Orphan's Destiny by Robert Buettner

Author:Robert Buettner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780316019132
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2008-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

THE PSEUDOCEPHALOPOD TECHNOLOGY RECOVERY CENTER at Canaveral employed six thousand scientists, engineers, cafeteria cooks, and janitors.

The morning after my impolitic headline ran, every one of those employees who wasn’t pushing a spectroscope, a spatula, or a broom had squeezed into the auditorium that occupied the Center’s sub-basement. The auditorium seating was upholstered blood red, what could be seen of it beneath the crowd. Ceiling fixtures gleamed in sleek glass and chrome.

Three holo crews occupied the front seat row. Onstage, Brace sat with the governor of Florida while the lab-coated research director stood at a podium, thanked everybody for coming, and explained that from the ashes of war might come better things for better living through chemistry.

Also onstage, Howard represented the Spook House; me, the veterans of Ganymede; and Munchkin, in civvies with Jude in tow, the rest of the United Nations and their forces. We were relegated to a corner where an earphoned technician sat at a console. Ruth sat behind us, just offstage. She didn’t have me on a short leash, but I suspected she carried one in her purse, just in case.

I leaned toward the console-minder and lifted one earflap. “Are you the sound man?”

He shook his head. “I monitor signals.”

“What signals?”

“Exactly.” He shrugged. “But it’s a living.”

That was what this ceremony was truly about. Nobody really thought The Football was the gift that would lead us to cure cancer or create calorie-free cheeseburgers. But the project sure spread paychecks across eastern Florida.

All eyes focused on the spotlighted table to the podium’s right. In a titanium cradle nested The Football, a featureless egg, shimmering dull Slug-metal blue.

Brace spoke about duty, technology, and the wonderfulness of the Navy, then stepped out into the audience, so as not to upstage the governor of Florida.

The governor wore an orange-and-blue tie adorned with some crocodile. When he stepped to the podium, the holo recorders fired up with a popping chorus like New Year’s Eve in a champagne factory. The governor extolled the virtues of Floridian labor and—I am not making this up—orange juice.

The research director stepped alongside The Football.

Between gleaming rails above the blue egg hung an automated diamond saw assembly, its start lever tied with a blue ribbon.

Jude squirmed on Munchkin’s lap.

I whispered, “He’s a handful today.”

She said, “I don’t know why. He isn’t running a fever.”

Howard leaned toward me. “I’ve been thinking about The Football.”

“Me, too. I’ve been thinking you should have left it behind on Ganymede. This is a circus.”

“What you said yesterday about how we were supposed to find it. There’s a mythological parallel.”

I smiled. Howard had found a mythological parallel to a political pork barrel. He whispered, “I just had a thought. We need to stop this.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Ruth. She frowned at us the way my first-grade teacher used to do before she asked whether us boys had something we wanted to share with the rest of the class. “Howard, there are three thousand people and the governor of thirty-four percent of the world’s citrus fruit production in this auditorium.

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