He realized that there was a connection that had been eating at him beneath the surface, something so far-fetched that he had never consciously entertained it.
Lamont looked at Ashton intently as the bookish engineer drew himself a second cup of water. “How long were you an engineer for United Space before being brought into the Westward project?” He asked.
“Nine years,” Clifford answered, wiping his mouth.
“And in that time, did you ever work on something like a radio or antenna that was pointed away from Earth? Out into deep space?” Lamont felt electrified with a nervous excitement. He realized that there was a connection that had been eating at him beneath the surface, something so far-fetched that he had never consciously entertained it.
The engineer looked conflicted, turning the cup around in his hand. “Well, yes,” he admitted. “I worked on components for something like that.”
“What’s the problem, mate?” Lamont asked, forcing his tone to become friendly and soothing. “The big secret United Space was keeping was this.” He slapped a palm dully on the padded surface of the examination bed behind him. “Westward. And we’re here. Surely any gag agreements you might have signed a decade ago are obsolete now.”
Clifford set the cup down and began to pace, his stocking feet soundless on the thin carpeting of the floor. He seemed to be attempting to resolve an inner struggle. Finally, his eyes flashed at Lamont, and the newspaperman recognized with satisfaction that novelty had won out. The bloke was a scientist, after all.
“They had me working on satellite infrastructures that could withstand extreme cold and pressure,” Clifford explained, stepping closer to Lamont so that he could lower his voice conspiratorially. “They didn’t tell me anything except the essential design challenges, but it seemed clear to me that the environment was consistent with, say, the upper atmosphere of Uranus. And that the general shape of the thing was meant to accommodate a very large dish.”
Lamont stood up straighter. He felt his eyes burning into those of the engineer, searching for some hint of a trick, a deception. His thoughts raced back to a conversation he’d had in what felt now like a different lifetime, deep in the bowels of Mars. The words of Madison1, the space prospector, flashed verbatim through his mind.
After our departure, we happened to notice that a station of some kind was being constructed in orbit around Triton. There was a big supply ship for it in orbit; we could see the United Space markings on the side. But they never responded to our radio calls. It was a big radio array. But it was pointed outward—away from the sun, into interstellar space. Now, you’ve got to ask yourself: What’s the point of that?