Part 18 (1/2)
”She's counting on it.”
”So are many people now. I surmise from my work over the last two days that it has caught the imagination of both NASA and the military. It even plays well internationally.”
”How come?” He had been so wrapped up with her that he had not even thought about this angle.
”It brings the entire matter to human scale.”
”'Human scale'? That's the only way I can see it.”
”Of course.” Kingsley reached across the coffee table and put a rea.s.suring hand on Benjamin's shoulder, the first time he could remember such a gesture pa.s.sing between them. ”They mean valiant woman astronaut-”
”Daring last dramatic attempt-”
”Heroic expedition into the heart of the monster. That sort of thing.”
Pale smiles pa.s.sed between the two men. They sipped their coffee for a moment in silence, the other Center personnel at nearby tables a thousand miles away.
”If they do it, they will build her into a heroine overnight.”
”c.r.a.p. Don't want that.”
”Your will-or mine, for that matter-has nothing to do with it.”
His sense of helplessness rose, a queasy sour lump in his stomach. ”She may get near the thing, all right, but what can she do?”
”The President asked me if she could carry nuclear warheads.”
”On a Searcher?”
”Quite right, impossible, far too much ma.s.s.”
”So what use will she be?” Benjamin had heard very little of the technical plans. She had been resting nearly all the time and he had liked staying home almost like the old days, the two of them alone on a long weekend.
”Reconnaissance, mostly.”
”What will be her link to us?”
”A broad bandwidth, secure line, with backup satellites launched to keep her in sight.”
”Well, at least she'll get a spectacular ride.”
”Ah, you're not expecting this simulation of her to...”
”Survive? No, don't want to think about that.”
Kingsley sat back and from the s.h.i.+ft in his tone Benjamin knew that their moment of closeness was over. ”An experiment that gives you a clear answer is not a failure. It can surprise, however, and the best do just that. The true trick in science is to know what question your experiment is truly asking.”
This was another set piece, obviously to prop up a s.h.i.+eld between the two men, and Benjamin resented it. ”Come on, this is a war, not an experiment.”
Kingsley would not come out from behind his fresh new barrier. ”We must still think like scientists. Knowledge is our only way out of this predicament.”
”Excuse me, but I'm not all that d.a.m.n worried about the problems of politicians right now.”
”Still, realize that they aren't scientists. They fear failure, by which they mean unpredictability.”
”They're sending her in for reconn and she'll die in there. Only she'll already be dead for me, got it?” He realized that he was shouting, coffee spilled in his lap, and had gotten to his feet somehow, and people were staring.
Channing lay back on their couch with a strange smile. ”Sic transit gloria mundi, wasn't that what Kingsley said? 'Thus pa.s.seth away the glory of the world.'-and I'm not even named Gloria.”
Benjamin had finally told her his feelings, blurting them out within ten minutes of arriving home. His talk with Kingsley had given him the courage to say it all. Had that been Kingsley's real motive? Not impossible. ”So I'm not going back to the Center. I'll stay here with you, right through to...”
”The finish,” she finished for him softly. ”I know, it's been an immense strain on you. Come here.”
Some snuggling, he seeming to need it more than she, and then Channing was off again, manic. On the couch and floor were doc.u.ments, all homework to prepare her for ”My new life as digits,” she remarked with an odd, sunny expression. She had been studying between naps and injections from the attending nurse, a hovering presence.
”Got you a little something, though,” she said, fumbling among some papers.
”You went out?”
”I had Harriet drive me.”
”Uh, she's...” He was having trouble keeping track, with events piling up. Perhaps some part of him did not want to face even the bare fact that she now needed a home aide.
”My nurse, the new one. I was getting cabin fever. Imagine what I'll be like when I'm in a little box, eh?”
She presented him with ”a parting gift”-an hourgla.s.s.
”I...don't...”
”Sic transit. Time pa.s.ses.”
”It looks like the magnetic funnels of the Eater.”
”That, too. Call it a visual pun.”
”I think...”
She kissed him slowly, breathing in long drawn sighs, as though laboring. ”Don't think. The whole rest of my G.o.dd.a.m.ned existence, I'm going to be nothing but a thinking thing.”
They went back into their bedroom then, hearts thudding.
”A little personal therapy, Harriet,” Channing called.