Jack McDevitt - POLARIS

I should mention that I caught the eye of Renaldo Cabrieri. Alex didn’t care for him, but I liked the guy, and it didn’t hurt my self-confidence to have one of the biggest romantic stars in the Confederacy following me around. He was a bit over the top, but he was a charmer nevertheless. He made sure I always had a drink in my hand. He leered at me, purred in my direction, smiled in the most delightful manner, and just generally misbehaved. At one point, Alex told me it was embarrassing. Me, I thought I was entitled.

First, a dictator. Now a certified heartthrob. I wondered what, or who, was next.

We never found Belle. Presumably, after she was taken from the ship, she was discarded.

The AI that had been inserted in her place turned out to be a standard model, a bit more advanced than Belle. But someone had made a few adjustments. Had prepped it to take us out sight-seeing to Ramses. “Could you have done it?” Alex asked me.

No. I wasn’t that good. But I don’t pay much attention to the inner workings of AIs. I knew a few people who could make those sorts of changes. “It’s not that hard,”

I said.

Fenn heard about what had happened, and an escort was waiting for us when the Toronto pulled into Skydeck. They stayed with us until we reached the country house. Fenn arrived moments after we did. “You can’t stay here any longer,” he said.

“We’ll have to arrange something elsewhere. These people, whoever they are, seem to be determined.”

It was good enough for me. But Alex said it was okay, no need to make a big deal of it. He wasn’t fooling anybody, of course. He was scared, too. But he didn’t like showing it, so he continued to tell Fenn not to bother until he thought Fenn was going to back off. Then he caved. For my sake. By early evening, we’d been moved to an inauspicious little two-story town house in Limoges, a medium-sized city two hundred kilometers southwest of Andiquar. There would be security bots constantly in the area, he assured us. We were given fresh identities. “You’ll be safe,” he said.

“They won’t be able to find you. But be careful anyway. Assume nothing.”

So we shut down Rainbow temporarily. “Going on vacation,” we informed our clients. Fenn didn’t even want us to do that. Just slip away in the night, he said. But we couldn’t walk off and leave everybody hanging. There were projects under way, commitments had been made, and there’d be people who’d contact us and expect a response.

We left the country house and began a careful existence of locked doors and staying away from windows.

At the end of the second week, Autoreach, a salvage company, announced it was ready to go out and get the Belle-Marie. Alex stayed home while I went along. When we got to the ship, I installed a fresh AI, an upgrade, in fact, and I fed it a code to ensure that if anyone got to it again I’d know before leaving port.

It felt good to bring the ship back. I arranged extra security for it, and returned to our new home on a blustery winter evening. Alex was sitting quietly in the living room behind his reader and a pile of books. An image of the Polaris floated over the sofa. He looked up when I came in and told me he was glad to see me. “Did you by any chance,” he asked, “see the Polaris while you were on Skydeck? It’s here for a few days.”

He meant the Clermo, of course. “No,” I said. “I wasn’t aware it was scheduled in.”

“I don’t know how you feel about going back up there,” he said, “but I think it’s time we did the tour.”

“We’re going to look at the Clermo?”

“We should have done it two months ago.”

“Why?”

“Everson and his people never found what they were looking for.”

“So-?”

“That means it might still be on the ship.”

I called Evergreen, gave them a set of false names different from the ones Fenn had bestowed on us. I was taking no chances. For this trip, we would be Marjorie and Clyde Kimball. I especially liked that because Alex has a thing about names. There are certain ones, he maintains, that you just can’t take seriously. Herman. Chesley.

Francis. Frank is okay. So I knew what he’d think of Clyde.

“We’re doing a book on the Polaris incident,” I explained, “and we’d like very much to tour the Clermo. ”

My contact was a quiet, intense young woman, dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes.

Professional smile. It put a fair amount of distance between us. “ I’m sorry, ma’am.

The Clermo isn’t fitted out for tours. ” Whatever that meant.

“We’re embarking on this project,” I told her, “under the auspices of Alex Benedict.” That was taking a chance, but it seemed necessary. I waited for a sign of recognition. “I suspect your employers would want you to agree.” That was a leap, but Alex was pretty well known.

“I’m sorry. Who is he again?”

“Alex Benedict.” When she went blank, I added, “The Christopher Sim scholar.”

“Oh. That Alex Benedict.” She didn’t have a clue. “Can you hold, please, Ms.

Kimball? Let me check with my supervisor.”

The supervisor didn’t know either. It took a couple more calls before I finally got through to an executive secretary who said yes, of course, they’d be delighted to have a representative of Mr. Benedict tour the Clermo, except that she didn’t know when the ship would be available.

We went back and forth for the next couple of days before we finally got an invitation, primarily, I suspect, because I’d become a nuisance.

Evergreen’s Skydeck office was located on the ‘Z’ level, at the bottom of the pile and well out of everyone’s way.

The Foundation had purchased the Polaris in 1368, three years after Delta Karpis. They renamed it and had been using it since to transport company executives, politicians, prospective customers, and assorted other special guests.

We got our first sight of it from one of the lower-level viewports. It was smaller than I’d expected, but I should have realized that it wouldn’t be very big. It was a passenger transport vehicle, with a carrying capacity for the captain plus seven. Not much more than a yacht.

It had a retro look, with a rounded prow, flared tubes, and a wide body. Had it not been for its history, I suspected the Clermo would have been retired. But it provided a substantial degree of cachet for Evergreen. It was easy to imagine the Foundation’s executives pointing out to their VIP passengers the very workspace Tom Dunninger had used while history was overtaking the ship. Ah, yes, if the bulkheads could only talk.

The retro look added to the charm. But the forest of scanners, sensors, and antennas that had covered the hull in its Survey days was gone. Only a couple of dishes were visible now, rotating slowly, and a few telescopes.

The hull, once gray, was now sea green. The tubes were gold, and there was a white sunburst on the bow. The imprint of the DEPARTMENT OF PLANETARY SURVEY AND ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH no longer circled the airlock. The Polaris seal, the arrowhead and star, had been removed from the forward hull, which now read EVERGREEN , in white letters stylized as leafy branches entangled with vines. The Foundation’s tree symbol lay just aft of the main airlock. The only thing that remained from the original designators was the manufacturer’s number, barely visible on the tail.