Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“You think this is really it ?”

He took a deep breath. “Let’s not get excited.” He was silent for a minute. Then: “Okay, it’s completed pressurization. We’re good.”

After we were sure the hatches worked, I joined him inside. The building was filled with chairs and tables. Some clothes had been left, and some basic equipment, and something that must have been a data-processing system. Which had no power. But the lights came on as we went room to room. It was a place where time had barely moved. Whoever had been there might have left only a week earlier. “They’ve got to be here someplace, Chase.” He was talking about the Centralia artifacts. “This place would have been perfect.”

But we didn’t see anything. Eventually, we went back outside, surveyed the area, and found two storage buildings. Neither had power, so we used the lasers to cut our way in. They contained some large tanks, a lander that I would not have wanted to try traveling in, and some spare parts. “If this was where they brought everything,” he said, “somebody cleaned it out.”

“Maybe Baylee?”

“No. Baylee would have had to cut his way in. Same as we did.”

We checked the other buildings. All were, as we expected, empty. They were basically nothing more than living quarters. “I really thought we had a decent chance this time,” said Alex when it was over, and we stood outside in the soft blue light. Reluctantly, we turned away and climbed back into the lander.

“Is there any other Larissa in the solar system?” I asked. “Maybe an abandoned orbiter or something?”

“Not that I’ve been able to find.”

“What about an asteroid? There are millions of them.”

“I checked. They don’t use names. They have an alphanumeric system, which was introduced after the Dark Age. I couldn’t find a record of what preceded it.”

After we got back to the Belle-Marie , Alex sat staring wearily, sometimes at the magnified images on the displays, sometimes out at the rocks. Finally, he shook his head. “Let’s go home,” he said.

The expected arrival of the Capella was more than five weeks away when we got back to Rimway. Alex dropped me off at my place, told me to take a few days’ vacation, and headed for the country house. I was relieved to get to my cottage without having to think about how much work had piled up at the office.

It wasn’t the first time we’d failed on a serious outing. Alex usually accepted defeat without remorse. Hunting for artifacts, or sometimes just lost information, never came with a guarantee of success, so he never had a problem shrugging things off. It was part of the business. But this time was different. I wasn’t sure whether it was that the stakes were so high. Or that he felt he’d let Marissa Earl down. Or that he was convinced he’d missed something. Whatever was weighing on him, he’d grown increasingly quiet during the flight home.

In the morning, I went down to the gym and restarted my workout routine. Afterward, several of us met for lunch. Then I went back to my apartment, read for a bit, watched some HV, and was drifting off to sleep when a call came in from Brockton Moore, the host of Morning Roundtable . “I hope I’m not disturbing you, Chase,” he said.

It was unusual for any of the media people to call me at home. “Not at all, Brockton,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, we know that you and Alex just came back from Earth. And that it had something to do with Garnett Baylee. I was wondering if you’d care to share with me what it was about?”

Moore, I decided, thought I would be more likely to talk with him than Alex would. “We were just on vacation. Who’s Garnett Baylee?”

“Well, his granddaughter’s one of your clients.”

“Oh. That Garnett Baylee.”

“Very funny, Chase. Seriously, though, what’s going on? Can I persuade you to come on the show to talk about it?”

“I’m not sure why you’re calling me . Alex is the person you should talk to.”

“Alex isn’t taking calls, Chase. Anyhow, you look a lot better than he does. We’ll get more viewers.”

“That’s very kind of you, Brockton. If you like, I’ll tell him he has an invitation from you.”

“Is that really the best you can do?”

“I’m sorry. A client’s business is confidential.”

“Then it is connected with Marissa Earl?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Sure you did. Listen, Chase, we’d love to have you on the show.”

“All right. You want the truth?”

“Sure.”

“We were looking into something. Nothing came of it, so there’s no story. There’s just nothing there that would interest your viewers.”

“Why don’t you come in and tell them that yourself? Tell them what the story was that didn’t pan out?”

“Because it would be boring. I hate being boring.”

In the morning, I decided I’d had enough sitting around and headed for the country house. I walked in the front door and Jacob said hello and told me that Shara had just tried to reach me. I was still in the act of sitting down when my link sounded. It was Shara. “Glad you’re back, Chase,” she said. “How was the trip?”

“We did a lot of sightseeing. What’s happening with the Capella ?”

“We might have a breakthrough. Orion is making the Grainger available for testing.”

“How’d that happen?” I asked.

“What we’re hearing is that President Davis leaned on them. They’re claiming he had nothing to do with the decision, that it’s being done purely in the public interest. If that’s the case, it took them a long time.”

“So you’re going to use it in a test?”

“Yes. We’re going out again. You and Alex want to come along?”

“This one’s not secret?”

“No way Orion would overlook publicizing its commitment to the public welfare.”

“When are you going?”

“End of the week.”

“Hold on.” Music was coming from the conference room. I stuck my head in and saw Alex seated in front of one of the displays. “Got a minute?” I said.

“Hi, Chase. What are you doing here?”

“Just thought I’d drop by. Listen, SRF has the Grainger . They’ll be making another effort in a couple of days. You want to go?”

“I’d like to, but I have all kinds of commitments, and I don’t see how I could do anything except get in the way. You want to handle it?”

“All right.”

“Good. By the way, Southwick will be here in an hour or so.”

“Okay. Why?”

“Don’t know. He called and asked if he could come by.”

He arrived in an aircab, directed it to wait, and strode up the walkway to the front door as if he owned the place. Jacob opened up for him, and I escorted him in. “Good to see you, Chase,” he said with an amenable smile. “I have an appointment with Alex.”

“He’s in back.” I showed him. “Straight ahead on your right.”

Southwick entered the conference room. I turned away and started back to my office, but Alex called for me to join them. “You’ve been part of this from the start, Chase. If Mr. Southwick doesn’t mind, I’d like to have you sit in.”