The Devil's Eye (24 page)

I disembarked without incident and found him at the off-ramp. He handed me a box of mints. "What's going on?" he asked. He watched me checking out the crowd. "Are you looking for somebody?" "Let's go where we can talk." "The club?" "First place they'd look for me." "
Who'd
look?" "CSS." He made a face. "What the hell are you into, Chase?" I shushed him. "I need to talk to you." His features scrunched up, and he made an unhappy noise deep in his throat. "My place won't work. Kara's got her tikondo group tonight." Cardplayers. We eventually decided on the Samuels Lounge. It was big and crowded, and when we scouted it, I saw no sign of trouble. "Okay," he said. "Tell me what's going on." We settled into a booth with a magnificent view: Callistra, blue and brilliant above the rim of the world, and the sky dark and empty behind it. Somewhere out there other galaxies existed. But you couldn't see any of them. I leaned across the table and lowered my voice.

In the middle of it, our drinks came, something unpronounceable for him, dark wine for me. I opened the mints and pushed them toward him. He took one, listened, stared at the table, stared at me, looked around the restaurant. When I'd finished, he sat like a man who'd just been hit with a brick. "And you think they're holding Benedict?" "There's no question they're holding him. Or worse." Ivan was considerably grayer than he'd been during my flight-training days. That had only been about eight years earlier, but he looked much older. More sedate. I thought that the earlier model would have been more likely to take a chance with me. "Let me guess: You want me to take you to the asteroid." "Yes." "All right." He meant
All right, I understand what you want,
not
All right, I'll do it
. "What do you expect to find?" "
Something's
there." "It's a waste of time. It's also a violation of the guidelines. The company doesn't like us going out there." "Since when?" "The last two or three months. They're worried about the Mutes." "Ivan-" "If I got caught, Chase, I'd lose my license." "You're all I've got right now, Ivan. Please. I'll pay you for a full load of passengers. Plus another thousand for yourself." "You're insulting me, Chase. Look, I'd do it in a minute if I thought there was a point to it." "Do it for me. Humor me. Do it because it may be the only chance I have to save Alex." I finished my wine. I literally gulped it down. And waited for an answer. He cleared his throat. "Schedule's open for the next two days. Kara was expecting me to be home for a bit. I've been out a lot lately." "Bring her along." "I'll ask. But I doubt she'll come. She doesn't react well to transdimensional jumps." "So you'll do it?" "Damn, Chase. Kara's going to start talking to a lawyer." We waited out the tikondo game. Then we trooped up to his apartment and said hello to Kara. He explained it was an emergency, that it was connected with Alex Benedict, who'd gone missing, and we told her everything we knew. I was reluctant about that, but we had to. We were asking her to trust her husband on an overnight alone with a woman he'd known in another life.

"You can come," he said. She hesitated. She didn't like any part of the deal, and she probably didn't like me either. But she didn't want to send the message that she didn't trust him. "Kara, please come with us," I said. "We're not sure what we're looking for, and we can use the extra pair of eyes."

Kara was a beauty. One of those women who couldn't help turning heads. Dark hair, bedroom eyes, pouty lips. She probably had a great smile, too, but I hadn't seen it yet. I waited while they packed. Then they were back. Both looked uncomfortable. "I hope," Kara told me, "that there's really a point to this." There was a touch of coldness in her voice. Ivan checked with Operations. He told them he was going to Tannemann's Dwarf. Four passengers. Husband, wife, two kids. We made up names. Mr. and Mrs. Inasha of Mt. Tabor. And his own wife would also be on board. "Taking a break from the routine," he explained.
"Okay, Captain Sloan,"
said the watch officer.
"You're cleared to go. You'll have to use the
Borden
."
"
Goldman
's not serviced yet?"
"That's correct."

"Okay. That's fine."

He explained about Tanneman's Dwarf on the way to the boarding area. It was a dead star. "It's a popular destination," he said, "because it's sucking in a cloud of hydrogen and assorted gases, and that produces some spectacular fireworks. Kids especially love it. If you haven't seen anything like it before, it can be a pretty wild display. Kara's been out there a couple of times, haven't you, Kara?" "It's lovely," she said. She still hadn't decided what was really going on. The
Borden
was waiting at the dock. We got on board. Kara and I settled into the common room, while Ivan took his seat on the bridge. "How long has your friend been missing?" she asked me. While I began to explain it again, the magnetic clamps let go and we started to ease away from the dock. Once outside the station, we took aim at Tanneman's Dwarf and began to accelerate.

Tannemann's was everything Mr. and Mrs. Inasha and their kids could have hoped for. Even at a range of sixty million kilometers, which was as close as we wanted to get, we could see a vivid corona brightening and dimming and exploding. "You know," I said, "something like this gives me the feeling that, despite all the light-years I've logged, I really don't get around very much." "When this business is over," Ivan said, "provided we're not all in prison, you should spend some leisure time in the area. Take the tours." "I've done that," I said. "I've been to Boldinai Point, the Haunted Forest, the Crystal Sea, the Golden Isles-" "You're kidding, right?" The AI was turning us around. Lining up on the asteroid. "No, I'm not kidding." "That's ground-floor stuff, Chase. Couple of those I've never even heard of. Where is Boldinai Point?" Kara was loosening up a bit. She smiled at the question. "Ivan thinks anything that's on the ground isn't worth your time. It's gotta be out orbiting some gasbag before he's able to pay attention." "That's not true," he said. "Right. Ivan, when's the last time we've even been groundside? Other than to visit your folks?" He sighed. "I work hard, Chase, and that's the thanks I get." I smiled politely. "By the way," he continued, "your friend Benedict is an antiquities guy, right?" "Yes," I said.

He and Kara exchanged glances. "That's a clever way to change the subject, Ivan." She turned to me. "But Ivan's right. We have a lost world out here somewhere that he'd be interested in." "A lost world?" "Complete with ruins. Used to be somebody there, millions of years ago." "That's the first I've heard that. You're right. Alex would want to take a look. Where is it?" "Don't know. We lost it." She laughed at her own joke. We were beginning to accelerate. "They found it a couple of centuries ago. But they didn't keep good records, and next time they went out, they couldn't find it. It had reasonably intact cities. Everything frozen." "Sounds like another hoax." "Sounds like one," said Ivan. "But the original mission brought back some artifacts. And the experts say the artifacts are legitimate." We sank back into our seats. "Apparently the world got blown or dragged out of its home system. And the lights went out." "And they lost the thing." "It's out there somewhere. Cities. Roadways. Even a few ships frozen in harbors." "Does the place have a name?" "Malaki. It's named for the captain who found it."

During the short run out, Ivan tried to talk sense into me. "Don't go back to Samuels. When we're done out here, I can take you someplace where you'll be safe." "What did you have in mind?" "Well, I can't take you all the way to Rimway. For one thing, we don't have enough fuel." "It doesn't matter. I can't leave Alex." "Chase, if the CSS really have him, there's not much you can do. Except get a good lawyer." "Maybe." "Look, I don't know this guy Benedict. But I'll bet he'd want you to get clear. Especially when there's no point-" "Let it go, Ivan. I've been through too much to walk out on him." He shrugged. "Okay. You do what you think is right."

We were lucky. We came out of hyperspace almost on top of our target. Not that it was visible to the naked eye, of course. The asteroids-there were thousands of them-drifted through a dark sky. But Ivan didn't have much trouble picking out the one with the monument. Within a few hours we moved in close. It was an ordinary asteroid, surface smooth in some areas, cratered in others. About three hundred kilometers in diameter. Even when we were on top of it, and I mean
literally
on top, just a few klicks away, we couldn't see it visually. The sky behind it was unbroken darkness. Ivan didn't take his eyes off the monitors. Moria, Salud Afar's sun, was behind us. But at that range it was invisible. The three of us were on the bridge, looking down into the darkness, when Ivan said something I couldn't make out. "What?" said Kara. "I was just thinking how we'd react if a light suddenly went on." A few minutes later, a soft glow
did
appear in the sky, outlining the rim of the asteroid. We'd gone halfway around it and were looking back at the haze along the edge of the Milky Way. "Okay," he said. "We're here. What's next?" I was wishing Alex were with us. "I'm not sure." "Surely, madame, you jest." "Great place for a monument," I said. Kara smiled. "The original plan was that the monument would light up when anybody approached. You'd have come rolling in and the lights'd go on and you'd be looking at the thing. Actually, it could have been pretty striking stuff. But after what happened, they decided to leave it dark."

"I'm not surprised." "There are a bunch of monuments on other asteroids that
do
light up. But not out here, of course." "This is the only monument in the Swarm?" "Yes." Ivan aimed one of the navigation lamps at the ground. But we still couldn't see anything. The light faded away. Rachel, the AI, asked for instructions. Ivan held out his hands. "What do we want to do, Chase? You want to go down and see what's there?"

We climbed into the lander and rode it toward the surface. "The monument?" he asked. "Yes. That seems like the logical place." As we descended, I asked whether either of them had ever been there before. "Nobody ever comes out here," said Ivan. "What about the Family of God?" "I think they had enough of the place. Something out here was dangerous, and they aren't dummies." "What did
they
think it was?" "I don't know. You'd have to ask them."

It was located on a bare plain. I knew right away it was something apart from the rockscape, even before I had a good look at it. It was tall and narrow and obviously artificial, a lost piece of a well-lit, warm world abandoned in a place where time had stopped. We only had two pressure suits. Kara said it was okay. "You go ahead. I'll wait here." We got dressed and went out through the air lock. Ivan had left the navigation lights on, but the ground was rougher than it looked from inside.
"This way,"
he said. He turned on a helmet lamp and plunged ahead.
"Watch your step."
It was rough going. And the fact that I weighed next to nothing made it even more dangerous. The lights played against a wall. It served as a base for a sphere. A set of steps mounted to the sphere, and a silver door stood partly open in its side. Above, a diamond-shaped crystal pointed at the sky. When the beam from my lamp touched the crystal, the doorway caught the reflection. "Is that what they intended?" I asked.
"I guess,"
he said.
"I don't really know anything about this place."
Names were engraved on the wall. Thousands of them.
"Supporters, I guess,"
Ivan said. And a legend: THEY HAVE PASSED TO A BETTER WORLD. KYLE ROJEAU IRA AND HARM KAMALANDA CELIA TI "How were they going to power it?"

I climbed the stairs and studied the partially open door. And the corridor behind it, which went completely through the sphere. Into the night on the other side. The walls and overhead were rough-hewn; the floor was smooth. And I wondered if, sometimes, the asteroid turned and lined up with Callistra so its light appeared in the passageway, illuminated that smooth gray corridor.

The sensors had been installed, of course. It only required someone to throw the switch. But the switch had been removed, to ensure that no one circumvented the will of the survivors. The monument would stay dark. And so it had. I was just talking, trying to hold up my end of the conversation, while I looked for something that would tell me what Alex had expected to see out there. There was nothing. No fractured space, no alien ships,

no Coalition vehicles engaged in a conspiracy. The place, the tower, the rockscape, the sky, was simply quiet. And dark. "Ivan?"

"Where's Callistra?" He looked up.
"Must be on the other side."
"It wasn't. It was just as dark over there." He grunted.
"Well, that doesn't make sense. It has to be here somewhere."
What had Orrin Batavian told us in what now seemed that long-ago afternoon in downtown Moreska? They'd picked one asteroid for a very special reason. And suddenly, in that moment, in the permanent midnight of that place, it all came together.

We climbed back into the air lock. "What's going on?" Ivan demanded. He was out of patience. When we got back into the cabin, Kara was staring at us. "You mean it's missing? It
has
to be somewhere." I couldn't stop trembling. It was cold inside the lander. I hadn't noticed it before. "No, Kara," I said. "I don't think it's anywhere." We were getting out of our suits. "What's
that
mean?" asked Kara. "I'm still working on it. Ivan, we need a chart." "Why?" he asked. "Please just do it." I'm pretty sure my voice had gone shrill. He backed off. "Rachel, give us the chart, please." The lights dimmed, and, over the navigation display, Callistra blinked on. Its soft blue glow touched everything, softened Ivan's intense eyes, coated the chairs and the control panel. "Where's Moria?" I asked. Salud Afar's sun. Ivan pointed toward the hatch. It was a dim yellow light. A white light, off to one side, marked Seepah. "Okay. Can we see
our
position? The asteroid?" A red light, a hand's width away from Moria. "Good. Draw a straight line from Callistra through the asteroid and extend it as far as you can." A blue cursor left the star, crossed the cabin, touched the asteroid, passed off to one side of Salud Afar, and struck the bulkhead. "I know what you were thinking," said Ivan, "but I could see right from the start they weren't going to line up." "That's because we have an adjustment to make. The asteroid is, what, thirty-six light-years from Salud Afar?" "Right."