Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts

Author:Adam Roberts [Roberts, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781399617703
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2024-07-24T23:00:00+00:00

:4:

Guunarsonsdottir was invited to attend the next meeting of the steering committee and presented her case with her characteristic aplomb and assertion. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘we must be aboard the craft as crew, myself and my companion Joyns, together with Siur Razak Bin and Matr Finnace Bartlewasp. Whoever else you may wish to assign to the mission, I care not: but whoever comes must agree with the mission aim, as I have stated it. We have the opportunity to make contact, for the first time in human history, with an intelligent alien species. That is the core of what we are doing. Everything else, this lunatic Saccade woman and her cult, are secondary.’

‘But the danger of Berd’s device . . .’

Guunarsonsdottir interrupted, loudly. ‘There is no such danger! Nonsense and absurdity.’ She called up a set of technical images on the room’s main screen. ‘As you can see, there are at least three unimpeachable reasons, with which anyone who knows anything about black hole physics will concur, to be certain the device cannot damage QV Tel. I myself doubt the device can be made to work at all, but if it can the only danger it poses is to Saccade and her ship. We can disregard the device.’

As is the way with committees, a single member was able by force of personality and dogmatism to reorient and drive the whole direction of travel. It was agreed to accelerate the manufacture of the police-craft, to recruit Guunarsonsdottir and her companion to the crew, and to de-emphasize the pursuit of Saccade in the mission statement. Razak’s heartrate increased and his scalp tingled with excitement at the thought that, within a matter of a few days, he would be travelling through deep space to a black hole to open a conversation with an actual alien species.

After the committee had concluded its business, and Razak was making his way into the bright-lit outside, Joyns came up behind him and touched his elbow.

‘Razak,’ she said. ‘I must tell you something.’

‘Dear Joyns,’ replied Razak, filled with bubbling joy. He embraced her and then, when he saw her blush at the intimacy, he laughed. ‘What is on your mind, dear woman?’

‘Guunarsonsdottir is a great person,’ said Joyns. ‘But in one respect I fear she is wrong.’

‘Really? In what respect?’

They were standing in the exterior space, just outside the building’s main entrance. Birdsong fluttered through the air. Seashell-shaped clouds moved across the bright sky, drawing pale-grey ground shadows over the grass. Bliss was it for Razak to be alive, and to be young was very heaven. He breathed deeply.

‘Berd’s device will unlock the black hole. I have cause. For thinking so, I mean.’

‘And what is that?’

Joyns swallowed, as if nervous. ‘I mean no disloyalty to Guunarsonsdottir when I say so, but her grasp of the physics is . . . not as secure as perhaps she claims, or as it might be. She relies on my knowledge, and training. But in this respect she refuses to hear me.

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