Infinity Beach

5

“You really weren’t rattled?”

Solly’s eyes closed and he shook his head sadly, as in the presence of unlimited ignorance. “No, I really wasn’t rattled. I was cold.”

They were seated over coffee, salad, and fresh fruit in the hotel restaurant, Dean’s Top of the World. The mountains were crisp and clear in the morning sun, and the skyways were already crowded with vacationers. A train had just rounded Mount White and was gliding in over the treetops.

“Okay,” she said. “Me too.”

In the daylight, it was hard to believe she’d been so fearful. She’d learned something about herself that she didn’t know, didn’t want to know: She was a coward.

“It was odd about the tracks, though,” he said.

“Yes, it was.”

He frowned and waved it away. “Where are you going to hang the Kane print?”

“I don’t know. It’s a little somber for my tastes.”

“Then why didn’t you get something else?”

“I should have,” she agreed.

They took almost an hour to finish eating. Kim’s thoughts wandered while they admired the mountains and gorges visible through the window. She felt relieved to be rid of her obligation to Sheyel. We went out and inspected the woods, she would tell him with a clear conscience, and nothing untoward happened. Absolutely nothing. He’d be disappointed, of course. But maybe a dose of reality was what he needed.

Solly was saying how he’d never learned to ski and was asking whether she knew her way around a pair of poles. She didn’t, and was surprised when he suggested they should come back when their schedules permitted and learn. “There’s a school out on the slopes where they give lessons,” he added.

She thought she was too old to pick up skiing. But—”I’d be willing to try if you are.”

He rewarded her with a smile.

Back at the hotel room, Solly packed while Kim decided to get the call over with. She punched in Sheyel’s code and sat down on the sofa. The AI answered, asked who she was, and put her through immediately.

“Kim.” He sounded pleased to hear her voice. “It’s good to hear from you so quickly.” He left it on audio only.

“I’m at Eagle Point,” she said.

“You’re going into the valley?” he asked.

“I was there last night.”

“Wonderful. Oh, by the way, please forgive me. No picture; I’m not dressed.”

“It’s okay, Sheyel.”

“Did you see anything?”

“Like what?”

“Anything. Anything unusual.”

Suddenly she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. “I’m not sure,” she said, throwing her planned response overboard. She described the missing footprints. And she almost told him about the moving shadows she’d seen behind Sclly, but that sounded downright paranoid so she let it go.

“Yes,” he said. “That is precisely the sort of thing that seems to happen regularly out there. Or used to, when there were people in the area.” He recommended a couple of books on the subject and finished by asking if she was still convinced there was nothing strange going on.

“I think the wind did it, Sheyel.”

“You really think that’s possible? Well, never mind. What are you going to do next?”

“What’s to do?” She listened for his answer, but only heard the silence draw out. “Maybe you can do something for me.”

“If I can.”

“Do you think you could find out Yoshi’s shoe size?”

She listened to him thinking about it. “Not easily,” he said at last. “She’s been gone a long time. I doubt any of her shoes were kept.”

“Was she a clone?”

“Yes. Oh yes, I see what you mean. Of course.”

“When you find out, leave the information with Shep.”

“Very good. I’ll do it today.” Solly came back into the room, ready to go. “May I ask why?”

“I’ll tell you if it amounts to anything.”

Kim couldn’t resist suggesting they fly back over the Severin valley. Solly complied and they followed the river south again, this time in broad daylight. It was a bright, cloudless morning, already unseasonably warm. They watched a train come out of the Culbertson Tunnel, southwest of the city. At twenty-six kilometers, the Culbertson was the longest mag-lev tunnel in the world.

They stayed low so they could observe the countryside, gliding over canyons and through rifts. The previous night’s snow had coated everything. Just before passing the dam, they saw a pair of deer strolling casually through a glade. At Kim’s insistence, Solly took the Starlight around, but they were gone.

They came down low over the lake. Just offshore from Cabry’s Beach, they saw a raft, left from the days when Severin was alive with swimmers. It was. bobbing gently, as if waiting for someone to return.

They zeroed in on Tripley’s villa and spent several minutes inspecting it from the air. It looked even more bleak by day.

The surrounding area was lonely and beautiful, adorned with its fresh coat of snow, its spruce and oak trees, its towering peaks. The surface of Lake Remorse gleamed in the sun. The skeletal houses provided a grotesque mixture of transience and majesty. Kim wondered what it was about desolation that inevitably seemed so compelling.

“Seen enough?” asked Solly, for whom flying in circles held no charms.

She nodded and he directed the AI to take them back to Seabright.

They rode in silence for the first several minutes. Then Solly reached behind him for the coffee, poured two cups, and handed her one. “How did we get the spot with the Star Queen?” he asked.

Her mind was picking again at the missing footprints, trying to construct an explanation, anything that was possible. Channeled wind. Local hoaxers. Solly’s question consequently didn’t immediately register and she had to replay it. “Matt has friends everywhere,” she said. “There’ll be a lot of VIPs on hand, and he thought it would be a good PR spot for us.” The old liner was being converted into a hotel. The grand opening was Saturday.

“Have you reconsidered my suggestion?”

Lake Remorse drifted off the scopes. “What suggestion is that?”

“Talk to Benton Tripley. Since you’re going to Sky Harbor anyhow, it should be no trouble. And he might be able to tell you something about his father and about the Hunter.”

“You think he’d consent to talk to me?”

“Sure. Why not? He has a reputation for being pretty open to people.”

“Yeah,” she said. “What’s to lose? I’d have to leave a day early, but I’ll try it.” She looked up the number for Interstellar executive offices and punched it into the commlink.

A male voice answered: “Interstellar. General Administration.”

“Hello,” she said. “My name’s Dr. Kim Brandywine. I’m with the Seabright Institute. I’m going to be at Sky Harbor next Friday. Would it be possible to speak with Mr. Tripley? If he has some free time.”

Solly rolled his eyes.

“And what would that concern, Dr. Brandywine?”

“I’d like to talk with him about the Mount Hope incident.”

“I see. And you say Friday?”

“Yes.”

After a pause: “I’m sorry. That really won’t be possible. His schedule is booked for quite a while in advance. I can pencil you in for August eleventh.”

“August?”

“Yes. That’s really the best I can do.”

“Let it go.” She disconnected, turned and glared at Solly. “What?”

He shrugged.

“No,” she continued. “You have something to say, say it.”

“Kim, he is a CEO. You have to do better than suggest that maybe if he’s free, you’d like to see him. If possible.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Be a little less tentative. And have a better story than Mount Hope. You’re writing a book and you need his input.”

She pointed at the link. “Talk’s cheap. You want to try your luck? See if you can get me in?”

“It’s too late,” he said. “You’ve blown it. You’re going to have to take another tack.”

She looked at him, waiting.

“Give him an award,” Solly said.

“What?”

“Give him an award. Think public relations. Look at this as just another piece of public relations. Does Interstellar do anything for the Institute?”

“Yes,” she said. “They’re a major contributor. Not through generosity, of course. It’s a good tax write-off for them. And they get a lot of favorable publicity.”

“All right. Arrange for formal recognition. A plaque with his name on it. Take it up and present it to him.”

“The Solomon J. Hobbs Award,” she said.

“That would be good.”

“For service above and beyond.”

“My thought exactly.”

Actually it wasn’t a bad idea. It wouldn’t cost anything. Just a trophy. All she’d have to do would be run it by Matt. He’d go for it in a minute. “You think Tripley’d be amenable? On such short notice?”

“Are you serious? These guys at the top of major organizations—you can’t go wrong playing to their egos.”

She resisted the idea because she should have taken this route from the start. But Solly was right, of course. She wrote out several versions of the inscription for the award, decided what they should call it, and put together a submission letter.

Then, because time was short, she called Matt and laid it all out. He listened, liked the idea as she knew he would, informed her she was to speak to the Civic Welfare Society in a few days, and told her he’d get back to her. Twenty minutes later he was on the circuit. “It’s all set,” he told her. “You’ve an appointment at the Interstellar executive suites Friday at two P.M.”

“Very good,” she said. The link was only audio, so a triumphant smile was safe.

“You’re really getting into this,” said Solly.

They flew through a cloudless sky. Kim saw another aircraft in the distance, headed north.

She connected with Shepard.

“Hello, Kim,” said her house AI. “Can I be of assistance?”

“Yes. Have you heard anything this morning from Sheyel Tolliver?”

“No. Do you want me to alert you if something comes in?”

“Yes,” she said. “Please do.”

“Anything else?”

“What can you tell me about the Hunter? The Tripley Foundation starship? What do we have on it?”

There was a brief pause. “The Kile Tripley Foundation no longer exists. It was terminated thirteen years ago by Benton Tripley, and replaced with—”

“Never mind that,” said Kim. “Tell me about the ship.”

“The Hunter,” Shepard said, “went into service for the Foundation Midwinter 3, 544.” Midwinter was Greenway’s thirteenth month, added after December to make the calendar come out right. Midwinter usually consisted of twenty-two days, but it occasionally dropped a day, much as February sometimes gained one on the home world, in order to keep the celestial and terrestrial calendars in sync. “It was used primarily to make long-range exploratory voyages into previously unknown areas. It was sold by the Foundation to Alway Research in 578.”

“Where is it now?”

“It is currently the property of Worldwide Interior. It’s docked at their Sky Harbor facility.”

“Aren’t you the lucky one?” said Solly.

She activated an auxiliary screen. “Can we have a look at it, Shep? As it was in 573?”

An index appeared on the monitor. She flipped through a series of diagrams. It was small as interstellars went, a rich man’s yacht, designed by Tripley himself. It had been built as a duplicate of his home on Cedar Island. Main floor on the second level, centered on a gallery with staircases on both sides. Palomar carpeting, game room, study, main floor flight deck, upper floor mission control. External design had turrets and balconies. There were numerous viewing panels throughout, creating the standard illusion of windows inside and wraparounds on the external decks. One could sit on a porch, in effect, and look out at the cosmos as it would actually appear if the panels were made of glass.

Jump and main engines were located in the rear. Cargo, storage, and launch bay were on the bottom level.

She rotated the vessel and took the top off.

“You’re pretty good at that,” Solly said.

“At—?”

“Collecting and displaying data.”

“It’s the way I make my living. You don’t think we just pick potential donors out of a hat, do you?”

“You actually do research on those guys?”

“Sure. Solly, it costs a lot of money to fund the Institute. We just don’t have time to play hit-or-miss.”

“But there are privacy laws.”

“They’re pretty loose. Most of what you’ve done is out there somewhere if you just know where to look. You want me to show you some samples from your own life?”

“Let it go,” he said.

She smiled, brought the forward section of the Hunter in close, and examined the interior. Lush decor. Leather appointments. Plants. Wall hangings. Your classic executive mansion away from home.

Kim had been on an interstellar liner only once: when she was about twelve the family had gone to Minagwa, where her mother had relatives. It was an eleven-day voyage one way. If her memory was accurate, the rooms were small, the bulkheads dingy gray, and she’d thought the flight would never end. It had been exciting when they’d jumped out near that world’s brilliant gold sun. And Minagwa itself was a lovely place, twin worlds, both inhabited, both with oceans. But it hadn’t been worth the privations. When two months later she got back to Greenway she’d promised herself that was it. No more long-range travel bottled up in a glorified canister. And she kept her promise. She’d never done it again. Although she would have been willing to reconsider if someone had offered a flight on the Hunter.

The sale in 574 had been to a distillery executive. It changed hands several times over the next six years before Worldwide finally picked it up in a bankruptcy transaction. They were using it primarily to move executives and occasionally to chauffeur political figures.

She looked through the specifications, examining the details of the propulsion and navigation systems, life support, the onboard AI, and anything else that might eventually help. She was surprised to discover that the ship’s radio was omnidirectional, with enhancements.

That seemed odd until she recalled Hunter’s mission and the expectations of its passengers. They were not looking simply for life, but for intelligence. For them, success would come in one of two ways: the discovery of a city, or an encounter with another ship. If they found a city, they’d need general, rather than directed, broadcast capabilities. Hello to everybody. Kim was impressed: these people didn’t think small.

“Shepard,” she said, “connect me with Worldwide.”

The AI complied and a Worldwide graphic appeared onscreen, an animated starship smiling as it approached the corporation’s orbiting facility. A bay opened and light blazed out. A human hand wrote the Worldwide motto in gold script: STYLE AND SUBSTANCE. Then Kim was looking at a young woman, tall, blond, reserved.

“Good evening, Dr. Brandywine,” the woman said, reading Kim’s name off her monitor. “My name is Melissa. May I be of assistance?”

“Hello, Melissa. I’m a researcher for the Seabright Institute. I’d like very much to get a look at the Hunter. In person.”

She smiled and consulted something out of the picture. “Of course, Doctor. I can’t see that there’d be any difficulty. When did you wish to come by?”

“Friday?”

“That’ll be fine. Would late afternoon, say four P.M., be convenient?”

“Yes,” said Kim. “Thank you. Oh, and one more thing? I’m especially interested in the ship’s history.”

“Ah yes.” A smile appeared at the corners of Melissa’s lips. “The Mount Hope business.”

“That too,” she said. “Can you tell me whether it’s possible to see the logs for the last Tripley Foundation flight?”

“Oh, I’m afraid not, Dr. Brandywine. We really don’t have anything to do with that. I mean, the logs were never here.”

“Oh? Do you know who would have them?”

“I’m sure they’d have been turned over to the Archives when the ship first changed hands. That’s required by law.”

“Thank you, Melissa.” She signed off and summoned Shepard again. “I want to send a hypercomm message.”

“To?”

“I’m not sure. Operations at St. Johns. Check their administrative structure and you figure out where it should go.”

“Very good. Text?”

“Request the flight plan for the Hunter, last mission for the Tripley Foundation, Greenway year 573. Look up the date, whatever else it needs, and plug it in.”

“You want it transmitted immediately?”

“As soon as it’s ready.”

“Transmission time both ways will be about four days, Kim. Plus whatever time it takes them to put the response together.”

“Okay. And now you can get me the Archives, please.”

The circular seal of the Republic appeared: a white star on a field of green. GRAND REPUBLIC OF EQUATORIA was engraved along the upper rim, and its motto, PEACE, JUSTICE, FREEDOM, along the lower. Beneath the star she read NATIONAL ARCHIVES. Then the seal vanished and a young man gazed at her from behind a desk. He looked quite interested in what she had to say, suggesting he was a virtual secretary.

“Good evening, Dr. Brandywine,” he said. “I’m Harvey Stratton. How may I assist you?”

“Mr. Stratton, is it true the Archives stores the logs for interstellar flights?”

“And for interplanetary ones as well, Doctor.”

“Would it be possible to see the logs from a voyage that was completed in 573?”

“Oh.” His face clouded. “That comes under various privacy provisions. You’ll need a court order, I’m afraid.”

“A court order?”

“Oh yes. All ships’ logs are covered by the privacy statutes. Are you a law enforcement official?”

“No,” she said. “I was doing some research.”

Solly looked vastly amused.

“There is a provisionary public domain statute, however,” he said.

“Then they might be available after all?”

He consulted a screen. “For interstellar vessels, privately owned…” He hesitated, found what he wanted. “Looks like forty-five years from date of acquisition.”

“So—?”

“They’ll be available in eighteen years.” He smiled. “I guess that’s not much help.”

He ran down the various grounds which might persuade a court. Mostly they had to do with legal actions or engineering issues. Nothing sounded close to idle curiosity. She signed off.

“What now?” asked Shep.

“What would you recommend?”

“It seems to me that none of this is a fruitful line of endeavor. Little green men. Ghosts. Surely there’s a more advantageous way to spend your time, Kim.”

Solly’s eyes grew luminous. “Do you always get lectured by your AI?”

She ignored him. “What happened at Mount Hope, Shep?”

“I don’t know. But I can speculate.”

“Please do.”

“I think it not unreasonable that someone was careless with a small quantity of antimatter. It is otherwise very hard to account for the estimated energy yield and the absence of meteoric residue.”

“What would anyone have been doing with antimatter on the east slope of the mountain?”

“Perhaps trying to escape a pursuer. The explosion occurred three days after Kane and Tripley returned home from the Hunter. Both lived in the area. One vanished. I think it not unlikely that we are looking at the result of a theft gone wrong.”

“You’re suggesting Tripley stole his own fuel? Why?”

“It’s possible Kane took it, Tripley recovered it, and was unable to contain it. This is, of course, speculation based on no evidence.”

“What can you tell me about Benton Tripley?” she asked.

Shepard put everything on the screen. Benton was a clone of his father. In fact, more than half the population of Greenway during that period were clones. He was in his late thirties, had not married, but had a reputation as a womanizer. He was a board member for half a dozen influential organizations, a close personal friend of the Premier, the recipient of a dozen major philanthropic awards, the CEO of Interstellar, Inc., and the chairman of Lost Cause, which was the successor to the Tripley Foundation. Lost Cause devoted itself to raising money for various worthy enterprises. There were no poor anymore, but there were always children unexpectedly orphaned or cast aside, people who needed advanced educational opportunities, research possibilities, and so on. Lost Cause remained in the forefront of such efforts.

In fact, Lost Cause had stepped in to help Kim, providing scholarship funds after the deaths of her parents. But she’d never known much about the organization. There’d been a counselor who came around periodically to assure herself that Kim was all right, and the money transfers, which had arrived promptly every month. She’d eventually returned the money, but she’d always been grateful that Lost Cause was there when she needed them.

Benton Tripley looked precisely like his father, save that he was clean-shaven. He was tall, tanned, with brown, wavy hair brushed back, and a congenial smile that she didn’t believe for a minute. And there, she concluded, was another difference: Kile looked honest. There was something in Benton’s expression that she didn’t trust.

Shepard put up a series of pictures. She saw him shaking hands with other industrialists and with political figures, saw him surrounded by women in various vacation spots, saw him defending himself against charges of unfair practices in court. He seemed to be everywhere.

But there was something she could use: Kim saw three starship models in his office. Three.

And that gave her exactly the wedge she needed.

Shepard got back to her as the flyer approached Korbee Island. “Message from Sheyel Tolliver,” he said.

“Run it.”

Sheyel’s voice came on and gave the shoe size. “Anything else, Kim?” Shep asked.

She glanced at Solly, telling him silently that the size matched the shoe they’d found. “Yes. Put coffee on.”

“It’s a little less than definitive,” Solly said. “How many women would you say wear that size?”

“Quite a few,” she admitted. “How many of them do you think hang around starships?”