Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“But,” I said, “you guys are entertainers. Entertainers hang out in public places.”

“We don’t live here, Chase. Amora is a retreat. This is where we hang out. It’s where we can be ourselves.”

“One final question,” said Alex. “You don’t have any artifacts stored here anywhere, do you?”

They looked at one another. Reika smiled. “What kind of artifacts? I have an old coat upstairs.”

“Okay,” said Alex, “thanks.”

I turned to Amy. “I assume you run the P.R. operation.”

She laughed. “Not really. In fact I’m the comedian.”

“I guess Tokata isn’t as dumb as we thought.”

“I guess not.”

Tori, Reika, and Amy came out under the dome and waved as we lifted off. We waved back, and I asked Alex if we were headed home?

“No,” he said. “We still don’t know what this is all about.”

“So it’s back to Galileo?”

“Yes.”

“What are we going to do now? Try to beat the truth out of Tokata?”

He was seated beside me, staring out at the stars. “There might still be a way to manage this.”

“I’m listening.”

“We need to scare Tokata. And Southwick. They’ve got one vulnerability.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re trying to keep a secret. All we need to do is put the secret at risk.”

“So how exactly do we do that? We don’t know what they’re hiding. We can’t even find the asteroid.”

“Maybe we don’t have to.”

We went back to the Maui Museum and made ourselves visible for two days, looking through every section of the place, asking questions of the tour guides, spending substantial time in the gift shop, and sitting out in the lobby. Alex was hoping to draw the attention of somebody from the media, but it didn’t happen.

“Can’t find a reporter when you need one,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to take a more direct approach.”

“You going to call a press conference?”

“One of the reporters was a big guy named Bill Garland. Or Phil Garland. I forget which. But he works for the Golden Network, and he shouldn’t be hard to find.” He checked his link. “It’s Bill .” The link made the connection, and a half hour later, Garland walked in the door. He was one of the people who’d sat down with Alex while I’d wandered off and found the Wendell Chali collection.

“Hello, Mr. Benedict,” he said. “And Ms. Kolpath. Nice to see you again.”

“Good to see you, Bill,” said Alex. We took seats in a corner of the lobby.

“So what’s going on?”

“Well, I’m sorry to say that when you and your colleagues were here a few days ago, I wasn’t entirely honest with you.”

Garland was young, still on the right side of thirty. But the enthusiasm that usually goes with the age wasn’t there. The guy was good, controlled, ready to listen, but not overwhelmed by the reputation of his source. “Mr. Benedict,” he said, “it was obvious you had something you didn’t want to share. I understand that. It happens all the time. But I’m delighted to see you back here. This time, I assume you’ll tell me what it’s about.”

“I’m Alex , Bill. And you know what the Apollo artifacts are?”

“Enlighten me.”

“They’re from the Golden Age, from the early spaceflights. From the first few centuries.”

“Okay. What kind of artifacts are we talking about? Can you specify?”

“I can’t be sure. But I suspect we’d find parts of the ships that made the first Moon flights. Maybe some personal items that belonged to the astronauts.”

“Wait a minute. What’s an astronaut?”

“Sorry. That’s what they called the people who went into space. When we were first getting off Earth.”

He smiled. “All right.”

“The artifacts might include a radio from the Mars colony. Or a coffee cup belonging to Neil Armstrong.”

“He was one of the early astronauts, right?”

“First person to set foot on another world.”

“Oh. I guess I should have known that. I’m not strong on ancient history.”

“That’s okay. There might be a pen that belonged to Regina Markovy. She was captain of the first Mars flight. What I’m trying to say is, there might be anything .”

“All right. That all sounds pretty valuable. Are you going to buy these things?”

“No, Bill. We’re trying to find them. They disappeared eight thousand years ago.”

“Oh.”

“But I may know where they are.”

“Really?” His eyes widened. “Good. But you say you may know.”

“I can’t be certain. I’m going to need some help finding them.”

Bill nodded. “What can I do?”

“If you run this part of the story, somebody out there might have information that would be helpful. I’m only missing a couple of pieces. The person who can help might not be aware of it. With a little luck, someone will read your report and get in touch with me. I’m going to set up headquarters at the Majestic Hotel.”

“All right,” he said. “I don’t see a problem there. But if this thing works out, and you actually find this stuff, I’ll want an exclusive.”

“Bill, if we find ourselves in a position to start selling Golden Age artifacts, we’ll want all the publicity we can get. But yes, you’d get the lead story. Okay?”

“These artifacts, I assume, are seriously valuable?”

Alex met his eyes. “They’re priceless. But you know, of course, there’s always a chance this will come to nothing.”

“Of course.” Bill was writing in his notebook. “Let’s hope not.”

“So what’s the point of all this?” I asked him when we were alone again.

“We’re going to put some pressure on Southwick. He’ll find out from Tokata what I’m threatening to do. And I think—I hope —they’ll get in touch with us to talk things out.”

“Or maybe the bomb will be real this time.”

“Chase, I don’t think these people are psychopaths. If they were, we’d know by now.”

We went back to the hotel and wandered into the bar. “So what exactly are you threatening to do?”

“I thought it was plain enough. Or it will be to them. What Tokata should get from this is that, in a few days, I’m going to state publicly what I know, that the Prairie House artifacts were taken to an asteroid, that the asteroid was known as Larissa, and that meant it was pretty big. That there’s a good chance they are still out there. The probable result of that will be that everyone who has access to a yacht will head out and look. Ultimately, somebody will stumble across it.”

“Are you actually planning to do it?”

“Good question,” Alex said. “I don’t know. If we don’t make this work, I might have to resort to something like that.”

“Alex, I don’t see how this can work. Tokata’s in the British Isles, and we’re sitting here in Hawaii. She won’t even see Garland’s report.”

“You’re underestimating her, Chase. She knew we were onto her and came up with a number on the spot to send us off on a wild-goose chase. You don’t think she’s been doing searches since then, trying to keep an eye on us? She knows we wouldn’t have gone quietly into the sunset. She’s probably waiting for us to call again.”

“Instead of doing all this roundabout stuff with Garland, why don’t we just do that?”

“I can’t see how it would do any good. I don’t think we can buy her cooperation.”