Firebird (17 page)

“No, no,”
Alex said pleasantly.
“I've finished most of what I had to do.”

“Good. I'm sorry to bother you.”

“It's okay. What do you need?”

“I won't take much of your time, Alex. But I was reading how you'd gotten interested in Christopher Robin.”

“More or less. Why? Did you know him?”

“No. I met him a couple of times, but I can't say I actually
knew
him. But I knew somebody who did.”

“Really? Who's that?”

“Cara. Cara Bosworth.”

“And she was—?”

“Robin's mentor at the University of Margala. She was a good woman, Alex. Brilliant. We lost her about twenty years ago. Margala's physics prize is named in her honor.”

“I'm sorry to hear it. Did she have any idea what happened to him?”

“She had a theory. And she was probably right.”

“What was the theory?”

“That he just got home that night, decided he'd had enough, and jumped into the ocean.”

“Enough of what?”

“Well, all these years I've never repeated any of this—”

“Just say it, Zuck.”

“Cara was pretty sure Elizabeth was screwing around, and it became too much for him so he killed himself.”

“Screwing around with whom?”

“I don't know. I don't think
she
knew. But Cara picked it up from Robin. Never directly. I mean, she told me he never said anything—”

“Then how did she know?”

“Body language. The way he reacted whenever Cara mentioned her name. 'Tell Elizabeth I said hello,' and he'd clamp down and get a hard look. She didn't think there was any question about it.”

“Zuck, they never found the body.”

“The tides out there are pretty strong. If he jumped in when the tide was going out—”

“He took his luggage with him.”

“All right, Alex. I don't know about the luggage. Maybe somebody came along and made off with it. Maybe he was so much out of his mind that he threw it into the ocean. Look, it's not exactly an orderly world. Crazy stuff happens.”

“Okay, Zuck. Thanks for the information.”

“Anyhow, Alex, what I wanted to say: This is about an eccentric guy, maybe deranged. There was talk about walking through dimensions, crossing over to other universes, tracking down aliens. All this fantasy stuff. Your involvement has been pretty public. Look, we go way back, you and I. You've made some major contributions over the years, and you've been a good friend. I know there are people out there who're always sniping at you. They're jealous. I never see any of those people who don't wish they'd done what you have.”

He went on like that for several minutes, and I knew that Alex wanted me to stage the emergency and bring the conversation to a close. But Zuck kept sounding as if he was about to say good night. And he was saying things I thought Alex needed to hear. So I hesitated. He talked about the respect that people had for him, and how important a reputation is for someone in his business, how critical it was for his clients to know they could trust him.
“Not that I'd ever lose faith in you, Alex. You know that.”

“I know, Zuck.”

After another minute or two, he finally came to the point:
“You still have time to back off, Alex. Do it. Don't get in any deeper than you are. You know what I'm saying? “

“Yes, Zuck. Thanks.”

“Just let it go. Okay?”

“Zuck, I appreciate the call.”

“It's okay. And you're not upset with me, right?”

“Upset with you, Zuck? Never happen.”

Alex was still on the circuit.
“Thanks, Chase,”
he said, with an edge in his voice.
“You were very helpful.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn't think you'd want me to cut in when the guy was making so much sense.”

“Right.”

“Do you think there's anything to it? That Elizabeth might have been cheating?”

“I don't know. We may never know. There's no evidence.”

“Okay. Listen, have a good ride home. I have to go.”

“Hot date tonight?”

“Don't I always?”

“Chase, I want you to do something for me.”

“Okay.”

“Find out what happened to the
Breakwater.
Maybe we can get access to the log.”

FIFTEEN

The problem at Villanueva was that nobody thought to turn off the lights.

—Marcy Lee,
Last Days
, ca. 6314
C.E.

Why did they go to Villanueva?

At least we knew why they'd lied about their destination. Villanueva was on the list of hazardous worlds. Mention it on your proposed itinerary, and you could expect to have to justify the reason for your visit. Fill out the appropriate forms. Get permission from higher authority. And agree that, if you get into trouble, rescue may not be forthcoming.

I checked on the
Breakwater.
After Cermak died, the estate sold it to the CEO of a drug company. Wilson Broderick. He kept it for about a year, then donated it to a charity. They eventually scrapped it.

“Is Broderick still alive?” Alex asked.

“He died about ten years ago.”

“What about the AI?”

“It would have been destroyed along with the yacht.”

“Pity. If we had the log—”

“There
might be
one other possibility.”

“I'm listening.”

“The space stations don't keep the basic operations logs more than a few years. But they might still have the fueling records.”

“From forty years ago?”

“Maybe. It's worth checking into.”

“And if we found it, what would it tell us?”

“If they refueled when they got back, which most yachts have to do after a long flight, we'll be able to come up with a ballpark idea how far they went. It'll certainly tell us whether they went to Indikar. Or Villanueva.”

Fueling operations at Skydeck were run by Mandy Jhardain. Mandy's a quiet, easygoing type who never married. She didn't like commitments. In the end, she'd told me once, there's always somebody else. I've known Mandy a long time, and I can't imagine her in a permanent relationship. She always claimed she'd been built to roam.

When I asked about refueling records from the previous century, she laughed.
“To be honest, Chase, I haven't cleared the data since I got here. It's supposed to happen automatically. Hold on a second.”

That didn't sound hopeful. I heard somebody saying no, heard the humming and burping of electronics. Then she was back.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Chase,”
she said.
“It looks as if we have everything for the past three years. I don't guess that would do you any good?”

I followed up on the
Breakwater
AI as well. Nobody could tell me for certain whether it had been destroyed along with the yacht. All Skydeck recycling had been done in those years by one of two companies, neither of which still existed. A retired employee of ProCon, one of the two, told me that even if the AI had survived, there'd be no way to determine what had happened to it.

I had no idea where to go from there, so I left a note for Alex, who was out of the building, and went back to my routine duties. They included fielding a generous offer for Korman Eddy's
Clockwork
, if we could come up with it.
“Disappeared off that train,”
the would-be customer said.
“I'd love to be able to give it to my wife for our anniversary.”
I was tempted to tell him what Alex had concluded about
Clockwork,
but I let it go.

“We'll let you know, Mr. Spiegler,” I said, “if we get a line on it. But I'm not hopeful.”

When Alex got back, he stuck his head in my office, said hello, and told me we might have a link. “David Lisle,” he said, “is an emeritus professor of history at Margala. And he was a friend of Winter's.”

“Good,” I said. “You found him in one of Winter's books?”

“No. I started looking for someone with a similar academic background who shared his interest in the sightings.”

“Have you been in touch with him?”

“He had to tend to his garden.”

“What?”

“His garden comes before all else, apparently.” He looked tired. “He's making up his mind about what he wants to tell me.”

“You think he knows something?”

“Judging by the way he reacted when I asked him about Winter's death, I don't think there's any question.”

“What did he say?”

“Told me he was busy planting juleps.” He sat down and grumbled something about people who were preoccupied with a sense of their own importance.

“What do we know about him?” I asked.

“He's written a few articles. One of them mentions a sighting a thousand years ago at Fishbowl. The station operators reportedly heard an unknown language on the radio. They said the voice was human, they didn't think there was any question about that, but they'd never heard the language before.” Of course, nobody alive as recently as a thousand years ago had ever heard
any
unknown language. Unknown languages haven't existed for a long time.

“That would be the Fishbowl sighting in Winter's journal,” I said.

“Correct.”

“Lisle and Winter were on the faculty together at Oxnam University for several years, back in the 1850s. It's where they became friends. If there's a connection between Villanueva and the sightings, there's a good chance Winter would have mentioned it to Lisle.”

“Where does he live?”

“Shen Chi. It's about a hundred klicks from Virginia Island.”

“Where all the action is—”

“Seems that way.”

“He going to call you back?”

“That's what he says.”

“You want me to sit in?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“In case he has privacy issues, it's always a good idea to have someone you can send out of the room.”

In the end, we had to call
him. “Sorry,”
he told us.
“I forgot. Been busy.”

David Lisle bent under the weight of his years. He was, I suspected, close to his third century. His face was wrinkled, his voice a bit too loud, and he wore an uneven, scraggly gray beard. He was lowering himself carefully into a large armchair. His bleary gaze touched Alex, moved around the room, and settled on me.
“Who's the woman?”
he asked.

“Chase,” Alex said, “this is Professor Lisle. Professor, this is Chase Kolpath. She's my partner.”

He studied me intently, considering, I thought, whether he wanted me present. Eventually, he must have decided I did not constitute a threat.
“You're extraordinarily lovely, my dear,”
he said. His eyes didn't leave me as he addressed Alex:
“Had I known about
Ms.
Kolpath, I'd have preferred that you come in person.”

“Thank you, Professor,” I said. “You're very kind.”

He started to smile but slipped into a spasm of coughing and choking as if he'd just swallowed something.

“Are you okay?” asked Alex.

It was that strange inclination we all have to ask someone who's choking to speak to us. Lisle gradually got control of himself, held out a palm, and nodded.
“Sorry,”
he said.
“I have a couple of allergies that show themselves at this time of year.”
He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. Then:
“Now, what was it we were talking about earlier, Joseph?”

“Alex,
Professor. My name is
Alex”

“Oh, yes. Sorry.”
He pressed his fingertips against his temple.
“The years are getting to me, I fear. So how can I help you?”

“We were talking about your old friend William Winter.”

“Oh, yes. Bill. Hard to believe it's been as long as it has.”

“You miss him?”

“Yes, indeed. By God, there was no one like him. Died too early.”

“What happened to him, do you know?”

“Only what's been reported. He went out on a mission of some sort, though God knows what it was, and he never came back. He was with Christopher Robin.”

“They went looking for something to do with the space-station sightings?”

“What?”
He held a hand behind one ear, inviting Alex to speak louder.

“Did they go looking for what was causing the sightings at the space stations, Professor?”

That set him off on a long round of laughter that ended in another spasm. He fought his way through it and finally raised his palm again, assuring us he was okay, inviting us to be patient.
“Sightings? Lights in the sky? Yes, certainly, that was what he wanted to find. Look for these strange things that come and go, whatever they are. And what he found was his own exit.”

“What exactly
were
they looking for, Professor?”

“I don't know what he expected to find. He didn't want to discuss it.”

“Why not?”

“I think because whatever it was, he was concerned it would be perceived as silly.”

“Do you know where they went?”

Lisle hesitated. Bit his lip.

“They didn't go to Indikar, did they?”

“You know that?”

“Yes, we know. Was it Villanueva? Was that where they went?”

He needn't have said anything. His reaction gave it away. Eyes closed, regret written large on those gray features, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why, Professor? Why did they go to Villanueva?”

“God help me, Joseph, I don't know.”

“No idea at all?”

“He told me he'd bring it all home with him. And we'd go out and celebrate together. That's what he said.”

“Professor, you must have had
some
idea why they went there.”

“Only that it had to do with the contact flights.”

“The unidentified ships.”

“Yes.”

“What precisely did he say?”

“Alex, it's been almost half a century. Or has it been longer? The years pass so quickly.”
He was hurting. Whether it was physical or not, I couldn't tell.
“I remember asking Robin later, after Bill had been lost, what it had been about. He wouldn't say.
Still
wouldn't tell me, damn him. I lost a good friend. But he just shook his head, told me I wouldn't believe it anyway, and walked away.”
He looked exhausted.
“There
was
something else, though, now that I think of it. Something Bill said before they left.”