Jack McDevitt - SEEKER

“Why?” she asked, making no effort to mask her owner’s hostility. “What do you want?”

“I’d like very much to ask Mr. Plotzky some survey questions. I’ll only take a few minutes of his time.”

“Sorry,” she said. “He’s busy.”

“I could call back later.”

“You could, but it wouldn’t matter.”

Alex was sitting back out of range of the image pickup so he couldn’t be seen. But he was nodding vigorously, egging me on. Don’t lose your patience. “There’s money in it for him,” I said.

“Oh? How much?”

“Enough. Please tell him I’m here.”

She ran the idea through her software. Then the picture froze. She had her arms folded and was staring directly at me. That sort of thing tends to hold your attention. A minute later she blinked off and I was looking at Hap himself. “Yeah?” he said.

“What’s the problem?” He looked as if he’d been asleep. We knew he was thirty-two, but he had the battered, caved-in features of someone much older.

“I’m conducting a survey for the entertainment industry. We want to make a determination about what people are watching. It would only take a few minutes.”

“Lulu tells me you said something about money.”

“Yes,” I said. “There’s a modest stipend.”

“How much?”

I told him.

“Okay,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, I’d need to come by the house, Mr. Plotzky. We need to complete a document on your equipment as well.”

“I can tell you what I have, lady. Save you the trip.”

“Sorry. We can’t do it that way. I’d like to, but I have to certify that I’ve made the visit.”

He nodded and took a long look. It was as if he hadn’t noticed me before. Then he said okay, and tried a come-hither grin. It was crooked and repulsive but I smiled back.

Actually the place wasn’t the hovel I expected. Plotzky lived nineteen or twenty floors up in one of the vertical cities that made Aker Point infamous. There wasn’t a lot of space, but it was reasonably clean, and he had a pretty good view of the Melony. I mean it was well south of lush, but if you’d decided just to drift through life, you could have done worse.

He opened the door and attempted a smile. There was a woman with him, hard-eyed, short, solid as a bowling ball. It struck me he should have tried to keep Amy on board.

This one made the avatar look good. She watched me suspiciously, the way women do when they think you’re out to steal their guy.

Hap was wearing a workout suit with a top that said DOWNTOWN AND LIKE IT, under a picture of a shot glass and some bubbles. He was short and barrel-chested with thick black hair, lots of it, growing everywhere. He indicated the chair I could use. I complied and took out my notebook.

Hap Plotzky was more congenial than he’d been on the circuit. Maybe it was because I’d become a money source, but I decided he was trying to figure out how to make a play for me while the steamroller was sitting there. I was willing to bet he’d tried unsuccessfully to get her out the door prior to my arrival, and that was what explained the woman’s animus.

“So what did you want to know, Ms. Kolpath?”

I asked him about his favorite programs, how much he participated, what he would prefer to do other than what was available, and so on. I recorded his answers and admired the furniture, which allowed me to get a good look around the living room.

The decorations were, you could say, sparse. What he had, essentially, was a sofa, a couple of chairs, and walls. The walls were lemon-colored. There was a cheap laminex shelf adjacent the front door, but the only thing on it was a pile of data chips.

“Yeah,” he said, “I like cop shows. Nothin’ much else worth a damn.” He thought he’d cut off the angle on his female guest-or roommate-and he tried leering.

I felt sorry for the guy. Don’t ask me why.

When we’d gotten through my list of questions, I took out a monitor that’s designed to interact with the AI in my skimmer. It’s in a small black case and it had red and white status lamps. It doesn’t do anything else, and it certainly wasn’t capable of what I was about to claim for it, but he had no way of knowing that. “If you don’t mind, Hap, I’m going to record the capabilities of your system now.” We were on first-name terms by then.

“Sure,” he said.

I pointed it in the general direction of the projectors and squeezed. The monitor lit up and the lights chased each other around the case. “Good,” I said. “Uh-huh.” As if I’d picked up a significant piece of information. The kitchen opened off the living room. I could see a table, two chairs, and a mounted plate that said YOU’RE IN MY KITCHEN NOW. SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. And another that said I’M THE BOSS HERE. There was no sign of an antique.

The bedroom-there was only one-opened through a door to my right. I got up and walked coolly into it.

“What the hell,” demanded the woman, “do you think you’re doing?”

“Just checking the projection system, ma’am.” Hap had thrown her name in my direction but I hadn’t caught it. “Have to be thorough, you know.” I saw nothing of interest. Unmade bed. More bare walls. A clothes chute stuck open. A full-length mirror with a chipped frame.

I aimed at the projectors and set the lights running again. “What does that do?” Hap asked.

I smiled. “Damned if I know. I just point and press. Somebody else does the download and analysis.”

He grinned at me, looked at the monitor, frowned, and for a moment I thought he was getting suspicious. “I’m surprised Dora hasn’t said something about being probed.”

Dora would be the AI.

“They tell me it’s noninvasive,” I said. “Dora probably hasn’t noticed.”

“Is that possible?” He looked as if I were introducing gremlins.

“Anything’s possible these days.” I shut the instrument down. “Well, thank you very much, Hap.” I strolled back into the living room and picked up my jacket. The woman never took her eyes from me. “Nice to have met you, ma’am,” I said.

Hap got the door. He could have told Dora to open it, but he got it himself. It was a gesture that didn’t get by his companion. I smiled, wished him good afternoon, and slipped into the hallway. The door closed, and I immediately heard raised voices inside.

“Hap has a sister,” Alex said after I’d told him I didn’t think Hap had any more pieces from the Seeker.

“Do we care?” I asked. “About the sister?”

“She might be able to tell us where he got the cup.”

“That’s a long shot.”

“Maybe. At the moment it’s all we have.”

“Okay.”

“She lives on Morinda.”

“The black hole?”

“The station.”

Interstellar flights had become a lot less inconvenient with the arrival of the quantum drive. It was near-instantaneous travel within a range of a few thousand light-years.

After a jump, you had to spend a few hours recharging, then you could go again.

Theoretically, you could have jumped all the way to Andromeda in maybe a year or so, except that the equipment would require maintenance and would wear out long before you got there. And you couldn’t carry enough life support, or enough fuel.

Nevertheless, the trip is feasible if we’re willing to make some adjustments. But nobody’s come up with a good reason yet to go. Other than a few politicians looking to find an issue to run on that won’t alienate people. The Milky Way is still ninety percent unknown territory, so it’s hard to see the point of an Andromeda mission.

Other than to be able to say we did it. But in case anyone in authority is reading this and has plans along those lines, don’t look at me.