Boundary 2: Threshold (14 page)

"No, I understand, Nick," Joe said. "Actually, it's the damn Faerie Dust again. A.J. has several new designs, and one of them—based partly off some of the Bemmie concepts we've managed to derive, and partly on our own experiences—is meant to literally go through something almost a molecule at a time, rearranging stuff according to a prior pattern. A reconstruction expert's dream. He wanted something to test this on, and while this is a lot bigger than he originally thought, he probably won't have to do that kind of thing on most of it. The main hull and structural members are made of the same carbon-metal composite-ceramic stuff the Vault was armored with. I suspect the best use of the Faerie Dust will be reconstructing the superconducting components."

"Could we just build one of these ships from scratch, rather than trying to rebuild something older than humanity?" Nicholas asked reasonably. "There's a certain poetry about some ancient alien ship being brought back from the grave, so to speak. But won't it be just far more work to reconstruct this one?"

Maddie answered that, somewhat to his surprise. "Probably not, Dr. Glendale. First, I don't think Joe and A.J. would have neglected to think of that, so they wouldn't be proposing this if they didn't think it would be the right course. But more importantly, while I think that we—as the human race—probably could build one more easily, I doubt seriously that we—as the IRI and Ares—can. It's a matter of what resources we have and how we can apply them. In Joe, Ren, and A.J. we have the resources to reconstruct this ship, though it will undoubtedly take time. We simply do not have the resources to build an entire ship from scratch. If we did, you wouldn't have had the trouble you did getting
Nobel
built in the first place."

"She's got it," Joe confirmed. "Sure, we could just hand over the discovery to everyone, and I'll bet that the United States or the E.U. would build at least a test ship in a few years without any strain at all, but then we don't get any real benefit out of the deal."

And that's the real rub,
Nicholas thought. The whole point of the cooperative agreement was to let both parties get some use out of the deal, and with Ares personnel making the discovery, they did, indeed, have the right to profit from it. "Madeline?"

"I think I have to go with them, sir."

The tone of voice surprised him. So did the formal address. He had known she'd want to, but Madeline would never try to justify it without cause. "What is the problem?"

She gestured out the window. Glancing out, he saw the massive habitat ring of
Odin
gliding by in stately fashion. The E.U. vessel was currently docked to Phobos Station, transferring supplies it had brought from Earth, and was preparing to make its return journey. The
Odin
had made the trip entirely under the mass-beam system and was to return using mostly the fuel it had captured from the beam, thus proving both components of the system. The E.U. was also constructing a second mass-beam unit near Mars, a move which would permit extremely quick transits between Earth and Mars in both directions.

"That's the problem, sir. I know that the E.U. has been very accommodating, and that as a U.N. agency we can't very well forbid them from going anywhere. None of us want to be unfriendly, anyway. But if we're trying to keep secrets from them on Ceres, it's going to be a hell of a job.
Odin
carries a crew of slightly over one hundred people, and we're going to have—even if all three of us go—a total of less than twenty people on Ceres to keep an eye on them."

Nicholas shook his head in chagrin. "You know, I hadn't even thought of that. And they are of course going to Ceres as soon as they finish this return trip."

"Of course," Madeline acknowledged. "Not only have they already been implying that, but with Ceres now an established base that has some resources of its own, it makes an absolutely ideal destination for a longer-range test of the mass-beam, especially the self-guiding components. They have at least some hope of getting help if something goes wrong, and they'll be the first people outside of our group to get to see the material on Ceres firsthand. They will expect—and have to be given—some considerable access to the base. The Mars Accords make that very clear. And in any case, even with Ares' claim verified, it's a matter of good strategy to not annoy organizations a thousand times your size. Playing that kind of handicapped chess game is something I absolutely do
not
want to do by remote control."

She chewed her lip. "Also, I've looked over their personnel lists. There are some people there that make me nervous, especially their chief of security."

Nicholas sighed. "I won't say I like the idea of you leaving, Madeline, because I don't. But I would be doubly a fool if I hired the best security specialist in the solar system and then ignored her own advice. If I said that I was not going to approve Joe and Reynolds going to do this reconstruction, would that change your mind?"

"No. It would make it a much more painful decision, sir, but I really think that Ceres is going to be our vulnerable area for a while to come. Especially since we have two major secrets there at this point."

"So they are convinced it was fusion?"

"Ninety percent, anyway," Joe answered. "If it gives us enough hints, this would be a bigger jump forward than even the superconductor."

Nicholas brought up the orbital application he'd come to rely on over the past few years. "The real question is whether we can make this work.
Nobel
will be getting back here soon, but it will be
very
tight. The only launch window we will have for a reasonable transit time to Ceres—say, six months—is going to be in two months from now. If we're right that
Odin
will set out for Ceres shortly after she gets to Earth, then she'll be launching for Ceres—using mass-beam for constant acceleration—just about the time you get to Ceres. And that means you will have only a few weeks to prepare. I suggest strongly that you have A.J. do as much as possible via remote, even if it means that he'll do things more slowly than you would. Otherwise you will lose at least eight months of work."

"I was planning on that anyway, but I'll make it a priority," Joe said. "I guess we'd better get planning. Sure don't want to leave the wrong stuff behind."

Nicholas sighed. Obviously he wasn't going back to sleep tonight. "No. And I have to get other things moving. I was originally planning on having
Odin
ferry some of our personnel out there, but if I'm sending
Nobel
back out right away, it makes more sense to send anything I can back that way. And a good thing that
Odin
brought Tammy and Stevie out as a favor. I'd hate to try to tell Bruce that he was going to have to wait another year or more to see them."

"You're going to send them out with us?"

"That'll be between them," Nicholas answered. "They'll have more than a month to work that out, but I'm not telling them what to do."

Joe shook his head dolefully as he got up to leave. "I dunno, Nick. Now we've got the last element for disaster—a cute, perky little girl to be shipped off to the isolated space colony."

"Funny," Nicholas said with a smile as they were exiting. "According to Bruce, the recipe for disaster is to have a gentleman named 'Joe Buckley' on board his ship. So I suppose you're right in either case. Make sure your insurance is up to date, Maddie."

She looked concerned. "Bruce does have a point. Maybe I could go out on
Odin
a little later—"

"Maddie!"

"—but then, who'd be there to rescue him from the inevitable disaster?" she finished, grinning. "I'll be back later to help start the planning, Dr. Glendale."

"Thank you, Madeline."

Nicholas gazed out at the
Odin. How easily the universe gets more complicated,
he mused.
I wonder if it will ever get simpler?

"—and that should catch anyone trying to sneak in, no matter how smart they think they are, or how advanced they think their skills and gadgets are," A.J. finished.

Maddie couldn't restrain a smile. "I seem to recall someone who used to tell me how free information wanted to be and was the kind of guy I was afraid I'd have to have arrested just to maintain security."

A.J. returned the smile. "Yeah, I remember him. In this case, the information wants to be expensive. Instead of fighting against that evil government witch who wanted to allow the government to take our hard-won data, I'm simply protecting Ares' God-ordained profits. Completely different."

"No similarity at all," she agreed gravely. The smile came back. "Anyway, let me say I'm a lot happier working with you than against you."

"Same here. Neither one of us was enjoying that part of the first trip. And I'm glad it never came down to a real argument, because I'd have lost."

She was startled by A.J.'s candid admission—the more so because it was, in her experience, only the first or second time he might have been underestimating himself. "You know, I think you're growing up despite yourself." She leaned back until her chair bumped the wall of the Ceres control center.

The sensor expert's face gave a reflexive twitch, then settled back into a smile—but one with a startlingly sad edge. "Yeah. I try not to let anyone else see it, and sometimes I even fool myself. But I'm not the same A.J. Baker, not really. Not the guy who couldn't keep from throwing an annoying photographer through a window, or who had to show off every six seconds to everyone, or who thought he was an unstoppable supergenius."

"That bother you?"

He shrugged. "Sure, some. But he also wasn't the kind of guy who could really have appreciated Helen, even if that was the way I was when I first fell in love with her. You know, I think the whole crash-landing-and-survival bit really helped. Nothing like a little life-and-death peril to focus a guy on what really matters." He studied her a moment. "You, though, you're more yourself than you were before. I'll bet that's another reason they let you go."

"You could be right." She thought back to various conversations she'd had with Director Hughes over the years. He had always been very careful to maintain a professional quality to their relationship, but it was clear that he cared very much what happened to her. "You probably are right. I think he didn't really like the idea of my continuing on as an agent until I was old enough for retirement. The administration just gave him a good excuse to get me to move on."

"And Joe gave you motivation to move on. Well, enough psychology. Are we set?"

"I think so." Madeline went over the security contingencies in her mind one last time.
Odin
would be arriving at Ceres soon, and while they'd spent months en route debating and rehashing the various means by which they could satisfy treaty obligations and still not give away everything the IRI-Ares group had discovered, it was now down to the actual event. There was no telling how long
Odin
would remain on-station. The current friendly relationship between the IRI and the E.U. made it a matter of obvious policy to encourage them to stay and assist, and the E.U.'s own interests would obviously be served by being able to study another alien installation.

She had also finally managed to confirm something she would rather not have had confirmed: the Richard Fitzgerald who served as
Odin
's security chief was indeed the same person she'd feared it was. The man from northern Ireland liked to call himself a "commercial and industrial expediter," but he was really just a mercenary. He'd gotten his start in one of the elite British military units and had left that service under vague but apparently cloudy circumstances. "Cloudy," in this instance, being indistinguishable from "unsavory."

She'd had one brush with him before, and she hadn't liked what she'd seen one bit. Fitzgerald was undoubtedly intelligent and competent. But, so far as she'd been able to determine, he was also a man without a conscience beyond a determination to finish any job he started. For all practical purposes, a functional sociopath.

What was even more disturbing was the fact that he'd been selected—from a very wide field of candidates—to be in charge of
Odin
's security. Why? And that gave rise to other serious questions, the most important of which was the sheer size of the E.U. ship's security force. Why would anyone in their right mind think they'd need almost ten percent of a large crew on an interplanetary ship to consist of security people? Did they think there might still be some live and hostile Bemmies lurking about, sixty-five million years later? That made as much sense as worrying there might still be dinosaurs roaming around loose.

She realized she had been gazing into space while A.J. waited patiently. "Yes, all set, A.J. I know you want to get back to working on the ship with Joe and Ren, so go to it."

"Cool. But actually, I'm going to go see Helen first. She's just decided to take a break."

Maddie raised an eyebrow. "How do you know that? I didn't hear you call her."

A.J. grinned. "Look down."

For a moment Maddie didn't understand what he meant—which was an unusual experience in itself. Then her gaze fell on her own pair of rings. "Ahh . . . she's still wearing a Faerie Dust ring?" She frowned. "And how would she feel about you spying on her?"

"Very hostile, if I actually used it that way. We had quite a talk on the subject—she's way far from stupid, so she figured out what I could do with it if I wanted to. But she doesn't mind if I have it just give me alerts on important general events, and she can always shut it off if she wants to. I gave her a general shutdown code that will force the motes to basically do nothing other than sit there and glitter. And some important general events, besides injury and so on, include detecting when she's 'on work' and 'off work.' I got an 'off work' ping just a little bit ago." He pulled on his Tayler-built suit as he spoke; this portion of the base wasn't connected to the others by pressurized corridors yet. "So I'm off to see my wife before I go geek with my friends. Is that grown-up or what?"