Odyssey

“Yes,” said Eric. “Absolutely.” They’d seen the people trooping in from the Galactic, especially that last bunch, the ones who’d been thrown into space for several hours. “Whatever these things are, they have no regard for human life.”

Jessica Dailey from the Black Cat wanted to know whether Eric spoke for everybody.

“He does for me,” said Valya.

“What about you, Mr. MacAllister?”

“I guess so,” MacAllister said grudgingly. He looked uncertain.

Nobody asked Amy.

THE JOURNALISTS FOLLOWED them onto the shuttle, where there were more questions and more pictures. Amy finally got her turn in the spotlight. How would it feel going back to school now that she was a national celebrity? That surprised her so thoroughly that she could only smile and ask when she’d become a celebrity.

More people were waiting in the terminal at Reagan. A beautiful chestnut-haired woman threw herself into MacAllister’s arms. (Amy saw a strange look in Valya’s eyes, but it passed quickly, and the pilot turned away.) One of the journalists drew her father aside, and she saw her chance. Hutch was standing only a few feet away, talking with Eric.

The conversation broke off when she approached. Hutch offered to give her a hand with her bag.

“It’s okay,” Amy said. “I need to talk to you.” Eric discovered he had something else to do and left them.

A news team was headed their way. Hutch nodded. “I know. But this is not a good time. Call me tonight.”

“Okay.”

“And, Amy —?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever it’s about, we’ll take care of it.”

AMY WAS NOT close to her father, even though he always tried to do the right thing. When she performed in the school theater, he was there. He came faithfully to watch her play softball. He talked to her about homework and her future and did everything he could to replace the mother who’d abandoned them both so many years before. But he’d never learned to listen. Their conversations were always one-way. So when she came home from the Surveyor museum with a story no one would believe, she did not sit down with him and tell him what had happened.

Other than Hutch, there was no one to whom she could turn. She had a couple of indifferent boyfriends, but neither would be able to understand what she was talking about. They’d both think she’d taken something. And there was a math teacher who was reasonable and sympathetic, but who was far too rational to believe a story like hers.

She had shed whatever doubts she might have had about the reality of the experience. The image of the ultratall Hutch walking out of the darkness, issuing that deadly warning, was simply too vivid. It had happened.

Damn moonriders.

Why had they picked on her in the first place? They had the Academy’s public information officer available, and the editor of The National. But the blockheads came to her. What was she supposed to do? Pass it on to the principal?

She rode home alone. Her father claimed important Senate business and put her in a taxi. Fifteen minutes later she was in her Georgetown town house replaying the experience over and over.

She became gradually aware of the silence, accented somehow by voices outside. And a barking dog.

She switched on the VR. Brought up Tangle, her favorite show. Find your way through the maze. Don’t get distracted by boys, clothing displays, misnomers, false trails. But she couldn’t keep her mind on it, and finally realized she might be on the news. She switched over and saw trouble in Central Africa. A serial killer loose in Oregon, imitating the murders done in Relentless, a popular vid from the year before. There seemed to be no end to homicidal kooks. A Senate committee was conducting hearings on whether to support the creation of an armed interstellar fleet. It would be the world’s first space navy. Then, yes! There she was. Standing off to one side at Union while Eric answered questions.

Well, tonight she’d talk to Hutch and pass the whole thing over to her. She was the big hero. Let her worry about it.

ERIC WAS HAPPY to be home. And pleased with himself. During the taxi ride from Reagan, he’d also watched himself on the news shows and decided he’d looked pretty good. Self-effacing, heroic, and always ready with a punch line. The real Eric Samuels had arrived at last.

One of his neighbors, Cleo Fitzpatrick, had been walking past as he unloaded the cab. She’d smiled brightly, told him she’d missed him, said how she’d been reading about him. Cleo was a physician. She was also a knockout who had never before paid any more than minimal attention to him. “It’s good to have you back, Eric,” she’d said, with an inviting smile.

It was good to be back. Once inside, he dropped his luggage and said hello to his AI. She whispered a throaty greeting. “It’s nice to see you again, Big Boy.” He wondered what it said for his life that the thing he had most missed was his AI. He eased down into a chair, closed his eyes, and savored the moment.

He had achieved what he set out for. He’d been part of something significant. Beyond his wildest dreams. They’d confirmed the existence of the moonriders and rescued the perso

But he couldn’t get his mind off Amy.

Kids are flexible, though. She’d get over it. He was suddenly, unaccountably, tired. It was so good to be home. Lounging on a comfortable sofa again. Stretched out in a private place, with the shades drawn against the midday sun.

It was a good life.

MACALLISTER HAD SEEN the look on Valya’s face when Tara Nesbitt showed up at Reagan. Tara was an occasional friend and sometimes a bit more. Perfect for inciting a little jealousy.

He directed Tilly to call Valya and felt his pulse pick up a notch when she appeared in the room. “Hello, Mac,” she said. She’d gotten rid of the jumpsuit and the work clothes, exchanging them for shorts and a University of Kansas pullover. The woman always looked good. Didn’t matter what she wore.

“Hello, Valentina. I just wanted to be sure you’d gotten home okay.”

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” The Greek lilt in her voice was somehow more pronounced than it had been on shipboard.

They went on in that vein for a few minutes. She was seated on a sofa, crosshatched by sunlight. Her red hair glistened, and she looked genuinely pleased to see him. The chemistry was ru

“I haven’t received my next assignment yet. They have more pilots than ships at the moment, so I expect I’ll be unemployed for a while.” She leaned back against a cushion. “Might have to find a job over at Broadbent’s.” Broadbent’s was a furniture chain.

“You don’t seriously think they’d cut back, do you?”

“They’ve already done it. Hard to see what else they could have done the way things are going. But” — she shrugged — “there’s always work for people like me.”

“I was wondering,” he said, “if you’d care to have di

“Wish I could, Mac. But I’m wiped out. I’m going in and collapse for the rest of the day.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“I’ve got relatives in tomorrow. How about Thursday?”

“Sure,” he said. “That sounds pretty good.”

AMY CALLED PROMPTLY at seven.

“I understand something happened at the museum,” said Hutch.

“Yes, ma’am. I think I talked with one of them.” Amy was in her bedroom. Pictures of Academy ships hung on the walls.

“With one of the moonriders?”

“I had no way to know for sure. But something that wasn’t human.”

“You say you think this happened.”

“It happened, Hutch,”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Describe it for me. Tell me everything. What you saw. What you heard. Don’t leave anything out.”

“All right.”

“I’m going to record it.”

Hutch had heard that the apparition had more or less taken her form. Now she listened intently while Amy told her story. How she’d been unable to sleep. Sitting on the bridge. How the figure wrapped in darkness had come down the passageway.

How it had been Priscilla Hutchins. But a taller version.

And its message. Blueprint. The Origins Project.

“We are going to destroy it.”

“Did she say why?”

“No. When I asked why she just said for me to get everybody off. That they wouldn’t wait forever. Or words to that effect.”

“Okay. Let’s go back a minute. What’s ‘blueprint’ all about?”

“It’s an old term for a building plan.”

“No. I’m aware of that. I’m just wondering what it means in this context.”

“I don’t know. I asked her what she wanted, and she said ‘blueprint.’”

“Was there anything else?”

“No. Yes. She denied they’d attacked anyone.”

WHAT WAS BLUEPRINT ?

“George.” The household AI.

“Yes, Hutch.”

“Do a search on ‘blueprint.’ I want to know — ”

“Yes —?”

What was she looking for? “If there’s any co

There were several action vids by Blueprint Entertainment that pitted various heroes against outer space monsters.

And a 250-year-old blueprint of a moonrider — they called them UFOs then — obtained originally by a married couple who claimed to have been riding all over the solar system in the vehicle.

And Blueprint for Armageddon, published in the twenty-first century, a book predicting an attack by aliens. It even had pictures of the creatures, but none of them looked anything like Hutch.

There was also the Madison, Wisconsin, urban legend about a thing ru

And an oil painting, Cosmic Blueprint, by somebody she had never heard of, depicting two ships, one obviously alien, watching each other in the foreground of a ringed planet.

She gazed thoughtfully at the alien vessel and realized she’d missed the obvious. “George.”

“Yes, Hutch.”

“Let’s try it again. Make it ‘blueprint’ and the ‘Origins Project.’” She rubbed her eyes. It had been a long day, and she was tired.

“I have more than seventeen thousand hits,” said the AI. “Do you wish to narrow it down?”