Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“I know. I’m trying to imagine how it would feel to have Gabe walk in.”

“Yes. Gabe and the rest of them. Or from their perspective. What will it be like to return to friends and relatives who are at least eleven years older than they were just a few days ago? It won’t be so bad for the ones we can get off this time around. But imagine the people who will be stuck out there for another quarter century or more. They will have lost the world they know.”

Casmir Kolchevsky showed up the following day on Jennifer in the Morning . Kolchevsky was small and compact, a guy who always looked as if he were about to explode. He had scruffy black hair and eyes like those of a cat watching a squirrel. That was when he was feeling friendly. He liked to preach, to make it clear that very few could meet his high intellectual and ethical standards. Whenever he showed up on one of the talk shows, I got uncomfortable because Alex was one of his favorite targets.

Kolchevsky was an archeologist. He claimed to have been a friend of Gabe’s though I never saw any evidence of it, and he resented Alex because he made a living trading and selling artifacts that he felt belonged to everyone. He’d said on several occasions that Alex had betrayed the family name. That he was nothing better than a grave robber. But this time, he did not come after us.

The conversation was about the historical information that had already been gleaned from the passengers who’d been aboard the Intrépide . “We’re now able to talk to people who were actually alive during the Dark Age. Think about that for a minute. We can acquire some historical knowledge, some serious insights, by sitting down with someone who was there. I’ll tell you, Jennifer, we live in a remarkable time.”

Kolchevsky’s tone made it clear that he knew everything of significance. No one else’s opinion mattered. Which was why listening to him go on about somebody else’s perspective came as something of a jolt. Jennifer agreed that he had a point, and asked what he thought could be learned from people who’d begun life in a different era.

“So far,” he said, “they’ve shown us they were as indifferent about what was happening in their time as we are in ours. Imagine being alive during the Dark Age, when civilization was crumbling. When it looked as if everything was coming apart. When we had starships but no control over the economic and political systems. All I’ve heard these survivors talk about is what was going on in their personal lives. Were they concerned that things were getting worse and would probably deteriorate completely? That humanity might never recover? I’ve heard almost nothing about that. It was all about whether they had a job.”

“Come on, Casmir,” said Jennifer, “there’ve only been two people who go back that far. And they’re only kids. You’re going to have to wait awhile to talk to the adults from that period. The Intrépide won’t be back for, what, seventy or eighty years?”

“That’s true, Jennifer. But do you really think the parents of these kids will be any different? No. We know what these people did. How they just stood around and let the world go to hell. Let the oceans rise. Let whole species go extinct. You think they’re going to care? They probably won’t have even noticed unless their paychecks got cut off.”

I stayed with the show not because I wanted to hear what he had to say but because I was waiting for him to give Alex some credit. Without him, I wanted to scream at the little idiot, none of this would be happening.

And finally, near the end, he actually reached out. “I guess we owe all this to Alex Benedict. I’ve been a bit hard on him in the past. Although he certainly deserved it. But to be fair, I should admit that he’s done a serious service for these people. Saved their lives.” He smiled across the room at me, that wooden, forced grin that moved his lips without creating any sense of warmth.

When Alex came downstairs, I asked whether he’d seen the show.

“No,” he said. “Why?”

“Your buddy was on.”

“Which one?”

“Kolchevsky.”

Alex immediately looked weary.

“No,” I said, “he was okay. In fact, he gave you credit for finding the Capella .”

“You’re kidding.”

“Cross my heart.”

“All right. Good. Remind me to send him a Christmas card this year.”

One of the panel shows, Four Aces , spent time discussing whether they shouldn’t go ahead with manipulating the drive unit to prevent the Capella from disappearing again. They seldom agreed on anything. But on this occasion, they’d obviously heard about JoAnn’s experiment. And they were united in opposing any effort to manipulate the star drive. “They got lucky with the yacht, they admit that, and they’re saying there’s no way to be sure what would happen if they start playing around with the Capella . So if that’s the case, why would anyone want to take chances with the lives of twenty-six hundred people?”

Shortly after that, Casmir Kolchevsky went missing. I saw the first report on the morning news two days later. Jennifer brought in Jeri Paxton, an anthropologist and a friend of Kolchevsky’s to talk about it. Jeri was probably well into her second century, but she retained much of the vigor of youth. “The only thing I know, Jen,” she said, “was that his AI became concerned when he didn’t come home for two consecutive nights. Drill—that’s the AI, and don’t ask about the name—called police. As of now, we just have no idea what happened to him.”

“Have you ever heard of his doing something like this before?”

“No, I haven’t. Casmir has always lived by an orderly schedule. I had a chance to talk with Drill last night. He says this is a completely new experience.”

“So there’s reason to be worried.”

“I’m afraid so, yes. And I’ll tell you, Casmir seems to some people to have a rough edge, but he’s really one of the kindest, gentlest men I know. He’s one of a kind, Jennifer. I really hope, wherever he is, that he’s okay. If you can hear me out there, Cas, call. Please.”

The rational thing to do would have been to leave it to the police to find him. But Alex has never been willing to stay out of this type of affair. “I’m surprised,” he told me, “that he has no avatar. Guy like that, with that immense ego, you’d expect there’d be one to represent his various contributions to research and tell us about his awards. But there’s nothing.”

“Why were you looking?”

“He’s disappeared, Chase. Or didn’t you notice?”

I ignored the question. “I remember his talking about it one time. The avatar, that is.”

“Where was that?”

“Give me a minute.” I did a quick search and came up with a three-year-old episode of The Charles Koeffler Show . Koeffler notes that Kolchevsky has no avatar, and that it would be easier for hosts to prepare better programing if one were available.

“Most people,” the host said, “especially those who are well-known, maintain an online presence. I wonder, could you—?”