Echo

SEVENTEEN

Banshee was moderately larger than Rimway, but it was less dense, and consequently its gravity gradient was down a couple of points. It lacked the massive oceans that were characteristic of living worlds. There were seas, but they weren’t connected into a single globe-circling entity. Polar caps were large, extending across as much as thirty percent of the planet.

Hugh Conover had what he’d always wanted: a world to himself. He’d made no secret of his wishes: Get away from the maddening crush of idiots. You couldn’t escape them, he’d argued. They showed up on the talk shows, infested the web, wrote books, and won political office. They appealed to their fellow idiots, and the result was, not chaos, but life on a treadmill. Keep moving but get nowhere. Those kinds of comments—Conover had made no effort to conceal his opinions of the mass of humanity—had won him few friends.

Banshee had a lot of lakes. They were of all sizes, and they were scattered across the planetary surface like puddles after a heavy rainstorm. Some existed in mountain country and others on big islands that were themselves lost in the middle of larger lakes.

I saw no deserts, save one patch along the equator. And nothing that might have been described as a jungle.

“Looks like a cold place,” said Alex.

It’s odd: You see an uninhabited world, and you don’t think anything of it. You look at Banshee, with two people sheltered somewhere on its surface, and you feel an overwhelming emptiness.

There was a single small moon. It was less than a hundred kilometers in diameter, a captured asteroid probably, and was at the moment almost half a million klicks from Banshee. “I doubt,” I said, “that, from the ground, it would look like anything more than a bright star. Maybe not even that.”

Alex was looking out the viewport, shaking his head. “Conover reminds me of Basil. I mean, neither seems to care much for a social life.”

“He’s like Basil?” I said. “Alex, this guy is Basil with a starship. By Conover’s standards, Basil’s in downtown Andiquar.”

“Cavallero’s another one,” he said. But he waved it aside. Sociological chitchat. Let’s get to the point. “What’s the best way to find him? Look for his ship?”

“Sure. Belle, any sign of it?” We were just moving across the terminator onto the nightside.

“We have something up ahead, Chase. It should be the Hopkin.” Conover’s ship.

“Open a channel,” I said.

“Channel’s open, Chase.”

I activated Alex’s mike. “All yours, boss.”

He nodded. “Charlie Hopkin,” he said, “this is Alex Benedict on the Belle-Marie. Please patch me through to Dr. Conover.”

We got a burp of static. Then a baritone: “Belle-Marie, this is the Charlie Hopkin. Dr. Conover is not on board and cannot be reached. I’m sorry.”

We were on Banshee’s nightside. Below us, the darkness was unbroken.

“Hopkin, you can’t get a message to him?”

“Do you have the code word?” Belle got a visual of the Hopkin and put it on-screen. It was an Atlantic, same model as the Belle-Marie. Older, though.

“No. I do not have a code word. Could you inform him that I’m here and would like very much to talk with him?”

“I have strict instructions not to bother him for non-code-word visitors.”

Alex covered the mike. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

“Don’t believe what?”

“That the messages aren’t being relayed. He wouldn’t be dumb enough to cut himself off that completely.”

“That’s probably true. But we don’t really know this guy. He might be dumb.”

“I doubt it.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “I can think of one approach. Board the thing and take a wrench to the controls.”

“You’re not serious.”

“We don’t actually damage anything. Just pretend that we will if he doesn’t answer. The AI would have to alert him, and I’d bet the farm he’d be in touch within seconds.”

“Sounds like a great way to get his cooperation.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s the downside.”

“Fortunately, Chase, there might be an easier way.” He refilled his coffee cup and looked at the Hopkin, cruising amiably on the navigation screen. “The ship has to be able to contact him if necessary. So what sort of orbit do you put her in?”

“Oh,” I said.

“Right.” He held out his hands. Elementary. “It has to pass directly overhead.”

“Sure.” I felt like the slowest kid in the room. “We don’t have an entire planet to search. Just the orbital area in the southern hemisphere over whatever continents there are.

“Okay,” I said. “We can narrow the land area where he might be located to about nine thousand kilometers. But that’s still a lot of area to cover.”

“Of the nine thousand kilometers, Chase, how much do you think borders lakes?”

Okay. Suddenly, it sounded easy. I asked Belle whether she thought she could spot the target from orbit.

“Tell me what the house looks like,” she said.

“Belle, it’s a house.”

“It’s easier if I know, for example, whether I’m looking for a dome or a box or something in between.”

“Rounded exterior. A pair of connected pods.”

“I have a suggestion,” said Alex. “Let’s see if we can get the timing right, so we’re always searching the nightside. Just look for lights.”

Hunting for a single light on a planetary surface, especially in a place like Banshee, isn’t as easy as it sounds. Clouds provide cover, forests get in the way, and there’s still a lot of ground. But eventually we spotted him.

As a precaution, I asked Belle about the air.

“I see no problem,” she said.

The lake where he was living was a solid sheet of ice, encased by heavy forest. Trees and shrubbery pushed out to the shore. A section of land at the northern tip of the shoreline had been cleared for the lander and the two survival pods Pinky had mentioned. Beside them, a house was under construction. Or had been abandoned partway through. It was impossible to know which. The pods were connected by a short enclosed walkway. The place was half-buried in snow. But someone was clearly living there: A stack of logs was visible near the front entrance, and smoke was leaking from chimneys in both pods.

The temperature was minus twenty-two Celsius.

Radio calls brought no response. We took the lander down and settled into the snow. At that point, while we were still in the lander, a door opened, and a gray-haired man wearing a sweater looked out at us. Finally, the radio came to life: “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Alex Benedict, Dr. Conover. You are Dr. Conover, right?”

“If I said no, would you go away?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay then, Benedict. What can I do for you?”

“We’re doing some research. I was hoping you’d be willing to answer a couple of questions, then we’ll get out of your way.”

“They must be important questions to bring you all the way out here. Where’d you come from?”

“Andiquar.”

“I can’t imagine what could be so important.” He folded his arms.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

“Me? Why would I mind? Well, you’re here; you might as well come inside.”

I pulled on the light jacket I’d brought with me while Alex slipped into a windbreaker and turned on the heater, but I didn’t think it would make much difference. I opened the hatch and we got out, lowered ourselves into the snow—it came up to my thighs—and slogged over to the front door. A second person appeared behind Conover. Lyra.

They literally had to help us through the snow and into the dome. Conover closed the door. A fire crackled happily behind a grate. “This is Lyra,” Conover said. “My wife.”

Lyra looked delighted to have company. She wasn’t young, but she had good features and a warm smile. “Let me get some coffee,” she said. “Would you like something to eat?”

We agreed that we’d settle for coffee, and Lyra disappeared into an adjoining room.

Conover was a big man, wide shoulders, deep basso profundo voice, dark eyes, large bushy eyebrows. He looked like the kind of guy who repaired rooftops for a living rather than someone who did anthropology. But there was something about him that signaled military. His features did not reflect emotions, and he moved with precision and economy. No pointless gestures, a voice that remained level and calm, and no indication that anything could surprise him. Certainly not visitors at that remote place.

“Gets chilly in this part of the world,” he said. He moved to help me off with my jacket, collected Alex’s coat, hung them in a closet, and threw another log on the fire.

I could smell the coffee. We heard water running, and a refrigerator door opened and closed.

The interior was unadorned, except for two pictures, and a framed certificate acknowledging Conover’s services to the National Historical Association. One picture was of himself and Lyra, taken in younger days. And the second was of an attractive young woman who might have been Lyra at about twenty. It caught Alex’s eye also. “She’s beautiful,” he said.

Conover nodded. “My daughter.” Brown hair, brown eyes, a good smile. I had a teacher once who said that the right sort of smile was all you needed to carry you successfully through life. If there were any truth to it, Conover’s daughter was loaded for bear.

She lived on Toxicon, he explained. Had met a banker, and the next thing he knew, she was gone. He was clearly not pleased with the match, and I thought it seemed out of place to share that kind of intimate information with strangers. Then I remembered where he was living.

“That can be painful,” Alex said. “But you didn’t expect her to stay here, did you?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not. And I know I’d have lost her anyway. When we told her we were coming here, she let us know how she felt. She was just out of school at the time, and it was a price we had to pay. Didn’t we, love?”

Lyra was back in the room, with coffee and some warm cinnamon buns. She nodded yes. And her eyes told me it wasn’t her favorite subject.

“She has a big family now,” said Conover. He crossed his arms and waited for the next question.

“We were dubious at first about coming here,” she said. “But Banshee has really been a remarkable experience. Hasn’t it, Hugh?”

“It was her idea,” he said. “But you don’t care about that.” He sat back. Tried his coffee. “So tell me again why you’re here. What did you want to know?”

“You were a friend of Sunset Tuttle’s?”

“Ahhh.” He nodded. “Yes. Poor Sunset. Spent his life chasing a dream. Which isn’t that bad if—” He hesitated.

“You succeed,” Alex said.

“Yes. What a pity.”

“Tell me about him.”

“He was a driven man.”

“So we’ve heard.”

“What you heard was the aliens, right?”

“Yes. Is there something else?”

“Oh, yes. He was convinced that the human race was going to hell.” He pressed his index finger to his lips, reluctant, perhaps, to say more. “You know about that, too?”

“It’s on the record,” Alex said.

“Yeah. I guess it is. And I’m not sure he wasn’t right.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The general decadence. Or maybe that’s not really correct. The truth is that we’ve always been greedy and stupid. We have no imagination, and the only reason we’ve survived this long is that we produce just enough smart people to keep us going.”

Alex nodded. “Let’s get back to the aliens. Is there any indication that you know of that he might actually have found an alien world?”

Conover took a long pull at the coffee. “No,” he said.

“He would have told you if he’d found something?”

“Alex, he’d have told the world.”

“What about—?”

“Yes?”

“What about if he found something that might have been a threat? That would have been better left undiscovered?”

“Like what?”

“Maybe highly advanced aliens who wanted to be left alone?”

“That’s a bit of a leap, don’t you think?”

“Would he have told you about them?”

Conover’s lips parted in a grin that suggested he’d never considered the possibility. “Let me say this: If he’d confided in anyone, I think it would have been me. But to answer your question, I suspect he would have felt compelled to remain silent.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Please call me Hugh.” He cleared his throat. “Are you suggesting such a thing happened?”

“No,” said Alex. “It’s only a hypothetical.”

“Yet it’s a hypothetical that brought you all the way out here.”

“After Tuttle’s death, Hugh, his logbook became your property.”

“That’s correct.”

“May I ask why?”

“Because he and I were essentially dedicated to the same cause. Although he took it far more seriously than I did. I never expected success. He did. It’s why he got into trouble.”

“Would you be willing to show us the logs?”

“I’d be happy to, Alex. Unfortunately, I don’t have them any longer. Our house was hit by burglars two or three days after I obtained them. They tried to disguise the purpose for the burglary by stealing a few items, some jewelry, and a few dishes. But I’ve always thought they were after the logs.”

“You never loaded them into the system?”

“Part of the deal was that I would not do that. He didn’t trust the security measures. He was afraid someone would get access.”

“What difference does it make if there’s nothing in the logs except reports of sterile worlds?”

Conover leaned forward and pushed his unruly hair back out of his eyes. “I don’t know. I wrote it off as an aberration.”

“Was Tuttle a guy who might have made unreasonable demands?”

“Not usually, no.”

“Okay, Hugh, one last thing: Did you get a chance to read through them yourself?”

“No. A few of them. But I was just beginning when they disappeared.”

“And you saw nothing out of the ordinary?”

He sank back into his chair. “Not a thing. It was just a record of failure. Like what I was going through.”

“Who else knew you had the logs?”

“I don’t know. Could have been anybody, I guess. I didn’t make an effort to keep it secret.”

Lyra smiled. Said nothing.

We sat listening to the fire.

“He’s been dead a long time now,” Conover said. “Maybe it doesn’t make any difference anymore.”

“Hugh, did you know Rachel Bannister?”

“Sure. Nice woman.” He smiled at Lyra. “Not at your level, love. But she was pretty good.”

Lyra smiled and rolled her eyes.

“What can you tell me about her?” Alex asked.

“Well, Sunset was in love with her.”

“Was she in love with him?”

“I thought so. Yes.”

“They never married.”

“He’d been married several times when they met. I think she just recognized he wasn’t a good bet for a marriage. She was conflicted about it. I saw her in tears a couple of times, but she was a tough woman, and I think she just realized that marrying him would ultimately turn into a disaster. Still, though, I suspect, had he lived, they would eventually have done it.”

“One more question, Hugh.”

“Sure.”

Alex fished the photos of the tablet out of his pocket and handed them over. “Have you ever seen this?”

Conover examined them. Shook his head no. Passed them to Lyra. “What is it?”

“It was found in the garden at Tuttle’s house. Basil told us he had seen it originally in a cabinet in his office. Tuttle’s office.”

“No, I can’t say I’ve ever seen it before.”

“We can’t match the symbols with any known human system.”

“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t make too big a deal out of that. There’ve been a lot of alphabets over sixteen millennia. Especially after we left Earth.”

We got to our feet. “Thank you,” said Alex.

“The cinnamon buns were good,” I added.

Conover got up. “Listen,” he said, “anytime you folks are in the neighborhood, pop by and say hello.”

“We’ll need a code word.”

“Just use your name. I’ll tell the ship. Oh, and one other thing: If you actually find any little green men—”

“Yes?”

“Let us know. Okay?”