“That’s right, I never got around to it. Well, we have had this little thing to work on while you’ve been seeing the sights around Washington, you know.”
Keene grinned and studied her curiously for a few seconds. “Suppose I said I can fix that trip into space for you that you’ve been waiting for? Would that beat a beer at the Bandana?”
Vicki stopped and looked at him as if she couldn’t have heard him right. Her eyes interrogated him silently. They had worked together long enough that Keene had the feeling she could bypass sensory intermediaries and verify directly what was going through his mind. “You’re serious, aren’t you,” she pronounced finally.
Keene made a gesture that was at the same time both nonchalant and expansive. “Even better. How about seeing the Osiris as well?” This time Vicki did come close to looking as if she thought this might be a sick joke after all.
Keene nodded, his face splitting into a wide grin. “It’s real. So do you feel like celebrating? . . . Oh, and one more thing to add to your list. I want us to order a mixed crate of the best Californian wines to take up as a present to Gallian for organizing it. Did you know he’s partial to wines? They don’t make any of the real stuff on Kronia yet.”
14
Accelerating ever faster, Athena crossed Mercury’s orbit and vanished into the glare of the Sun. After attaining a million miles per hour at perihelion on the far side, it would reemerge and become visible again in just over two weeks. While Judith continued working with Jerry Allender and the Princeton advisers on the computations that it was hoped would throw new light on Venus’s early behavior, Halloran put Lomack’s proposition to Marvin Curtiss, and approval came down for extending the San Saucillo-Montemorelos operation to include a rendezvous with the Osiris in the way Keene had suggested. Keene’s and Vicki’s places were confirmed, and after some debate within the company, a draw between members of senior management and technical staff was announced for the remaining seats.
With that side of things going so smoothly, there had to be some negative news too. The opposition groups who had been stirred up by the NIFTV demonstration were still seething, and the forthcoming trial offered a timely opportunity to register their protest. That the vessel involved this time was not nuclear didn’t matter. The target for attack was the company name.
* * *
A couple of days before liftoff was due, Cavan called Keene at home in his townhouse on Ocean Drive. It was mid-evening. Keene had just been sharing a couple of beers by the pool out back with a neighbor from across the street.
“Hello, Landen. I’m returned at last to the land of the comparatively sane. Are you in the middle of anything? I have something that I’d like to show you.”
“No, I was taking it easy for once. So, welcome back. How were Hawaii and Japan? Did the Kronians survive it all intact?”
Cavan had been one of those accompanying the Kronian party. The strategy he had outlined for manipulating the public’s image of the Kronians had begun to reveal itself. Instead of the independent, free-thinking scientists that Keene had seen personally, they were typically shown as naive, trusting tourists.
“Most of them are bearing up well, a few feeling the strain,” Cavan replied. “They’ll be going back up to their ship in relays to take a break from the gravity before the negotiations start.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Keene agreed. “How’s Gallian? He has to be the oldest.”
Cavan snorted. “He’s got more energy in him than a football team. That’s one that you don’t have to worry about.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” Keene made an empty-handed gesture. “Anyway, what have you got?”
“I’ve been picking through what’s been going on. The name of your friend David Salio at the Aerospace Sciences Institute has been turning up a lot in the department here. The media seem to be showing an interest in him all of a sudden. It’s upsetting a lot of people.”
“The Amspace PR people have been busy,” Keene said. “I put them on to that guy Charlie Hu on the West Coast that Salio mentioned, too, and he’s proved a big asset. Science magazine might be running a friendly article, and New Frontiers is interested in putting together a documentary. It’s really moving along.”