Seeker Page 12

  “It’s possible.”

  “Why would they do that? They’d get full credit.”

  “But if they found the Seeker, could Margolia be far away? What would Survey have done if they’d announced their discovery?”

  She thought about it. “Oh.”

  “That’s right. You’d have assigned a small fleet to go looking for Margolia. So the big discovery would probably get made by someone else.”

  “I suppose so. Yes.”

  “That’s why it doesn’t go into the report, Shara. They wanted to be the ones who found Margolia. Biggest discovery ever. But to do that they had to keep quiet about the Seeker.” I became aware of voices in the corridor. “But the ship’s AI,” I said, “would record where the mission actually went.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’d have to doctor that as well, if you were going to falsify the record.”

  “Yes.”

  “My experience is that it wouldn’t be that hard to make the change.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. I’m sure Margaret Wescott would have known how to do it. Penalties are severe if you get caught, though.”

  “But they wouldn’t be likely to get caught.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Can we get access to the AIs from their missions?”

  “No,” she said. “They get wiped periodically. Every few years. I’m not sure of the exact timing, but it’s nowhere near thirty.”

  “What did you come up with?” Alex asked, when I’d called in next morning.

  “Not much,” I said. I explained, and he said that was what he’d expected. “Alex,” I added, “maybe we’re letting our enthusiasm run away with us.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I have a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “We know which systems they looked at. Or at least, what the claims are.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do we know what the order of the star systems was on each flight? Where they went first, where next, and so on?”

  I looked at the records and shook my head. “Negative.”

  “It would be nice to know.”

  “Why? What does it matter?”

  “It always helps to have a complete picture of what happened.” He scratched his temple. “By the way, Fenn tells me they did find more burglary records. The Wescotts were among them. And the report included the cup.”

  “So Amy will have to give it up.”

  “I’m afraid so. But it tells us the Wescotts understood it was more than just a drinking cup.”

  “But that still doesn’t lead to anything.”

  “Maybe not.” He looked hesitant.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Amy called to tell me she’d talked with Hap.”

  “She told him about what’s been happening?”

  “Yep. I think she was taking a little revenge. Telling him how much the cup was worth so he’d eat his heart out.”

  “And—?”

  “Apparently he got annoyed. Started making threats. Against her and against us.”

  “Against us? She told him we were involved?”

  “By name. I doubt there’s anything to worry about, but I wanted you to know. Keep your security systems on.”

  Next day was my day off, but I wasn’t quite ready to let go of Margolia. I had an early breakfast and settled in to watch Sanctuary, which was a thirty-year-old thriller about the lost colony.

  It was one of the Sky Jordan adventures, which were hugely popular in their time. Sky was played throughout that long series by Jason Holcombe, who always struck me as the sexiest leading man in the business. In this one, his ship gets too close to an alien device that sucks the power out of everything, and he’s rescued by Solena, a beautiful Margolian.

  She’s played by a popular actress of the period. But I pulled her out, put myself in her place, and settled back to watch the action.

  Solena patches up the battered hero, pulls him out of his dead ship, and, using a force shield that negates the power drain, heads for home.

  Margolia is a world of gleaming cities and impossible architecture. Its citizens enjoy a life of absolute leisure. (How they’d stand it isn’t explained.) The place looks great. The mountains are higher, the forests greener, the oceans wilder than anything you might see on Rimway. There are twin suns, which seem to move through the sky together, three or four moons, and a set of rings.

  If the Wescotts had found anything like that, I would surely have liked to visit.

  But this Margolia is under threat by Bayloks, a horde of malevolent aliens. It was the Bayloks who had planted the power drain. They come complete with lizard snouts and bursts of tentacles and malignant red eyes that glow when the lights go down. Whatever evolutionary advantage accrued from this, I couldn’t imagine. But they were ugly and stomach-churning in the manner of most special effects monsters.

  Despite their advanced technology, the Margolians, because they have been cut off from the rest of the human race for so long, have forgotten how to defend themselves. They have no warships and no knowledge how to build any. They have nobody trained in the military arts. (At some point, they apparently decided that the armed forces had no place in an enlightened society.) And, to cap things off, they’re averse to killing.

  There is also Tangus Korr, who is Solena’s boyfriend. Tangus becomes jealous of Sky and begins plotting against him.

  Solena sees through his tricks and casts her lot with the hero, who is meantime providing engineering advice. The aliens are coming fast, and there is a race to put together a defense force. You get a tour of Sky’s new ship, which they name War Eagle. It’s small but of course it packs a wallop.

  Solena meantime falls in love with Sky and takes him into her bedroom. It is the night before the face-off with the enemy, and Sky may not come back, probably will not come back. He wants her to stay out of harm’s way, but she won’t have it. In the end, tears running down her cheeks, she releases the clasps on her blouse, opens it wide and gives him a choice. “You want me,” she says, “then promise you will take me with you tomorrow.”

  Well, what’s a guy going to do?

  I might as well confess right here that my favorite part of these sims is watching myself get taken by the right leading man. I know women generally deny that, at least when there are men in the room, but there isn’t much that gives me a better ride than watching Jason Holcombe perform his magic with me.

  Things run off the track a bit when Tangus turns out, incomprehensibly, to be in the pay of the Bayloks. He very nearly destroys the nascent fleet in dock, but after a desperate shoot-out and slugfest with Sky, the ships get safely launched.

  What the audience knows, but the Margolians do not, is that the Bayloks can teleport over short distances. At the height of the battle they explode onto the bridge of the War Eagle.

  So I’m sitting there, enjoying the action, when one materialized, screeching, fangs bared, directly in front of me. I shrieked and fell out of my chair.

  “That’s unnerving,” said Carmen, the AI.

  I sat in the middle of the floor, watching the battle rage around the living room. “We need a little more restraint,” I said, “by the people who make these things.”

  I slept most of the afternoon, went out for dinner with a friend that evening, and got back just before midnight. I showered and got ready for bed, but paused to look out at the river and the sleepy countryside. I was thinking how fortunate I was, and all the things I was taking for granted. A good job, a good life, and a good place to live it. It wasn’t Margolia, but it had taverns and live theater. And if you bottled yourself up watching sims night after night, whose fault was it?

  I killed the lights, draped my robe across a chair, and climbed into bed. The room was dark except for a few squares of moonlight on the floor, and the illuminated face of a clock on top of my bureau. I pulled the blankets up around my shoulders, snuggling down into their luxurious warmth.

&n
bsp; Back to the office in the morning.

  I was trying not to enumerate the next day’s tasks because that would wake me up, when Carmen told me we had a visitor.

  At this hour? I immediately thought of Hap.

  “A woman,” she said. I heard voices at the door, Carmen, and someone else. “Chase, she says her name is Amy Kolmer.”

  That couldn’t be good news. I reached for a robe. “Let her in,” I said.

  NINE

  Perception is everything.

  —Source unknown, approximately twentieth century C.E.

  Amy looked distraught. Her blouse was half-hanging out of her belt, her hair was disheveled, her colors clashed. She looked as if she’d gotten dressed on the run. She sighed when I opened the door, thank God I was home, looked back down the corridor, then pushed past me into the apartment. Her eyes were wild.

  “He was behind me,” she said. “Just a few minutes ago. He was right behind me.” She was carrying something wrapped in red cloth.

  “Hap?”

  “Who else?” She went to the window, stood to one side, and looked out. Then she fussed with the drapes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it’s late.”

  “It’s okay. Are you all right?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “Okay. Sit. You’re safe now. How’d you find me?”

  “You’re the only Chase Kolpath listed.”

  “All right. Good. You did the right thing.”

  “He showed up at my place. Pounding on the door. Yelling about the cup.” She wiped away tears and tried to straighten herself.

  “What did you do?”

  “I told him it was mine.” She started to tremble. “I went out the back. When he gets like that he’s out of his mind.” She unwrapped the red cloth, which was a blouse, and produced the cup. “If it’s okay, I wanted to leave it with you.”

  “Sure. If you want.”

  “It’ll be safer here. If he gets his hands on it, I’ll never see it again.”

  “You said you saw him behind you?”

  “A few minutes ago. As I was coming up the walk. I don’t know how he found me here.”

  It might have had something to do with your mentioning my name to him, you nitwit.

  “Okay,” I said. “Just relax. Everything’ll be okay. We’ll get you some protection.”

  “He says it’s not really mine. That he didn’t mean for me to keep it.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police, Amy?”

  “He’d kill me if I did something like that. You don’t know what he’s like when he gets mad.”

  “Okay.”

  “He goes crazy.”

  I was thinking how much trouble people get into because they can’t keep their mouths shut. “Listen,” I said, “you better stay here tonight. Tomorrow we’re going down to report this and get some help.”

  She shook her head violently. “Won’t do any good. He’ll be out again in a couple of days.”

  “Amy, you can’t live like this. Eventually, he’s going to hurt somebody. If not you, somebody else.”

  “No. It’s not like that. We just need to give him time to cool down.”

  Carmen’s voice broke in: “Chase, we have another visitor.”

  Amy began to tremble. “Don’t let him in,” she said.

  “Relax. I won’t.”

  “He’s on something.”

  The door has a manual bolt. Extra security because I’ve never completely trusted electronics. I threw it just as the lights went out.

  “He did that,” she said. “He has a thing—”

  “Okay.”

  “It kills power—”

  I immediately thought of the Bayloks and their power drain. “I know. Take it easy. We’re okay. Carmen, are you there?”

  No response.

  “It shuts everything down—”

  A fist pounded on the door. It sounded heavy. Big.

  “Open up, Amy.” It was Hap’s growl. No question about that. “I know you’re in there.”

  “Go away,” she said.

  More pounding. The door, barely visible in the glow of the moon and a streetlamp, literally bent. She was off the sofa, cowering near the window. But we were on the third floor. We weren’t going to get out that way. And there was no back door. “Don’t open it,” she pleaded. Her voice squeaked.

  It sounded as if Hap was using a sledgehammer. I took a quick look out the window and saw that the other lights in the building were out, too. “Get into the bedroom,” I told her. “There’s a link on the side table. Use it. Get the police.”

  She stood looking at me. Paralyzed.

  “Amy,” I said.

  “Okay.” Her voice was barely audible.

  “Go away,” I told the front door. “I’ve called the police.”

  Hap returned a string of profanity. “Open up, bitch,” he added. “Or I’ll do you, too.”

  Amy disappeared into the bedroom and the door closed behind her. It had no lock. Hap went back to pounding, and the latch started to come loose. I tossed the cup on the sofa and threw a cushion over it. Not much of a hiding place. Then, stumbling around in the dark, I drew the curtain across the kitchen entrance and closed the bathroom door.

  “I have a scrambler,” I said. “You come in here, and you’re going down.” In fact I did have one, but it was up on the roof, in the skimmer. Good place for it.

  He responded with a final hammerblow and the door flew open. It ripped around on its hinges and banged against the wall and he stumbled into the room, big and clumsy and ugly. He was an unnerving sight. I hadn’t taken much notice when I’d visited him under more peaceful circumstances. He was a head taller than I was and maybe two and a half times the weight. He wore a thick black sweater with enormous side pockets. The side pockets bulged, and I wondered whether any of them contained a weapon. Not that he’d need it.

  He turned on a flashlight and stuck it in my face. “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “Where’s who?”

  I heard voices in the corridor. And doors opening. I thought about calling for help but Hap read my mind and shook his head. “Don’t do it,” he whispered.

  My neighbor across the hall, Choi Gunderson, showed up in the doorway. Was I okay?

  Choi was thin, fragile, old. “Yes, Choi,” I said. “We’re fine.”

  He stared at the broken door. And at Hap. “What happened?”

  “Had a little accident,” Hap growled. “It’s all right, Pop.”

  “I wonder what happened to the power,” Choi said, and I thought for a moment he was going to try to intervene. I hoped he wouldn’t.

  “Don’t know,” said Hap. “Best you go back to your room and wait until the repair people get here.” The lamplight fell across his open door.

  Choi asked again whether I was all right. Then: “I’ll call Wainwright.” The property owner. He withdrew, and I heard his door close.

  “Good,” Hap told me. “You’re not as dumb as you look.” He swept the room with the lamp. “Where is she?”

  “Hap.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “What do you want?”

  He started to say that I knew what he wanted, but stopped in mid-sentence to stare at me. “You’re from the survey.”

  I took a step toward him. “Yes.”

  “You’re the bitch who came to the house.” The veins in his neck bulged.

  “That’s right.” No use denying it.

  I was going to say something more, not sure what, I was making it up as I went along. But he broke in before I got started. “You’re helping her cheat me.”

  “Nobody’s cheating you, Hap.”

  He grabbed my shoulder and threw me against a wall. “I’ll deal with you in a minute,” he snarled. Railing about what he was going to do to “these goddam bitches,” he looked in the kitchen, used his elbow to knock some glasses to the floor, checked the bathroom, and headed for the bedroom.

  He scratched his armpit and yanked the door o
pen. Had to do it manually since he’d killed the power. He pointed the lamp inside. “Come on out, Amy,” he said.

  She squealed, and he went in after her. I looked for a weapon while his light bounced around the inside of my bedroom. Amy alternately pleaded with him and shrieked.

  He dragged her out by her hair. She was holding my link in one hand.

  “The police are on their way, Hap,” I said, in the steadiest voice I could muster. “Best thing for you is to clear out.”

  But Amy would never win a prize for brains. She shook her head. No. “I didn’t call them,” she said. And, to Hap: “I didn’t want to cause you any trouble.”

  “You’ve already caused me a lot of trouble, slut.” He took the link from her, dropped it on the floor, and stomped it. Then he hauled her to his side, twisted her arm behind her, dragged her backward to the front door, and kicked it shut. It banged open again, and a second kick didn’t improve things, so he shoved Amy in my direction, pushed the door closed and dragged a chair in front it. When he was satisfied nobody would come in and break up the party, and that no one was going to get out, he returned his attention to us. “Now, ladies,” he said, “let’s talk about the cup.”

  He set the flashlight on a side table and tossed Amy onto the sofa, without ever taking his eyes off me. He was quicker than he looked. “It’s nice to see you again, Kolpath,” he said. “You’re the antique dealer. You never had any connection with a survey group, right? What did you want at my place?” His hands were balled into big meaty fists. If it came to a fight, it was going to be over in a hurry.

  I could hear other people in the hallway.

  “I thought there might be more where the cup came from.” No use lying.

  “Stealing the cup wasn’t enough for you, huh?” He seized Amy’s arm and twisted it. She cried out. “Where is it, love?”

  “Turn her loose,” I said, starting toward him, but all he did was tighten his grip. Tears ran down her face.

  I needed a weapon.

  There was a hefty bronze bust of Philidor the Great on a shelf behind us. I didn’t look at it, didn’t want to draw his attention to it. But I knew it was there. If he could be distracted . . .