some of the top movie stars, actually — were all there waiting for sunset, and for the switching on ceremony. Power from the impellers in the Gulf Stream would be sent ashore along the underwater cable where it would pass through the station’s transformer yard and from there out to the Eastern Interconnect.
McGarvey was looking out at the crowd seated in the tent and Gail came over. “Hi, Kirk. I’m happy you could make it back for this.”
McGarvey smiled. He was weary but not tired. The last year, alone in his house on the Greek island of Seriphos, had been a time of healing, he supposed. But it hadn’t really worked the way he’d wanted it to. The days had passed, but far too slowly for his liking. His wife, Katy, would have told him to get on with it. “Stop moping, Kirk. It’s not becoming.”
And now, he wondered, what was next? “Wouldn’t have missed it,” he said.
“It’ll mean tons to our lady scientist.”
McGarvey smiled inwardly. Gail had gone from referring to Eve as “his lady scientist,” to “our lady scientist,” mostly because of what the three of them had gone through together. But in a good part, he thought, because Gail had finally accepted the likelihood that he would never set up house with either of them. Eve had her work on the project, and Gail was head of field training for the NNSA. Both of them were busy and McGarvey had dropped out.
“I haven’t seen her yet,”he said. “How is she?”
“Nervous. She hates public speaking, you know. Especially since Vanessa. She keeps going around saying, ‘The damned thing works,’ as if she’s had her doubts all along.”
“But it does.”
“This part at least,” Gail said. “But she says it’ll be at least ten years before enough impellers are online to see if there’s any effect on the Gulf Stream and on the Atlantic temperature distribution. That’s the key.”
Schlagel was gone, totally dropped out of sight, his ministry and SOS network all but defunct. DeCamp had disappeared, dead for all anyone knew, and the Marinaccio Group had been absorbed into Dubai’s finance ministry in the form of taxes, though a court battle was looming between the Emirates, her investors, many of them Saudi royalty, and the U.S. government. Everyone wanted a piece of the action.
“Then she’ll have to wait and see.”
“Anyway, when did you get here?”
“About an hour ago,” McGarvey said. “I wanted a chance to look around.”
Gail gave him a nervous look. “And?”
“Everything looks fine,” McGarvey said. “And when this is done, I’m taking you to dinner.”
“Can you handle two hyper women at the same time?” Eve asked, coming around the corner, a big, though nervous, grin on her face.
She and McGarvey embraced. “I don’t know if I can handle one of you, so I suppose it won’t make any difference if it’s both.”
“I missed you,” Eve said.
McGarvey shook his head. “Nice of you to say so, Doc, but you’ve been too busy.”
“The name is Eve. Now I have a speech to make, a switch to throw, and some hands to shake, so neither of you go anywhere until I’m done.”
McGarvey smiled. “The damned thing works.”
The oddest expression came over Eve’s face, and her lips pursed for just a second, but then she smiled and nodded, too. “Yup, the damned thing works. And it better after all we’ve gone through, and still have to go through, because we’re hanging on the edge of an abyss at the bottom of which is nothing but darkness. Maybe even death.”
“Dramatic,” Gail said.
“No, not at all,” Eve replied bleakly even though she was smiling. “We either fix things now within the next decade, or it’ll be too late.”
Abyss, indeed, McGarvey thought, as Eve walked to the podium to give her speech and turn the switch.
