Odyssey

“No,” he said. “They’re not really relevant to anything.”

“Unless the Origins Project blows up.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“If it does, if, and it happens without warning — ”

“Valya, they throw rocks you can see coming for a long time — ”

“Eric told me the apparition denied the asteroid stories. If Amy’s got it right, more than a hundred people will die out there.”

“If something were to happen, there’d be time to get them off.”

“Worst-case scenario. If it did happen, suddenly, a surprise, how would you feel? All those people dead?”

“I don’t deal in hypotheticals, Valya.”

“Sure you do. It’s bread and butter for the media. What if she’s right? I mean, the moonriders were there, weren’t they? In the vicinity of the museum?”

“We didn’t see anything.”

“The monitor picked them up.”

“We dropped the monitor a long way from the museum.”

“Hell, Mac, they could have been at the front door, and you wouldn’t have seen them.”

“Are you really going to argue she actually talked with an alien?”

“I’m talking like you said: hypotheticals.”

He was tired of Amy’s story. “Look, assume for a minute the moonriders wanted to talk to us. Warn us they were going to take down a major facility. Why would they pass the message to Amy? Why not me? Or Eric?”

“Maybe they thought she’d be the easiest one there to talk to.”

“Ho-ho.” He kept his tone soft. Make it clear he was above taking offense. “Although there is something ominous about the Origins Project.”

“Really? And what’s that?”

He told her about the call from Anthony DiLorenzo.

“I’ll be damned,” she said. “He really said that?”

“Yes, he did.”

She thought about it. “I just can’t believe it’s possible, Mac.” They sat looking at each other. “We need to change the mood,” she said.

She went back to her quarters. He heard her talking with Bill. Then she returned with a bottle of wine. “With the noted Gregory MacAllister on board, I think the captain is justified in declaring a special occasion.”

“Do I get to make a speech?”

“Go ahead.”

“You are the loveliest captain this side of Sirius.”

She reached for an opener while he examined the bottle. “I’m not sure, Mac, but that may not be much of a compliment.”

“Accept it in the spirit intended.”

“Indeed I will.”

They opened it and filled two glasses. “You’re a remarkable guy, you know that?”

“Thank you.”

“You can be a bit of a strain sometimes, but God knows, as I think I said earlier, you’re always a kick to have around. Anyhow, if we’re about to be overrun by moonriders, or sucked down into the universal black hole, we should probably drink up while we can.” She filled their glasses. “When we get home, I’ll cook a meal for you. If you like.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”

He began to suspect she was offering herself to him. MacAllister had never been quick on the social subtleties attendant on romantic relations. Still, there was no mistaking the luminous quality of her face, the body language, the growing huskiness in her voice. But something warned him off. He’d managed his share of intimate encounters over the years, so it wasn’t that he was a stranger to such things. But something restrained him. It might have been the eternal vigilance of the AI, the sense that any playing around on the Salvator was necessarily a ménage. Or maybe it seemed improper when they were supposed to be racing to the rescue of four stranded construction workers. Whatever it was, it seemed too soon. Laid her at the first opportunity. What would that say about him? And yet he wondered why he was hesitating. Why on Earth did he care about the proprieties?

Sex with Valentina would mean more than a simple romp with one of the groupies who often sought him out. It would not be a quick roll in the hay, then back out into the workaday world. Even if there was a workaday world beyond the hatches. But there was more than that. Take Valentina into his bed, and he knew he would never again be free. It might already be too late. He found himself thinking of her at odd hours, wondering what she might be doing at any given moment, wondering how she would react if he admitted to being entranced by her.

Hutch had told him once that captains were prohibited by regulation from improper relations with passengers. On consideration, it now seemed a wise, if unrealistic, restriction. So he held back.

They talked politics, books, and vids they’d both liked. (MacAllister didn’t like many.) They speculated on the moon-riders, circled back to Amy’s dream, wondered whether anything intelligible would ever be learned at Origins. MacAllister mentioned how good she looked, and she observed that Mac had a lot of savoir faire for a reporter.

Eventually it simply became too much. Probably she’d intended it from the begi

Mac, for once, was at a loss for words.

She tugged at his belt, but stopped and asked him to wait a minute. She strode topless across the deck and onto the bridge. The lights dimmed and went out, leaving only a few glowing strips. She became a shadowy figure moving toward him, shedding clothes as she came.

“Why didn’t you just tell Bill to do that?” he asked.

“Bill’s in sleep mode,” she said.

He hadn’t even known there was a sleep mode.

The sofa wasn’t lush, but neither were the beds in their compartments. The sofa had the advantage of providing more space. He was thinking how the Salvator was not built for romance, but she certainly was. There was a last fleeting notion that he should not let this go any further. Then his good sense kicked in.

I don’t know whether I have ever felt quite the same degree of exhilaration as on that night, racing across the stars, knowing the whole time the asteroid was bearing down on that group of unfortunates stranded at the Galactic. It was one of those occasions when one ceases to be simply a reporter, and becomes instead a participant.

— The Notebooks of Gregory MacAllister

chapter 31

The sheer size of the Capella asteroid, and the thought of the kind of technology it must have taken to redirect it and aim it at the Galactic, to arrange that it arrive at the precise time and place to intercept the hotel, carries one overwhelming message: The best way for the human race to handle the moonriders would be to hide under the table.

— Gregory MacAllister, Journals

He came out of a deep sleep to find her coming back off the bridge, wrapped in a sheet. “Anything wrong?” he asked.

“Just waking Bill.” She stopped for a moment, pretending i

“‘Naked Singularity,’” said MacAllister.

“Mac, you’re shameless.”

“Or maybe ‘Unclad at Capella.’”

“Are you trying out titles?”

“How’d you guess?”

“For a National story? Or your autobiography?” She pulled the sheet tighter, revealing more. “How about ‘Orgy at Ophiuchi’?”

More than ever, he felt the restrictions imposed by the bulkheads. He would have liked to take her out somewhere, to a park, or a restaurant, or simply for a walk downtown. He wanted to show her off.

“Last night was very nice, Mac,” she said. “I think you do not believe all the things you say.”

“What do I say?”

“That there’s a legitimate point of view for celibacy.”

“I never said that.”

“You imply it.”

“That’s because families are such a hassle.”

“Do you have any? Children?”

“No.”

“Then what do you know about it?”

“Bizet never went to a bullfight.”

“That sounds like a myth. How could anybody possibly know whether he did or not?”

“All you have to do is listen to people who’ve been through the experience. Do you have any kids?”

“No.”

“Okay. Most people who’ve been parents will tell you that when they first started thinking about marriage they would have been smart to head for a mountaintop and go into philosophy.”

“Mac,” she said, “you deliver these generalizations, and they are both fu

MacAllister showered and dressed. Then she showed him pictures of the hotel. Some walls and panels were in place, and even a few viewports, but the Galactic was still, for the most part, no more than a large gridwork. When completed, it would have resembled the Crystal Palace.

Watching the images seemed to have a depressing effect on Valya. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Something’s wrong.”

She didn’t reply.

“The hotel?”

“No,” she said. “It’s okay.”

“They can build a new hotel, Valya. And everybody’s getting out.”

“Damn it, Mac, I don’t care about the hotel.”

Oh. “We’re talking about last night.”

She shrugged.

“There’s no commitment,” he said.

“I know.”

“Then what?”

He could see her debating whether to answer. “Call it sleeping with the enemy.”

“I’m not an enemy,” he said.

She nodded. “I know, Mac. I know.”

CAPELLA FEATURES FOUR suns. Two were immediately visible when they arrived in-system. They were yellow-white class-Gs, one slightly brighter than the other. “These two,” said Bill, “are both much larger than Sol. Each has a diameter of about fourteen million kilometers.”

MacAllister tried to recall the size of the sun.

“Ten times greater,” said Bill, apparently reading his mind. “And much brighter. Capella A is eighty times as luminous. B is about fifty times brighter.”

“That sounds as if they burn a lot of fuel,” he said.

“That is correct. Each of these two has completed its hydrogen-burning phase.” He paused. “They’re dying giants, Mac.”

“Bill,” Valya said, “open a cha