Jack McDevitt - POLARIS

“Maddy,” he said, by way of explanation. “She’s central to this whole thing.”

She’d begun her professional career as a fleet pilot and had taken out a Mute destroyer during an engagement near Karbondel. She’d been decorated, and when it turned out that the strike had taken place shortly after a cease-fire had gone into effect, nobody had cared. The Mutes, after all, had initiated the attack. At least, that was the official version.

She had apparently been an independent spirit. Didn’t like having to deal with superior officers, and had left at the end of her obligated time to become a freelancer.

She’d hired out to corporate interests, but got bored hauling passengers and freight between the same ports, and finally, at Urquhart’s urging, signed on with Survey. It didn’t pay as well, but it meant flights into places no one had ever gone before. She liked that.

Sacracour orbited the gas giant Gobulus, which was 160 million kilometers from its swollen red sun. The sun was expanding, burning helium, and would, during the next few million years, swallow its four inner worlds, one of which would be Gobulus, its rings, its vast system of moons, and, of course, Sacracour.

The planet’s biosystem was eight billion years old. It featured walking plants, living clouds, and, arguably, the biggest trees on record, skyscrapers twice the size of Earth’s Sequoias. Martin Klassner had predicted that humans would eventually learn to juggle stellar development and would stabilize the local sun. Sacracour would be forever.

The first settlers had been members of a religious order. They’d built a monastery in a mountain chain, called it Esperanza, and they were still there. And prospering. Some of the prime scholars and artists of the past few centuries have made it their home, including Jon Cordova, who, by many accounts, is the greatest of all playwrights.

Most of the planet’s contemporary inhabitants-there are fewer than three hundred thousand altogether-live along a seacoast that’s usually warm and invigorating. Lots of beach and sun. Great sky views. They haven’t yet achieved tidal lock, so if you time things right you can sit out on the beach and watch Gobulus, with its rings and its system of moons, rise out of the ocean.

The hitch was that the section of seacoast to which we were headed was experiencing mid-winter.

The orbital transport brought us down to Barakola in Bukovic at night in the middle of a sleet storm. We were on the near side of Gobulus, facing away from the sun, and the gas giant itself had set an hour earlier. The darkness was almost absolute.

We rented a skimmer, checked in at our hotel, changed clothes, and headed for Tabatha-Li.

It was an island, home to Whitebranch University, two hours from the hotel. We outran the storm and the clouds and sailed out under a canopy of moons and rings.

Directly ahead of us, just off the horizon, we saw an oscillating blue star.

“What is it?” asked Alex.

“It’s Ramses. A pulsar.”

“Really? I’ve never seen one before. It’s a collapsed star, right? Like the one that hit Delta Kay?”

“More or less,” I said.

It dimmed and brightened. Dimmed and brightened. He didn’t approve. “Having that thing in the sky all the time would give you a headache.”

Tabatha-Li was quaint, quiet, and old-fashioned, but not in the way Walpurgis had been. This was last-century style with money. The island was a favorite location for retired technocrats and government and media heavyweights. This was one of the places local interviewers visited when they wanted commentary on some contentious political or social policy.

Audrey Kimonides, the former Audrey Walker, lived in a luxurious turtle-shell house on the north side of the campus. There was stone art on the lawn and a Marko skimmer by the pad. Audrey did not want for resources.

Icicles hung from the roof and the trees. Snow was piled up everywhere. Lights were on inside and out. Audrey had known we were coming, and the front door opened before we were on the ground.

If you’re visiting a centenarian, you expect to see someone who’s come to terms with mortality and exhibits a degree of composure and resignation. It’s never expressed, of course, but you can see it in the eyes and hear it in the voice, a kind of world-weariness, a sense of there being nothing left that can yield a surprise.

Audrey Kimonides, on the contrary, was a bundle of barely suppressed energy.

She strode purposefully out the front door, a book in her left hand, a wrap thrown around her shoulders. “Mr. Benedict.” She exhaled a little cloud of mist. “Ms.

Kolpath. Do please come inside. You didn’t pick the right time of year to come visiting.” She led the way back, warned us that the house was full of drafts, and settled us in front of a fire. “May I get you something to fight off the cold?” she asked.

“By all means,” said Alex, warming to her immediately.

She broke out a decanter of dark red midcountry wine and, when Alex offered to help, insisted he sit and relax. “You’ve had a long flight,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.” She popped the cork, filled three glasses, passed them around, and offered, as her toast, “The world’s historians, who never really get things right.”

She beamed at Alex to let him know that she understood exactly who he was and that she admired people who upset applecarts. “Mr. Benedict,” she continued, “it’s such a pleasure to meet you. And Ms. Kolpath. The two of you. Here at my home. I can hardly believe it. I can’t tell you how much I would have given to have been with you when you made your discovery.”

She was a trim woman, not tall, with startling blue eyes and the erect posture of someone half her age. Her hair was white, but her voice was clear and vibrant. She put the decanter on a coffee table, where we could all reach it, and sat down in an armchair. “I assume you wanted to ask me about Michael.”

Michael was the second husband, known for his work on the Columbian Age.

“Actually,” Alex said, “I was interested in Shawn.”

“Shawn?” She looked at me for confirmation. No one’s ever really interested in Shawn. “Well, of course. What did you want to know?”

There were pictures atop a bookshelf and on a side table. An audacious-looking young Audrey and a dreamy-eyed Shawn Walker. And a much older Audrey with another man, formal, white whiskers, officious-looking. Kimonides.

“I was wondering if you’d tell us about him, what kind of work he did?”

“Certainly,” she said. “It’s simple enough, I suppose. He designed, installed, and maintained AIs. He worked thirty years for CyberGraphic before starting his own company. But I assume you know that.”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why you’re interested? Is there some sort of problem?”

“No,” said Alex. “We’re trying to figure out what happened to the Polaris. ”

She needed a moment to process that. “Shawn always wondered about that himself.”

“I’m sure.”

“Yes. Odd thing, that was. I never understood how it could happen. But I don’t see how I can help.”

“Good wine,” I said, to ease the pace.

“Thank you, dear. It’s from Mobry.”

I doubt either of us had any idea what or where Mobry was, but Alex nodded sagely. “Ms. Kimonides-” he said.

“Oh, please, do call me Audrey.”

“Audrey, yes. Shawn was on the Peronovski. ”

“That’s right. First ship on the scene. He and Miguel Alvarez-Miguel was the captain-were the ones who found the Polaris. ” She looked momentarily regretful.

“Everybody knew about Miguel Alvarez, of course. The captain. But if you’re the number two guy, nobody notices.”