“What’s the point of dragging me out of bed at—what time is it?”

“I need you to trawl the database. Project Orion. Spaceship propulsion.”

“That? That’s ancient history. Never really got anywhere. Not even a prototype.”

“Doesn’t matter. They want all of it.”

“What for?”

“A rescue operation. They mean ‘everything’ when they said they want ‘everything’, mind you. Even ancillary stuff. Anything that so much as mentions it in a footnote. Send it off to the Engineering Corps.”

“Rescue operation? What, do they need to move an asteroid out of the way? Why not just use a gravitational tug, or paint the thing with signal white and glass beads?”

“No asteroids.”

“Then what do they want it for?”

“A rescue operation.”

“You still haven’t answered me. What sort of a rescue needs an Orion drive?”

“…One that plans to leave the heliosheath.”

“The heliosheath? Wait…you can’t be serious. The Hope? Nuclear propulsion’s powerful but even it’s not powerful enough for that.”

“Leave that to the Engineering Corps.”