Firebird ab-6, page 11
part #6 of Alex Benedict Series
All four worlds are in wildly irregular orbits, and in fact they cross one another's paths occasionally. There is, however, no concern that any of them will collide with Sanusar. If nothing changes, the big one will swallow it eventually, but the date has been projected so far ahead that the universe itself will be in severe decline when it does. There was apparently a close encounter with a passing star or something a billion years ago, which is believed to have created the present situation.
The result, of course, is that temperatures on Sanusar vary extensively, and there is no permanent settlement in the standard sense. A few ground facilities provide shelter for visitors, who are predominantly people who like an unstable climate, or who just want to get their picture taken here, or be able to say they've been to Sanusar. There are some who come because they feel it provides a religious setting. For others it is a place where they can experience the arbitrariness of a nature that, at home, seems so solid and dependable. You don't get that in the confines of a space habitat, they'll tell you. Even one circling a black hole. You need hills and open water and something alive to provide a sense of the value of your home world. By something alive, they're talking about misshapen arboreal growths. It's the only known world with fully developed vegetation that does not have animal life beyond that of a microscopic variety. It existed at one time, but vanished long ago when the environment was effectively reshaped. Until Sanusar, biologists had held that plants could not exist without an animal population.
The space station is among the smallest in the Confederacy, with an operational staff of six. It would probably have been shut down centuries ago except that it's close to Mute territory and has been of use to the Fleet when relations have deteriorated.
“They had five people then,” Miriam Varona told us, referring to the time of the sighting. Miriam was the sole operational officer. Her husband, Barry, oversaw station maintenance, and her other husband, Condrey, was their Patrol officer. (I don't know the relationship for a fact, but that seemed to be the arrangement.) A fourth person, whom she enjoyed referring to as her personnel guy, was on vacation for two months and had been relieved by Miriam's son Boris. Boris was training to be a physician. Two others performed as technicians, and were also available to handle the rescue vehicle in case of an emergency.
“It's not like the big stations,” she explained, “but we do get some traffic. Someone's in or out at least once a week. In fact, you are the third arrival in the last five days.” Miriam was tall, and maybe a trifle bent, and I got a sense of someone who spent too much time alone. Later, I heard that she'd grown up on the station, where there was a 0.3 gravity setting. Her muscles never became accustomed to standard gravity and when in later years she did have to deal with it, it caused problems. Her family, which had obviously not been too bright, or maybe just didn't care, owned the orbiter.
“We're looking for Tereza Urbanova,” said Alex. “Can you tell us where she is?”
“Oh, yes. It's been a while since I've seen her. But she's living at Oceanside.” She produced a map for us. “We can shuttle you down, but I have to tell you, it's not cheap. If you have a lander, I'd suggest you use it.”
“We will,” he said. “What kind of place is Oceanside?”
“It's on a mountain. Beautiful view, though, despite the name, you won't see much water.”
“Okay.”
“It's a small complex. Tourist spot, of course. Tereza works there. Does presentations and serves as the host for most of the parties and whatnot.”
“Sounds like a busy place.”
“Well, I'm not sure I'd go that far. They do have some people there now, though. A group of literature enthusiasts. They're there to visit the Filandia.”
“What's the Filandia?” I asked.
Alex usually knows the answers to such abstruse questions, but he waited for Miriam to explain. She seemed mildly amused that we didn't know. “It's the hotel. Where Racine Vales wrote Over the Side.”
I'd heard the title but had no idea what it was about.
“It's the big revolutionary novel of the Bacchanal movement,” Alex said.
I still didn't know-
“It's a long time ago, dear,” said Miriam. “Six hundred years. But it did change the way an entire civilization behaved. It brought about a new moral code and a complete freedom of the spirit.”
“Do as you like,” said Alex, “as long as no one gets hurt.”
“Exactly,” she said. “People always talked about freedom, but then they set a lot of rules. Think how much better everyone's life would be if we just exercised some common sense instead of living by tribal taboos.” She laughed. “Well, enough of that. Does Tereza know you're coming?”
In fact she did. We landed on the edge of the complex, which consisted of the Filandia, an entertainment complex, and a half dozen cabins, arranged in a large circle. They all had a kind of rough-hewn look, which added to the sense of being well away from civilization. (As if you needed anything to underscore the reality.) They weren't really on top of a mountain. It was more like an oversized hill with a flattened summit. If you fell off the summit, you weren't likely to get hurt, but you'd do a lot of rolling. We saw a few kids playing tag, and a young woman was coming out of one of the cabins.
An ocean was visible, but it was far enough away that it might have been nothing more than a distant lake. We set down on a pad, climbed out, and went into the hotel.
Tereza was in the lobby, seated near a window with three men and a woman. She stood and smiled as we came in. “Chase?” she said. “And Alex. How nice to meet you. I've heard so much about you.”
She hadn't aged much in a half century. She had black hair, smooth skin, lemon-colored eyes, and a quiet dignity that imposed itself on her surroundings. She introduced us around the table. They were members of the literary group, and they'd apparently been talking about the weather. And before you leap to judgment, keep in mind that the weather on Sanusar wasn't anything like whatever world the visitors had come from. But that day, with sunlight and relatively warm temperatures, it was all anyone could have asked.
“Yesterday,” said one of the tourists, “it was forty below.”
We joined the conversation, were asked what we did for a living and whether we'd like some drinks. After a few minutes, Tereza excused herself from her guests and took us to a side room, where we sat down around a table. “You're, of course, welcome to stay if you like,” she said. “I hope you will, but I don't want to waste your time. How can I help you?”
Alex leaned forward. “Tereza,” he said, “we're trying to get a handle on the sighting fifty years ago. The ship that-”
“I know,” she said.
“You were on duty when it happened.”
“Yes. That's correct.”
“We've seen the record of the incident. And we were hoping you might be able to add something.”
“I don't know what else-?”
“Your husband once described you as having never been the same after the incident.”
She blinked and smiled. “There's some truth to that, I guess.” Outside, in the lobby, somebody put on some music. It was slow and moody.
Alex waited quietly.
Her eyes focused somewhere behind us. “The record that you saw was edited.”
“Why?”
“We had some decent images of the ports.”
Alex leaned forward. “It's okay,” he said. “What did you see?”
“There was a woman at one of them. She appeared to be banging on it. She looked hysterical.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I'm sure.” Those lemon eyes grew sad. “The investigators confiscated everything. When, later, the record was released, that part of it was missing.”
“Did you talk to them? The investigators?”
“My boss did. He said they told him it was our imagination. That she was never there.” She shook her head. “We all saw it, Alex. God help me, we all saw it.”
Jack McDevitt
Firebird
PART II
Villanueva
Jack McDevitt
Firebird
THIRTEEN
The future of our species lies hidden in its past.
— Wolfgang Corbin, Let's Hear It for the Infidels, 6615 C.E.
“Why would they edit it out?” I asked, as we lifted away from Ocean-side.
“Public relations again,” said Alex. “We don't know who conducted the investigation, whether it was StarCorps or local. But they had a woman in distress. Worse, pictures of a woman in distress. They don't have a clue who she is, or what the ship is, or where it went. There were no reports of anyone in trouble. All vehicles were accounted for.” He looked down at the landscape. “How would they explain it to an aroused public?”
The ride home was somber. Alex buried himself in a book and barely spoke until we'd made the jump back into our home system. When I asked him whether we were ready to back away from the entire business, he said that he was disappointed in me. “You give up too easily, Chase.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“Winter.”
“What?”
“William Winter. Robin's friend. The one who died on Indikar. I think it's time we tried to find out what actually happened.”
Two days later, we were on a glide train crossing the continent. At Port Leo we got off, and spent the night at the Amerada Hotel. I'm embarrassed to admit that I had a little too much to drink and became part of the floor show. I don't usually do stuff like that, and I probably wouldn't have if Alex had been down in the club with me, but he wasn't, and I began thinking how maybe those people who were saying you should enjoy yourself while you can, have a big time as long as nobody gets hurt because you don't have forever, maybe they're right. So I joined two or three other women at the center of the party.
In the morning, I felt a bit guilty, and Alex was surprised when I told him I was going to have breakfast in my room. I didn't want to take a chance on running into anybody from the previous evening. But I could tell from the way Alex was talking to me that he knew something had happened. He didn't comment, though. And at noon, under a brilliant, cloudless sky, we checked out, rented a skimmer, and rode to Taraska.
Taraska is rugged country, valleys and ridges partially submerged in thick forest, lots of rock, and two very large mountains. It's a place for people who'd probably rather be living on an island or on the back side of the Moon except that they like the services that come with being within reach of civilization. And they had a taste for architecture. There were a couple of stores, two cafes, a nightclub, a church, and a city hall in the center of town, all quite elegant. Private homes were widely separated across the area, and were a trifle ostentatious, equipped with towers, domes, and arches.
The townspeople were convivial, though. They hung out in the cafes, or in the nightclub. Or at one another's houses. They threw a lot of parties, or so we were informed. And I had no trouble believing it.
William Winter's son, also named William, lived in a three-story house with columns and spires and circular windows. The lawn was beautifully manicured, and two lines of Salonika trees shaded the property. “What's he do for a living?” I asked Alex.
“As far as I can tell, he just sits on his front deck and watches the flowers grow.”
“Where'd the family money come from, do you know?”
“It's been there for generations.”
The landscape seemed utterly still as we began our descent. Their AI asked us to identify ourselves. “Alex Benedict,” I said. “We have an appointment with Mr. Winter.”
“Very good. Welcome to Whitcover.” We discovered later that every house in Taraska has a name. There were, for example, Burlingame and Epicenter and Pyrrhus. Burlingame had, we were told, been picked out of a hat. The owner of Epicenter was a geologist, and Pyrrhus was the property of a family that claimed to be descended from Greeks. A gray-white boulder dominated the lawn of Whitcover.
The AI sounded a bit snobbish. And we wondered why Winter didn't soften the greeting. This didn't look like an area that had problems with salesmen or the Lord's Messengers.
We touched down a minute or two later, and the AI instructed us to proceed to the front deck. We got out, dropped onto a stone pathway, walked to the front of the house, and climbed five marble stairs onto the porch. It was beautiful country. A soft breeze rustled the trees, flowers bloomed, and birds twittered. The door opened, and we passed between two columns and went inside, where we were greeted by a young man dressed in formal garb. “Good afternoon” he said. “Mr. Winter will be with you shortly.”
He was a hologram. Standing in front of a lamp in the hallway, he cast no shadow. He smiled politely, led us into a reception room, and asked us to be seated. When we'd complied, he smiled again, turned on his heel, and left.
The room was luxuriously furnished with thick satin curtains, a dark, padded sofa, three armchairs, and an exquisitely carved coffee table. Several pieces of twelfth-century transliteral art were mounted on the walls, along with a lush, fur-lined tapestry and a framed wedding picture of William Winter, Sr., and his bride. Two sculpted busts, a man and a woman from another age, looked across the room at each other.
We heard voices in the hallway. Then a short, plump man entered the room. “Mr. Benedict,” he said. “So good to meet you. And Ms. Kolpath. I'm Billy Winter. What can I do for you?”
Alex expressed his admiration for the property and said something about the pleasant weather. Winter asked if we'd like something to drink. Of course. That would be very kind. Winter spoke to the AI, and Alex got to the point. “As I mentioned,” he said, “we're doing some research on eminent fourteenth-century figures, men and women who had a permanent effect on the development of the culture. We'd like very much to talk with you about your father.”
Our host settled into an armchair. “My time is yours,” he said.
A bottle of wine was brought in by a middle-aged woman, who smiled politely, took three glasses from a cabinet, and put them before us. She withdrew, and Billy filled the glasses. We raised them to his father, and to the Arcane Club, of which he'd been a founding member, and which included some of the century's most influential thinkers. Maria Cauley, who'd been a major contributor to court reform, had been a member. And Lyle Kashevik, the neurologist who'd argued the necessity of religion for inner peace while warning against its vulnerability to abuse. And Indira Khalalla, who developed the moonlight pheromone that was so potent that moralistic opponents took her to court to block its use. Michael Goshok had belonged during the years when he was leading the effort to ban AIs that could theoretically read minds by examining facial expressions. Goshok had been a liaison with the Mutes, and he must have understood what it would have meant to humans to have their minds open for all to see.
“Did your father ever explain to you,” Alex asked, “why he wanted to go to Indikar?”
“No,” said Billy. “I was only ten when it happened. He said goodbye, and suddenly he just wasn't around anymore. My mother told me that she never understood what it was about.”
“Had he gone out on missions like that before? That you're aware of?”
“No. It was the first time he'd been off-world.” The mother, we knew, had died several years earlier. “She used to talk about how she'd had a bad feeling the first time she'd seen him.”
Alex leaned back in his chair. “You mean Chris Robin?”
“Yes.” Billy took a long swallow of the wine. “If you ever figure out why he went, if you find out why my father died, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know.”
Alex assured him he would. He got up and walked over to the wedding picture. The couple looked happy, even exultant, the way newlyweds inevitably do. The groom might have been a bit too poised. The bride, whose name was Suniya, was literally aglow. I love old wedding pictures. Sometimes I suspect we all peak at that moment, and that afterward we get back to the business of living, and it's a downhill run.
“You wanted to see his papers,” said Billy.
“Yes, if we may.”
“Absolutely.” He raised his voice a notch: “Miranda, make everything available to Chase and Alex, if you will.”
“As you wish, Mr. Winter,” said the AI. I couldn't help noticing the formality. Most people are on first-name terms with the house system.
“Your father left a substantial reputation behind,” said Alex.
“Have you read him?” he asked. He was looking at me.
Alex bailed me out. “Of course,” he said. “I read War, Peace, and Mr. Kargolo when I was in college.”
“It won the Excelsior Award in 1376.”
“Deservedly. I've also read The Libertines.”
“He was especially proud of that one. It didn't win any awards, but he thought it was his best work.” He beamed. Then it was back to business: “Alex,” he said, “as I mentioned to you, everything in the documents is available for your inspection. But nothing may be downloaded, other than his books.” The other titles were Mathematics and God; The Grand Cycle; Mutes, Philosophers, and Lawyers; and Our Day in the Sun. “I wouldn't want you to think I don't trust you, but it's a precaution that my father always insisted on, so I feel a certain duty-”
“It's no problem, Billy.”
“So what are we looking for?”
I'd asked the question on the way to the house and expected Alex to respond with his trademark line that we'd know it when we saw it. But he was a bit more precise this time, though not much: “Chase, we want to know the reason for his connection with Robin.”
The amount of material contained in Winter's papers was breathtaking. Aside from notes on the six books he'd written, which were probably more extensive than the books themselves, there were journals, diaries, comments on whatever he happened to be reading, and records of conversations. There were observations on the culture, on political events, on the media, on religion, on theatrical performances, on his dietary tastes, on child rearing, on marriage, and on AIs (which, he maintained, were in fact conscious entities and therefore should be granted rights identical to people). There was hardly an aspect of human behavior that he left untouched. And he included a few chess games.
