Metal Sky

by Jay Caselberg

  “Yeah, that could be Landerman, all right,” said Jack finally. “But it doesn’t say anything about why he might want this artifact. It gives me a good idea of who I’m dealing with though, and that’s a start.”

  “And what about Bridgett Farrell?” said Billie.

  “Yeah, well. That’s another story. She was just like she was before, only worse. There’s absolutely no way she’s giving me the whole story. I think you were right about her, you know.”

  He ignored her sudden smug look.

  “So what are you going to do now?” she asked.

  Jack ran his fingers back through his hair and grimaced. “I’ve got an idea, but I’m going to need to talk to Morrish.”

  “The police?” Billie paled.

  “Yeah, I know. But Morrish is okay, I think. The problem is, I haven’t had anything solid to work with. Sure, I’ve had some dreams, but that isn’t enough, is it? I need something—an object, something I can feel. At the moment we’re running blind, Billie.”

  She nodded her understanding.

  “Okay, I’m going to call him. You wait out here. I know you’re probably going to listen in anyway, so you can get rid of that pout. We can talk some more when I’m done.”

  She gave him a sly half grin and bundled herself up on the couch. Jack headed for his office.

  “Call Morrish,” he said.

  “Yorkstone Police,” the desk program said a moment later.

  A couple of seconds more and Morrish’s face was on the wall, looking slightly surprised.

  “Stein. What can I do for you?”

  Jack leaned back in his chair. “Jim, how are you doing? Have you gotten anywhere on that Talbot case?”

  Morrish grimaced. “Not a thing. It’s a dead end. How about you?”

  “Well . . .” said Jack. “I have a couple of things that might prove useful, but I’ve got a proposition for you. If you help me out, I might be able to return the favor and help you.”

  “Come on, Jack. What are you saying?”

  Jack made a show of playing with the nail on one finger, then slowly looked up. “I need some details on Talbot.”

  There was a quick narrowing of Morrish’s eyes and then a frown. “You know better than that.”

  “Hey, Jim, listen. If you want this case to go into the bottomless file, that’s nothing to me. I just thought we could help each other out here.”

  Morrish scratched his head. “Dammit, Stein. You’re pushing it.”

  “Look, with what I’m working on right now, I promise you it will be worth your while. I just need something from you to make it happen.”

  “So, what is it that’s so damned important?”

  Jack folded his hands in front of him on the desk and leaned forward. “I can’t give anything to you yet . . . and yeah, I know. I just need to know if you found anything with Talbot, some personal possession . . . I don’t know . . . a picture, a pen, something solid that he might have handled more than once, anything at all.”

  There was a long pause as Morrish considered; then he leaned in closer to the screen. “You know, Stein. You’ll have my job. But okay, there was something. We’ve got his handipad, but I can’t let you have that. There were a couple of appointments listed in it though. There was one with a dealer here, another which we checked out, but there was one that made no sense at all. Alan Dean. Next Wednesday. No place, just the name. The name’s not in any of our records and we’ve drawn a blank. We did some extensive database searches but there’s no record of anyone called Alan Dean. Apart from that . . . nothing. I don’t know if that’s going to be any use to you.”

  “That’s great,” said Jack. “I really appreciate it, Jim. I promise you, this is going to be worth your while.”

  “Hmm,” said Morrish. “Against my better judgment.”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing of Talbot’s I might get hold of? Just something small. You know the way I work. If there was just something of his . . .”

  “Now you’re pushing it too far, Stein. I’ve given you what I could. That’s it.” He shook his head.

  Jack spread his hands, placatingly. “No, okay. That’s fine. I’ll do what I can for you, Jim. It’s going to take me a few days, but I’ll be in touch. I promise you.”

  Morrish was still shaking his head. “We’ll see.”

  “Yeah, we will. Thanks again,” said Jack.

  He cut the connection and wandered out into the living room. The wallscreen was just blanking as he entered. Billie looked up at him. Jack was suddenly glad that he didn’t have any really private conversations to have over the home system.

  “So, did you get that?” he asked her.

  “Uh-huh. Alan Dean.”

  “Well, you know what that means.”

  “Uh-huh. If the police didn’t find it in their systems, I’m going to have to look in some other places. It might take a while.” She shrugged.

  “Take whatever time you need,” he told her. “It’s not much, but it might be something.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He left her there and went into his office, seeking something to occupy himself in the meantime. He called up the wallscreen, preparing to put up anything he had already, just to focus, to find any links that he could, prompted or unprompted, he couldn’t really care which. All he had from Morrish was another name to add to the list. One by one, he added the names.

  Carl Talbot.

  Bridgett Farrell.

  Larkin.

  Christian Landerman.

  Outreach Industries.

  University.

  Hervé Antille.

  He stared at the last one for a while, wondering why he’d put it up there, but he knew it was right. His dreams kept showing their guide right in the center of things. Okay, Antille needed to be there.

  Alan Dean.

  He stared at that name for a while, but it couldn’t mean anything apart from being linked to Talbot. Okay, so that meant there were two groups.

  Carl Talbot

  Bridgett Farrell

  Christian Landerman

  Alan Dean

  Hervé Antille

  University

  Outreach Industries

  He wasn’t convinced yet that Outreach had anything to do with this, apart from their involvement at the City of Trees. If they were, he needed something a lot more solid to link them in. He didn’t even bother drawing lines between the groups. There was slight linkage between both Landerman and Outreach and the University of Balance City, but it wasn’t anything concrete enough to tie it to the whole artifact thing. He sat plucking at his lip, staring at the names. No, nothing was coming. With a sigh he cleared down the wall, not even bothering to save it. Even his old routines didn’t seem to be working at the moment. He linked his fingers behind his neck and stared up at the ceiling, not that any inspiration was going to come from that direction.

  He was just about to suggest to Billie that they go out, just to clear the air, when she appeared in the office doorway.

  “I found it, Jack!”

  He sat up quickly. “What?”

  “Alan Dean. It’s not a person.”

  “Huh?”

  She crossed to the desk and sat down. “It’s a ship. It’s an old-style freighter, the slow way.”

  “How?” he said to her.

  She gave a little shrug. “Easy really. I cross-referenced stuff we were working on. Carl Talbot did import/ export and stuff, right?”

  Jack nodded slowly.

  “Well, he has to use something to carry things from one place to another. The fast ships are more expensive. If things don’t have to get there in a hurry, you send them the old way, right? Most of the old ships are independent. A lot of them might not be able to afford the new drives. Anyway, the Alan Dean is due here next Wednesday afternoon.”

  “Here?”

  “Well, the spaceport.”

  “Damn,” said Jack. No wonder the police hadn’t found it. It wasn’t the sort of thing th
ey’d be looking for. “Good work, Billie. Damn.”

  He linked his fingers in front of him, thinking rapidly. So they’d found “Alan Dean,” but that didn’t get them any closer to working out what the link was. Unless . . . perhaps Carl Talbot was going to meet this freighter and have the artifact transported back to Utrecht, or somewhere else that Landerman had interests. Landerman didn’t necessarily need to know how Talbot went about things; hence it probably made sense that he’d turn up in Yorkstone to work out what Talbot was up to. He might have no idea about the Alan Dean. That still didn’t explain how the artifact got to Yorkstone in the first place.

  Billie was looking at him expectantly.

  “I still don’t get it,” he said to her. “There’s something about all of this that doesn’t make any sense. I think there’s only one person who’s going to be able to help solve this little puzzle for us.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  “And I think I’m going to be paying her a visit—” He glanced at the wall display—“first thing in the morning. What do you feel like doing tonight?”

  She grinned at him then. Okay. It seemed like they were making progress.

  Seventeen

  Later that evening they got back from the entertainment center, the requisite diversion to Molly’s done with and a big smile plastered across Billie’s face. Jack had barely watched the movie. He still preferred the older stuff, the stuff with real actors, but Billie seemed to have enjoyed it—some space action adventure full of explosions and noisy special effects. They churned these things out one after the other these days. The main interest he had in it was that the jump drive had featured heavily as part of the plot line. It was funny how quickly media seemed to grab on to things and run with them. It had been a diversion though, and that was the main thing.

  Just before she went to bed, Billie turned to him at her bedroom doorway and bit her lip. “Thanks, Jack,” she said.

  “Hey, it was fun,” he said. “Sleep well, huh?”

  She nodded and disappeared inside.

  Jack went to his own bed, but sleep was an age coming. He spent a long time staring at the ceiling, thinking.

  When sleep finally did come, he slipped into dreamstate almost immediately.

  He was back on Mandala, standing on the open grasses. The sky was bright. He looked around himself. There was no sign of the City of Trees. His awareness of where he was, that he was in fact in dreamstate, told him that this was no ordinary dream though. He searched for clues. The buzzing sound was back in the air, and the sharp electrical tang slipped barely imperceptibly upon the slight breeze.

  Two figures walked over the rise toward him, but they stopped at a distance. One was Hervé. The other was Carl Talbot—the ruined Carl Talbot.

  “Take this,” said Hervé. “This is what you wanted.”

  Though they were still some distance away, Jack could hear every word. That was a little strange, as the breeze was blowing away from, rather than toward him.

  Hervé shifted the metal tablet from beneath his arm and held it out for Talbot to look at.

  “Here, here, and here,” said Hervé. “Here is the path. These are the keys.”

  With some difficulty Talbot took the tablet with his remaining arm, and then placed it carefully at his feet. He dug about in his coat pocket and came up with a handful of something. Hervé held out both his hands, cupped in front of him, and Talbot held his fist above, trickling a handful of shining, glittering stones into Herve’s hands. Jack knew they were gemstones. Diamonds probably.

  “ ’Ere,” said Talbot through his ruined lips. “ ’Ayment in full.”

  The figures and the tablet suddenly weren’t there anymore.

  Jack left the ground, whipping up and up, further through the air, the flat plain receding beneath him. The world became an insignificant pebble in a dark gray field. Jack floated in emptiness.

  Clang.

  He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Not again.

  Clang.

  He opened his eyes again. Above him was a solid metal vault, picked out with large designs, but this time it was different. One by one, the motifs were glowing, then fading, in some sort of sequence, heading off toward the far distance. And as he watched, the illumination drew him, dragging him along beneath the metal canopy, pulling him forward, faster and faster. Faster and faster he sped, whipping beneath the solid sky, the wind whistling about him. And then there was no wind. There was nothing. He was floating again in a gray featureless void.

  But no. There was something there. Almost fading into the background, there was a shape—a small round shape. As he concentrated, he moved toward it, closer and closer, at first slowly, and then picking up speed.

  It was a planet.

  It was impossible to judge the size at this distance, but he had the innate feeling that the world was large. It was brown, tinged with red. Broader olive patches crawled across the surface like mold. It turned slowly before him. There were clouds, thin ochre-colored wisps trailing around the form.

  He sped down to the surface as it grew larger and larger, completely taking over his field of vision.

  He was standing on another plain. This had no grass. It was flat, gray-brown rock. Off to one side, there were the shiny cathedral trees. Straight ahead was the City of Trees—the complete undamaged one from his earlier dreams. No, wait. It wasn’t the City of Trees. It was larger, spreading for miles and miles. He looked behind him and there was another similar stretch of clustered buildings. Definitely a city. A silvery shape zipped past above him, quickly disappearing into the distance of the other city, and then another. He tracked it overhead and behind him, whipping around to try and follow it.

  When he turned back, there was movement on the field ahead. Some kind of flatbed transport bore one of the glistening alien creatures. Its four legs were planted firmly on the flat expanse. One of the creature’s petals—he could think of them in no other way—was folded down, touching the vehicle’s front. Passenger and transport cruised slowly past. He watched it as it grew smaller and smaller, apparently also heading for the other city. How the hell did the things see? He could see nothing that looked like eyes. Perhaps they didn’t see at all. Perhaps they perceived in different ways. The creature, if creature it was, ignored him completely.

  Then he was alone, awake, and groping for his handipad.

  No matter which way he looked at it, he couldn’t help feeling that this Bridgett Farrell was setting him up for something—though what, he didn’t know. Jack stood watching the apartment block from the other side of the street. He didn’t like the fact that people continued trying to take him for a fool, and Farrell was no exception, but he was going to see this thing through to its conclusion. The only way to find out was to play it through. He also half expected to see Landerman’s sidekick showing up somewhere, even here, but since that brief glimpse out his office window, there’d been no sign. There’d been no further contact from Landerman himself either, another thing that gave him pause. Bridgett Farrell. What had made her contact him in the first place? That was one piece of the puzzle that just wouldn’t slot into place. He shook his head. Deciding he was as ready as he would ever be, he strode across the street and toward the building entrance. Time for some answers.

  Farrell let him in after his first knock, as if she’d been waiting for him. Jack took a quick look around what he could see of the apartment as he walked past her into the room, but it seemed little different from the last time he was there. He didn’t know what he expected—maybe some sign that she’d had visitors or something.

  She followed him into the room, toying with a simple necklace around her throat. Again, she was wearing a dark, well-cut suit, a different one, and a simple white blouse. Just briefly, Jack wondered where she had room to put all the clothes and where they came from. He’d seen no sign of luggage.

  “What can I do for you, Jack? Have you some news for me?”

  He said nothing, crossing to a ch
air and sitting, fixing her with a flat stare.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “I think you’ve got some explaining to do, Ms. Farrell.”

  She frowned slightly and took up a position at the end of the couch, sitting upright, leaning a little forward, her fingers never leaving the silvery strand around her neck. She was wearing something . . . rich, exotic, and Jack caught a hint of it even from where he sat.

  “Explaining about what?”

  Jack pursed his lips, maintaining his flat stare for a couple of seconds before continuing.

  “So, where shall we start?” he said. “Shall we start with your relationship with Talbot? Or perhaps with your relationship to Landerman? I don’t really care. Or maybe we should talk about this family heirloom. That’s what you called it, wasn’t it? No, I’m sorry. Every time I talk to you, the truth changes a little. I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

  She gave a little sigh and dropped her gaze. “Yes, of course, you’re right, Jack. But you have to understand. I was afraid. I’m even more scared now, after what’s happened to Carl.”

  She didn’t seem very scared.

  She looked up again. “What do you want to know, Jack?”

  The gaze was clearly supposed to melt him, and it was not without its impact, but right now she had another thing coming if she thought it was going to throw him off his path. He was really starting to appreciate what was going on beneath the surface with this woman, but he just couldn’t afford to let himself be sidetracked.

  “Right, you can start with Talbot. What were you two to each other?”

  She gave the briefest of nods. “Carl and I worked together. You know he dealt in antiquities, other items of rarity. Well, sometimes they were difficult to acquire and a little more persuasion was needed. Sometimes too, it was necessary to have them transported not as a regular consignment, if you know what I mean. That’s where I came in. We worked together for over a year, and yes, before you ask, it became a little more than work. We finally decided that it was getting in the way of business though, and we cooled that part off.”