And there were absolutely no results.
The flight engineering staff was milling about, writing day summary reports, ready to go home. To them, the echo problem was a temporary aberration that cleared up of itself. Until it reappeared, no cause for alarm.
The target should have emerged from Jupiter’s rim at 3:37 P.M., according to revised estimates. Given the time lag in signals from Jupiter, Operations Control began receiving data slightly before 4:30 P.M. The main dish’s search was completed within an hour. They couldn’t use the narrow-angle camera—not enough technicians were free from the Mars Burrower and the planetary satellites. In any case, nothing indicated that there was anything worth seeing.
“Looks like balls-up on that,” Nigel said.
“Either the whole idea is a pipe dream—” Lubkin began.
“Or we haven’t got the orbit right,” Nigel finished. An engineer in portable headphones came down the curved aisle, asked Lubkin to sign a clipboard, and went away.
Lubkin leaned back in his roller chair. “Yeah, there’s always that.”
“We can have another go tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Lubkin did not sound particularly enthusiastic. He got up from the console and paced back and forth in the aisle. There wasn’t much room; he nearly bumped into a technician down the way who was checking readouts at the Antenna Systems console. Nigel ignored the background murmur of the Control Bay and tried to think. Lubkin paced some more and finally sat down. The pair studied their green television screens, which were tilted backward for ease of viewing, where sequencing and programming data were continually displayed and erased. Occasionally the computer index would exceed its allowed parameter range and the screen would jump from yellow-on-green to green-on-yellow. Nigel had never gotten used to this; he remained disconcertingly on edge until someone found the error and the screen reverted.
The console telephone rang, jarring his concentration still further. “There’s an external call for you,” an impersonal woman’s voice said.
“Put them off a bit, will you?”
“I believe it’s your wife.”
“Ah. Put her on hold.”
He turned to Lubkin. “I’d like to get the camera free tomorrow.”
“What’s the use?”
“Call it idle speculation,” he said shortly. He was rather tired and wasn’t looking for an argument.
“Okay, try it,” Lubkin said, threw down his pencil and labored to his feet. His white shirt was creased and wrinkled. In defeat he seemed more likable to Nigel, less an edgy executive measuring his moves before he made them. “See you tomorrow,” Lubkin said and turned away, shoulders slumped.
Nigel punched a button on the telephone.
“Sorry I took so long, I—”
“Nigel, I’m at Dr. Hufman’s.”
“What’s—”
“I, I need you here. Please.” Her voice was thin and oddly distant.
“What’s going?”
“He wants to talk to both of us.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, really. Not totally.”
“What’s the address?”
She gave him a number on Thalia. “I’m going down for some lab tests. A half hour or so.”
Nigel thought. “I don’t know which bus serves that—” “Can’t you…”
“Certainly. Certainly. I’ll sign off for a Lab car, tell them it’s for business tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Nigel. I, I just…”
He pursed his lips. She seemed dazed, distracted, her executive briskness melted away. Usually the efficient manner did not seep from her until evening.
“Right,” he said. “I’m leaving now.” He replaced the telephone in its cradle.
THREE
A gray haze layer cut off all buildings at the fourth story, giving Thalia Avenue an oddly truncated look. The cramped car labored along with an occasionally irregular pocketa-pocketa as Nigel leaned out the window, searching for building numbers. He had never become accustomed to the curious American reticence about disclosing addresses. Immense, imposing steel and concrete masses stood anonymously, challenging the mere pedestrian to discover what lay inside. After some searching, 2636 Thalia proved to be a low building of elegant striated stonework, the most recent addition to the block, clearly assembled well after the twentieth-century splurge of construction materials.
Dr. Hufman’s waiting room had the hushed antechamber feel to it that marked a private practice. A public medical center would have been all tile and tan partitions and anonymous furniture. As he walked in, Nigel’s attention returned to Alexandria’s unspoken tension and he looked around the waiting room, expecting to see her.
“Mr. Walmsley?” a nurse said from a glass-encased box that formed one wall of the room. He advanced.
“Where is she?” He saw no point in wasting time.
“In the laboratory, next door. I wanted to explain that I didn’t, we didn’t know Miss Ascencio was, ah…”
“Where’s the lab?”
