Infinity Beach

27

Kim was up early next day. She had a light breakfast, and then changed her appearance to that of a trim young male, including a mustache, which she thought made her look quite dashing. Then she took her rented aircraft out to Tora Kane’s neighborhood, timing her flight to be overhead when the archeologist came out the door. She had a cup in one hand and a leather case under her other arm when she got into her flyer and lifted off.

Kim monitored her flight until she was down at the dig site. Then she descended nearby in a glade, avoiding Kane’s landing pad because she didn’t want to take a chance of leaving a record of the aircraft with the house AI. There were only a few other dwellings in the area, but none within visual range. No one seemed to be abroad.

There was no way to be certain that she wouldn’t be recorded by a security system. If that happened, Tora would get a picture of a young man, and the plan would be blown, but she at least would escape detection.

She went behind the villa, got the ladder out of the shed, and used it to climb to the roof. She now removed her universal tap from a jacket pocket and secured it to a cornice. It was painted the same dull brown, so it would be almost invisible to anyone arriving in a flyer.

Satisfied, she climbed down, put the ladder back, and left.

She returned home to work on Aquilla Selby’s lines, but had hardly gotten started when Matt called to ask whether she was okay, by which he presumably meant had she been arrested yet? He also reported that he’d found a lab they could use to examine the Valiant, but that it would be a couple of weeks before they could get access to it.

He asked again whether she would not relent and give him access to the “bric-a-brac.” He was so mysterious that she knew anyone listening would understand he was trying to talk in code.

“Best to leave things as they are,” she told him.

“I don’t understand why you don’t trust me,” he said.

And she said the usual things, it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but these things have a way of getting out, and they needed to concentrate on security, and so on.

He gave up, and informed her he’d pared the list of potential researchers to six.

“Three at most,” she insisted, knowing even that was too many.

They agreed that no feelers would go out until the lab was available.

After he’d disconnected she sat for a while studying the Kane print, Storm Warning. It was an ominous landscape, ruined towers in the distance, oncoming thunderheads.

She ran through the Selby script several times before she was satisfied. Then she downloaded it into a compupak, had dinner, and went for a long walk in the twilight. The tides on Greenway did not share the rhythmic aspect they would have had under a single satellite. These were up and down all the time, pulled constantly in different directions by Helios and the four moons.

They were at extreme low tide, the ocean far out, more beach exposed than would usually be visible in a month’s time. She strolled along the water’s edge, letting the waves wash over her feet, watching the stars appear. They looked far away and she wondered again how anything capable of mastering those immense distances could behave so irrationally. Yet there had been the war with Pacifica.

Such things could happen apparently. The people who devised physical theory and constructed jump engines were not the same people who made political decisions, or who allowed themselves to be swept up by the current media craze, or to be ruled by centuries-old traditions that might once have served to hold nations together but had now become counterproductive.

Don’t assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals. Brandywine’s Corollary.

Maybe in the end she’d be remembered for some such principle rather than the discovery of the Valiant. She smiled and decided she’d be willing to settle for that.

The next morning she flew over to Bayside Park where she could use a private commbooth, ensuring that even if things went wrong no one would be able to track her down.

The booth was located in a mall along a gravel walkway off the ocean. It was still early in the season, and there were few people abroad: a few university students between classes, some locals taking their constitutionals. No tourists yet. The morning was bright and cloudless, and the air still cool, with a crisp wind coming inshore.

She tied in the Selby program and punched in Tora’s number.

The link chimed at the other end.

A couple of kids with balloons chased one another through the mall. She watched the long lines of breakers moving toward the beach.

“Hello?” Tora’s voice, audio only.

“Dr. Kane?” It was Kim who spoke, but Tora would be hearing the voice she’d constructed for Selby. “My name is Gabriel Martin. I was your father’s lawyer some years ago.”

Kim got a picture. Tora was wearing a light blue shirt and baggy blue slacks. Working clothes. She looked puzzled. “What can I do for you, Mr. Martin?”

Kim sent Selby’s image and the construct lawyer, she knew, now materialized in Tora’s projection area. He was a tall, aristocratic figure. “Doctor, let me say first that Markis was a close friend, as well as a client. I owe him a considerable obligation. I won’t go into that at the moment; the details don’t really matter.

“Unfortunately, I can no longer do anything for him, God rest his soul. But I am in a position to pass along some information that you might find useful.”

God rest his soul. That had sounded pretty good when she inserted it. Real lawyer talk to clients. But it sounded so artificial now that she bit her lip and waited to see whether Tora would recognize the charade. She didn’t.

“I appreciate the thought, Mr. Martin. And what information would that be?”

To Tora, the lawyer stood beside an expanse of desktop, covered with disks, pens, and a fat notebook. His wall showed a series of beribboned certificates, plaques, and a picture of Martin shaking hands with the premier himself. “I don’t know exactly how to put this, Doctor, because it’s only rumor, but I have it on quite reliable sources.”

Tora waited for him to come to the point.

Kim stretched the moment out by having Martin advise her that the information he was about to pass on was confidential, and that if she repeated it he would have no choice but to deny everything and to withdraw from any further participation in the proceedings.

“Yes,” she said, her impatience starting to show. “Quite so. So what is this about?”

“I understand the government has acquired the Hunter logs. The real ones.”

Tora paled and then recovered herself. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “What real logs? I understood the logs were filed in the Archives years ago.”

“Dr. Kane.” Kim allowed herself to sound simultaneously sympathetic and well informed. “I understand your reluctance to discuss this. We are after all talking about violations of law, are we not? Violations to which you have been party.”

“I beg your pardon.” Her tone got cold. She had to be wondering just how much her caller knew, and probably more to the point, how much the government had.

“It’s quite all right,” Kim continued, in Martin’s persona. “This information came to me because your father had friends at the highest levels. There are those who don’t want to see more damage done to his reputation, nor any harm come to his daughter, nor see his estate embroiled in extensive litigation, as could be the case if certain charges could be shown to have validity. Or even if sufficient doubt could be raised concerning his role in the Mount Hope incident, and possibly in the deaths of Yoshi Amara and Emily Brandywine. I know you were your father’s sole heir. And you should be aware that whatever monies or tangible goods you received out of the estate could be attached in any adverse judgment.”

She looked cornered. Kim also squirmed under a sudden assault of conscience. But she told herself there was no other way. The woman could have avoided all this by cooperating. “Even at this late date?” asked Tora. “Isn’t there a statute of limitations?”

“I’m afraid not. In a case of this type, in which lives have been lost and deliberate falsifications made to cover up responsibility—” He shook his head sadly. Kim had no idea whether that was true, but it didn’t matter. Tora was buying it for the moment, and that was all that counted.

“How reliable is your information, Mr. Martin?”

Okay: time to close out. Kim had accomplished what she wanted to do. “It’s correct, Dr. Kane.”

Tora studied the lawyer’s image. “If I need your help, will you be available?”

“Certainly,” he said. “I’d be happy to do what I can for you.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was unsteady.

“I hope I’ve been of assistance. Good day, Doctor.” And Kim disconnected.

She left the booth but used her commlink to call home and tie in with her monitoring system. The tag on the flyer would alert her if Tora went anywhere, just as the tap on the roof would listen in on any calls.

She wandered through the mall. Only a couple of the shops had opened. One carried sporting gear and she was looking at swimsuits when her alert sounded.

“Yes, Shep?” she said into her link.

“She’s calling the Mighty Third. The museum. Do you wish to listen?”

“Please.”

She heard the far-away ringing. Then an automated voice answered. “Good morning. Mighty Third Memorial Museum.”

“May I speak with Mikel Alaam, please?”

“Who may I say is calling?”

“Tora Kane.”

“One moment. I’ll see if he’s in.”

While she waited, Kim recalled Markis’s tenure as head of The Scarlet Sleeve. And Veronica King.

Hide in Plain Sight.

The Purloined Letter.

An observer would have seen a smile appear at the corners of her lips. I’ll be damned, she told herself.

“Hello, Tora. Nice to hear from you. How are you doing?” Kim recognized Mikel’s polite tenor.

“Pretty good, thanks, Mikel.” She paused. “It’s been a while.”

“Yes, it has.” He was embarrassed, Kim thought. This was probably the first time he’d spoken with her since her father’s display came down. “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you were planning on being in the museum later this morning.”

“Yes. I’ll be here. I have a conference at ten-thirty. Are you coming over?”

“Yes. I thought I’d drop by if it’s convenient.”

“Tora, I’m sorry about the problem.”

“I understand, Mikel. It’s not your fault.” Her tone suggested otherwise. “When will you be free?”

“The meeting won’t last more than an hour. After that I’m at your disposal.” Kim detected a reluctance in his voice. He thinks she’s coming to plead her father’s case.

“Can we manage lunch?” It seemed as much a directive as an invitation.

“Yes. I’d like that. Very much.”

There was some small talk, it’ll be good to see you again, I’ve been meaning to call but we’ve been so busy. Then they agreed how much they were looking forward to seeing each other again and broke the connection.

Good. What to do next?

Hide in Plain Sight.

She’d hoped to follow Tora Kane to the Hunter logs. The risk was that she would destroy the records immediately upon recovery. Kim had hoped she would prove to be too much of a scientist to do that, but one could never be certain. In any case, she’d gotten lucky. She didn’t even need to follow the tag, as she’d expected to do. Instead, Kim had been given an opportunity to get there first. To arrange things so that Gabriel Martin’s dark warning looked valid.

But time was short.

She called Shepard.

“What can I do for you, Kim?”

“Shep, I want you to bring up a piece of correspondence from the Mighty Third. Duplicate their stationery and give me a letter from them agreeing to see one Jay Braddock today about the Pacifica War assignment. The letter should assure Braddock the run of the place.”

“What’s the Pacifica War assignment, Kim?”

“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t exist.”

“You want me to sign it too?”

“Lift Mikel Alaam’s signature. He’s the director.”

“Kim, that’s forgery.”

“I don’t know any other way to put his name on the document.”

Shep’s electronics were making funny noises. “You know,” he said, “you’ve become a professional bandit.”

“Can’t be helped.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Clothes,” she said. “I need a change of clothes.”

Kim arrived at the museum at ten-forty, again dressed in male attire and sporting her mustache. She wore a tight undergarment to contain her breasts and a loose-fitting embroidered blouse to hide what she couldn’t suppress. Her hair was now bright red. Her flesh tones had been slightly altered, and she wore dark lenses. Mikel himself, she was certain, would not recognize her. She also had two data disks, carefully labeled, in her pocket.

She flashed a congenial smile at a young woman in the administrative offices, altered her voice as best she could, and asked confidently for the director. “My name’s Jay Braddock,” she said. “I’m a researcher with Professor Teasdale.” Teasdale was the prizewinning historian of the Pacifica War era.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Braddock—” said the young woman.

“Dr. Braddock—” Kim corrected gently.

“Dr. Braddock, but he’s in conference at the moment.” Her name tag identified her as Wilma LaJanne. Kim decided she was a graduate student.

“This is unfortunate,” Kim persisted.

Wilma checked her computer. “His schedule isn’t free until midafternoon.”

“That can’t be right,” Kim said. With considerable dignity she produced the letter Shep had prepared for her. “I have an appointment. At ten forty-five.”

Wilma looked at the letter, frowned, and moved her lower lip back and forth. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dr. Braddock. I’ll inform him when he comes out that you’re here. There’s not much more I can do.”

“When do you expect the meeting to be over?”

“About eleven-thirty, sir. But it’s really hard to say.”

“That won’t do at all,” Kim said. “Not at all. I’m on a deadline, you understand. Professor Teasdale is not going to be happy.” She contrived to look pained and then glanced hopefully at Wilma, inviting her to volunteer. When she didn’t, Kim folded her arms and smiled at the young woman. “I wonder if you might be able to help. I don’t really need much.”

“I’d like to,” she said doubtfully. “But I’ve only been at the museum for a couple of weeks.”

Kim retrieved her letter, folded it, and slipped it into a pocket. “You know who Professor Teasdale is, right?” A nod. “You may also know she’s working on a definitive history of the Pacifica War.”

“Yes,” she said, taking a stab, “I had heard.”

“The museum had until recently a display on the 376 and the battle of Armagon. Back in the east wing.”

“Yes. We took it down just a week or so ago. After the truth came out about Markis Kane.”

Kim let her dismay show. “That was a terrible business, wasn’t it?”

Wilma showed by the way she set her jaw that she was embarrassed the museum had ever raised an exhibit to honor such a man.

“Anyway,” Kim continued, “the exhibit has some factual data which would be very helpful to us. I wonder if you could show me where the material is now? And arrange for me to have access to it for a bit?”

She looked around for someone to consult. Or pass the problem to. Fortunately there was no one. “I’m not sure I can do that, sir.”

Kim tried a desperate smile. “I promise I won’t disturb anything. It would be a great help, and I only need a few minutes.”

Wilma was trying to decide whether the request had a potential for getting her into trouble.

“Professor Teasdale is a close friend of Mikel’s,” Kim added helpfully.

The woman’s lips curved into a smile. Kim suspected she was somewhat taken with Jay Braddock. Amusing notion.

“Of course,” said Wilma. “Let me see if I can find a key.”

She went into one of the offices and Kim heard voices. Moments later a dark-complexioned man with ice blue eyes peered out the door at her, frowned, and withdrew without showing any further sign that she existed. Wilma came back with a remote.

“That was Dr. Turnbull,” she said, without further comment, as though Turnbull were known far and wide.

She led the way to a cargo lift, and they descended into the bowels of the building. Wilma stood nervously off to one side until the lift stopped and the doors opened. Lights came on and Kim saw that they were in a storage area divided into cages. Wilma had to look around a bit, but she finally figured out where she wanted to go. “This way,” she said, walking toward the back. More lights came on. Wilma pointed the remote, locks clicked, and the doors of two cages opened. “This is the stuff from the 376 display.”

The command chair, the parts from the missile launcher, the assorted other sacred artifacts from the battle of Armagon, were already covered with dust. Someone had stacked containers nearby, but no packing had been done yet.

“What exactly were you looking for, Dr. Braddock?”

Kim wanted her to leave but Wilma stayed close by. Which meant she had orders to make sure the visitor didn’t make off with anything. Okay, that was reasonable. “Details of command and control functions during the engagement,” she said.

Kim put a hand in her pocket to assure herself the two replacement disks were still there. She’d labeled them in the manner of the two disks that had been on display: 376 VISUAL LOG, JUNE 17, 531 and 376 SYSTEMS DATA, JUNE 17, 531. It was one of the most celebrated dates in Greenway’s checkered history.

There was material here that had not been in the original exhibition, mostly parts from the interior of the 376 and other ships involved at Armagon: lockers and chairs, a replica of a captain’s quarters, an array of mugs carrying the insignia of the various vessels, uniforms, copies of letters sent by the Council to the families of those killed in action.

Kim mentally waved it all aside and concentrated on finding the logs.

“Can I help in any way, Dr. Braddock?” asked Wilma.

“Call me Jay,” Kim said. She realized she had not been mistaken about her effect on the woman, who smiled at her invitingly. She knew the museum aide would not know where anything was: she’d had trouble just finding the cage. Best was to avoid calling her attention to the disks. “No,” she said. “That’s quite okay. I believe I can find everything.”

Wilma backed off a bit and Kim saw a package wrapped in plastic with a sticker marked LOGS. It was the right shape, and it was on top of a worktable that was identified as having once been in the 376 tactical display center. Kim rummaged among other materials until Wilma looked away, and then she picked up the package and peeled off the plastic.

Two disks.

VISUAL LOG and SYSTEMS DATA, JUNE 17, 531.

At the same moment she heard the whine of the lift. Coming down.

Wilma looked toward the sound and Kim dropped the disks into her pocket and brought out the substitutes.

The lift stopped and doors opened.

There were voices.

Mikel. And a woman.

Tora.

“Oh,” said Wilma, gratified. “That’s Dr. Alaam now.”

The meeting must have broken up early. “He knows I’m here?”

“I left a message.”

Kim pretended to examine the substitute disks, then quickly rewrapped them and put the package back on the worktable.

Mikel and Tora were at the gate, both looking surprised. “What’s going on?” asked Mikel, glancing from Wilma to Kim. “Is this Braddock?”

“Yes,” said Wilma.

“I assumed you were waiting upstairs.” He looked carefully at Kim, and her heart stopped while she waited for recognition to come. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“We’ve met once or twice,” she said, speaking in a low register. “Professor Teasdale is still working on her history of the period, and I’ve been gathering materials.”

“Yes,” he said. “I recall. Well, good to see you again, Braddock. We’re happy to cooperate, of course. I’d suggest in future though that you let us know in advance that you’re coming.”

“They did,” said Wilma. “He has a letter from us.” Diplomatically, and fortunately for Kim, she did not say, “from you.”

“Oh.” Mikel was pondering the comment when Tora Kane assumed center stage. “I wonder if we can get on with it.”

“Yes,” said Mikel. “Of course.”

Kim smiled politely. “Well,” she said, “I think I have everything I need.”

“Already?” asked Wilma. “That was quick.”

“We only wanted a couple of verifications.” She nodded to Tora, who was standing with her arms folded, pretending to be interested in a navigational console. Kim could barely suppress a grin: they were waiting for her to leave so they could pocket the disks.

No. More likely, Mikel knew nothing. Tora was playing the same game Kim had. She wondered what kind of story she’d told the director. Or whether she had simply bought him off without explanation. In either case, nothing would happen while she and Wilma were in the neighborhood.

Kim made her farewells and, accompanied by the aide, slipped into the elevator. Wilma was clearly inviting Jay to make a move. When he didn’t, she looked briefly disappointed and got off at the main floor. Kim rode up to the roof.

Tora’s Kondor was parked in a bay off the taxi pad. Kim wandered over to it, removed the microtransmitter, climbed into a cab, and rose into the sunlight in high good humor.

She inserted the visual log and instructed Shep to run it.

The wall over the sofa changed texture, the flatscreen appeared, and she was looking at the Hunter pilot’s room. A technician was working and his shoulder patch was visible:

The date, translated to Greenway time, was February 12, 573.

Specialists came and went, calibrating sensors, checking subspace communications, and performing a myriad other tasks.

The sequence was identical with her recollection of the version she had taken from the Archives. She fast-forwarded. The technicians raced through their tasks, then left, and the picture blinked. The timer leaped ahead more than two hours and Kane appeared.

She switched back to normal play. Kane turned and looked into the imager, directly out of the screen at Kim. His jaw was set, his mouth a thin line. He ran through a checklist, got out of his chair, and disappeared. The imager shut off. Sixteen minutes later, ship time, it blinked on again.

“Hunter ready to depart,” he told St. Johns control.

“Hunter, you are clear to go.”

Kane warned his passengers they were thirty seconds from departure, and his harness locked in place.

Kim watched it all again: The launch of the Hunter, Kane’s warning to Kile during the early minutes of the flight that the vessel would need a general overhaul when it got back, the jump to hyperspace. She watched the passengers come forward one by one and she listened to the now-familiar conversations. She hastened through the periods when Kane was alone in the pilot’s room.

The Hunter team talked about what they hoped to find in the Golden Pitcher. The Dream.

Nothing else mattered.

Tripley’s recurrent assertions, “We’re going to do it this time, Markis; I know it,” took on special poignancy.

She saw again Kane’s infatuation with Emily. And hers with him.

She watched moodily, not expecting the record to deviate from the one she remembered until Hunter arrived off Alnitak. And probably even then it would not happen until just before they encountered the celestial. She was wrong.

It was almost three A.M. on day six when Kane, wearing a robe, appeared in the pilot’s room with a cup of coffee. He sat down, checked his instruments, looked at the time, and activated his harness. “Okay, everybody, buckle in.”

Voices broke in over the intercom.

Yoshi: “Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

Emily: “We have a surprise for you.”

Yoshi: “In the middle of the night?”

Tripley: “Yes. It’s worth it.”

Yoshi: “So what is it? Markis, what are we doing?”

Kim froze the picture, sat back in her chair, and stared at Kane’s image in the glow of his instruments. In the doctored version, this hadn’t happened.

No surprises for Yoshi.

And she knew now why Walt Gaerhard, the Interstellar technician, had been reluctant to talk about the jump engine repairs to which he’d signed his name.

There had been no repairs.

There’d been no damage.