Thunderbird by Jack McDevitt Page A

one of the Eden links.”
    â€œThanks for the heads-up. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    â€œI thought it was time to take another step forward.”
    â€œJames, I wish you wouldn’t do this.”
    Walker hesitated. He hadn’t expected blunt opposition. “If you insist, Mr. President, I’ll shut it down.”
    â€œNo. God help us, I want to find out what’s there as much as you do. But it’s unsettling.” Walker could imagine him standing there, his eyes staring but not seeing anything. “Do it,” he said. “Keep me informed.”
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    C ALLS WERE CONSTANTLY coming in to Sioux Headquarters from people who wanted to travel out to Eden. They kept Miranda and a couple oftemporary staffers busy. But one of the calls came from David Woqini, who had been Walker’s physics teacher his senior year in high school.
    The chairman, and probably most of his classmates, had expected the class to be a long, dreary exercise in calculating rates at which objects fell when you threw them off a building. But Mr. Woqini had started that first day by asking a question: “If you walk off the roof of the school, why do you fall?”
    Everybody had yelled “Gravity!” and waved hands. The teacher had stopped them cold with the next question: “That’s just a word. What
is
gravity? Why don’t you just drift off over the trees?”
    Nobody had any idea.
    â€œIt’s because space is made out of rubber. The Earth is big and massive. So it bends space.” They’d started snickering, and a few people laughed. “I’m serious,” he said. “We slide down on the curve.”
    Mr. Woqini had other stories like that, explaining how you aged faster waiting for the school bus than you did while actually riding it. And how you weighed less on that same roof than you did in the cafeteria, which was on the ground floor. He was easily the best teacher Walker had ever known through sixteen years of school. They’d stayed connected.
    David was retired now, still living on the Rez. “You have time for lunch?” he asked.
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    T HEY MET WHERE they usually did, at the Old Main Street Café in Devils Lake. David never seemed to get any older. He was tall and lean, and the amused high-school spirit that had animated his features forty years ago was still there. “Hi, Jim,” he said, removing his buckskin jacket and sitting down as a waitress approached. “I see you’ve become a prominent national figure. How’s your friend the president doing?”
    Walker grinned. “I
do
seem to have moved up in the world.”
    â€œCongratulations.” They ordered a round of sandwiches and Diet Cokes.Then, when they were alone, David leaned across the table. “Have you done any of this transporting thing yourself?”
    â€œNot officially. Did you want to try it?”
    â€œEventually, maybe. You know, a few weeks ago I’d have sworn this teleportation business wasn’t possible. I don’t think there’s a physicist on the planet who has the remotest idea how you can disassemble somebody and move him clear out of the galaxy.”
    â€œI’m disappointed.”
    â€œWhy, Jim?”
    â€œI assumed that, if anybody could figure it out, you could.”
    He laughed. “It’s a nightmare. We thought we had a handle on cosmic reality. Now we know we aren’t even close.”
    â€œIt’s not my fault,” said Walker.
    â€œSure it is. It’s yours if it’s anybody’s. Makes me realize I never knew what I was talking about.”
    Eventually, the sandwiches showed up. The conversation continued along similar lines until, as they sipped the last of their Cokes, Walker felt the mood change. “What’s wrong, David?” he asked.
    â€œJim, you realize you’re in