Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He looked off to my left. I turned and saw another image of Alex smiling at me. He added some muscle and maybe a couple of inches. He lightened the hair and rearranged the features, turned himself into a stranger, then the guy began to look familiar again.

Southwick.

He was behind all this? “How are you going to manage the voice?”

“I brought along one of the HV interviews.”

He plugged the voice and the image into the memory and called Heli.

We got a recording: “Heli is not available and is not currently able to return your call. Please leave your name and code.”

Alex, speaking in Southwick’s voice, explained that he was on a business trip and couldn’t be reached, but that he would try again later.

We’d timed our arrival perfectly. The locals were celebrating the Mililandi Fest, which, according to the hotel guide, dated back over three thousand years. Tents were set up on the beach, bands played raucous music along a seawalk, fireworks were launched, kids rode a Ferris wheel, and people gambled their money away. Comedians performed, a uniformed antigrav team dropped out of the sky, and everybody danced well into the night.

The following day, we went sightseeing, visiting several of the islands. We spent a couple of hours in the Maui Museum, where we picked up some books, mostly histories. But while we were wandering around, a couple of reporters showed up and began interviewing Alex. I drifted away and found a Wendell Chali collection. I’ve always enjoyed the Chali stories. They’re great mysteries, but unfortunately they’re six hundred years old, and two-thirds of them have been lost.

I also picked up a novel from the twenty-first century about a pilot living in the early years of interstellar travel. That one survives, and Wendell Chali goes missing. It’s frustrating. Still, I identified with the pilot. Her name was Hutchins, and I remember thinking that I’d have enjoyed talking with her.

We needed two more calls before we finally caught up with Heli. She was seated in a lobby at a hotel. Behind her, through a room-length portal, we could see nothing but ocean. “Yes, Lawrence,” she said, thinking she was speaking to Southwick. “I wasn’t aware you were coming back. Where are you now?”

“In Hawaii. I’m on business. I’ll only be here a couple of days.”

“Okay. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to alert you that Benedict is still at it. In fact, he came back here a few days ago. Have you heard from him?”

“No.”

“Good. Be careful. Stay out of his way, okay?”

“Don’t worry, Lawrence. That nitwit won’t get anything from me. He doesn’t even know my name.”

“All right. Just keep down. I’ll let you know when he goes back to Rimway. One other thing, I think he knows about the asteroid. The, um, what was it, KL-something?”

“KL-4561,” she said.

“Yeah. Right. My memory doesn’t work too well anymore. Anyhow, if you see anything that suggests he’s headed out that way, let me know. The guy’s a publicity hound, so if he really does have something, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t make the news with it. Okay?”

“All right, Lawrence.”

“By the way, I won’t be answering my personal link. I’m at the Majestic Hotel. If you need to reach me, just leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.”

He disconnected and sat back in his chair with a look of triumph. “Finally, Chase.”

“How’d you know about the KL?”

“All the large asteroids in the belt have a KL designator.”

“Why’d it have to be in the belt?”

“Most of the asteroids are. I was playing the odds.”

“Okay. Then why did it have to be a large asteroid?”

“It had a name.”

“Not bad,” I said, “for a nitwit. By the way, what happens if she calls back and discovers Southwick isn’t here?”

“I’ve already taken care of that at the desk. They think Southwick is my pen name.”

We did a search for KL-4561. There were a couple of pictures, and some information on its dimensions. It was thirty-seven kilometers in diameter, and it was in the outer main belt, orbiting the sun in slightly more than eight years. He brought up the Flex cover and compared it. “Well,” he said, “one asteroid looks pretty much like another.”

I’d just come out of the shower when Khaled called. So I kept it on audio. “Hi, Chase,” he said. “I was surprised to find out you were here. You didn’t call me.” He sounded genuinely disappointed.

I was still not supposed to be talking to him. Or letting him know what we’d learned. “We haven’t had much free time, Khaled,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “And we’re not going to be staying long.”

“Oh.” He sounded genuinely upset. What the hell was it with this guy? “What are you doing in Hawaii?”

“We’re here for the Mililandi Fest. We’d seen that a lot of artifacts were going to be on display. So we came hoping to find some we could pick up. Alex does stuff like this all the time.”

“You sound kind of funny. Is everything okay?”

I wanted to scream. You sold us out, Khaled. Dumped us in the ocean. Played us for idiots. And you want to know if everything’s okay? “Sure,” I said. “Everything’s fine. I’m just a little tired, I guess. We’ve been on the run. How did you know we were here?”

“I saw something about Alex on HV. I assumed if he was here, you were, too.”

“Okay. Yes, um, listen, I have to go. We’re trying to make a flight.”

“When are you going back, Chase? Any chance we can get together before you leave?”

“I don’t think so, Khaled. I don’t have any free time. Listen, I’ve gotta go. Alex is calling me.”

“All right. I wouldn’t want to crowd you. I know how busy you must be.”

“So long, Khaled.”

We picked up a chip in the operational services office that would allow us to locate KL-4561, or any of the other listed asteroids. Several hours later, we were on our way back up to Galileo. Alex was visibly excited. “You have any idea what we’re going to find?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “Best I can come up with is that Baylee inadvertently led some pirates there, and they took off with everything. They left him with the transmitter as part of a deal that he wouldn’t say anything. And they agreed not to kill him.”

“Alex, that doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, there are no pirates.”

“I know.”

“Then why—?”

“You asked for a theory. At the moment, it’s all I have.”

The Belle-Marie was waiting when we arrived. I’d have preferred to spend a few more days in Hawaii and just enjoy the ocean and sunlight. But Alex was anxious to resolve this business, and the luaus would fall pretty flat with Baylee’s transmitter hanging over our heads.

We picked up some food supplies and climbed on board. Larissa was on the other side of the sun, so we had a long ride ahead of us. Alex went back into the passenger cabin while I turned the ship over to Belle and waited for authorization to leave. I couldn’t help being impressed by the amount of traffic handled by Galileo. It had close to four times the docking area that Skydeck possesses, and it wasn’t really enough. Plans were under way to extend its facilities. The home world still handled more commerce than any other world in the Confederacy. It did not have the largest population. In fact, four other worlds surpassed it. But it claimed with some justification to be home to the major advances in the arts and sciences. Of course, scientific advancement had for a long time consisted of little more than taking existing technologies and making them more effective. There just wasn’t much left to uncover.