Academy 6 - Cauldron by Jack McDevitt

Author:Jack McDevitt [McDevitt, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Adventure, Fiction, Hutchins; Priscilla (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780441016501
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-10-28T04:38:42+00:00

PART THREE

outbound

chapter 21

HUTCH WAS BARELY in the door when Maureen was on the circuit. She was glad the mission had gone well, but she was clearly upset.

It was probably guys again. Maureen fell in and out of love regularly. But she wasn’t inclined to relay the details. Hutch recalled how little she’d told her own mother. Remembered how shocked the woman had been when she’d announced she was going off to pilot superluminals. Stay home, she’d advised. Find a good man. Is this what we sent you to school for? Do you have any idea how much that cost?

“Everything okay, love?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Maureen was an attractive young woman. Looked like her mother, Hutch thought with a sense of pride. She was a history major, also like Priscilla. She had her father’s easygoing manner. That latter characteristic inevitably betrayed her when she tried to hide being unhappy. “I’m glad you got home okay.”

“Maureen, we only went to Alioth.” She smiled at how that must have sounded. Maureen had never been farther than Moonbase. “It was a good flight.”

“I hear you’re going out again. To the middle of the galaxy.” It hadn’t taken long for the news to get around. “To the place where they make the omegas.”

“In November,” Hutch said. “We’re just making the trip to look around. And don’t worry. We’ll only be gone a few months.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I’ll be fine, sweetheart. We’re just going to take a look and come home.”

“You’ll get yourself killed,” she said. “What happens if the monsters come after you?”

“I don’t think we need to worry about monsters, Maureen.”

“You don’t know that. And the ship could break down. Who’s going to go after you? Who’d even know?”

“There’ll be two ships, Maureen. Orion’s lending us the James McAdams.”

“What if they both break down?”

“You know that’s not going to happen.”

“Mom, you’re not the most careful person in the world.”

“I promise I won’t do anything foolish.”

“I know. I’m just not sure what I’d do if something happened to you.”

They’d spent most of their time on the flight home talking about going deep, theorizing about the omegas. Talking about the Cauldron. The place where the omegas were manufactured. The clouds now moving through Earth’s general neighborhood had needed 1.7 million years to get this far. That meant, of course, that whatever was producing them very likely no longer existed.

Hence, there was probably no danger.

Even if they discovered a production facility of some sort, a mega-platform manufacturing and dispatching lethal visitors around the galaxy, Hutch certainly would not be inclined to go anywhere near it. “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” she said. “We’re just going for a ride. See what’s there.”

“Can I come?”

“That’s not a good idea, Maureen. You can’t just take a year off from school.”

“Why not?”

“Because Charlie would want to come. And then Matt’s nephew would claim a spot. Where would it end?”

“Mom, for me: Don’t go. Don’t do this.”

Hutch recalled the distance that had always existed between herself and her mother, who’d never understood

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