He blushed. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said to her. “That was a rude question. Forget I asked.”
Jackie smiled. “No worries. It’s not exactly a secret, although few people remember it. Although you’re the second person to ask that lately. Yes, I am, but obviously I hardly remember it. I was about four Earth-years old when we returned, although we went out on another expedition later.”
“That is so cool, growing up on a starship.”
Jackie shrugged. “It seemed perfectly normal to me.”
“Weren’t you bothered by the lack of kids your age to play with?” Avril Boutelle asked.
“Why would I have been? I didn’t know any different. There were a couple of younger kids later in the mission, and an older one who must have been eleven or twelve when the expedition departed Kakuloa. Children adapt to what they grow up with. If it doesn’t bother the adults, it doesn’t bother the kids.”
“As long as things aren’t too extreme,” Avril said.
“I suppose.” The line of conversation was mercifully interrupted as Rick brought the last guest to the table. Both David Zhang and Carson stood up.
“Captain Gupta, it’s good to see you.” David glanced around the table. “I think you all know Rajesh Gupta; you’ve been on at least one off-world field trip.”
Gupta looked around the table, nodding at each of them, until he got to Roberts. “And who is this?”
“Captain Gupta,” Carson said, “may I present Captain Jacqueline Roberts of the starship Sophie. Jackie, Gupta here pilots one of the University’s own Sapphire class ships, the Chandrasekhar. I think the last time we flew together was to Verdigris, that must be well over a year ago now.”
Jackie rose to shake Gupta’s hand. “A Sapphire?” she said. “Wise choice.”
He smiled at her then turned to Carson. “I can understand why you don’t want to fly with me any longer.”
Carson laughed. “Nothing personal. The schedules just haven’t worked out.” That, and his recent trips had also had secret agendas.
The conversation lulled then as the waiter came to take their drink orders.
∞ ∞ ∞
Most of the people at the table were nearly finished their main course. The food so far had been excellent, Jackie thought, although much of the conversation somewhat less so. The others were all connected through Drake University, not something she had in common with them.
At an ebb in the discussion, she leaned toward Captain Gupta. “So, Rajesh, were you Carson’s pilot when he ran into tomb-raiders on Verdigris?”
He nodded, but before he could speak, Avril Boutelle interrupted.
“Tomb-raiders?” she asked. The phrase had caught her attention. “What happened?”
“It is rather embarrassing really,” Gupta said. “Carson had uncovered an unusual tomb that we had earlier spotted on radar from orbit. While we were all either inside or gathered around the entrance, several armed men showed up and took over. It turned out that one of the laborers we had hired in Verdigris City had been working in cahoots with the miscreants, and signaled them when we found something. Frankly I was worried they were just going to shoot us all, and I was wishing I’d stayed with the ship.”
“If you had, they might have dealt with you first, when they landed,” Carson said. “But generally, these crooks won’t kill if everyone cooperates. Artifact smuggling is one thing, murder another.”
Other conversations at the table had fallen silent when Gupta had started telling the story, and heads swiveled from Gupta to Carson and back in rapt attention.
“Well, I certainly didn’t know that. And Doctor Carson made it a point to inform the scalawags that the artifacts would be worth more if their authenticity was established. He was quite emphatic about them leaving our recordings so he could write a paper. Obviously, they couldn’t kill us off and leave him alive, so he may have saved our lives.” He looked around the group, then at Carson. “By the way, did you ever publish that paper?”
Carson grinned and caught Jackie’s eye. She knew the later part of the story. She and Carson had run into Hopkins and some of his henchmen on Chara III, where—ultimately—Hopkins had met his end. Carson wasn’t going to share that story, was he? He winked at her. Perhaps not.
“I did,” Carson said. “Months later, and in the most obscure journal I could find.”
The others at the table chuckled in appreciation.
“Which raises a point,” Carson said, and glanced around the table, briefly catching the eye of each of the grad students. “In fact, Dean Matthews has been after me to increase the quality of my own publications. Keep that in mind. If you plan to go into academia, you’ll always be judged by your output.” He paused a moment, then added: “But I suppose that’s true in any occupation.” He looked at Gupta and Roberts. “Maybe not piloting?”
“I cannot speak for Captain Roberts, but I have to regularly file trip reports, maintenance logs, and so on. The university has to justify the expense of owning its own ships. And the astrophysics department wants full copies of all my trip logs whether I’m going somewhere off the beaten path or just routine.”
The latter intrigued Jackie. “I can understand the interest in new destinations, but why would they care about flights over well-travelled routes?”
“Someone’s research project. As I understand it they’re studying whether repeated warp traffic has any lasting effect on the normal curvature of spacetime.”
“And does it?” Wes Archer asked, looking from Gupta to Roberts and back.
Jackie shook her head; the idea was ludicrous. “Not that I’ve noticed,” she said, and looked at Gupta. “You?”
“Not so far as I know. Even if our ships did have some effect, I can’t imagine it would be measurable. The Chandra does have special instruments aboard to collect data. But one trip from here to, say, Delta Pavonis is the same as any other, once you take into account normal stellar drift and planetary orbits. Personally, I think the researcher is wasting his time, but I suppose a negative result will help confirm or disprove someone’s hypothesis. All data is useful.”
There were sage nods from the students at the table.
“Speaking of Delta Pavonis,” Boutelle said, turning to Carson, “you mentioned an unusual tomb on Verdigris. What was unusual about it?”
“The shape. You’ll recall that most of the tombs on Verdigris are dome-shaped, like stone igloos.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, this one was more like a pyramid.”
“Really? Was there anything different about the contents?”
Carson smiled wryly. “We didn’t exactly have very long to examine them, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary before the raiders carted everything off.” Technically true. He’d found the talisman after that. “They let me keep a tissue sample from the mummified occupant, but DNA testing didn’t show any significant differences from other mummified remains we’ve found.”
“What about the current natives?”
“I thought they were extinct?” Jackie said. She was sure Carson had said something to that effect the last time they were there.
“The tomb-builders are, so far as we know,” Boutelle said. “But Verdigris still has intelligent natives who don’t build stone structures. They’re a related sub-species, we think.” She turned to Carson for verification.
“That’s right,” he said. “There are some genetic and minor anatomical differences between the current population and what remains we’ve found in and near stone ruins. Something like the differences between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons in ancient Europe. The current population stays clear of any stone ruins. They’re less skittish about human cities, but apparently, they have a long cultural tradition regarding the ancient natives. Avril could probably tell you more about that.”
“Some,” Avril Boutelle said. “Largely their ancient ranges—about fifteen-thousand years ago—didn’t overlap, or at least there’s no fossil or archeological
evidence to indicate they did. There are a few cultural similarities—as best we can tell with an extinct culture—that suggest at least some contact. Possibly some trade, perhaps slavery. Unfortunately, a lot of the archeological history is gone, looted before anyone got serious about making and enforcing laws against it.”
“Why did the tomb-builders die out?”
“Nobody knows for sure,” Boutelle said. “The prevailing theory is that the climate changes, shifting grasslands to desert and then to jungle as the icecaps retreated and prevailing wind and ocean currents changed, caused their civilization to collapse by disrupting agriculture. They were never as widespread over the planet as humans were on Earth; the geography doesn’t lend itself to massive overland migration.
“However,” she continued, “that’s less true of the current natives, who seem to have been more spread out. They may be better physiologically suited to migration.” Boutelle warmed to the subject. “The jury is still out. The most interesting sites are in the middle of the jungle or under desert sands, and the place hasn’t had either the archeological or paleontological study it deserves. The local human culture is more oriented to immediate results, things like biologicals and mining rather than the softer sciences.”
“You seem to know quite a bit about the place, Avril,” Jackie said.
“I spent some time there studying,” Boutelle said, “and I like to keep up.”
“She’s understating it,” David Zhang said. “Avril has a part time gig writing reports on intelligent aliens for some import-export company. I guess they’re looking for opportunities.”
Boutelle shot him a fierce look. “It’s not that big a deal,” she said, then turned to Jackie. “It’s a spin-off from my studies.”
Jackie wondered at her reaction, but just then Rick, the owner, came over to the table. “Whom can I interest in dessert? I have an almond honey and vanilla layer cake with an amlou filling. . . .”
It sounded delicious. Jackie decided she would find room for it.
CHAPTER 18: PROXIMA
Sawyer City
THE DINNER PARTY broke up, and the couples gathered on the sidewalk outside Rick’s Place to grab autocabs. One pulled up in front of Carson and opened its doors, but he stepped back from the curb and waved Captain Gupta ahead of him. “After you, please.”
“Thank you.” Gupta nodded to Jackie. “Captain Roberts, we should get together and trade stories sometime. I’d like to hear more about the courier business.”
“It’s not as romantic as you might think, but sure,” she said as Gupta climbed into the cab. Another one pulled in behind it, which she and Carson took.
“Still feeling paranoid about autocabs?” she asked him. “I assume that’s why you let Gupta take the first one.”
“A little,” Carson admitted, “and I don’t think they’d be dumb enough to kidnap the wrong person. So, how was your dinner?”
“Fantastic. I’m full,” she said. “I really didn’t need a slice of that cake, but it was worth it. Thank you for inviting me.”
Carson smiled. “I was happy to. So, what are your plans for the next few days?” he asked. “Are you staying around?”
Jackie wondered if he was leading up to another invitation, but she already had another commitment. “I don’t make any money sitting in port. I’m booked for a short duration courier run. And before you ask, I still haven’t had a chance to look at that data. Ducayne’s paranoia must be rubbing off on me; I’m not sure what I want to run on Sophie’s computers.”
Carson nodded in understanding. “It will keep. But a courier run, does that mean you’ll be gone for a few weeks?” He sounded disappointed.
Jackie wondered at the reason for his disappointment. Her absence, or the data? “No,” she said. “It’s a mail run to Grainger Station at Proxima. The usual courier ship is down for maintenance.”
“And they need a mail run? Can’t they just radio?”
She tried not to roll her eyes. “Let me guess. You think that just because Proxima is part of the Alpha Centauri system it’s only a few light hours away?”
“Isn’t it?” Carson looked puzzled. “Here to Kakuloa is what, ten light hours?”
“About that, round trip. Right now, Alpha Centauri A and B are about nineteen AU apart. Alpha Centauri C, Proxima, is more than five hundred times that, about ten light weeks. They don’t want to wait that long for the mail.”
“Oh. I hadn’t realized.”
“Most people don’t even think about Proxima. It’s a red dwarf, and the only Earth-sized planet it has was never terraformed. The Terraformers don’t seem to have cared about red dwarf stars. It’s not a very interesting system. Frankly I’m not even sure why there’s an outpost there. Anyway, it’s less than four hours away in warp and the Sophie’s available. So, I’m carrying the mail.”
“How long is that gig going to last? And do you do the round trip in a day?”
“No. Add a couple of hours for in-system maneuvers, and I need to land if there are physical packages to drop off or pick up. So, a day there, then returning the next day. Probably two round trips unless the Lark, the regular courier ship, needs more maintenance than they expect. Why the sudden interest in my schedule, anyway?”
“Dinner tonight was fun. I thought we might do it again. If you’ll settle for something less than Rick’s.”
Jackie turned to look at Carson, trying to read his expression. Did he want to start dating again? Did she want that? She covered her confusion with a joke. “I don’t know. A girl has to have her standards.”
“And here I was going to offer food bars around a campfire,” Carson said, recalling their overland trek to the pyramid on Chara III.
She smiled at him. “Hannibal Carson, the incurable romantic. Why don’t I call you when I get back from Proxima and we’ll see what we’re up for?”
“All right. I don’t expect to be going anywhere.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Jackie had shopping to do before her trip to Proxima. Supplies for the short voyage didn’t amount to much, and the spaceport could supply those. Instead she wanted to pick up a spare omniphone.
She hadn’t been kidding about Ducayne’s paranoia rubbing off on her, and with the modifications he’d had made to the Sophie, he could well have a tap on the ship’s computer systems. In general, that wouldn’t bother her, since the ship’s logs were open to inspection anyway, especially given her courier status. Any privileged communications would be encrypted to levels that even Homeworld Security shouldn’t, in theory, be able to break. She had her doubts about that, but it didn’t apply to the normal ship operations logs anyway. If she was going to decipher the markings on Carson’s newest talisman, she would have to do it off-line.
A simple omniphone had more than enough computing power for what was essentially a simple database lookup and geometry problem. Besides, it would give her something to do during the otherwise boring four hours in warp to Proxima.
CHAPTER 19: OFFICE HOURS
Drake University, Sawyer City
HANNIBAL CARSON SAT at the desk in his campus office, forcing himself to read through the turned-in assignments from one of his undergrad classes. His teaching assistant had already gone through them first, of course, but it was only fair to his students to double-check the TA’s work. And to the university, he reminded himself. They were paying his salary, albeit much of that out of research grants and the endowment Ducayne had made in the name of Carson’s mythical great-aunt.
There was a knock at the open door, and he looked up to see a young woman standing there. He recognized her as David Zhang’s girlfriend from dinner the other evening.
“Ms. Boutelle, isn’t it? Come on in. What can I help you with?” She wasn’t currently in any of his classes, but there was some overlap between xenoanthropology and exoarcheology.
“Just Avril, Professor Carson.” She smiled at him. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“Anything to take a break from grading pape
rs.” He gestured her to the spare chair. “And you don’t need to call me professor. Just Carson is fine. Or Hannibal. What’s up?”
“Well, I’m working on a side project. It’s nothing to do with my thesis, just some freelance research I’m doing, and it relates to archeology. Something you said at dinner the other night made me think you might be able to help. I just have a few questions; I wouldn’t want to take up your time.”
“Oh? What was it I said? And what’s your project? David said you wrote occasional reports on intelligent aliens, or something.”
“Something like that,” Boutelle said. “You mentioned that the tomb you found on Verdigris was unusual, that it was pyramid-shaped. We both know most of the Verdigran stone tombs are domes.”
“Yes, that’s right. That’s what caught my attention. How does that relate to what you’re doing?”
“Usually my reports just concern still-existing societies. One of my clients is apparently more interested in structures that any species might have left behind, even on planets where no current intelligent life—well other than humans—is found.”
“So, some sort of comparative archeology?” Carson was intrigued. That very sort of comparison was what had got him interested in the possibility of an ancient spacefaring species in the first place. Dean Matthews had called it “von Däniken nonsense”, but it had led him to the talisman and then the pyramid on St. Jacobs.
Avril nodded, but Carson had an uneasy feeling. “You said structures. What sort of structures?”
“They asked me to write up a report covering all known pyramids.”
If Carson had been drinking coffee he would have choked on it. “Pyramids, you say?” he said quickly to cover his reaction. His suspicions grew. “So, you would be including pyramids on Earth? There are quite a few.”
“Um, that’s a good question. I’ll have to check back with them. But certainly Verdigris and Ransom’s Planet, and I know there are others, like at Gliese 68.”
The Centauri Surprise Page 9
