Звезда Пандоры

“A one-man starship?” Wilson asked in amusement. He waved a hand at the front of the cylinder. “You helped design the hyperdrive engine. I’ve owned smaller houses than that monster.”

“Yeah yeah, I know. I ought to go back and take another look at the basic equations.”

“You do that, but I’m telling you a car-sized starship will never catch on. I want something big and powerful around me when I go exploring the unknown.”

“Man, oh, man, Freud would have had a field day with you. Now, how’s it going with the crew selection?”

“Hoo boy.” Wilson grimaced at the memory. “The actual crew squad has been finalized. We’ve got two hundred and twenty who’ll start their second phase training next week. We’ll select the final fifty a month before launch. The science team is a little tougher; we’ve passed seventy so far, and Oscar’s office is trying to sort out the rest of the applications. It’s the interviews that are taking up so much time; the Commonwealth has an awful lot of highly qualified people out there, and we need to put them all through assessment and psych profiling. What I’d like is a pool of about three hundred to choose from.”

“Ah.” Nigel stopped himself above the rim of the life-support wheel, watching a constructionbot fixing a decking plate into place. “Have you considered taking Dr. Bose with you?”

“Bose? Oh, the astronomer who saw the envelopment. I think I remember Oscar mentioning he’d applied; he’s certainly got a lot of sponsors. Do you want me to check if he got through the assessment?”

“Not as such, no. The thing is, my office is getting a lot of inquiries about him, as is the Vice President.”

For a moment Wilson thought he meant the vice president of CST. “You mean Elaine Doi?”

“Yes. It’s a bit awkward. Every time the media want a comment on the envelopment they turn to Bose, which is understandable. The trouble is, he cooperates with them. All of them. When the guy sleeps, I’ve no idea. But anyway, in the public eye he’s most strongly associated with the project. It’s a position he’s exploited superbly.”

“Wait a minute here, are you telling me I’ve got to take him?”

“All I’m saying is that if you were planning on taking an astronomer, you could do worse. For an obscure professor from a back-of-beyond planet, he’s certainly a goddamn expert self-publicist.”

“I’ll tell Oscar to review the file, if that’s what’s bugging you.”

“That’s good. And I hope there won’t be any ageism in the selection process?”

“What?”

“It’s just that the professor is, er, kind of closer to his time for rejuvenation than you or I… or anyone else you’re considering. That’s all.”

“Oh, Jesus wept.”

…

The plantation where Tara Jennifer Shaheef lived was on the far side of the mountains that rose up out of the northern districts of Darklake City. Even with a modern highway leading through them, it took the car carrying Paula and Detective Hoshe Finn a good three hours to drive there. They turned off the junction at the start of a wide valley, the car snaking along a winding local road. The slopes on either side were heavily cultivated with coffee bushes; every row seemed to have an agriculturebot of some kind trundling along, tending the verdant plants. Humans and buildings were less prominent within this landscape.

Eventually the car turned into the plantation through a wide gated entrance with a white stone arch. Cherry trees lined the long driveway, leading up to a low white house with a bright red clay tile roof.

“All very traditional,” Paula commented.

Hoshe glanced out at the arch. “You’ll find that a lot on this world. We do tend to idolize the past. Most of us had settler ancestors who were successful even before they arrived, and the ethos lingers on. As a planet, we’ve done rather well from it.”

“If it works, don’t try and fix it.”

“Yeah.” He showed no sign that he’d picked up on any irony.

The car halted on the gravel in front of the house’s main door. Paula climbed out, looking around the large formal gardens. A lot of time and effort had gone into the big lawn with its palisade of trees.

Tara Jennifer Shaheef was standing in front of the double acmwood doors underneath the portico. Her husband, Matthew deSavoel, stood beside her, an arm resting protectively around her shoulders. He was older than she by a couple of decades, Paula noticed; thick dark hair turning to silver, his midriff starting to spread.

The car drove off around to the stable block. Paula walked forward. “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” she said.

“That’s all right,” Tara said with a nervous smile. She nodded tightly at Detective Finn. “Hello again.”

“I trust this won’t be too upsetting,” Matthew deSavoel said. “My wife had put her re-life ordeal behind her.”

“It’s all right, Matthew,” Tara said, patting him.

“I won’t deliberately make this difficult,” Paula said. “It was your wife’s family who wanted this investigation kept open.”