Infinity Beach

“Doctor, I’m informed you’re in possession of a piece of government property. Is it with you now?”

She looked toward Ali.

He shook his head. No use lying. They’d only board and search. “It is,” she said.

“Very good. Please use care with it. We’ll be drawing alongside shortly. I’ll expect you to have it ready for me.”

He signed off.

“It probably doesn’t matter anyhow,” Ali said. “You can’t give the Valiant back to the owners if they don’t even want to say hello.” He looked subdued.

“Are we still sending out the vocabulary package?”

“Every sixty minutes.”

Everything was coming apart. The Valiant would go into a government laboratory somewhere, search efforts for the civilization which produced it would be misdirected, and Kim would not hear about butterflies and shrouds again during the course of her lifetime. The world would never learn of the sacrifice made by the celestials at Mount Hope. And when we do finally meet, at whatever remote date that might be, it will be as potential antagonists. “Every hour,” she said. “That seems stupid, doesn’t it? Under the circumstances? I mean, we’re not getting any results.”

“We don’t seem to be.”

“Shut it down, Ali. We’ve still got some time. Let’s try something else.” She brought up the Valiant package, the Valiant ru

Ali passed the instructions to the AI. “Canceling second-phase package,” it said. “Proceeding with Valiant transmission.”

They watched the console. Lights blinked, and the visuals went out.

There was a terrace on the second level with an aft view. Nobody was using it, and Kim strolled onto it and stood in the starlight looking at the sky. The banshee and its escorts were back there somewhere, less than two hours away.

“It was a good try, Kim.” The voice startled her. It was Matt’s, and she read concern in his face. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t,” she said.

His tone changed. Grew optimistic. “You’ve confirmed a major discovery. We know they’re here. And we have an artifact. That’s not a bad piece of work.”

“We also know,” she said, “that if we ever are able to talk to celestials, what their first question’s going to be.”

“Well, we’ll just have to explain as best we can.”

“Killed the crew and took the ship. Good luck to us, Matt.”

“Kim—”

“Let it go.”

He settled into a chair. “They’re scared, Kim. You really can’t blame Woodbridge. He’s just taking your advice.”

The great star-clouds glowed in the night.

“Don’t put this on me,” she said. “I’m tired of that game. He has as much information as I do. He knows what happened at Mount Hope. He knows what the Valiant crew did.”

“But he has more responsibility than you do. If you’re wrong, well, maybe we lose a ship. A few lives. If he gets it wrong, there could be a catastrophe. God knows what it could bring down on our heads. We haven’t really done a study to determine what contact would mean. Despite Beacon, despite all the missions, we never really thought through the potential consequences.” The chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “Let it go. In the long run, we’ll be better off.”

“You really believe that, Matt?”

From the adjoining corridor she heard the bleep that accompanied the scan marker. The whatever was looking at them again. Making sure they hadn’t changed course. She wondered what they made of the warships. The presence of the fleet, if it provided comfort to Ali and some of her colleagues, was as likely as not to scare off anything in the neighborhood.

“You know,” she said, “if we don’t get it right this time, we may not get another chance.”

“We do what we can.”

Kim looked out at the stars, at Matt, sitting now with his eyes closed, absorbing pain, doing what he’d always done, trying to make the best of things. In the long run, we’ll be better off. He’d left the door open, and she could see down the passageway, which ultimately led back to the Institute. “I don’t understand,” she said, “why they haven’t responded. I’d think they’d want to talk about the Valiant, if nothing else.”

He shrugged. “Who’s to say? Maybe they think we’re looking to grab another one if it shows itself. Or maybe just transmitting pictures doesn’t convey the message.”

“What would?”

“I don’t know. What’s the message?”

“Hello,” she said. “We’re sorry.”

“Then maybe they need to be informed we have the Valiant with us. They don’t really know that—”

“Yeah.” She thought about it. “You might be right, Matt. All we’ve done so far is send—”

“—A lot of images. Maybe we need to show them the ship.”

She opened a cha

“We just had one.”

“It’s still ru

“That is correct.”

“How much time have we left before the good captain arrives?”

“Hour and a half, give or take.”

“There’s still time,” she said.

“Time for what?” asked Matt and Ali simultaneously.

“To go outside. Ali, can you arrange things so that when the next probe comes, we’re in the shadow of the planet? We’ll need whatever shelter we can get from the sun.”

Matt didn’t like it, but he could not withstand her determination. “I go with you, though,” he said.

“You ever been outside one of these things?”

“Have you?”

At the other end of the corridor, a staircase ascended to an air lock. Kim and Matt took the Valiant from its display case. They set it on the floor and Kim wrapped it carefully in plastic.

Ali, speaking from the pilot’s room, tried to dissuade her.

Neither of you has any EVA experience, he argued. It’s dangerous. It’s pointless. I’d prefer you not do it.

Kim thanked him for his concern. “Have to try,” she said. “It’s all we have.” They carried the microship up the stairs into the air lock, selected a pair of p-suits and dressed.

Ali came to make sure they had everything right. He lectured her some more, but ended by telling her he’d do the same thing if he were in her place. “Might as well,” he said. “We aren’t going to get to come out here again.”

Then he retreated onto the landing and Kim began depressurizing the lock.

“It’s good timing, if nothing else,” he told her, speaking now through the suit radio. “Next scan is due in eight minutes. What do you expect to happen out there anyhow?”

“We hope,” she said, “to shake hands with a celestial.”

The air lock’s outer door opened. Kim and Matt stepped through. It was like going onto a rooftop at night.

This upper section of hull was flat and rectangular, bordered by a waist-high handrail. They were still within the ship’s artificial gravity field.

Kim put the Valiant down, walked to the edge of the roof and looked over the side. It was dizzying. She felt as if she stood atop an infinitely high building whose foundation was lost in the void. The gas giant, with its system of rings and moons, lay off to her left, shielding her from the sun. “What happens if I fall off?” she asked Ali.

“Nothing,” he said. “You won’t fall. But you would float away. So it’s probably a good idea not to go too close to the edge.”

Matt stayed in the center of the roof with the Valiant.

“One minute to the next scan,” said Ali.

Kim walked over and put a hand on Matt’s shoulder. He looked lost. “You want to help?”