“You haven’t heard anything from them yet? From the Heffernan?”
“No.”
“That pretty much means they’re dead, doesn’t it?”
“No. What it means is they don’t have a working hypercomm. That wouldn’t be a surprise if they’d lost their drive. But they should still be able to use the radio.”
“What happens if you don’t hear a radio signal?”
She didn’t want to think about it. “To be honest, Tor, I don’t expect to. At least not right away. The search area’s too big. I’m hoping we’ll get lucky.”
“And if you don’t?”
“We’ll keep looking until we do.”
He took a deep breath. “You okay?”
“Ask me after we find them.” There wasn’t really anything she could do here that she couldn’t do equally well from home. But this was where she should be.
“Let me know if I can do anything, Love.”
She kept him on for a while, to have someone to talk to. But eventually he had to get to Maureen, and Hutch was alone.
She tried doing some work, then tried reading. She checked in with Peter to let him know where she was. He was putting in overtime, too. She switched on the VR and watched three people arguing politics.
At around eleven she dimmed the lights and sank onto the couch. She’d just closed her eyes when she was startled by footsteps in the corridor. And a knock at the door. “You in there, Hutch?”
It was Eric. She opened up, and he came in. With a box of brownies. “I saw the light and thought you could use some company.”
“What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Same as you, I guess. Waiting for news.” He sat down opposite her, opened the box, and held it out to her. “They’re good.”
She took one.
“What are we hearing?”
“So far, not a thing.”
“I’ve written two statements for the pool,” he said.
“Press conference tomorrow?”
“At nine.”
“Two statements? One if we find them; one if we don’t?”
“Yes.”
“It may take a while before we have anything definite.”
“I know.” He hesitated. “Hutch, I heard you’re going to close down some of the flights. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“Which ones?”
She told him. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it quiet until I give you the all clear. I want to talk to the people who will be affected before they hear about it over their VRs.”
He questioned her about the search pattern, shook his head while she described it. “Doesn’t sound hopeful,” he said.
“It depends on whether Abdul was able to do what he was supposed to do.”
He nodded. It would be the first question he’d face in the morning.
After a while he commented that she looked sleepy, that he was tired himself, and he got up and headed for the door. “When you hear something,” he said, “I’ll be upstairs.” Then he was gone, and the silence closed in.
TWO O’CLOCK CAME and went. She knew not to expect immediate information. But when the clock struck four, and there was still no word, she started thinking about calling Peter. She was about to when Marla told her he was on the circuit.
“Hutch,” he said, “the Wildside has exited hyperspace. So far, though, no signal.”
Damn.
“Okay.” Moonlight filtered through the curtains. Maybe the al-Jahani would hear something.
“They’re three hours out. Hutch…”
“Yes, Peter?”
“I’m not optimistic.”
She called Eric and passed the word. He grumbled something about bad luck. But you can’t expect to find them right away. As if he knew something about it. She kept him on the circuit, talking about nothing of consequence. She just wanted the company. Probably they both did, and her respect for him, which had never been very high, went up.
She opened a window and looked out at the sky. She debated calling Tor, but he had an exhibition in the morning. Better to let him sleep. So she went back to the sofa and lay in the dark, listening to the hum of insects, wondering why she insisted on putting herself through this. Maybe, when it was over, it would be time to move on.
She dozed off. But it was a fitful rest, and she was awake again as the sky began to brighten. Time to get some air. She showered, toweled off, and paused momentarily in front of her mirror. Still look good, babe. She had a son on the way, but no one would have known.
She selected fresh clothes from her wardrobe. It was one of her guiding principles that she never allowed people to see she was under pressure. Stay relaxed. Dress well. Always look as if the situation is under control.
She was on her way out the door when Peter called again. “The al-Jahani has made its exit. Approximately four minutes farther down the track. Still no signal.” It would coordinate a search pattern with the Wildside. Meantime, she would have to get more ships out there.
The area was simply too big. Even if they scrambled everything they had, finding the Heffernan was not going to be easy.
She had no appetite but decided to go to breakfast anyhow. She needed to get some people around her. The only nearby place open that early, though, was Stud’s. Not her favorite. She crossed the Academy grounds, strolled past the Retreat, dodged traffic on the Parkway, and went into the Academy Mall. It always irritated her that the hucksters had stolen their name.
She walked into Stud’s. There were maybe a dozen people inside, a couple from the Academy, most from local businesses. She ordered a bagel and coffee and smeared a ton of jelly on the bagel.
Living dangerously.
BACK IN HER office, Marla greeted her with a cheery good morning, as if Hutch hadn’t been there all night. Sometimes Marla didn’t seem to function properly. “Today is Tuesday, February 17,” she said. “Staff meeting is scheduled at eight thirty.”
“Thanks, Marla.”
“You have several calls. Priority is low, so I did not think you’d want to be disturbed.”
“Queue them. I’ll get to them later this morning.”
She sat down in the armchair and let her head drift back. Within minutes she was asleep.
ASQUITH, WHO — LIKE pretty much everyone else — didn’t understand the distances involved, assured her everything was going to be okay. “They’ll find them,” he said. He was convincing because he believed it. The commissioner did not think in terms of light-minutes or billions of kilometers. To him a flight to Capella took about four days. Four days was not a long time, ergo the distance covered couldn’t be all that far.
“Maybe. But we need more ships.”
“We can’t do that. We don’t have more ships available.”
“I can get some corporate help. We should also freeze everything we’re doing until we get this thing settled.”
“And how long do you think that might take?”
“Weeks. Maybe a month or more.”
“My God. Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“Do they have enough food and water on board? To survive that long?”
“Yes. They have plenty of rations.”
His eyes narrowed. “Hutch, we don’t even believe they’re alive, do we?”
“We don’t know.”
“Yes or no, Hutch. Do you believe they’re still alive?”
“They may be in a place where we can’t reach them. But that’s not the point.”
“Let’s give the Wildside and the al-Jahani a little time before we scramble everybody’s schedule. Okay? Let’s just hang on a bit. We don’t want to panic.” He closed his eyes and made a noise deep in his throat. Thank God he was on-site to keep his crazy staff in check. “What else have we got?”
It was hard to think about anything else. “I’ve begun putting together what we have to do as we take the Colbys out of service. I have the recommendations on mission cutbacks and cancellations for you. I meant to get them to you yesterday, but I got sidetracked.”
He had a tendency, when you opposed him, to look at you as if you were being unreasonable. As if we’d been all through this before, and now you were starting again. “It’s not possible, Hutch. I would if I could. You know that.”
“Michael, we still need a decision on the Kira.”
“Where’s it headed?”
“Nok. Next week. It’s scheduled to carry eight passengers.”
“Hutch, we have to let it go.”
“I’m canceling it. I’m going to notify everybody today.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I will not sign off on the flight. You want the mission, get somebody else to do it.”
His jaw muscles worked. “Who’s on the goddam thing?”
“A team from the University of Berlin and the Lisbon Field Unit. The sooner they’re informed, the less flak there’ll be.”
“Yeah. Right. You know, this is easy enough for you to do. I’m the one who takes all the heat.” He looked wounded. Betrayed. “Okay,” he said. “Do what you have to. But let them know we’ll find a way to get them out there. That it’s only temporary.”
BY LATE MORNING, the Wildside had made a second jump. Still nothing.
She put in calls to eight of the corporate entities at the station. To Nova Industries and MirrorCorp, to Thor Transport and Maracaibo, to Hawkins and MicroTech and Orion Tours and WhiteStar. The message was the same to each: Can you contribute a ship to the Heffernan search?
They could. Hawkins thought they could get one off later in the day. WhiteStar could send one by the end of the week. The others fell somewhere in between. “Okay,” she said. “Stand by. Don’t send anything out until I tell you. But be ready to go.”
Hiram Taylor called just before noon to ask whether she’d meant what she said about taking Amy to the space station. He was in a custom gray satin suit. Amy would love to go, he said, especially with her. “I’m not all that excited about the idea,” he added, “but I’m willing to go along with it. So if you really want to — ”
“I’d enjoy it,” said Hutch. “It would give me a chance to do something different.”
“What would be a good day?”
“She has to go to school; I have to work. How about Saturday?”
“Saturday will be fine.”
“I’ll pick her up at seven.”
“You’re sure it’s no trouble?”