Octavia Gone

by Jack McDevitt

  The house on the opposite side of the road was one of the more stylish properties in the area. It rose three stories, with an arched doorway and side panels, sliding glass walls, neatly cut terraces, and a swimming pool off to one side. We crossed over, followed a pebbled walkway through the garden, climbed a stairway onto a veranda, and were greeted by an AI. “Good afternoon,” she said. “Can I be of assistance?”

  Gabe identified himself. “We are trying to locate Angela Harding. She lived across the street a few years ago.”

  “Just a moment, please. Let me consult.” A German shepherd appeared on the street. It stopped and looked toward us before moving on. The AI was still consulting when a skimmer rose from one of the properties at the east end of the avenue, turned in our direction, passed overhead, and faded into the distance. Then the door opened and a stout bearded man looked out at us. “You’re looking for Angela?”

  “Yes,” said Gabe.

  “Come in.” He backed away and we followed him into a lushly furnished living room, dominated by a three-piece sectional dark leather sofa. A beautiful young woman sat in one of two matching chairs. He took a seat in the other and left the sofa for us. “Are you relatives?”

  “She was a client,” said Gabe. “I need to talk to her about a project we were working on.”

  “I see. May I ask the nature of the project?”

  Gabe made up something about an effort to improve funding for area schools. Our host responded with a tolerant smile. “She lived across the street, but she moved four or five years ago.” He looked over at the woman. “You have any idea where she is, Ari?”

  “No,” Ari said. “She’s still in the area somewhere, or at least she was. But I’ve no idea where she actually lives.” Ari’s black hair was cut short. She had classic features.

  We did a round of introductions. Then Gabe picked up the thread: “Do you guys by any chance know whether she got married? Maybe changed her name?”

  They passed the question on to their AI.

  “No, Mr. Benedict,” she said. “Sorry, but it was never mentioned in my presence. I’m not aware whether she ever married.”

  Gabe got up. “Okay. Thank you. Maybe one of the other neighbors will have something.” We started for the door.

  “Wait,” said Ari. “I have a better idea. Angela had a pretty close friend you might try talking to.”

  We stopped in our tracks. “Who’s that?”

  “Esther Horn. She owns a bake shop across the street from the Burrows School.”

  “That’s the one on the edge of town?” I asked. We’d passed over a school coming in.

  “Yes. The bake shop is right across from the main entrance. They’ve tried to close it a couple times. People worry that the kids are getting too much sugar. But it’s still there.”

  • • •

  It was a weekend, so the school was closed. But the bake shop was open. We landed in an adjacent field and a couple of minutes later were taking a long look at Esther Horn’s cherry-flavored croissants. She was a tall blonde who managed to look genuinely happy to see us. Her cinnamon-colored eyes had a depth that suggested a serious level of intelligence and, if called for, tenacity. It was easy to imagine her confronting school authorities who were trying to close her down. “Sure,” she said, “I remember Angela. She used to come in here all the time.”

  The shop was stocked with oversized brownies; olive oil cake; lemon, banana, and peach muffins; zucchini bread; strawberry shortcake; apple and cherry pie; chocolate cake; and a variety of cookies. No wonder the school authorities were worried.

  “Can you help us locate her?” asked Gabe.

  “She’s a long walk from here. What’s going on? You guys salesmen?”

  “No.” Gabe thought about what he wanted to tell her. “We may have some good news for her.”

  “Really? Well, glad to hear it.” We indicated we’d like some buns. She put them in a bag and handed them to me. Gabe made the payment.

  “Do you know where she lives?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. But it’s going to take you a while to get there.”

  “We were given the impression she was in this area.”

  “Oh, no. No. She lives on the west coast.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Can you give us an address?”

  “I don’t like to give out personal information. You want to tell me specifically why you want to contact her?”

  “She was a client. I lost touch with her years ago. I owe her something.”

  Her eyes darkened. “How about I pass your name and code along to her, and she can get in contact with you?”

  “Okay.” Gabe gave her the information. “Tell her it’s important. She’ll know what it’s about.” He reached into the bag, removed one of the buns, and took a bite. “It’s good,” he said.

  “You can’t go wrong with cinnamon buns, Mr. Benedict.”

  “Esther, how long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

  “A couple of years. I don’t think she’s been back here since her wedding.” She was looking past us, her mind somewhere else. “I miss her.”

  “Did you know her brother?”

  “Rick? Yes, I knew him.” She hesitated. “We were pretty close at one time. I was horrified about what happened to him at that space station. Terrible. He was a decent guy.” She took a long deep breath. “I assume you know about that.” Gabe nodded but said nothing. “He used to come in here all the time.” She smiled at the bag. “He loved cinnamon buns. I haven’t heard anything for a long while. Did they ever figure out what happened?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Gabe.

  “Well, if they haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t guess it’s going to happen.” She tried another smile, hoping to reassure us that everything was all right. “He was away a lot. Spent his time traveling around out there.” She glanced up at the ceiling. “Periodically he came home. More or less. His intention, as he explained it to me, was to live a life of leisure. He never stayed long, though. I don’t think he ever stayed more than a few months before he took off again.”

  “To do what?” asked Gabe.

  “He was a pilot. Interstellars.” A customer came in and bought a chocolate cake. We got out of the way until he’d left. Then Esther picked up her narrative: “I should mention, by the way, that he enjoyed mountain climbing. He was out there one day when they had a landslide. Some girl troopers got caught in the path of the thing. Rick ran into the middle of it and helped get them out. He saved, I think, four of them. Got them huddled down somewhere until the danger was past. They were lucky he was there. That was how he was. Always put other people first.”

  “Thanks, Esther,” Gabe said. Another customer was coming in the door.

  “The town put up a memorial to him.”

  “He sounds like quite a guy,” I said.

  “He was.”

  “Where’s the memorial?” asked Gabe.

  “Just go out the front door and turn left. It’s on the south side. In Branson Park. It’s in the center of the park. You can’t miss it.” She bit her lip and her eyes closed briefly.

  “You okay, Esther?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “One more thing: Do you know her married name?”

  “It’s Montgomery.”

  • • •

  We climbed into the skimmer and lifted off. “Gabe,” I said, “you really want to go look at the memorial?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Not sure I can give you a reason that makes any sense.”

  “Give me one that doesn’t.”

  “We’re trying to decide whether this guy brought a major deep-space artifact back with him and forgot to tell anybody about it. The more we know about him, the easier it will be to figure it out.” I said okay and turned south. There were several parks. I called in to the town and asked for directions to get to Branson. “
Immediately to your left. It’s directly in front of the wainscot-and-plastene building with the pillars. Do you see it?”

  “I do. Thank you.”

  The building with the pillars was a courthouse. We descended into a parking area and came down near a statue of a woman. The engraved name was Madeleine Branson.

  “I should have realized,” I said.

  “You know her?” asked Gabe.

  She was a poet. From the previous century. “Yes,” I said. “I didn’t realize she was from around here.”

  Madeleine stood with a tablet in one hand, looking toward the sky, her other hand shielding her eyes. “Yeah,” said Gabe. “I think I remember reading her work when I was in college.”

  “She wrote about living for the moment. Don’t take anything for granted. That’s something I think we all learned when you went missing.”

  A sign bearing Rick Harding’s name pointed toward the center of the park, where a cluster of trees circled a fountain. We followed a pebbled walkway past a few benches. Off to one side, a half-dozen kids were throwing a ball back and forth. Most of the benches were occupied. People were reading and talking. Two older guys had fallen asleep. A woman sat holding an infant. And a couple of chess games were underway.

  We passed the trees. The fountain lifted a steady stream into the air. It fell back with a soft gurgle into a circular pool. Several wooden seats were available.

  The sound of the water and the kids with the ball and the occasional gusts of wind disturbing leaves somehow emphasized the overall silence of the place. Gabe seemed completely absorbed by it. The moment bore a striking resemblance to an afternoon on Orpheus when he’d unearthed a thousand-year-old statue of the beloved Barlus Ocotto. In the same year, we’d entered a temple on Lycaeus that dated back to the fourth millennium. In both instances, Gabe had grown quiet as we approached. It was as if he could reach back into those long-gone years and visualize what life had been like in those ancient places. I recalled once he’d tried to explain himself, that it was a matter of living inside the experience, rather than simply trying to solve an issue.

  And finally we arrived at the Harding statue. He wore a captain’s uniform and looked up past the trees. The sculptor had managed to infuse a sense of penetrating vision locked on the infinite. An inscription was carved into the base of the fountain:

  Richard K. Harding

  1386–1424

  The world will never be the same

  Later we learned that the memorial had been financed primarily by donations from the parents of the girl troopers whose lives Harding had saved.

  IV.

  Life is a romantic business. It is painting a picture, not doing a sum—but you have to make the romance. And it will come to the question how much fire you have in your belly.

  —OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES II, LETTER TO OSWALD RYAN, JUNE 5, 1911 CE

  As soon as we got back in the skimmer, we ran a search for Angela Montgomery, sister of Rick Harding. But we got nothing. We lifted off and flew back home through bright sunlight and warm temperatures, hoping to hear from Angela. But the speaker remained silent. “You know,” said Gabe, “we haven’t checked to see whether Rick Harding has an avatar.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  It turned out there were more than a hundred with that name. We were able to get rid of the surplus by adding “Octavia” to the search. Gabe asked if I was interested in participating in the interview. “Of course,” I said. He was having no hesitation about involving me in the investigation, which was a distinct change in his manner. In the days when I was his assistant, I functioned as not much more than a secretarial aide. I answered incoming calls, was responsible for the paperwork, and took him wherever he wanted to go, whether it was the University Museum or what was left of the colony world Lyseria. But I didn’t do much that was serious. He would not have thought of asking me to help with tactical or strategic issues, as he was doing now. And I understood that not much time had passed for him since then. So this wasn’t an evolutionary change. He’d stepped away from the person he used to be. Or maybe it was that I’d come a considerable distance from those years and he’d noticed.

  We made the connection and moments later the Harding avatar appeared on the control panel view screen. He delivered a charming smile in my direction and more or less nodded at Gabe. “Hello,” he said. “My name’s Rick Harding, but I suspect you know that. Can I help you?”

  Most people groom their avatars. They tend to be taller than the originals, with smoother features, brighter smiles, and a suggestion of higher intelligence in their overall appearance. This one though looked very much like the guy in the online photos. For that matter, like the statue in the park. Except that he wore a button-front V-neck aquamarine cardigan and khaki jeans, not showing off the uniform with which most interstellar pilots adorned their avatars.

  He was seated in a luxurious two-piece indigo sectional with his feet propped up on a round ottoman.

  We went back and forth on the introduction and then I turned it over to Gabe while the avatar let his eyes show where his interest lay. Gabe caught the message and couldn’t quite hide his amusement. “Rick,” he said, “after the loss of the Octavia, an unusual object was found in your home, something that looks like a silver trophy. It’s inscribed in a language no one recognizes. It was eventually found by your sister Angela. Do you know what I’m referring to?”

  “Yes, I recall something of that nature.”

  “Where did it originate?”

  “Interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “You’re the second person to ask me today about that.”

  “Really? Who was the other one?”

  “Alex Benedict.”

  “Okay. I should have guessed. So where did the trophy originate?”

  “I’m not certain. My information is that it is from the Oceanside Hotel on Elysium. It was what they call a ‘one of a kind,’ a unique gift from the hotel to a guest. It’s intended to be an object that always recalls good times.”

  “Tell us about Elysium.”

  “It’s a prime tourist site, in the Kollio system. Long ride, but it’s a pleasant place. The Oceanside Hotel is located in a beautiful area. It looks out not only at an ocean but at a ringed giant and a huge moon. It’s a few days’ travel from Chippewa, where we were based.”

  “Based with whom?”

  “Orion Express.”

  “So you were a pilot for a touring company?”

  “That is correct, yes.”

  “Where are you from originally, Rick?”

  “Dellaconda. My family moved to Rimway when I was a kid.”

  “And you’ve been living here ever since?”

  “Except the six years I spent on Chippewa.”

  “The language on the trophy: Do you know where it’s from?”

  “It’s purely fictitious.”

  “It’s made up?”

  “Yes. As far as I know.”

  “Why on earth would they do that?”

  “It was part of a game they played. They selected an Occupant of the Month, and if you won, you got an award in this language. The awards were in different formats, usually plaques and trophies, but there were also framed photos of the winners, usually standing out on the beach looking at the sea. Or a demitasse. Engraved data was always in the created language, which they called urbanic. The winner also received a certificate stipulating that he’d won. The certificate was in standard, of course. With a supposed translation of whatever was engraved on the award itself.”

  Gabe cleared his throat. “Can you tell us what the inscription means? The one on the silver trophy?”

  “Yes. It provides my name and the date of the award, says I’m recognized by Oceanside as a highly talented human being, and that the language is fictitious.”

  “It says the language is fictitious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rick, where is the certificate now?”

  “I don’
t know. I had it in, I think, a desk drawer when I left for the Octavia mission.”

  “Do you know whether the language was consistent? For example, would ‘highly talented’ look the same on all the awards?”

  “I have no way of knowing.”

  Gabe exhaled and closed his eyes. “Incredible,” he said. “Chase, you want to take it?”

  “Sure. Rick, what other tourist spots did you go to? Other than Oceanside?”

  “A lot of places. I’ve been to Arabella, Quiseda, Zhonpour, some others.”

  “What was the name of the vehicle you used?”

  “There were several. The Moonlight, the Loriston, the Venture. They had different capacities. The Venture was the smallest. A Corpsman model. It was a yacht. Maximum six passengers.”

  “Did these ships all belong to Orion Express?”

  “No. The Venture was mine.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I sold it.”

  “To whom?”

  “I don’t have that information.”

  Gabe and I exchanged glances. “Do you have any close friends in this area, Rick?” I asked. “Near or in Andiquar?”

  “Of course. I have plenty of friends here.”

  “We’d like to get more information about you, if we can. We’re interested in doing a book detailing the life of a star pilot. You’d be a good central figure.”

  “Why is that? I’ve never done anything exceptional. In fact my interest was more in interstellar tech than in piloting.”

  Gabe was impressed by the modesty: “Being an interstellar technician as well as a pilot is fairly exceptional, Rick. That’s exactly why. Not to mention the girl troopers. If we tell your story, we’d be relating pretty much what interstellar pilots live with. What it’s like to be away from friends and family for extended periods. What it’s like to cruise past a giant star. You know what I mean.”

  “Well, that sounds good to me.”

  “Can you give us some names? People we can talk to who’ve been a significant part of your life?”

  He gave us nine names, including Esther’s. When he was done, we assured him that if we were able to finish the project, we’d see that they all got copies of the book. Then I looked over at Gabe. He was done.