They had made a bargain. She could go back to Argus, although no longer as director, and pursue any scientific problem she pleased. She had, if she liked, lifetime tenure.
“We’re not unreasonable,” Kitz had finally said in agreeing to the compromise. “You come back with a solid , piece of evidence, something really convincing, and we’ll join you in making the announcement. We’ll say we asked you to keep the story quiet until we could be absolutely sure. Within reason, we’ll support any research you want to do. If we announce the story now, though, there’ll be an initial wave of enthusiasm and then the skeptics will start carping. It’ll embarrass you and it’ll embarrass us. Much better to gather the evidence, if you can.” Perhaps the President had helped him change his mind. It was unlikely Kitz was enjoying the compromise.
But in return she must say nothing about what had happened aboard the Machine. The Five had sat down in the dodecahedron, talked among themselves, and then walked off. If she breathed a word of anything else, the spurious psychiatric profile would find its way to the media and, reluctantly, she would be dismissed.
She wondered whether they had attempted to buy Peter Valerian’s silence, or Vaygay’s, or Abonnema’s. She couldn’t see how–short of shooting the debriefing teams of five nations and the World Machine Consortium–they could hope to keep this quiet forever. It was only a matter of time. So, she concluded, they were buying time.
It surprised her how mild the threatened punishments were, but violations of the agreement, if they happened would not come on Kitz’s watch. He was shortly retiring; in a year, the Lasker Administration would be leaving office after the constitutionally mandated maximum of two terms. He had accepted a partnership in a Washington law firm known for its defense-contractor clientele.
Ellie thought Kitz would attempt something more. He seemed unworried about anything she might claim occurred at the Galactic Center. What he agonized about, she was sure, was the possibility that the tunnel was still open to even if not from the Earth. She thought the Hokkaido facility would soon be disassembled. The technicians would return to their industries and universities. What stories would they tell? Perhaps the dodecahedron would be displayed in the Science City of Tsukuba. Then, after a decent interval when the world’s attention was to some extent distracted by other matters, perhaps there would be an explosion at the Machine site–nuclear, if Kitz could contrive a plausible explanation for the event If it was a nuclear explosion, the radiological contamination would be an excellent reason to declare the whole area a forbidden zone. It would at least isolate the site from casual observers and might just shake the nozzle loose. Probably Japanese sensibilities about nuclear weapons, even if exploded underground, would force Kitz to settle for conventional explosives. They might disguise it as one of the continuing series of Hokkaido coal- mine disasters. She doubted if any explosion–nuclear or conventional–could disengage the Earth from the tunnel.
But perhaps Kitz was imagining none of these things. Perhaps she was selling him short. After all, he too must have been influenced by Machindo. He must have a family, friends, someone be loved. He must have caught at least a whiff of it.
The next day, the President awarded her the National Medal of Freedom in a public ceremony at the White House. Logs were burning in a fireplace set in a white marble wall. The President had committed a great deal of political as well as the more usual sort of capital to the Machine Project and was determined to make the best face of it before the nation and the world. Investments in the Machine by the United States and other nations, the argument went, had paid off handsomely. New technologies, new industries were blossoming, promising at least as much benefit for ordinary people as the inventions of Thomas Edison. We had discovered that we are not alone, that intelligences more advanced than we existed out there in space. They had changed forever, the President said, our conception of who we are. Speaking for herself–but also, she thought, for most Americans–the discovery had strengthened her belief in God, now revealed to be creating life and intelligence on many worlds, a conclusion that the President was sure would be in harmony with all religions. But the greatest good granted us by the Machine, the President said, was the spirit it had brought to Earth–the increasing mutual understanding within the human community, the sense that we were all fellow passengers on a perilous journey in space and in time, the goal of a global unity of purpose that was now known all over the planet as Machindo.
The President presented Ellie to the press and the television cameras, told of her perseverance over twelve long years, her genius in detecting and decoding the Message, and her courage in going aboard the Machine. No one knew what the Machine would do. Dr. Arroway had willingly risked her life. It was not Dr. Arroway’s fault that nothing happened when the Machine was activated. She had done as much as any human possibly could. She deserved the thanks of all Americans, and of all people everywhere on Earth. Ellie was a very private person. Despite her natural reticence, she had when the need arose shouldered the burden of explaining the Message and the Machine. Indeed, she had shown a patience with the press that she, the President, admired particularly. Dr. Arroway should now be permitted some real privacy, so she could resume her scientific career. There had been press announcements, briefings, interviews with Secretary Kitz and Science Adviser der Heer. The President hoped the press would respect Dr. Arroway’s wish that there be no press conference. There was, however, a photo opportunity. Ellie left Washington without determining how much the President knew.
They flew her back in a small sleek jet of the Joint Military Airlift Command, and agreed to stop in Janesville on the way. Her mother was wearing her old quilted robe. Someone had put a little color on her cheeks. Ellie pressed her face into the pillow beside her mother. Beyond regaining a halting power of speech, the old woman had recovered the use of her right arm sufficiently to give Ellie a few feeble pats on her shoulder.
“Morn, I’ve got something to tell you. It’s a great thing. But try to be calm. I don’t want to upset you. Mom…I saw Dad. I saw him. He sends you his love.”
“Yes …” The old woman slowly nodded. “Was here yesterday.”
John Staughton, Ellie knew, had been to the nursing home the previous day. He had begged off accompanying Ellie today, pleading an excess of work, but it seemed possible that Staughton merely did not wish to intrude on this moment. Nevertheless, she found herself saying, with some irritation, “No, no. I’m talking about Dad.”
`Tell him…” The old woman’s speech was labored. `Tell him, chiffon dress. Stop cleaners…way home from store.”
Her father evidently still ran the hardware store in her mother’s universe. And Ellie’s.
The long sweep of cyclone fencing now stretched uselessly from horizon to horizon, blighting the expanse of scrub desert. She was glad to be back, glad to be setting up a new, although much smaller-scale, research program.
Jack Hibbert had been appointed Acting Director of the Argus facility, and she felt unburdened of the administrative responsibilities. Because so much telescope time had been freed when the signal from Vega had ceased, there was a beady air of progress in a dozen long-languishing subdisciplines of radio astronomy. Her co-workers offered not a hint of support for Kitz’s notion of a Message hoax. She wondered what der Heer and Valerian were telling their friends and colleagues about the Message and the Machine.
Ellie doubted that Kitz had breathed a word of it outside the recesses of his soon-to-be-vacated Pentagon office. She had been there once; a Navy enlisted man–sidearm in leather holster and hands clasped behind his back–had stiffly guarded the portal, in case in the warren of concentric hallways some passerby should succumb to an irrational impulse.
Willie had himself driven the Thunderbird from Wyoming, so it would be waiting for her. By agreement she could drive it only on the facility, which was large enough for ordinary joyriding. But no more West Texas landscapes, no more coney honor guards, no more mountain drives to glimpse a southern star. This was her sole regret about the seclusion. But the ranks of saluting rabbits were at any rate unavailable in winter.
At first a sizable press corps haunted the area in hopes of shouting a question at her or photographing her through a telescopic lens. But she. remained resolutely isolated. The newly imported public relations staff was effective, even a little ruthless, in discouraging inquiries. After all, the President had asked for privacy for Dr. Arroway.