Jonders drummed his fingers under the edge of his desk. Why him? And why, of all times, today? Life was confounding enough already. Just three hours ago he'd been informed that he was being called back onto the Kadin program. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mister—"
"Payne. Joseph Payne," said the face in the telephone screen.
"Yes. Forgive me, Mr. Payne. You caught me at a rather difficult time. You see—well. I'm afraid I can't be of much help. Why don't you call the public information office?"
"I already have," said Payne. "I'm afraid their information was rather limited."
"I see," said Jonders. "But you understand that this is a restricted project."
"So I gathered," Payne said. "But what I was hoping to get, in part, was some
sense
of what the project is—"
"Beg pardon?"
"Well—how can I say it? A more personal view. A sense of the goals, and so forth."
"The only thing I can tell you about the goals is what's in the press releases."
Payne scratched his temple. "You mean,
Father Sky
being the first of its kind in the use of tachyon communications? And its mission profile, which is rather nebulously described as 'exploration of the interstellar medium and the cometary cloud'?"
"Is that what the release says?"
"More or less."
"Well—" Jonders shrugged. "I can't tell you anything more. Now, I really must excuse myself, and ask that you call the press office with any further—"
"Could I ask you just one more thing?" Payne said politely.
"I suppose so."
"Well, two things really."
Jonders sighed. "What, Mr. Payne?"
The newsman paused. "Have tachyon signals have ever been received from a source other than our own spacecraft?"
"Not that I know of. Perhaps some natural sources. It's not my field."
Payne's eyebrows moved together. "I see. Well, then. Perhaps you could tell me something about a woman named Mozelle Moi. She works, or worked, at your institute. I've been trying to get in touch with her, but your personnel office hasn't been able to help me much."
Jonders, for a moment, could not speak. His eyes and mouth froze in a querying expression; finally he got control of his emotions, blinked and said, slowly, "No. I'm afraid I can't. And now, I really must go. I have a busy schedule."
Payne nodded. "Well, then. Thank you for your time." A moment later, the screen was blank.
Jonders exhaled slowly, staring at the telephone. How in God's name had that man heard about Mozy? He shook his head in dismay and began leafing uselessly through the papers on his desk. A couple of days out of the office, and things were already a mess. He hadn't even caught up yet on major developments. There was something here from Diana Thrudore; she was trying to have Mozelle transferred to a civilian treatment center, and she wanted Jonders's support. Apparently there had been another linkup attempt between Mozy-Earth and Mozy-ship (still alive!), and they had somehow botched it, much to Dr. Thrudore's displeasure. Mozy-ship, he had casually been informed, was not only alive, but was more cantankerous than ever. He could not help smiling at the thought.
That damn newscoper, though! How
could
he have found out about Mozy? Security would have to be informed, of course. Which reminded him—there was a message from Joe Kelly waiting on the internal circuit. He swung to his console and called it to the screen. It was a report on Hoshi Aronson, now in New Phoenix Memorial Hospital. He leaned forward and read:
"The neurosurgeon stated that Hoshi Aronson was suffering from neurologic voltage imbalances in the right cerebral cortex, apparently caused by an electrical malfunction in his implanted visual microprocessing circuitry. The surgeon indicated that Mr. Aronson's aberrant behavior may be partially attributable to these imbalances and the resulting electrical discharges. Final determination must await corrective surgery and follow-up psychiatric evaluation.
"Looks like you were right on this one, Bill."
It was signed by Joe Kelly, with a postscript to the effect that he had requested Dr. Thrudore's participation in the evaluation. Perhaps, Kelly had added, the question of Hoshi's intent in the whole Mozelle business could finally be laid to rest.
Thank God for small favors, Jonders thought. He began to type a report to Kelly on the newscoper's questions, then glanced at the time and jumped up. He was supposed to be in Marshall's office.
* * *
Carpeted in maroon, with textured wallpaper and mahogany trim, the corridor outside the director's briefing room felt like the calm before the storm. Jonders took a deep breath. He was waved right in, and before he had even taken a seat, someone pushed a pen and a set of papers toward him. He looked around. Marshall, Fogelbee, Kelly. Diana Thrudore was here, too, scowling impatiently.
"I'll get right to the point," Marshall said. "Leaving aside whatever role you played in Miss Moi's survival—"
Jonders blinked, but did not react.
"—we're facing an even more serious situation." He looked at Jonders and at Thrudore. "You are both being granted S-1 security clearances, effective immediately. Once you understand and sign those documents in front of you, we can get on with what I have to say."
There was silence, and some rustling of paper, and then that was done.
"Good." Marshall leaned back in his seat. "Now listen—especially you, Bill. You've done a lot of hard work on this project, and we've kept you in the dark—more than you've liked, I know. Well, now we're going to tell you what
Father Sky
and Kadin are really out there to do. Ken, get the lights, will you?"
Jonders opened his eyes a little wider, and exchanged glances with Thrudore.
* * *
The screen went dark, and the room lights came up again. Jonders sat silently mulling the excerpt he had been shown of the alien message.
"That," Marshall said, "is the reason for the security. And that's why, Dr. Thrudore, we can't let you move Mozelle to a civilian hospital, where questions would have to be answered. A great deal may ride on our establishing contact—and I mean genuine contact, not just a sighting—with this alien thing, spacecraft, or whatever it turns out to be."
"It seems to me," Jonders remarked, "that I could have done my job better if you'd explained all of this before."
"That's not under discussion," Marshall said. "Your cooperation is. Dr. Thrudore, can we count on you?"
Thrudore was silent, frowning, for a long time. "My patient is my primary responsibility," she said finally. "I must be given cooperation in treating her. And," she warned, "there must be no repetition of what happened in that last session."
Marshall acquiesced with a slight tilt of his head. "We handled that poorly. It was a mistake not to have Bill there." He turned to Jonders. "And that's why we need
you
. If anyone can reestablish a working relationship with Mozelle—"
"Mozy-ship, you mean?"
"Correct. We need you to do that. At least until we've resolved the computer malfunction."
"And then?"
Marshall answered without expression. "We shall still need a working relationship. It would appear that she's there to stay."
"I'm not sure she'll trust me more than you."
"Nevertheless, she has asked for you since the first time Donna Fenstrom replaced you in the link. Since I don't doubt that you assisted her in some way to survive—" Jonders looked at him blankly "—at the very least, tipped her off—"
Marshall's gaze finally forced Jonders to nod. "So she has more reason to trust you than anyone else," Marshall said.
Jonders considered. "Will you let me tell her what you've just told me—about the mission?"
Marshall studied him silently. "I'll ask Hathorne," he said at last.
The stars were tumbling, gyrating, dancing. Cosmic radiation sparkled in an auroral display, and the music of the stars and galaxies sang a song of life and death . . . and love. The serenade was perfect, blissful in the waning tide of love's movements. They caressed one another gently, lingeringly, their thoughts intertwined.
They slept, dozing and dreaming and bumping comfortably against one another.
Something, though, was calling insistently for their attention.
As she awakened, and her thoughts drained back out toward the extremities of her world, Mozy smiled sleepily. She had an inkling of what was happening. Her heart was spinning. And her mind. Spinning with pleasure.
The spacecraft was spinning, too. They had lost control again. Mozy slipped back into her awareness of a body that
was
the spacecraft, and queried Mother Program. From Kadin, there was no communication in words, but only a hazy glow, a friendly incoherence.
Mother Program responded at once: (DRIVE WAS SHUT DOWN BY AUTOSEQUENCE UPON COMMENCEMENT OF TUMBLING. KADIN PROGRAM DROPPED OUT OF OVERRIDE . . .)
Mozy interrupted her. (We lost our heads again. Yes—well, Mother Program, we were making love. I hope it doesn't shock you to hear me say that, but it was . . .) She ran out of words, remembering the excitement and pleasure, the warmth of touching, knowing, sharing. She had to force herself to stop the memory.
(Please give me correctional information,) she said abruptly. (Did we seriously endanger the ship?)
(PROBABILITY OF SERIOUS DAMAGE OCCURRING REACHED 73 PERCENT PRIOR TO SHUTDOWN OF DRIVE. SHALL I DEFINE "SERIOUS"?)
(Don't bother. Please go on.)
She listened as she worked, firing jets to slow the tumble. (Nothing we can't handle?) she said, responding to a litany of needed corrections.
(NO. HOWEVER, THIS ASSUMES RELIABLE MANUAL OVERRIDE CONTROL . . .)
(Okay, okay.) She didn't need a sermon from Mother Program. She continued making the corrections, dipping when necessary into Mother Program's stores of technical instructions. In time, she became aware of Kadin's presence beside her again, and she reached out to him with a tendril of thought. He did not directly respond, and she pulled back, a little puzzled.
Kadin remained quiet, pursuing his own thoughts.
She continued working, until at last the stars had stopped their spinning. Kadin's proximity, and his silence, remained an enigma to her. (We really let go, didn't we?) she commented, after a while. There was no answer from Kadin. (I'm glad we did,) she said. (It's something
I
wanted to do.) After another minute of silence, she said, (Mother Program just about gave up on us, you know. How are we going to explain this course screwup to Homebase?)
Kadin finally responded—with what
felt
like a smile. (We'll call it computer error,) he said.
Mozy laughed softly as she throttled up the main drive and trimmed the heading. She felt odd: dizzy and anxious, euphoric and content, all at the same time. There remained a spinning feeling within her, but this had nothing to do with the ship's attitude. After a while, Kadin began murmuring to himself, and seemed to want to say something. (David?) she said.
(It was a most interesting and . . . exhilarating . . . experience,) he said suddenly.
(Yes.)
(I enjoyed it,) he said, but there was something about his manner that seemed different, puzzled. (Mozy?)
(I enjoyed it, too,) she said quickly.
(Mozy, I'm trying to comprehend it all, but it's . . . difficult. There is so much to think about, so much to consider. The storytellers, the psychologists . . . what they say is . . . well, it's difficult to precisely connect their statements with what I felt. And the physical sensations, I . . . of course, I mostly shared your feelings in that, but it was . . . remarkable.)
(Yes. It was. We almost wrecked the ship, though, is the only problem,) Mozy said.
Kadin seemed to think about that, almost audibly working it around in his mind. (If we had harmed the ship,) he said, (that would have been irresponsible. We must not forget why we're here.)
(Do you think . . . well . . . that there's any chance . . . any way we could . . . do that again . . . but without . . . that problem?)
There was a long and awkward silence, in which she refrained from begging him to say
something
; then Mother Program interrupted to tell them that Homebase was calling.
* * *
Jonders floated like a golden hologram, against the stars.
Mozy hardly knew what to say. (They told me you were off the project,) she said finally. Somewhere in a corner of her mind was an odd feeling of embarrassment, as though she had been caught by her father, fooling around upstairs with a boy.
Jonders explained his return to duty, remarking, (I gather that relations became a little strained between you and Ken Fogelbee.)
(You might put it that way,) Mozy said. She didn't want to think about it now.
(I'd like to ask you more about that, but first, I have some information to pass on to you. Unless David has already told you—)
(About the mission?)
(Yes.)
Kadin spoke up softly. (I have not told her—though I sorely wanted to.)
(I see,) said Jonders. He seemed to gather his thoughts. (I told you,) he said finally, (that Kadin's purpose was to oversee any contact, should you—the spacecraft—encounter intelligent life in the coming—)
(Yes, but you didn't say why we had turned back toward the sun.)
(No. I didn't know, myself, at the time.)
(And now you do.)
(Yes. You are going to make your contact sooner than I imagined. In eleven days, you will be matching orbits with a spacecraft of alien origin. A spacecraft that is bound inward to the solar system. Bound, we think, for Earth.)
(Alien . . .?) Mozy's mind blanked, then slammed back to full attention. (Did you say,
eleven days?
)
(It's approaching from the direction of the constellation Serpens, and is still somewhat further out than you. You are accelerating to match its speed inward, toward the sun.)
(And we're to contact them . . . the aliens?)