“What about you?”
“I’ll be along. I want to go through the tape once more and then set up the jump parameters with Eliot.” She patted Carol on the shoulder. “I don’t need as much sleep as you youngsters.”
“Youngsters,” Jacque said. “See you later, Mom. Don’t stay up too late.”
They went by the medical building to get sleeping pills and tell the woman in charge how they needed to modify the pharmaceutical systems in their GPEM suits. She said she could set up the personnel recorder to monitor the level of fatigue poisons in their blood, and compensate with small doses of joy juice. It would be a strain, though. They’d pay a big price when they got back-narcolepsy alternating with paranoiac insomnia. And old-fashioned cold turkey.
That’s all right, they said. Cross that bridge, etc.
They went to the transients’ longhouse, pushed two of the narrow beds together, and unfolded privacy screens around them.
Undressed, Jacque stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Carol nestled up next to him. He scratched her back listlessly.
“Ten days,” Jacque said. “We aren’t going to make it.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“God knows what those monsters can come up with in ten days.”
“It doesn’t do any good to worry about it.”
“Riley didn’t say anything about ten days.”
“He couldn’t have known. We had a chance to say no.”
“Sure. But it gets to me. I don’t feel like dying this particular-“
“Stop it!”
“Sorry. Thinking aloud. We have the magnets, we might be all right.”
“We will,” she whispered. She rolled over and pulled him to her and held him fiercely. “We will.”
43 – Job Description
It is 22 January 2054 and John Riley enters the conference room and says hello to the five people seated around the seminar table. He passes each one of them a single sheet of paper:
Mission Chronology:
PHASE I:
24 Jan. Passive courier to Groombridge 1618. He will remain on Groombridge for 21 days, obtaining two bridges, detoxified by Thanos volunteer. Without touching the bridges himself, he will bring them back to Tamers Lefavre and Herrick.
PHASE II:
14 Feb. Tamer Jeeves’s team to Tau Ceti, 21 days.
PHASE III-A:
Date and duration to be set by Jeeves, Tau Ceti controller. LMT from Tau Ceti to Sirius: Jeeves, Lefavre (with bridge), and Wachal. Priorities: Gather information, survive, attempt to communicate, engage L’vrai in combat. Return with artifacts or prisoner if possible.
PHASE III-B:
Date and duration to be set by Hasenfel, Tau Ceti controller. If Jeeves, Lefavre, and Wachal do not return, Hasenfel and Herrick attempt the same mission (Herrick with bridge).
PHASE IV:
17 Feb. Research team to Tau Ceti, 12 days.
PHASE V: Repeat Phase III as often as practical.
PHASE VI:
7 Mar. Slingshot translation to Earth.
Tania scratches her head. “Doesn’t tell us much, really.”
“I know,” says Riley. “All we can say for sure is that the Tau Ceti crystal is working. We got a note yesterday on a slingshot from a Sixty-one Cygni resupply mission, said they’d gotten a probe from Tau Ceti. We want to get you there as soon as possible.”
“May I ask . . . why us?”
“Well, the logic is clear. I know you aren’t the most experienced team available, not by a wide margin. But you do have Wachal,” he nods at her, “who has encountered the L’vrai on their own territory before, and Lefavre,” again, “who is more sensitive to the Groom-bridge Effect than any other Tamer. And besides, he’s bridged with the L’vrai before.”
“That’s true,” Jacque says, “but my experience there would indicate you want somebody who’s not sensitive to the Effect. Not the other way around. They’re powerful.”
“This has been taken into account,” Riley says. “This is why Tamer Herrick is holding the second bridge. She is relatively insensitive to the Effect, and Tamer Hasenfel is even less sensitive. If necessary, the bridge can be exposed to multiple contacts among the Tau Ceti personnel before Hasenfel touches it. So we are capable of a wide spectrum of sensitivity.”
“In case it bums out my brain on the first try,” Jacque says flatly.