Probability Sun by Nancy Kress Page A

resumed walking, picking his way over a spate of rubble fallen from the tunnel wall. “In that case, I’m moving my kids to the digging site.”
    “To the site? But—”
    “The natives won’t go into the Neury Mountains at all. Religious taboo. Didn’t you do your prep, Colonel?”
    Kaufman didn’t allow himself temper. “But if the artifact does send out a wave, or blow in some way—”
    “If it blows like the first artifact did, the whole planet goes. And I think the possibilities of setting off a wave inadvertently are less than that of crazed religious aliens attacking my children. The first expedition set off that wave deliberately, you know. They didn’t deliberately get their kids murdered.”
    “Tom, it isn’t—”
    “Listen, Lyle,” Capelo said, stopping again, “I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t even expect you, or the entire Solar Alliance military that you represent, to protect me and mine. You’ve already amply demonstrated your failure at that. So I’m doing this my way. My kids go back with me tomorrow morning, and they stay locked in the shuttle tonight.”
    “All right,” Kaufman said, because further opposition wouldn’t get him anywhere anyway. “Will we get the artifact out tomorrow?”
    “Sure. We’re exactly on military schedule, where everything proceeds in a timely fashion.”
    “Do you really believe that?”
    “No,” Capelo said wearily, “but it sounds like the kind of thing a physicist on a military project should say.”
    They walked the rest of the way in silence.
    At camp, the shuttle had just come down. Ann Sikorski disembarked into the red sunset, her long pale face both eager and apprehensive. Gruber, of course, was staying with his beloved dig. Kaufman moved toward Ann to tell her that humanity had been mysteriously restored to World reality, and that she had a dinner invitation for the following evening.

NINE
    ABOARD THE ALAN B. SHEPARD
    L yle,” said Marbet’s excited face on the shuttle’s viewlink the next afternoon, “I think you should come up here, if you can.”
    Something in Kaufman’s chest lurched. Was it the words or the speaker? At least now, calling from the ship’s heavily shielded comroom, she was clothed. He kept his voice steady.
    “The artifact lifts out of the hole later today, Marbet. And we have dinner with natives, including Enli Brimmidin. She was easy to locate, after all. Can you make an oral report and then just send me the tapes?”
    “Of course,” Marbet said. “But I’d rather do it the other way around. You view the tapes and then we’ll talk.”
    “I take it you’ve made progress.”
    “Oh, yes.”
    “Tom’s daughters were asking about you. I had to tell him that you have a virus and are in quarantine.”
    “Give them my love. And now, what aren’t you telling me, Lyle? It’s something important.”
    He remembered that the viewlink was two-way, and that she was reading his body language and facial expressions more minutely and easily than anyone ever had before. For a brief instant, he understood why people feared and hated Sensitives. The instant passed, and he made himself smile.
    He said, “Why? What are you picking up from me?”
    “Frustration. Anxiety.”
    He laughed. Even to him it sounded forced. “Well, why wouldn’t I be frustrated and anxious? I’ve got a three-stranded situation here—dangerous artifact, native traders, imprisoned enemy—and every strand includes a generous share of lunatics. In your strand that refers to the Faller, not you, Marbet.”
    “Tom Capelo giving you trouble?”
    “Last night he and Albemarle actually swung on each other. If they were soldiers, I’d throw them both in stockade. If they were officers, I’d court-martial them. But they’re essential civilian personnel I have to work with, and they have to work with each other, and I’m manacled by that.”
    “So what did you do?” Marbet said, with her quiet sympathy. Kaufman marveled at himself;