looking up. It was the only time in his entire life he’d seen something like that. Even the passing of Halley’s Comet, a couple of years earlier, had played to only a few people.
Eventually, the experts would decide it was a supernova.
EVEN AMY GOT bored while they waited. Valya showed them where the sun was; pointed out 61 Cygni, where they had been yesterday; and 36 Ophiuchi, where they would be tomorrow. Both were dim, even at close range.
They watched The London Follies that evening, leaving Bill to keep an eye open for the supernova. It came in the middle of the second act.
“It’s beginning,” he said.
Amy led the charge out of the common room onto the bridge. Valya had turned the Salvator around so it was facing back toward Cygni, toward Earth, and they could see everything through the viewport.