Flight Correction 
by Ken Wharton
Progress is a never-ending parade of solving problems and creating new ones. Which is not all bad.... 

“Albatross, Daddy!” Sally's freckled face was pure excitement. “Albatross!” 
Hank blinked a few times from his position in the hammock under the red mangroves. His daughter stood just beyond his reach. “How do you even know what an albatross looks like?” 
“Just come quick, Daddy! C'mon...” She stepped forward and tugged at the remnants of his favorite shirt, a threadbare blue oxford from his professor days back in the states. 
Hank finally got to his feet and followed his daughter down to the narrow lagoon. Splashing across after her, he realized he had forgotten his hat. “Wait a sec, Sally...” 
Whether she heard him or not, she didn't turn around. Screw it, he thought, still following her. If he fried his bald spot in the equatorial sun, it wouldn't be the first time. Stepping out of the water, they turned left, following the main path across the white sand beach. “Where's your mother?” he asked at last. 
“Finches,” was all Sally said, clearly doing her best to be patient with her slow-paced father. 
Of course. Those boring little critters that he'd never learned to tell apart. If his wife had studied some of these other birds he might actually be interested in her research. At that very moment Hank was walking right past a pair of goofy-looking masked boobies, brilliant white except for the dark mask around the yellow-orange bill. The two birds were waddling around their sorry excuse for a nest, which looked for all the world like a random pile of rocks on the ground. Meanwhile, three beautiful red-pouched frigate birds sat within reach just overhead in the mangrove tree, inflating their sacs and ululating madly. All the birds ignored the humans with their usual Galápagos detachment, which could have made them easy to study. But instead Julia went roaming all over the island in search of those damn finches. 
Sally led him up the trail toward the two solar-powered lighthouses that guided those intolerable mini-cruise-ships into the heart of Genovesa. After a minute of climbing, Hank was embarrassed to find himself panting with exertion. He glanced down into the blue expanse of Darwin's Bay and made a half-hearted resolution to start swimming again. 
Finally Hank made it over a crest, and there it was. Standing on an ancient memorial plaque at the edge of the cliff was an enormous white bird with a hooked, yellow beak. It was, in fact, an albatross. 
“Wow,” muttered Hank, his interest growing despite himself. He had been told that these birds were endemic to Española, at the far south of the Galápagos archipelago. Hank had even seen them down there once, a huge breeding colony next to the cliffs. But on this island, a hundred miles to the north, he had never seen one. Not a single one, for the three years they had lived here. 
“Must have gotten lost, I guess,” Hank said to his daughter. “Mom'll be interested.” 
But Sally apparently wasn't finished yet. She was already halfway to the next crest. Hank sighed and started walking again. “What's up there? Another... ?” 
Hank broke off as he approached the top and could see the far side of the island. There was another one! And another.... With every step his jaw dropped a little further. 
Here on Genovesa, a hundred miles off course, five dozen albatross had gotten lost in the exact same place. 
* * *
Hank watched from the shade under the lighthouse while Julia filmed an albatross flopping toward the edge of the cliff. “Their feet are funny, Mommy,” Sally was saying. “They're way too long.” 
“They're not made for walking,” Julia explained. “Wait, watch this...” 
The bird hesitated at the edge of the cliff, extending its six-foot wingspan once, twice, and then backing off as if it was scared to death by the prospect. After a couple more fakes, it stepped forward and jumped. Jumped, not flew. Hank saw a white form plummet out of view, then reappear, enormous wings outstretched, speeding away over the calm water. 
“See, Sally,” his wife was saying. “They don't really flap. Takes too much energy, so they soar instead. Dynamic soaring, it's called.” 
“Where's it going?” Sally asked. 
“To fish, probably. Maybe around here, maybe down off the coast of Peru. Or maybe it's going back to Española, where they all live.” 
“But then ... what are they doing here?” 
Julia lifted her gaze from the camera, smiled at her daughter. “Very good question. Usually they know right where to go.” 
Hank spoke up. “Know any bird people down south?” Julia nodded. “Fernando does satellite migration tracking. Probably has some tagged ones right here, actually.” 
“Hmm. Maybe you'll get a call from him,” Hank said. 
“Oh, I'm sure the birds will all be gone before sundown.” 
Sally looked a bit sad. “But, but ... it was nice of them to visit, right?” 
Julia beamed down at Sally. “And it was nice of you to spot them for us. Otherwise we might never have known they were here.” 
* * *
Ten days later, the albatross population was pushing a hundred and fifty. 
The population of bird people was skyrocketing as well: Fernando's arrival this evening made four. Five, counting Julia. Their little island was getting awfully crowded. Not to mention their home. 
Hank normally would have simply left, gone outside to read his new download in private, but tonight El Meaño had sent yet another nasty rainstorm. And with the birders living in tiny two-man tents, the family's semipermanent shelter was the only spot for them all to gather. Hank couldn't imagine how Sally managed to sleep through the noise; he couldn't even read with all their chatter. And if he heard the word ‘migratory’ just one more time.... Finally, in frustration, he picked up the sim-finch he had designed for his wife's research and started morphing the beak into implausible shapes. 
It was an impressive piece of machinery, Hank modestly told himself. Back in the early days of finch research, before nano'geering enabled such devices, academics had resorted to more gruesome techniques. One ancient study even reported chopping the heads off of dead birds, swapping them around with the bodies, and then setting the chimeras in seductive poses to see who would try to mate with the corpses. 
“I don't think that one is going to see many suitors, honey.” Julia was speaking to him from across the room, referring with her eyes to the avian Cyrano. Hank shrugged and set it back down, nearly spilling his bottle of rum. Julia turned back to the main conversation. 
“I'm telling you,” Julia insisted. “The albatross are getting confused by the Line.” 
Hank rolled his eyes and turned away. His wife was always complaining about the space elevator; nothing new there. But still, he couldn't tune out the conversation. 
“I don't buy it, Julia,” said the only other female in the group, a penguin expert. “One new star is not going to mess up these birds. They've done studies-” 
“One star that doesn't rotate with all the others,” Julia countered. “It's not natural.” 
“It's been fully clouded over the last few nights,” noted Fernando. “And they keep arriving. So it can't be the stars.” 
“Well, what does that leave? Landmarks and dead reckoning?” 
Hank looked back over at the group, surprised at the obvious omission. “Don't forget magnetic fields.” Even a washed-up N.E. professor knew that much about bird migration. 
The penguin expert shook her head. “Not here at the equator. Sure, albatross have traces of magnetite in their brains like other birds, but the fields are so much weaker here that they don't rely on them at all.” 
Fernando stroked his white beard. “Still, he has a point. Flying up from Peru, it's a pretty small angular shift between here and Española. You know Tuttle, up in the states? He's bred a strain of pigeon that'll ignore all other cues, steer by magnetic fields alone. It must be an innate module in pigeons, so maybe all birds have it to some degree. Not at all inconceivable that new fields could gently steer the albatross off course.” 
“Maybe,” Julia said. “Maybe that's what the Line is doing to them. Changing the fields.” 
“Enough about the Line, already,” said Hank. Five pairs of eyes swiveled to glare at him, with varying levels of intensity. Hank retreated into his book, making an important mental note: don't mention the Line around Galápagos ecologists. 
* * *
Hank supposed that the primary responsibility lay with generations of science fiction writers. If Ecuador hadn't been so certain about Quito they wouldn't have campaigned so heavily for a space elevator in the first place. They wouldn't have weaned two generations on the premise that Ecuador would be the gateway to orbit, finally giving their country the first-world status they deserved. Eventually, they dreamed, Ecuador would become the richest and most powerful nation-state on Earth. 
So the initial site report had taken them very much by surprise. High elevations weren't recommended. Sure, altitude meant slightly less cable, but compared to the total distance to geosynch orbit, the percentages involved were so small as to be almost meaningless. Besides, in the mountains there wasn't easy access to a seaport-an essential part of the high-volume operation. 
Then there was the disaster scenario. Dropped equipment, hazardous spills, broken cables snapping down onto the surface of the earth ... A remote location was deemed necessary for safety concerns alone. Ecuador was hit hard on both fronts: everything was too mountainous or too crowded. Or both. Suddenly Brazil and Indonesia were being discussed as possible elevator locations. 
For Ecuador, faced with the loss of its dreams, the sacrifice of its most famous national treasure hadn't come hard. The largest of the Galápagos islands, Isabela, was the only one to actually span the equator. If Quito wasn't possible, Ecuador had told the world, Isabela would be just perfect. 
Predictably, the ecologists went daytrader on the whole idea. The Galápagos was not only a pristine ecological laboratory, but the very birthplace of evolutionary theory. They hadn't spent millions of dollars ridding ridding Isabela of the wild goats, fighting the unending battles with the local fishermen, only to have the island turned into the biggest port on the planet. Years of intense protest followed, but the initial public opposition faded as Ecuador spared no expense on the propaganda wars. Hardly any of the islands would be affected, the government promised. The giant land tortoise population of Isabela would be protected. A portion of the future tax revenue was even allotted to environmental research to help sow dissension in the ecologists’ midst. 
And, as always, the money had won. The space elevator had been completed five years ago, and all of the rosy predictions were now proven rubbish. Isabela was almost completely developed, and many of the other islands were heading in the same direction. The smaller outlying islands were still relatively unaffected, but no one knew how long that would last. 
To Hank, the Line had once dangled the promise of tropical employment. Three years back, when he had sacrificed his job for his family, he had held out hope of finding work on the space elevator. The entire structure was nanoengineered, after all. His specialty. And with that fantasy in mind, giving up his tenure-track position hadn't seemed quite so final. 
But the reality down here had been different. The completed elevator had no need for academic types. The only jobs available were loading cargo-and Hank's back certainly couldn't handle that. 
So now he was just living for his family, and the occasional bottle of rum. No more Paula, no more cheating around, no more rat race ... no more anything. But I'm doing the right thing, Hank told himself, reciting his mantra. I'm doing the right thing. 
From across the room Julia glanced in his direction, with a smile that said she still loved him despite his terribly insensitive comment about the Line. He tried to return the smile, tried to return a bit of love to his wife, but came up empty on both counts. Hank raised his book to cover his face, and buried himself in the meaningless words. 
* * *
They didn't speak again until halfway through breakfast. 
“Hank...” 
He knew that voice, that look. Hank took a shallow breath and steeled himself for another painful argument. “Why wouldn't you expect a magnetic field from the space elevator? Shouldn't there be currents every now and then?” 
His pulse skipped a beat as he realized it wasn't going to be that sort of argument. He managed a smile. 
“Yeah, that was a big worry. The cable goes right up through the Van Allen belts, after all. Wouldn't do to have an induced current yanking on the Line. So they spun it to be nonconducting.” 
“But buckytubes are...” 
Hank broke into a full grin. Finches might be boring, but this stuff was cool. He arrayed his napkin in front of him, smoothed it out. “Not always. OK, say this is a single sheet of carbon atoms, arrayed like hexagonal chicken wire. You make it into a buckytube simply by rolling it up.” He did so. “But there are lots of different classes of buckytubes, depending on how you line up the hexagons.” 
He demonstrated this by first making a cylindrical tube-with the corners of the napkins touching-and then sliding one edge of the napkin with respect to the other. Now the axis of the tube was no longer perpendicular to the bottom edge of the napkin. 
“There are lots of buckytube topologies, and each one has a different conductivity. So the tubes in your computer conduct, but the tubes in the Line don't.” 
Julia looked skeptical. “Thousands of miles of buckytube cable and they're sure it's all the non-conducting kind?” 
“The fibers are all continuous. If there was a transition between two buckytube geometries, there has to be a discontinuity, a weak link. The tube hasn't snapped, so I think that's a good sign.” 
Hank was exaggerating; a single-point failure wouldn't snap the Line. It had been given the same design as the successful multifiber space tethers, which contained many redundant strands that weren't even in use. If one strand failed, two others would instantly snap into place to take up the load. 
Julia just shook her head. “I don't know, Hank.... But I do know that's got to be the answer. These birds think they're on Española. Something has messed them up, and we've dismissed pretty much every other explanation. Think about it, will you?” 
“Sure, honey.” Hank's gaze skipped over to the rum supply, then back to Julia. “Sure.” 
* * *
By afternoon, he wasn't thinking about much of anything anything. The bottle had been out of reach for awhile, but it wasn't worth the effort to get off his hammock. 
How many hours had he spent in this thing? he wondered. More likely the time should be measured in months. The hammock was the fabric of space-time, Hank decided, and he was a gravitational sink, warping the geodesics around his body. By now he knew every fiber of the netting; at that very moment he could tell that there were was a single crease running under his left buttock. He tried to mentally picture the folded topology down there-the strands in the middle doing no work at all, forcing its neighbors to pull twice their weight. 
Just like the Line, he realized. Only the Line was different because... 
Hank bolted up straight, nearly spinning the hammock and dumping him onto the sand. The topology shift didn't have to be in the primary fibers, he realized. The slack fibers could carry a current as well. And if they were starting to shift... 
Five minutes later he was at his wife's computer, commencing his first literature search in nearly two years. 
* * * “So there you have it,” Hank told his wife two nights later. “That's my best guess.” 
Julia squinted at the pencil sketches that Hank had just drawn for her, shaking her head. “I might understand the concept, but certainly not the details. What am I supposed to do with this?” 
Hank shrugged, got up from the table and padded into the bathroom to get ready for bed. “I don't know what you do with it,” he called over his shoulder. “That's for you to decide.” 
He was in the middle of brushing his teeth when he saw in the mirror that Julia was standing beside him, glaring with a fury he hadn't seen in years. 
“For me to decide?! Me? What about you?! ” 
Hank spun to face her, his mouth full of foam. “Whmmh?” 
“Do you know how glad I've been these last two days, seeing you actually do some work you enjoy? I know you're not happy here. I know these islands are sapping the life out of you. But now that you've figured out this problem you're just going to drop it? You're just going to flop right back into your hammock, back to the way things were?” 
Hank spat into the sink, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and looked up to stare at his own reflection. “This was just a one-time coincidence. As soon as you report it, like it or not, things will be right back where they were. I'm not needed here.” 
“Sally needs you, you know that. Hell, if you're right about this, the whole goddamn solar system needs you.” 
He turned again to face her. “And you?” 
“I...” Julia drew a breath through pursed lips. “I need my husband. But what I don't need is-” 
Julia broke off as Sally appeared in the doorway, half-asleep and obviously frightened. Hank dropped to a squat and she ran into his arms. 
“Were we too loud for you?” Hank asked, stroking her hair. “We're sorry, we'll be quiet.” 
He stood up, lifting his daughter into the air. Julia stepped over to plant a kiss on her cheek, then glanced up apologetically at Hank. He smiled at his wife, nodded, and carried Sally off to bed. 
* * *
Hank ran a final check of his computer model while the dozen bird people nestled in for the presentation. He had first considered making a physical model, but the only string he could find on the island was his hammock, and he wasn't ready to sacrifice it just yet. Instead, he had had to dredge up his old programming skills for the proper 3-D rendering. 
“Everyone ready?” he asked the crowd. Julia nodded in reply, then winked at him. Sally sat next to her mother, peeking inside a Tupperware container at her pet lava lizard, Darwin. 
“OK,” Hank began. “This is a molecular view of one section of the Line. The original design.” The lattice appeared on the screen behind him, blue and red lines arrayed in a webbed cylinder. 
“Each one of these lines is a single-wall buckytube, and together they form this larger cylinder called a fiber. The blue strands are the primaries, where all the strain is carried. But you'll notice that there are more secondary red tubes than blue ones. That's because if there's a point failure...” 
Now a virtual pair of scissors appeared and snipped one of the blue strands. The fiber stretched only slightly as two red lines snapped into place to take up the slack. “Redundancy. And I'm only showing you the tubes and the fibers. These fibers are woven into what's known as a bundle, and in turn the bundles form the backbone of the Line itself. Each level of complexity has both primary and secondary strands, and the redundancy gives the Line an expected 700-year lifetime.” 
“Only 695 to go,” muttered the penguin expert. 
“Or maybe not,” Hank retorted. “Which is the whole point. The redundancy assumes that the secondary fibers maintain their structure, even when they're not in use.” 
Now the 3-D graphics zoomed in on a spherical-fullerene intersection where two red lines crossed a blue. At this resolution the lines were no longer 1-dimensional; now each buckytube appeared as an actual cylinder, composed of a geometrical spiral of dots. 
“Each one of these dots is a carbon atom,” Hank explained. “And as I said, this is the original design. A full quantum analysis was performed on this design, to make sure that the secondary fibers wouldn't degrade, even without full tension. The entire simulation series took 19 months to run on ASCI Platinum. And then they changed the design.” 
Hank hit a button on the computer and now the spherical intersections shifted ever so slightly. “This was what they actually built, shaving ten months off construction. Very subtle change-only two carbon atoms have moved per intersection. But the orbital pattern is different enough to require an entirely new calculation. 
“Now, there are public documents which refer to a new calculation, but nothing about it was ever published. And it only took 6 months from the design change to the final ratification. It all points to someone doing a half-assed perturbative analysis using the old design as a starting point, and passing it off as the real thing.” 
“I don't understand,” said Fernando from the front row. “This has something to do with magnetic fields?” 
Hank sighed. Apparently the nanotech details were lost on this crowd. Still, it was good practice for later. 
“It's possible,” Hank said, “although I can't say for sure. The concern is that the new design might be susceptible to topology shifts like this.” He hit his last animation cue, and one of the secondary tubes slipped. The structure didn't break, but one row of carbon atoms slipped relative to another, leaving the red tube with a different spiral pattern than the others. 
“This weakens the fiber, and if it happened throughout the line, might shorten its lifetime considerably. A side effect would be that these shifted tubes can become electrically conducting, and perhaps generate their own magnetic fields. And once currents start flowing through them, all the calculations are going to be way off. It might even accelerate the slipping process.” 
Julia spoke up. “I'm sure Hank's on to something. We've seen what's happening to the migration patterns.” 
Hank flipped off the projector as the bird people started chattering amongst themselves. Only Fernando got to his feet and approached him, a worried look on his face. 
“Tell me, son. If you're right.... They're going to have to shut down the Line for awhile?” 
“At the very least.” 
Fernando's old eyes sparkled mischievously. “Well, I can tell you, you'll have a lot of support from the people in this room. But you're going to have a hell of a time getting anyone on Isabela to listen to you.” 
“That's the nice thing about the scientific process,” Hank said with a grin. “After I make the claim, the evidence will prove me right or wrong.” 
Fernando shook his head sadly. “I've played this game for many years, son. This isn't about evidence, or even science. Be careful.” 
“Don't worry, Fernando. I think I can handle this.” 
“I hope so,” the old man replied, turning back to converse with the rest of the crowd. “I hope so.” 
* * *
A week later, Hank finally managed to contact an actual Tethercorp employee over the net. It was still before dawn on the Galápagos, but by now he had resorted to calling the London office. 
The man on his computer screen didn't look like a scientist; probably a mid-level bureaucrat. No matter. Hank would start with this guy and work his way up the chain. 
The bureaucrat held a printout of Hank's report up to the camera. “Is this yours?” he asked. 
“Yes. I'm a nanotech engineer from-” 
“I'm having trouble filing this one,” the man interrupted. “The bulk of it looks like it should go into Harmless Crackpot, but this first paragraph reads more like a Bomb Threat. Could you clarify your position for me?” 
Hank was livid, but forced himself to speak slowly and deliberately. “Could you please tell me, then, what is the proper channel for scientists to present-” 
“Harmless Crackpot, then. Thank you.” The picture flickered off. 
“Jesus!” Hank stomped outside and stared out into Darwin's Bay. A cruise ship was heading out to sea, stirring up a brilliant wake of bioluminescence. He waited for the anger to subside, raising his gaze from the lights below to the stars above. Topside Station, gateway to the solar system, was visible directly overhead. It was brighter even than Venus. Hank's neck began to ache, but staring upwards was better than being hunched over the computer. 
“You can do this,” said Julia from behind him. 
Hank turned around, startled. “What?” he snapped. 
“You can do this. Don't give up so easily.” 
“I'm not giving up.” 
“But you're not doing what you need to do, either.” 
Hank clenched his fists. “I'm perfectly able to do this by myself.” 
“I don't get it.” Julia raised her hands in confusion. “What's so terrible about contacting your old colleagues? What do you still think you're running from?” 
“I didn't run. I gave up my job to be with you and Sally.” “Dammit, Hank, you're not going to make me feel guilty about your decision! You were the one who proved we couldn't live apart.” 
Hank shut up for a moment, biting off the snappy reply which came to mind. Yes, he had had an affair, but weren't they supposed to be beyond that? 
“What do you want from me?” he said at last. “I'm doing science again, OK? I'm working. So now you're asking me to go dump the problem on Vargas’ lap, let the real scientists solve the problem?” 
Julia shook her head. “That's not the issue and you know it. You haven't contacted these people in three years. Are you afraid of them? What do you imagine they think of you?” She stepped forward to wrap her arms around him, and he didn't fight her off. 
“Just that...” he began. “Just that I washed out, couldn't handle the job. I think Vargas is the only one who really knew why I left.” 
“Then show them what you're capable of. Show them what you've found. If they really think you're a shabby scientist, then prove them wrong.” 
“It's not that easy.” 
“Isn't it?” They held each other, silently, as dawn crept into the sky. 
* * *
In the end, Hank had resorted to an old-fashioned email. 
An actual conversation would have been too awkward, he decided, but writing a letter hadn't been as painful as he'd thought. He'd picked the two colleagues who had been closest to him-not counting Vargas, of course-and sent them each a three-page summary of his findings. And now, only 24 hours later, he was startled to have already received a reply. 
Hank; good to hear from you. How are Sally and Julia? Finally became a mother myself last year-twin girls; see the pics. 
Interesting problem you've run across. I don't know any Tethercorp techs personally, but I think Vargas does. Mind if I ask him? I know you two didn't part on the best of terms, so let me know. 
Still, no one will authorize a serious theory effort unless you come up with some decent evidence. Bird migration? Don't think that will fly around here, so to speak. Can't they measure the Line conductivity from the base station? Let me know if you come up with some real proof. I'll see what I can do in the meanwhile. 
-Abby 
Moments later Hank was banging out a quick response, warning Abby not to bring Vargas into this. But he paused before sending it, thought for a few minutes, and finally erased the request. 
Perhaps it was time. After what had happened, he knew that Luis Vargas would prefer never to hear from his traitorous friend ever again. But Julia was right; it was time to stop running. Yes, it would probably be better to contact Luis directly. But it would be hard. And it would be so easy to just let events take their course, to let Abby make contact for him. 
Julia had been able to put the affair behind her. Hopefully Luis and Paula had done the same, had been able to move on with their lives. 
There was even the outside chance that Luis didn't hate him quite so much as he deserved to. 
* * *
“You seem frustrated,” said Julia. 
Hank sat up straight, startled by the interruption. “That's an understatement.” He glanced back down at the computer screen. “I can't figure out how to measure measure it. Not for less than ten million, anyway. If only we could afford a fleet of custom microcopters.” 
“How to measure the magnetic field, you mean? Too bad it's not a biology problem, or we could use my extra grant money. Still, it can't be that hard to pull off. After all, the albatross figured it out.” 
Hank snickered. “The goddamn albatross. If only that were enough evidence.... I'm realizing that we hard scientists don't give animals a lot of credit.” 
“Maybe if they came down to Genovesa, saw the birds for themselves-” 
“No,” said Hank. “It doesn't mean anything to them. They want to see hard data, not birds.” 
Julia frowned. “But birds are hard data.” 
“Not to an engineer, darling.” 
“Hmmpf.” 
Hank returned his attention to the screen, which was currently displaying an image of Base Station, where the Line lifted its cargo off the Earth's surface. It was situated at the saddle point on a east-west ridge connecting Mt. Wolf and Mt. Ecuador, overlooking the ocean to the north and the south. The area surrounding the Station was covered with metal warehouses, transformers, and power cables, which meant that a ground-based measurement of the B-field would be worse than useless. He had to get up off the ground, away from all other possible currents. Against that requirement he had to contend with a strictly enforced no-fly zone within a 50 km radius of the Line, not to mention his shoestring budget. 
“Julia, just how am I going to get my hands on safe, cheap, airborne magnetic field detectors? I need dozens, more likely thousands, if we want to take a temporal snapshot.” 
After a moment of silence, Julia burst into laughter. “These islands are filled with exactly what you need! Too bad you engineers don't trust them...” She laughed some more. 
Hank turned to look at her again. “What? Birds?” 
“You said it. Safe, cheap, airborne, magnetic field detectors.” 
Hank started to laugh himself, but quickly grew serious again. What was it that Fernando had said the other night? Something about... 
He shot to his feet, grabbed his surprised wife by the shoulders and planted a kiss directly onto her lips. “Julia, my dear. You are a genius.” 
“If you think I'm going to kiss you back before you tell me what you're thinking...” 
Hank smiled. “I think this idea's worth more than a kiss.” 
“Well, then...” She gazed at him mischievously for a moment, and then grabbed his hands and led Hank toward the bedroom. “It had better be good,” she said. 
It was. 
* * *
The high-rises of Puerto Villamil shimmered beyond the scorched tarmac. Hank felt Julia clasp his hand tightly as the passenger jet slowed to a halt and they waited for the passengers to disembark. 
Hank recognized Abby first, followed by Jackson and Nigel. The three of them had agreed to come down to Isabela to see the demonstration for themselves. 
They had already cleared customs in Guayaquil, and the once-enforced agricultural inspection had been abandoned years ago, so there was almost no delay. Hank and Julia met them on the tarmac. 
The greetings had just begun when another familiar face appeared in the crowd of arrivals. Hank forced himself to keep smiling when the recognition flooded through him. It was Luis Vargas. Luis wasn't smiling himself. He nodded briskly to Hank and Julia, then turned to introduce the two men who flanked him. 
“Robert, Ali,” said Luis. “Please meet Hank Sadler. And this is his wife, Julia.” Luis nodded to them again. “Nice to see you both together. Robert and Ali here work for Tethercorp.” 
“Nice to meet you,” said Hank, shaking hands. He turned to Luis, trying not to show his nervousness. “It's good to see you again. I'm glad you came.” 
Luis nodded a third time, then walked past him to join the others. Julia and Hank raised eyebrows at each other before turning to follow. 
Puerto Villamil sat on the southern edge of Isabela, sixty-some miles below the equator. Sporting the only airport on the island, it hosted the largest population in the Galápagos, even beating out Base City up at the northern port. 
The chartered van was waiting in its assigned spot, and the eight of them piled in with minimal conversation. Hank found himself sitting in the front row, directly in front of Luis, which he found somewhat disconcerting. 
“How's traffic today?” Julia asked the driver. He responded in Spanish, and the two of them commenced to hold an unintelligible conversation. The interaction didn't seem to slow his driving, though; within minutes they were on the tollway, zooming up the eastern side of the island. 
After an uneventful half-hour, the tollway cut west across the Perry Isthmus, just south of Mt. Darwin. Hank wondered what the mountain's namesake would think of the island if he could see it now. Only five weeks of the Beagle's five-year journey had been spent in the Galápagos, but Isabela had been one of the islands visited. Today, few endemic species remained. Mt. Darwin was covered with invasive California sage scrub, and the foothills beyond the tollway fence were littered with the detritus of civilization: bars, fuel cell stations, minimalls, strip clubs, and miles upon miles of warehouses and storage space. 
Hank removed his gaze from the window as he became aware of an uncomfortable lull in the small talk. Up until now, Julia had carried the conversation with the other passengers, restricting her questions to general pleasantries and gently touching on the outlines of everyone's life for the last three years. But she hadn't really spoken with Luis Vargas. Now she swiveled swiveled around in her seat to face him, and Hank held his breath, hoping she would keep things civil. 
“And how have you been, Luis? How's Paula?” 
Hank's eyes bulged, but he didn't move a muscle, didn't turn to look at either of them. Why would she say something like that? Was she just trying to prove that she had moved beyond the affair? Or was she trying to evoke an outburst from Luis? Either way, she should have known better than to bring up Paula. 
“We're divorced, actually,” came Luis’ reply. 
An ominous silence passed before Julia spoke. “I'm sorry to hear that.” 
“Ah,” said Luis, “it was probably all for the best.” 
Hank's mind spun, but his body remained planted. The affair had triggered a divorce? He suddenly needed to know more. How soon had it ended? Where had Paula gone? What feelings must Luis have for him after Hank had so thoroughly ruined his life? 
Finally Hank turned and locked eyes with his old friend. Luis looked almost relaxed. Almost. 
“I'm really sorry to hear that, too,” Hank heard himself say. 
Luis didn't break eye contact. “It was all for the best,” he said again. Hank turned back to the front and gratefully heard Julia bring up a new topic: the now-extirpated giant tortoise population of Isabela. 
All for the best? Luis had been devastated by the news, by the betrayal. Was this just a show of bravado in front of everyone else? Or had Luis really managed to convince himself that he didn't love Paula after all? 
Lost in his thoughts, Hank didn't speak for the remainder of the journey. 
* * *
The Line scarred the sky like a rent in the space-time fabric. Hank stared upward through the glass ceiling of the observation deck, but no cars were visible. The Line just hung above them, motionless. 
The two Tethercorp employees were busy introducing themselves to the Base Station staff. Hank got the distinct impression that these two-what were their names again?-were not exactly upper-level managers at Tethercorp. It appeared that neither of them had ever been Up. 
“Um ... I don't know,” said the Tethercorp employee who might have been named Ali. He then turned to Hank. “Dr. Sadler? What exactly are we doing here?” 
Hank checked his watch. Just one more minute. Julia had already made the call on her handheld; everything was set. 
“I'm sure that Luis,” Hank said, nodding at his old colleague, “has already given you the outline. If the Line were generating a magnetic field-” 
“I assure you, that is quite impossible,” interrupted Ali. 
Hank forged onward. “Impossible or not, if it were generating a field, that would imply currents. Which would in turn imply-” 
“That you boys could be in trouble,” finished Julia. 
The second Tethercorp employee turned to Luis, looking bored. “You assured us, Luis-” 
Vargas held up his hand. “Yes, I was told that this would not be a purely theoretical argument, that some sort of experimental demonstration would make this worth your time. And I imagine...” He cocked an eyebrow at Hank. “I imagine that now would be a good time to show us what you've got.” 
“As a matter of fact,” said Hank, “it is exactly time.” He took a deep breath. “About five seconds ago-” 
He was cut off by several loud beeps throughout the room. It took him a moment to realize they were sounding from the belts of the Base Station staff. The shortest man grabbed his handheld, jabbed at it, and a voice came out of the speaker. 
“We have some activity out at warehouse 194. Sounded like some sort of explosion, and now we're getting reports of all these...” The voice broke into digital static. 
“How far is that from the Line?” Ali snapped. The staff ignored him. 
The short man spoke to his handheld. “Repeat that. Do we need fire containment?” 
“Negative, no fire reported. Just a whole shitload of birds.” 
At that moment, through the glass of the observation deck, Hank saw the fluttering of the homing pigeons. Hundreds, no, thousands of birds. They glittered in the Sun; each pigeon carried a Mylar streamer for visibility. 
Julia's grant money had paid for the older generations of Tuttle's pigeon-breeding experiment to be sent down to Isabela. These birds apparently didn't follow field lines quite as well as the newest generation, but they would hopefully be sufficient. 
Hopefully. But Hank could already tell the plan was failing. Instead of moving as a group, the pigeons were spreading out, some flying towards the Line but some away from it. He felt his heart drop. Pigeons trained to follow magnetic fields? What had he been thinking? 
“I'm worried,” said Julia beside him. But she wasn't even looking out the glass. “Are we sure they're all sterilized? I know it's a little late to be worried about introducing species, but...” 
“Sadler?” barked Ali's voice from behind. “Is this your doing? What are all those things?” 
Julia beat him to an answer, and Hank wandered away to the opposite side of the observation deck as his wife started to explain about the pigeon's specialized navigation behavior. Hank didn't want to hear it, didn't want to stand there and be stood up by a bunch of damn birds. Right now he just wanted to be alone. 
“Interesting stunt,” said a voice behind him, and Hank looked up to see that Luis had followed him across the deck. “Can't imagine you thought it would work, but ... interesting. You should have called me. We could have set up some microgliders, maybe, taken some real measurements-” 
“Why are you trying to help me?” Hank broke in. “Why come down here with these two? I mean, don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. I just don't understand why...” 
Hank trailed off and Luis watched him for a moment before he spoke. “It's been three years, Hank. Two and a half without Paula. And I'm happy. Happier than ever. You were just a symptom, not the cause.” 
“But if I hadn't-” 
“Then it would have been somebody else, down the line. Maybe when we had kids of our own, god forbid. I can't say that all the anger's gone. I can't even say I forgive you. But you didn't ruin my life.” 
“I'm glad, but still...” Hank turned away, looked out the window at the clear Pacific ocean. “I think I ruined mine.” 
Luis sighed. “You ever imagine coming back?” 
“That's not an option.” 
“What about an adjunct position... ?” Luis started, but broke off when the murmurs reached them from the other side of the deck. 
Hank glanced over and saw that most of the pigeons had landed or dispersed. Only a few hundred were still circling. He started to turn away again before he did a double-take. Circling? 
With ten long strides he rejoined his wife and the others, wrapped his arm around Julia as he watched the beautiful fluttering Mylar. 
“It only worked for the highest birds,” Julia whispered to him, as if a louder voice would break the spell. 
About 50 meters off the ground, a group of pigeons was orbiting the Line in a formation shaped like a diamond ring. They had found a closed-loop magnetic field. There was no other explanation; the current had to be running right through the center. 
“I'm telling you, that's impossible,” Ali was saying. 
The second Tethercorp employee stepped between Hank and the glass, a serious expression on his face. “This is bad,” he said simply. 
“Yes, it is...” Hank searched the man's badge for the name. “Robert.” 
“You think it's in the secondaries?” Robert asked. 
“Where else? It'll be an extraordinary effort to fix the thing, but I've been sketching out some ideas.” 
Robert looked him up and down. “How long have you been working on this?” 
“Two months.” 
Suddenly Ali was forcing himself between the two of them. “Bob. Maybe they trained the pigeons to fly in circles?” 
Robert ignored him, gently pushed Ali aside. He looked Hank in the eye. “Would you be interested in a position with Tethercorp? I can arrange to waive the usual interview...” 
Julia gazed up at Hank, keeping her face impassive but letting her eyes do the smiling. He returned the look for a long moment before responding. 
“No, thanks,” he said, still watching his wife. 
Now Julia's eyes squinted. “Hank, dear-” she began. 
“But I do consulting work.” He looked up at Robert. “Based right here in the Galápagos.” 
“Excellent,” said Robert, whipping out his handheld. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make quite a few calls...” 
Hank took Julia's hand in his own and looked out to see the pigeons again. Only about ten birds were remaining-this time orbiting in the opposite direction for some reason. He filed the fact away to think about later, pulled his wife toward him, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I'll have to spend a lot of time here on Isabela.” “It's not so far,” she said, squeezing him back. “I'm happy for you.” 
“Hmm. I'm still nervous as hell.” 
“What for? You did it!” 
“We did it. But ... I really don't know if I'm ready for this life.” 
Julia commanded his full attention. “You'll never know until you try. And the alternative is-” 
“Don't worry, love,” Hank said, gazing out over the ocean. Three magnificent frigate birds were soaring far above the pigeons, far beyond the Line. “I don't really know where I was all these years,” he said. “But I do know I'm not going back.” 

Copyright © 2002 by Ken Wharton.