Seeker

by Jack McDevitt

  “All right.” Alex closed his eyes. “Try any thefts involving antiquities.”

  Jacob’s lights went on and the electronic hum in the walls picked up.

  I’d been going over the latest items coming onto the market, looking for objects that might be of interest to our clients. Someone had found an eighty-year-old handmade clock. None of our customers would care, but I liked the way it looked. It wouldn’t cost much, and it would give my living room a bit of cachet. I was trying to make up my mind about it when Jacob reported negative again.

  “All right.” Alex sank back into the sofa and crossed his arms. “What we need to do is find thefts from homes whose occupants would have been likely to own antiques.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Hang on a second.” He flipped open a notebook. “Jacob, would you see if you can get Inspector Redfield on the circuit for me?”

  Fenn and a slice of his desk appeared in the middle of the office. “What can I do for you, Alex?” He sounded as if he were having a long morning.

  “The case we were talking about yesterday—?”

  His brow furrowed. “Yes?” He looked as if he’d already heard enough about that one.

  “I wonder if you could tell me whether the burglaries were limited to a single area?”

  “Wait one.” He made weary sounds. “What was the name again?”

  “Plotzky.”

  “Oh, yes. Plotzky.” He gave instructions to an AI, reminded Alex that that week’s card game would be at his place, and took a bite out of a sandwich. Then he looked up at a monitor. “Bulk of the cases were in Anslet and Sternbergen. There were a few elsewhere. Pretty well spread around, actually.”

  “But all in the region immediately west of Andiquar?”

  “Oh, yes. Plotzky didn’t travel much.”

  “Okay, Fenn. Thanks.”

  In his final trial, Plotzky had been charged with seventeen counts of theft by breaking and entering. We had the names of the property owners from the court records. The prosecutors had tagged him with more than a hundred over his career. “What we do is use the media to track down every burglary we can find in the target area while Plotzky was active.”

  “That’s going to be a lot of burglaries.”

  “Maybe not. The records don’t indicate that he had much competition.” He got up and went over to the window and looked out at the snow. “Jacob?”

  “Yes, Alex?”

  “How many burglaries were there during the period?”

  More lights. “I count two hundred forty-seven reported instances.”

  “I thought you said he didn’t have much competition.”

  “Chase, we’re looking at twenty years.” He shook his head at the weather. “Doesn’t look as if it’ll ever quit snowing.” It was the kind of day that left me wanting to curl up in front of a fire and just go to sleep.

  “Jacob,” he said, “we need the victims’ names.”

  A list rolled out of the printer.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “We check each of them. Try to find people likely to have owned antiques.”

  Easy to say. “This is forty years ago. Some of these people won’t even be alive.”

  “Do your best.”

  What happened to the “we”? “Okay,” I said. “Who’s likely to own antiques?”

  “Think what our clients have in common.”

  “Money,” I suggested.

  “I would have preferred exquisite taste. But yes, they will have to have money. Get the addresses. Look for people who live in the more exclusive areas.”

  “Alex,” I said, “we’re talking about burglars. They’re going to favor the more-exclusive areas.”

  “Not necessarily. Security systems are less effective elsewhere.”

  Alex pitched in, and we spent the next few days making calls. Most of the people who’d been burglarized had since moved or died. Tracking down the survivors, or relatives, was another big job.

  We did connect with some. Did your family ever own an antique cup with English symbols?

  Actually, several thought they might have had one once. But nobody could describe it accurately. And nobody sounded serious.

  “Alex,” I complained, “there have to be better things we could be doing.”

  After a few days had passed without result, he was tired of it, too. By the fourth evening, we were near the end of the list. “It’s a wild-goose chase,” I told him. “I’d be willing to bet the majority of burglaries didn’t even make the news.”

  He was chewing a piece of bread, looking as if his mind were somewhere outside in the night. The lights in the room had been dimmed, and Jacob was playing something from Sherpa. It was a quiet rhythm, adrift in the somber mood of the evening.

  “Plotzky didn’t know what he had. Maybe the original owner didn’t either.”

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  “Maybe the victim wasn’t somebody who collected antiques. Maybe it was a guy who collected cups.”

  “Cups. Somebody who collects cups.”

  “Jacob,” said Alex, “let’s see the cup again. Close up.” It appeared in the center of the office, the image about my size. “Turn it, please.”

  It began to rotate. We looked at the eagle, at the banners, at the registry number. At the ringed planet. “No way,” I said, “you could miss that it’s connected with interstellars.”

  “My thought exactly. Jacob, let’s go back to the time period of the burglaries. Same geographical area. How many families can you find with a connection to the interstellar fleet?”

  “Families on record as having been burglarized?”

  “No,” he said. “Anybody with a connection to interstellars.”

  We found nine families in the target area with fleet connections. Five had moved during the intervening years. Of the remaining four, two were military, and one was connected with a corporation that maintained orbitals. The fourth was the sole survivor of her family, a female who still owned the house but who was now married to a journalist and living in the eastern Archipelago. Her name was Delia Cable.

  She’d been Delia Wescott at the time Plotzky was active. Her parents, and the owners of the property at the time of the burglary, were Adam and Margaret, who had lost their lives in an avalanche in 1398. Margaret had been a class-two pilot for Survey, and Adam had been a researcher who’d made a career of the long-range missions.

  The connection with Survey caught Alex’s attention, and Delia Cable went directly to the top of the list. Jacob made the call, and she materialized in the office.

  It’s difficult to determine qualities like height over the circuit. People have a tendency to adjust settings, so the projection may be considerably different from the reality. But you can’t do much with eyes other than change their color. Delia Cable’s eyes filled the room with their intensity. I suspected she was tall. She had chiseled cheekbones, and the kind of features that you associate with models. Her black hair swept down over her shoulders.

  Alex introduced himself and explained that he represented Rainbow Enterprises. He had a few questions about an antique.

  Her expression was polite although it let us know she had better things to do than talk to strangers, and she sincerely hoped Alex wasn’t trying to sell her something.

  Her clothes, a soft gray Brandenberg blouse and matching skirt, with a white neckerchief—I couldn’t see the shoes—indicated she was not wanting for resources. Her diction was perfect, the accent Kalubrian, that happy mix of detachment and cultural superiority that derives from the western universities.

  “Did your family,” he asked, “ever own an antique cup?”

  She frowned and shook her head. No. “I’ve no idea what we’re talking about.”

  “Let me ask a different question, Ms. Cable. When you were a girl, you lived in Andiquar, is that correct?”

  “In Sternbergen, yes. It’s a suburb. That was before my parents died.”

  “Wa
s your house ever robbed?”

  Her expression changed. “Yes,” she said. “There was something about a burglar. Why do you ask?”

  “Did the items get returned?”

  She considered the question. “I really don’t know. It was a long time ago. I was pretty young when it happened.”

  “Do you recall an antique cup? An ordinary-sized drinking cup with odd symbols on it? And an eagle?”

  She closed her eyes, and a smile touched those austere lips.

  Bingo.

  “I haven’t thought about that cup for more than thirty years. Don’t tell me you have it?”

  “It has come to our attention, yes.”

  “Really? Where was it? How did you connect it with me?”

  “That’s a long story, Ms. Cable.”

  “It would be nice to have it back,” she said. “Are you planning to return it?”

  “I’m not sure what the legal ramifications are. We’ll check into it.”

  She indicated he shouldn’t go to any trouble. “It’s not a major issue,” she said. “If it can be returned, fine. If not, don’t worry about it.”

  “If I may ask,” he said, “were there other objects in the house like it? Other antiques?”

  She thought it over. “Not that I recall. Why? Is it valuable?”

  Alex would have liked to avoid getting the corporation into the middle of a legal dogfight. “It might be,” he said.

  “Then I would most certainly like to have it back.”

  “I understand.”

  “How much is it worth?”

  “I don’t know.” Market values on objects like that tended to fluctuate.

  “So how do I get it returned?”

  “Easiest way, I suppose, would be to get in touch with your local police. We’ll make a report on this end.”

  “Thank you.”

  I didn’t feel comfortable with the way this was playing out. “You’re sure there was nothing else around the house like the cup?”

  “Of course I’m not sure. I was seven or eight years old.” She didn’t say idiot, but it was in her tone. “But I don’t recall anything else.”

  “Okay.” Alex pushed back in his chair, trying to ease the tension. I didn’t especially like the woman and would have preferred to let Amy keep her prize. In fact I was already regretting that we’d stuck our noses into the business at all. “Your parents, I understand, died in an avalanche in 1398.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do you have any idea where they might have gotten the cup?”

  “No,” she said. “It was always there. As far back as I can remember.”

  “Where did they keep it? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Their bedroom.”

  “And you’re sure you don’t know where it came from originally?”

  She bit her lower lip. “I had the impression,” she said, “that they brought it back from one of their trips.”

  “What kind of trip?”

  “One of their flights. They worked for Survey at one time. Used to go together on exploratory missions.”

  “How sure are you? That it came back on one of the flights?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I wouldn’t want to bet on it, Mr. Benedict. Keep in mind that was all pretty much before my time. I was about two years old when they left Survey.”

  “That would have been—?”

  “Around 1392, I guess. Why? What has any of this to do with anything?”

  “Aside from the Survey missions, were there other flights?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “We traveled quite a lot.”

  “Where did you go? If you don’t mind my asking?”

  A love seat appeared, and she sat down in it. “I don’t know. Not anywhere special, I guess. Middle of nowhere. I don’t think we ever made landfall.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. It always seemed odd. We’d go to a station. It was pretty exciting stuff for a kid.”

  “A station.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know which one?”

  She was getting annoyed again. “I have no idea.”

  “You’re sure it was a station.”

  “Yes. It was off-world. What else could it have been?”

  “How big was the station? How busy was it?”

  “Too long ago,” she said. “Anyhow, I don’t think I ever left the ship.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I suspect my memory’s playing tricks on me. I wanted to leave the ship. But they—” She stopped, trying to recall. “It’s odd. I never understood, to be honest. They told me it wasn’t a good place for little girls.”

  “You’re right. That is odd.”

  “That’s the way I remember it. I’ve always thought it didn’t really happen that way. Makes no sense.”

  “Did you get a look at the station?”

  “Oh, yes. I remember it. It was a big long cylinder.” She smiled. “It looked scary.”

  “What else can you remember about it? Was there any unusual structure anywhere?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Did you dock in a bay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about the lights? Could you see lights anywhere?” Some stations advertised hotels and other services on marquees that were visible on approach.

  “It had lights, Mr. Benedict. Spots playing across the station.”

  “Okay.”

  While they were talking, Alex was looking through the family information that Jacob had made available. “You were with them at the time of the avalanche, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes. I was lucky. We were at a ski resort, in the Karakas, when there was an earthquake and the mountain came down. Couple hundred dead.”

  “Must have been a terrible experience for a little girl.”

  She stared off to one side. “There were only a handful of people at the hotel who survived.” She took a deep breath. “The burglary you’re talking about happened about a year before we left on that trip.”

  I looked at the data screen. After the accident, she’d gone to live with an aunt on St. Simeon’s Island. “Ms. Cable,” Alex said, “what happened to your household possessions? The stuff your folks owned?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I never saw any of it again.”

  “Okay.”

  “Maybe that’s not precisely true. My aunt Melisa, she took me in, salvaged some odds and ends. Not much, I don’t think.”

  Alex leaned forward. “Can I persuade you to do me a favor?”

  “What do you need?”

  “When you have a chance, take a look at your older possessions and see whether you have anything else remotely like the cup. Anything with English characters. Or anything at all that doesn’t seem to belong.”

  “All right.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Mr. Benedict, there’s something else.”

  “Yes?”

  “I remember my mother telling him, telling my dad, once when they were getting ready to go outside, over to the station, when they thought I was not close by, that she was scared.”

  I ran a search on the Wescotts. Adam had earned a degree in mathematics at Turnbull, a small western college, then gotten his doctorate in astrophysics at Yulee. He declined going into academia and opted instead for a field career with Survey. A fair number of postdocs take that route. It means they’re less interested in making a reputation for themselves, or in doing serious work in their fields, than they are in simply getting up close to stars and visiting worlds that nobody has ever seen before. You don’t usually think of scientific types as being romantics, but these guys seem to qualify. I spent two years piloting Survey ships, and I met a few of them. They are unbridled enthusiasts. Normally a mission is assigned a section of maybe eight to ten stars. You go into each system, do a profile of the central sun, get more information about it than anybody’s ever going to care to read, then run a survey
of the planets if there are any. And you look especially close at worlds in the biozone.

  I looked at Adam’s graduation picture from Turnbull. He was twenty-two, good-looking, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a confident smile. This was a kid who might or might not have been bright, but he himself had no doubt he was going to be top of the class.

  I dug out whatever else I could. Adam Wescott doing grunt work at Carmel Central Processing Lab. Wescott entering the Lumley, the first time he’d gone on board an interstellar. I found him as a thirteen-year-old accepting an award as an Explorer, smiling as if recognizing it would be only one of many. He looked good in the uniform, everything tucked neatly in place, beaming while an adult, also in uniform, handed him his plaque. He turned and I got a look at the audience, composed of about fifteen other boys, all brushed and sharp in their uniforms, and maybe three times as many adults. The proud parents of the little group of Explorers at, according to the banner strung across one wall, the Overlook Philosophical Society, which apparently sponsored the corps.

  I even got to hear him speak. “Thank you, Harv,” he said, and immediately corrected himself: “Mr. Striker.” Smile for the audience. We all know he’s really good old Harv. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and made a face at it. “The corps wants me to say thanks to all the parents, and to Mr. Striker, and the Society,” he said. “We’re grateful for your help. Without you, we wouldn’t be here.”

  The kid was on his way.

  And there was a middle-aged Adam as an observer at the table of Jay Bitterman when Bitterman received the Carfax Prize. And Adam again during a birthday celebration for a politician with whom he’d developed a passing relationship.

  And Adam’s wedding. He’d shown good taste and married his pilot, Margaret Kolonik. Margaret looked gorgeous the way brides inevitably do because they are happy and emotional and celebrating a premier moment. In fact, though, she’d have looked good in an engine room. She had the same highlighted black hair I’d seen in her daughter, framing perfect features and a smile that lit up the room.

  The routine at Survey is to interchange pilots and researchers after each mission. The average mission now lasts about eight or nine months, and I doubt things were much different forty years ago. It was done because the missions usually carried only the pilot and one or two researchers. People locked away like that for extended periods of time tend to get on each other’s nerves.