Enigma (31 page)

“Why is that?” Thackery asked, choosing a seat opposite the director.

The question both surprised and discomfited Zamyatin, suggesting Thackery had broken a rule of etiquette either by questioning the compliment or by not responding in kind. “Well, of course, your name is all over the contact records for this octant,” Zamyatin stuttered. “You have quite a reputation here.”

“Good or bad?”

“That’s a matter of some disagreement,” Zamyatin said, regaining his poise. “You seem to polarize opinion rather sharply. As a matter of fact, your Sennifi Contact is the model for a decision-making simulation in the Command training curriculum, and it almost always generates an animated discussion. I would have known you in any event, of course—you fairly papered this office with your proposals and theses during your last tour.”

“Have you read any of them?”

“Why, yes, one or two.”

“Then you already have a pretty good idea what I’m here for.”

“Your argument, as I understand it, is that we need experience with a selective search mode before we are forced into such a strategy by the sheer numbers of candidate stars in Phase 01.”

Thackery nodded emphatically. “Let me put some specifics on the table. The census of the galactic disk tells us we’re looking at over four thousand stars in the Phase III, 50-to-75 light-year, shell. That’s two and a half times as many systems as in Phase II. Even with the forty survey ships we’ve been promised by the Procurement Office, it’ll take a minimum of four and a half centuries to complete a comprehensive survey.”

“And so you are arguing that we should give up our commitment to a comprehensive survey.”

“As someone who has been out there, I can testify that there’s no need to survey most of those systems. We’ve already surveyed more planets than we can reasonably exploit in the foreseeable future. The Analysis Office has a tremendous back—, log of Phase II data, and even the most interesting discoveries aren’t yet scheduled for a follow-up visit. Use of high-probability search criteria is incomparably more realistic.”

Zamyatin nodded thoughtfully. “These are Planning Office decisions, of course, not Committee decisions. Nevertheless, I agree completely that to conduct Phase III the way we’ve conducted Phase II would be either unacceptably expensive or take unacceptably long. You may not be aware that the Planning Office is already leaning toward another solution. We now have a compact AVLO drive. More importantly, we have the Kleine. Those two facts mean that robot probes are now feasible. The Kleine makes the necessary remote monitoring and teleoperated systems possible.”

“So the decision has already been made?”

“Tentatively. We’ll build perhaps a hundred robot probes with teleoperated landers, and only a few additional survey ships. The robot probes will perform the comprehensive search, and the crewed survey ships will follow up on the most promising finds, be they colonies or organisms or something else of significant scientific interest. The result should be a more efficient search in a substantially reduced time frame. You see, technology has changed the strategy.”

Thackery was dismayed but undaunted. “Have any robot probes been field-tested yet?”

“No. I believe the first ones are under construction now at Advance Base Lynx.”

“Then there’s no assurance that they’ll be able to perform as required. You’re talking about an extremely complex system and an extremely difficult task.”

“That is why the decision is still considered tentative,” Zamyatin admitted, “and why none of the Cities-series survey ships have been cancelled. But I have no doubt that our engineers will eventually be able to make the probes perform as required.”

“Eventually, I agree. But the fact is that if you’re only just getting around to building the first operational probes, there’ve been problems already. And there’s a real possibility that you’ll be looking at starting Phase III with survey ships alone.”

“I admit to some finite possibility that may happen. But the point is moot. I strongly suspect that your high-probability strategy consists of educated guesses hidden by a smokescreen of interpolation. And even if I felt differently, there are no ships available to test your theories.”

“There’s
Munin
.”

“
Munin
is to be deactivated. The Flight Office has decided that the risk of continued operation doesn’t justify the gains.
Cygnus
is ready, so there’ll be no loss of coverage in this octant. Arid the cost of the kind of thorough overhaul that
Munin
needs is so close to the cost of building a new ship that there’s no sense to it. Look, the ship is a bloody Pathfinder, for goodness’ sake. Let her rest.”

“Who owns
Munin?
”

“Well—the Service, of course.”

“Not the Flight Office specifically?”

“No—the Procurement Office assigns each ship to one command or another as they’re completed.”

“So what the Flight Office is saying is, this ship has no utility for us in our present search strategy.”

“They haven’t scrapped it, no, if that’s what you mean. But it’s only a matter of time.”

“Requisition it.”

“What?”

“How did you get the deepyachts the Committee uses for colonial visits?”

Zamyatin bobbed his head. “We do operate a few ships for our own purposes, you’re correct. We prefer not to depend on the Flight Office for transportation. But what makes you think that we would be any more willing to assign valuable personnel to a ship as unreliable as
Munin?
”

“I have it on good authority that the drive controller can be modified to assure that a
Dove—
type failure doesn’t result in the loss of the ship.”

“I’ve heard some discussion of that option. But it doesn’t meet the Flight Office’s safety criteria. The crew could be stranded for twelve to fifteen years until a rescue mission reached them.”

“The Flight Office won’t be operating
Munin
.”

“You’re still asking us to assign valuable personnel to a highly speculative and unnecessarily risky enterprise.”

“There’s no need to assign anyone. She can be crewed by volunteers—starting with me. My tour contract has been fulfilled. I can go where I please.”

“I understand Flight would like very much to have you for
Cygnus.”

“They’re not going to get me, regardless of your decision.”

“Um. A commander doesn’t make a crew, though.”

“There are others who’d be willing to go. Post a notice of opportunity. Put
Munin
’s name and mine in it.”

“And I’m sure there’d be many applicants—I said you had a reputation. But most of them would be kids eager for any billet and not really equipped to evaluate the risk.”

“I wouldn’t object to restricting the notice to vets.”

“Of course not—that’d put you in a position to coax your crewmates into going out with you instead of
Cygnus
. That’d make us popular with the Flight Office.”

“If I had the right people, I wouldn’t need the full complement of twenty.”

“How many do you need?”

“If they were the right people—twelve. A three-person Strategy Team under my direction, and a seven-person operations crew under a competent Exec like Gwen Shinault.”

“I see.” Zamyatin rested his chin on his steepled fingers. “Concom Thackery, there remains a rather delicate issue I was hoping to avoid getting into—”

“Say it plainly.”

“As you wish. Even if we were agreeable in principle to this kind of exercise, nothing you’ve said argues very strongly that this is the right time or, to be painfully blunt, that you’re the right person.”

Thackery gazed steadily at his host. “Mr. Zamyatin, what year were you born?”

“Why—’24.”

“Do you mean 424?”

“Well, of course.”

Thackery laughed lightly and smiled tolerantly. “Mr. Zamyatin, when you’re talking to a vet, you automatically give the century as well. I was born in A.R. 163. I’ve been a contact linguist, an aide to Committeewoman Alizana Neale, and a contact leader. I’ve completed two survey tours and taken part in sixteen landings. I’ve been in the middle of the first Contact with the Gnivi and the first productive Contact with the Sennifi. Now, who do you think has a better perspective, someone who’s lived Service history, or someone who’s read about it?”

“That’s not relevant—”

“It’s the
only
thing that’s relevant. You have no concept of how badly the Service needs to begin finding final answers. Why do you think we’ve been so compulsive about a comprehensive search? Why do you think pushing back the frontier has been given priority over everything else?”

“But look at how successful that policy has been.”

“Successful?” Thackery snorted. “There hasn’t been a single fundamental discovery in two-hundred fifty years, not one. And the way we’ve gone about it has something to do with that record of failure. We’ve been so single-minded, we ended up narrow-minded as well. We need to break out of the sterile thinking that’s dictated strategy up till now and try something else—anything, so long as it creates new possibilities and lets us start thinking in new patterns.”

“In essence, you’re asking for a ship and a free hand.”

“And I’ve given you more than enough reason to approve the request.”

“Concom Thackery, I don’t have the authority to make that requisition.”

Thackery exploded out of his chair. “Then why am I talking to you?” he demanded. “Tell me who does so I can get on with this.”

“The Chairman of the FC Committee has authority over all nonstandard research and flight activity related to the colonies.”

“So who is it, and where can I find them?”

“The Chairman is on Liam, in the Lynx octant. But surely you know who it is.”

“If I did, would I ask?”

“Why, I assumed since you served under her—the present Chairman is Alizana Neale.”

Thackery stared and his face went slack. He dropped heavily back into his chair, covered his eyes with one hand, and let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Of all the—”

Unexpectedly, Zamyatin broke into a broad grin. “I can’t take this any further. Concom Thackery, please relax.
Munin
is yours.”

Thackery shot the Director a poisonous look. “Then what—”

“In truth, you had it when you walked in,” Zamyatin said quickly. “Someone else filed this same request yesterday, so I had already run it up through channels to find out what the policy would be. Chairman Neale contacted me personally with the answer. She said that if you were involved, you were to be allowed to have
Munin
, but to make you sweat a little first. She said to make sure you really wanted it. There’s a message, too—” he paused and glanced down at the slate lying beside him. “ ‘I’ve been unable to prove you wrong. Now see if you can prove me wrong.’ ” He hesitated, then added timidly, “Does that make sense? I hope I didn’t take this too far—”

“No. No, it’s all right,” Thackery said distractedly. “You were just doing what she wanted. You said someone else had made a request—”

“She’s probably outside now. I told her I’d have an answer for her this morning.” It had to be Koi, and was. Ignoring Zamyatin at his heels, he guided her by the elbow out into the corridor. “What were you doing there?” she asked when they were alone. “The same thing you were. I didn’t do it to get you back,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“But I do want you back.”

“I want to come back—as long as you understand that it’s because of what you are, not because of what you did. It doesn’t matter what they decided. It matters that you tried.”

“I understand,” he said.

“So what did they decide?”

He grinned. “They said yes.”

She took his hand. “Then come on—let’s go see if we can find an appropriate way to celebrate.”

“My preference will depend on which bit of good news we’re celebrating,” he said, starting them toward the lifts.

“Let’s be creative and try to cover both.”

Koi was in her shower and Thackery relaxing by the apartment’s greatport when the knock came. Reluctantly, he disengaged both eyes and mind from the star fields of Sagittarius and the heart of the Galaxy hidden therein, and went to the door.

“Hey, Derrel,” Thackery said on seeing the caller.

“Hey, yourself,” Guerrieri said, stepping inside. “Is this where the Merritt Thackery Travel and Tour Company hangs its hat nowadays? I couldn’t get an answer at your place or find you around the Planning Office, so I tried a long shot.”

“Just visiting.”

“I’ll bet.” He nodded toward the greatport. “Haven’t you seen enough of that for a while?”

“I was doing some thinking.”

“You’ve got a lot to do, from what I just heard—congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“So where are we going?”

“We?”

“Were you planning to leave without me?”

“You’re senior on the
Munin
survey team. You’re probably a lock to move over to
Cygnus
and become Concom.”

“Too much responsibility,” Guerrieri said with a shrug as he settled in the upholstered pit by the greatport. “Besides, I told you once—you’re a lightning rod. I like to be around to see the fireworks. That is, if you’ll have me,” he added, with a raised eyebrow.

“I could use a good dulcimer player.”

“You forgot to list it in the Notice of Opportunity. So where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” Thackery said, joining him in the pit.

Guerrieri laughed in a friendly way. “I thought you’d have it all figured out.” Sighing and stretching out his legs, Thackery said, “The temptation is to go back to Sennifi.”

“Sure. But Z’lin Ton Drull is long dead.”

“More importantly, the D’shanna are finished there. They won’t be coming back.”

“They didn’t succeed, though. The Sennifi are still holding on, even though they still refuse any help or contact.”

“I’ve been wondering if maybe the D’shanna did accomplish what they wanted to. Maybe they didn’t need to completely wipe out the Sennifi.”

“What do you mean?”

Thackery frowned. “The Drull told me that they were on the verge of space travel—‘preparing to step beyond this planet’ was how he said it.”