“How are things going?”
“Problems,” said Hazelius. “One damn thing after another.”
“Like what?”
“Software, this time.”
They approached the door marked the bridge. Hazelius opened it for Ford, exposing a cinder block corridor painted slime green and illuminated with fluorescent strips in the ceiling.
“Second door on the right. Here, let me get it for you.”
Ford stepped through into a circular room, brightly lit. Huge flat-panel computer screens lined the walls, giving the room the appearance of the bridge of a spaceship, with windows looking into deep space. The screens were not operating, and a starship screen saver running simultaneously on them completed the illusion of a spaceship passing through a starfield. Below the screens were massive banks of control panels, consoles, and workstations. The room had a sunken center, with a retro-futuristic swivel chair in the middle.
Most of the scientists had paused in their work to look at Ford curiously. He was struck by their haggard appearance, their pale, cave-creature faces and rumpled clothes. They looked worse than a bunch of grad students at the bitter end of final exams. His eyes instinctually searched for Kate Mercer, and then he immediately upbraided himself for his interest.
“Look familiar?” Hazelius asked, an amused twinkle in his eye.
Ford looked around, surprised. It did look familiar—and he suddenly realized why.
“To go where no man has gone before,” he said.
Hazelius laughed delightedly. “Right you are! It’s a replica of the bridge of the original starship
The illusion that this was the bridge of the U.S.S.
“Sorry about the mess—we’re wrapping up a run. Only about half the team is here—you can meet the rest at dinner.” He turned to the group. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the newest member of our team, Wyman Ford. He’s the anthropologist I requested to act as a liaison with the local communities.”
Nods, murmurs of greeting, a fleeting smile or two—he was little more than a distraction. Which was just fine with him.
“I’ll just go around the room and introduce everyone quickly. We can get better acquainted at dinner.”
The group waited wearily.
“This is Tony Wardlaw, our senior intelligence officer. He’s here to keep us out of trouble.”
A man as solid as a butcher’s block stepped forward. “Nice to meet you, sir.” He had a whitewall marine haircut, military posture, no-nonsense expression—and the gray face of exhaustion. As Ford expected, the man’s grip tried to crush his hand. He crushed back.
“This is George Innes, our team psychologist. He leads weekly chat sessions and helps keep us sane. I don’t know where we’d be without his steadying presence.”
A few exchanged glances and rolled eyes told Ford where the others felt they’d be without Innes. Innes’s handshake was cool and professional, just the right pressure and length. He looked outdoorsy, in neatly pressed L.L. Bean khaki pants and a checked shirt. Fit, well groomed, he looked like the type who thought everyone but himself had problems.
“Good to meet you, Wyman,” he said, peering over the rim of his tortoiseshell glasses. “I imagine you must feel a bit like a new student entering school in the middle of the semester.”
“I do.”
“I’m here if you ever feel the need to talk.”
“Thank you.”
Hazelius swept him forward toward a wreck of a young man, early thirties, thin as a rail, with long greasy blond hair. “This is Peter Volkonsky, our software engineer. Peter hails from Yekaterinburg, Russia.”
Reluctantly Volkonsky detached himself from the console he had been hunched over. His restless, manic eyes roved over Ford. He didn’t offer his hand, merely nodded distractedly, with a curt “Hi.”
“Good to meet you, Peter.”
Volkonsky shifted back to his keyboard and resumed typing. His thin shoulder blades stuck out like a child’s under his ragged T-shirt.
“And this is Ken Dolby, our chief engineer and the designer of Isabella. Someday there’ll be a statue of him in the Smithsonian.”
Dolby strode over—big, tall, friendly, African-American, maybe thirty-nine, with the laid-back air of a California surfer. Ford liked him immediately—a no-nonsense kind of guy. He, too, looked frayed, with bloodshot eyes. He extended his palm. “Welcome,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind we’re not at our best. Some of us have been up for thirty-six hours.”
They moved on. “And this is Alan Edelstein,” Hazelius continued, “our mathematician.”
A man Ford had barely noticed, sitting away from the others, raised his eyes from the book he was reading —Joyce’s
“How’s the book?” Ford asked.
“A real page-turner.”
“Alan is a man of few words,” said Hazelius. “But he speaks the language of mathematics with great eloquence. Not to mention his powers as a snake charmer.”
Edelstein acknowledged the compliment with an incline of his head.
“Snake charmer?”
“Alan has a rather controversial hobby.”
“He keeps rattlesnakes as pets,” said Innes. “He has a way with them, it seems.” He said it facetiously, but Ford thought he detected an edge in his voice.
Without looking up from his book, Edelstein said, “Snakes are interesting and useful. They eat rats. Which we have quite a few of around here.” He shot a pointed glance at Innes.
“Alan does us a double service,” said Hazelius. “Those Havahart traps you’ll see in the Bunker and scattered about the facility keep us rodent—and hantavirus—free. He feeds them to his snakes.”
“How do you catch a rattlesnake?” Ford asked.
“Carefully,” Innes answered for Edelstein, with a tense laugh, pushing his glasses back up his nose.
Once more Edelstein’s dark eyes met Ford’s. “If you see one, let me know and I’ll show you.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Excellent,” said Hazelius hastily. “Now let me introduce you to Rae Chen, our computer engineer.”
An Asian woman who looked young enough to be carded jumped off her seat and stuck out her hand, her waist-length black hair swinging. She was dressed like a typical Berkeley student, in a grubby T-shirt with a peace sign on the front and jeans patched with pieces of a British flag.
“Hey, nice to meet you, Wyman.” An unusual intelligence lurked in her black eyes, and something that resembled wariness. Or maybe it was just that she, like the others, looked exhausted.
“My pleasure.”
“Well, back to work,” she said with artificial brightness, nodding at her computer.
“That mostly does it,” said Hazelius. “But where’s Kate? I thought she was running those Hawking radiation calculations.”
“She took off early,” said Innes. “Said she wanted to get dinner started.”
Hazelius circled back to his chair, gave it an affectionate slap. “When Isabella is running, we’re peering into the very moment of creation.” He chuckled. “I get a kick out of sitting in my Captain Kirk chair, watching us go where no man has gone before.”
Ford watched him settle in his chair, kicking his feet up with a smile, and he thought—he’s the only one in this room who doesn’t look worried sick.
6
SUNDAY EVENING, THE REVEREND DON T. SPATES fitted his bulk into the makeup chair so as not to crease
