Polaris (22 page)

The place was well maintained. It was one of those two-story big-window models from the last century. Something about it suggested fourteenth-century sensibilities. Maybe it was the big porch and the rockers.

“She live here alone?” asked Alex.

“According to the rental agent, yes. She's been here four years. He didn't get up here that often, but he said there was no sign of a live-in boyfriend, or anything along those lines. He also said he didn't realize she was gone.”

The scene changed, and we were inside. My impression of an antique atmosphere was confirmed by the interior: The furniture was immense: a padded sofa big enough for six; two matching chairs; and a coffee table the size of a tennis court. Thick forest green curtains were drawn over the windows. You sank into the carpets. Quilts were thrown across the sofa and one of the chairs.

“How long has she been missing?” Alex asked.

“We're not sure. The school was on a semester break. Nobody can recall having seen her for about a week.”
He glanced out the window.
“Nice place. I understand they have a waiting line if it becomes available.”

“You think she might be coming back?”

“I doubt it.”
He tugged at his sleeves.
“All right, this is obviously the living room. Kitchen's over there, on the other side of the hallway. Washroom through that door. Two bedrooms and another washroom upstairs. Everything pretty well kept.”

“But only one person living here.”

“She has money,” I said.

“That's what's strange. We checked her finances. She's comfortable but not well-off. This apartment is an extravagance. Unless
—
”

“She has accounts under other names,” said Alex.

There were several prints on the walls. An old man deep in thought, a couple of kids standing on a country bridge, a ship gliding past a ringed planet.
“It's a furnished unit. Everything belongs to the owner. She left clothes and some assorted junk. But no jewelry. No ID cards.”

“She knew when she left,” Alex said, “that she wasn't coming back.”

“Or that that there was a chance she wouldn't, and she wanted to be ready to run.”

Her bedroom was in the back of the house, overlooking the ocean. It was cozy, dark-paneled walls, matching drapes and carpet. The bed was
oversized, with lots of pillows. It was flanked by side tables and reading lamps. A couple of framed pictures stood atop a bureau: Barber laughing and having a good time with a half dozen students; Barber posing with a male friend on the front steps of what was probably a school building.

“Who's the guy?” I asked.

“Hans Waxman. Teaches math.”

Alex took a close look. “What's he have to say?”

“He's worried about her. Says she's never done anything like this before. Just taken off, I mean. They've had an on-again, off-again relationship over the last year.”

“And her students like her, you say?”

“Yeah. They say she was a good teacher. Nobody seems to know anything about her personal life. But they really like her. They couldn't understand why we were interested in her.”

“Did you tell them?”

“Only that we wanted to talk to her because we thought she might have been a witness to an accident.”

The guest bedroom was a bit smaller, with a view of the chopping block. A chair, a table lamp, a picture of Lavrito Correndo leaping across a stage.

“Anything ring any bells?”
Fenn asked.

“Yes,” said Alex. “What's missing?”

“How do you mean?”

“Your office has pictures of your entire career, from when you first started. At the house, I can walk around and see pictures of your folks, of your wife and kids, of you on the squabble team. Even, if I recall, of me.”

“Oh.”

“She has pictures,” I said, pointing to them.

“Those are from last week. Where's her past?” Alex held up his hands as though the apartment were empty. “Where was she before she came to Trinity?”

An ornate mirror hung over the sofa. The drapes were pulled back, and sunlight poured in through a series of windows.

“How about you, Chase? See anything?”

“Actually,” I said, “yes. Let's go back downstairs.” There was a dark
blue quilt thrown over one of the chairs. Embroidered in its center was a white star inside a ring. It had to be handwoven, and it looked as if it had been around a while.

“What is it?”
asked Fenn.

“Who do you think owns the quilt? The landlord?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It has a connection with somebody who pilots superluminals.”

Fenn squinted at the quilt.
“How do you know?”

“Look at the seal. Here, let me show you.” I killed the picture, and we were back at the country house. I touched my bracelet to the reader. The screen darkened, and my license appeared on it: . . .
That Agnes Chase Kolpath is hereby certified to operate and command superluminal vessels and vehicles, class 3. With all responsibilities and privileges appertaining thereto. Witness therefore this date—
Signatures were attached.

“Agnes?”
Alex said. “I didn't know that was your given name.”

“Can we proceed?” I asked.

They both laughed.

The background symbol on the document was, of course, Diapholo's ring and star. “It's named for the fourth-millennium hero,” I said. “He sacrificed himself to save his passengers.”

“I know the story,” said Alex. “But I don't think the design is quite the same.”

“The style has changed over the years.” I returned us to Barber's living room and adjusted to a better angle on the quilt. “This is pretty close to what it used to look like.”

“When?”

“Sixty years ago. Give or take.”

“So who could the pilot have been? Her grandfather?”

I shrugged. “Anybody's guess. But the quilt looks like an original. Does it belong to her or the landlord? And you might have noticed Barber looks a lot like Maddy. Maybe they're related.”

Fenn called again that afternoon. He'd talked with the landlord. The quilt belonged to Barber. He also reported that the Teri Barber who graduated
from the University of Warburlee was not the same Teri Barber who'd been teaching the last few years at Trinity.

Superluminal certification records showed no listing for anybody named Barber. So Alex and I fed her image to Jacob. “See if you can find anyone,” I told him, “who has or had a license who looks enough like her to be a relative.”

“That's fairly vague,”
he complained.
“What are the search parameters?”

“Male and female.” I looked at Alex. “You think she might actually have been born in Womble?”

“Probably not. But it's a place to start.”

“How far back?”

“All the way. The certification design's been around a while.”

“Anywhere over the last sixty years,” I told Jacob. “Born in, or lived in, Womble. On Korval.”

“Looking,”
he said.

“Take your time.”

“Of course this is very nonscientific. It calls for an opinion.”

“I understand.”

And, after a few moments:
“Negative search.”

“You don't need to find a duplicate,” I told him. “Anybody who looks remotely like her would do.”

“There are no persons, male or female, licensed to operate interstellars, who at any time lived in Womble on Korval.”

“Try the same search,” said Alex. “But go planetwide.”

He produced three pilots, two male, one female. I didn't think any of them looked much like Barber.
“It's the best I can do.”

“Proximity to Womble?” asked Alex.

“Closest one is eight hundred kilometers.”

Detailed information on the families was blocked under the privacy laws. “Doesn't matter,” Alex said. “I don't think Teri Barber exists. Let's try something else. Same search, substitute Rimway. The Associated States.”

I wondered whether Fenn would institute a search of college yearbooks from, say, 1423 to 1425. “She had to graduate from somewhere.”

“The database would be pretty big,” said Alex. “Anyhow, who says she had to graduate from somewhere?”

“I have a hit,”
said Jacob.
“A female pilot.”

“Let's see her, Jacob.”

She
looked
like Teri Barber. She was wearing a gray uniform and her hair was brown instead of black. But the certificate was dated 1397. Thirty-one years ago. “She's a pretty good match,” Alex said. The woman would now be in her midfifties. Barber was no more than twenty-five.

“What's her name?” I asked.

“Agnes Shanley.”

“Another Agnes.” Alex smiled. Not a real smile. More like a reflexive one. “Did Agnes have any daughters?”

“It doesn't say. She married in 1401. To one Edgar Crisp.”

“Do we have an avatar for her?”

“Negative.”

“How about a locator? Can we talk to her?”

“Yes,”
said Jacob.
“Her file's been inactive for twenty-five years. But I have a locator code.”

“Good. On-screen, please.”

“We should pass it to Fenn,” I said.

Alex ignored me. He does that when he doesn't want to deal with me. But I wasn't so sure I wanted to get directly involved again. This was precisely the sort of behavior that had gotten us into trouble already.

“If we tell Fenn,” Alex said, apparently judging that the silence between us had become strained, “he'll shrug and say the fact that she looks like Barber is irrelevant. I can hear him now: You look through every pilot certified worldwide over the last sixty years, of course you'll find someone who looks like her.”

“Actually,” I said, “that's a pretty strong argument.”

He laughed. “You have a point.”

“I still think—”

“Let's just stay with it for a bit. I want to know what's so important that somebody tried to kill us.” I heard anger in there somewhere. Good for him. Alex had always seemed to me to be a bit too passive. But I wondered if we weren't picking a fight with the wrong people. I get a little
nervous around bomb throwers. He turned back to the AI. “Jacob, see if you can get me on the circuit to Agnes Shanley Crisp.”

Jacob acknowledged. I got up and wandered around the room. Alex sat listening to the birds outside. They were especially noisy that afternoon. Then Jacob was back:
“Alex,”
he said,
“it appears the code is not currently in service.”

There's a lot to be said for doing a disappearance. You bamboozle the bill collectors, upset the relatives, rattle the local social group, and give them all something to talk about. It's an easy way to become a legend. And it feels good. I know because I've done it several times myself.

—Schaparelli Cleve,
Autobiography

Alex had some questions to ask Hans Waxman, the math teacher. But Waxman didn't know us and would probably be reluctant to talk to strangers about his girlfriend. So we looked for a better way.

Waxman ate breakfast most mornings at a quiet little place called Sally's, just off the northern perimeter of the Trinity University campus. Several days after we'd toured Teri Barber's apartment, I arranged to be waiting for him.

I'd selected a table near the front window. Alex waited in a park across the street, relaxing on a bench, trying to look inconspicuous. I wanted Waxman to be able to see the passing traffic, so I put my hat on the chair that had its back to the window. I set my reader on the table and brought up
The Mathematical Dodge.
It's a collection of puzzles and logic problems, and I made sure I angled it so he could see the title as he came in the door.

He arrived at his usual time, looking thoughtful and distracted, his mind presumably on that morning's classes. He was, as they say in the girls' locker, a juicy piece—tall, blond, nice jaw. Looked even more
congenial in person than he had in the picture. We made eye contact and I smiled and that was all it took.

He came over, shuffled his feet a bit, and said hello. “I see you enjoy doing puzzles,” he added.

“Just a hobby.” My. He
was
attractive. In an innocent sort of way. The kind of guy you don't see around much anymore.

I'd ordered a fruit plate with hot chocolate. The chocolate arrived while he was considering how to pursue the gambit. I decided to save him the trouble and held out a hand. “Jenny,” I said.

The smile widened. It was a shy grin, made all the more appealing in a guy who should have been able to get anybody he wanted. “Nice to meet you, Jenny. My name's Hans. May I join you?”

The truth is I started regretting the lie before I delivered it. Alex had instructed me to avoid using my name, but I was thinking, yes, he was a bit young for me, but what the hell. Now, with the deception, he was forever off-limits. “Sure,” I said.

He picked one of the remaining chairs, with the window view that I wanted him to have, and sat down. “Are you a teacher, Hans?” I asked.

“Yes. Math. How did you know?”

I nodded toward the book. “Most people would take no notice.”

“Oh.” The smile widened. “Am I that obvious?”

“I wouldn't put it that way. But we're close to the school, and you look as if you belong—” I stopped, canted my head, and let him see I was impressed. “I don't think I'm getting this right.”

“It's okay, Jenny. Thank you. In fact, I have a class in forty-five minutes.” He ordered eggs and toast, and I asked where he was from. He started talking about far-off places. My fruit dish showed up, and things went swimmingly. He wondered what I did for a living.

I admitted to being a financial advisor finishing a vacation on Trinity. “From Wespac,” I said. Wespac was safely in the middle of the continent. “Going home tomorrow.”

His face dropped. He looked genuinely distressed, and I have to confess I was charmed. “I'm sorry to hear that,” he said. “It would have been nice to be able to get together again. Assuming you'd have been willing.”
He picked up the menu but didn't look at it. “Are you by any chance free this evening? I'd love to take you to dinner.”

I hesitated.

“There are some excellent restaurants on the island. But you know that.”

“Yes. I do. And I wish I could, Hans. But I'm committed.” Sweet temptation. I would have enjoyed doing it and letting the rest of the evening play out as it would. It wasn't a reaction I usually had with strangers, even handsome ones. I was thinking, though, that it would be a way to get back at Barber. Take her guy and show him the time of his life. But that would have been an indecent way to treat Hans.

“What's funny, Jenny?”

“Nothing, really,” I said. “I always meet the good-looking guy as I'm headed out of town.” I let him see I wasn't entirely joking.

I steered the conversation back to teaching, to his passion for mathematics, to his frustration that his students rarely recognized the elegance of equations. “It's as if they have a blind spot,” he said.

“How long have you been at Trinity, Hans?” I asked.

“Six years. Ten if you count my time as a student.”

“I have a friend who teaches here. In the literature department.”

That got his attention. “Really? Who?”

“Her name's Teri.”

He smiled. “I know her,” he said. Noncommittal.

“I'd expected to surprise her, but she seems to have gone off somewhere.”

His eggs came. He tried one, commented how good it was, and bit into the toast. “She left the island. I don't know where she is.”

“You mean, since the accident?”

“You know about that?”

“I know a skimmer went into the ocean. The police were looking for her. They think she saw it happen.” I paused. “I hope she's okay.”

“So do I. I don't know the details. But I think the police believe she was responsible for it.”

“I heard the same thing. But I don't believe a word of it.”

“Neither do I.” He shrugged it off.

Sally's was automated. Our bot showed up and refilled my hot chocolate. “Hans,” I said, “I got the impression last time I talked to her, a few days before the accident, that something was on her mind.”

His gaze met mine. Steady. Worried. “Me too. She's been down a bit lately. Depressed.”

“It was unlike her in the old days. She was always upbeat.”

“I know.”

“Any idea what it might be about?”

“No. She wouldn't tell me anything. Denied anything was wrong.”

“Yeah. That's what she told me, too. I wonder what happened?” I was trying to be casual, yet sound concerned. Not easy for somebody whose acting skills are pure wood.

“Don't know,” he said.

“How long has she been like that?”

He thought about it. “A few weeks.” He made a guttural sound. “I hope she's okay.”

I wanted to bring the
Polaris
into the conversation, but couldn't think of an indirect way to do it. So I just blurted it out: “She used to be fascinated by the
Polaris.
”

“The ghost ship, you mean?” he asked. “I didn't know. She never mentioned it.”

I wasn't quite finished with my meal, but I moved the plate off to one side. That was a signal to Alex, who was armed with a projector.

“It was a strange business,” I said. I went on for a minute or two in that vein, recounting the many times I'd heard Teri wonder aloud what had happened to the people on the mission. Meantime, Marcus Kiernan's simulacrum, projected by Alex, came strolling along the sidewalk. In full view of Hans. Of course, there was no way for Hans to know it wasn't actually Kiernan himself out there. The simulacrum stopped just outside the door to study the menu.

Hans was pointed directly toward the window. Couldn't have missed him. But he gave no sign of recognition. He simply went on quietly eating his breakfast. He did not know, and had never seen, Marcus Kiernan.

After Hans left for his classes, I strolled outside and went across the street into the park.

Alex was waiting. He'd heard the conversation on my link. I detailed my impressions for him while he sat casually, watching a couple of toddlers riding swings under their mother's supervision. It seemed to me we hadn't learned anything helpful. Other than that he didn't know Kiernan.

“I'm not so sure,” he said.

“In what way? What else do we know now that we didn't know before?”

“He said the change in her mood began a few weeks ago. That puts it about the time Survey announced it would auction the artifacts.”

That night I was at home reading a mystery when Alex called.
“I found something in the archives,”
he said.

He sent it over and stayed on the circuit while I dimmed the lights, put on my headband, and looked at it.

We were inside a paneled room. Book-lined walls. Bokkarian artwork. Flowers. Old-fashioned furniture. Lots of people milling around, shaking hands, embracing. I saw Dunninger. And Urquhart. “Where are we?” I asked.

“University of Carmindel, the evening before the
Polaris
flight.”

“Oh.” I spotted Nancy White in a corner of the room. And Mendoza. And there was Maddy, striding among the giants like a goddess.

“They held a celebration for everyone associated with the
Polaris
the night before they left.”

Mendoza was talking with two women.
“The younger one,”
said Alex,
“is his daughter.”

Jess Taliaferro was engaged in an animated conversation with a man whose dimensions dwarfed him. A Tupelo. Connections somewhere with a low-gravity world. Taliaferro himself was smiling, nodding, looking earnest. Obviously feeling good. He was well turned out for the occasion: blue karym jacket, white neckpiece, gold buttons and links.

“Martin Klassner's over by the table.”

Klassner sat beside a middle-aged woman and a little girl. The little
girl was playing with a toy skimmer. Zooming it around and landing it on Klassner's arm. He seemed to be enjoying the attention.

“He was pretty sick,”
Alex said.
“I'm not sure what it was.”

“Bentwood's,” I told him. It was ironic that Klassner would be traveling with two of the great neurological research people of the age, but no one could do anything for him. Bentwood's, of course, is beaten now. You go down to the clinic, and they give you a pill. But then—

“The woman is Tess, his wife. And the little girl is a grandchild.”
Tess looked worried.

Chek Boland stood in a small mixed group near a window.
“The caption indicates those are all people from the literature department. One of them, the one in the white gown, is Jaila Horn. A major essayist in her time.”

“I never heard of her.”

“It says she's pretty much forgotten today. Only read by scholars. She was planning to write about the collision. About Delta Kay. She saw lots of analogies between what was going to happen to the star and what institutional authority does to individual freedom. Or something like that.”

“She didn't go?”

“She was on the
Sentinel.
”

Nancy White had been cornered by a group of young people who, I suspected, were graduate students. White had managed several careers. One of them consisted of doing shorthand biographies of the great scientists. But her most famous work was
Out of the Trees,
an attempt to reconstruct the early progress of knowledge. Where was the first evidence that we'd begun to believe that the universe worked according to a system of laws? Who had first realized that the cosmos was not eternal? Why did people instinctively resist the notion? How had scientists first come to understand the implications of the quantum world? Who had first understood the nature of time?

Well, I didn't understand the nature of time. And neither did anybody I could think of.

Occasionally I was able to make out a comment.
“Wish I were going with you.” “Is there any danger?” “Not going to happen again within traveling range probably, for a hundred thousand years.”

“Is there a point to all this?” I asked. It felt like a rerun of the other farewell, on Skydeck.

“Let me fast-forward.”

He rippled through, and the celebrants raced around the room at a ferocious rate, gulping down drinks and raiding the snack table. Then he returned to normal, and they were saying good-bye, moving toward the doors. Final shaking of hands. Tell your brother I said hello.

White extricated herself from her attending party and circled the room, nodding, accepting embraces. “Is that her husband at her side?” I asked.

“The big one?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.
“They've been married nineteen years. His name's Karl.”

Dunninger and Mendoza carried small crowds with them as they passed out of the room. Maddy English waited near the bar, talking earnestly with a red-haired olive-skinned man.
“Sy Juano,”
Alex said.
“He's a financial manager, it says here.”
It seemed as if she smiled past him, her thoughts concentrated elsewhere. The conversation seemed to be ending. Juano was nodding yes, then he leaned over and kissed her. She looked a bit reluctant.