Polaris (17 page)

“I have to think I met with foul play. There were people who would have liked to see me dead.”

“For example?”

“Barcroft. Tulami. Yin-Kao. Charlie Middleton, for God's sake. They're too numerous to name, Chase. But it's all in the record. Easy enough for you to find, if you're really interested. I stepped on a lot of toes in my time.”

“Any who might have been willing to take your life?”

He thought about it.
“No,”
he said.
“I wouldn't have thought so. But it appears someone did me in.”

“When you were at the convention, you mentioned that you'd cleared off your desk that last day. You said that was uncharacteristic.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes, you did.”

“I may have exaggerated. For effect. I mean, you appear at a convention, there's always a little show business involved, right?”

“And you removed everything that was in your accounts.”

“Yes. Well, that does sound as if I was thinking about leaving.”

“Any chance you might have committed suicide?”

“I had everything to live for. A good career. I was still relatively young. Only in my sixties. In good health. I was in a position to help a number of causes that needed assistance.”

“Which causes?”

“At the time, I was active in efforts to improve public education. And I was helping the Kern Group raise money.”
The Kern Group was a nonprofit organization that sent volunteers and supplies to places like Talios, where famine was common. (Talios, of course, was not on Rimway. Not many people ever miss a meal on Rimway.)
“And I'd recently met a woman.”

Ivy Cumming. After Taliaferro's disappearance Ivy waited a few years before giving up and marrying an academic. She eventually gave birth to two children, and was herself still alive.

“No,”
he said.
“I was ambushed. I understand how it looks, about the bank accounts. But I still don't think I'd have gone voluntarily.”

I'd dropped by Windy's apartment shortly after the bombing to see how she was doing. By then she was on her way to recovery. The day after I talked with Taliaferro's avatar, Alex announced he thought it incumbent on him to pay a visit.

“Why?”

“Because,” he said, “I want to reassure myself she's okay.”

“She's fine.”

“I should let her see I'm concerned.”

“We sent her flowers. I stopped by. I can't see there's much point. But if you really want to—”

“Civic obligation,” he said. “It's the least I can do.”

So we went. She was back at work by then, and the only trace of the injury was a blue cane left in a corner of the office. From her window, had she been so minded, she could have watched construction bots clearing off the last of the debris of what had been Proctor Union.

We'd brought candy, which Alex presented with a flourish. He could be a charmer when he wanted. She was receptive, and you would have thought they were the best of friends. There was no sign of the annoyance I'd seen over our refusal to return the artifacts.

We talked trivia for a few minutes. Windy had gone back to playing squabble, which required good legs. And gradually we worked around to our real reason for coming. Alex segued into it by mentioning that he'd just finished Edward Hunt's
Riptides,
a history of the various social movements of the last century. An entire chapter was dedicated to Taliaferro. “Did you know,” he asked innocently, “that he was supposed to be on the
Polaris?
”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That's right. If you look at the pre-op passenger manifest, you'll see his name.”

“What happened?”

“Some last-minute thing. I don't know.”

“The last minute—”

“They were loading up and getting ready to leave.”

“And you have no idea at all why he backed out?”

“No. The story was that he got a call, some sort of problem at the office. But I don't know the source. And you won't find it recorded anywhere.”

“Were there any problems at Survey at the time? Something so serious that he'd have canceled out?”

She shook her head. “There's nothing on the logs for that date. There
were
calls to Skydeck during the departure, but nothing official. It was all just to wish everyone good luck.”

“Maybe it was personal,” I said.

“He told Mendoza it was a call from the office.” She was bored with the subject. “Of course, it could have been personal. Could have been something they were just relaying. Does it matter?”

“Do we know,” Alex persisted, “whether he returned to the Survey offices that day?”

“The day the
Polaris
left? I really have no idea, Alex.” She tried to look as if her head was beginning to hurt. “Look,” she said, “we have no record of the call. And it was all a long time ago.”

I asked Jacob what we had on Chek Boland.

Boland's specialty was the mind-body problem, and his tack had been
that we'd always been deceived by the notion of duality, of body and soul, of the mind as an incorporeal entity distinct from the brain. Despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, people still clung to the old notion.

Boland had done the breakthrough work, mapping the brain, showing why its more abstract functions were holographic rather than embedded in a specific location. Why they were part and parcel of the way a brain was supposed to function.

Boland had been the youngest of Maddy's passengers. He had dark eyes and looked like one of those guys who spent two or three hours at the gym every day. I watched him in the visual record, watched interviews, presentations at luncheons, watched him accept awards. The Penbrook. The Bennington. The Kamal. He was self-deprecating, easygoing, inclined to give credit to his colleagues. It appeared that everybody liked him.

Despite his accomplishments, he seems to be best known as the onetime mind-wipe expert, who worked with law enforcement agencies for thirteen years to correct, as they put it, persons inclined to habitual or violent criminal behavior.

Eventually, he resigned, and later he became an opponent of the technique. I found a record of his addressing a judicial association about a year after he'd terminated his own law enforcement career.
“It's akin to murder,”
he said.
“We destroy the extant personality and replace it with another, created by the practitioner. We implant false memories. And no part of the original person survives. None. He is as dead as if we'd dropped him out of an aircraft.”

But he'd spent thirteen years performing the procedure. If that was the way he felt, why did he not resign sooner?

“I thought it was useful work,”
he said in an interview.
“It was satisfying, because I felt I was removing someone's felonious characteristics and replacing them with inclinations that would make him, and everyone who had to deal with him, happier. I was taking a criminal off the streets and returning a decent, law-abiding citizen. It was painless. We reassured the victim that everything would be fine, and he would be back out in the
world again by dinnertime. That was what I told them. Out by dinnertime. And then, God help me, I took their lives.

“I can't answer the question why I was so slow to accept the reality of what I was doing. If there is a judgment, I hope I'll be dealt with in a more lenient manner than I have dealt with others. I can only say now that I urge you to consider legislation banning this barbaric practice.”

She crash-landed among the classics, and never fully recovered.

—Bake Agundo,
Surfing with Homer

A day or two after I'd looked through Boland's background, we took several clients to dinner. When it was over, and they'd left, Alex and I stayed for a nightcap at the Top of the World. We were just finishing when I got a call from Marcia Cable.
“Chase, you told me to get in touch if anything unusual happened about Maddy's blouse?”

We were sitting looking out over the vast tableau that Andiquar presents at night, the sky teeming with traffic, the two rivers filled with lights, the city aglow. “Yes,” I said, not quite focused yet. “What's going on?”

“There was a guy just left here who came to look at it. It was the damnedest thing.”

“How do you mean?” I asked. Alex signaled for me to turn up the volume so he could hear.

“He told me he wanted to buy it. Offered a barrel of money. Damned near three times what I paid for it.”

“And—?”

“I'm not sure whether I'd have sold it or not. I'll be honest, Chase. I was tempted. But after he looked at it he changed his mind.”

Marcia came from money. She'd gone to the best schools, married
more money, was a skilled equestrienne, and specialized in taking over failing companies and turning them around. She had red hair, dark eyes, and a low tolerance for opposing opinions.

“He withdrew the offer?” I said.

“Yes. He said it wasn't quite what he expected and that he'd decided it wouldn't go well with his collection after all. Or words to that effect. Thanked me for my time, turned around, and left.”

Alex said hello and apologized for breaking in. “Marcia,” he said, “you say he
looked
at it. Did he
handle
it?”

“Yes, Alex. He did.”

“Any chance he could have done a switch?”

“No. After what Chase told me, I never took my eyes off him. My husband was there, too.”

“Okay. Good. What was his name?”

She paused, and I heard the bleep of a secretary.
“Bake Toomy.”

Alex shook his head. The name was not familiar. “Did you ask how he came to know you had the blouse?”

“I think everybody knew. I told most of my friends, and I was on the
Terry MacIlhenny Show
with it.”

“That's the one you sent us?” I said. I'd noticed it in the queue, but hadn't really gotten around to watching it.

“Yes.”
She was trying to decide whether she should be worried.
“I was wondering if he was trying to pin down where we keep it. Maybe he's going to try to steal it.”
I told Alex, out of range of the link, that I hoped we weren't getting people upset for no reason.
“I asked him,”
Marcia continued,
“if he knew you, Alex. He said he did.”

“What did he look like?” Alex asked.

“He's a young guy. Not very big. Midtwenties. Auburn hair cut short. Sort of old-fashioned style.”

“Did he leave contact information?”

“No.”

“Okay. Marcia, I have a favor to ask.”

“Sure. Alex, what's this about anyhow?”

“Probably nothing. Just that somebody's showing unusual interest in the
Polaris
artifacts. We don't know what's going on. But if you hear from
him again, try to find out where he can be reached and get in touch with us. Right away.”

Young. Not very big. Midtwenties. Auburn hair cut short. Old-fashioned style.

“Maybe he's legitimate,” I said. “Just wanted to look and changed his mind. No big deal about that.”

A call to Paul Calder confirmed that Davis, the purchaser of Maddy's vest, fit the description of Bake Toomy. It seemed to be the same person.

Marcia lived in Solitaire, on the northern plains. Paul was a local. “Whoever this guy is,” Alex said, “he gets around.” He instructed the AI to check the listings in Solitaire for anyone named Toomy. “Can't be many,” he said. “The population's only a few thousand.”

“Negative result,”
said the AI.

“Try the general area. Anywhere within a six-hundred-klick radius.”

“I have eighteen listings.”

“Anybody named Bake, or any variation like that?”

“Barker.”

“Any others?”

“Barbara. But that's it.”

“What do we have on Barker Toomy?”

“He's a physician. Eighty-eight years old. Attended medical school—”

“That's enough.”

“Not our guy, Alex.”

“No.”

“Bake Toomy might be unlisted.”

“He might. But that would be unusual for a collector. Or a dealer. Check our clients. You won't find any of them who aren't listed.”

“Alex,” I said, “you think this is the same guy who did the break-in?”

“I don't think it's much of a leap.”

“I wonder if he's connected with the woman who gave the bogus award to Diane?”

“I suspect so. Maybe not directly, but they're after the same thing.”

“Which is—?”

“Ah, my sweet, there you have hold of the issue. Let me ask a
question. Why did our intruder find it necessary to open the display case, but not the bookcase?”

I watched a taxi rise past the window and swing out toward the east. “I have no idea. Why?”

“Because the glass was in the bookcase. And you can't hide anything in a glass.”

“You think somebody hid something in one of the artifacts?”

“I don't think there's any question about it.”

I was trying to digest it. “Then the thief took the coins and books—”

“—As a diversion.”

“But why not
keep
them? It's not as if they weren't valuable.”

“Maybe he didn't know that,” he said. “Maybe he doesn't know anything about collectibles.”

“That can't be,” I said. “This whole thing is about collectibles.”

“I don't think it is. This whole thing is about something else entirely, Chase.”

We sat looking at one another. “Alex, if there'd been something in the pockets of the jacket, Maddy's jacket, do you think we'd have noticed?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I always inspect the merchandise. I even examined it for the possibility that something had been sewn into it. In any case, we know they didn't find what they wanted at the house, or they wouldn't still be hunting for it.”

My apartment building is a modest place, a privately owned three-story utilitarian structure that's been there a hundred years. It has four units on each floor and an indoor pool that's inevitably deserted in the late evening. We came in over the river and drifted down onto the pad. I heard music coming from somewhere, and a peal of laughter. It seemed out of place. We sat in the soft glow of the instrument lights. “You looked through the Bible?” he said.

“Yes. There was nothing there.”

“You're sure?”

“Well, I didn't check every page.”

“Call Soon Lee and ask her to look. Let's be certain.”

“Okay.”

“And talk to Ida. She has the jumpsuit, right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her to look in the pockets. And check the lining. Let us know if she finds anything. Anything at all.”

I opened the door and got out. Something flapped in the trees. Alex joined me. He'd walk me to the door and see that I got safely home. Ever the gentleman. “So who,” I asked him, “had access to the artifacts? Somebody at Survey?”

He pulled his jacket around him. It was cold. “I checked with Windy a day or two after the burglary. She insists they'd been secured since the Trendel Commission, until the vault was opened a few weeks ago and they were inventoried for the auction. That means, whatever they're looking for, it had to have been placed during the period of time between the opening of the vault and the attack. Or during the first months of the investigation, in 1365.”

“There's another possibility,” I said.

He nodded slowly. “I didn't want to be the first to say it.” Someone on the
Polaris
might have left something.

Soon Lee called to report there was nothing in the Bible. She said she'd gone through it page by page. There was no insert of any kind, and she could find nothing written on its pages that seemed out of place. Ida assured me there was nothing hidden in the jumpsuit.

The only thing we had in our inventory with a direct connection to any of the
Polaris
victims was a copy of Pernico Hendrick's
Wilderness of Stars.
It had once belonged to Nancy White. I had some time on my hands, so I dug it out and began to page through it. It was a long history, seven hundred-plus pages, of environmental efforts undertaken by various organizations during the sixty years or so preceding publication, which took it back to the beginning of the fourteenth century.

There weren't many notations. White was more inclined to underline sections that caught her interest and draw question or exclamation marks in the margins.
Population is the key to everything,
Hendrick had written.
Unless we learn to control our own fertility, to stabilize growth, all environmental efforts, all attempts to build stable economies, all efforts at
eliminating civil discord, all other courses, are futile.
Three exclamation marks. This was the precursor to a long series of citations by the author. Despite advanced technology, people still bred too much. Hardly anybody denied that. The effects were sometimes minimal: There might be too much traffic, not enough landing pads. At other times, states collapsed, famines struck, civil wars broke out, and off-world observers found themselves unable to help.
It doesn't matter how big the fleet is, you can't ship enough food to sustain a billion people.
The book detailed efforts to save endangered species across the hundred worlds of the Confederacy, to preserve the various environments, to husband resources, to slow population growth. It described resistance by government and by corporate and religious groups, the indifference of the general public (which, Hendrick maintains, never recognizes a problem until it's too late). He likened the human race to a cancerous growth, spreading through the Orion Arm, infecting individual worlds. More exclamation marks.

It was hair-raising stuff, and somewhat overheated. The author never settled for a single adjective where two or three could be levered in.

But the book was well thumbed, and it was obvious that Nancy White was more often than not in agreement. She quibbled now and then on factual information and technical points, but she seemed to accept the conclusion: A lot of people died, or were thrust into poverty, and kept there, for no very good reason other than that the species couldn't, or wouldn't, control its urge to procreate.

I showed it to Alex.

“The guy's an alarmist,” he said. “So is she, apparently.”

I stared at the book, depressed. “Maybe that's what we need.”

He looked surprised. “I didn't know you were a Greenie wacko.”

I was on my way home the following day, approaching the junction between the Melony and Narakobo Rivers when Vlad Korinsky called. Vlad owned the
Polaris
mission plaque. Ultimately, I thought it might prove to be the most valuable of the artifacts that survived the explosion. There was no way to know where it had actually been located in the ship, but if Maddy had adhered to tradition, it would have occupied a prominent
position on the bridge. Vlad was a traveler and adventurer. He'd been to Hokmir and Morikalla and Jamalupé and a number of other archeological sites on- and off-world. His walls were decorated with pictures showing him standing beside the shattered ruins of half a dozen ancient civilizations. He'd had a little too much sun over the years, and the winds of a dozen worlds had etched their lines into his face.

He was shopping. Refurbishing his den. He'd been looking through our catalog. Was there anything new in the pipeline?

“You called at exactly the right moment, Vlad,” I said. “It happens that I can put my hands on a comm link from Aruvia. Four thousand years old, but it's in excellent condition. It was lost during the Battle of Ephantes.”

We talked it over, and he told me he'd think about it. I knew his tone, though. He was hooked, but he didn't want to look like an easy sell.

I liked Vlad. We'd been out together a few times, in violation of the general principle that you don't get involved in personal entanglements with clients. Alex knew about it and looked pained whenever Vlad's name came up. But he didn't say anything, relying, I suppose, on my discretion. Or good sense. I hope not on my virtue.
“How are
you
doing, Chase?”
he asked.