The Human Division by John Scalzi Read Free Book Online Page B

then even if we found it we couldn’t retrieve it before the Utche show up and you would need the shuttle for Ambassador Abumwe’s team. So let’s say that we have the shuttle on standby for that first hour. If we find it by then, once you’re confident the area is secure, we’ll go out and get it. If we find it after, we wait until after you’ve delivered the ambassador’s team to the Utche.”
    “I can live with that,” Wilson said. “If you’ll bump up my scans in your queue.”
    “And if I don’t believe the area is secure?” Coloma said.
    “I’ll still need to go get it,” Wilson said. “But if I know where it is, between autopilot and my BrainPal, I can go get it myself. You won’t have to risk your pilot.”
    “Just the shuttle,” Coloma said. “Because that’s not in any way significant .”
    “Sorry, ma’am,” Wilson said, and waited.
    Coloma glanced at her executive officer. “Have Mr. Schmidt here get Neva your information. We have four hours to jump. Sometime in the next half hour will be fine.”
    “Yes, Captain,” Wilson said. “Thank you, ma’am.” He saluted again. Coloma returned the salute this time. Wilson turned to go, Schmidt hustling by the captain to catch up with him.
    “Lieutenant, one more thing,” Coloma said.
    Wilson turned back to her. “Ma’am?”
    “Just so you know, if you take the shuttle out, any damage you put on it, I’m taking out on you,” she said.
    “I’ll treat it like it was my own car,” Wilson said.
    “See that you do,” Coloma said. She turned away. Wilson took the hint.
    “That was a nice touch about the car,” Schmidt said, once the two of them were off the bridge.
    “As long as you don’t know about what happened to my last car, yes,” Wilson said.
    Schmidt stopped.
    “Relax, Hart,” Wilson said. “It was a joke. Come on. Lots to do.” He kept walking.
    After a minute, Schmidt followed.
    PART TWO
    VI.
    “That was XO Balla,” Schmidt said. He and Wilson were in an unused storage room, where Wilson had set up a three-dimensional monitor. They had waited out the skip into the Danavar system in its confines. “The Clarke sent out a ping using the Polk ’s encrypted signal. Got nothing back.”
    “Of course we didn’t,” Wilson said. “Why would the universe make it easy for us?”
    “What do we do now?” Schmidt asked.
    “Let me answer that question with a question,” Wilson said. “How does one look for a black box?”
    “Are you serious?” Schmidt said, after a second. “We’re running out of time here and you want to have a Socratic dialogue with me?”
    “I wouldn’t put this on the level of Socrates, but yeah, I do,” Wilson said. “It’s the former high school physics teacher in me. And call me crazy, but I think you’ll actually be more helpful to me if I don’t treat you like a completely useless monkey. I’m going to go on the assumption that you might have a brain.”
    “Thanks,” Schmidt said.
    “So, how does one look for a black box?” Wilson asked. “In particular, a black box that doesn’t want to be found?”
    “Fervent prayer,” Schmidt said.
    “You’re not even trying,” Wilson said, reprovingly.
    “I’m new at this,” Schmidt said. “Give me a hint.”
    “Fine,” Wilson said. “You start by looking for what the black box was originally attached to.”
    “The Polk, ” Schmidt said. “Or what’s left of it.”
    “Very good, my young apprentice,” Wilson said.
    Schmidt shot him a look, then continued. “But you told me that the previous scans of the area from the automated drones didn’t turn up anything.”
    “True,” Wilson said. “But those were preliminary scans, done quickly. The Clarke has better sensors.” He dimmed the light in the storage room and fired up the monitor, which appeared to show nothing but a small, single dot at the center of its display.
    “That’s not the Polk, is it?” Schmidt asked.
    “It’s the Clarke, ” Wilson said. A series of