Alex Benedict 07 - Coming Home (34 page)

“What
is
?”

“People have been looking for these artifacts for eight thousand years. If we keep this quiet, they’ll continue to look. With no chance of ever finding anything. I can understand your wanting to protect him, but you have an obligation to the truth as well.”

He stared at Alex. “I have an obligation to
him
.”

“And I have one to his granddaughter.”

Southwick hesitated. Finally, he nodded. “Okay.”

“Lawrence, did you ever go back? To the asteroid?”

He shook his head. “It would have been too painful.”

“And nobody else knows about this except you and Tokata.”

“That’s correct. I’ve told no one. And I don’t believe anyone could have gotten it out of Heli. She’s a good woman.”

“My perspective,” I said, “might be a bit different.”

Alex looked my way.
Don’t start anything.

In the end, we retain nothing. Every act of fidelity, of courage, of sheer selflessness, is forgotten. Even the few that make it into the history books lose much in the translation, and ultimately disappear into a quiet library. In time, the libraries themselves go away. Who can name any of the Saxon women who faced down the barbarians during the reign of Probus? Who even knows they existed?

—Alexander Meyers,
The Human Condition
, 10,122
C.E.

We saw no lights as we approached Larissa. And we were greeted by no voices.

I overheard Southwick, sitting back in the passenger cabin with Alex, say that when he’d left here, he’d sworn he would never come back.

The scopes revealed nothing until we were virtually on top of the place. Then, gradually, I caught reflections off the dome. And, finally, I could make out the skeletal remains of the house.

I brought us down about fifty meters away. We’d brought an extra pressure suit for Southwick. But he shook his head. “I have no interest in going back out there,” he said.

Alex nodded. “I understand how you feel, Lawrence. But I’d prefer having you with me.”

Southwick’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t trust me.”

“You dumped us into the Atlantic.”

“I explained about that.”

“I know. Just call it an abundance of caution.”

“I’m not a pilot. I couldn’t make off with this thing.”

“I know. But I’d feel better if you were with us.”

“All right. Whatever you want.”

*   *   *

We switched on our lights. I’d wondered whether some parts of the house, and possibly the artifacts, had torn through the dome and left the asteroid altogether. But no holes were visible, save the one at the entry hatch that had been cut by Baylee. That was where we entered, and made our way past the frozen trees.

“I don’t think,” said Southwick, “there’s much chance that anything survived.”

We went around to the rear of the house. That was where the debris was thickest. Alex had brought a staff, which he used to poke at it. We saw parts of a lamp and a computer and a showerhead. A broken door had been thrown against the side of the dome. Support beams, plumbing fixtures, scorched furniture were piled high. Southwick found an electrical device in the wreckage. We didn’t know what it might have been, but
VOYAGER 8
was engraved on its base. Another black box read
MOONBASE
. “Pity,” Alex said, “Baylee didn’t show a little patience.”

Southwick agreed. “I know. I feared for a while that he’d become suicidal. He was never the same after this.”

We moved carefully, trying not to walk on anything. One side of the house was still standing, more or less. We crossed onto the area that had constituted the storage rooms. It wasn’t as dangerous as it might sound because gravity was almost nonexistent, so we didn’t need to worry about falling through damaged flooring or having what remained of the house collapse on us. “Look at this,” Southwick said. He’d found something inside some plastic packaging.

Alex shined his lamp at it. “It’s a game, I think.” The packaging was mostly intact. The lettering was ancient English, but there was a picture of a ringed planet and a primitive spaceship. We opened it and found model rockets and astronauts and a set of dice. He produced a plastene bag and placed the pieces inside. Then he held the box to give us a better look. There was an inscription, most of it not legible, but I could make out a date:
2203
.

“Coincides within a few years,” Alex said, “with the first manned flight to Uranus. This would have been worth a small fortune.” He put the box into the bag with the pieces.

We found a few more objects, all damaged, plaques with names and dates, more toy space vehicles, shredded uniforms, magnets with images of stars and planets, framed photographs of planetary landscapes, and a handheld computer. There was an intact package of arm patches, depicting a rocket liftoff. Alex examined one. “First manned Mars flight, maybe,” he said. Later, we came across a couple of scorched shirts commemorating a mission somewhere.

And there were pieces of equipment. One was obviously an imager designed, it looked like, to be placed on a hull. And an early version of a scanner, which would also have been outside the ship. Most of the gear, though, was unidentifiable. If there’d been placards or anything indicating what they’d been, they were gone.

Alex switched over to a private channel so we wouldn’t be overheard by Southwick. “I just can’t believe it. Baylee was in a hurry, so we lost all of this? No wonder the guy started having bouts of depression.”

“You telling me
you’d
have been willing to go back and chase down an expert you could bring out here? Wait all that time?”

“Oh, Chase, I feel sorry for him. But we’ve lost so much.” He switched back to the general channel as he lifted something else out of a pile of rocks. A framed picture. The glass was broken, but we could make out the picture. It was a woman, and she was in uniform. Her identity, which had been engraved at the base of the frame, was no longer legible. He showed it to Southwick. “Any idea who she might have been?”

“None whatever, Alex,” he said.

“Here’s another one.” This time most of the photo was burned. “Wait,” he said, “here’s something else.” A plastic container. The container carried a description of the contents, and had pictures of rockets and a comet. There were two disks inside. He held it in front of his imager, which was clipped to the suit just below his shoulder. “Belle,” he said, “can you translate?”

“Alex, it says:
Centaurus: Flight to the Stars
. And below that: ‘Join Adam Bergen for a virtual reconstruction of the first interstellar flight.’”

Alex looked at the two disks. “The
Centaurus
flight. I don’t believe it.”

“You know there won’t be anything left on the disks,” I said.

“Yeah.” He sounded as discouraged as I’ve ever heard him. “I know.”

*   *   *

We’re pretty sure people knew extraterrestrial life existed as far back as the twenty-first century because they were able to do spectrographic analysis. But the first encounter with actual life-forms came on Europa when we cut through the ice, and the automated submarine
Diver
slipped into that world’s tempestuous currents. The
Diver
had a distinctive sensor array mounted on its forward deck. We found a broken model of it. I had no idea what it was, but Alex recognized it immediately.

Eventually, we returned to the
Belle-Marie
and ate a quiet dinner. “This is exactly,” said Southwick, “what happened to us. Going through that pile of junk and not finding anything intact. Garnett was hurting, physically and otherwise. We tried. But, finally, he gave up, and we just cleared out.”

“I can understand it,” said Alex.

I refilled the air tanks, and we slept for an hour. Then we started again. Southwick found the charred cover of a children’s coloring book displaying vistas from other star systems. And Alex came up with a coffee cup marked
GUMDROP
. We showed it to Belle.

“Gumdrop,”
she said,
“was the name given the command module for Apollo 9. It was the third manned mission in the Apollo program. And it was the first—”

“Good enough.” Alex wrapped it and slipped it into his bag.

I found another electronic device that I could hold in my hand. But again I had no idea what it was.

“Probably,” said Alex, “an early version of a link.”

“It was called a cell phone,”
Belle said.

I opened the lid. It had a tiny screen and some buttons. “Where’s the projector?” I asked.

“The pictures appeared on the screen,”
said Belle.
“They did not do projections.”

“It was a primitive time,” said Southwick. “I don’t know how they ever managed to get to the Moon, considering the kind of technology they had.”

*   *   *

I know it doesn’t seem as if moving broken furniture and electronic equipment and parts of walls around should have been difficult in low gravity. But it was a struggle. There was no easy method for getting the junk out of the way. I found bits and pieces that none of us could identify that might have come out of the cache, or might have simply been part of the house. It didn’t really matter since they were thoroughly hammered.

There were more frames, but usually their contents were burned beyond recognition. I stopped periodically to watch the lights that marked the progress of Alex and Lawrence. They both grumbled and sighed and occasionally kicked something.

Then I heard Alex get excited: “Oh, God, Chase, look at this.” His imager was on, and I could see what he’d found: Burned hardcover books scattered through a lower deck area on the side of the house that had escaped the worst of the blast. He was pulling a burst tank of some sort out of the way. Lawrence knelt beside him and turned his lamp on them. He began lifting the books from the rubble, one by one, opening them, and looking inside at scorched pages. I could make out only two titles:
Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier
, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and
NASA’s First Fifty Years: Historical Perspectives
, edited by Steven J. Dick.

They were looking frantically for surviving text. There was some, but not much. “You know,” said Alex on our private channel, “I am having seriously dark thoughts about Baylee.”

Lawrence realized what was happening and guessed why it was being kept from him. “Nobody got hit harder than he did, Alex.”

“I know.”

“Okay. We need to have a team come up here and take a serious look around. There might still be something that can be salvaged.”

“You’ve spent a lot of time on the home world, Lawrence. You have people here you can trust?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d start with Heli.”

*   *   *

“When we put it together, Alex,” Lawrence asked, as we lifted away from Larissa, “do you want to be part of it?”

“No,” he said. “I’d like to be informed what you find. Other than that, it’s your project.”

“All right. Thank you. I appreciate it.” He was silent for a minute. Then: “I have one more question. When you get back to Rimway, what will you be saying about this find?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I’d prefer you say nothing.”

“We’ve already been through that.”

“I know. Can I ask you to leave Garnett out of it? Just say you discovered the wreckage here and that you don’t know how it happened?”

Alex looked straight ahead. “No,” he said. “I’m not comfortable lying. I understand you want to protect him, but you’ve done all you can. It’s out of your hands now.”

Lawrence took a deep breath. He looked resigned. “All right,” he said.

“What about Bill Garland?” I asked.

“Who’s he?” asked Southwick.

Alex responded: “A reporter who was helpful. I promised I’d let him know if we found the artifacts. I should be able to manage that without going into too much detail. I’ll go this far, Lawrence. I won’t mention Baylee’s name if I can avoid it. But we’ll have to inform his family. Marissa is the one who came to us. She deserves to know what happened. But if the word gets out, and I don’t see how that could not happen, I’ll have to tell what I know.”

“All right.”

Alex turned toward me. “Is that okay with you?”

I doubt that I looked very happy. “I can live with it.”

“Were you planning on doing another memoir, Chase?”

“Of this incident? Sure.”

Lawrence’s bewilderment was obvious. “Chase has written several memoirs of our efforts to locate lost artifacts,” Alex said.

They both looked at me. “All right,” I said. “I won’t release anything until it becomes public knowledge. Okay?”

Lawrence nodded.

Alex was still watching me. We both had a pretty good idea how long that would take.

Life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.

—Attributed to twentieth-century singer John Lennon

So it was over. We took Lawrence back to Galileo Station, had dinner there, and wished him well. Then Alex called Bill Garland, gave him an account of what we’d found and left him with the impression that no one knew precisely how it had happened. Then we started for Rimway. We kept the coffee cup from the
Gumdrop
. Lawrence had everything else. It had been a remarkably unsatisfying conclusion.

“Well,” Alex said, “sometimes things just don’t work out real well.”

“Yeah.”

“When do you expect to publish the memoir?”

“What memoir?” I said. “This thing didn’t go anywhere. After all this running around, we needed to find something. All we have is a coffee cup.”

He was obviously thinking that I’d been as upset by the outcome as he was. To a degree, I suppose he was right. But I shrugged it off. It wasn’t the first time I’d lost a narrative that had started out with an intriguing setup. There had been, for example, the discovery of the lost tomb of Michael Truscott, the bloody-minded Director of the Lenola colony. Truscott’s remains, when examined, turned out to be female. All kinds of theories had come out of the woodwork, including a faked death to mislead his numerous enemies after several assassination attempts. In reality, Truscott
had been
a woman. The truth was revealed by the discovery of a diary while Alex was looking in a different direction.

Then there were the Lima Pearls, which had belonged to the beautiful theater star of the last century, Mora Volanda. She had been wearing them on the night she vanished, and there was some hope their discovery would lead to information on what had happened. But the investigation went nowhere. Mora’s fate remains unknown.

And Allen Penrose, a beloved fourteenth-century physician, had gone with his wife and another couple to a resort in the Achean Isles, where all four had vanished. His personal belongings had become collectors’ items, and Alex had gotten involved when several reports surfaced that the doctor had been seen at the annual Spook Fest celebration in Malachia.

*   *   *

So we relaxed and talked about other things en route back to Rimway. I was still in a kind of trance, and I remember telling Alex that I was going to use my next vacation to go back to Earth and spend more time. Just hang out in the place where it had all begun.

I wondered what Yuri Gagarin would have given for a ride in the
Belle-Marie
?

Alex never really talked a great deal, but he was unusually withdrawn on the way home. He expressed concern about neglecting his clients and that a substantial amount of work was waiting for us. But it was more than that. I couldn’t decide whether it was Baylee’s unhappy end or the loss of the Apollo artifacts that hung over his head. Or possibly Gabe.

He admitted he’d be glad to get back to the country house. “I’m going to bring Woody in to do some restoration work on the place,” he said. “I’ve kind of let it go a bit. I wouldn’t want Gabe noticing that when he walks in.” Then he waved it away. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

We came out of jump a quarter million kilometers from Skydeck and checked in. The comm op was Josette St. Pierre, with whom I’d shared a few lunches.
“Chase,”
she said,
“where’ve you guys been? They’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Who has, Josette?”

“John Kraus. The
Capella
’s back.”

She passed me to her supervisor.
“We don’t have much in the way of details,”
he said.
“They got hypercomm signals yesterday from her. Confirmed. So yes, it
is
back. Last I heard, we had no explanation, and no idea whether the situation would remain stable. But the big news is that after nineteen hours, it’s still on the surface. We’ve scrambled everything in sight. There must have been sixty ships left here in the last ten hours.”

Hypercomm signals. That indicated, at least, that they were still alive. “Where are they?”

“It’s a little farther out than last time. Do you want me to forward the data to you?”

“Please.”

There was a brief pause. Then:
“Done.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Where’s John?”

“On the
Isabella Heyman
. It’s a yacht. He grabbed the first thing available.”

“Roger that. And you have no idea how long it will stay up?”

“They’re hopeful.”

“Why?”

“The last line in the message. It said: ‘Robert asked us to say hello.’”
He paused.
“They’re talking about Dyke. I assume you’re going, too?”

“Yes,” I said. “Changing course now.”

“Good luck, Chase. Skydeck out.”

Actually, I hadn’t reacted yet. I opened the allcomm: “Alex? You there?”

“More or less. What’s going on?”

“Tie yourself in. The
Capella
’s back.”

“Marvelous! Everything okay?”

“Yes. There was a message from Robert Dyke. Apparently he came through.”

“Beautiful.”

“I guess we didn’t hear how long they might stay afloat?”

“Negative.”

Another ship, the
McAdams
, was just departing Skydeck on the same mission. We wished each other luck. I knew the pilot, Sally Turner. Not well, but enough to say hello whenever we met. She was serious and reserved, not given to getting carried away by any momentary emotions. But on that occasion, she sounded deliriously happy. Let’s go get them, baby.

Optimism comes easily, I guess. It felt as if, during that first hour under way, we had it right this time. Everything would be okay. Time to raise a glass. Alex gave way to near jubilation. Maybe because it had all come out of the blue. Maybe because of that one line.
Hello from Robert.

We slipped into transdimensional space, which cut us off from the rest of the universe. We spent time entertaining ourselves as best we could. Alex buried himself in his books while I watched comedies and played chess with Belle. As we drew closer to our destination, I realized there was a good chance we’d be met by the news that the
Capella
had been swept under again. Alex was obviously weighed down by the same concern. But we both remained optimistic.

As we approached the end of our jump, I started a mental countdown. Couldn’t help myself. Two hours until we arrive.

One hour.

Alex kept checking the time, too, although he tried to hide what he was doing. He liked to think of himself as a rationalist, always in control, not given to emotions. But it was all a show.

He was back and forth on the bridge. He’d come up, sit down, say something of no consequence, get back on his feet, and disappear. I’d hear voices in the passenger cabin, somebody doing a historical analysis of the City on the Crag or the Maven War, then it would cut off and be replaced by soft music, then it would go silent. A few minutes later he’d be back on the bridge. When finally I told him to relax, he got annoyed. “I’m fine,” he said.

Eventually, Belle spoke:
“Four minutes to end of jump.”
It was almost a whisper. She understood the mood.

Alex, who was beside me, didn’t move except to activate his harness.

*   *   *

Standard procedure when you complete a jump is first to determine where you are in relation to your destination. Not this time. “Find out if they’re still there,” Alex said.

I sent out a broadcast signal: “This is the
Belle-Marie
. To anyone who can hear me: What is the status of the
Capella
?”

Alex straightened his harness.

Belle said,
“I am trying to establish our position, but I will need more time.”

“It’s okay, Belle,” I said. “Let us know when you have it.”

I listened to the air moving through the life-support system. And to the hum of the drive unit. And to the silence roaring out of the speaker. “It’ll probably take a while,” I said.

I couldn’t make out Alex’s answer.

Then, finally:
“
Belle-Marie
, this is the
Falcon
.”

“Hello,
Falcon
. What’s the situation?”

“The
Capella
’s still up.”
We both raised a fist. Clasped hands. If I could have reached Alex, I’d have kissed him.
“They’re transmitting. I don’t think anybody’s actually reached them yet, though.”

“That’s okay. As long as they’re still on the surface.”

“Welcome to the party.”

“Chase,”
said Belle,
“we’re getting something from them now. From the
Capella
. Sounds like Captain Schultz.”

It was, indeed:
“To anyone arriving in the area: We are awaiting assistance. Robert tells me he believes we have stabilized. But we cannot be certain.
McAdams
, we are glad to see you. First boats have launched.”

“Chase,”
said Belle,
“I’ve located the source of the transmission. I’m putting it together with information from the
Falcon
. You will be happy to hear we are only eight hours out.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s move.”

*   *   *

We listened while the
Dorothy Viscidi
picked up seventeen people and pulled away. The
McAdams
was closing. We caught a glimpse of two lifeboats through its scopes. The cabin lights in one were still on, but we couldn’t see whether anyone remained inside. The
Akim Pasha
was coming in behind the
McAdams
. An hour later, the
Vertigo
arrived and pulled alongside to take people directly out of the airlock. We heard Captain Schultz’s voice, assuring someone that everything was proceeding quite well.
“The
Bangor
,”
she said,
“the
Carol Rose
, and the
Zephyr
are all less than a few hours out.”

The
Bangor
was a cargo vessel that should be able to take off close to three hundred. The others were all yachts. Like us.

Alex was having a difficult time. I knew he wanted to talk with Gabe. Ideally, he’d have liked to pick Gabe up and take him home in the
Belle-Marie
. “It would be a nice ending,” I said.

“Yeah, it would, Chase. But stuff like that only happens on HV.” He collected a cup of coffee, asked if I wanted some, and came back and sat down. “When you write this, you could arrange to have it happen.”

“Nobody would believe it, Alex. Even if we did run into the lifeboat carrying him, I wouldn’t be able to write it that way.”

*   *   *

We were getting pictures from everyone who was close to the
Capella
. We watched the
Vertigo
pull away. The
Capella
’s cargo deck opened, and another lifeboat escaped. Ninety minutes later, the
Rose
moved into position to take people directly out of the airlock. They were still at it when the
Zephyr
rendezvoused with one of the lifeboats. Then, after another hour, it was
Bangor
’s turn.

Captain Schultz returned to the radio:
“When the
Bangor
leaves, we will be down to 2106 passengers and crew. I’m happy to report we still have stability.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” I told Alex. “When it comes time to get swallowed, there’s not much warning. Not from what I’ve seen.”

The rescue units continued to arrive, one or two every hour. Then, suddenly, there were six, including a fleet cruiser, which took off another three hundred.

There were no Mutes this time. And nobody coming from a distant port. There’d been no time for anyone much farther away than Skydeck to arrive on the scene.

Eventually, we got close enough to think about contacting Gabe on his link. Alex tried, waited, and shook his head. Still out of range.

And then, finally, it was our turn:
“
Belle-Marie
, you’re next. We’ll be launching another boat in about thirty minutes. They will provide a signal. Just follow it in and take as many off as you can. What is your capacity, please?”

“Ten,” I said.

“Very good. Take on ten, then depart immediately. And thank you for your assistance.”