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  “We have a recording,” Jacob said, and played it. It was audio only: “This is Dr. Peer Wilson. I am currently unavailable. Leave a message.”

  “Peer,” Alex said, “this is Alex Benedict. Give me a call when you can, please.”

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Is it worth anything?”

  “Hard to say, Chase.” I knew what he was hoping: That it would turn out to be a remnant from some forgotten colony world, seven or eight thousand years old. Something from the very beginning of the Great Emigration. “Where’s she been keeping it?”

  “It’s on her front deck now.”

  “I mean, where’s it been the last few years? It looks as if it’s been out in the weather.”

  “In the garden, I guess. She said it was a lawn decoration.”

  He sank into a chair. “Even if it is Late Korbanic, it’s only going to have minimum value. Unless it turns out to be Christopher Carver’s gravestone. Or something along those lines.”

  Carver, of course, was the Korbanic hero who’d gone missing three centuries ago while walking in a park. “It looks like a grave marker,” I said.

  “I was kidding.”

  “I know. But it does look like a marker.”

  “All right. Let’s get the stone.”

  “Jacob,” I said, “get Tim on the circuit.”

  The lifting would be done by a couple of guys from Rambler, Inc., which provided a variety of services for Rainbow. Its manager, Tim Wistert, was a quiet, reserved guy who looked more like a bureaucrat than a mover. “Two guys?” he said.

  “It looks heavy.”

  “Okay. But we won’t be able to get over there until late this afternoon.”

  “What time?”

  “About four?”

  “Okay. I’ll meet them there.”

  Peer Wilson might have been the tallest man in Andiquar. He’d been around a long time, probably more than a century. His hair was beginning to lose its color. But it was stiff like prickly grass, and stood straight up, making him seem even bigger. He had a neatly trimmed mustache, and he made no effort to hide the fact that he disapproved of the way Alex made his living. Wilson, like many in the academic community, considered him a glorified grave robber.

  Alex had signaled me when Wilson’s image showed up, and the conversation had already begun when I walked into the boss’s office in back.

  “—not Late Korbanic,” Wilson was saying. He was seated in his office, behind a nameplate, awards prominently posted along the wall behind him. Northern Linguistic Association Man of the Year. The Gilbert Prize for Contributions to Historical Research. The Brisbane Award for Lifetime Achievement.

  “Peer,” said Alex, “you remember my associate, Chase Kolpath. Chase, Professor Wilson.”

  “Yes. Of course.” He smiled politely. “I believe we’ve met somewhere, haven’t we?” Then he plowed on, not waiting for an answer, which would have been Yes, several times. “No, there is some slight resemblance to one of the Korbanic codas. But it’s purely superficial.”

  “Professor, do you have any idea what language it might be?”

  “May I ask where this object is at the moment?”

  “At the home of a client.”

  “I see. Doesn’t he know what it is?”

  “The owner is a young woman. And no, she seems to have no idea.”

  “Yes. Well, I wouldn’t get too excited about it, Alex. I assume you’d like me to research it for you?”

  “If you would.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d expect a consultant’s fee. But as it’s you—” His lips parted in a contemptuous smile.

  “Nitwit,” Alex said, looking up. “Chase, I’ve been checking on the previous owners of Gold Range number twelve.”

  “And—?”

  “At one time it belonged to Somerset Tuttle.”

  “Tuttle? The guy they called Sunset? Who was always out looking for aliens?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “He’s been dead a long time, hasn’t he?”

  “Twenty-five years. Give or take.”

  “You think the tablet was his?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If it was his,” I said, “the language probably doesn’t make any difference.”

  “Why is that?”

  “If he’d found it in an archeological site somewhere, and it had any value, he’d certainly have known about it. I doubt it would have ended its days as a lawn ornament.”

  “That would certainly seem to be a logical conclusion. Still, it seems like an odd thing to keep around the house. Let’s look into it.”

  “Okay, Alex, if you say so.”

  He smiled at my skepticism. “Stranger things have happened, young lady.”

  “How did he die, Alex?”

  We were still in his office in the back of the country house. A light symphony was playing on the sound system, and he was splayed out on the lush sofa he’d inherited from his uncle. “Sunset Tuttle enjoyed sailing. He used to go out on the Melony. One day he sailed into a storm. The wind caught one of the booms, swung it around, and clipped him in the head with it. He was alone, but there were witnesses in another boat. They got to him as quickly as they could, but—” Alex shrugged. “He had a reputation for being preoccupied. Not paying attention to what he was doing. He was 139 years old at the time. I wonder if it’s possible—”

  “If what’s possible, Alex?”

  “That the tablet is from an alien site.”

  I laughed. “Come on, Alex. There aren’t any aliens.”

  “How about the Mutes?”

  “The Mutes don’t count.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  I gave up. Alex likes to think he keeps an open mind, but I was thinking how sometimes it’s too open. “So what are you saying?” I asked.

  “Well, I don’t know. It makes no sense. He spent his life looking for aliens. If he found them, Chase, either living or otherwise, any evidence at all that they existed, he’d have put it all over the media.”

  Alex keeps a couple of tabitha plants near the window. He got up, inspected them, and got some water for them. “His colleagues laughed at him. Lectured him for wasting his life. If he’d found the slightest evidence, he would not have held it back, believe me.” He finished with the plants and sat down again. “Maybe it’s time we talked with the great man himself.”

  “Jacob,” I said, “does Tuttle have an avatar?”

  Jacob needed a moment. “No, Chase. He was apparently a very private person.”

  “I guess that’s a result of all the ridicule,” I said.

  “How about his wife? Did she have an avatar?”

  “Which one?”

  “How many were there?”

  “Three. India, Cassa, and Mary.”

  “Can we reach any of them?”

  “They’ve all passed away. The last of them, India, died just last year.”

  “So which ones had an avatar?”

  “India does.”

  “Okay. Which years were they together? He and India?”

  “From 1380 until 1396.”

  “Did they have any kids?”

  “He had one child. Basil. And before you ask, he seems to be still alive.”

  “Good. Can you connect me with him?”

  “Unfortunately, Alex, I have no link. Or address. His last known residence was in Foxpoint.”

  “On the other side of the continent?”

  “No. Not that Foxpoint. This one’s out in the desert in the south-east. But he moved several years ago.”

  “Okay. See if you can track him down.” He smiled at me. “Somebody has to know something,” he said. Then back to Jacob: “Get us through to India.”

  Moments later India Beshoar blinked on. She had lush brown hair, a good smile, a great body, and deep green eyes. Of course, everybody looks good in avatar form. You ought to see mine. “Hello,” she said. “Can I be of assistance?”

  Alex introduced us. Then: “India, y
ou were married to Sunset Tuttle.”

  “Yes. That is correct.” Her expression did not change. No happy memory there.

  “Were you together in the house at Rindenwood?”

  “We were. Why do you ask?”

  “What was he like?”

  “Sunset? Basically, he was a decent man.”

  “But—?”

  “He lacked some social skills.”

  “May I ask, in what way?”

  “This is difficult for me, Mr. Benedict.”

  “I’m sure it is. India, Chase and I are trying to do some historical research, and that sometimes requires us to ask personal questions we’d rather leave alone. But it really doesn’t matter now, does it? Since you’ve both passed on.”

  “I guess not.” Those green eyes looked my way for sympathy. “He didn’t take his vows too seriously.” I nodded. You can’t trust guys, I was telling her. We all know that. “The best way to describe our marriage was that I always felt alone.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “I’m sorry to say it. But it was my own fault. I knew what he was before I married him. I thought I could change him.” She shook her head. “I was old enough to know better.”

  “What did he care about?” I asked. “Other than the hunt for aliens, what was important to him?”

  “Aliens were all that mattered.”

  Alex showed her an image of the tablet. “India, do you know anything about this?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Could it have been in the house, or in the garden, when you were there, without your knowing about it?”

  “How big is it?” Alex expanded it to actual size. “No,” she said. “I would certainly have known. Why? Is it valuable?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Wish I could help.”

  TWO

  There is no more critical question before us than that which seeks to determine our place in the universe. We now know that intelligent life is extraordinarily rare. So we are not simply one species among a number of equals, as we had once expected to be. Rather, we are the climax toward which the universe has been evolving for twelve billion years. We are the part of the cosmos that observes, and senses, and grasps the magnitude of this incredible place we call home. What a waste it would all be were it not for the presence of the Ashiyyur, and of us.

  —Somerset Tuttle, “Breakfast with the Aliens”

  We did a search on Tuttle. “I am sorry to report,” said Jacob, “that there is no comprehensive record of his flights.”

  “How about a log?” said Alex. “Or a notebook?”

  “No, sir. Nothing.”

  “A journal? Anything at all?”

  “I can find no account anywhere that would indicate where he has traveled.”

  It was an inauspicious start because there wasn’t much else of substance. No one had ever done a serious biography. Accounts of other explorers existed, containing some details about Tuttle’s missions. And a few interviews shed light on destinations. But even there, only a few were precise. Mostly, we saw attacks launched by his colleagues, who used him as an example of the results of wishful thinking and a refusal to face the hard facts of life. His name became a verb, to tuttle, which meant to persist in an endeavor with no hope of success.

  We discovered a few tributes, which came from enthusiasts and true believers who had followed his lifelong effort to find an alien intelligence. There were some laudatory comments on his charity work. He’d been born wealthy and had been a generous contributor to numerous causes. During his final years, he’d sat on the board of governors of the Belmont Foundation for the Underprivileged. We also found a handful of interviews and presentations. And there was a collection of essays.

  For more than thirty years, he’d ridden the Callisto around the Orion Arm in his fruitless quest. During most of that time, he’d been his own pilot, and he usually traveled alone. He claimed to have found more than six hundred biozone worlds, of which only a handful had actually been home to living things. The vast majority were sterile. But none, not one, had contained, as he put it, anything that had waved back.

  At the time of his death, he’d been a member of the Gibbon Society. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s a group that thinks our best days are behind us. That we’re decaying, and that, unless we get hold of ourselves, the end is near.

  “It’s one of the reasons we need to find an alien intelligence,” he said in an interview with talk-show host Charles Koeffler. “We need something to challenge us. To bring us back to life.” Koeffler asked whether he was speaking about a potential military threat. “No,” he said. “Of course not. But someone to remind us what we might achieve if we ever really get off our front porch.”

  “What,” I asked, “does he think the Mutes are?”

  “They’ve been around too long,” said Alex. “I’d guess he perceives them as part of the natural world he lives in.”

  Jacob threw himself enthusiastically into the search. “Korchnoi University invited him to speak to its graduates in 1400,” he said. “They took a fair amount of criticism for it because he wasn’t perceived as a serious figure in the academic world. The school became the butt of jokes. They were said, for example, to be granting graduate degrees in alien psychology. And to be debating the ethics of cutting down talking trees. You will, I hope, pardon me, but I fail to see the humor.”

  “As do I, Jacob,” I said.

  “I have the Korchnoi address. Did you wish to see it?”

  “Sure,” said Alex.

  It’s always hard to be certain about physical size when you’re looking at a hologram, but Tuttle appeared to be a small, unimposing figure. He had gray eyes, a weak chin, and he smiled too much. He didn’t strike me as a guy who could be passionate about anything. At least, not until he finished the preliminaries, talking about the value of education in general, how it was for the benefit of the individual student and not for a prospective employer. Then he caught his breath, came out from behind the lectern, and told his listeners—about two hundred students and a handful of professors—what it meant in modern times to be a professional of any stripe.

  “Your advisors will tell you,” he said, “how to handle profit and loss statements. How to be prudent about your career. How to make more money than the person sitting next to you. But your education is for you, and not for anyone else. If you choose to be an anthropologist, as I did, they will recommend that you invest your time hunting down lost ships and forgotten settlements. Find a city somewhere whose builders have dropped out of the history books.” He raised a clenched hand and waved it in the air. “That’s how you make your reputation. But it’s not where the real prize is. Anybody can do that. And who really cares what kind of plumbing systems they used on Machinova IV two thousand years ago?”

  Alex adjusted the image, bringing Tuttle closer. The gray eyes had caught fire. “There’s only one reason the human race left its home world, and it had nothing to do with establishing settlements along the Orion Arm. That was strictly a by-product. We came out of the solar system because we wanted to look around. We wanted to find someone else. Someone like ourselves, perhaps. Or maybe someone entirely different. But in any case, someone we could talk to. It was an adventure, a mission, not a real-estate investment.

  “If you read the books written during the early years of the Technological Age, especially the fiction, you won’t find very much about founding outposts in the Aldebaran sector.” Something in front of him caught his eye, and he grinned. “What’s your name, son?”

  Alex adjusted the angle, and we saw the person he was addressing, an athletic-looking young man with blond hair and a suddenly sheepish expression. “Colt Everson, sir,” he said.

  “Colt, you look skeptical.”

  In fact, Colt looked uncomfortable. “It’s hard not to be, Professor Tuttle. I can’t believe people ever seriously thought they’d find aliens. I know that’s wh
at we always say, but how does anyone really know that?”

  “Read their books.”

  “Well, the fiction talks about it, about aliens, but if you read the science abstracts of the period, I don’t think you see much.”

  Tuttle looked around the room. “Anybody want to respond to that?”

  A young woman raised her hand. “It’s because scientists are supposed to be ruled by the evidence. During the early years of the Fourth Millennium, there was no evidence.”

  Somebody prompted her: “The Third Millennium, Carla.”

  “Whatever. Their reputations were on the line, as they always are.” Like Colt, she looked uncomfortable. She wanted to say more, but she smiled shyly and sat back down.

  “You’re wondering about me, aren’t you, Carla? Has my reputation suffered because of the work I do? Let me point out that I was invited to speak to the graduating class at Korchnoi.” A few in back began to applaud, and it caught on and spread through the room. Tuttle waited until it had subsided. “At the risk of ruining their reputations, I think I can state unequivocally that Professor Campbell and Professor Baryman are sympathetic to the work.” More applause. It was easy enough to pick the two named persons out of the crowd. Both nodded acquiescence. “I’ve been looking for other civilizations now for more than a century. Most of my colleagues are convinced I’ve wasted my time. But, if nothing else, I’ve left a track for whoever comes after. He, or she, will know, at least, that these worlds are empty. Don’t look here. It’s not what I would have preferred to do, but maybe it’s the only way.”

  “Professor?” A young man in the rear stood. “May I ask a personal question?”

  “You may ask.”

  “If you had it to do again, would you go in a different direction?”

  “Oh, yes. Certainly. Absolutely.”

  “What would you do differently?”

  “You asked if I’d go in a different direction. And of course I would. I didn’t find anything in the direction I took. But if you’re asking whether I’d spend my life digging up Fifth Millennium kitchen utensils from a dead city on a world we forgot about two thousand years ago, the answer is no. Certainly not. I’d rather fail at a world-shaking effort than succeed with trifles.”