Echo (11 page)

Read Echo Online

Authors: Jack McDevitt

Tags: #Science Fiction, #General, #Adventure, #Fiction

“And you never figured out what he was talking about?”
“No. But there was
something
going on.”
I showed him the tablet. “Ever see this before?”
“No,”
he said.
“What is it?”
“It belonged to Sunset. More than that, we don’t know. Let me ask one more question: You must have known Hugh Conover?”
“Sure. We were friends.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
He shook his head.
“No idea. I haven’t heard from him in ages.”
 
When Alex got in, I told him Holverson wanted him to call.
“Who’s Holverson? Do you know what it’s about?”
“It’s about Tuttle.”
“Really? What did he have to say?”
“Best you hear for yourself.”
“Oh,” he said. “One of those, huh?”
He went up to his office. Twenty minutes later he came down and, without saying anything about the conversation, asked if I had plans for dinner.
We went to Mully’s Top of the World. On the way out, we talked about some antiques from the Marovian period that had just become available. A host showed us to our table. We ordered and made small talk until the drinks arrived. Then, finally, he asked my reaction to Holverson.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It sounds as if nothing ever happened. So the tablet isn’t what we thought it might be.”
“You think it’s something that he just picked up somewhere?”
“At Larry’s Concrete Creations, maybe. Sure, why not?”
“Why did he keep it in the cabinet?”
“It was a joke. Something to spook visitors.”
“But he doesn’t seem to have been showing it around.”
“I know. Look, Alex, I don’t trust my judgment on this one.”
“Why not?”
I tried my drink. It was a blue daddy, and it had a bit of a sting. “Because I
want
it to have happened.”
“You mean aliens?”
“Yes.”
“I know what you mean. I’m having the same problem. I don’t know what I think.” Music drifted in from the back room. A soft romantic melody played on a
kira
.
“Maybe,” I said, “Holverson misunderstood what Tuttle said.”
“It’s possible.” Alex tried his own drink, sat back and looked out the window. Mully’s is perched near the top of Mt. Oskar, the tallest peak in the area. That might not be saying much, but the view down into the valley is spectacular. It was getting dark in the east, and the lights of Andiquar were coming on.
I waited.
Alex tapped his fingers on the table. “I can’t make the pieces fit.”
“My suggestion,” I said, “is that we enjoy our dinner and forget the whole business. We’re going to have enough to do these next few days with the Marovian stuff showing up.”
“There is a problem.”
“Which is?”
“If the tablet is worthless, why isn’t it at the bottom of the river?”
“It’s a big river.”
“Yeah.” He took some more of the wine. Our dinners arrived, and, with that marvelous ability to compartmentalize, Alex put the tablet out of his mind and set himself to enjoying his meal.
SEVEN
Oh, pilot! ’tis a fearful night,
There’s danger on the deep.
—T. H. Bayly, “The Pilot,” 1844(?)
 
 
 
 
 
Rachel Bannister had spent several years as a freelance pilot before connecting with Universal Transport, for whom she hauled executives, clients, and politicians around the Confederacy. She went from there to World’s End Tours, where she took people sightseeing. In 1403, after four years with World’s End, she resigned. She was only forty-two at the time, but she left piloting altogether and, as far as the record shows, never went off-world again. At least not as a pilot. She currently ran an online financial advisory service. In her role as a social-service activist, she appeared occasionally as a guest on
Nancy White’s Fireside
.
Rachel spent much of her time with volunteer organizations, primarily working with children. She led an organization that sued abusive parents and relatives, requiring them to undergo psych alterations. (Not somebody, I thought, you’d want to fool around with.) And she’d fostered a lifelong enthusiasm for music, occasionally participating in amateur productions. She lived alone in a condo off Leicester Square.
Normally, we conduct business meetings online. But, for something like this, Alex’s preference was for personal contact.
Leicester Square was an upscale area, a network of parks that were home to condos and small shops and restaurants. Parkland University was situated along its northern perimeter, with the Grenada Preserve to the south.
We didn’t call ahead. No point alerting her. Alex took the rest of the day and read everything he could find on her. She’d gotten her license in 1382. At the University of Carpathia, she’d been a student of Tuttle’s. Later, she became an occasional companion and love interest. This despite the difference in their ages. She never married.
“Hard to imagine,” I said.
“What’s that?” Alex was looking out at gathering clouds as we rose above the country house and turned toward Andiquar. The sun was sinking behind the horizon, and the Melony glittered in the shifting light. “Starships to stocks and bonds?”
“You got it.”
“Some people would tell you that if you want a wild ride, Chase, financial securities are considerably more exciting than what
you
do for a living.”
“Yeah, but nobody’s going to take that seriously.”
“You think? Ask somebody who’s put his life savings on Berkmann AntiGrav.” Berkmann, of course, had tanked a few months earlier. Along with a lot of other high-tech stocks.
“Say what you like, Alex, but it’s a different kind of ride. What can you do with a stock portfolio that matches gliding through the Baccharian rings? Or riding with a comet?”
He laughed. “That’s why I love you, Chase,” he said.
We pulled into the flow of traffic, and the AI told us that Leicester Square was fourteen minutes away. “I take it things are going well with Audree,” I said. He’d been out with her the previous evening.
“Well enough.” Coy, but all his lights came on.
“She’s a good woman.”
“Yes, she is.”
Traffic was heavy. “Have you guys set a date yet?”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t think that’s in the immediate future.”
“There’s someone else in her life, huh?”
“I really have no idea, Chase.”
“She won’t wait forever, you know.”
“Do you know about somebody else?”
“No, I was just asking a question.”
He fell silent. Then he changed the subject. “The touring industry isn’t doing well.”
“I don’t think it ever has. To begin with, most people don’t like the long flights. If there’s not a black hole within an hour’s ride, they’re just not interested. They’d rather be home with their feet up living in a virtual world.”
“That’s probably true. Maybe it’s what drove Tuttle to join the Gibbon Society.”
“Maybe.”
“But there’ve always been people who can’t see above the rooftops. Most people, probably.”
“You’re turning into a pessimist, Alex.”
“
Turning
into one? Where’ve you been the last few years, Chase?” He looked at me in the half-light from the instrument panel, and he laughed again. The guy was really happy that night. More so than I’d seen him in a while. Alex tends to be emotionally pretty level. He doesn’t get depressed, and he takes his successes in stride. But something good was happening. And I didn’t think it had anything to do with a stone tablet.
 
Leicester Square is beautiful immediately after sunset. The growing darkness is partially offset by illumination from concealed lamps. The least bit of wind sets the broad leaves of the spiva trees to swaying gently. In winter, the fountain is shut down, but that evening, with serious cold weather a month away, it was still flowing, glittering with reflected light. People were feeding nuts to the birds. At the north end of the park, kids were tossing a ball around. And there was of course the inevitable dog.
Well, not a dog, really. A
gooch
, probably the closest thing Rimway has to a canine.
Public parking inside the Square is restricted to a single area on the western perimeter. We got instructions from the traffic monitor and descended onto the indicated pad. We were about five minutes from Rachel’s condo.
We climbed four or five stone steps onto a covered walkway and stopped at the front door. It asked who we were.
“Chase Kolpath and Alex Benedict,” Alex said.
“You are not on the approved list.”
“Please inform Ms. Bannister we are preparing a history of the Directorate of Planetary Survey and Astronomical Research. We would like very much to speak with her for a few minutes. We won’t take much of her time.”
“One moment, please.”
The buildings at Leicester varied from two to four stories. They were designed in the late-modern Ortho style: curved walls, convex windows, turrets in unexpected places. A gust of wind blew dead leaves along the walkway.
The lock clicked.
“You may come in. Ms. Bannister’s unit is number forty-seven.”
The entrance hall had no antigrav lift. Instead, it provided a staircase and an elevator. We took the elevator, got off on the fourth floor, found the room, and paused. The door opened, and Rachel Bannister smiled at us and said hello. “Please come in,” she added.
She was lovely, in a contained way, a woman with classic features, inquisitive blue eyes, and brown hair cut short. She was a bit taller than I am, and she struck me as someone who was accustomed to having her way. Our unannounced appearance had probably given her the impression we were not to be taken seriously. “I wish I’d known you were coming,” she said. “I have to be leaving in a few minutes.”
“I’m sorry to have imposed,” said Alex. “We could come back at a more convenient hour if you prefer.”
“No, no. I’m sure you’d like to get your research done. Let’s get it taken care of.” The lights were dim, consisting of a single overhead strip and a lamp on a side table at one end of a long, padded sofa. A gorfa was curled up on the sofa, watching us with narrowed eyes while its tail swished gently back and forth. A second one looked in from the dining room to see what was happening, turned, and wandered away. Rachel noticed they’d gotten my attention. “I have three of them,” she said. “All strays.” She looked down at the one on the sofa. “This is Winnie.”
Winnie recognized the name and rubbed her head against a cushion.
Rachel was in casual clothes. Unless she was headed for the gym, she didn’t look as if she’d been planning an evening out. Two matching armchairs, and the sofa, were centered on a circular coffee table, on which a book lay open. I couldn’t make out the title. The walls were stucco, decorated with pictures of children, one of whom might have been a ten-year-old Doug. Two wide curtained windows provided a view of the park. And a framed certificate from the Amicus Society, awarded for “extraordinary service,” hung on the wall. The Amicus Society, of course, is devoted to the care and welfare of wildlife. I saw nothing that suggested she’d once piloted interstellars.
She invited us to sit and asked whether we’d like something to drink. She had some chocolate liqueur, which has always been a turn-on for Alex. I settled for a glass of wine, and she mixed something for herself. I glanced at the open book and asked about it.
“It’s
Dead by Midnight
,” she said. “It’s a Keith Altman novel.” Keith Altman, of course, is the celebrated private detective in the classic series that’s been popular throughout the Confederacy for almost two centuries.

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