Echo

ELEVEN

“What makes you think she was lying? I’ll admit the story was pretty far out. But why not?”

“She has a problem, Chase.”

“And what’s that?”

“How does she account for the tablet?”

“I thought she managed that pretty well.”

He poured coffee for us. “Do you really think,” he said, “that aliens who don’t want us showing up in their neighborhood would provide evidence that they exist? Why on earth would they hand over the tablet?”

“I don’t know. They’re aliens, Alex.”

“It doesn’t matter, Chase. Logic is still logic. It makes no sense that they’d do that. Moreover, if Tuttle was so determined to keep their existence hidden, so much that even he of all people would say nothing, would he really bring that piece of rock home and stick it in a cabinet in his den? No, my proud beauty, had they actually given it to him, he and Rachel would have had time to think about it on the way home. And they’d have disposed of it. Jettisoned it somewhere. And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Henry told us she came back from a tour flight and quit World’s End. Whatever it was that happened, I’d be shocked if it hadn’t happened on that flight. Which would mean Tuttle wasn’t there.”

“That’s guesswork.”

“No. She just told us Tuttle wasn’t there.”

“When did she say that?”

“She said, ‘You were right. I did find another civilization.’ You think she’d have said that if she was out on a mission with Tuttle?”

“I guess not. So what is going on? Do you have a better explanation?”

“No. Worse, I can’t even imagine one. But it’s there. We just need to look harder.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“World’s End Tours operates out of Serendipity.”

“Dip,” I said.

“Pardon?”

“Dip. They call it Dip.”

“Okay.”

“We’re going out there, aren’t we?”

He actually managed to look guilty. “Yes.”

“Whatever we want to talk to them about, why not do it here? They have an office downtown.”

“That’s purely administrative. I’ve already checked. We want to talk to the operational people. Especially Miriam Wiley.”

“She is—?”

“Director of operations at Dip. We have a better chance of getting what we want directly from her rather than talking to the bureaucrats.”

I sighed. “When do we leave?”

He retired to his office, but later I saw him outside, wandering along the edge of the woods, hands in his jacket pockets, a battered broad-brimmed hunter’s hat pulled low over his eyes. It was by no means unusual for him to go for a walk around the grounds. Frequently, he took the north trail out to the river, which was a half kilometer away. Occasionally, he simply strolled across the property, enjoying the crisp country air.

It was a gray, listless day, cool, damp, without a breath of wind. The grackles, which had filled the trees yesterday, were quiet, and nothing moved in all that landscape.

He seemed uncertain where he wanted to go, wandering first one way, then another. And there was something different about the way he walked, the way he was carrying himself. His head was bowed, his shoulders slumped. Sometimes, he simply stood in one place, not moving, for minutes at a time, staring, not at the corona bushes, which were always resplendent in a kind of final effort at that time of year, but at a blank piece of sky, or at the ground.

After a while he passed from my view. But he didn’t come back inside. I thought about going out to see if I could help, but I didn’t know what to tell him. Yes, Rachel was lying. But there was something she wanted to keep hidden, and it was obvious she would pay a price if we proceeded.

It’s been a long time now since Alex stood out there on the edge of the forest. But it’s an image I’ve never forgotten.

We needed a day or two to clear up loose ends. It was the first time I’d gone out in the Belle-Marie since I’d met Robin. “So where is this Serendipity?” he asked.

“About thirty light-years.”

“You need company?”

“Don’t you have school to teach?”

“Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten.” Big smile.

“We’ll be back in a week or two.”

“Pity. We have a holiday break coming up—”

“Robin,” I said, “Alex is anxious to get this done. We really need to do it on his timetable.”

“Sure. I understand.”

“You ever been off-world?”

“No,” he said. “I always thought of going to the mountains as a long trip.”

It was odd: I thought by then I knew him pretty well, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d never gone anywhere. Of course, most people never travel off-world. “I’ll see you when we get home.”

“Okay.”

And he did an imitation of celebrated tough guy Mark Parvin, talking out of the corner of his mouth: “When you get back, baby, I’ll be waiting.”

I liked Robin, but I felt crowded that day. Maybe I’d been promising more than I’d be able to deliver.

Well, let it go.

The station’s actual name, as you probably know, is Tsarendipol, after the CEO of the General Development Corporation, the company that designed and built the place. But the designation quickly evolved into Serendipity.

The project had been started sixty years earlier, but it still wasn’t completed. GDC had gone out of business, there’d been labor disputes, the fleet had taken it over twice during the periodic shoot-outs with the Mutes, and apparently there had been simply an extraordinary level of incompetence and corruption. When we got there, the station was still not much more than an exposed docking area, with a hotel, shipping facilities, and a bar. The restaurants and luxury meeting rooms and entertainment palaces that one associates with orbiting stations throughout the Confederacy had not yet opened their doors. To this day, I understand, they still aren’t up and running.

World’s End Tours was probably not happy with the situation, but Dip was ideally located for them. The station drifted through the outer limits of the Confederacy, with easy access to areas that still remain largely unexplored.

When we arrived inside the station’s operating area, I turned control of the Belle-Marie over to them, and they brought us into port. I’d only been out to the place twice before, and on both occasions, I’d simply delivered some freight, crashed for a few hours, eaten, and gone back home. So walking along the nearly deserted concourses was a new experience for me. Alex said he’d been there once, with Gabe. “I was ten years old at the time,” he said, “and I parked in one of the games exhibits and spent all my time shooting at aliens.”

I didn’t see a games exhibit.

“It was over there.” He indicated a dark enclosure.

We’d gotten in late, local time, and there was only one hotel. In the morning, we looked through the World’s End advertising. They ran tours to a half dozen star systems, promising “the ultimate in sightseeing.” Their clients were prosperous. They had to be. World’s End tours were expensive, out of sight for ordinary people. They used Eagles, which were optimum vehicles. Individual cabins had opulent appointments; they booked live entertainers; and the ships carried a maximum of fifteen passengers. All of which guaranteed you didn’t have to associate with the commoners.

They maintained an office in what must have been the only elegantly furnished passageway in the station. A window, marked WORLD’S END TOURS looked out on the corridor. Below, in script, was the company’s motto: Adventures from Home to World’s End. Inside, a young woman sat talking to an AI.

Rachel had worked almost four years out of that office, serving as captain of the Silver Comet. The Comet was a Merrill, the Eagle of its day, although it carried fewer people, a maximum of eight passengers. They had several standard routes. But, for an additional consideration, World’s End would customize a flight, “to accommodate passenger interests.” I wasn’t sure what that meant.

The standard routes allowed passengers to get a look at ringed giants and black holes. They could lob illuminated globes at neutron stars and land on beaches to relax under alien suns. If they had a desire to do so, they could swim in an ocean where nothing, ever, had lived. The clients inevitably liked to party. The schedule of events showed something happening every evening. I doubted it had been much different during Rachel’s time.

The young woman looked up, saw us, and smiled. “Let’s go say hello,” said Alex.

“We’re not going to schedule a flight, are we?”

“I don’t see any point in doing that. How long’s an average flight last?”

I looked through the advertising. “Shortest one looks like eight days. Up to four weeks.”

He nodded. “They used to be a lot longer. Technology wasn’t as good at the turn of the century, of course. Then the flights ran as long as four months. To the same destinations. Or at least to ones at the same range. The long ones were generally the hunting trips.”

“They went hunting?”

“They still do.” He led the way into the office. “Good morning.”

“Hello,” said the woman, her eyes brightening automatically. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Alex Benedict. We’d like to see Miriam Wiley, please.”

“Is she expecting you?”

“No. Actually, she isn’t.”

“I see.” She pressed a button and studied a screen. “I’m sorry, Mr. Benedict. She’s not available at the moment. I’ll be happy to assist you if I can.”

“This is important. Would you please tell her I’m here. That I’d like very much to talk to her?”

“One moment, please. I’ll connect you with my supervisor.”

It took a minute or two, but they apparently bypassed the supervisor. The next voice was also a woman’s: “Mr. Benedict, this is Miriam Wiley. I’m surprised to hear you’re on the station.” Her image appeared on-screen. She was a dark-eyed, dark-skinned woman with a surprised smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Wiley.”

“Can I assume you’re the Alex Benedict?”

“Not sure about that. I deal in antiquities.”

“Yes, indeed,” she said with a sly grin. “So I’ve heard. Arma, send them in, please.”

Miriam Wiley was a retired pilot who had, at seventeen, charged into a collapsing building at a reclamation project to rescue an injured worker. On another occasion she’d taken over a taxi when its AI system malfunctioned, and ridden it to a safe landing, narrowly missing a swimming pool filled with gawkers who, apparently, didn’t have enough sense to clear out.

She stood up as we entered, came over, shook our hands, and suggested we all sit down and relax. “We don’t get many visitors out here,” she said. “At least not famous ones.”

Her pilot’s license, in a silver frame, hung on the wall behind her desk. The walls were covered with pictures of Eagles, flying through ring systems, gliding over lunar surfaces, standing by while a blast of white light emanated from something too far away to identify. The one that caught my eye was of an Eagle riding above a cloudscape, silhouetted against a partially obscured crescent moon. She tried to pretend she knew me by reputation, too, but she stumbled over my name. “What can I do for you?” she asked. “Were you planning on taking one of our tours?”

“No,” Alex said. “Unfortunately, we’re here on business at the moment.”

“Tracking a rare artifact, no doubt.”

“No doubt.” Alex smiled. They both smiled. Miriam was on the make.

“Too bad. I’d be more than happy to offer you our special VIP rate. You’d find a vacation with us to be a glorious experience.” She shifted those dark eyes in my direction, suggesting that I might consider urging him to take the offer. That I’d enjoy it myself.

“Miriam,” said Alex, “have you heard of Sunset Tuttle?”

“Who?”

“Sunset Tuttle? He was the guy who was always looking for aliens.”

“Oh, yes. Sure. There was a vid based on him a few years back.”

“Okay. We’re looking into the possibility—and it’s only a possibility—that he might have made a major discovery connected with a World’s End flight.”

“With one of our flights? What kind of discovery?”

“First of all, we’re talking thirty years ago.”

She laughed. It was a pleasant sound. “That’s well before my time. I’ve only been here six years.”

“Have you taken any of the tours yourself?”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s part of the job. So what’s the discovery this Tuttle might have made? Did he find aliens on one of our tours?” The smile became even brighter. Suddenly, I was sitting there feeling foolish.

“No. At least not that we know of.”

“Okay. So—?”

“There’s an outside chance, though, that one of your captains may have encountered an extraterrestrial civilization.”

She laughed again. Even more skeptically. “Which one?”

“Rachel Bannister. Would it be possible to look at the flight logs?”

“I can’t see that there’d be a problem with that. I’d have to edit them first.”

“Edit them how?”

“Remove the names of the passengers. You want to see those, you’d need a court order.”

“Okay. No, we don’t care about the passengers, so that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Good. Which flight logs did you want to look at? What year?”

“It was 1403.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I can’t do that.”

“Is there a prohibition of some sort?”

“No. I mean the logs from that period don’t exist. They only go back to 1405. That’s ten years before current ownership took over. I should have realized when you mentioned thirty years that I wouldn’t be able to help you.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“We’re only required to keep the files for ten years, Alex. Walter—he was the CEO here previously—followed the letter of the law. We keep everything now. Have done since the new management took over. But 1405’s as far back as we go.”

“What do you know about the tours at the turn of the century? Were they the same as the ones you offer now?”

“Pretty much. We visit spectacular places. Do some specialized flights. You know, hunting, camping, that sort of thing. We’ve done interstellar weddings. We’ve taken people for rides on asteroids. We’ve even done a couple of ordinations. Did one two years ago, and another the year before that. So no, nothing’s changed very much. We have different destinations, of course, because we have a lot of repeat business. People want to see new stuff. But the nature of the flights is about the same.”

“Miriam, did they ever lose anyone? Was there ever an incident?”

“No. At least nothing I know of.” She glanced around the room at the framed pictures. “Thank God, we’ve been fortunate. And we’ve always had good people.”

“Do you have any records at all from the earlier years?”

She shook her head. “Not a thing, Alex. We don’t even have maintenance records. Which they were supposed to keep. Hell, we don’t have the advertising stuff anymore. We don’t know where the ships went. We’ve got nothing.” She raised her hands in surrender. “Sorry.”