Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds Read Free Book Online Page B

we still can’t begin to resolve Janus-sized objects.”
    “So in other words this might be unique,” Parry said.
    “Or it might be a common enough situation that you can expect to find one or two co-orbital pairs in every system,” Bella said. “Right now we have no idea.”
    “But it could be unusual,” Parry persisted, “in which case, doesn’t it begin to look like maybe that was the point?”
    Bella leaned forward, interested. “A calling card, you mean?”
    “I’m just saying we shouldn’t rule anything out.”
    She nodded sagely. “Parry’s right. We keep open minds and we consider all possibilities, no matter how outlandish. The instant we start making assumptions is the instant we’re going to run into trouble.”
    “But we’re not trained for this,” Svetlana said, looking around the room. “We’re tool-pushers. Bella says we have to keep open minds. I say it isn’t our job even to worry about that.”
    “It isn’t that simple,” Bella said, “although God knows I wish it were. We have just five days at Janus; less if the moon speeds up. That’s one hundred and twenty hours, of which every single minute will be precious.”
    “The problem is timelag,” Schrope said. He spoke softly, but with a measured ease that suggested a planned statement. “We’ll be too far out to phone home.”
    Bella nodded. “We’ll be compressing and transmitting all our data back home, of course, from the moment we’re in sensor range, and the experts in near-Earth space will be on it like a pack of hounds, but the earliest we’ll hear from them is twenty-six hours after we send back the first images. Once we reach Janus, we won’t be able to afford to wait that long for instructions.”
    “Still won’t make us specialists,” Svetlana said.
    “But we’re still eighteen days from our objective,” Bella said. “That’s why I’ve called you here. I want you to start thinking like specialists.”
    Parry laughed. “Just like that?”
    “You’re all smart cookies,” Bella said. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have got within a country mile of my ship.”
    “None of us knows the first thing about alien life,” Svetlana said.
    “Maybe not now,” Bella said, “but a lot can change in eighteen days. No one’s expecting green monsters to come crawling out of that moon when we pull alongside, but we have to be ready to answer if Janus says ‘hello’. We have to be ready with something .”
    Saul Regis fingered his elaborate beard. He wore a Cosmic Avenger sweatshirt showing the fictitious crew standing around the workstations of their sleek thirtieth-century star-ship. “How would this work? Us becoming specialists, I mean.”
    “As of now,” Bella said, “I’m putting together a contact working group. I want to keep it small and flexible, which is why I haven’t invited all the chiefs to this briefing.” She nodded at Regis. “I want you to chair it, Saul. I’ve looked at the background files of everyone on this ship and of all of us you look to be best equipped for the job. You’ve studied cognitive science and artificial intelligence at research level — and our best guess at the nature of Janus is that it’s some kind of robot.”
    “I feel overqualified already,” Regis said.
    “I’m not expecting blinding insights — just some basic familiarity with the landscape. Does anyone have any objection to Saul chairing this working group?” She waited a heartbeat. “No? Good; that’s settled, then.”
    Regis held up his hands in mock surrender. “I still don’t know what you actually want me to do , Bella.”
    “Start by assembling your team. I think we can take it as a given that the people in this room ought to be on it, if only because we’ll be the ones at the sharp end when we start near-Janus operations. I want you to keep the team focused and agile, but you shouldn’t discount bringing in anyone else you feel can add something.” Bella flicked her flexy across