A Talent for War

II.

Ludik Talino: what a wealth of contempt and pity that name generated over two centuries. It had always lacked the power of a Judas or an Arnold, who had wantonly betrayed their trusts, who had actively engaged to ruin the men to whom they owed their loyalty. Talino was never a traitor in that sense. The universal view was that his courage rather than his moral sense had faltered. No one ever believed he would have sold his captain over to his enemies. But the act of which he stood accused, and for which his name became a synonym, was in its way even more despicable: at the critical moment he had fled.

I entered Talino into the library, and spent the evening reading accounts of the old story.

Contemporary records were fragmentary. None of the original Dellacondan ships were known to have survived the Resistance, whole data networks were wiped out, and few witnesses from the early years were still alive at the end.

Little is known about the man himself. He might have been a Dellacondan, but there’s evidence he was born in the City on the Crag, and at least one major historian claims he grew up on Rimway. What is known is that he was already a certified technician on one of Dellaconda’s dozen frigates at the outbreak of the war. He served almost two years as a weapons specialist and navigator on the Proctor before assuming the latter post on board Sim’s celebrated Corsarius.

Apparently, he fought with distinction. There’s a tradition that he was commended by Sim personally after Grand Salinas, though the records have been lost and confirmation has never been possible. In any case, he remained on that fabled vessel through the great days of the Resistance, when the Corsarius spearheaded the allied band of sixty-odd frigates and destroyers holding off the massive fleets of the Ashiyyur. Eventually, of course, Rimway and Toxicon and the other inner systems recognized the common danger, buried their old quarrels, and joined the war. But by then, Christopher Sim and the Corsarius were gone.

After Grand Salinas, when the Dellacondans and their allies were reduced to a desperate few and had given up hope, Sim withdrew the remnants of his fleet to Abonai for refitting and rearming. But the Ashiyyur, seizing the opportunity to destroy their old enemy, pressed him hard; and the Dellacondans prepared for an engagement that they were certain would be their last.

And then, on the eve of battle, something happened which provoked historical debate for two centuries.

Most accounts maintained that Talino and the other six crewmen of the Corsarius, discouraged, and seeing no escape, tried to persuade their captain to give up the suicidal struggle and to make terms with their relentless enemy; that, when he refused to do so, they abandoned him. They are said to have left a message damning him and the war, and fled to the surface of Abonai.

Others have it that Sim, himself convinced of the futility of further resistance, called his crew together and released them from their obligations. I’ve always felt less comfortable with this version than the others. I suppose it’s easy to sit in a warm room and condemn actions taken under extreme duress; but somehow the notion that Talino and his comrades would have taken advantage of his generosity, and left their captain at such a moment, seemed even more contemptible than the honest cowardice of slinking off into the dark.

However it may have occurred, this was the event that triggered a legend: Sim’s descent to Abonai; the trek through the bars and dives of that dismal place; the appeal for help to deserters, derelicts, and convicts who had escaped, or been driven, to that frontier world; and ultimately, of course, his immortal sally with them against an overwhelming enemy.

It was a time fashioned for greatness. Every child in the Confederacy knew the story of the seven nameless men and women from that grim world who agreed to join him, and who thereby rode into history. And of how they died with Sim a few hours later, during the final encounter with the Ashiyyur, wedding themselves irrevocably to his legend. Most researchers agreed that they must have had naval backgrounds, but some maintained that a few technicians would have done as well. However that might have been, they were a popular subject for doctoral theses, novels, the fine arts, and serious drama.

There was little of a factual nature concerning Talino. Birth and death. Engineering degree, Schenk University, Toxicon. Abandoned his captain. No charges filed, because the navy in which he served ceased to exist shortly after the offense.

I called up Barcroft’s impressionistic tragedy, Talinos. (He adds the final s to lend the name an aristocratic aura, and for dramatic effect.) I’d intended to scroll through, but I got hooked in the first act. That surprised me, because I’m not usually strong on classical theater.

Talino was played as a driven, melancholy figure by a rangy, bearded simulat of considerable physical presence. He is consumed with rage against the Ashiyyur, and against the powerful worlds that blindly stand by while the small force of allies are gradually reduced to impotence. His loyalty to Christopher Sim; and his passion for Inaissa, the young bride whose marriage has never known peace, fuel the action. The drama is set on the eve of the climactic engagement off Rigel.

Sim has given up hope of personal survival, but intends to save his crew. He will take Corsarius out alone, deliver what blows he can, and accept a death that may rally the human worlds. "If not," he tells Talino, "if still they do not come, then it will be up to you to salvage what you can. Disengage. Retreat to the Veiled Lady. In time, Earth and Rimway will be forced to fight. Then, perhaps, you can return and teach the damned fools how to beat the mutes…"

The gray, shadowy sets breathe gloom and despair. There is much of the medieval fortress about the orbiting station at Abonai: its ponderous weapons, the long curving walkways, the occasional guard, the hushed tones in which passersby converse, the heavy air. Over all, one senses transience and tragedy. The course of events has passed beyond the control of any human agency.

But Talino refuses his captain’s orders. "Send someone else to rally the survivors," he argues. "My place is with you."

Sim, in a moment of weakness, is grateful. He hesitates. Talino presses the point: "Do not humiliate me in this way." And Sim reluctantly accedes. They will make the final assault together.

But Talino must break the news to Inaissa. She has been hoping for a general retreat, and she is outspoken about Sim’s determination to kill himself, "and take you along." She does not ask her husband to break faith, knowing that, to do so, and succeed, would destroy any future for them.

Consequently, she goes to Sim, arguing that his death would so demoralize the Dellacondans that the cause would be lost. When that effort fails, she asks to man one of the weapon’s consoles, to be with her husband at the end.

Sim is so moved by her appeal that he orders Talino off the ship. When the navigator objects, he is confined to the orbiting station, from which he is able to watch the technicians completing repairs on Corsarius, preparing her for battle. And he observes also the arrival of the crew, summoned at this unusual hour by their commander. He tries to link into the shipboard systems to follow the conversations there, but someone has cut the external feed. And a few minutes after boarding, they leave, heads lowered, faces hard.

Moments later, they come to release him. Sim has freed the crew from their obligations. Talino tries to persuade them to return to their ship, but they know what the next day will bring. "If by staying," says one, "we could save him, then we would stay. But there is no sense to it: he is determined to die."

Free now, Talino goes to Inaissa, intending to take his farewell and return to his captain’s side. When she refuses to leave without him, he orders her put forcibly groundside. But his own resolve fails shortly thereafter, and he sends word to Sim that, "I accept my captain’s generous offer; I can do no other, God help me…."

But Inaissa, determined to accompany her husband, conceals herself in a cloak and succeeds in procuring a place among the Seven. Thus, Talino loses both his honor and his wife.

The notion that Inaissa was one of the volunteers was a part of the myth I’d not heard before. There are two beam sculptures by period artists showing her onboard the Corsarius. One places her at a console with Sim visible at her left; and the other depicts the moment of recognition between her and the captain.

There were a hundred variations of the story, and countless shadings of Talino’s character and motivation. Sometimes he is perceived as a man loaded down with gambling debts, who accepted money from mute agents; sometimes he is disgruntled at not having received his own command; sometimes he is Sim’s rival for an illicit love, deliberately arranging his commander’s death.

Where in all the enormous body of myth and literature was the truth? What had Gabe meant?

Other aspects of the event also received considerable attention. Arven Kimonides' novel Marvill recounts the experience of a young man who is present at the gathering of the Seven, but who stands aside and lives guilt-ridden thereafter. Tradition holds that Mikal Killian, the great constitutional arbiter, who would have been about 18 at the time of the Rigel Action, tried to volunteer, and was refused. Wightbury placed his famous cynic Ed Barbar on the scene. (Ed not only did not volunteer, but held aside a willing young woman who was, he felt, destined for better things.) At least a dozen other novels and dramas which enjoyed some reputation in their times have featured characters who either witnessed Sim’s appeal, or who found themselves among the Seven.

There are also numerous lightcuts, photo constructs, and at least one major symphony. Three of the unknown heroes stand at the great captain’s side in Sanrigal’s masterpiece, Sim at the Hellgate. Talino’s wife is portrayed among the drug addicts and derelicts in Tchigorin’s Inaissa. And in Mommsen’s Finale, a ragged man helps Sim battle the controls of the stricken Corsarius, while a wounded crewman lies prostrate on the deck, and a woman who must have earned her living in the streets of Abonai squeezes the triggers in the weapons cradle.

I suspected that Sim would have cleaned up his new crew, and that the end, when it came, would have been sudden and total. But what the hell: it was good art, if unlikely history.

The deserters dropped out of sight, to become objects of scorn. Talino lived almost a half century after his captain’s death. It was said of him that his conscience gave him no rest, and that he was driven from world to world by an outraged public. He died on Rimway, apparently very close to madness.

I could find no record of Inaissa in the histories. Barcroft insists that she existed, but cites no source. (He claims to have spoken with Talino, but that assertion also stands unsupported.) Talino himself is not known to have mentioned her.

Historians entertained themselves for two centuries trying to put names to the volunteers, and even arguing over whether there were not really six, or eight, who took time final ride. Over the years, however, the Seven transcended their status as military heroes. They came eventually to symbolize the noblest sentiments of the Confederacy: the mutual commitment between government and its most desperate citizens.

I made arrangements to go home.

Fortunately, my connections with the world on which I’d been living for the preceding three years were tenuous. I had little trouble dissolving my business interests, after which I made arrangements to sell off most of my property, and packed the rest. I said good-bye to the couple of people who mattered to me (promising, as we always do, to exchange visits). That was a joke, considering how far Rambuckle was from Rimway, and how much I hated starships.

On the day that I was to leave, a second communication arrived from Brimbury & Conn. This one was hardcopy:

We regret to inform you there has been a break-in at Gabriel’s home. Thieves took some electronic equipment, silverware, a few other items. Nothing of substantial value. They missed the artifacts. We have initiated steps to see there is no recurrence.

That seemed a suspicious coincidence. I wondered about the security of the Tanner file, and considered asking the lawyers about it before committing myself to travel to Rimway. But owing to the distances involved, I couldn’t hope for an answer inside twenty days. So I dismissed the notion as overactive imagination, and headed home.

As I mentioned, I abhor starflight, and I avoided it when I could. A lot of people get nauseated during the transitions between Armstrong and linear space, but it seems to hit me especially hard. I also have trouble adjusting to changes in gravity, time, and climate.

Moreover, there was the sheer uncertainty and inconvenience of it all. In those days, you never knew when you’d arrive at a destination. Vessels traveling through Armstrong space could not determine their position with regard to the outside world. That made navigation a trifle uncertain. Everything was done on dead reckoning, which is to say that the computers measured onboard elapsed time, tried to compensate for the uncertainties of entry, and everyone hoped for the best. Occasionally, vectors got displaced and vessels materialized a thousand light years from their destinations.

The most unnerving possibility, though, was that of re-entering linear space inside a physical object. If the odds were heavily against such an occurrence, it was nevertheless something I always thought of when a vessel was preparing to make its return jump. You never really knew where you were going to come out.

There is, in fact, evidence that this is what happened to the Hampton almost a century ago. The Hampton was a small freighter which, like Capella, disappeared in nonlinear. She was carrying a cargo of manufactured goods to a mining colony in the Marmichon System. At about the time the vessel was to have made the jump from hyper, an outer planet—the gas giant Marmichon VI—blew up. No one has ever advanced an explanation of how a world can explode without help. Speculation at the time held that the vessel materialized inside the iron core, and that the antimatter fuel in the Armstrong drive unit initiated the explosion.

Armstrong generators were equipped with deflector units, which created a field strong enough to clear a few atoms and make room for the ship’s transition into linear. Anything bigger wandering into the area at that critical phase put the vessel at risk. There was little real danger, of course. Ships were required to materialize well outside star systems. That bought relative safety, but left the traveler with a long ride to his destination. Usually, you could expect that the voyage from the Armstrong emergence point to the place you wanted to go would take roughly twice as long as the actual travel time between stars. I’d never gone anywhere that I could guess within five days when I would be arriving.

My flight to Rimway was no exception. I got deathly ill making the jump both ways. The carriers pass out drugs to help people through all that, but none of it’s ever worked for me. I’ve learned to rely on alcohol.

All the same, it was good to see Rimway again. We approached from the dark side, so I could see the blazing splinters of light that marked the cities. The sun illuminated a gauzy arc of atmosphere along the rim. Through the opposite window, the moon was pale brown and turbulent. Storm-laden.

We slipped into orbit, crossed the terminator into daylight, and, a few hours later, rode down sun-washed skies toward Andiquar, the planetary capital. It was an exhilarating approach. But all the same, I promised myself that my interstellar days were over. I was home, and I was by God going to stay there.

We ran into snow over the city. The sun was low in the west, and it cast a thousand hews against frosted towers, and the peaks to the east. The capital’s extensive parks had all but vanished in the storm. In the Confederate Triangle, the monuments to the two great brothers were blue and timeless: Christopher Sim’s Doric pyramid, its illuminated apex glowing steadily against the encroaching dark; and, across the White Pool, Tarien Sim’s Omni, a ghostly globe, symbol of the statesman’s dream of a united human family.

I checked in at a hotel, logged onto the net in case anyone wanted to reach me, and took a shower. It was early evening, but I was tired. Nevertheless I couldn’t sleep. After an hour or so of staring at the ceiling, I wandered downstairs, had a sandwich, and contacted Brimbury & Conn. "I’m in town," I said.

"Welcome home, Mr. Benedict," said their AI. "Is there any way we can be of assistance?"

"I need a skimmer."

"On the roof of your hotel, sir. I am clearing it for you now. Will you be communicating with us tomorrow?"

"Yes," I said. "Probably late morning. And thanks."

I went up and collected my aircraft, punched in the location code of Gabe’s house, and five minutes later I was lifting out over the city, headed west.

The malls and avenues were crowded with sightseers, shielded from the falling snow by gantner light. Tennis courts were filled, and kids paddled in pools. Andiquar has always been lovely at night, its gardens, towers, and courtyards softly illuminated, the winding Narakobo silent and deep.

While I floated over that pacific scene, the newsnet reported a mute attack on a communications research ship which had wandered too close to the Perimeter. Five or six dead. No one was sure yet.

I flew out over the western fringes of Andiquar. Snow was falling heavily now, and I tilted the back of the seat and settled into the warmth of the cockpit. The landscape unrolled a few hundred meters below, leaving its trace on the thermals: the suburbs broke up into small towns, hills rose, forests appeared. Occasionally a road wandered through the display and, about twenty minutes out, I crossed the Melony, which had more or less marked the limits of human habitation when I was a boy.

You can see the Melony from the attic bedroom at Gabriel’s house. When I first went to live there, it twisted through mysterious, untamed country. A refuge for ghosts, robbers, and dragons.

The amber warning lamp signaled arrival. I banked and dropped lower. The dark forest was harmless now, curbed by athletic fields and pools and curving walkways. I’d watched the retreat of the wilderness over the years, counted the parks and homes and hardware stores. And on that snowy night, I flew above it and knew that Gabe was gone, and that much of what he loved was also gone.

I switched to manual and drifted in over the treetops, watching the house itself materialize out of the storm. There was already a skimmer on the pad (Gabe’s, I assumed), so I set down on the front lawn.

Home.

It was probably the only real home I’d known, and I was saddened to see it standing stark and empty against the pale, sagging sky. According to tradition, Jorge Shale and his crew had crashed nearby. Only an historian can tell you now who first set foot on Rimway, but everybody on the planet knows who died in the attempt. Finding the wreckage had been the first major project of my life. But, if it existed out there at all, it had eluded me.

The house had once been a country inn, catering to hunters and travelers. Most of the woodland had been replaced by large glass homes and square lawns. Gabe had done what he could to hold onto the wilderness area. It had been a losing fight, as struggles against progress always are. During my last years with him, he’d grown increasingly irascible with the unfortunates who moved into the neighborhood. And I doubt that many among his neighbors were sorry to see him go.

The attic bedroom was at the top of the house, on the fourth floor. The louvers on its twin windows were shut. A pair of idalia trees reached toward them; the branches of one twisted into a king’s seat which I’d loved to climb, thereby scaring the blazes out of Gabe. Or so at least he’d allowed me to think.

I opened the cockpit and stepped down from the skimmer. Snow continued to whisper out of the sky. Somewhere, out of sight, children were playing. Excited shrieks echoed from an illuminated avenue a few houses over, and I could hear the smooth hiss of runners across white lawns and streets.

A sodium postlight beneath an oak threw a soft glow over the skimmer, and against the melancholy front windows. A familiar voice said, "Hello, Alex. Welcome home."

The lamp at the front door blinked on.

"Hello, Jacob," I said. Jacob wasn’t really an AI. He was a sophisticated data response network, whose chief responsibility, at least in the old days, had been to maintain whatever conversational level Gabe felt up to, on whatever subject Gabe wished, at any given time. That would have been cruel and unusual treatment for a real AI. But it was sometimes hard to keep Jacob’s true nature in mind.

"It’s good to see you again," he said. "I’m sorry about Gabe."

The snow was ankle deep. I hadn’t dressed for it, and the stuff was already into my shoes. "Yes. I am too." The front door opened, and the living room filled with light. Somewhere in back, music stopped. Stopped. That was the sort of thing that gave life to Jacob. "It was unexpected. I’ll miss him."

Jacob was silent. I stepped inside, past a scowling stone demon that had been in the house long before I came to it, removed my jacket, and went into the den, the same room from which Gabe had recorded his final message. There was a sharp crack, as of a branch snapping, and flames appeared in the fireplace. It had been a long time. Rambuckle had been a cylinder world, and there had never been wood for burning. Nor any need to. (How long had it been since I’d seen snow? Or experienced inclement weather?)

I was back, and it felt suddenly as though I’d never been away.

"Alex?" There was something almost plaintive in his tone.

"Yes, Jacob. What is it?"

"There is something you need to know." In the back of the house, a clock ticked.

"Yes?"

"I don’t remember you."

I paused in the middle of lowering myself into the padded armchair I’d occupied in the sponder. "What do you mean?"

"The lawyers informed you there was a robbery?"

"Yes, they told me."

"Apparently the thief tried to copy my core unit. The basal memory. It must have been a possibility that concerned Gabriel. The system was programmed, in such an eventuality, to do a complete wipe. I have no recollection of anything prior to being reactivated by the authorities."

"Then how—"

"Brimbury and Conn programmed me to recognize you. What I’m trying to tell you is that I know about us, but I have no direct recollection."

"Isn’t that the same thing?"

"It leaves a few holes." I thought he was going to say something more, but he didn’t.

Jacob had been around for twenty years. He’d been there when I was a kid. We’d played chess, and refought the major campaigns of half a dozen wars, and talked about the future while rain had splattered down the big windows. We’d planned to sail together around the world, and later, when my ambitions grew, we’d talked of the stars.

"How about Gabe? You remember him, right?"

"I know I would have liked him. His house indicates that he had many interests, and I feel safe in concluding he was worth knowing. I console myself that I did know him. But, no: I don’t remember him."

I sat for some minutes, listening to the fire, and the sound of the snow at the windows. Jacob was not alive. The only feelings involved here were my own. "How about the data files? I understand something was taken from them."

"I checked the index. It’s rather strange, really. They took a data crystal. But it could not have been of any use to the thief. He would need to know the security code to get access to it."

"The Tanner file," I said, with sudden certainty.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"I guessed."

"It seems very odd to steal something one cannot use."

"The rest of it, the silverware, and whatever else they took, was a blind," I said. "They knew precisely what they were after. How many of them were there? Did you recognize anyone?"

"They knocked out the power before they came in, Alex. I wasn’t functioning."

"How did they do that?" I asked.

"It was easy. They simply broke a window, got into the utility area, and cut some cables. I do not have visuals down there."

"Damn. Wasn’t there some sort of burglar alarm? Something to prevent this?"

"Oh, yes. But do you know how long it’s been since there was a felony in this area?"

"No," I said.

"Decades. Literally decades. The police assumed it was only a malfunction. They were slow to respond. Even had they been more prompt, a single thief, if he was familiar with the premises and knew precisely what he was after, could have accomplished it all inside three minutes."

"Jacob, what was Gabe working on when he died?"

"I don’t know whether I ever had that information, Alex. Certainly I don’t now."

"How good is the security on the Tanner file? Are you sure the thief can’t get at it?"

"In maybe twenty years. It requires your voice, using a security code that is in the possession of Brimbury and Conn."

"It’ll be easy for the thief to get a recording of my voice to duplicate. We’d better notify the lawyers to take precautions with the code."

"That’s already been done, Alex."

"Maybe the lawyers are involved."

"They do not have access to the code. They can only turn it over to you."

"What kind was it?"

"A sequence of digits, which have to be spoken by you, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, during a time period no shorter than a full minute. That prevents a high-speed computer attack. Any attempt to circumvent the precautions results in immediate destruction of the file."

"How many digits?"

"The recommended standard is fourteen. I don’t know how many Gabe used."

I sat quietly, watching the fire. The street lamps were yellow blobs, and the wind shook the trees. Snow was piling up against the skimmer. "Jacob, who’s Leisha Tanner?"

"Just a moment." The roomlights dimmed.

Outside somewhere, a metal door rattled shut.

A holo formed near the window, a woman in evening dress, her face angled away from me, as though her attention were fixed on the storm. In the uncertain light of the fireplace and the sodium postlamp, she was achingly lovely. She appeared to be lost in thought, her eyes reflecting, but not seeing, the snowscape.

"She’s in her mid-thirties here. When this was taken, she was an instructor at Tielhard University on Earth. It’s dated circa 1215, our time."

Six years after the Resistance. "My God," I said, "I assumed she was someone I was going to be able to talk to."

"Oh, no, Alex. She’s been dead quite a long time. Over a century, in fact."

"What’s her connection with the project Gabe was working on?"

"Impossible to say."

"Is there anyone else who might know?"

"No one that I know of."

I poured myself a drink, a real one, of the Mindinmist. "Tell me about Tanner. Who was she?"

"Scholar. Teacher. She’s best known for her translations of the Ashiyyurean philosopher Tulisofala. They are still available, and some authorities consider them to be definitive. She’s produced other works, but most are no longer in circulation. She was an instructor in Ashiyyurean philosophy and literature for forty standard years at several universities. Born on Khaja Luan, 1179. Married. Possibly one child."

"That it?"

"She was a star pilot, certified for small craft. A peace activist during the war. The records also show that she served as an intelligence officer and a diplomat for the Dellacondans."

"A peace activist and an intelligence officer."

"That is what the records say. I don’t understand it either."

Jacob rotated the image. Her eyes brushed past mine. The jawline had a tilt that almost implied arrogance. Her lips were slightly parted, revealing even white teeth (but no smile); and a forehead possibly a shade too broad concealed by thick auburn hair.

"During the war, was she on the Corsarius?"

Pause. "There’s not much information in the general files, Alex. But I don’t think so. She seems to have been attached to Mercuriel, the Dellacondan flagship."

"I thought Corsarius was the flagship?"

"No. Corsarius was only a frigate. Sim used it to lead his units into combat, but it wasn’t really adequate for staffing and planning functions. The Dellacondans used two different vessels for that purpose.

The Mercuriel was donated to them by rebels on Toxicon midway through the war. It was especially adapted for command and control, and it was named for a Toxi volunteer who died in the Slot."

"Do you know any more about her?"

"I believe I can give you rank, date of discharge, and so on."

"That it?"

"There may be something else of interest."

"What’s that?"

"Just a moment. You understand that I’m scanning all this myself while we’re talking?"

"Okay."

"Yes. Well, you should also be aware that she’s an obscure figure, and there’s not much on her."

"Okay. What are you leading up to?"

"She apparently returned from the war in a deep state of depression."

"Nothing unusual about that."

"No. I would react that way myself. But she did not improve for a long time. Years, in fact. There is also an indication that she visited Maurina Sim about 1208, the year after Christopher Sim died at Rigel. No record that I can find on what they talked about. Now the odd thing is that Tanner tended to drop from sight for long periods of time. On one occasion, for almost two years. No one knows why.

"This went on until about 1217, after which there are no more reports of unusual behavior. Which of course is not to say there was none."

I gave up for the night. I had a snack, and picked out a room on the second floor. Gabe’s bedroom was on the same floor, at the front of the building. I went in there, perhaps out of curiosity, but ostensibly because I was looking for comfortable pillows.

There were photos everywhere: mostly from the excavations, but there were also a couple of me as a child, and one of a woman he had once, apparently, loved. Her name was Ria, and she had died in an accident twenty years before I’d come to live with him. I’d forgotten about her during my long years away, but she still held her honored place on a table between two exquisite vases that were probably middle-European. I took a moment to study the image as I had not done since I was a child, and had never done with mature eyes. She was almost boyish in aspect: her frame was slim, her brown hair was cut short, and she sat with her hands hugging her knees to her breast in a pose that implied uninhibited exuberance. But her glance suggested deeper waters, and caused me to linger a long time. To my knowledge, Gabe had never been emotionally involved with another woman.

There was a book on the side table: a volume of poetry by Walford Candles. The title was Rumors of Earth, and though I’d never heard of it, I knew Candles’s reputation. He was one of the people that no one really reads, but that you were supposed to if you were going to call yourself educated.

The book aroused my curiosity though, for several reasons: Gabe had never shown much inclination toward poetry; Candles had been a contemporary of Christopher Sim and Leisha Tanner; and, when I picked it up, the book fell open to a poem titled "Leisha"!

Footnotes dated it 1213, two years before Candles’s death, and four years after the war’s end. There was some discussion of style, and the editors commented that the subject was "believed to be Leisha Tanner, who alarmed her friends by periodically dropping out of sight between 1208 and 1216. No explanation was ever advanced."