Read The Second Ship for Free Online Page B

air that it stuck a lump in her throat, the tears at the corner of her eyes upwelling from tiny springs of misery. Tonight, here by herself in Rho Lab, long after everyone else had left, Nancy knew all too well the source of her feelings.
    She had been raised straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, the tenth child in a New England family of eleven children, all girls except for John, the baby of the family. All those wonderful growing-up years, her organized mother carefully delegated tasks to each of the kids in a way that had given them a wonderful camaraderie. Despite the family’s old, New England money, a rigorous work ethic was a requirement rather than an option.
    Then it had been off to Princeton to study computer science, her bachelor’s degree followed quickly by her doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University. Working with Dr. Stephenson at the Los Alamos Laboratory had been a dream come true, a dream that had grown far more wondrous once she had first been shown the Rho Ship.
    How things had deteriorated in the two years since that day. Now everything had come to a head in a way that was about to force her to betray the famous Dr. Stephenson.
    With the information she had discovered on his personal laptop, there could be no doubt that he would not be deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory much beyond tomorrow. Despite an authorization to access Dr. Stephenson’s computer that came directly from Senator Conally, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she felt soiled.
    What would her family think of her now?
    She removed the USB memory stick, sticking it in her purse, then powered the laptop down, flipping the lid closed with a snap.
    ��Find anything of interest?”
    Nancy jumped up with a gasp of surprise, sending the chair rolling across the floor like a runaway shopping cart in a supermarket parking lot. The lean form of Donald Stephenson stood staring at her through eyes that showed no hint of emotion. Nancy had seen eyes like those before. Shark's eyes.
    Her hand fluttered to her breast. “Dr. Stephenson. You startled me.”
    “Did I? Imagine my own surprise when I return to my lab to retrieve an item I forgot, only to find you in my private office, browsing through files on my personal computer.”
    Nancy felt sick. The confrontation had been coming, but she had expected to do it tomorrow, during the relative comfort of the normal business day, not here in the semidarkness of the most secret facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, probably the most secret laboratory in the country. Rho Lab.
    “Doctor Stephenson, I am sorry that you had to find me like this. I have just completed an audit of this program for the Senate Intelligence Committee, the information on your laptop completing the information I required. I will be filing my report tomorrow.”
    “And may I assume that your report will not be favorable?”
    The unflinching calm of the deputy director's face made Nancy more nervous with each passing moment. “I am afraid that you are correct. I would say that I am sorry, but my compassion for you died once I realized that there are large portions of the work you are doing here that are hidden from the other scientists, even from the US government. And from what I can tell, you have made considerable progress unraveling portions of the alien technology that have tremendous implications, although I do not claim to understand many of the derivations in your equations.”
    “Very impressive. Of course, that is why I selected you for the program. Still, you surprise me. I doubt that there are more than a handful of physicists and mathematicians in the world who can understand many of those equations, even fewer who could have hacked their way past the encryption on my laptop.”
    A thin smile crinkled the corners of Nancy's lips.
    “You are not the only one who was first in your class. All that will become moot once my report is filed tomorrow.”
    Dr. Stephenson