Polaris (20 page)

“You say
she.
Did you know who it was?”

“No idea,” I said.

The interviewing officer was a woman. We were seated on the deck of the rescue vehicle. “Why would she do that?”

“Don't know,” I said. “No idea.”

“But it
was
a woman?”

“I think so.” Not much help there.

We were both drenched and shivering with the cold and wrapped in blankets. They gave us coffee. When the Patrol officer allowed us a moment alone, Alex asked whether I'd thought to rescue the duplicate jumpsuit.

“No,” I said. “I thought you had it.”

He looked at me and sighed.

He looks here, he looks there, he looks, by heaven, everywhere. He searches the dark corners and all the shadows, behind the doors, and down in the cushions.

—Chen Lo Cobb, “I Put It Here Somewhere,”
from
Collectibles

When Fenn caught up with us, he was indignant. How could we not have confided in him? We were at the country house the morning after we got dunked, and the police inspector was on the circuit. He was parked behind his desk, a glowering angry bulldog, while I wondered what had become of the light-footed thief he had been in that earlier life.
“You could have gotten yourselves killed.”

“We didn't think it was dangerous,” Alex protested.

“Ah,”
he said.
“You've got someone stealing artifacts, and you didn't think it would be dangerous.”

“He wasn't actually
stealing
artifacts.”

“Why don't you tell me precisely what he
was
doing?”

So Alex explained. Someone looking at objects salvaged from the
Polaris.
Searching through them, actually. Changing his name from place to place. A woman involved too. One Gina Flambeau. We showed him pictures of Kiernan at Ida's house.

“Is Flambeau the woman who was driving the other vehicle?”

“Don't know. But she was doing the same thing as Kiernan. Trying to
get a look at a
Polaris
artifact. In her case by pretending to give one of our clients a monetary award.

“Pretending?”

“Well, the client
did
get the money. But that's not the point.” It all sounded lame. Except that someone had tried to kill us.

Fenn was reluctant to believe the Survey attack was anything other than an assassination attempt. There had, in fact,
been
a plot to kill the Mazha while he was in Andiquar. Members of two independent groups had been arrested. They'd denied everything, and both were telling the truth. To the authorities that simply meant there was a third group. Or a lone rider.

“There's one thing about it that's strange, though,”
said Fenn.
“The experts tell me these people don't like to use bombs for assassinations. In Korrim Mas they're considered too impersonal.”
His voice dripped sarcasm.
“The correct way to do an assassination is with a knife or gun, up close. Lots of eye contact. Anything else is unsporting.

“There are rules.”
He couldn't resist laughing.
“In any case, I'm glad you're both okay. This is what happens when civilians get involved in these things. I hope next time, we can see our way clear to do it by the book.”

He looked directly at me, as if it were my responsibility to look after Alex.

Alex, without hesitation, said, “Absolutely.” Something in his voice implied that, had I not been along, he'd have gone to the police forthwith. He even looked over at me as if suggesting that Fenn knew very well how it had happened.

“Did you get their number?”
the inspector asked.

“We have the Thunderbolt.”

“But not the Venture?”

“It happened too fast.”

More disapproval.
“Okay, let's see who the Thunderbolt belongs to.”

When he got back to us, late that afternoon, he was frowning.
“It was leased,”
he said.

“By whom?” Alex asked.

He was looking at a data card.
“According to this, by
you,
Chase.”

“Me?”

“That your address?”
He showed me the document.

I don't have to tell you it was unsettling that these people knew where I lived. That during the entire conversation at Ida's place, Kiernan had known exactly who I was.

“We talked to the leasing agency. It was picked up three days ago. The description of the lessee fits your boy Kiernan. But he had identification that said he was Chase Kolpath.”
He settled back into a frown.

“Maybe,” said Alex, “you should switch to a gender-specific name.
Lola
would be nice.”

“It's not funny, champ.”

“Anyhow, we're working on it. I'll let you know when we find him.”
He took a notebook out of his pocket and studied it.
“It looks as if they used an industrial beamer on you. Took the pods off, and part of the right wing. You're lucky to be here. One of the other drivers saw it all. She didn't get the hull number either. But you were right about the woman driver. Young, apparently. Black hair.”

“You'll want to check with the leasing agencies,” Alex said.

“Good idea. I'd never have thought of doing that myself.”
Alex mumbled an apology, and Fenn continued.
“I don't think it'll take long before we get a handle on this.”

“Good.”

“You say you got this guy's DNA on a jumpsuit?”

“It went down with the skimmer,” I said.

“Was it bagged? The water's not that deep at the crash site. We can send the diver back down.”

Alex shook his head. “We didn't seal the bag,” he said.

He was back next morning.
“Good news. We got both fingerprints and DNA off the front door at the Patrick estate. Kiernan's real name, we think, is Joshua Bellingham. Name mean anything to you?”

Alex glanced at me, and I shook my head no. “We never heard of him,” he said.

Fenn checked his notebook.
“Bellingham was an administrative officer at ABS, Allied BioSolutions, which manufactures medical supplies. People there say he's a hard worker, good at his job, never in trouble. Nobody knows much about his social life, and he doesn't seem to have a family.

“He's lived in the area for just under five years. Has no criminal record, at least not as Joshua Bellingham.”

“You say you
think
that's his real name?”

“Well, it's an odd business. Prior to the time he arrived at ABS, Bellingham doesn't seem to have existed. There's no record of his birth. No ID number. We checked the employment application he filled out for the job. The work history is fabricated. They never heard of him at the places he claimed were former employers.”

“So ABS never checked them?”

“No. Employers usually don't bother. Most companies do a personality scan. Tells them if you're really reliable. If you know what you're talking about. They don't need much more than that.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“We'd like very much to talk to him. So far, we don't know that he's broken any laws. But, for the moment, he's missing. Hasn't reported for work since the day you saw him. Hasn't called in.”

“He's not at home, either?”

“He lives on a small yacht. The yacht's gone.”

“So who is he really?” That should have been an easy question to answer. Everyone was in the data banks.

“Don't know, Alex. He might be from Upper Pisspot or some such place. There are a few countries that don't subscribe to the registry. Or he might be an off-worlder. But we've got his picture on the hot board, so as soon as he walks in front of one of the bots, or gets spotted by a patrol, or by an alert citizen, we'll be in business.”
Which I suspect translated to as soon as he walked into police central and gave himself up.

Despite his casual manner with Fenn, Alex had been visibly shaken by the incident. I guess I was, too. When somebody tries to kill you, you tend to
take it personally, and it changes your perspective on a lot of things. He returned to his old work habits, which is to say he was out enjoying the night life with the clientele when he wasn't wandering around in the greenhouse. But he was quieter than usual, more subdued, almost somber. We didn't talk about it much, probably because neither of us wanted to reveal the degree to which we were bothered by the experience and by the probability that there was still a threat out there. He spent a lot of time looking out windows. Fenn installed something he called an early-warning system at both my apartment and at the country house. It was just a black box with its own power unit that he tied into the AI's. It would monitor all visitors, block doors, disable intruders, notify police, shriek, and generally raise hell if anybody tried anything. It was probably the end of privacy. But I was willing to make the trade to sleep peacefully.

The day after the black boxes were installed, Fenn called again to report that they'd tried to locate Gina Flambeau, the woman who'd visited Diane Gold to present her with her award, apparently for the sole purpose of inspecting Maddy's etui.
“There's no such person,”
he said.
“At least, not one who fits the description.”

“Did you try for a DNA sample?” Alex asked. “She handled the etui.”

“You mean the little jewel box?”

“Yes.”

“Half the people in the village have handled it.”

Every time I thought about Marcus Kiernan, I got an echo from the convention.

The people who belong to the
Polaris
Society refer to themselves as Polarites. That's not an entirely serious appellation, of course. But it fits the mood of things. The head Polarite was a woman from Lark City whom I couldn't reach. Out of town. Doesn't take a link with her. Doesn't care to be disturbed, thank you very much.

The number two Polarite was an electrical engineer from Ridley, which is about ninety kilometers down the coast. I called him and watched his image gradually take shape along with a burst of starlight. I'm always a bit suspicious of people who use special effects in their communications.
You talk to somebody, it should be a conversation, not showbiz. He had narrow eyes, wore a black beach jacket, looked generally bored. Better things to do than talk with you, lady.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Kolpath?”
he asked. He was seated in a courtyard in one of those nondescript polished tan chairs that show up on front decks everywhere these days. A steaming drink stood on a table beside him.

I explained that I'd been to the convention, that I'd enjoyed it, and that I was doing research for a book on the Society and its contribution to keeping the
Polaris
story alive. “I wonder,” I said, “if an archive of this year's meeting is available?”

His demeanor softened.
“Have you actually published anything?”

“I've done several,” I said. “My last was a study of the Mazha.”

“Oh, yes,”
he said.

“The title is
The Sword of Faith.
”

“I've seen it,”
he said solemnly.

“It's been well received,” I said. “Now, I was wondering whether you have an archive I could look at?”

“We always put one together for the board.”
He had a raspy, high-pitched voice. The kind you associate with somebody who yells at kids a lot.
“It helps with planning next year's event. Did you just want to see the one from this year? We have them going back to the beginning of the century.”

“At the moment, I only need the current one.”

“Okay. I can take care of it.”
Delivered with a sip of his brew.

A few minutes later I was fast-forwarding my way through the convention. I skipped the stuff I hadn't seen during my original visit. I dropped in on the alien wind panel again. Saw myself. Moved on to the Toxicon kidnap plot. Watched the man who'd been on board the
Polaris
after it became the
Sheila Clermo.
And there he was! Kiernan was sitting six rows to my rear on the left. Almost directly behind me. But I couldn't recall having noticed him back there. I associated him strongly with the convention, but there was a different version of him at the back of my mind.

Alex asked me to get Tab Everson on the circuit. Everson was the man who'd reduced the artifacts to ashes and put them in solar orbit. “What do we want to talk to him about?”

“The
Polaris,
” he said. “I think he'll be receptive.”

He was right. Everson's AI at Morton College put me through to a private secretary, a gray-haired, efficient-looking woman. I identified myself and explained why I'd called. She smiled politely and asked me to wait. Moments later she was back.
“Mr. Everson is busy at the moment. May I have him return your call?”

“Of course.”

Alex told me that when the call came, he wanted me to sit in, using an offstage chair. Everson would not know I was there. An hour later he was on the circuit.

Tab Everson was president of a food distribution firm, although his primary interest seemed to be Morton College. The data banks put his age at thirty-three, but he looked ten years younger. He was casually dressed, white shirt, blue slacks, and a checkered neckerchief. A windbreaker embossed with the name of the college hung on the back of a door. His office was filled with mementoes from the school—awards, certificates, pictures of students playing chess and participating in seminars and standing behind lecterns. He was a bit more than average height, with black hair and piercing gray eyes.
“I've heard a lot about you, Mr. Benedict,”
he said. He was seated in an armchair framed by a picture window. Outside, I could see a hilltop and some trees.
“It's a pleasure.”