The Application of Hope Read online

  His expression was flat. Only his eyes moved, as if he could see through the camera into her soul.

  "I have never understood you," he said. "I always thought I did, but I don't."

  "I disagree, General. You believed me obsessed with my father's disappearance, and I was. When I realized I could learn no more, I put myself in a position to emulate him. And now that we have information again, I want to return to research."

  Zeller shook his head. "Your father wouldn't understand this."

  "Probably not," she said. "I think it would make him angry."

  She didn't add the rest. She had finally realized that she was her mother's daughter as well as her father's. Unlike her mother, Sabin thrived in a military environment. But unlike her father, she had to choose her own path, and if that path deviated from the norm, she had to follow the new path instead of trudging along the old.

  Amazing that a double loss—learning her father was truly dead and suspecting that Coop was as well—would help her discover who she really was.

  Perhaps that was what living was all about, using the good and the bad to determine the essence of one's self.

  "I'll be more useful in research," she said. "Of course, I will remain on the Geneva until the Fleet can provide a suitable replacement."

  "I don't think anyone has resigned a captain's commission after such a success, Sabin," Zeller said. "Not in all the years of the Fleet."

  She didn't believe that was true. There were centuries of Fleet history, and so much had disappeared into legend.

  "I don't consider what happened in foldspace a success, sir," she said. "We lost the Ivoire."

  "And found a ship that we had thought gone forever, Captain," Zeller said. "We wouldn't have found it without you. The foldspace rescue team says they might have dismissed that blip on their equipment. They think you and Captain Foucheux saw things they did not, and they must change their algorithms accordingly."

  This was one of the reasons that Sabin had to return to research and foldspace investigation. The method of doing things had become more important than the purpose for doing those things.

  The teams no longer thought of the lives hanging in the balance. They thought about the probabilities for success.

  And with that realization, she finally understood what Zeller was telling her.

  There was only one person who could have found the Sikkerhet on this mission, one person whose thinking was both rigid enough to conduct a grid search and creative enough to explore all the possibilities.

  That was why he considered her mission a success.

  "I am going to see if we can invent a new position for you, Captain," Zeller said.

  "We need something better in investigations, and we need someone of command rank who can run that new system. Tell me you'll keep your captain's commission and accept the reassignment."

  "Only if I may focus on research, sir," she said.

  "Research, investigation, and the technology itself. I'll see if we can change the Geneva's designation so she can be the ship in charge of that part of our team."

  "Sir, the Geneva's not equipped for the kind of work we would need to do," she said.

  "We would need a newer ship, one outfitted especially for us."

  His eyes narrowed, that disapproving look she knew so well. He had once accused her of taking what little she was offered, and ungratefully asking for ten times as much.

  She had just done so now.

  But she didn't take back her request.

  "My instinct is to say no, Captain," he said. "But I have learned that my instinct always discounts you. So I will see what I can do."

  "Thank you, sir," she said as he signed off.

  She sat in her small back-up control room for several minutes afterward, staring at the blank screen.

  For the first time in their careers, neither Zeller nor Sabin had won the argument with each other. They had compromised in a way neither of them would have thought possible two decades before.

  She was starting something new, remaking something old into a brand new part of the Fleet.

  And, sadly, the first thing she wanted to do was tell Coop. He might not understand her choice, but he would give her an intelligent and lively discussion. He would let her know what she hadn't thought of, and what she needed to do to make the experiment work.

  She closed her eyes for just a moment.

  She would remain a captain, and the loneliness would still be a large part of her life.

  Maybe even larger now, without Coop.

  As a young girl, she had needed her father back. She couldn't imagine life without him.

  As an adult woman, she wanted Coop back. But she could easily imagine life without him. It just wasn't something she would have chosen. None of this was.

  And here was the difference between her childhood and now: If her research found Coop alive, she still would retain a job in research and foldspace investigation. If they had found her father before she quit school, she would have become someone else.

  Funny how the events of one's life changed that life.

  Coop understood that. He seemed to fathom how wisdom was hard-earned, not something someone else could impart and believe that another person would get.

  Maybe that was why the Fleet's insistence on stepping into life in other cultures bothered him so much. Because he hadn't even been certain he understood his own life.

  She wished she could tell him that she'd finally realized what he had been telling her all those months ago.

  And, in acknowledging the feeling she had, she realized also that she believed, deep down, she would never get the chance to tell him. Even if her research led to his ship's discovery forty years from now, she suspected Coop would not be on it, just like her father hadn't been on his ship.

  Hard-won understanding.

  It wasn't quite the death of hope—part of her still hoped that Coop was alive somewhere.

  It was more like the application of hope.

  She wanted to make sure that no one else—child, adult, crewmember, captain—would ever lose a loved one to foldspace again.

  It was probably a vain hope.

  But it would keep her going, for at least another forty years.