Priam's Lens

by Chalker, Jack L

  “Fascinating,” she responded. “So if he were to show up here, somehow, you would be forced to arrest him or something?”

  Harker smiled. “Something like that. I’m not a cop, but I’ve come close enough to him once on the ship to take it kind of personally that he’s still at large. You know how much brass he’s got? His identification signature shows up on screens and instruments as an ancient sailing ship with all sails up!”

  He sensed her smiling, although he couldn’t see it, and he could hear her amusement at this. “Ah, yes, the Flying Dutchman. I used to sing it, you know, when I was young.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Die Fliegende Hollander. It is Dutch for The Flying Dutchman. A captain who, consumed by jealousy, murdered his wife in a rage thinking she had betrayed him while he’d been gone on his voyages, only to discover that she had indeed been true and that only his own inner demons were the evil. Cursed by her family, condemned to sail his ship forever, making landfall only once each century for just a week or so, condemned otherwise to sail alone forever, a symbol of death and a curse even to behold, until and unless a woman of her own free will sacrifices her life to free him. It’s an ancient legend, and a classical one. You’ve not heard of it, either?”

  “I think I have, yes,” the officer admitted. “One of those nautical ghost stories Navy types love, even the ones who sail in space. I wasn’t puzzled by the invoking of the legend but rather by your comment that you’d ‘sung’ it.”

  “Impossible to believe now, but once I was quite beautiful,” she told him. “And I had not only the looks but the voice of an angel. A soprano with a three-octave range. Grand opera, Mister Harker. Oh, it was glorious when it was done! An entire play that was sung, with full scenery and props and all the rest, with a full symphony orchestra, voices and instruments in perfect harmony, all musical instruments. These days the only instruments anybody knows how to play are the small portable consoles that can synthesize anything and anybody. You have to come to a place like this just to hear anybody sing anything any more, and that mostly bawdy songs and nasty little ditties off-key. Once, though, it was all done with people, the best people playing the best instruments, even if their instrument was their voice. Now you’d have to dig into some ancient archive, I suppose, to find a good VR holographic performance, but so few people do that nobody knows or cares or understands anymore. It’s too bad, really. It wasn’t just art, it was a total experience of a kind nobody gets these days.”

  “And you sung this grand whatchamacallit? That’s kind of impressive,” the security officer commented. “I assume you were the woman who eventually sacrificed herself?”

  “Of course. Great opera usually ended in tragedy, but even that was compensated for. Why, a great soprano or great tenor with the right work might take twenty minutes to die!”

  “Talk about singing your heart out,” the bartender muttered.

  Harker noted that even the roaches weren’t having a very good time with her. While he’d just go through a decontamination chamber on the way back to get rid of creepy crawling hitchhikers, they didn’t have a prayer with her. Every once in a while there would be a tiny snap and, if you looked hard enough at the right place on her all-encompassing dress, you’d see a tiny wisp of smoke or even a brief bright pinpoint of light. A personal force field, he thought. It was something you had in combat gear, but he’d never seen one on a civilian of any stripe. She definitely had money, that was for sure, and connections, too, and those type of people could buy whatever they fancied or needed. Maybe she wasn’t kidding. The surprises she was revealing, bit by bit, indicated that any muggers might have an ugly surprise if they tried anything on her.

  Harker cleared his throat. “Uh, ma’am? Why would you have an appointment with somebody like the Dutchman?” he asked her. “And what would he want with you, if I might make the comment. I mean—”

  “I know just what you mean, young man!” she came back sharply. “What he wants with me, I suspect, is money, perhaps goods he can’t buy or hijack but requires for his own purposes. I don’t know the price. I do know that he claims to have something that is worth almost any price if it is anything close to genuine and not a gimmick to work some scheme on my family. He doesn’t want anything to do with me, I don’t think. In fact, I’m not certain he knows I exist, or at least that I’m still alive and mobile, such as I am. I haven’t gotten out much in the past century or so. It is why I had to be the one to meet him. I have no fear of death and I am not particularly worried about capture. I’m frail enough that almost anything coercive he can try would almost certainly kill me, and I’m tough enough not to be bothered by that. Many of the younger members of the family might well be taken in more by this, and be more vulnerable in other ways. Understand?”

  Oddly, he thought he did understand her. All except what would bring her out here in the first place on the word of a murdering scoundrel.

  “What does he claim to have, ma’am?”

  He could almost sense a wary smile under that veil. “Some of it is best kept—private—for the moment. However, let us just say that he claims to have a method of getting into and out of occupied worlds, and that is of great interest to my family.”

  Both the Navy man and the bartender laughed at that. “Sure, and to everybody else, too, if it could be done, but it can’t,” the latter said at last. “If it had ever been done, I’d know it. They all come in here, soon or later. All of ’em. Been a bunch of ’em claimed they could do it, but they left and they never came back. Ain’t nobody among these liars and braggarts claim they done it. None of ’em! ’Cause it can’t be done! People and machines and shit—pardon, ma’am—they get squooshed there, and while you might get down to the surface, you’ll never get back, and God knows what kind of hell you’re in once you’re stuck there. Nope, he’s givin’ you a line, lady. Now I know he’s pullin’ a con on you.”

  “If he’d shown up at all,” the officer noted, looking over the half-deserted bar that nobody had entered or exited since the old lady entered. “Might be nothin’ to do with the Dutchman, really, ma’am. Ever think of that? Anybody in your family or businesses who might want to get you out of the way for a while?”

  She seemed taken aback for the first time since entering the place. “Goodness! I never even thought of something like that! Young man, you must have an interesting background. Still, while I can’t see what good it would do anyone, it certainly provides a logical alternative to all this, doesn’t it? Perhaps I should check a bit and see if anything odd might be happening back home, though. It certainly seems clear that I have gone astray by coming here.”

  “I wouldn’t trust this fellow one bit, ma’am, particularly because it’s obvious that your family has wealth and that’s all that motivates him. He’s a killer.”

  “These days, aren’t we all?” she muttered, not quite loud enough to be fully heard.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. Well, young man, if you will watch my back, as it were, I might as well leave. I assume you will be watching in any event, just in case this mystery man puts in some sort of clandestine appearance. I feel quite safe. It was a pleasure talking with you.”

  He made pleasantries in response, not bothering to deny what she had said since it was so obviously the truth. Still, the idea that the Dutchman, the real Dutchman, would expose himself anywhere near a full military base and conventional spaceport was almost laughable.

  As she shambled across the floor, vaporizing vermin as she went, he could see eyes following her from the darkened booths and private alcoves. These were a smart lot, though; they wouldn’t put their necks in a noose by so obviously following her out. Even so, he almost wished one would. While the Dutchman might not show up, somebody claiming to be him sure could. Who would know? The Dutchman was only a name and a colorful hologram on the radar screens. The name registered as several people from the distant past, but which, if any, of them it might have been was unknown. Tho
se who had seen him and lived had seen only a darkened bubble on an environmental suit.

  There was even a theory that the Dutchman didn’t exist at all, that it was just a cover name for a whole range of pirates and scoundrels who had imitated a trademark modus operandi and used it as an extra mask of concealment. Certainly there was some evidence for this; the same Dutchman who had been a cruel killer at one instance had been a polite and even noble thief at another. The only way to know for sure would be to blow him to hell and then see if “the Dutchman” showed up again.

  He put his hand to his jaw and pressed in a certain spot.

  “Duty,” came a distant, thin voice in his ear, and only in his ear.

  “Old woman leaving the Cuca, full dress and veil, slow as molasses,” he whispered in a voice so low it probably couldn’t be understood a meter or two away. “Put surveillance monitors on her the moment she comes out the front door and follow her progress. Prepare to move in if anyone approaches her. She thinks she’s here to meet the Dutchman.”

  “The Dutchman! Ha! Okay, will do. Is she out yet?”

  “Just about. You should see her on the street about... now.”’

  “Yeah, got her,” responded the duty officer. “Let me do a scan.” There was a pause, then, “Wow! She’s got a fortune in electronics inside that rag!”

  “Well, she’s got a personal force field.”

  “She’s got a lot more than that. The readings here are very strong. She’s got some kind of weaponry, some robotic augmentation, and she’s radiating shit like a deep space probe. Infrared, UV, sonics—you name it. I wish I had a ship that well equipped!”

  The Navy intelligence man turned to the bartender. “I’ll get somebody else to cover in here. I think I should take a little walk myself.”

  “Yeah? You really think she’s gonna meet the Dutchman?”

  “I dunno, but she’s too smart and too well equipped to walk in here blindly and then leave so meekly.”

  He made the exit a lot faster than she had, but she was still gone from immediate view. “Where away?” he asked the duty officer.

  “Two blocks to your left, then down one. She walked a lot faster once she turned the corner. Now she seems stopped, like she’s waiting for a pickup.”

  “Get me an unmarked tail car,” the Navy man ordered. “Have it ready in case we need to give some chase here. If she gets picked up by anybody except a limo or a service taxi I think I want to see who and what are really under that veil and dress.”

  “You always did lust after older women, didn’t you? I’ve got one on the way. Looks like we won’t make it for a complete intercept, but I can keep her on the trace long enough. She’s got her ride. Looks like an ordinary cab but she didn’t flag it or call it, at least not on any public frequency we know.”

  “Got it! Stay on her!” He rounded the corner to see her suddenly and spryly entering the cab and the door sliding shut. It was off like a shot, not even waiting for her to belt in, which was another clue that this wasn’t just an ordinary fare.

  Almost immediately the tail car pulled up to him, door already open. He jumped in and was thrown back against the seat much as the old lady, if indeed that was what she was, must have been. The cab was out of sight, but the tail car was accelerating rapidly, making it tough for him to turn and press the controls that strapped him in for the ride.

  “Okay, driver!” he said needlessly. “Follow that cab!” There wasn’t any driver, and they were already in hot pursuit, but he’d always wanted to say that.

  The artificial intelligence that drove and flew and guided all surface and near-surface transport on the planet, including within the Naval District, could pretty much track and, if necessary, even control or halt anything that moved. They were zipping along just a few meters above street level: high enough not to run over any pedestrians, low enough to be almost like a true surface vehicle. The screen in front of him in the dash showed their location and the location of the cab they were following. It wasn’t that far ahead now; he could make it out even in the gray gloom that passed for a nice day in this hole.

  “They’re heading for the docks,” he told the duty officer. “What’s parked that looks likely?”

  “Not much that’s civilian, if that’s a help. Aluacar Electric company shuttle, commuter shuttle to Kanlun Spaceport, Melcouri Interstellar surface shuttle, that’s about it.”

  “What about this Melcouri?”

  “Family-owned company, one of the rare private ones. Not very big now, once huge. They sold off a lot decades ago after the fall of Helena. It was almost a company planet and they may not have lost all their business, but they lost the family and the will. They still haul freight, but mostly on single contracts.”

  “How long has the ship been in?”

  “The—let’s see—Odysseus, of all things. Wonder what that means? In on—yeah, just came in late yesterday. No commercial traffic logged in or out.”

  “That’s the one. They’re Greek, or at least they’re lovers of Greek, my friend,” the Navy cop told the duty officer. “All out of ancient stories nobody reads or remembers anymore except maybe university professors.”

  “That right? You know it, though.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, I know it. I know a lot of apparently useless crap, but sometimes it rises up and justifies its existence in my mind. Everybody else lets a glorified database do their thinking for them.”

  “Huh? I—Hold it! You’re on the nose, buddy! Melcouri it is. They’ve already turned on the power in the shuttle, too, and there’s a request for preliminary clearance. You want me to hold them?”

  “Yeah, do it. I just want to make sure this is all above board.” He was beginning to doubt his instincts now, in spite of the spryness and effective getaway of the old lady. She said she was going back to check on things, and that’s what she was doing. Why did he still feel that there was something wrong with the setup?

  At least it explained the interest. If they had left much of their family and friends on Helena, and this Dutchman claimed to be able to get in and out, then no price would be too much for them just to see who or what might have survived down there. The trouble was, it had been tried by just about everybody. You could get in all right, but never out. It didn’t seem to be the Dutchman’s style, but it was clearly a con game to get a gigantic payment. Hell, if he didn’t bump them off on the way, he could easily send down whoever of the Melcouri family was to go in. Why not? They’d never get back up.

  Still, the Dutchman was the kind of guy who would more likely attack and ransack the whole ship up there, not somebody who’d expose himself long enough to pull a scam like this, no matter how good it sounded. “Is she inside?”

  “Yeah, just entered. I’m stalling them on clearances and they know it.”

  The chief sighed. “Has anyone filed a departure plan for the docked vessel above?” he asked.

  “Just checked. No, not a peep. They haven’t even filed a preliminary flight plan for approval, so they’re not in any hurry to leave. Why? You want to go up and check them out? Want me to keep the shuttle here until you can board? You can always use the routine inspection ploy.”

  Harker considered it. “No, let them go,” he instructed the duty officer. “There’s more going on here than we know yet, and I’m not sure who’s playing what game. I can always go on up if they file to leave. Until then—well, have the dock workers find something that might take a few days to repair and keep it handy.” He wished he had a list of who was aboard up there, but since they hadn’t come down to the planet, they were still technically in transit and there was no need to provide the list. He had a sudden thought. One of them sure had to have gone through Immigration. “What was the name on the old lady we just chased?”

  “Anna Marie Sotoropolis. Blood and prints match. It’s her, for what it’s worth.”

  Another Greek name. At least it was consistent. Nine hundred years...

  Of course, she hadn’t actually lived
nine hundred years, at least subjectively. Still, physically she almost certainly was well over a hundred and fifty, which was plenty years enough. He wondered what kind of memories she had; what kind of life and loves and ancient lifestyle were in those experiences. Days when the mother world was still habitable, when human beings sang opera for the masses...

  Sure as hell was a lot more romantic than the Cucaracha and this hole, that was for sure.

  “I want round-the-clock monitoring of the ship with notification if anybody enters or leaves, even by the dock or in an e-suit,” he instructed. “And if that shuttle comes back, I want to know immediately, no matter who, what, or where I might be. Understand?”

  “It’s in the console and done,” the duty officer assured him.

  “Good. Then log me out for now. I need a shower bad.”

  • • •

  Three days passed and nothing more was heard from the ancient diva or the ship, which simply sat up there as if parked for the duration. Gene Harker was even taking some good-natured ribbing from the local police and Naval security people over his suspicions, with tales of a romantic tryst with a nine-hundred-year-old woman finishing in a virtual dead heat with the suspicion that she was actually there picking up secret agent cockroaches.

  On the fourth afternoon, though, at about the same time as the old lady had walked into that smelly bar, and with a lot more traffic passing through, another unlikely pilgrim entered the bar and asked the same crazy question.