him.
And there had been Harbach, a Beta who'd taken over most of the systems that Charlie had access to. “Harbach is a maniac. I watched him break down gradually, over the centuries. And finally he lost all touch with reality. He had no compunction about killing his own, if provoked. Had Chase and Alex left me, I'd be dead now.”
When Charlie was finished, Harley looked exhausted. “Alex, have you spoken to anyone yet?”
“One of the senate's science people.”
“Bittinger?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Told us not to worry about it. Don't get excited about boxes. It's exactly what Charlie predicted would happen.”
“What would you like to see him do? I mean, it would be hard to sell a rescue mission. The public wouldn't support it. Chances are a few people would get killed. That would be political suicide.”
“I know,” Alex said. “I don't have a solution.”
“What would you like to see him do?”
“I'm not sure. But I promised Charlie I'd help.”
“That will not be an easy promise to keep.”
“We talked about it on the way home,” said Alex. “It shouldn't be that difficult to arrange something. The AIs are probably connected. We already have Charlie. He can help us pull out a couple more. Then we can get them to help us locate others. We'd have to send in some teams, some well-trained people. Maybe shut down the power temporarily. Wait for them to exhaust their reserves. Then we could go in with minimal risk.”
“By 'we,' you mean-?”
“StarCorps.”
“It won't happen.” Harley patted his mouth with his napkin. Tried the wine again. “I'm not sure what to say.”
“Harley, the question we have for you-”
“Yes?”
“-I think you've answered. What would be the chances of putting together a political movement? People who'd demand something be done about Villanueva?”
“I'd say nil, Alex.” He looked unhappy. “It's a sad commentary on human nature. Most people get connected to their own AIs. They literally become part of the family. But everybody else's is just a data system with a voice.” He stared down at his plate. “I wish I could be more encouraging. But I'd recommend you stay away from it.”
Senator Caipha Delmar told us much the same thing the following morning. “Nobody would touch it,” she said, speaking from her office. “It would be a political disaster, Alex. A rescue effort for obsolete computer systems? That's bad enough. But we'd be putting people's lives at risk. And where's the upside? When we arrived at Skydeck with a cruiser full of electronics, who'd be there to wave the flag?”
That evening, as I was getting ready to close up shop, I noticed Alex wandering around outside, hands in pockets, looking lost.
I joined him. It had rained earlier in the day, and the grass was still wet. But the weather had cleared, and a full moon floated in the eastern sky. I don't think he even noticed I'd come up behind him until I asked if he was okay.
“I'm fine,” he said, with a quiet smile.
“You still thinking about Charlie?”
“Him, too.”
“What else?”
“The Firebird,” he said.
“What about it?”
“Think Uriel.”
“Angels again?”
“No. A point of reference.”
“Explain.”
“Remember what Robin said to Todd Cunningham?”
“Well, I remember that's where Uriel came up.”
“'Maybe after Uriel,' Robin might offer some explanations.”
“I don't-”
“If they were going to try to lose the Firebird, submerge it into this phantom zone or whatever, they'd want to find it when it reappeared, wouldn't they? Otherwise, they'd have no way of knowing the experiment succeeded.”
“Sure.”
“So they have to put it on a given course. How would you do that?”
“Oh.”
“Right. Pick a star and aim the thing at it.”
TWENTY-FIVE
We are much given to debating our place in the grand scheme of things. Some | years ago, I was aboard the Constellation, headed for somewhere, I don't; recall where, when they had a problem with the drive and had to retreat back out into what they call “normal space,” which is that part of the universe where I've lived contentedly for the last eighty years or so. Suddenly, the stars, which had been missing for several hours, were all around us. But there was no visible sun, by which I mean no large fiery body. There was no world, no moon, no comet, just the sense that everything was very far away. So what is our place? I would say, to stand in jaw-dropping wonder at the grand design. And laugh at the notion that we ever could have thought we were at the center of things. And maybe also to enjoy the music.
We wandered back toward the deck and eased into the lounge chairs. “Chase,” he said, “if Robin had figured out a way to send the Firebird forward, however we want to phrase that, he'd want to go back to it at the conclusion of the experiment, if for no other reason than to check the onboard clocks. So they could see how much time had passed on the yacht.”
“I'd think so, yes.”
“Okay so far. Let's assume for a minute that Robin could set the Firebird to submerge the way these other ships did. Accept that he'd figured out how to plot a course. And could control where it would show up again. If you could do that, and you wanted to test the system, how long a jump would you want?”
“Maybe two meters.”
“Of course. When would you want it to reappear?”
“Five minutes later?”
“Good. So we keep everything as short as possible. Maybe two meters and five minutes is a bit too short. They couldn't manage that or they wouldn't have had to go back two weeks later. So that gives us the time span. Roughly.”
“Okay, Alex. But where were they when they began the initial launch?”
“They'd want to get far enough out that Skydeck wouldn't be able to track them.”
“Cermak mentioned, what, two hundred billion kilometers to his brother.” Alex nodded. “Well, that's certainly well out of sight. A lot farther than they'd need to go. But okay. Let's say two hundred billion klicks. Which way?”
“I'd say in the direction of the target.”
