Jack McDevitt - SEEKER

“How many ships were in the company fleet?”

“When we closed operations, in ’08,” he said, “we had nine.”

“Do you know where they are now?”

“You’re thinking that AIs might have made a permanent record of everything.”

“Yes.”

“Of course. Unfortunately, our fleet was old at the end. That’s one of the reasons we shut down. We would have had to upgrade or buy new vehicles. Either way-” He moved his head from side to side, as if to loosen joints in his neck. “So we terminated.

Most of the ships were recycled.”

Broken down and recast. “What about the AIs?”

“They’d have been downloaded and filed. I believe the requirement is nine years from the destruction of the ship.” He pondered it for a long moment. “Yes. That’s correct.

Nine years.”

“And then?”

He shrugged. “Expunged.” A frown formed slowly, like a gathering cold front. “May I ask why you’re interested? None of this seems germaine to the biography.”

I mumbled something about statistical research, thanked him, and disconnected.

“I think the trail’s gone cold,” I told Alex.

He refused to be discouraged. Despite the negative results, he was in an ebullient mood. Later I discovered he’d been contacted by a prospective client who’d come into possession of the Riordan Diamond, which, in case you’re one of the few people in the Confederacy who doesn’t know, was once worn by Annabel Keyshawn and supposedly was cursed. It eventually became one of only three items we’ve ever carried in our inventory officially designated in that category. It served to drive up the value. “We haven’t exhausted the possibilities yet,” he said.

I could see it coming. “What do we do next?” The we, of course, at Rainbow Enterprises was strictly a pejorative term.

“Survey doesn’t destroy its records,” he said. “It might be interesting to see whether the Wescotts reported any unusual findings, especially during their later missions.”

I was getting tired of the runaround. “Alex, if they found anything connected to the cup, like maybe Margolia, don’t you think Survey would have acted on it by now?”

He gave me that you-have-a-lot-to-learn look. “You’re assuming they read the reports.”

“You don’t think they do?”

“Chase, we’ve been assuming that if the Wescotts found something, they omitted putting it into their report.”

“I think that’s a safe assumption. Don’t you?”

“Yes. In fact, I do. But still we can’t be certain. And there’s always a possibility there’ll be something on one of the reports that gives the show away. In any case, we lose nothing by looking.”

Might the Harry Williams group have succeeded in building a society that had actually banished the various imbecilities that have always plagued us? The reflex is to say no, that it could not be done so long as human nature itself remained unchanged. But this view denies that we can learn from history, that we can sidestep the inquisitions, dictatorships, and bloodletting of past ages. That the programing of false values into our young can be stopped. That people can learn to live reasonably. If they were able to establish themselves on their chosen world, and to pass on their ideals to succeeding generations, if they could avoid forgetting who they were, then success might have been achieved. Maybe we have not heard from them since their departure six centuries ago because they did not want to be contaminated. I’d like to believe it’s so.

- Kosha Malkeva,

The Road to Babylon, 3376 C.E.

The administrative offices of the Department of Planetary Survey and Astronomical Research were located in a complex of glass-and-plasteel buildings on the north side of Andiquar, along the banks of the Narakobi. Its operational center was halfway across the continent, but it was here that policy was set, politicians were entertained, missions approved, and resources allocated. This was where personnel decisions were made and where researchers came to present and ultimately defend their projects. The public information branch was located here, and this was where the records were kept.

The grounds were mostly parkland, although in midwinter the place looked a bit desolate. There was a move on to put a dome over the entire complex, but the proposal, as of this writing, is still stalled in committee somewhere.

The visitors’ space was filled, so I dropped down onto a parking area half a kilometer away and walked in. We’d had a break in the weather, and it was almost warm, with a hazy sun and a few clouds spread across a yellow sky. There were a few people out with their kids, and I passed a chess game being played by two shivering middle-aged guys on one of the benches. Ahead, I could see the three-story parabolically shaped Trainor Building that housed the personnel offices. To my left, in a cluster of trees, was the Central Annex, which looked more like a temple than a structure intended for scientific research. The Annex housed Survey’s museum and exhibits.

I veered right, strolling past stone memorials to old glories, circled the Eternal Fountain (which is supposed to symbolize the notion that exploration will never cease, or that the universe goes on forever, or something like that), passed a couple of bureaucratic types arguing and looking annoyed, and approached the Kolman building, which housed Survey’s director and his immediate staff.

I climbed the eleven steps at the front entrance. Alex tells me they signify the eleven interstellars that formed the original Survey fleet. Eight Doric columns supported the roof. At the far end of the portico, a child was charging down the steps with a red kite in tow while his mother watched.

The front doors opened onto a stiff, uncomfortable lobby, filled with plants and armchairs and tables. It had a vaulted ceiling and a long array of windows, both real and virtual. They were framed by lush silver curtains. The walls were lined with paintings of Survey vessels cruising past exploding suns or serene ring systems, and of people getting out of landers and standing heroically gazing across alien landscapes.

PUTNAM ARRIVES ON HELIOTROP IV, an attached plate said. Or, THE JAMES P. HOSKINS DOCKS AT STARDANCE. It was the kind of place specifically designed to make the occasional visitor feel insignificant.

And there stood Windy, in conversation with someone I didn’t know. She saw me, waved, and signaled me to wait. A moment later she came over. “Social call?” she asked.

“Not this time. I just wanted to get authorization to look at some records.”

“Can I help?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Good.” She smiled. “By the way, did you ever figure out who the thief was?”

“At Gideon V? No. We have no idea.”

“I checked on this end. There were several people who had access to my report.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry. There’s a good chance that’s where things went wrong.”

“Well, we’ll know better next time.”

“It infuriates me,” she said.

“Let it go.”

“Well, I can’t quite do that. Not if we have someone giving out information that allows people to descend on archeological sites.” Her mouth was a thin line. God help whoever it was if she caught him. “What did you want to see?”

Adam Wescott had completed a total of fourteen missions for Survey over a fifteenyear period, beginning in 1377 and ending in 1392.

I started with the most recent and worked backward through each of the missions he’d shared with Margaret. That might have been overkill, but I didn’t want to miss anything.

Most of the Survey flights are general purpose. You pick a group of stars, go in, take pictures, get sensor readings, measure everything in sight, and move on. Adam had a special interest in the mechanics of G-class stars as they approach their heliumburning phase. Three of his missions, including the last one, had been focused on that subject. That wasn’t to say they didn’t also look at other aspects of the central luminary and also survey the planetary system. But helium was the watchword.