Jack McDevitt: The Devil's Eye

- Give it away. He handed it to me. "You were the one she took care of," he said. And I passed it to her. "It's yours, Selotta. For you and Kassel. I hope you'll keep it for yourself." "-Rather than give it to the museum," she said. "Yes. It's for you . With our appreciation." Carmody took pictures. Selotta, clearly flustered, shook her head in a human gesture and held up her hands to decline. "I can't accept this, Chase," she said. "Not possibly. You and Alex arranged the tour for us. That's enough." Alex was nothing if he wasn't a charmer. He smiled and glanced at Kassel. "You're a lucky man to have so lovely a spouse," he said. Kassel, perhaps surprised at being called a man, licked his lips with that long forked tongue in a gesture that suggested the details were wrong but it was okay. "Please," she continued. "I can't imagine the price you must have paid. I can't let you do this." "It's okay, Selotta," Alex said. "It's something we wanted to do for you."

The following day we caught the shuttle from Drake City and rode it up to Galileo. We had a farewell dinner in a Chinese restaurant. It was an era of occasional armed confrontations between Ashiyyurean and Confederate warships. While we dipped into the chicken and spices, an HV began to run a report of a new incident. A Mute ship had gotten too close to a Confederate world, and a destroyer had fired on it. The Mutes were saying it was an accident. The ship had gotten off course. In any case, no casualties were being reported by either side. That got us increased attention from the other diners. Kassel ignored it. "Alex and Chase, you are welcome on Borkarat anytime. And we'd be happy to put you up at our place," he said. We told him we'd bring some brew with us. We were leaving, too, of course. Headed back to Rimway. We paid up, this one on Kassel, who insisted. When Kassel insisted, he tended to sound as if he meant it. We took a last look at Earth. We were on the nightside, over Europe and Africa. Lights everywhere, from Moscow to the Cape. Electrical storms glimmered in the Atlantic. Here was where it had started. The great diaspora.

They were riding a diplomatic flight. We stayed with them until they boarded. They introduced us to a few of the other passengers, who were both Mute and human, and to the captain. Then it was time to go. We retreated back down the tube, they closed the hatches, and it was over. We made for the Belle-Marie , checked to make sure our luggage had arrived, and climbed on board. I went up onto the bridge, said hello to Belle, the AI, and began running my checkoff list. When I was satisfied everything was in order, I contacted the ops center and requested permission to depart. Minutes later we were on our way, gliding past the moon, adding velocity, and feeling pretty good. I could hear Alex talking in the cabin. Nothing unusual about that: He was having a conversation with Belle. We were looking at a four-hour flight, plus probably a day or two after we had made our transit out of hyperspace. It was a lot quicker than it would have been a few years back, when the Armstrong drive needed weeks to cover the same distance. I was making final heading adjustments before initiating our jump when I heard a third voice in the cabin. A woman's. Alex was checking his mail. I broke in. "Alex, prepare for jump." "Okay," he said. The last green light came on, indicating his harness was in place, and I eased us into hyperspace. Two minutes later he asked me to join him when I was free. I told Belle to take over, got out of my chair, and headed back. First thing I saw when I went into the common room was a female standing frozen, staring at Alex out of stricken eyes. It was a hologram, of course. She was young. Good-looking. Dark eyes and black hair cut short. She wore a white-and-gold blouse inscribed with the name HASSAN GOLDMAN above an arc of six stars. Something about her was familiar. "Who is she?"

"Vicki Greene." "Vicki Greene? The Vicki Greene?" " The Vicki Greene." Vicki Greene, of course, was, and remains, an immensely popular novelist, a writer who specialized in horror and the supernatural. Voices in the night, demons in the basement: She'd made a substantial reputation by scaring the wits out of millions of readers across the Confederacy. "I wasn't aware you knew her." He lowered himself into his seat. "I don't." "Okay. Pity. So it's a business thing. She wants us to find something for her?" "Listen to this," he said. He directed Belle to run the transmission from the start. The image blinked off, blinked back on. Greene looked at Alex, then at me, did an appraisal, and turned back to the boss. "Mr. Benedict," she said, "I know this will strike you as odd, but I don't know who else can help me." She was having trouble controlling her voice. "Since you're not here, I'm asking your AI to forward this message. I'm in over my head, Mr. Benedict." She was staring at him. Her turn to be terrified. "God help me, they're all dead."

Alex touched a control and froze her again. "That's it," he said. "That's it ?" "That is the sum of the transmission." "What's she talking about?" "I don't know. I've no idea." He took a deep breath. "I'm wondering if we're looking at a woman in the last stages of a breakdown." She had looked thoroughly spooked. "Maybe she's been writing too much horror," I said. "It's possible." "And you've never met her?" "No." " Who's all dead?" "Don't know." "Maybe a bunch of fictitious characters." I got coffee for both of us. "You might want to recommend she see somebody." "It's been in the folder for several days." "That's because we told Belle not to disturb us." He ran the artwork from her books. Etude in Black , which featured a young woman playing a stringed instrument in a spotlight while glowing eyes watched her from a dark curtain. Love You to Death , with a vulpine creature kneeling in sorrow at a grave site. Nightwalk , portraying a satanic figure in the clouds over a moonlit city. And three others with similar motifs: Wish You Were Here , Dying to Know You , and Midnight and Roses . "What do you think?" "Alex, she sounds like a lunatic." "She's in trouble, Chase." "You want my advice? Don't get involved."

We couldn't send or receive a message while we were in hyperspace. We could have interrupted the jump, but there was really no point in that. So we waited until we arrived back at Rimway. Thirty seconds after we saw the stars again, he sat down and told Belle to record. "Ms. Greene," he said. "I just received your message." He stopped and looked in my direction. "Chase, how far out are we?" "About a day," I said. "Day and a half." He turned back to his message. "We've been away. I'll be in my office by the weekend. Meantime, if you want to talk to me, I'm within radio range now. Skydeck can put you through." He sat quietly for several moments, then told Belle to send it and looked up at me. "What's wrong, Chase?" "Nothing."

"Come on. Talk to me." "I think you should be more careful about getting involved in other people's problems. You're an antiquities dealer, not a psychologist." "If she's in trouble, I wouldn't want to walk away from her." "If she's in trouble she can call the police."

They're all dead.

We cruised toward Rimway. With its big moon, it constituted a glittering double star in the sparse sky near the galactic rim. Vicki Greene didn't respond, didn't send a message, didn't say anything. The hours dragged on, and the double star grew into a pair of spheres. But Alex couldn't put it out of his mind. When we got closer, where the delay in signal exchange wouldn't be so great, he placed a call to her but was informed the code was inoperative. Temporarily out of service. Ordinarily he'd have dismissed the whole thing at that point as the work of a crank, but since it was Greene, he couldn't let go. Maybe it was that she was an icon, the biggest name in supernatural fiction. Not that he ever read any of it, but he liked meeting celebrities as much as the next guy. So, a day and a half after we'd tried to communicate with her, we docked at Skydeck and headed directly for Karl's Dellacondan Restaurant. It was traditionally our first stop after a flight. It doesn't matter how good the shipboard food is, and we get good stuff on board the Belle-Marie , it's always a pleasure to make for a real dining room, spread out, and eat from a fresh menu. We were just walking into the place when he brought her up again. "She must be okay," he said, "or she'd have gotten back to me right away." He was genuinely worried. More than the meet-the-deranged-celebrity thing. I'd known him for four years by then, and I still couldn't figure out how his mind worked. I'd have been interested to know what Selotta might have been able to tell me about him. It was unsettling to realize she'd only spent a few days with the guy and knew him far better than I ever would. Maybe that's the real reason people resent the Mutes so much. "She probably sobered up," I said. He looked at me with an expression that told me we both knew she hadn't been drinking. So I let it go, and the host led us to a corner table. We sat down beside a window. Brilliant splotches of light were spread across the globe. In the north, lightning glimmered. "Have you ever read any of her novels?" he asked. "No," I said. "Never had time." "Make time. She's good." "When did you read them?" "I read Dying to Know You on the way in." He took a moment to examine the menu. "Great stuff," he added. "You mean the food?" "I'm talking about Greene. I was surprised how good she is."