Polaris

by Jack McDevitt

  “Listen. I don’t need any moral lectures from you. You buy and sell the past. Make your money. You don’t care whether everything goes into private collections, whether people hoard it so they can sell it off down the line. All you care about is turning a profit. I did what had to be done. And I can tell you I’d have preferred to see you walk away from all this. But you just didn’t know when to let go.”

  I could feel the scrambler lying against my thigh. But it was down in a cargo pocket. It might as well have been in the Belle-Marie. “As soon as the Sentinel and the Rensilaer started back,” I said, “you sent your last message.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you brought the Polaris here.”

  “Of course. We left in the late afternoon, ship’s time, and we were here early next morning. I even spent a couple of nights here before going back.”

  “Why’d you do it, Maddy?”

  “Why’d I do what?”

  “The whole Polaris thing. You were giving up who you were. Going into hiding for a lifetime. Was it that they promised to make you young again?”

  She kept the lamp pointed at my eyes. “I think it’s time to end this. It’s getting up to an hour and a half since you came down here, and your buddy will be getting antsy. I want to be out at the airlock when she shows up. To say hello.”

  “You were listening—”

  “Of course I was.”

  “So you’re going to have to kill two more people.”

  “As soon as she sticks her face in the hatch. I’ll make it quick. Like you. She won’t even know I’m there.” Her finger tightened on the trigger. “Good-bye, Alex,” she said. “Nothing personal.”

  TWeNTY-SiX

  Reach out, Herman. Touch the stars. But not with your mind. Anyone can do that. Touch them with your hand.

  —Silas Chom,

  speaking to Herman Armstrong, in The Big Downtown, a drama celebrating the invention of the Armstrong Drive.

  “Chase, where are you?”

  “She can’t hear you down here, Alex.”

  It must have been a nervous moment for him, but I had her in my sights and could have taken her out at any time. She was standing in the doorway, half-in, half-out, paying no attention anywhere except to Alex. Completely fooled by a scripted conversation. The plan, of course, was to let her talk as long as she wanted. But obviously not to let her shoot anybody.

  I suspected she would not give up meekly, and she had the pistol. If I told her to put it down, she could keep it trained on him, and we’d have a standoff. So I decided to go the safe route. Shoot first, talk to her later.

  I aimed and fired. Scramblers, of course, are not lethal. There are some people who say that’s their drawback. Maddy gasped, and her lights went out. The pistol drifted away from her, and she just hung there, locked to the deck by her grip shoes.

  Alex took a deep breath. “Chase,” he said, “where’ve you been?”

  “Been right here,” I said. “The whole time.” I pushed past the woman into the room. She swayed.

  “I was afraid maybe you got lost.”

  I took her pistol and put it in my belt. Then I slipped the scrambler into a pocket. “I was behind you the whole way, Big Guy.”

  “I’m glad.”

  I put my lamp up close to her helmet. “Is it really Maddy? How can it be?” I was looking at Teri Barber.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Incredible. I hope I look that good at a hundred.”

  “She’s not quite that old.”

  We stood quietly, trying to absorb the reality of the moment. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t, for certain. But I couldn’t think of any scenario that would account for three women, Barber, Shanley, and Maddy, who looked so much alike. And the fact that Kiernan looked like Taliaferro, and Eddie Crisp resembled a young Dunninger. Even parents and their kids don’t look that much alike.”

  “They could have been clones.”

  “Not this bunch. Maddy, maybe. The others? There was no record of any clones. And anyhow, they were population-control types. Opposed on principle to cloning except in special cases.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t imagine any reason for them to do that.”

  “So you decided Dunninger had already achieved his breakthrough—”

  “—And that it did more than extend life. It restored damage caused by the ageing process. Yes.”

  “So they’re all alive? Except Dunninger?”

  “And Taliaferro. Yes, I think so.”

  “And they’re at Morton College,” I said.

  “Very good, Chase. I don’t know whether they actually spend time there or not. But I don’t think there’s any question that’s their base.”

  “Margolis? Is he one of them? He didn’t look like anybody.”

  “I don’t think so. I think he’s just hired help.”

  I was shining my light around the room. Taking my first good look at the place we’d been searching for. “Taliaferro,” I said. “What happened to him? I mean, why’d he disappear?”

  “He benefited from Dunninger’s discovery, like the rest of them. Except a couple of years passed before they administered it to him. I assume Mendoza was handling that.”

  “Why would they wait?”

  “Probably because they wanted to keep Taliaferro in charge at Survey. Once he became like them, his ageing process would go into reverse. He’d start getting younger every day.”

  It was hard to swallow. “Alex,” I said, “I always understood age reversal was impossible.”

  “That’s what the experts say. Obviously, Dunninger, and maybe Mendoza, figured out a way.”

  I tied the generator into one of the circuits and adjusted the voltage. Alex hit the switch, and the lights came on. He took the key out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Do the honors,” he said.

  We went into the corridor, picked a closed door at random, aimed the remote, and pressed the button. Nothing happened, and we moved to the next door. “It’s here somewhere,” said Alex.

  It was at the far end of the hall. I will never forget watching a guide light activate while the door tried to swing inward, but it wouldn’t because it was wedged tight so Alex gave it a kick. That broke it open and a table lamp came on. Maddy’s apartment. “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Yes.” He was wearing a large smile. “We do seem to have done it, don’t we?”

  “And the rest of them stayed in these other units,” I said.

  Alex nodded. “I wonder what the mood was like.”

  I could hear Maddy breathing over her open channel. “So what’s next?” I asked.

  “We take Maddy back and figure out what we’re going to do with her. And then we’ll have a conversation with Everson.”

  “You think he’ll agree to that?”

  “Oh, yes,” Alex said. “In fact, I’ll be surprised if he’s not in touch as soon as he hears we’re back.”

  “Do we need to do anything else here?”

  “No. I think we should be heading out.”

  I looked down the corridor. Some of the lights were on, lending an appearance that was less romantic than it had been, and more dilapidated. I wondered what it had been like in its glory days, when the place was alive and the Kang were on the premises. What would a functioning AI from that era be worth? Which called to mind Alex’s idea about tracking ancient radio signals.

  Ah, well. Let’s stay with the business at hand.

  I could no longer hear Maddy breathing. She’d turned off the link. I slipped away from Alex and retreated down the corridor to the room in which we’d left her.

  She was gone.

  I let Alex know and checked the lobby. There was no sign of her.

  “You’ve got her pistol?” asked Alex.

  “Yes.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter.”

  The scrambler should have put her down for thirty minutes or so. We’d been gone less than ten. “Maybe her body is more resistant than nor
mal,” he said.

  Oh, damn. I should have realized. “It’s the pressure suit. It would have shielded her.”

  Alex made an irritated noise deep in his throat. “Well, we got what we came for. Let’s head out.”

  “And quickly,” I said.

  He picked up on my sense of urgency, asked no questions, and we hustled out of the lobby and back down the passageway. It was about three kilometers out to the airlock. That was not good news. I assumed that since we hadn’t seen Maddy’s ship, she’d been able to get the docking area working, and that was where she was moored. Docking areas are always close to the living spaces. She would get to her ship long before we could reach ours. It didn’t help that Alex wasn’t the quickest creature on two feet.

  “I’m going ahead,” I told him. “We need to secure Belle.” I charged through the tunnel, wishing I’d kept in better shape.

  Noncombat vessels aren’t armed, in the normal sense of the word. But they do carry the HCS, with its particle beam deflectors. The system is activated automatically when a rock approaches on a threatening vector, as had happened to us at Terranova. But it had parameters, preventing it from firing at an approaching vessel. There was, however, nothing to stop Maddy from rewriting the parameters. She’d have to do that physically, have to poke the change in. That was a safety feature, to avoid inadvertent firing at the wrong target. But she’d only need a couple of minutes. Once she’d done that, she could blast Belle and leave us stranded.

  It’s hard to run in a pressure suit. In zero gee. In a tunnel. Every time the tunnel turned, I hoped maybe I’d see her ahead, but I knew that wasn’t likely. And sure enough the passageway stayed dark and empty. Finally, gasping for breath, I was tumbling through the airlock, and there was the lander, about fifty meters overhead, above a field of elevated power collectors. I opened a channel to Belle.

  “Hello, Chase,” she said.

  “Belle, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. How are you doing?”

  “Never mind that. Do you see any other ship?”

  “Yes. There’s one approaching from the port quarter.”

  I looked and saw a cluster of lights above the horizon. Growing brighter. I’d been wrong. She hadn’t docked, but had succeeded in keeping her ship hidden among the orbiting debris. Now it was coming to pick her up.

  The AI in the lander had been named Gabe, after Alex’s uncle. “Gabe,” I said, “I need the lander. Bring it in close.”

  The station hatch was in a narrow gully, but the primary hazard to the spacecraft was the field of antennas surrounding it. Gabe eased the lander down among them.

  “Could you hustle it up a bit, please?”

  “The terrain in which you are located—”

  “—I know that, Gabe. But we don’t have time at the moment for safety first.”

  He made a noise that sounded like disapproval but brought the lander in quickly. I got in, and we made for the oncoming ship.

  The gas giant floated on the opposite side of the sky. It was sludge brown, with no features whatever except a disturbance of some sort in the northern hemisphere. Probably a storm. I could see several inner moons, all crescents.

  The planet and its satellites cast an eerie glow across the chopped surface of the asteroid. I saw Maddy, standing atop a ridge, watching her ship approach. I could make out Bollinger thrusters, and a boxy bridge. It was a Chesapeake, probably a 190. A yacht, really, a dual hull, reduced-mass luxury runabout designed exclusively to travel among ports. It wasn’t intended for use elsewhere. Which was why Maddy had to bring it in close to board: It had no lander. Her back was turned to me, and she was utterly exposed. Whatever she might have been sixty years ago, she was homicidal now. I’d left the lander’s hatch open, and I thought seriously about using her own pistol to take her out. To finish it. The scrambler wouldn’t be adequate at this range, and if I tried to move in close enough to use it, she’d spot me. And the truth was I didn’t know whether she had a second weapon available. I didn’t want to take any more risks. Or maybe I just wanted to kill her and be done with it. I don’t know.

  In any case I got as far as leaning out the hatch and drawing a bead on her. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I remembered lecturing Alex years before during the Sim business when he had a helpless Mute ship in his sights and was about to pull the trigger on them.

  So I let her be. Instead, I arced around and came in over the Chesapeake. The area where Maddy was waiting was well off to one side of a collector array. It was relatively flat, and there was room for the Chesapeake to descend.

  Its thrusters were firing, moving it in closer to Maddy, lining it up, and slowing it almost to a stop. The ship’s hatch began to open.

  At that moment she spotted me. But I wasn’t interested in her just then. I was looking for the HCS, specifically the controller, the black box, without which the particle beams were useless. I spotted it as the ship snuggled in beside her. It was red and white, located on the hull just forward of the bridge.

  Alex’s voice broke over the link: “Chase, where are you?”

  “Back in a minute,” I said. “Keep in mind she’s listening.”

  He spoke again, but this time not to me: “Maddy, give it up. Come back with us. You need help.”

  The Chesapeake drew abreast of Maddy, and she scrambled inside. But that was okay. I was within can’t-miss range. I leaned out the hatch, aimed at the black box, and pulled the trigger. “Bang,” I said.

  It was an easy shot. The weapon bucked, there was a satisfying flare, and the black box disappeared in a belch of smoke.

  The Chesapeake lifted into the night.

  I was wondering about the extent of the damage as I put about and started back to pick up Alex. “I saw what happened,” he said. Then he was talking to the Chesapeake: “Maddy, are you okay? Do you need help?”

  Thoughtful, considering that she’d tried to bushwhack us.

  She didn’t answer. “She might just want to get clear,” I told him.

  Then I got two voices at once: Gabe and Alex both yelled at me to look out.

  The Chesapeake was diving on me, trying to ram. I guessed that settled any questions about Maddy’s state of mind. I swerved to starboard.

  Even though the lander is far slower, it’s much more maneuverable than a ship, even a small one like the Chesapeake. She made a second pass before I got back to the airlock where Alex waited, but she never had a good shot at me. I took it down among the antennas, and she backed off.

  Alex looked dismayed as he climbed in. “So what do we do now?” he asked.

  “She’s not going to let us ride the lander out to Belle,” I said.

  “So okay. We bring the ship here. In tight.”

  I opened a channel to Belle and got a surge of static. Switched off and tried again. “She’s jamming us,” I said.

  “Can she do that?”

  “She’s doing it.”

  We could see her, a group of five lights now, just off the rim of the gas giant. Waiting.

  “If she tries to ram us, isn’t she risking serious damage herself?”

  “Not if she does it right. It wouldn’t take a whole lot to punch a hole in the lander.” I glanced around the cabin. It looked suddenly fragile.

  I turned the engine off.

  Alex had removed his helmet. Now he reached for it and seemed to be considering putting it back on. “I have an idea,” he said. “The windows are polarized, so she won’t be able to see into the cabin. She won’t know what’s in here. We’ve got a whole station at our disposal. How about we make a bomb, put it on board the lander, and let her ram that?”

  “That’s a good idea. Great idea.”

  “Do you know how to make a bomb, Chase?”

  “No. I haven’t a clue. You?”

  “Not really.”

  He went back on the circuit, hoping to talk with her. I guess he thought he might be able to cut a deal of some sort. But all channels were blocked. “We�
��ll just have to make a run for it,” he said. “She wasn’t able to get you a few minutes ago so maybe we’ll be all right.”

  “I was close to the ground. Not an easy target. Trying to get up to Belle is a different game altogether. It’s strictly desperation.” The temptation to say the hell with it and make a sudden move was strong. But it would get us killed. Belle, like the Chesapeake, was only a set of lights. In her case, there were six. She was directly overhead.

  “Does Belle actually have instructions to take off if Maddy were to try to board?”

  “Oh, yes. I wasn’t leaving that to chance.”

  “Good.” For a long minute he was quiet. His eyes drifted to the air tanks. Between the air supply in the lander and the spare tanks, we were good for a few more hours. “Damn it,” he said. “Let’s try it. Maybe we’ll catch her in the washroom.”

  “No. We won’t make it that way.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think I do. I like your bomb idea.”

  “But we don’t know how to make one. For that matter, there might not even be materials on the platform.”

  “There’s another possibility.”

  “What?”

  “First thing we have to do is get the spare air tanks out. We’re going to need them.”

  “And then—?”

  “We arrange things so that Maddy runs into a brick.”

  We put our helmets back on, got out of the lander, and climbed down into the station airlock.

  We shut off our radios so we couldn’t be overheard. Alex touched his helmet against mine so he could speak to me. “She can see us,” he said.

  “Doesn’t make any difference. She’ll know we have to try for the ship. Sooner or later.”

  The laser that Alex had brought was a household unit, a little hand-held device for a guy working at home, rather than the industrial strength I would have liked to have. But it was functional, and if it was a trifle short on power, it should nevertheless be adequate.

  The airlock hatches and bulkheads looked like steel. Probably made from iron mined on the asteroid itself. They would have been ideal for our purpose, but the metal was resistant to the laser. We could have cut through the hinges and freed the two hatches, but they were too big to get into the lander.