Earth Unaware (The First Formic War 1)

Lem launched off the floor and headed toward the push tube. He caught himself at the entrance and turned back, as if struck by an unrelated thought. "Oh, and Dr. Benyawe, would you see me in my office, please?"

Dr. Benyawe nodded. "Yes, Mr. Jukes."

Five minutes later Dr. Benyawe was standing opposite Lem in his office, anchored to the floor with her greaves.

"You have put me in a delicate situation, Mr. Jukes," she said.

"Have I?" said Lem.

"Calling me to your office. The other engineers will assume that I'm meeting with you to give you an account of the test's failure. They'll think I've come here to point fingers and pass blame."

"I was the one who called this meeting."

"They'll assume that I've been speaking with you for some time without their knowledge, giving you information behind their backs."

"So they're bureaucrats, then, and not engineers at all, is that what you're saying, Dr. Benyawe?"

"They're human beings first, Mr. Jukes. Engineers second. They're worried about their livelihoods."

"If we don't return to Luna with anything short of absolute success, Doctor, I think all of our careers are over."

"That is a fair assumption, yes," said Benyawe. "But that's true all the time, isn't it? Fail, and you're looking for a job."

"Just one question, Dr. Benyawe. If you had been in charge, would you have already conducted the test?"

"You want to know if I blame Dr. Dublin for the delay."

"I want to know if you're willing to proceed despite some degree of uncertainty. I want to know if you've reached the point where you think we'll learn more from failure or partial success than from further dithering about possibilities."

"Dr. Dublin found some of the pretest readings unsettling," said Benyawe. "I appreciate his caution. Had I been in his position, however, I would have continued with the test. The glaser is built to accommodate a margin of error within the readings we found."

"So if you were in charge of this team, we'd already have our results."

"The gravity laser, Mr. Jukes, is not a device to be taken lightly. Gravity is the most powerful force in the universe."

"I thought love was."

Benyawe smiled. "You're very different from your father."

"You've worked with my father for a long time."

"He's given me a chance to be part of great things. He also turned my hair white by the time I was fifty."

"So why didn't my father put you in charge of this team, Doctor? You have far more experience than Dublin. And every bit as much knowledge of the gravity laser."

"Why aren't you running your own corporation? You've certainly had plenty of opportunities to do so. You helped launch four IPOs before your twentieth birthday, you took nine different divisions and companies from the brink of bankruptcy into the black, and the rumor is that you've built a private investment empire that knows few equals. And yet here you are, heading up a testing expedition in the Kuiper Belt. Your father doesn't always make decisions based on resumes."

"I took this job, Dr. Benyawe, because I believe in the gravity laser."

"But this test is dangerous. If it works wrong on a massy object like an asteroid, this ship could simply disappear."

"I'm willing to take risks. Is Dublin?"

"Maybe Dublin was given strict instructions by your father to make sure you came home alive."

Suddenly Dublin's dithering and delays took on an entirely different meaning. "So Father put me in charge but gave instructions for Dublin to take care of me?"

"Your father loves you."