Jack McDevitt: POLARIS

“Okay.”

“The guy’s good. He’s got a track record.”

“I’m sure.”

“The point is that there’ll be a lot going on about the Polaris over the next couple of weeks. We’re doing a banquet, inviting some VIPs, and we’ve been holding off on the dedication so we could do everything at once.”

“The dedication?”

“A new wing. For the Polaris. ”

“You’re just getting around to it now?”

She laughed. “You’ll have to ask somebody else about that, Chase. I’ve only been here a few years. But, off the record, I suspect it was always a bit too spooky for Survey. Seven people vanish off a ship? It was a downbeat story for a long time. I don’t think they wanted to remind anybody. Now it’s mostly legend. You know what I mean? Anyhow, we’re going to make it into a two-week-long extravaganza. Now what I think you’ll be interested in is that we’re going to sell off some Polaris artifacts. At auction.”

“Artifacts?” That was a surprise. “I didn’t know you had any.”

“They were stored at the time of the event. They’re personal items mostly, slates, pressure suits, pens, mugs, you name it. And some gear, but not much.”

“Why? I mean, why’d they go into storage?”

“There were a lot of investigations. When the big one was done, the Trendel Commission, they sold the ship and probably forgot about the stuff. Or maybe somebody thought it’d be worth hanging on to.”

Artifacts from the Polaris. They’d be worth a fortune.

“Anyway, we’ll be issuing invitations to the banquet for you and Alex.”

I couldn’t help a wide smile. “You get access to the Night Angel artifacts, and we get an invitation to dinner.”

She actually managed to look hurt. “It’s not just a dinner. Some of our most important supporters will be there. It’ll be very exclusive. It’s going to get coverage.”

“Windy,” I said, “I tell you what I’ll do. We’ll let you have selected artifacts on loan for a month. In return, we get the dinner invitations-”

“-And?”

“-We get fifteen of the Polaris artifacts at no cost prior to the auction. We’ll take a look and let you know what we want.”

“You know damned well I can’t do that, Chase. I don’t have that kind of authority.”

“Talk to Ponzio.”

“He won’t agree. He’d think I’ve lost my mind. So would I.”

“Windy, do I need to remind you that Survey is getting an outstation from us?”

“That was a gift. No strings, remember? You can’t start trying to deal for it now.”

“Okay. That’s fair enough. Not very appreciative, but fair.”

“Look, Chase, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you first crack at the artifacts. A preauction sale. You can take a look at the stuff, and if we can agree on a price, you’re in business.”

“A reasonable price,” I said.

“Yes. Of course. We wouldn’t try to take advantage of Rainbow.”

“Windy, you know as well as I do there’ll be an initial explosion in prices, then they’ll settle down.”

“I’m sure we’ll have no problem on that score. But I won’t be able to see my way clear to make fifteen available.”

“How many did you have in mind?”

“Two.”

Bargaining room. I looked appropriately shocked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Two. Two artifacts. That’s the absolute best I can do.”

We went back and forth and finally settled on six.

After she was off the circuit, I brought up the Memorial Wall in the Rock Garden, which is located behind Survey’s administrative center. It’s a tranquil place, a glade, with a loud brook, a few stones left over from the last ice age, a wide range of flowering plants, and the wall itself. It’s separated from the rest of the grounds by a line of galope bushes, so that you get a sense of being in a forest. This is the memorial set aside for those working under Survey’s auspices who have given their lives “in the service of science and humanity.” There are more than a hundred names, covering almost two centuries, carved into the wall, which is really a series of shaped rocks.

The Polaris passengers and their captain are there, of course. Whenever more than one person is lost in a single incident, the names are grouped and placed alphabetically, with the date. That put Chek Boland at the head. Maddy was listed third. There’d been a twelve-year delay before they were officially added to the roll call of lost heroes. The ceremony had been, at long last, an official recognition of their deaths. A concession.

Windy had called me on my day off. Afterward, I arranged to meet Alex for lunch. I wanted to tell him that we had an inside track for some of the Polaris artifacts, but I saw right away that he was distracted. “You okay?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

He listened while I explained what the deal was, and he nodded and looked pleased. “When do we get to see them?”

“She’s making an inventory available. Visuals. So we can look at them at our leisure.”

“Good,” he said. “I have something else.”

“I thought you might.”

We were in Babco’s, on the Mall. Out back, in the courtyard, overlooking the Crystal Fountain. It was supposed to be a mystical place. If you’d lost your one true love, you tossed in a few coins, concentrated, and he would come back into your life.

Assuming you wanted him to.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “that Rainbow could expand into a new field.

Something no one’s ever done before.”

“And what might that be?”

“Radioarcheology.”

“What’s radioarcheology?” I asked.

“We deal in antiquities. We collect, trade, and sell all kinds of dishware, pottery, electronic equipment. You name it.”

“Right,” I said.

He looked at me, and his eyes glowed. “Chase, what is an antiquity?”

“Okay. I’ll play your game. It’s an object that has an identifiable history. From a remote period.”

“Isn’t that redundant?”

“Well, maybe. What else did you want to know?”

“You said object. Are you implying that an antiquity has to be physical, in the sense of something you can hold in your hands?”

“Only the ones that lend themselves to selling.” Traditions, stories, customs were all antiquities of a sort.

“Has to be physical for us to sell it?” he said.

“Of course.”

“I’m not so sure. I think we’ve been missing something.”

“How do you mean?”

Sandwiches and drinks showed up.

“What about transmissions?” I must have looked baffled. He smiled. “We already use radio broadcasts to locate things. That’s the way we found the Halvorsen. ”

The Halvorsen was a corporate yacht whose captain and passengers had died back at the turn of the century when the ship was fried by a gamma ray burst. We’d found and tracked their Code White. It was a quarter century old by the time we ran it down. It was the last transmission, but it gave us a vector. It wasn’t much, but it turned out to be enough. We tracked it back, calculated for drift, and there was the Halvorsen. Okay, it wasn’t quite that easy, but it worked.

“I’m not talking about using transmissions to find things,” he continued. “I mean collecting them for their own value.”

I took a bite from my sandwich. It was cheese and tomato. “Explain,” I said.

He was delighted to oblige. Nothing made Alex happier than enlightening the slow-witted. “Six hundred years ago, when the Brok terrorists were trying to bring down Kormindel, and it looked as if the entire population was on the edge of panic, Charles Delacort broadcast his famous appeal for courage. ‘More than our lives are at stake, my friends. It is our future through which these lunatics wish to drive a stake.