Philip the Bastard.
Jack advanced, Milly close behind, until the two brothers faced each other no more than half a meter apart. Neither one reached out a hand.
“Jack.” Philip Beston nodded his head. Now that she was close, Milly could see differences. Philip was almost the same height, but more heavily-built. He had the same red hair, but in place of Jack’s lidded green glint, his eyes were blue and wide and innocent. And, unlike Jack, the smile on his face seemed easy and genuine.
“And this” — Philip stepped past his brother — “must be the famous Milly Wu, discover of the Wu-Beston anomaly.” He paused and frowned. “Are you really Milly Wu?”
“I am. Is something wrong?”
“Not at all.” He reached out, took her hand in his, and shook it firmly. “My apologies. I was merely surprised to find someone so young — and, if I may be a little gauche, so very attractive — making so important a discovery. I am delighted to welcome you to Odin Station, and I look forward to the opportunity of working with you.”
His brother’s air of bonhomie made Jack sound sour and nervous as he said, “On verification. Only on verification.”
“Jack, my dear young sibling, would I ever suggest anything else?” Philip turned again to Milly. “As you can see, my brother remains regrettably suspicious of me and my intentions.”
“Damn right I do,” Jack growled, and moved on along the umbilical toward the interior of Odin Station. “With plenty of reasons. How soon can we talk verification?”
Philip shrugged at Milly, as though to say “What can you do with him?” and ushered her forward. “As soon as you like, Jack,” he said. “My staff has been eagerly awaiting your arrival. As have I.”
“That, I do believe.” Jack, at the end of the tube, had to wait for his brother to come up to him and point out the way they should go. The outside of Odin Station resembled Argus Station, but within there would surely be big differences. Milly didn’t propose to find out what they were. It had taken weeks to learn the chambers and crisscrossing corridors of Argus Station, and she would not be here long enough to make the effort worthwhile.
Even assuming, that is, that she would be given the freedom to do so. Philip Beston took them only a few more meters, then led them into a suite of rooms.
“This is where you will be staying. As Jack will no doubt explain to you, we do not feel free to offer the full run of Odin Station. If you do leave these quarters, I request that you be accompanied by one of my staff members.”
“In other words, he doesn’t want us to see too much.” Jack stepped forward and moved across to sit at the long table. “Let’s not mess around here. You know what we came here for and what we want, and we know exactly what you want.”
Philip Beston raised an eyebrow at Milly. “I had intended to proceed with the usual civilities, and offer you refreshments after your long journey. However, if you feel the urge to get down to business at once…”
“We do.” Jack seemed as nervous as Philip was relaxed. “Are you set up already for verification?”
“As ready as we can be, given the absence of critical information. The arrays are all in position, we merely have to set them to their correct phases.”
Even Philip showed a trace of tension with those words. Milly felt the atmosphere in the room slowly tightening. The problem from Jack Beston’s point of view was quite simple. Odin Station had receiving equipment as good as that at Argus Station. There would be little to choose between them when it came to sensitivity. The big question was, to which direction in space should the array of receivers be tuned? Without that information, Philip Beston would be hunting blind.
On the other hand, as soon as Jack provided the signal direction to his brother, the two of them would be on an equal footing. Odin Station would presumably skip the detection analysis that Milly and the team at L-4 had performed; if the signal were verified, they would be equally well-equipped to tackle the all-important problem of signal interpretation.
There was a long silence. Jack Beston, having hurried so far and so fast, appeared to be having second thoughts. At last his brother prompted him: “I assume that the signal is still there? That it didn’t show up for awhile, and then go away?”
Jack merely gave him a cynical glance. Milly could see Jack’s point. If the signal had vanished, the array of sensors in Odin Station had not previously been tuned to the right direction. Therefore, there could be no verification. The signal needed to be observed simultaneously from both the L-4 and L-5 locations.
“Look,” Philip Beston said at last. “I know exactly how you feel about this. I’d feel the same way myself if our positions were reversed. But I’ve had my top team in position and awaiting your arrival for hours. If you want to change your mind, get back into your ship, and return to Argus Station…”
“No, I’m suspicious — just like you — but I’m not dumb. The signal is still there, of course it’s still there. Or at least, it was an hour ago when I checked back to base from our ship.”
“Regular light speed signals?” Philip Beston shook his head. “You know, if we wanted to do this as accurately as possible, we should arrange for entanglement between your computers and mine. That way, we would not have to compensate all the time for signal delays.”
“Sure. I’d be willing — if you would.” Jack locked glances with his brother, and after a few moments both shook their heads. Milly realized she had just witnessed a significant interaction. Entanglement of the computers would zero out communication delays; but it would also vastly increase the risk that the secret information of one station would become accessible to the other. Neither brother was willing to permit that. Clearly, each felt that he had some sort of competitive edge, even though Jack had won the first round by detecting an anomaly.
Jack was drumming his fingers on the tabletop staring at nothing. Finally he glanced up to Milly. “All right. Go ahead.”
“Provide coordinates?”
“You’ve got it.” Jack turned to Philip. “I assume it’s necessary for us to say this only once? Everything in this room is being recorded?”
“Just imagine that the positions were reversed, think how you would proceed, and assume that the same applies here.” Philip Beston had lost any trace of his original relaxed air. He was tenser than his brother as he turned to Milly. “The coordinates of the signal source, if you would be so kind.”
Milly didn’t need to consult notes. “As of 5:82:34 hours on 97/09/04, the source coordinates in the ecliptic standard reference frame of 2050 were as follows: declination, 38 degrees 22 minutes 17.3 seconds south, azimuth 231 degrees 54 minutes 52.6 seconds. The signal fall-off from the observed direction of signal maximum followed a circular normal distribution, with a one-sigma value of 1.3 arc seconds. No motion of the signal source was detected over a five week period of observation. However, for the first three weeks the array tuning was not exact, so a movement in position of less than twenty seconds of arc would have been undetectable.”
“Thank you.” Philip sounded breathless. “What is the source direction relative to an L-4 to L-5 baseline?”
“A little more than thirty-two degrees. The angle is not optimal.”
“But it’s pretty good. We lose only a factor of two in angular resolution. It will take my staff approximately ten minutes to tune our most sensitive arrays to that direction, but after that they have to make preliminary observations and perform an optimizing scan. We have maybe an hour to wait for results. During that time, I would be very happy to offer a tour of Odin Station.” Philip glanced at Jack. “There will of course be a few places that I do not feel free to show you.”
Jack shook his head. “Not for me. Milly, you go if you feel interested.”