Jack McDevitt: The Devil's Eye

"I like fiction that's a little more realistic." He went into his paternal mode. "You need to open your mind to new experiences, Chase." "I guess. You'd really like to meet her, wouldn't you?" "Yes," he said. "I would." "You get in trouble," I told him, "you're on your own."

I was glad to see Ben Colbee again. Ben had twice proposed to me. All the signs were there. I saw passion in his eyes, watched him light up whenever I walked into a room. And I think I was in love with him, too. At least, I'd never felt about anybody else the way I felt about him. Ben was a good guy, sensitive, smart, good-looking, and he knew how to make me laugh. That's the big thing. Make me laugh. He was a musician. He played cornerstone with the Full Boat, which-he thought-was moving up and would shortly make him famous. That did eventually happen, but it's another story. Anyhow, Ben was waiting as I knew he would be when the shuttle got in. He offered to take Alex home, too, but Alex knows when he's an encumbrance, so he said no thanks, you guys go ahead, and threw his bags into a taxi and took off. We did some smooches, and Ben asked me how the flight had been and told me about the Full Boat's latest gig at the Sundown. Then, somewhere in there, he looked at me funny. "What's wrong, Chase?" "Nothing, Ben. Just a crank message we got on the way home." He asked me about it so I told him. I didn't mention who it was from, though. "This guy was a complete stranger?" he asked. "It was from a woman. And yes, she was nobody we knew." "Not one of your customers, right? Somebody you maybe forgot about?" "No, Ben. Not somebody we forgot about." He rolled his eyes. "Crazy people everywhere. I wouldn't worry about it." We left Andiquar behind and headed out over the western hills. And, to make a long story short, I wasn't very receptive to his advances, not at all what he'd expected when I'd been gone almost three weeks. Hell, not what I'd expected. And I don't think it had anything to do with Alex and the crazy woman. I'm not sure what it was. I had a feeling we were approaching another one of those moments when Ben was going to pour out his heart to me. I'd been gone a long time, and he'd missed me, and-well, you know. And as much as I liked him, loved him, whatever, I wanted to head it off. So I explained I wasn't much in the mood. Tired. Long trip. He deflated and said okay, he'd see me the next day. If that was all right. "You know," he added, "you're gone a lot." "I know." "I mean, Chase, you're gone all the time." "I'm sorry, Ben. I can't help that. It's my job." He took me into his arms. It was a bear hug, delicious because he meant it, disconcerting because I didn't want it to go any further. He hung on to me, squeezed tight, his cheek against mine. "It's not the only job in the world, you know. There are others." "Ben, I like this job. I mean, I really like it." "I know. But we don't get to see each other for weeks at a time. Is that really what you want?" He released me, and I stepped back and looked into those puppy-dog brown eyes. All right, I know how this sounds. But the truth is my heart picked up, and I was damned if I knew what I wanted.

When he was gone, I looked up Vicki Greene. Carmen, my AI, gave me the basic information. She was thirty-three years old, born on the other side of the continent, currently based in Andiquar. She'd written six wildly successful novels, of which three had won the coveted Tasker Award, given each year for the most outrageous horror novel. She had master's degrees in history and mathematics, which struck me as an odd combination, and had been awarded an honorary doctorate the previous year by Tai Peng University. "What else, Carmen?"

"Her most recent novel is Midnight and Roses , about a young woman who lives in a house where the attic opens out into different dimensions. But only after midnight."

"Okay."

"She's prolific. Six novels in six years. Three of her novels have been converted into holocasts, and one, Love You to Death , into a musical." "What do we have on her family?"

"Her mother left her husband and ran off with a philosophy professor when Vicki was three. She has an older brother. The philosophy professor brought the family east to take a faculty position at Benneval College." Benneval was two kilometers up the coast from Andiquar. "He died a few years ago. Apparently suffered from poor health his whole life."

"So does she have an avatar I could speak with?"

"Wouldn't Alex take offense if you got involved?"

"I'd just be another reader. Talking to her about vampires."

"I see. Well, it doesn't look as if it matters. She doesn't maintain an avatar."

"You're kidding. She's a major-league writer, and she's not in the program?

"Apparently not."

That's one of the odd things about avatars. You can go online, and you can talk to people across the ages who are effectively lost, people who were born, got married, had kids, provided a living, and did all the usual stuff. Their avatars are there, ready to talk to you about the time they cut down the elm, or the day Aunt Jenny fell into the creek. But a lot of the movers and shakers, you can't find. (I should admit here that there's a Chase Kolpath avatar. She looks pretty good, and she's ready to discuss antiquities and some of the stuff I've done with Alex. But hardly anybody ever talks to it. I stopped checking the hit count years ago.) I also looked up Hassan Goldman , the name emblazoned on Greene's shirt. I'd assumed it was a corporate logo, but it matched no company anywhere on Rimway. There were some individuals with the name, but none who seemed a likely candidate for putting it on a blouse. "So," I asked, "what has she been doing recently?"

"Ah, that's what's interesting. According to information put out by her publisher, she's been on Salud Afar."

"Salud Afar?"

"Yes."

Salud Afar was appropriately named. It was easily the most remote human world, thirty-one thousand light-years beyond Rimway. Out in the galactic boondocks. People generally thought about Rimway as being far out, the place on the edge of the Milky Way. But Salud Afar was the real outpost, located in empty-skies country, out there all by itself. For most of its history it had been months away from the closest human worlds. It had never joined the Confederacy. "Why was she on Salud Afar?" I asked.

"Gathering material for a book, according to my best information. Or possibly just vacationing. The data is contradictory."

"Her next book is set on Salud Afar?"

"The data is incomplete."

"What's it about?"

"No information there either. Only that she's off chasing werewolves."

"You're kidding."

"That's what it says. Chase, that's a phrase used by people in the horror industry. It simply means somebody's out taking time off."

Alex always insisted I take a few days to chase werewolves myself after an off-world mission. That was the official stance. In reality, when we got home after a flight, there was invariably a lot to do. So I'd show up as usual and take my vacation time at leisure. Rainbow Enterprises, as I've mentioned elsewhere, operated out of the country house in which Alex

grew up. The area had been mostly forest then, along the banks of the Melony. A cemetery lay off the western perimeter. In fact, the house had been a retreat for hunters when Alex's uncle Gabe lived there. Now, it's surrounded by private homes and parks. There's a church at the foot of Amity Avenue, two blocks away, and a sports complex a half mile east. It snowed the first night home. I've always liked snowstorms. Don't get enough of them at our latitude, maybe one or two a year. Almost never anything heavy. This one was an exception. The neighborhood was buried. The cemetery had vanished, and the river was frozen. Because winter storms happen so seldom, nobody here has any kind of clearing device. Including Rainbow Enterprises. So I descended into my usual parking spot and climbed out into snowbanks up to my knees. I struggled through them to the front door. It was just after nine, and I could hear Alex upstairs in his office. Our usual routine was that Jacob, the AI, would inform him I'd arrived, and he'd say hello through the system. Then, an hour or so later, he'd wander down to greet me in person and give me the day's assignments. This time he didn't bother to call. A few minutes later, he started down the stairs. And stopped halfway. "Got a minute?" he asked. "Sure, Alex. Anything wrong?" "Yes." Scary way to start a conversation. "What happened?" He came the rest of the way down, walked slowly into the main room, where we entertain, and lowered himself into a chair. "While we were gone, Rainbow picked up an unexpected deposit." "Somebody gave us some money?" "Not some . A lot ." "And that's bad ? Who did it?" "Vicki Greene." "What? Why?" "The statement doesn't say. She just had it credited to our account. Four days ago." Okay. She was going to hire us for something. "How much?" "Two million." That took my breath away. It would have taken Ilena Crane's Statement of Human Rights, the original document, to produce that kind of cash. "And she didn't tell us why?" "No." "Well, I guess we ought to call her again." "I've tried." "And-?" "Her AI says she's relocated. Permanently." "Where?" "'That information is not presently available.'" "So she gave us a pile of money and took a walk?" "Apparently." "Well, I'm sure we'll hear from her." "No doubt." "Alex-" "Yes? I'm listening." "She can't be that hard to find." "That's what I thought. But you're welcome to try." "Jacob did a general search?" "He did." Well, there is a privacy provision. If you don't want to be listed in the register, you're not listed. "Look, she's certainly going to contact us. I suggest we just wait for her to make the next move." He wasn't happy. Alex likes to make money as much as the next guy, but he doesn't like things hanging over his head.