dark green aprons appeared. Within a minute, Gordon proceeded to banish the last of his chill with a cut crystal tumbler half filled with straight single-malt highland scotch. Lydia had taken the liberty of ordering for each of them already. Gordon’s tastes were known and she figured the Gumbo Room would be a special treat for him. Sykes was a bureaucratic insider with a lifetime of government service in war, in peace, and in the special infighting peculiar to the Pentagon and the Washington Beltway. Second in command of the nation’s defense or not, all he would care about was getting a free meal.
By the time the servers backed away, they had all had their drinks freshened, and steaming, spicy cups of Cajun gumbo had been placed in front of them. Different from the Creole gumbo Gordon was used to, he used his spoon to break up the ball of white rice in the center of the cup, mixing it with the dark brown soup and the plentiful shrimp, onions, and celery settled below the surface. Savory, piquant heat radiated out from the first spoonful, and Gordon smiled broadly to his hostess and friend, acknowledging her good choice.
Gordon wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin, and caught their eyes with his own. Sykes stopped endlessly stirring his gumbo and devoured another martini-dipped olive. Lydia wiped her own mouth and looked back at Gordon. The head of Windward Tech and the man she had helped to ostracize years ago grinned tightly. “So, what happened? Why the turnaround?”
She responded by reaching down to her purse and extracting her suite. Lydia laid it on the table between them and extended the screen from the side. Displayed on it was something he’d grown very familiar with over the years: the constellation Pavo. A familiar, chillingly enigmatic blue star shone next to the position of Delta Pavonis. This picture appeared to be recent—the separation between the blue light and the star it came from was the most pronounced he had seen, parallax making the approaching light oscillate wider and wider across its origin.
Gordon looked up at her again. “That’s not really any more compelling than the ones I showed NASA originally. I believe they downgraded it to a ‘stellar fragment’ and me to a nut-job crank.”
She nodded. “True, unfortunately, but how about this.” She tapped the suite and the image changed. Now, instead of all of Pavo, it zeroed in on Delta Pavonis and the blue light. Another tap and just the blue light filled the screen, fuzzy and indistinct. Another tap and the blue light shrank away, the fuzziness sharpened to distinct threads of light and optical glare, but there was something else there as well. It was a broken halo, something reflecting reddish in spots around the star of pale blue.
Gordon leaned in and she tapped the suite again. The picture became artificially sharp, a false color image designed to bring out the details in the captured blobs of light. At the center was a sharp circle of bluish white, the scintillating edge of the alien photon drive. Around it, an equal distance from the center and arranged in a somehow familiar fashion, there were four reverse shadows, the edges of four immense objects surrounding the drive flare, illuminated with a red brilliance and spots of blue bright enough to obscure anything else from view. Gordon’s heart hammered excitedly within his chest. He looked back up to Lydia. “What the hell is it?”
She shook her head. “We don’t know, but it is structure, and it’s definitely not a rogue fragment ejected from a star.”
Gordon grinned. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s my damned aliens! This is it! Proof, incontrovertible proof that they’re coming here, just like I always said.”
Sykes shook his head. “Hold on, Lee. It’s ‘something’. Whether or not it’s proof of your pet aliens is another matter entirely.”
Gordon shooed his
By the time the servers backed away, they had all had their drinks freshened, and steaming, spicy cups of Cajun gumbo had been placed in front of them. Different from the Creole gumbo Gordon was used to, he used his spoon to break up the ball of white rice in the center of the cup, mixing it with the dark brown soup and the plentiful shrimp, onions, and celery settled below the surface. Savory, piquant heat radiated out from the first spoonful, and Gordon smiled broadly to his hostess and friend, acknowledging her good choice.
Gordon wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin, and caught their eyes with his own. Sykes stopped endlessly stirring his gumbo and devoured another martini-dipped olive. Lydia wiped her own mouth and looked back at Gordon. The head of Windward Tech and the man she had helped to ostracize years ago grinned tightly. “So, what happened? Why the turnaround?”
She responded by reaching down to her purse and extracting her suite. Lydia laid it on the table between them and extended the screen from the side. Displayed on it was something he’d grown very familiar with over the years: the constellation Pavo. A familiar, chillingly enigmatic blue star shone next to the position of Delta Pavonis. This picture appeared to be recent—the separation between the blue light and the star it came from was the most pronounced he had seen, parallax making the approaching light oscillate wider and wider across its origin.
Gordon looked up at her again. “That’s not really any more compelling than the ones I showed NASA originally. I believe they downgraded it to a ‘stellar fragment’ and me to a nut-job crank.”
She nodded. “True, unfortunately, but how about this.” She tapped the suite and the image changed. Now, instead of all of Pavo, it zeroed in on Delta Pavonis and the blue light. Another tap and just the blue light filled the screen, fuzzy and indistinct. Another tap and the blue light shrank away, the fuzziness sharpened to distinct threads of light and optical glare, but there was something else there as well. It was a broken halo, something reflecting reddish in spots around the star of pale blue.
Gordon leaned in and she tapped the suite again. The picture became artificially sharp, a false color image designed to bring out the details in the captured blobs of light. At the center was a sharp circle of bluish white, the scintillating edge of the alien photon drive. Around it, an equal distance from the center and arranged in a somehow familiar fashion, there were four reverse shadows, the edges of four immense objects surrounding the drive flare, illuminated with a red brilliance and spots of blue bright enough to obscure anything else from view. Gordon’s heart hammered excitedly within his chest. He looked back up to Lydia. “What the hell is it?”
She shook her head. “We don’t know, but it is structure, and it’s definitely not a rogue fragment ejected from a star.”
Gordon grinned. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s my damned aliens! This is it! Proof, incontrovertible proof that they’re coming here, just like I always said.”
Sykes shook his head. “Hold on, Lee. It’s ‘something’. Whether or not it’s proof of your pet aliens is another matter entirely.”
Gordon shooed his
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