Emprise by Michael P. Kube-McDowell Read Free Book Online Page A

room, feeling as though be had been cheated. There had been so little acclaim over his achievement in getting the tape, and then Aikens making as though to take over, that for a moment Eddington regretted having told them. Nor did he appreciate Winston’s gruff skepticism. Only Jeri had seemed to share Eddington’s own spirit, and that was muted by the others’ reserve.
    But Aikens was right, damnably. Without the charts of intensity over time, all they had open to them was wild speculation. And, he realized, their excitement over the anomaly may have been momentarily overwhelmed by something stronger—their yearning to get back to work.
    Warmer weather had permitted the reopening of Crown House, and the members of the AC-1 committee were just settling around the enormous cherrywood table in its main dining hall when they heard knocking. It was remote and rapid, and a moment later the nearby sound of a bell startled them.
    “Ah, good. That’s the bell pull at the main door,” said Eddington. “Stay here. I’ll see to it.”
    Eddington was gone for several minutes, and when he was heard returning, his footsteps were confused with those of a second person. Winston glanced nervously at the others.
    “And now we are five,” Eddington said as he reentered the room, trailed by a taller man with a close-clipped beard. “Does anyone need an introduction to Dr. Schmidt?”
    Aikens set down his pipe and bounded across the room. “Josef, Josef,” he said fervently, pumping the newcomer’s hand. “So good to see you. How did you know? Or did you?”
    “I called him,” said Anofi. “You know me—can’t keep a secret. Hi, Josef.” Schmidt seemed embarrassed by the attention. “Thank you, Marc. I’m just sorry I couldn’t be here for the first party.”
    “That’s all right,” said Winston from the far end of the table. “We had nothing, did nothing, and got nowhere.”
    “Don’t mind Terry,” said Anofi. “He’s still among the skeptics.”
    “Which you would be, too, my dear—had your brain not softened from lack of use these past years.” Schmidt chuckled. “Still true to the Old School English manners, eh, Terence?”
    “Of course. How are things in Germany, Doctor?”
    Schmidt waved his hand and settled into a chair. “Not ‘doctor,’ please. I’m just plain Josef Schmidt, reading teacher for children of the terminally erudite.”
    There was polite laughter, but true mirth was reigned in by the thought of the last director of the European Space Administration’s astronomical research office tutoring to earn a living.
    “Laurence, here, was just telling us how he came across this emission,” Aikens said, opening a briefcase and producing a sheaf of computer paper. “Apparently Allen Chandliss in America put him on to it. Last week we listened to the tape that Laurence made,” he said for Schmidt’s benefit. “It’s not much to hear—not a Bach chorale at all—but in its own way entrancing.”
    He separated the papers into four groups and distributed. “These were done for us at Cambridge—even though I’ve been dismissed, a few friends in the soft sciences are still there. I only received them this morn, and haven’t had much of a chance to look them over. Still—”
    He stopped short at the sound of knocking. “Now what? Isn’t this everyone?”
    “It should have been,” Eddington said, rising. “Perhaps you should get those out of sight.”
    “You are having problems with the police here as well?” Schmidt asked.
    “What would they do?” Anofi asked, her face betraying a touch of anxiety. “We’ve done nothing illegal, have we?”
    “It’s difficult to know, these days,” Aikens said soberly.
    But no alarm was called for. The person at the door was Eddington’s daughter, plus luggage, minus mother.
    “Hello, Penny,” he said, momentarily taken aback. Then he remembered—“your turn coming up”—and recovered before his confusion showed. “It’s good to see