Polaris

by Jack McDevitt

  We’d have to load up with ordinary rock.

  Alex signaled: You cut, and I’ll haul.

  I shook my head no. We needed to keep an eye on Maddy, so she didn’t slip down and seize the lander while we were preoccupied. I indicated I’d do the first round of work, and he should go back and keep watch.

  The work was easy. Just cut a large slab of rock, then haul it out to the airlock. Even that part of things, in zero gee, was simple enough. After a half hour or so, we switched.

  I moved the lander directly over the airlock to block Maddy’s view of what we were doing. I measured the dimensions of the lander’s hatch. It was smaller than I’d remembered, about three-quarters my height. Width was shoulder to wrist.

  I ripped off one of the seat covers and moved the backs of the seats down. That would make it easier to load the cabin. The windows protected against outside glare, so Maddy wouldn’t be able to see who, or what, was in the cabin.

  I picked up one of the pieces of rock that I’d stowed just the other side of the airlock, put the seat cover over it as an extra precaution, floated it out to the lander, and loaded it into the cabin. Alex was bringing up more chunks, but I could see the doubtful expression on his face. He was wondering whether it would really work, because all the rock didn’t weigh anything. That was true. The weight was gone, but it retained its mass. It would resist getting shoved in a new direction.

  I started getting warning beeps from my suit’s life-support system. Time to switch to fresh air tanks. We had another two sets for each of us, four more hours apiece. And it occurred to me that we would have to be done and back inside Belle by then, since we were not going to have the lander at the end of the operation. At least not if everything went according to plan.

  We loaded the rock. The warning lamp on the laser began to blink, but we kept working until it gave out. The last piece was too big to fit into a cabin already filled, so we put it in the cargo hold. Acceleration was going to be pretty slow, but Maddy wouldn’t have a lot of time to think about it.

  When we were ready to launch, Alex made a show of opening the hatch and getting in. But we kept the lander airlock turned away from Maddy’s telescopes, so she had no way of knowing what was actually happening. To her it must have seemed we were just going to roll the dice.

  Alex slipped back out of the spacecraft, kept down as best he could, and went back into the tunnel. Then it was my turn. I stood at the lander’s hatch, my head sticking up so Maddy could see me. I ducked as I normally do and climbed aboard. Then it got complicated. I closed the hatch, pressurized the cabin, and, when I could take off my helmet to speak, I instructed Gabe to start the engine after I got out and rendezvoused with Belle.

  “Best approach comes if I leave in six minutes,” he said.

  “Okay. Do it.” It occurred to me that I should take out some insurance, so I gave Gabe a final instruction. Then I put my helmet back on and started depressurization. I also turned off the lander’s lights in what was supposed to look like part of an effort to sneak past Maddy’s watchful eye.

  My conscience, which I usually try to keep under control, reminded me I was abandoning Gabe. I know AIs are not sentient, but sometimes it’s hard to believe that. I whispered a goodbye that he couldn’t hear.

  When I was able to open up, I slipped out, closed the door, and joined Alex in the tunnel.

  A minute or two later, the lander lifted away.

  Alex touched his helmet to mine. “Good luck,” he said, keeping his voice low as if even there, inside the rock, with the radio links turned off, Maddy might hear us.

  The jamming stopped. She’d spotted the lander and figured she had us now. I half expected her to say something, some final expression of regret, or maybe a taunt. But there was nothing.

  Our pressure suits were white, so they didn’t provide much camouflage. Nevertheless, we had to know what was happening, so I edged out close to the airlock hatch and took a look. The lander was ascending slowly, trying to accelerate with its load of slabs. I hoped that Maddy was too emotionally played out to notice that it was struggling. But it was moving away from the surface, ascending to an uncertain rendezvous with the Belle-Marie.

  For a long minute I couldn’t find the Chesapeake. But then it passed across one of the moons. I was able to follow it, nothing more than a cluster of lights, moving through the night, curving in, descending, gliding across the barren moonscape.

  It was coming.

  Alex tugged at my leg. What was happening? We still couldn’t talk, especially at that moment. I tried to signal with my hands that she was on her way. Taking the bait.

  The Chesapeake came close enough that I could see her clearly, burnt orange in the ghastly light. The twin hulls looked like missiles riding slowly beneath the stars. Her attitude thrusters fired once, twice, lining her up, then she made a final adjustment and began to accelerate.

  Here we go, I thought.

  But no. She was slowing down again.

  Alex’s helmet touched mine. He was up beside me now. “She’s thinking it over,” he said.

  If she took too long, if the lander actually reached Belle, we were dead.

  He was baring his teeth. “Look at her!” The Chesapeake was still tracking the lander, still closing, but still slowing down. “Maybe she’s figured it out.”

  “She’s wondering whether she can do it without sustaining major damage herself.” I opened my channel to the lander and spoke one word, trying to disguise my voice as something else. Anything else. “Blip,” I said. Then I shut it down again.

  Gabe, using my voice, said, “We’re right here, you dumb bitch. If you have the guts.”

  For several seconds the tableau remained virtually unchanged. The lander struggled to gain altitude. And then the Chesapeake fired its main engine and lurched ahead.

  Maddy knew that if she hit the lander too hard, there was a possibility of an explosion. Nevertheless she continued to accelerate, raced across a range of about six hundred meters, and blasted into the smaller vehicle, knocking it sideways. But the Chesapeake literally bounced off. The lander’s engines erupted in a fireball.

  The Chesapeake went spinning toward the east.

  We scrambled out onto the surface. Alex had hold of one of my arms, a death grip. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  The starship gradually faded into the night.

  We waited.

  A star appeared where it had been. It expanded, burned brightly for a minute or so, faded, and vanished.

  TWeNTY-SeVeN

  We are all transients. None of us is any more than a visitor who has dropped by for coffee and a few minutes’ conversation. Then it’s out the door and don’t let the damp in.

  —Margo Chen, The Toxicon Chronicles

  I don’t know how Tab Everson arranged to be informed about us, but we were still fourteen hours out of Rimway when Belle reported we had a transmission from him. (We’d arrived back home well off target and had been inbound by then almost three days.)

  I took a longer look at him this time. Black beard, gray eyes, the mien of a young and gifted scholar. We were still too far out for a meaningful face-to-face, so all we had was a recording. “Alex,” he said, “I’m glad you got back safely. It’s important that we talk. I’ll be waiting at Skydeck. Please take no action until we’ve had a chance to discuss things. I beg you.”

  That wasn’t the kind of language a young man uses. “He knows the cat’s out of the bag,” said Alex.

  “You want me to contact Fenn? Have him arrange an escort for us?”

  He’d been reading. It was a novel, and I wondered how long it had been since I’d seen him read anything other than Polaris-related stuff. “No,” he said. “I don’t think we need worry about our safety.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “For one thing, he doesn’t know what kind of information we’ve already given Fenn.”

  I was trying to figure out who he was
. Since Maddy had turned up looking twenty-five, I assumed Everson was also one of the Polaris passengers. But which? I tried to imagine what Everson would look like after another thirty or forty years. If he were aging normally. But none of the other passengers looked remotely like Tab Everson. Boland had been more handsome; Urquhart bigger with more presence; Mendoza was shorter and more intense.

  And that left only—

  “That’s right,” Alex said. “That’s exactly who he is.” He scribbled some notes onto a pad, studied them, changed his mind and struck something out, and finally looked satisfied. “Belle,” he said. “Reply for Everson.”

  “Ready.”

  “Mr. Everson, we’ll be weary on arrival and in no condition to carry on a discussion. I’ll be happy to talk with you. But not at Skydeck. I’d like you, and the others, to come by my office tomorrow, nine o’clock sharp. I don’t need to tell you that if you’re unresponsive, I’ll have to consider my options.”

  Despite my qualms, we abandoned our false identities and the town house and went directly to Andiquar. Alex was reassuring, but I thought we were putting ourselves at risk. He invited me to stay over at the country house, and I agreed and took one of the guest rooms.

  We had a leisurely breakfast in the morning. By eight o’clock, Alex had drifted into the back somewhere, and I was in the office, utterly unable to concentrate on anything. At nine, a skimmer appeared overhead, hovered for a few moments, and descended onto the pad.

  Four people got out. Everson, two other men, and a woman.

  Ordinarily I’d have gone to the door and met them at the front of the house, but in this case I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t shoot the first person they saw. I notified Alex.

  He was at the door talking to them when I arrived. All looked as if they were in their twenties. Everson was talking about “difficulties encountered throughout the entire process, absolutely unavoidable.” He wished things might have gone otherwise. Alex smiled coldly and turned to me. “Chase,” he said, “I’d like to introduce Professor Martin Klassner.”

  I’d known it was coming, of course, but still, seeing the reality was something of a shock. Old and dying in 1365, his brain damaged by Bentwood’s, this was the man they’d suspected might not survive the flight. He stood before me like a young lion, watching me curiously. He was taller than he’d seemed on the Polaris.

  I’d spent most of the last few weeks building resentment against the people who’d been trying to kill us. And most of the last few days, since seeing Maddy, trying to digest the reality of age reversal. And here they were. The legendary passengers of the lost flight.

  Nancy White was tall and elegant. Distant now, not at all like the figure who’d charmed everyone with her science chats. Her hair, which had been brown at the time of the Polaris, was blond. She was dressed casually, trying hard to look relaxed and confident.

  And Councillor Urquhart. Once one of the seven most powerful people on the planet. This version had red hair and was so young it was barely possible to see the great man concealed within the trim youth. I couldn’t believe it was actually him. He looked barely twenty. But the amiable expression belonged to the older man, the Defender of the Afflicted. He’d lost most of the bearing he’d possessed during his political years. Can’t really give the impression of wisdom and gravitas when you look just out of school.

  And Chek Boland. He could have been a leading man. His hair had gone from black to blond, but there was no mistaking the classic features and the dark eyes.

  Mendoza was missing.

  I pulled my attention back to Klassner. “Good morning, Professor,” I said, without offering my hand.

  He took a deep breath. “I think I understand how you feel. I’m sorry.”

  It was they. No question. In the prime of their lives, apparently. Young and strong, as people are before gravity sets in.

  Alex steered them into the living room, where we’d have more space. Please make yourselves comfortable. I’d left the door to the office open purposely. We’d moved the display case so that Maddy’s jacket was visible. Not prominently displayed, but set in a way that visitors could not miss it. Klassner saw it, nodded as if some great truth had just been revealed, and took a seat by the window. He checked his wrist, probably assuring himself that we weren’t running a recording system. It struck me that, in this most extraordinary of meetings, we nevertheless retained the usual social niceties. Could we get anyone something to drink? Did you have any problem finding us? You don’t look entirely comfortable; would you care for a cushion? (That last was directed at Klassner, who chuckled and allowed as how, yes, he was not entirely at ease, but the furniture had nothing to do with it.)

  They passed on the refreshments. Everyone got more or less comfortable, and there was some clearing of throats and a couple of comments about what a nice place the country house was.

  “I expected one more,” said Alex.

  “Before we get to that,” said Klassner, “I wanted to ask about Maddy.”

  Their eyes met. “She’s dead,” Alex said.

  “She attacked you at the Akila?”

  “The Kang outstation? Yes, she did.”

  “I’m sorry.” He swallowed. “We’re sorry she did that. We’re sorry she’s been lost. We’d have prevented it if we could. The attack.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I spoke with her when she came to me. She told me you’d found the key. I thought we were still safe. That you wouldn’t put it all together.” He smiled. Wearily. Regretfully. “I underestimated you.”

  It was hard to get used to. This kid, with the demeanor, not merely of a mature adult, but of an accomplished one.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “How would you suggest I might have done that? She was a free agent.”

  “You also stood by while she killed Taliaferro.”

  That brought guilty glances from everyone. “We didn’t expect her to do that,” said Urquhart. “She was more desperate than we realized.”

  “And you knew she was trying to kill us. She made three attempts. While you people did nothing.”

  “No.” Klassner’s face clouded. The others shook their heads. “We didn’t know. She didn’t tell us what she was doing. We had no way. She and Jess, we thought, were simply trying to find the lost key. Jess was our contact at that time. He thought there was really no problem, that she might have left the key at the outstation, that even if it was found, no one would understand the significance anyhow. Not after all this time. But Maddy was worried, so he tried to help her.”

  Well, I’ll confess I was a bit intimidated in the presence of a former councillor. But I wasn’t just going to sit there like an old shoe. “Come on,” I said, “she killed Shawn Walker, too. What’s the big surprise?”

  “Yes,” said White. “We knew that. After the fact. We wouldn’t have condoned it.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear you think that was maybe a bit extreme. But I assume you weren’t too unhappy when it happened.”

  “That’s hardly fair.” White turned large, intelligent eyes on me. “There’s more to this than you realize, Chase.”

  “We’re not talking fair,” I said. “We’re talking about what actually happened.” Alex caught me with a glance, and I read the message: Let him handle it.

  “What did you do,” he asked, “when you found out what she’d done to Walker?”

  “I treated her,” said Boland.

  “Not a mind wipe.”

  “No. I didn’t think it was necessary.”

  “The treatment didn’t work,” I said.

  “Maddy was under a lot of pressure,” he continued. “But I thought she’d be okay.”

  “And you couldn’t very well turn her over to the authorities.”

  Klassner let his eyes slide shut. “No. We would have preferred to do that, but there was no way.”

  “And eventually she killed Taliaferro.”

  “That was a tragedy,” said Boland
. “We didn’t think she was dangerous. Even afterward, we didn’t—I didn’t, I’ll speak for myself here. Even after Jess died. I didn’t believe she’d killed him. She had no reason to.”

  “He was going to warn us,” said Alex.

  “Yes. But he hadn’t shared with us the information that she’d gone psychotic again. So we had no way of knowing what was happening. She told us Jess fell off the roof at the Archives because he was hurrying and was distracted.”

  “People have a habit of falling from things,” I said, “when Maddy’s in the neighborhood.”

  White’s eyes flashed. “I don’t believe she killed Tom. That was an accident. She loved him. She’d have done anything for him.”

  “We didn’t know,” said Klassner, “that she’d gone after you. At the outstation. We were concerned she’d been emotionally affected by Jess’s death. When we went looking for her and couldn’t find her, we got worried. Then we found out that Mathilda was gone.”

  “Who’s Mathilda?” asked Alex.

  “Our ship. I assume you’ve seen it. It’s a Chesapeake.”

  “It was,” I said, showing more satisfaction than was seemly, I guess.

  Urquhart was staring out at the woods. “I told you,” he said to Klassner, “it would be a mistake to come here.” He looked across at me. “We never condoned what Maddy did. We tried to stop her. We did everything we could. Why is that so hard to understand?”

  “No,” I said. “You never condoned it. But you knew. You knew, and you were secretly pleased to get Walker out of the way, without getting blood on your own hands. You probably knew Taliaferro was in danger. And if you didn’t know she was trying to kill us, you should have. You’re contemptible. All of you.”

  Urquhart’s jaw quivered. Klassner was nodding, yes, guilty as charged. White was looking at me, shaking her head, no, it’s wasn’t like that at all.

  “Professor,” Alex asked, “where is Mendoza?”

  Klassner was seated on the sofa, beside White. “Dead,” he said. “He’s been dead a long time.”