Jack McDevitt: POLARIS

“Try it now.”

“Kage, are you there?”

“Hello.” A female voice. “To whom am I speaking?”

“Captain Miguel Alvarez. Of the Peronovski. Kage, what happened here?”

“Captain, I am sorry, but I do not understand the question.”

“You were supposed to start back to Indigo six days ago. Instead, you’re adrift near Delta Kay. Where Delta Kay was. What happened?”

“I don’t know, Captain.”

“Did somebody turn you off, Kage?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

He peered into the black box. Someone could have disconnected one of the core circuits without her being aware it was happening. That would have shut her down.

But if that’s what happened, they went to the trouble to reconnect, but did not throw the switch to reactivate the AI. Why would anyone do that? “Kage, what are your last recollections?”

“We were getting ready to make the jump into Armstrong space. At the end of the mission.”

“And then what happened?”

“That’s what I remember. Next I was talking to you. I am not aware of the passage of time between those events.”

“Kage,” he said, “where’s Madeleine?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see her.”

“How about the others?”

“I don’t see anyone.”

“Miguel,” said Shawn, “she has a restricted view of the ship. AIs always do.

We’re going to have to find them ourselves.”

They put the lights on and started aft. Through the common room. Down the main passageway, which was lined with doors, four on each side. Miguel had never before been aboard the Polaris, but he knew that these were the quarters for the captain and her passengers.

“Madeleine?” he called. “Hello? Anybody home?” His voice echoed through the ship.

“Spooky,” said Shawn.

“Yes, it is. Stay close until we figure out what’s going on here.” He touched the pressure plate on the first door, the captain’s quarters, and it opened. It was empty, but Maddy’s clothes were hung up.

The cabin across the passageway was also empty. As were the others, and each of the washrooms.

“What’s below?” Shawn asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Cargo, engine room, and lander.”

They went down and looked. There was nobody in cargo.

“This is crazy,” said Shawn.

Miguel led the way into the power room. Nobody lurking in the spaces between the engines. Nobody in storage. Nobody in the launch area.

They approached the lander, which was the only place on the ship where they hadn’t looked. Alvarez opened the hatch and peered in.

Nobody in the front seat. Nobody in the back.

The place felt haunted. “What the hell,” he said, “is going on?”

There was a spare washroom on the lower deck, but it was empty. Cabinets lined one bulkhead. Several of them were big enough to hide in, so he opened them one by one. They were also empty.

They found two pressure suits. “Kage,” he said, “how many pressure suits are on board?”

“Four, Captain.”

“We’re looking at two of them.”

“There are two more on the bridge.”

“They’re there now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So all four suits are accounted for.”

“Yes, sir.”

And the lander lay snugly within its restraints. “They have to be here somewhere.”

There were clothes in seven of the eight compartments. That figured, since there had been a captain and six passengers. Shoes were laid out in two of the rooms, personal gear in drawers everywhere. Readers, toothbrushes, combs, bracelets. In one, a copy of Lost Souls had fallen onto the deck.

“What could have happened?” asked Shawn.

“Kage, is there any place in the entire system currently habitable?”

“Negative, Captain. Not now.”

He’d forgotten. The sun had gone out. That seemed a trivial point at the moment.

“There was a living world here, wasn’t there?”

“Yes. Delta Karpis III.”

“Would it have supported humans?”

“Yes. If they were careful.”

“No point to this,” said Shawn. “They had no way to get off the ship.”

They turned out the lights and set the Polaris for power-save mode. Then they went back out through the airlock, left the outer hatch open, and boarded the shuttle.

He was glad to get back to the Peronovski. He hadn’t realized how chilled he’d been until the warm air hit him. Then he activated the hypercomm.

“What are you going to tell them?” asked Shawn.

“I’m still thinking about it,” he said. He sat down and opened the channel, but before he said anything for the record, he directed the AI to move well away from the Polaris. “Give us some space,” he said.

SIXTY YEARS LATER. 1428TH YEAR SINCE THE WORLD FOUNDATION OF ASSOCIATED STATES(RIMWAY).

I would probably never have gotten involved with the Polaris business had my boss, Alex Benedict, not figured out where the Shenji outstation was.

Alex was a dealer in antiquities, although he could be infuriating because his passion for artifacts inevitably took second place to his interest in profits. He was in it for the money. His job consisted largely of schmoozing with clients and suppliers, and he liked that, too. Furthermore, his career choice brought him more prestige than he could ever have earned as an investment banker or some such thing.

The truth is that I did most of the work at Rainbow. That was his corporation. He was the CEO, and I was the workforce. But I shouldn’t complain. The job was intriguing, and he paid me well.

My name’s Chase Kolpath, and I was with him during the Corsarius affair, twelve years earlier. Which, as you might know, led to some rewriting of history. And a small fortune for Alex. But that’s another story.

In his chosen profession, he was a genius. He knew what collectors liked, and he knew where to find it. Rainbow was primarily a wheel-and-deal operation. We located, say, the pen with which Amoroso the Magnificent had signed the Charter, talked its owner into selling it to our client, and took a generous commission.

Occasionally, when the prices looked especially appealing, we bought the objects and turned them over at prices more commensurate with their value. During all the years I worked with him, Alex seemed invariably to be correct in his judgments. We almost never lost money.

How he managed that without giving a damn about the objects themselves, I’ve never understood. He kept a few around the country house that served as his private residence and corporate headquarters. There was a drinking cup from the Imperial Palace at Millennium, and a tie clasp that had once belonged to Mirandi Cavello. That one goes back two thousand years. But he didn’t really connect with them, if you know what I mean. They were there for show.

Anyhow, Alex had located a previously unknown Shenji outstation. In case you don’t stay up with these things and have no idea what an outstation is, corporations used them as bases when travel around the Confederacy took weeks, and sometimes months. I know I’m dating myself when I admit that I was a pilot in the days before the quantum drive, and I remember what it was like. You left Rimway and headed out and it took a full day to go twenty light-years. If you were doing some serious traveling, you got plenty of time to improve your chess game.

Outstations were placed in orbit at various strategic points so that travelers could stop and get refreshed, pick up spare parts, refuel, replenish stores, or just get out of the ship for a while. Some were run by governments, most were corporate. Unless you’ve been on an old-style flight, you have no idea what sitting inside one of those burners for weeks at a crack can be like. It’s all strictly eyeblink now. Turn it on, and you can be halfway across the Arm before you finish your coffee. No limit other than the one imposed by fuel. Alex gets credit for that, too. I mean, he was the one who found the original quantum drive. And I won’t be giving away any secrets if I tell you that it hasn’t made him happy that he was never able to cash in. It seems you can’t patent historical inventions that somebody else, uh, invented. Even if no living person knew about it anymore. The government gave him a medal and a modest cash prize and thanked him very much.