“I think that a cup of tea would be very acceptable.”
Her hesitation must have showed, because Philip smiled. “It’s a tough choice, isn’t it? Do you enjoy the company of the Ogre, or do you spend even more time with the Bastard? But that’s not a fair question. I suspect it’s the lure of refreshment that sounds interesting, not the pleasure of my company.”
He was fishing. Milly didn’t mind that, but she didn’t feel like encouraging him. No one had said anything to her about Philip Beston’s attitudes toward young women, but heredity was a powerful force. She smiled back, said “A cup of tea and something to eat with either you or Jack would be very pleasant,” and left the next move up to him.
They had passed some kind of dining room on the brief tour of Odin Station. Philip nodded and led her not in that direction, but to a different, smaller, and more private room. He closed the door carefully as they entered. Food and drink were already laid out on a credenza, which made Milly wonder how much his offer had been planned in advance. She took her lead from Philip, helped herself to a sugary cake and a glass of hot green tea, and sat opposite him at a low glass-topped table that kept their separation to a comfortable meter.
Philip ate in silence for half a minute or so. He was a slow and neat eater, like Milly herself. At last he said, “You must have done a spectacular job. I mean, the Wu-Beston anomaly. It’s not like the Ogre to share credit unless he realized that anyone looking at the work would deduce that the discovery was yours, and yours alone.”
Milly sipped tea and said in a neutral voice, “Jack has always been more than fair with me.”
“Are you sure of that? Jack has always had a bit of a reputation for stinginess. You might say it’s none of my business, but how much financial reward did he give you for the discovery?”
Milly stared. It was not a subject that had ever come up for discussion.
“The terms set out in the bequest for use of inherited money are quite specific,” Philip went on. “There are ample funds to reward the discoverer of a genuine SETI signal, and there would be no difficulty in justifying such use. And, of course, even more substantial rewards are available for the fortunate individuals who can interpret a received signal. I assume that Jack told you about all this?”
Milly’s continued silence was its own answer.
“Hmm.” Philip Beston rubbed his forefinger around the rim of his empty glass. “Pardon me if I say so, but one way or another I suspect that you are being royally screwed over by brother Jack. I want to make a suggestion — it is just a suggestion, but I’d like you to think about it over the next few hours, and tell me how you feel. All right?”
Milly felt she had to do more than sit, stare, and nod. “What sort of suggestion?”
“You’ve made a major discovery. It is officially known as the Wu-Beston anomaly. Now, to the average person in the solar system, one Beston is as good as another. They don’t know if it’s Wu-Jack or Wu-Philip Beston, and they don’t care. And to that same average person in the solar system, there is little to choose between Argus Station and Odin Station — both are at the outer edge of nowhere. You did not, I assume, sign a long-term contract to work with Jack?”
Milly shook her head.
“Which means you are free to leave at any time. Now, if you were to come here and work for me, I can assure you of three things. First, you will be given full and continuing credit for your discovery. Second, I will arrange for you to receive the maximum permissible financial reward for that discovery, including a quadrupling of your present salary. And third — which will in the long run be far more important than either of the first two — you would occupy a senior position on the interpretation team at Odin Station.” Philip placed his glass on the table in front of him. “Never forget this, Milly. Detection is important, verification is no less so; but full fame and public recognition will go to the person or team who can interpret the signal from the stars. Don’t you want to be the one who can say what it means, and point out its value to the human race? Think about it.”
Milly thought. She decided that Philip Beston must be a moron, if he imagined that she was doing this work for money. Fame, maybe — she still thrilled when she heard Wu-Beston anomaly. But money, no way. Second, Philip Beston was a scoundrel. All that talk about no one caring who the Beston was in “Wu-Beston” translated clearly to one fact: he wanted people to think that he, Philip Beston, was the Beston referred to. A safe way to do that was to switch Milly to his project on Odin Station before interpretation had begun and even before verification was completed.
He was looking at her expectantly.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “In fact, I have thought about it, as much as I need to.”
“Well.”
“I’ve concluded that Jack’s name for you is exactly right. You are Philip the Bastard. The sort of bastard who will do his best to steal from his own brother. Jack can be an Ogre when it comes to work, but he’s worth ten of you.”
There was a term for what she had just done: burning your bridges. But astonishingly, Philip Beston seemed not at all put out.
“That brother of mine,” he said, “I just don’t know how he does it. Works his people to death, insults them every chance he gets — and he still has you eating out of his hand. What’s his trick, Milly? Did he do the little-lost- boy act, making you feel that he’s all nervous and vulnerable and insecure? That worked for him very well with me when we were little, until I realized it was all a total sham. Brother Jack knows exactly how to manipulate people, always has.”
Nervous and vulnerable and insecure. The words described uncannily well the impressions that Milly had formed of Jack Beston during the trip out from Argus Station.
Either Philip Beston was totally confident of his assessment, or he was uninterested in Milly’s response. Before she could answer he had turned and was heading for the door.
“My instincts tell me that we are close to array alignment.” He seemed to be talking to himself more than to Milly. “Let’s find a place where we can see what’s going on.”
Milly doubted that it was instinct — far more likely he was wearing an intra-aural receiver — but his words made her tingle all over. She hurried after him. When your whole life hung on the next few minutes, what Jack and Philip Beston thought of each other or did to each other was down in the noise level.
The room that he led her to was empty, but well-provided with virtuals. Milly saw three display volumes. The first was an open space view of the antenna array, now fixed in position or hunting so imperceptibly that the human eye could not tell the difference. The second virtual was obviously of the control room, with half a dozen staff members eyeing output tables or talking excitedly to each other. The third virtual showed Jack Beston, sitting where Milly and Philip had left him, and intently studying what she assumed were miniature versions of the other virtuals.
Philip Beston said quietly, “Where do we stand, Laszlo?”
One of the control room figures looked up from his monitor. “We have lock on, and it’s quite tight. Our rms signal maximum lies 0.6 arc seconds away from the coordinates reported by the Argus Station. We find exactly the same pattern for signal fall-off with angle — a circular normal distribution with sigma of 1.3 arc seconds.” His voice had remained flat and factual when quoting statistics, but his final words took on a different and more animated character. “It’s there, Philip, absolutely no doubt about it. It’s there, it’s definite, it’s clear, and it is at interstellar distance. Our estimate has a most probable value of 25.8 light years, and at the very least the distance is 19 light years.”
“Target star?”
“None. It looks as though the signal is being generated in open space. That’s no particular surprise, we’ve always thought that a system of interstellar relays would make sense.”
He was saying things that Milly, and certainly Philip Beston, knew already. Given the excitement that he — and everyone else in all the virtuals — must be feeling, it was not surprising if Laszlo did a little babbling.
“You listening, Jack?” Philip Beston said. And at Jack’s slow thoughtful nod, he added, “Congratulations, brother. You already had detection, now it looks like you have a shot at strong verification. That would mean there’s just one left.”
Jack nodded again. “Yep. Just one. The big one.”
“Do you want to send the announcement, if this holds up?”
“It will. Let’s send this one together. It’s the third one that I’m going to send solo.”
“Let’s just say that one of us will be sending it solo. Race you to the corner, eh, brother?” Philip flipped a
