Jack McDevitt - POLARIS

It was a cold, still evening, no wind, the moon not yet up. We passed a hot-air balloon.

“Late in the season for that,” said Alex.

Kiernan was staying with the flow, doing nothing to draw attention to himself as he passed over Narakobo Bay and headed out to sea. There are hundreds of islands within an hour’s flying time of Andiquar, and in fact they hold almost half the capital’s population.

As we drew abreast of the city, we started picking up heavy traffic. “Let’s get a bit closer,” said Alex. Most of the aircraft were running between altitudes of one and two thousand meters. The long-range stuff was higher. I dropped down to about eight hundred and moved in behind the Thunderbolt.

“Good,” said Alex.

I should have realized immediately something was wrong because a sleek yellow Venture that had been down at the same altitude now pulled up behind us.

Alex hadn’t noticed. “He’s talking to somebody,” he said.

“You mean there’s someone else in the skimmer?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s on the circuit.”

The Venture swung to starboard and began to crowd me.

Alex’s attention was riveted on the Thunderbolt. “I’d love to hear what he’s saying.”

The hatch on the Venture popped open. That never happens in flight. Not ever.

Unless somebody wants a clear shot. “Heads up, Alex-!”

I swerved to port but it was too late. There was a flash of light, and, in that instant, I felt the downward jolt of normal weight slamming back, and we began to fall.

Alex yelped. “What are you doing?”

I tried accelerating to provide more lift for the wings. Skimmers, of course, are designed to function with antigrav pods. During operation, the aircraft weigh about eleven percent normal. So it doesn’t take much wingspan, or much thrust, to keep them airborne. Consequently, the wings are modest, and the vehicles are slow. You’re not going to get past 250 kph with any of them. And that’s just not enough to keep you in the air when you’re carrying full weight.

We were sinking toward the ocean. I fought the controls but couldn’t get any lift.

“Going into the water,” I told him. “Get ready.”

“What happened?”

“The Venture,” I said. It was accelerating away, pulling out of the traffic as we fell.

A male voice broke in over the circuit: “You okay in there? We saw what happened.”

And another, a woman: “Try to get down. We’ll stay with you.”

I got on the link to the Patrol. “Code White,” I told them. “I’m in free fall.” That wasn’t quite true, but it was close enough.

The surface looked dark, cold, and hard. “Hang on,” I said.

We got a voice from the Patrol. “I see you.” I love how those guys keep calm when somebody else is falling out of the sky. “We are en route.”

I didn’t have enough velocity even to get the nose up. “Try to keep loose,” I told Alex. He managed to laugh. I had to give the guy credit.

Water can be hard. We blasted down, bounced, flipped, turned sideways, and crashed into a wave. The roof tore away. Skimmers are routinely driven by AIs, and they never collide, either with each other or with anything else. Furthermore, the lighter they are, the more efficiently they run. Consequently, they’re not built to withstand impact. Even the seat belts are intended only as a precaution against rough weather.

Water poured in on us. I had a glimpse of lights, then we went under. I could feel myself rising against my harness.

I checked what was left of the overhead to make sure we had clear passage to the surface. When I saw that we did, I released my restraints, but held on, and twisted around to see how Alex was making out. At that moment, the power failed, and the lights went off.

He was struggling with his belt. He didn’t know where the manual release was.

That was no surprise; he’d probably never had to use it before. It was located in the center of the aircraft on the board between the seats. But I had to push his hand out of the way to get at it. It was a bad situation because at that moment he thought he was going down with the skimmer and was fumbling desperately and in no mind to accept help. I literally had to rip his hand clear before I could thumb the release. Then I pushed him up. He went out through the top, and I followed.

The Patrol picked us up within minutes and wanted to know what had happened. I told them. An unknown person in a late-model yellow Venture had taken a shot at us.

Apparently she had hit the antigrav pods.

“You say she. Did you know who it was?”

“No idea,” I said.

The interviewing officer was a woman. We were seated on the deck of the rescue vehicle. “Why would she do that?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “No idea.”

“But it was a woman?”

“I think so.” Not much help there.

We were both drenched and shivering with the cold and wrapped in blankets.

They gave us coffee. When the Patrol officer allowed us a moment alone, Alex asked whether I’d thought to rescue the duplicate jumpsuit.

“No,” I said. “I thought you had it.”

He looked at me and sighed.

He looks here, he looks there, he looks, by heaven, everywhere. He searches the dark corners and all the shadows, behind the doors, and down in the cushions.

- Chen Lo Cobb, “I Put It Here Somewhere,” from Collectibles When Fenn caught up with us, he was indignant. How could we not have confided in him? We were at the country house the morning after we got dunked, and the police inspector was on the circuit. He was parked behind his desk, a glowering angry bulldog, while I wondered what had become of the light-footed thief he had been in that earlier life. “You could have gotten yourselves killed.”

“We didn’t think it was dangerous,” Alex protested.

“Ah,” he said. “You’ve got someone stealing artifacts, and you didn’t think it would be dangerous.”

“He wasn’t actually stealing artifacts.”

“Why don’t you tell me precisely what he was doing?”

So Alex explained. Someone looking at objects salvaged from the Polaris.

Searching through them, actually. Changing his name from place to place. A woman involved too. One Gina Flambeau. We showed him pictures of Kiernan at Ida’s house.

“Is Flambeau the woman who was driving the other vehicle?”

“Don’t know. But she was doing the same thing as Kiernan. Trying to get a look at a Polaris artifact. In her case by pretending to give one of our clients a monetary award.

“Pretending?”

“Well, the client did get the money. But that’s not the point.” It all sounded lame.

Except that someone had tried to kill us.

Fenn was reluctant to believe the Survey attack was anything other than an assassination attempt. There had, in fact, been a plot to kill the Mazha while he was in Andiquar. Members of two independent groups had been arrested. They’d denied everything, and both were telling the truth. To the authorities that simply meant there was a third group. Or a lone rider.

“There’s one thing about it that’s strange, though,” said Fenn. “The experts tell me these people don’t like to use bombs for assassinations. In Korrim Mas they’re considered too impersonal.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “The correct way to do an assassination is with a knife or gun, up close. Lots of eye contact. Anything else is unsporting.

“There are rules.” He couldn’t resist laughing. “In any case, I’m glad you’re both okay. This is what happens when civilians get involved in these things. I hope next time, we can see our way clear to do it by the book.”

He looked directly at me, as if it were my responsibility to look after Alex.