Polaris (31 page)

“Why are you so suspicious about the place, Alex? If it's not a school, what else could it be?”

“Let it go for a bit,” he said. “Until we're sure.”

Irritating man. “All right,” I said. “Whose picture were you showing her?”

He pulled it out of his jacket. I'd caught enough of a glimpse to know it was a male, and I thought it might turn out to be Eddie Crisp. Don't ask me why; my head was beginning to spin. But it was a stranger. Lean, average looks, early twenties, brown wavy hair, brown eyes, friendly smile, high forehead.

“One of the students?” I asked.

“She's seen him. But she doesn't think he's a student.”

“An instructor, then?”

“I assume. Though probably not this semester.”

“Who is he, Alex?”

He smiled at me. “Don't you recognize him?”

More guessing games. But yes, I
did
know him. “It looks like a young Urquhart,” I said.

On the way home, he spent his time with a notebook. We'd been aloft less than an hour when he told me the guest professors were where they were supposed to be. “Proves nothing, of course.”

He buried himself in the data banks, while I slept. Shortly before we were scheduled to arrive in Andiquar, he woke me. “Take a look at this, Chase.”

He turned the notebook so I could see the screen:

The report was dated 1381, sixteen years after the
Polaris.

“It is,” he said, “the only instance I can find of this sort of incident. Other than our own, of course.”

“But Alex,” I said, “this is forty-five years ago.”

“Yes.” His eyes narrowed.

“So where's Bukovic?”

He commented that it was nice to be getting back where the weather was decent, then responded: “It's on Sacracour.”

“You're not suggesting we want to go there?”

“You got anything hot pending?”

“Not exactly. That doesn't mean I want to go for another trip. Off-world.”

“I think it would be prudent to get out of range of the psychos anyhow for a bit.” He blanked the screen and looked meaningfully at me. “CyberGraphic's specialty was AI installation and maintenance.”

“Okay.”

“The corporation doesn't exist anymore. They created a series of maladjusted systems, were responsible for some elevator accidents, of all things, and went bankrupt in an avalanche of lawsuits. That was about fourteen years ago.

“What's fascinating is that Shawn Walker was the technician on board the
Peronovski
when it went to the aid of the
Polaris.
” He looked at me as if that explained everything. “Audrey, the widow, is still alive. She remarried and was widowed again. She's still in Tabatha-Li.”

“I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but why do we care?”

And there came that self-indulgent smile, as if he knew something I didn't. He's maddening when he's like that. “Reports at the time,” he said, “suggested Walker's skimmer had been sabotaged.”

“Did they catch anybody?”

“No. Nothing ever came of it. People who knew him claimed he had no enemies. Nobody could think of anyone who wanted him dead.”

I read the story again. “Let's go talk to the lady.”

A secret may be sometimes best kept by keeping the secret of its being a secret.

—Henry Taylor,
The Statesman

We did the research. Shawn Walker had done well with CyberGraphic, but had been forced out in what the industrial reports described as a power grab in 1380, a few months before his death, and fifteen years after his historic flight with the
Peronovski.
There'd been some suspicion that his untimely end was connected with events at the corporation, but no charges had ever been filed.

His wife Audrey married again several years later. The second husband was Michael Kimonides, a chemistry professor at Whitebranch University. He'd died eight years ago.

We let Fenn know where we were headed, and received his heartfelt wish that we stay away until he was able to complete the investigation. He told us, by the way, that they had found no record on Kiernan.
“Why am I not surprised?”
he grumbled.

Earlier I said that traveling around the local galactic arm was just eyeblink stuff. And that's true, up to a point. But the generator has to charge before you make the transit. That takes time, at least eight hours for
Belle,
and maybe a lot more depending on how far you're going. And, of course, you always give yourself plenty of leeway at the destination so you don't
arrive inside a planetary core. Twenty million klicks is the minimum range. I'm inclined to increase that by fifty percent. So that means at least four or five days transit time.

The quantum drive has been a godsend for Alex, who used to get deathly ill during the jump phases with the old Armstrongs. It was a major problem because the nature of his work required him to travel extensively. I wouldn't go so far as to say he enjoyed it during the time I'm describing, but heading out at least no longer involved him in minor trauma.

While we waited for clearance to depart skydeck, Alex settled in the common room, which was located immediately aft the bridge. When I went back after setting up, he was scribbling notes to himself and occasionally consulting his reader.

“Maddy,” he said, by way of explanation. “She's central to this whole thing.”

She'd begun her professional career as a fleet pilot and had taken out a Mute destroyer during an engagement near Karbondel. She'd been decorated, and when it turned out that the strike had taken place shortly after a cease-fire had gone into effect, nobody had cared. The Mutes, after all, had initiated the attack. At least, that was the official version.

She had apparently been an independent spirit. Didn't like having to deal with superior officers, and had left at the end of her obligated time to become a freelancer. She'd hired out to corporate interests, but got bored hauling passengers and freight between the same ports, and finally, at Urquhart's urging, signed on with Survey. It didn't pay as well, but it meant flights into places no one had ever gone before. She liked that.

Sacracour orbited the gas giant Gobulus, which was 160 million kilometers from its swollen red sun. The sun was expanding, burning helium, and would, during the next few million years, swallow its four inner worlds, one of which would be Gobulus, its rings, its vast system of moons, and, of course, Sacracour.

The planet's biosystem was eight billion years old. It featured walking plants, living clouds, and, arguably, the biggest trees on record, skyscrapers twice the size of Earth's Sequoias. Martin Klassner had predicted that
humans would eventually learn to juggle stellar development and would stabilize the local sun. Sacracour would be forever.

The first settlers had been members of a religious order. They'd built a monastery in a mountain chain, called it Esperanza, and they were still there. And prospering. Some of the prime scholars and artists of the past few centuries have made it their home, including Jon Cordova, who, by many accounts, is the greatest of all playwrights.

Most of the planet's contemporary inhabitants—there are fewer than three hundred thousand altogether—live along a seacoast that's usually warm and invigorating. Lots of beach and sun. Great sky views. They haven't yet achieved tidal lock, so if you time things right you can sit out on the beach and watch Gobulus, with its rings and its system of moons, rise out of the ocean.

The hitch was that the section of seacoast to which we were headed was experiencing mid-winter.

The orbital transport brought us down to Barakola in Bukovic at night in the middle of a sleet storm. We were on the near side of Gobulus, facing away from the sun, and the gas giant itself had set an hour earlier. The darkness was almost absolute. We rented a skimmer, checked in at our hotel, changed clothes, and headed for Tabatha-Li.

It was an island, home to Whitebranch University, two hours from the hotel. We outran the storm and the clouds and sailed out under a canopy of moons and rings. Directly ahead of us, just off the horizon, we saw an oscillating blue star.

“What is it?” asked Alex.

“It's Ramses. A pulsar.”

“Really? I've never seen one before. It's a collapsed star, right? Like the one that hit Delta Kay?”

“More or less,” I said.

It dimmed and brightened. Dimmed and brightened. He didn't approve. “Having that thing in the sky all the time would give you a headache.”

Tabatha-Li was quaint, quiet, and old-fashioned, but not in the way Walpurgis had been. This was last-century style with money. The island was a favorite location for retired technocrats and government and media
heavyweights. This was one of the places local interviewers visited when they wanted commentary on some contentious political or social policy.

Audrey Kimonides, the former Audrey Walker, lived in a luxurious turtle-shell house on the north side of the campus. There was stone art on the lawn and a Marko skimmer by the pad. Audrey did not want for resources.

Icicles hung from the roof and the trees. Snow was piled up everywhere. Lights were on inside and out. Audrey had known we were coming, and the front door opened before we were on the ground.

If you're visiting a centenarian, you expect to see someone who's come to terms with mortality and exhibits a degree of composure and resignation. It's never expressed, of course, but you can see it in the eyes and hear it in the voice, a kind of world-weariness, a sense of there being nothing left that can yield a surprise.

Audrey Kimonides, on the contrary, was a bundle of barely suppressed energy. She strode purposefully out the front door, a book in her left hand, a wrap thrown around her shoulders. “Mr. Benedict.” She exhaled a little cloud of mist. “Ms. Kolpath. Do please come inside. You didn't pick the right time of year to come visiting.” She led the way back, warned us that the house was full of drafts, and settled us in front of a fire. “May I get you something to fight off the cold?” she asked.

“By all means,” said Alex, warming to her immediately.

She broke out a decanter of dark red midcountry wine and, when Alex offered to help, insisted he sit and relax. “You've had a long flight,” she said. “I'll take care of it.” She popped the cork, filled three glasses, passed them around, and offered, as her toast, “The world's historians, who never really get things right.”

She beamed at Alex to let him know that she understood exactly who he was and that she admired people who upset applecarts. “Mr. Benedict,” she continued, “it's such a pleasure to meet you. And Ms. Kolpath. The two of you. Here at my home. I can hardly believe it. I can't tell you how much I would have given to have been with you when you made your discovery.”

She was a trim woman, not tall, with startling blue eyes and the erect posture of someone half her age. Her hair was white, but her voice was
clear and vibrant. She put the decanter on a coffee table, where we could all reach it, and sat down in an armchair. “I assume you wanted to ask me about Michael.”

Michael was the second husband, known for his work on the Columbian Age. “Actually,” Alex said, “I was interested in Shawn.”

“Shawn?” She looked at me for confirmation.
No one's ever really interested in Shawn.
“Well, of course. What did you want to know?”

There were pictures atop a bookshelf and on a side table. An audacious-looking young Audrey and a dreamy-eyed Shawn Walker. And a much older Audrey with another man, formal, white whiskers, officious-looking. Kimonides.

“I was wondering if you'd tell us about him, what kind of work he did?”

“Certainly,” she said. “It's simple enough, I suppose. He designed, installed, and maintained AIs. He worked thirty years for CyberGraphic before starting his own company. But I assume you know that.”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why you're interested? Is there some sort of problem?”

“No,” said Alex. “We're trying to figure out what happened to the
Polaris.
”

She needed a moment to process that. “Shawn always wondered about that himself.”

“I'm sure.”

“Yes. Odd thing, that was. I never understood how it could happen. But I don't see how I can help.”

“Good wine,” I said, to ease the pace.

“Thank you, dear. It's from Mobry.”

I doubt either of us had any idea what or where Mobry was, but Alex nodded sagely. “Ms. Kimonides—” he said.

“Oh, please, do call me Audrey.”

“Audrey, yes. Shawn was on the
Peronovski.
”

“That's right. First ship on the scene. He and Miguel Alvarez—Miguel was the captain—were the ones who found the
Polaris.
” She looked momentarily regretful. “Everybody knew about Miguel Alvarez, of course. The captain. But if you're the number two guy, nobody notices.”

“Did he ever talk to you about it? Did he tell you what happened out there?”

“Alex, he told the world. If you're asking me whether he said things in private that he didn't reveal to the commission, the answer's no. Except his personal feelings.”

“How did he feel?”

“
Spooked
would probably be the appropriate word.” I could see her looking back across the years and shaking her head. “It was an unnerving experience. He knew Warren personally, you know.”

“Mendoza?”

“Yes. They were close friends. They grew up together. Stayed close over the years.” Her eyes slid shut, then opened again. “Poor Warren. In the early days we used to socialize with them. He and his wife, Amy.”

“Did Shawn know anybody else on the flight? Did he know Tom Dunninger?”

“Not really. We met him once. But I wouldn't want to say we really
knew
him.”

“Audrey, I don't like bringing up a painful memory, but there was some suspicion that Shawn's death wasn't an accident. What do you think happened?”

“It's not a problem, Alex. I got past it long ago. I assume you want to know whether I think he was murdered?”

“Do you?”

“I don't know. I honestly don't know.”

“Who stood to gain by his death?”

“No one that I know of. May I ask what this could possibly have to do with the
Polaris
?”

“We're not sure it has anything to do with it. But a couple of days ago, someone sabotaged the antigravity pods in our skimmer. Very nearly killed us.”

Her eyes got wide, and she looked over at me, then at something far away. “Well, isn't that strange? I'm so glad you're both all right.”

“Thank you.”

“You were luckier than Shawn.”

“I was fortunate to have this young lady along,” said Alex, giving me
full credit. Deservedly, I suppose. He described what I'd done, embellishing it substantially so it sounded as if I'd been doing handstands on the wings.

When he finished she refilled our glasses and offered a toast to me. “I wish you'd been with Shawn,” she said. A tear rolled down her cheek. “It got a lot of coverage here, naturally.” I could see her replaying old memories. “And you think there's a connection with Shawn's death.” The lines around her eyes and mouth deepened. “But surely—” She thought better of what she was going to say and let it go.

Alex wrote something in a paper notebook. He often took notes when he dealt with clients. He'd learned long ago to avoid recording whole conversations, because it had the effect of making people reluctant to speak. “Had there been any indication your husband was in danger? Any threat? Any warning?”

She sipped her wine and placed the glass, still half-full, on the table. “No. Nothing like that. There was just no reason I knew of that anyone would have wanted to harm him.”

“Audrey,” I said, “forgive me for asking, but if there had been a problem, would he have told you?”

That prompted a hesitation. “Earlier in our marriage, he would certainly have said something. During the later years”—her brow wrinkled, and she looked uncomfortable—“he never gave me reason not to trust him, Chase. He was a decent man. But I did feel he had secrets.”