Gerry’s eyes widened. Yes, an intervention. Or a repeat of NCSU. “So I’m fired?”
The mayor jumped in. “No, no, you’re not fired, Gerry. Go back to Alleyne-Parma and work your butt off. Keep making those observations. Write it all down. Give us another damn bargaining chip we can use with Earth. It’s just that… as for the overall direction… I think we better go with your brother’s plan.”
“So, in other words, Neil’s in charge now?”
“We’re going to help Earth give it this one last shot,” said Ira.
“Mitch…I thought you were with me.”
Mitch looked up. “Gerry, you haven’t even reached the drawing-board stage of a solution. What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say you’ll give me another
“Once you do that, Gerry, then what?” said Ira. “Don’t you see that we’re running out of time? The situation is critical on Earth. The average human takes anywhere from thirty to seventy-five days to starve to death, and we’re well over the seventy-five-day threshold now. The number of survivors is going to be considerably beyond the right side of the decimal point in terms of percentages. And another
His feelings were hurt, his ego bruised, and he felt like he needed a drink badly. But as Gerry took the train to the observatory an hour later, he still held a solid belief in himself flickering deep within his soul, and he knew that his brand of question-driven science, so completely devoid of ambition and conceit, would at last solve the puzzle of the phytosphere.
He got off the train and took the moving sidewalk through a pressurized polycarbonate surface corridor.
The observatory loomed before him, a bubble, catching the sun’s light and reflecting it with diamond-bright intensity. He glanced at the black sky. Somewhere up there, AviOrbit technicians took the old Earth-Moon shuttles out of storage and turned them into missiles. What would the Tarsalans do to the Commonwealth of Lunar Colonies when they learned the Moon had participated in the launch? He tried not to think about it.
He used his special pass to gain access to the closed-down tourist attraction, and shuffled along the polished floor of the big circular corridor until he came to the entrance to the viewing area.
As much as he tried not to think about it, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Somewhere back in Nectaris, lab workers cultured samples of the virus and piggybacked them onto Luke Langstrom’s omniphages.
He stopped. The omniphages. If it was a eureka moment, it was an unenjoyable one. Because didn’t the Tarsalans already have experience with Luke Langstrom’s omniphage? They now probably understood
the omniphage better than Luke did. He sure hoped his brother had considered that strategic stumbling point.
He settled himself by Heaven’s Eye and took fifteen minutes to get the apparatus up and running.
He was just sitting down to observe when he heard a distant rapping from out in the corridor. He thought it might be Ian at the observatory door, strange new Ian, the sober Ian who wanted to walk the straight and narrow. He bounce-shuffled out into the corridor, followed its curve around to the public doors, and saw that it wasn’t Ian, but Stephanie, standing at the top of the stairs wearing her silver, orange, and magenta jumpsuit. She reminded him of a Day-Glo kitten who had followed him home. He swiped his access pass on the inside scanners and the doors opened.
He presented himself with his palms upward. “Behold, poor Caesar.”
“What? Oh. Right. Cute. A little weird, but…”
And then she just stood there looking at him as if he were the biggest nerd in the world.
He moved awkwardly aside. “Come in… come in.” And he swept his hand toward the interior of the observatory like a ringmaster presenting the next circus act. “I talk like that sometimes.”
“I noticed.” She arched a brow. “But then I notice a lot of things about you. For one thing, I notice that you let people push you around.”
The accusation struck him as uncharacteristically harsh of Stephanie. Yet it seemed pointless to defend himself, so he just tried to elaborate on the circumstances. “Ira was their point man. And he holds the purse strings.”
“So?”
“He and I come from two different mind-sets.”
“So?”
“So he’s not going to listen to me when he can listen to my brother.”
“I used to let people push me around all the time, but not anymore.”
“I haven’t given up, Stephanie.”
“I know you haven’t. I just wanted to come here to make sure of that.”
“I can’t give up.”
“I know.”
“And in a day or two, I’m going to bug them again about a second
“Let’s go look at Earth.”
“Yes, the many-storied globe.”
“Uh… right.”
They walked down the corridor toward the observatory, past the ticket booth, the concession stand, and the public washrooms. She slipped her hand through his arm, and it felt good, reminded him of his wife, and he took support from it, even though she was young enough to be his daughter.
“I haven’t seen Gwen around,” he said. “What happened to her?”
“She’s gone back home to Copernicus, now that all the shows have closed.”
“Oh. She’s from Copernicus. And what about you? What about your mother and father?”
“I never met my father, and I don’t get along with my mother. I’m making it on my own.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend?”
“I do.”
“You do? Who?”
“You.”
“Steph… I wouldn’t think of me as your—”
“A boyfriend can be many things. One of the things he can be is married. Another thing he can be is alone. And you’re really alone, Gerry. You need me. You might not know it, but you do. And that doesn’t necessarily mean there has to be anything physical.”
He nodded. She was young, a trifle overdone in her expressions, but he appreciated her sentiment anyway.
“You’re a sweet man,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“No, I really mean it. And you’re awfully smart.”
“Thanks. You’re full of compliments tonight.”
“I’m just trying to soften the blow.”
His eyes narrowed. “Soften what blow?”
“The blow you’re going to feel when I point out the obvious to you. I was hoping you were going to get it by yourself, and I wasn’t going to have to say anything because I didn’t want to bruise your ego, considering how bruised it’s been already, but now I realize that we can’t wait any longer.”
He stopped. “Can’t wait any longer for what?”
He was starting to feel more like an idiot every second.
“Let’s just get to the observatory, and I’ll show you.”
“Something about the phytosphere?”
“Like I say, you’re awfully smart.”
His face warmed. Had he really missed something? What could he have missed?
In the observatory she presented the monitors like a showgirl, with a jutting of her hip and a
