Firebird

by Jack McDevitt

  “That’s great news.”

  “Yes. I was glad to hear it. He deserves some recognition. Lately it seems to have been nothing but criticism. Criticism by people who themselves have never contributed anything.”

  “You’ve a point, Jacob. Anyhow, I’m not with him at the moment. I know he doesn’t like to be called when he’s out of the office, but I think we can make an exception for this. I’ll let him know.”

  “Very good, Chase. Umm—I was wondering—”

  “Yes, Jacob?”

  “Would it be okay with you if I—”

  “You want to tell him.”

  “I would like that very much.”

  Two hours later, as I sat in my compartment, watching a dark landscape blur past, I got a call from Alex. “Just wanted to make sure you got there okay.”

  “I’m fine, Alex. On my way home now.”

  “Good. No problem with tickets?”

  “None.”

  “Okay.” He hesitated. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

  “No. I think that’s it.”

  “You already know, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. Congratulations.”

  “Actually, there is something more.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re splitting the award this year.”

  “Oh.” That had never happened before. “How could they do that?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. These things just happen, I guess.”

  “Who else is getting it?”

  “You are, Chase. Congratulations.”

  Later, considerably later, I learned that Alex had insisted that the DiPreta Committee recognize me also. He tried to keep it from me but I’m too good at tracking down secrets.

  I’ve spent too many years watching a pro at work.

  FOURTEEN

  Reputation is like youth. Once it’s gone, it cannot be recovered.

  —Clement Esteban, Autobiography, 2702 C.E.

  I spent most of my first day back touching base with clients and catching up on the market. That evening, I was getting ready to go home when Alex called again, from his compartment on the glide train. “They haven’t changed their minds about the award?” I said.

  “Not that I’m aware. Though maybe we can arrange it if you think you don’t deserve it.”

  “No. I’ll stick it out. What do you have?”

  “I found something else of interest. I’m forwarding it now.”

  Jacob put it on the display:Triflis 1/12 4017

  Abonai 7/11 4113

  Grand Salinas 9/3 5396

  Inaissa 1/16 6301

  Saraglia 8/5 7661

  Ilyanda 10/10 8377

  Vendicari 12/22 9017

  Earth 3/17 9638

  Inaissa 2/9 9684

  Fishbowl 5/18 10312

  Pt. Edward 5/30 11107

  Sanusar 7/1 11267

  Tippimaru 4/13 11272

  “It’s from Winter’s notebooks. No accompanying explanation.”

  They were Confederate worlds. Four of them were uninhabited. The dates were in the base system. The current year, on Earth, was 11,321 C.E. And I saw at once that the last two entries coincided with sightings.

  “Those aren’t the only two, Chase. The Point Edward, Fishbowl, and Inaissa dates also mark sighting occurrences. There was something near Earth on March 17, 9638, although I haven’t been able to find details. I don’t think there’s any question these all mark Sanusar events.”

  “So Winter was collecting information on sightings over the past, what, seven thousand years? That must have taken some major digging.”

  “I’d think so.”

  “Alex, wait. With that kind of time span, it’s inevitable that occasionally a ship would wander in accidentally to a place where it wasn’t expected. A lot of these would have to be false alarms.”

  “I know. Probably most of them.”

  “So why do we care?”

  “Maybe because on two occasions Robin showed up in advance.”

  “But not at Tippimaru.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know that one was coming. Maybe it was somebody who just wandered in. But the point is that Winter was collecting the data.”

  “Alex, I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “There’s something else you might be interested in.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with the sightings, but Winter and Robin shared another interest: black holes. Winter has a list of them, about twenty, with their locations and their trajectories.”

  “Alex, what could that have to do with the Sanusar events?”

  It turned into a fairly raucous day. One client claimed we’d promised to get the pilot’s seat from the Seeker for him. It’s our policy to put clients in touch with one another. We don’t commit to do any more than that, except in those relatively rare situations in which we actually own the desired artifact. The client hadn’t been able to persuade the owner to sell, despite making offers that, I thought, were far more than the seat should have been worth. He was threatening to sue us, and I spent a large part of the morning trying to calm him down. The last thing he said to me was that he’d forget the suit, but he’d find another dealer since he couldn’t trust us anymore.

  And there was Miranda Shelton. “I think I found an alien ship,” she told me.

  Miranda was one of those people who look absolutely bland. No energy animated her features. She was middle-aged. Average appearance. Bored and boring. The kind of person who, five minutes after meeting her, you would not have been able to pick her out of a lineup if your life depended on it. She showed up unexpectedly at the country house and wanted to talk with Alex.

  “He’s not here,” I said.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  I showed her to a chair. “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  “I have an unusual problem,” she said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I found an alien.” My stomach started to tighten. “I’m a pilot for TransWorld,” she explained. She did not look at all like a pilot. Or like anyone who did anything other than sit on a front porch.

  “Okay.”

  “I was carrying some biologists to a site in one of the systems—”

  “Which system?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. The point is that I found a derelict. It was in orbit around one of the moons.”

  “Really?”

  “I ran images of it. There’s no record of anything like it. I think it might be alien.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t identify it. Aren’t you listening?”

  “Ms. Shelton, there are quite a few derelicts drifting around out there. A lot of them don’t show up in the inventories. They’re too old. The records have been lost.”

  “That could be true,” she said. “On the other hand, who really knows?”

  “You’ll want to take a closer look.”

  “Ms. Kolpath, my contract gives all recovery rights to my employer.”

  “I see. So what are you going to do?”

  “I plan to resign, wait awhile, then pursue the matter.”

  “I don’t think you should quit your day job.”

  “What I’d like to know is, what would a discovery like that be worth?”

  “You’d become famous,” I said. “You’d be a guest on all the talk shows. You’d get a huge book contract.”

  “What about the ship itself? Would I be able to sell it?”

  “I’m sure you could. I don’t really know anything about alien vehicles.”

  “All right. Thank you. Will you handle it for me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’ll help where we can.”

  “Good. Thank you.” She smiled, and for the first time in a discussion that should have been emotional, I saw a trace of something. Hope, maybe. Exhilaration. I don’t know. “I’ll be back in a few months to let you know how it turns out.”

 
We didn’t see her again.

  There were a couple of other problems, though nothing quite like Miranda and the guy who wanted to sue us. I was glad to see the day come to an end. I was getting ready to go home when Emile Zuckerman arrived. Zuckerman was a client who collected Ashiyyurean art. He was also a physicist of considerable repute, having made contributions in chaos analysis that, simply put, were too complicated for any normal human to have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Or at least they were too far out for me. Unfortunately, he couldn’t have given instructions on how to get a glass out of a cabinet without causing confusion. But I always played along when he called, nodding periodically as if I understood why causality broke down near black holes or why he needed a second artifact from the home of Ajax Bittman.

  He was a little guy with a narrow build. He always managed to make me feel as if I shouldn’t be let out by myself. His teeth were always visible, leaving the impression that he was looking for something to eat. He had a white beard and dark brown eyes that could not suppress a mischievous glint. I’ve always suspected he knew exactly what he was doing and enjoyed baffling the people around him. On this occasion, he spent a minute or two telling me how good I looked. Then he asked if Alex was available.

  “He’s traveling, Zuck,” I said. “Can I be of assistance?”

  “Would it be possible to reach him?”

  “It’s not easy. What’s it about?”

  The lips exposed even more of his teeth. “I’d really like to talk with him, Chase. Please.”

  Normally, I wouldn’t have considered breaking into whatever Alex might be doing to put him on with Zuck. But I was looking at an unusual degree of intensity that afternoon. “Let me see what I can do,” I said.

  I got him a drink and seated him in the conference room while Jacob put the call through. It went audio only. When Alex answered, I was back in my office. I could hear music and voices in the background and the clink of silverware.

  “Zuck wants to speak to you, Alex,” I said. “It might be worth your time.”

  “You don’t know what it’s about?”

  “No.”

  He sighed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Next time tell him I’m attending a funeral. Where is he now? In back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Have Jacob switch me over, but stay with the call.”

  “Why?”

  “You know how he is. If he gets talking, find a reason to break in. Manufacture an emergency or something.”

  I took a deep breath, got myself something to read, and switched in. They traded greetings. “I hope,” Zuck said, “I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “No, no,” Alex said pleasantly. “I’ve finished most of what I had to do.”

  “Good. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “It’s okay. What do you need?”

  “I won’t take much of your time, Alex. But I was reading how you’d gotten interested in Christopher Robin.”

  “More or less. Why? Did you know him?”

  “No. I met him a couple of times, but I can’t say I actually knew him. But I knew somebody who did.”

  “Really? Who’s that?”

  “Cara. Cara Bosworth.”

  “And she was—?”

  “Robin’s mentor at the University of Margala. She was a good woman, Alex. Brilliant. We lost her about twenty years ago. Margala’s physics prize is named in her honor.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. Did she have any idea what happened to him?”

  “She had a theory. And she was probably right.”

  “What was the theory?”

  “That he just got home that night, decided he’d had enough, and jumped into the ocean.”

  “Enough of what?”

  “Well, all these years I’ve never repeated any of this—”

  “Just say it, Zuck.”

  “Cara was pretty sure Elizabeth was screwing around, and it became too much for him so he killed himself.”

  “Screwing around with whom?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she knew. But Cara picked it up from Robin. Never directly. I mean, she told me he never said anything—”

  “Then how did she know?”

  “Body language. The way he reacted whenever Cara mentioned her name. ‘Tell Elizabeth I said hello,’ and he’d clamp down and get a hard look. She didn’t think there was any question about it.”

  “Zuck, they never found the body.”

  “The tides out there are pretty strong. If he jumped in when the tide was going out—”

  “He took his luggage with him.”

  “All right, Alex. I don’t know about the luggage. Maybe somebody came along and made off with it. Maybe he was so much out of his mind that he threw it into the ocean. Look, it’s not exactly an orderly world. Crazy stuff happens.”

  “Okay, Zuck. Thanks for the information.”

  “Anyhow, Alex, what I wanted to say: This is about an eccentric guy, maybe deranged. There was talk about walking through dimensions, crossing over to other universes, tracking down aliens. All this fantasy stuff. Your involvement has been pretty public. Look, we go way back, you and I. You’ve made some major contributions over the years, and you’ve been a good friend. I know there are people out there who’re always sniping at you. They’re jealous. I never see any of those people who don’t wish they’d done what you have.”

  He went on like that for several minutes, and I knew that Alex wanted me to stage the emergency and bring the conversation to a close. But Zuck kept sounding as if he was about to say good night. And he was saying things I thought Alex needed to hear. So I hesitated. He talked about the respect that people had for him, and how important a reputation is for someone in his business, how critical it was for his clients to know they could trust him. “Not that I’d ever lose faith in you, Alex. You know that.”

  “I know, Zuck.”

  After another minute or two, he finally came to the point: “You still have time to back off, Alex. Do it. Don’t get in any deeper than you are. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, Zuck. Thanks.”

  “Just let it go. Okay?”

  “Zuck, I appreciate the call.”

  “It’s okay. And you’re not upset with me, right?”

  “Upset with you, Zuck? Never happen.”

  Alex was still on the circuit. “Thanks, Chase,” he said, with an edge in his voice. “You were very helpful.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d want me to cut in when the guy was making so much sense.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you think there’s anything to it? That Elizabeth might have been cheating?”

  “I don’t know. We may never know. There’s no evidence.”

  “Okay. Listen, have a good ride home. I have to go.”

  “Hot date tonight?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Chase, I want you to do something for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Find out what happened to the Breakwater. Maybe we can get access to the log.”

  FIFTEEN

  The problem at Villanueva was that nobody thought to turn off the lights.

  —Marcy Lee, Last Days, ca. 6314 C.E.

  Why did they go to Villanueva?

  At least we knew why they’d lied about their destination. Villanueva was on the list of hazardous worlds. Mention it on your proposed itinerary, and you could expect to have to justify the reason for your visit. Fill out the appropriate forms. Get permission from higher authority. And agree that, if you get into trouble, rescue may not be forthcoming.

  I checked on the Breakwater. After Cermak died, the estate sold it to the CEO of a drug company. Wilson Broderick. He kept it for about a year, then donated it to a charity. They eventually scrapped it.

  “Is Broderick still alive?” Alex asked.

  “He died about ten years ago.”

  “What about the AI?”


  “It would have been destroyed along with the yacht.”

  “Pity. If we had the log—”

  “There might be one other possibility.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The space stations don’t keep the basic operations logs more than a few years. But they might still have the fueling records.”

  “From forty years ago?”

  “Maybe. It’s worth checking into.”

  “And if we found it, what would it tell us?”

  “If they refueled when they got back, which most yachts have to do after a long flight, we’ll be able to come up with a ballpark idea how far they went. It’ll certainly tell us whether they went to Indikar. Or Villanueva.”

  Fueling operations at Skydeck were run by Mandy Jhardain. Mandy’s a quiet, easygoing type who never married. She didn’t like commitments. In the end, she’d told me once, there’s always somebody else. I’ve known Mandy a long time, and I can’t imagine her in a permanent relationship. She always claimed she’d been built to roam.

  When I asked about refueling records from the previous century, she laughed. “To be honest, Chase, I haven’t cleared the data since I got here. It’s supposed to happen automatically. Hold on a second.”

  That didn’t sound hopeful. I heard somebody saying no, heard the humming and burping of electronics. Then she was back. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Chase,” she said. “It looks as if we have everything for the past three years. I don’t guess that would do you any good?”

  I followed up on the Breakwater AI as well. Nobody could tell me for certain whether it had been destroyed along with the yacht. All Skydeck recycling had been done in those years by one of two companies, neither of which still existed. A retired employee of ProCon, one of the two, told me that even if the AI had survived, there’d be no way to determine what had happened to it.