Free Alex Benedict 07 - Coming Home by Jack McDevitt Page A

that mountain. What was he doing there anyhow? He knew his health was failing, and it just makes me wonder if he felt lost. That maybe he didn’t care anymore.”
    *   *   *
     
    The Hillside was an exquisite, lush club on the Riverwalk. They had a human hostess, which is standard in most of the better restaurants, and human waiters, which, of course, is not. They also had a pianist, who was playing the theme from
Last Chance
when I walked in. Jasmine candles glittered on the tables. Prints in the style of the last century, and dark-stained wooden tables and walls provided a sense of nostalgia. I sat down and ordered a pizza, propped my notebook in front of me, and was reading the newsclips when a familiar voice asked if she could join me. It was JoAnn. “Sure,” I said, folding the notebook. “How are you doing?”
    “Not real well.” She eased into a chair.
    “What’s wrong, JoAnn?”
    She pressed her lips together. Shook her head. “I don’t trust it.”
    “You mean tinkering with the drive?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry to hear it.”
    She sat quietly for a minute, staring out the window at the Riverwalk. Tourists were strolling past, kids with balloons, people in coaches. “Have you talked to Shara?”
    “Not since the flight.”
    She leaned close to me and lowered her voice. “I’m pretty sure we could make it work, Chase. Odds are extremely good we could stop the
Capella
right in its tracks. But damn it, I can’t be certain. And I just can’t bring myself to put all those people at risk. Shara wants me to run the experiment again. Her argument is that if we get it right twice, we should be okay.”
    “Are you going to do it?”
    A waiter arrived. “Could you give us a few minutes?” JoAnn asked. “I haven’t really had a chance to look at the menu yet.” Then she turned back to me. “There’s no point in repeating it, Chase. Even if it worked fine, if the timing on a second run was perfect, I still wouldn’t be in a position to guarantee it would work for the
Capella
.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know.” Her voice shook. “I can’t take that kind of chance. They want me to run a successful experiment, then assure them everything will be okay. Management is scared, Chase. There’s a lot of pressure on them now. The politicians want to get this thing settled. They want the problem to go away. John is the only one who’s resisting.”
    “John Kraus?”
    “Yes. He recognizes there’s a quantum factor in all this, that there’s no way we can be certain. He’s right. But try to explain that to the politicians.”
    I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. My gut-level reaction was that I should simply keep out of it. Which I guess is what I tried to do. “JoAnn, John’s ultimately responsible to make the call. Just do what you can and let him take it from there.”
    “I know. But he’ll want my opinion, and I’m pretty sure that’s what he’ll go with.” She brought up the menu, but she wasn’t really looking at it. “You know, I came here thinking I could make this work. I understood from the beginning there was a slight possibility it could go wrong. But the chance seemed so infinitesimal that I thought we could live with it.”
    “What changed? Did you find out something?”
    “Seeing the families. That’s what changed. Seeing pictures of the passengers.” They’d been all over the news feeds. “It was
always
five percent. That just seems like a much bigger number now.” She looked in pain. “I don’t want to be responsible for killing these people.”
    The waiter came back. JoAnn was still looking toward the menu, not really reading it. “I’ll have a Camara salad,” she said. It was a specialty of the house, and I suspected it was what she usually ordered.
    “What does Shara think?”
    “She wants to play the odds. Which is fine if it works. But it’s easy for her. I’m not sure she’d be so ready to do it if it were up to her to make