Octavia Gone

by Jack McDevitt

  Alex was just coming out of the dining room.

  I waved him in and showed him our caller. “Hello, Ben,” he said. “Good to see you again. How’ve you been?”

  “On the run, Alex, as always. How’s everything out at your part of town?”

  “Couldn’t be better. Especially now that my uncle’s back home.”

  “Yes. I’ve been meaning to get in touch with him. We’d like to bring him in. Put him on the show. You think he’d be willing?”

  “I’m sure he’d enjoy sitting down with Hiroka.” Hiroka Itashi was The Morning Report’s host.

  “Excellent. I understand you’re looking into the Octavia story. Is that correct?”

  “We’ve been trying to see if anything got missed during the original investigation.”

  “Great. Have you found anything yet?”

  “I’ll let you know if we do, Ben.”

  “Okay. Even if it doesn’t happen, we’d like to have you come in and talk about it. Maybe you and your uncle could do shows a couple weeks apart?”

  “Let’s hold off on that for a while, Ben. Where I’m concerned. Right now we’re just looking at the situation. I’d rather wait until we have something. But in the meantime, I suspect Gabe would be happy to participate.”

  “I understand, Alex. I guess it’s like trying to resolve a murder when you don’t have a body.”

  • • •

  I was alone in the country house two hours later when a skimmer descended into the parking area and a tall, heavyset man climbed out.

  “You have a reading on who this is?” I asked Jacob.

  “Negative, Chase. He has no connection with Rainbow Enterprises, and none that matches any personal records. Do you prefer the door remain locked?”

  “No, Jacob. It’s okay.” We had valuable artifacts spread throughout the property, so caution was a requirement. But I had defenses that would be more than adequate should a situation turn hostile. I understood Jacob’s concern, though. Our visitor did have the appearance of a pugilist.

  I met him at the door. “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I hope so. My name is Joseph Womack.” Instead of the baritone I’d expected, his voice was soft. He was big, with wide shoulders and a lantern jaw. “I’m looking for Alex Benedict. Am I at the right place?”

  “You are, Mr. Womack. But he’s not here at the moment.”

  “Are you his secretary?”

  “More or less. My name is Chase Kolpath. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve heard that Mr. Benedict has become interested in the Octavia.”

  “Come in, please, Mr. Womack.” I ushered him into my office. “He has been looking into the event.”

  “My cousin Archie was one of the victims.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you have something that might help us?”

  “Unfortunately not. If you’re asking whether I know something about that thing, the answer is no. I have no idea what happened. Just that we lost a good man.”

  “Everything we’ve heard of him supports that.”

  “We encouraged him to go. His folks thought it was a great career move. So did I. We regret it now.”

  “It wasn’t anybody’s fault, Mr. Womack.”

  “We know that. He wasn’t anxious to leave Andiquar for two years. He didn’t think that screwing around with black holes was a good idea.” There was no way I could disagree with that. “Archie was a physics teacher. The students loved him. They kept in touch, invited him to anniversary celebrations. He knew how to arouse their passions about physics. I wish I’d had a science teacher like him. He didn’t just spend time showing them how to calculate how long a loaf of bread would take to hit the ground if you threw it off the roof of a skyscraper. He did that, of course. But he also asked them why, if they walked off the roof, would they fall? They’d tell him gravity and he’d ask them to explain what gravity was and how it worked. Nobody could do it. So he’d say how space was made out of rubber, and when you put a weight in it, like a planet, you made it bend. And gravity had to do with sliding down the curve. He was brilliant. There’s a whole crew of physicists out there who used to tell him that he was the reason they’d gotten into the field.”

  “I can understand why you feel proud of him, Mr. Womack.” We looked at each other. “How can I help you?”

  “If Mr. Benedict can find out what happened to him, to Octavia, I’ll pay him ten thousand markers.”

  Alex called him that afternoon. “I appreciate your generosity, Mr. Womack,” he said, “but whatever happens, please keep your money. We’ll do everything we can to get at the facts.”

  “Your sudden generosity,” I told him after Womack was gone, “continues to astound me.”

  “No problem,” said Alex. “We’re never going to get to the bottom of this.” He smiled. “It’s easy to be generous when you have nothing to lose.”

  • • •

  A call came in over the weekend from a Jordan Kaye. Jacob relayed it to my cottage. “Ms. Kolpath,” he said, “I’m the owner of the Mary Kaye. I understand you have an interest of some sort in my yacht?”

  I wasn’t dressed so I left it on audio. “Mr. Kaye,” I said, “we’ve been doing some research on a lost artifact that was brought back to Rimway by Rick Harding. You know him, I assume?”

  “Yes. He was the guy we bought it from. The yacht. What actually did you want to know?”

  “We’re trying to track the source of the artifact. To that end, we’d like to talk with the yacht AI.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “The Andiquar area.”

  “Excellent. We’re in Karaway. On our way home now. I’ve locked in my home address. Let me know when you’d like to make it happen.”

  • • •

  I set it up for the next day. I’d planned to go to Salazar and have lunch with Chad but first things first. Gabe and I took off in the skimmer, turned north under a bright sky, crossed the Melony, and descended twenty minutes later onto a lush, neatly maintained hilltop property, surrounded by forest. The house was in the style of the previous century, fronted by a wide porch and a pair of fluted pillars. It was three stories high, with an arched roof, circular windows, and a large swimming pool in back.

  We were just touching down when Jordan Kaye’s voice came in on the radio, welcoming us. It was actually Kaye, not the AI that one usually hears. “I’m sorry, Ms. Kolpath,” he said. “I screwed up. The yacht won’t be available for a while.”

  Gabe rolled his eyes. “Call me Chase,” I said. “What happened?”

  “I just called to set us up so you could talk with the AI. But they’d leased it. They left a few hours ago. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

  “Who leased it?”

  “A group of hunters. They’re going to one of the places in the, um, Garver system. I think that’s right. They should be back in about ten days.”

  “Your yacht was leased out to someone without your knowledge?”

  “No, no. Actually the yacht belongs to our company, Golden Tours. I should have checked earlier. It just came back in; I didn’t expect it to be going right back out again. I just assumed it was docked. My fault. I’m sorry. If I’d used my head I would have checked yesterday.”

  Gabe turned in my direction. “Doesn’t it take a while to get serviced before you can go out again?”

  “It can happen overnight, Gabe. That’s not a big deal.” I got back to the call. “Okay, Jordan. Thanks. If you could let us know when it’s available, we’d be grateful.”

  “Listen, since you’ve come this far, why don’t you come on in? Maybe we can help with whatever you’re looking for.”

  Gabe nodded. “We’ll be right there.”

  “Good.”

  The front door opened, and a man in fatigues and a cuffless knit black hat came out of the building onto the veranda, along with a girl and a dog. The girl was about eight. She waved at us. We climbed out of the skimmer and waved back. A flagst
one walkway led through neatly cut grass to a set of stone steps. The dog was a cocker spaniel. It arrived and began licking my knees. The man ordered it to back off. It did, and he apologized. “Sorry,” he said, “she tends to be a bit overly friendly.” He came down the steps, accompanied by the girl. “Hi, Chase. It’s good to meet you.”

  “And you as well, Jordan. This is my boss Gabriel Benedict.”

  “Hello, Mr. Benedict.” We all shook hands. Then he looked down at the girl. “This is Mary.”

  “The young lady the yacht is named for,” said Gabe.

  “That’s correct.” The dog was trying to insinuate itself into the conversation, wagging its tail. “And Chirpie,” he said. “Please come in.”

  He followed us inside. A young woman with glistening dark eyes was seated in a luxurious living room, reading. She put the tablet down and rose. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Donna.” His wife. The walls were covered with surrealistic artwork depicting an upside-down landscape, an angel in tears, and a twisted skyscraper. There were also framed photos, one of Mary and Chirpie, another of Jordan again in fatigues, kneeling beside a purple bush holding a pair of clippers while Donna beamed down at him. And a wedding picture. The happy couple stood in front of a church.

  Donna extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gabriel. And Chase. I understand you want to talk to Boomer.”

  “Boomer?” I said. “Is that the AI?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought,” said Gabe, “that naming the yacht for Mary was an excellent idea.”

  Jordan watched his daughter light up. “Yes,” she said, reaching down to pet the dog, which began wagging its tail again.

  He grinned. “Mary has more energy than the Korba unit.”

  The girl was a delight, a small blossoming edition of her mom. I smiled back at her. “Have you been on the yacht, Mary?”

  “Oh yes. We just got back from looking at a star.”

  “That must have been exciting.”

  She was almost salivating. “I’ve been out there before. And to other far places. My daddy loves them, don’t you, Daddy?”

  “I guess we all do, Mary.”

  At Donna’s signal, we spread out around the living room and sat down. “Why,” she said, “do you want to talk to Boomer? What’s going on?”

  Gabe took it: “We’re doing some research on Rick Harding.”

  “Who?”

  “Rick Harding. He was the previous owner of the Venture.”

  She was shaking her head. “The what?”

  “Your yacht. Up at Skydeck.”

  “You mean the Mary Kaye? Oh yes, I remember that. That was the original name. It’s a long time ago.”

  “I was originally going to name it for her,” Jordan said, indicating his wife. “But she refused. She’s too modest.”

  “That’s the first time you’ve accused me of that.”

  He laughed. “You claimed it didn’t feel right. We tried Tracker. But that didn’t work well either. So when you came along”—he smiled down at Mary—“the call was easy.”

  Donna asked if she could get us something to drink. Everybody passed. “Then how about some lunch? As long as we brought you out here, we need to do something for you.”

  “Come to think of it,” said Gabe, “I am a bit hungry.”

  “Good. What would you like?”

  We made our selections and Donna passed them along to the AI. Then she turned back to Gabe. “So why do you want to talk to Boomer? What’s it got to do with Harding?”

  “You know he was on board Octavia when it got lost?”

  She frowned at her husband. “What’s Octavia?”

  He grinned. “It was that space station that disappeared ten or fifteen years ago.”

  “Oh. And the guy we bought the Mary Kaye from was on that?” She stopped and frowned. “Come to think of it, I guess I did hear that somewhere.”

  “I’d forgotten about it, Chase,” said Jordan. “You didn’t mention the space station yesterday.”

  “There didn’t seem any need to.” I could see that Gabe was beginning to get an impatient expression. “We’re trying to find out what happened. Harding picked up an artifact somewhere that doesn’t seem to be anything produced by us.”

  “What kind of artifact?” asked Donna.

  “It’s a plaque, made from a metal that looks like silver but is apparently something else. There’s an inscription on it in a language no one can read.”

  “You mean,” said Jordan, “you think aliens did it? Took the space station? I’ve heard that before.”

  “That’s not what we think, but there’s an outside possibility.”

  Mary looked up at her father. “Daddy, what’s an alien?”

  “Somebody from another place, love.” Jordan could hardly contain his excitement. “Wow. And you want permission to question Boomer?”

  Gabe nodded. “Yes.”

  “Absolutely.” He was wearing one of the widest smiles I’d ever seen.

  “May I ask why you bought the Venture?” Gabe asked. “Was it meant for Golden Tours?”

  “You know, I’m not sure. But probably.”

  “Do you guys run the company?”

  “I do. Donna’s not much into it.”

  “It’s boring,” she said.

  Jordan smiled. “If you want to go somewhere unusual, out of the way, we’re the people you talk to. We don’t do the routine spots.” It sounded, the way he said it, like the company motif.

  Lunch arrived a few minutes later. It was good. And Jordan assured us he’d get in touch as soon as the Mary Kaye got back.

  XIII.

  What, then, is life? The formal definition stipulates metabolic growth, adaptation to the environment, and reproduction. That is not how most of us think of it. Our natural inclination is to include an awareness of surroundings and of self. Which of course is nonsense. What sort of awareness has an oak tree? Yet what is the point of being alive if one is no more than a raspberry bush? We need a new term, one which drops the automatics and considers instead the benefits of consciousness.

  —REV. AGATHE LAWLESS, SUNSET MUSINGS, 1402

  Alex was just shutting down a phone conversation when we got home. “That was one of Womack’s colleagues,” he said. “It sounds as if his cousin had the facts straight. His students loved him. And so did most of the people he worked with. But not everybody.”

  Gabe’s brows lowered. “You implying that someone wanted to kill Womack?”

  “No, I didn’t mean that. But Womack was apparently a stand-up guy. He said what he thought, and he wasn’t inclined to cave to authority.”

  “So he couldn’t have avoided making enemies.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Was one of the enemies connected with Octavia?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then what has that to do with anything?”

  “Nothing directly. But he, Womack, apparently did not think much of Housman.”

  “Why not?”

  “The word is that Housman took care of himself first. And that he felt himself to be in competition with Womack. Assemble a list of the five top physicists of the last thirty years, and most people would put both their names on it.”

  “So we’re back to thinking that one of the people at the station might have done it?”

  “Other than the aliens, I’m not sure what other possibilities there are.”

  I’d read background on all four members of the Octavia team. It was hard to imagine any of them as a murderer or as suicidal. They all appeared to be basically decent people. They might have had a few defects, but who doesn’t? “Womack seems unlikely,” I said.

  “What did they have to say?” said Gabe. “His colleagues?”

  Alex shook his head. “They said he was very good in the classroom. There was a woman, a language professor at Brinkton College, that he dated for two years. Apparently he led her to believe he was in love with her. But when the Octav
ia assignment came along he just disappeared out of her life. Never even told her he was leaving.”

  “I don’t guess she took that very well.”

  “She learned what had happened a few weeks after he left. She never heard from him again. And she told me she didn’t give a damn when the station disappeared. But she filled up while she was talking.”

  I stared at the ceiling. “Well, she certainly had a motive.”

  “She also had a boyfriend with a pilot’s license. But she was doing daily classes when Octavia disappeared.”

  “And the boyfriend?”

  “His was one of the other ships that were operating when it happened. But he was approaching Earth at the time, and they had him logged in at Galileo.”

  • • •

  Alex and I were in my office with the HV tuned to the Action Channel when Gabe showed up as the guest on The Morning Report. Hiroka had been around a long time, and her capability as a smooth, well-organized host was front and center. She welcomed him into the studio, showed him a chair, and sat down next to him. “It’s good to have you back, Gabe,” she said. “I’ve said that to a lot of our guests over the years, but it’s probably never been more appropriate. For you, 1424, when the Capella went under, was only a few weeks ago. Am I correct?”

  “Yes, Hiroka, that seems to be right. Every kid I knew back then has pretty much grown up. My nephew Alex, whom I took to visit Earth when he was a high school student, now looks almost as old as I do. Although, I’ll confess, you don’t seem to have aged.”

  Hiroka smiled. “That’s good to hear, Gabe. When you were trapped in the ship, were you aware of what was happening?”

  “Not at first. We knew there was a problem because some of the operations people looked seriously worried, and I suspect we all got pretty nervous. The flight wasn’t supposed to last several weeks. And the captain eventually informed us there’d been a breakdown. But she said they were working on it and we should just relax. Everything would be all right.”

  “How did that go?”

  “To be honest, nothing scares me as much as having the person in charge tell me to just relax.”