Orchid

Chapter 7

"Take it easy, Al," Rafe said. "I've got everything under control."

"Under control? Under control? Is that what you call it?"

Alfred G. Stonebraker's frosty gray eyes glinted with the sort of fierceness that made hardened business executives and ruthless competitors alike tremble. He thumped the top of the small garden table with an exasperated fist. "Stonebraker Shipping is teetering on the top of a cliff, about to be pushed over the edge by that conniving little twerp, Culverthorpe, and you tell me you've got everything under control?"

"Yes." With the ease of long practice and natural inclination, Rafe ignored his grandfather's icy glare. Alfred G. was a businessman of the old school. He did a lot of yelling when he was not happy.

His own techniques were different, Rafe thought as he stretched out his legs and crossed his feet at the ankles. Much quieter.

He lounged back in his chair and contemplated the elaborately terraced gardens spread out before him. From his position on the terrace he could see all the way to the arbor.

As a child he had spent a lot of time in this horticultural fantasy land. His parents had brought him here often to visit his grandparents. Some of his earliest memories were of exploring the maze and sailing small boats on the pond.

He and Alfred G. had been good buddies in those days. That, of course, had been during the period when his grandfather had blithely assumed that Rafe would follow in his footsteps.

The rift between them had not occurred until Alfred G. had tried to coerce Rafe into joining Stonebraker Shipping. Rafe had known from the beginning that he could never work for his grandfather. Intuitively he had understood that they were too much alike. Besides, Rafe did not take orders well. Alfred G. was very fond of giving orders.

The ensuing battle of wills between the two had been watched from a wary, respectful distance by the various members of the family. No one, not even Rafe's parents, had dared to intervene, much less tried to mediate.

As Rafe's mother had wryly pointed out, a smart person did not step between two quarreling predators.

Fifteen years ago, there had been only one possible conclusion to the confrontation. In crude terms, Alfred G. had still been the alpha male of the clan. Rafe had understood that. He had packed his bags and left for the Western Islands.

When he returned he had been seasoned by several years of living on the edge of a jungle and by the violent episode known as the Western Islands Action.

Rafe had staked out his own territory in New Seattle, careful to avoid trespassing into his grandfather's realm. But he had kept tabs on the family firm and he had watched with brooding anger as Alfred G.'s old-fashioned business methods led Stonebraker Shipping into perilous waters.

The day had finally come when Alfred G. had accepted the fact that it was time for him to step down. He had summoned Rafe to a warrior's summit, prepared to hand over control of the faltering firm to the only other member of the clan who could save it.

Unfortunately, he had waited a little too long.

What Alfred G. had not realized until too late was that his ambitious nephew, Selby Culverthorpe, had been biding his time, awaiting a moment of weakness. With the savvy, stealthy cunning of a hyena-jackal, Selby had slipped past Alfred G.'s guard.

Working behind the scenes, Selby had laid the groundwork that he hoped would enable him to steal the prize of Stonebraker Shipping from under the protective paws of Alfred G.

Overnight, the orderly transfer of power which Alfred G. had envisioned was transformed into a desperate, secret effort to save the company. The threat to Stonebraker Shipping had united Rafe and Alfred G. as nothing else could have done.

Alfred G. picked up a knife and sliced a muffin in half with a slashing motion. "As far as I can tell, you haven't made any progress at all. The annual board meeting is less than two months away and you haven't even found yourself a wife, damn it."

"I'll have one lined up by the time the board meets. Everything else is in place."

"Humph." Alfred G. looked unconvinced. "Did you convince Taylor and Crawford to back off until you take control of the company?"

"Yes. Steve Taylor worked for me for a while in the Islands. We came to an understanding a few weeks ago. He gave me his word that Taylor and Crawford will wait until after the board meeting before they respond to the proposal to spin off the container division."

"Well, that's something at least. What about the distribution problems at the New Portland warehouse?"

"The problem has been resolved."

"How?"

"The new inventory control system had a glitch. It's fixed. I've also had a talk with Kimiyo Takanishi at Ta-kanishi Freight. I convinced her that she would get a better contract from me than she would from Selby."

"She'll wait until after the board meeting to negotiate?"

Rafe picked up his cup of coff-tea. "She'll wait."

Alfred G. sank his teeth into a slice of muffin. His eyes narrowed. "Why can't you find yourself a nice young woman like Kimiyo?"

Rafe grinned. "Mrs. Takanishi is old enough to be my mother. I'll admit she's very charming and a brilliant businesswoman, but even if she was willing to marry me, we'd have a small problem with the fact that she's married. It wouldn't be easy to get rid of Ray Takanishi. He's as tough as you are."

"True." Alfred G. glumly munched his muffin. "Has that damned marriage agency sent you out on any dates yet?"

"Back off, Al I told you, everything's under control."

"Sonovabitch, Rafe. Time is running out. Haven't you got a single possibility lined up yet?"

Rafe hesitated. "As a matter of fact, I have."

A hopeful look gleamed in Alfred G.'s predatory gaze. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

Rafe braced his elbows on the arms of the lawn chair. He steepled his fingers and regarded the maze in the center of the garden. "Because it's far from being a done deal."

"Why not?"

"We don't have much in common. And apparently she's as difficult to match as I am."

"How do you know that?" Alfred G. asked sharply.

"She's been registered even longer than I have. A full year, in fact. She's only had one date during that time."

"Sounds to me like you both have more in common than you think."

"What the hell do you mean?"

Alfred G. chuckled. "Neither of you can get a date for Saturday night. Tell you what. Bring her to my birthday party. Let me have a look at her. I'll tell you whether or not she'll suit."

Rafe tried to envision Alfred G. and Orchid socializing here in the gardens at what was considered one of the city's most important social events of the year. "Serve you right if I did bring her."

Alfred G. stopped smiling. "You are coming to the party, aren't you?"

It would be the first time he had attended since he had walked out on his heritage fifteen years ago, Rafe reflected. It would send a signal to his cousin that he could expect a fight over Stonebraker Shipping.

Attending Alfred G.'s birthday party would be the first shot over Selby's bow. An announcement that war had been declared.

"Wouldn't miss it," Rafe said.

"The relic was similar to the others that you see in that case." Alexander Brizo gestured toward the locked glass cabinet at the end of a row of laboratory workbenches. "Made of the same material. A bit longer and narrower in shape than the object on the left."

Orchid walked to the cabinet and gazed, fascinated, at the collection of alien artifacts. It was clear from their odd designs that they had not been made to fit human hands. They were all fashioned from a silvery alloy that defied analysis.

"This is the first time I've seen any of the relics outside the museum," Orchid said. "They really are strange, aren't they?"

"Very." Brizo sighed. "We don't know much more about them now than we did when Lucas Trent brought in the first batch. We can't even identify the components of the alloy the aliens used to make these objects. All we know is that the items were not made of anything found here on St. Helens."

Rafe came to stand behind Orchid. He studied the objects in the case. "Whatever it is, it must be something incredibly different from anything the first generation colonists brought with them from Earth."

"Quite true." Brizo's brows came together in a sober frown. "The fact that the alloy did not disintegrate within months after it was exposed to St. Helens' atmosphere the way the Founders' Earth-based materials did, means that it is alien in every sense of the word."

"Any idea yet how old the relics are?" Orchid asked.

"Our best psychometric-talents estimate that they're at least a thousand years old. Maybe more."

"Too bad the fourth Chastain Expedition hasn't found any biological remains in that so-called alien tomb they're excavating," Rafe said.

"Not a trace," Brizo said. "If there ever were any bodies inside, they decomposed eons ago. The archeolo-gists have not found so much as a bone fragment."

"Maybe the aliens didn't have bones," Orchid said. "Maybe they were as different from us physically as this alloy is from our metals."

"Or maybe they escaped St. Helens after all, but had to do it in a hurry," Rafe suggested. "That would explain why they left a lot of their equipment behind."

"It's certainly possible," Brizo said. "The most popular hypothesis at the moment is that the aliens came to St. Helens the same way the first generation colonists from Earth did, through the Curtain. We assumed that they got stranded here when the Curtain closed without warning, just as the Founders were stranded. But perhaps the Curtain opened again long enough to allow the aliens to escape."

Orchid stared at the strangely shaped relics behind the glass. Every schoolchild knew the history of the colonization of St. Helens. A little more than two hundred years earlier a mysterious Curtain of energy had materialized in space very near Earth. It had proved to be an interstellar gate between the home planet and a hospitable new world the colonists named St. Helens.

But shortly after the first generation settlers had arrived the Curtain had closed without warning. Cut off from the home planet, the small population of humans had been left to fend for themselves. A desperate battle for survival had ensued. The green world of St. Helens had welcomed the humans but it did not tolerate their Earth-based technology. Something in the very air and soil of the planet was anathema to the machines and materials of Earth.

The aliens had had better luck so far as their technology was concerned, but they, themselves, had disappeared.

"You have no idea at all why Theo Willis would have stolen that one particular relic?" Rafe asked.

"No." Brizo shrugged. "It wasn't any more unusual or interesting than the others except for the fact that it was found outside the tomb, rather than inside."

"Outside?"

"It was imbedded in a small deposit of jelly-ice. Must have fallen into it a thousand years ago and just sat there until the expedition team discovered it."

"What did it look like?"

"It was a simple narrow rod about a foot long. A bit like a thin flashlight except that there was no visible means of generating light."

Orchid looked at him. "You said Theo Willis was found at the bottom of the cliff the day after the relic disappeared?"

"Yes. The police ruled it a suicide, but I'm more inclined to think it must have been an accident. I don't see why Willis would have killed himself right after stealing the relic. The problem is that the artifact was not found at the scene of the crash. It has disappeared."

Orchid frowned. "What makes you so sure that Willis took the relic in the first place?"

"Because he seemed keenly interested in that one item in the collection," Brizo explained. "In fact, a few days before it disappeared, Theo asked to be assigned to the team that was responsible for conducting the analytical tests on it. He often stayed late to work on his projects and he was alone here the night the artifact disappeared."

"There was no sign of a break-in?" Rafe asked.

"None." Brizo gazed at the case full of relics with a deeply troubled expression. "Whoever took the artifact had the code to the jelly-ice lock."

Orchid studied the case. "Theo had that code?"

"Yes." Brizo looked at Rafe with a puzzled expression. "The only thing I don't understand is why he took that particular artifact. If he was going to steal one for a collector, as you suggested, why not take one of the more interestingly shaped items?"

"Good question," Rafe said. "My, ah, associate, Ms. Adams, and I will find out."

Half an hour later Orchid stood beside Rafe on the sidewalk in front of the small, depressing little house that had belonged to Theo Willis.

"You're sure it's all right to just go in and look around?" she asked uneasily.

"I wouldn't have invited you to come along if I thought we'd get arrested," Rafe assured her. "I know I'd never hear the end of it."

"Are you implying that I have a tendency to nag?"

"I would never be so crass as to suggest such a possibility. Ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

It occurred to Orchid that Rafe was enjoying himself. She could hardly complain. She was tense and somewhat anxious because of what they were about to do, but she was also undeniably excited. There were answers to be found. Tonight she and Rafe might discover some of them.

She followed warily as he led the way around to the back of the darkened house.

There was a chill in the midnight air. Fog had gathered on the bay and was slowly, methodically swallowing the city. Long, wispy tendrils curled in the street behind Orchid. The streetlight at the end of the block glowed beneath a shroud of mist. The reflected glare did little to illuminate the scene.

Rafe seemed to have no problem navigating the foggy night. He did not even require a focus link. Orchid figured that finding Theo's back door was probably a snap compared to locating a secret exit in the utter darkness of Elvira Turlock's rare book gallery.

When Rafe disappeared around the back porch, she hurried to catch up. She did not want to lose sight of him in the fog.

She rounded the corner and experienced a moment of alarm when she could not see him.

"Rafe?"

"Over here."

She peered closely and saw him move, a dark shadow against even deeper blackness. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a way of fading into the background?"

"Is that a polite way of telling me that I don't have a scintillating personality?" A soft click sounded in the darkness. "Here we go."

"Did you break the lock?"

"No. I picked it. There's a difference." The door squeaked on its hinges. "Come on. We haven't got all night."

She made her way cautiously to the rear door and gazed into the darkened kitchen. She glimpsed another shadowy movement and realized that Rafe was already inside. She started to join him.

And promptly stubbed her toe on the concrete step she had not noticed.

"Ouch. Darn it."

"Watch the step," Rafe said from out of the darkness.

"Now you tell me." She flexed her toes inside her sneakers and decided that nothing was broken. Gingerly she entered the house.

It smelled musty and stale, as if it had been closed for several days. Which it no doubt had been, she reminded herself.

"Any reason we can't turn on the flashlight?" she asked as she trailed after Rafe down a narrow hall.

"Sorry. Forgot you couldn't see as well as I do in the dark." There was a soft snick as Rafe clicked on the small flashlight he had brought along. "Better?"

"Much." Orchid trailed after him down a short hall into the sparsely furnished parlor. The lovingly polished vio-piano in the corner was the only object in the room that had any personality. "Theo didn't get out a lot. He was either at work or here, playing his precious vio-piano."

Rafe's face was unreadable behind the narrow beam of the flashlight. "I'd gathered that much. Let's see what else we can find."

There was nothing on the walls except a calendar. When Rafe aimed the flashlight at it Orchid saw that it was the cheap kind traditionally handed out as advertising by insurance companies.

"He didn't even hang any pictures," she said.

"Probably just as well." Rafe skimmed the flashlight across a small, neat row of technical magazines. "I hate to think of the kind of taste in art a guy like Willis would have had."

Orchid smiled sweetly. "Come now. Surely it couldn't have been any worse than my taste in poetry."

There was a beat of silence from Rafe.

"You did make your opinion of my literary tastes very clear when we were in Mrs. Turlock's gallery, you know," she said.

"They're not quite the same as mine." He paused meaningfully. "On the other hand we do share similar tastes in architecture."

"Okay, so I like your house. But it's probably just a bizarre fluke that we both have a thing for Later Expansion period architecture."

"Probably." Rafe opened a cupboard door and aimed the flashlight inside. "What happens if Affinity Associates comes up with a match for you who likes meta-zen-syn philosophical poetry?"

"I'll use it as an excuse to reject him," she said lightly.

Rafe swung around so quickly she jumped in surprise.

"You'd reject a potential agency match just because he doesn't share your taste in poetry?"

"Why not? I rejected the one match they got me because I didn't like his psychic talent. Hey, when it comes to shallow, I can outdo anyone."

Rafe pinned her in the glare of the light "What kind of talent was he?"

"A charisma-talent." She held up a hand. "I know, I know, charisma is not supposed to be a talent It's a personality characteristic. But trust me, Preston Luce has a talent for charisma. What's more, he uses it to get what he wants. He's a worm-snake with really great teeth."

"Preston Luce?"

"Dr. Preston Luce, if you please. Look, are we going to search this place or stand around all night discussing my one and only agency date?"

"At least you got one."

"You want the truth?" she said. "I'm scared to death that Affinity Associates will send me another very nice candidate one of these days. Maybe they'll send someone who actually appreciates the same books that I appreciate. Someone who likes to eat leftover pasta casserole at midnight. Someone who won't interrupt me when I'm writing. Heck, I'm terrified that the agency will send me Mr. Right."

"Why does that scare you?"

She exhaled slowly. "Because I don't trust any marriage agency to find Mr. Right for me."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm an ice-prism. I don't think the syn-psych people know enough about ice-prisms yet to match them properly."

"You don't trust their para-profiling capabilities?"

"No. Heck, they couldn't even weed out Preston Luce, professional charmer and all-around bastard."

"I wouldn't hold that against Affinity Associates. You said he was a charisma-talent. I met one once, a politician. They're hard to detect."

"All the same, I'm not looking forward to getting a second call from the agency."

Rafe looked as if he wanted to argue the point. She wondered why her marriage prospects or lack of same interested him. But before she could ask, he turned and splashed the beam of the flashlight across a chest of drawers.

"It would probably be a good idea if we finished our business here and got out. No sense arousing the curiosity of a neighbor."

Orchid thought about the nearly deserted street of darkened houses outside. "I don't think anyone in this neighborhood signed up for the local block watch."

"Probably not." Rafe began to go through the dresser drawers in a methodical fashion. "You take the closet."

Obediently she opened the door to reveal a small collection of precisely hung slacks and shuts. "What am I looking for?"

"Anything that looks like it doesn't belong there."

It did not take long to go through Theo Willis's limited wardrobe. Ten minutes after she had started work, Orchid closed the closet door and looked at Rafe.

"Nothing," she said.

"Nothing here, either." He started back toward the hall. "There must be something. There's always something."

"You didn't know Theo," she muttered as she followed him back into the living room. "He was a man of limited interests."

Rafe paused half way down the hall when the flashlight played across the wall calendar. "Hang on a second."

"What is it?"

"Morgan Lambert said Willis was seeing a syn-psych shrink."

"So?"

"So he must have had regular appointments. Maybe he noted them on the calendar." Rafe took a closer look at the little squares around each day. "Here we go. Looks like he had several appointments during the last couple of weeks with a Dr. Q.A."

Orchid was intrigued. "How do we find out who Dr. Q.A. is?"

"There are three possible ways to find out the doctor's name. We can go through the phonebook and call every syn-psych shrink with those initials. Or we can look for Willis's bank book to see if he paid for the visits with a check."

"What's the third method?"

"The easy way." Rafe flipped the pages on the calendar. "We go back to the day Willis made the first appointment and hope that he wrote out the doctor's full name the first time he noted it down the way most people do."

Orchid edged closer. She scanned the little boxes as Rafe turned the pages. A thrill of discovery raced through her when she spotted a name. "There. The fifteenth, two months ago. Dr. Quentin Austen. That must be it."

"It would be very interesting to talk to Dr. Austen," Rafe mused.

"Yes. He could tell us something about Theo's state of mind in the days before he died." Orchid's excitement subsided. "But it's not likely Austen will give us much information about a former patient, even if that patient is dead."

"I'm sure we can convince Dr. Austen to help us," Rafe said a little too smoothly.

Orchid opened her mouth to ask him what made him so certain he could get Austen to talk. She closed it again when he suddenly raised a hand to hush her.

She saw him go very still in the shadows, as though he was listening to sounds she could not hear. He turned toward the draped window.

A chill shot through Orchid. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. Something's not right."

"How do you know?"

"I just know." Rafe's words were no more than a whisper. He clicked off the flashlight, reached for her hand and pulled her toward the back door. "Time to leave."

Orchid did not argue. A million questions seethed in her brain but she decided this was not the time to ask them. She allowed Rafe to haul her down the hall far more quickly than she would have liked. She could scarcely make out the vague shapes around her but Rafe was as sure-footed as a cat-dog.

He led her swiftly to the back door but there he paused once more. Orchid peered through the window at what appeared to be a solid wall of gray mist. The vapor glowed eerily with the reflected light of the street lamp it had recently devoured.

"The fog's gotten worse," she said softly. "A lot worse. It's going to be a miserable drive home."

"We'll be all right"

"I've never seen it quite this bad." Orchid's unease grew stronger. "I can't even see the house next door."

It was true. The fog had swallowed up the house and everything else in the vicinity.

"We can't stay here." Rafe unlatched the door and stepped outside. "Be careful. Remember the step."

She wanted to ask him why they were whispering but she forgot the question the instant the door closed behind her. The strange mist seemed to thicken as they made their way around the side of the small house and started across the unkempt lawn to where the Acer was parked at the curb.

Orchid judged that they were halfway back to the car when Rafe jerked hard on her hand.

"This isn't real fog. Get down."

"What the—?"

Rafe used his foot to trip her. Then he pushed her down, hard. Orchid sprawled ignominiously on the ground. She was wondering if he'd gone crazy when she sensed the rush of booted feet across the lawn.

"Link," Rafe ordered.

The questing probe of his talent roared out of the darkness at full psychic vampire strength. Orchid hastily constructed a prism, manipulating the facets for optimum power. An instant later the first of the attackers plunged out of the mist.