“Give this back to the courier, please, JuMing.”
“Yes, Chen Zufu.”
When his aide came back with the same envelope he had sent, Milbank looked at him curiously.
“You delivered it?”
“Yes, sir. The young man at the reception desk took it back into the building, and ten minutes later he returned and handed it back to me.”
“All right. Thanks.”
The aid left and Milbank looked at the envelope. What was that smell? He smelled at the envelope and smiled. Tea.
Milbank cut the envelope open and pulled out the note. ‘Yes, in all particulars.’ Well, that was reassuring.
And, stamped in red ink, the single Chinese character, one Milbank recognized. One anybody on Arcadia would recognize for that matter. Chen. No given name, just the family name. Only Chen Zufu would stamp a note like that. Only the head of the family would stamp a note with the family name alone. The Chen.
Milbank destroyed the note by lighting it and dropping it in the little receptacle by his desk for the purpose.
He’d write his speech this weekend and deliver it Tuesday, he decided.
One week after the probe disappeared.
On Monday night, Karl Huenemann had dinner with Gerard Laporte. Their conversation began in earnest after they were seated and had ordered.
“What’s going on with you, Karl?”
“Not much, Gerard. We’re working on completing the second hyperspace probe while I wait for the other shoe to drop.”
“The other shoe?”
“Yes. Whatever Rob is going to do. He has a speech scheduled for tomorrow night. I don’t know what he’s going to do.”
“Well, he’d better not try to pin blame for what is the normal occurrence in experimental endeavors, which is that they don’t always go swimmingly. I’ve warned him, Karl, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“That’s comforting, but I just don’t know what he’s going to do.”
“Are the theoretical people crowing about being right?”
“No, they’re quiet, too, Gerard. And we don’t know that they are right. I think the hyperspace generator burned out on a single transition, so it couldn’t transfer back. Which is to say, I was right to be worried about it, but I wasn’t worried about it enough. That’s a whole different scenario than that they were right.”
“I see. Well, the project is very important to Rob, Karl. He wants hyperspace travel, and he wants it bad enough he can taste it. My suspicion is that he’s going to ask for more money – and bigger money – to fund a second try.”
“That would be welcome, but we don’t really need bigger money. We do need money to continue, but it won’t be any more expensive than the first attempt was. Should be less. I mean, we already have the second probe near completion.”
Laporte nodded.
“I understand, but we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see what he’s going to do. He hasn’t shared anything with me yet, so I’m just guessing.”
“All right. Thanks, Gerard.”
Rob Milbank’s speech on Tuesday night was carried live on the Arcadia news wires.
“Good evening, my fellow Arcadians.
“I thought I would bring you up to speed on certain events, and tell you my reaction to those events, what we will be doing going forward.
“Sixteen years ago, mathematicians at the University of Arcadia postulated the existence of hyperspace, a universe adjacent to our own. They spent a number of years deriving the mathematics of its existence – how it works, what it means for us, how we can use it.
“The most stunning implication is that we could use it to travel to other star systems. Our ships would transfer into hyperspace, travel in that domain, and then transfer back. The geometry of hyperspace as we understand it means that such travel would take much less time than in our own universe. Where it would take centuries to travel one light-year here, our ships could travel light-years per day in hyperspace.
“The benefits to Arcadia of that kind of breakthrough would be breathtaking. We would be able to purchase technologies and products from other worlds that would make life easier for all Arcadians. We would also be able to export our technologies and products to other worlds, expanding our markets and increasing our prosperity.
“Our engineers have been working toward that end for several years. It has not been an inexpensive effort. But the promise and the hope of a successful outcome made the effort and cost worthwhile.
“Last week – a week ago today, in fact – we made the first attempt to transfer a probe into hyperspace and back. That effort would be a tiny first step in moving us toward hyperspace travel.
“That effort failed. The probe exited space-time and went – where? We don’t know. All we really know is that it didn’t come back.
“Now we are faced with a decision. What do we do now? Do we continue to spend money and effort on this project? Or do we cancel the project, and set the effort aside, perhaps to be revisited at a later time?
“That decision, under the legislation that funded the project, is mine, and I have struggled with it this past week. Both paths are compelling – hyperspace travel is worth the effort, while we have things here on Arcadia that are worth doing – but there are limited resources and I must decide.
“I have decided that we will set this project aside for now. I don’t disagree with doing the project at some point. I think we simply may have been premature. We will let our mathematicians continue to develop their theory and framework, and revisit the possibility of hyperspace travel in the future.
“But for right here, right now, I am cancelling the project, and moving on to the more mundane issues facing your government. Together, we will turn our attentions to our more pressing problems closer to
