Jack McDevitt - SEEKER

“Maybe you should show me.” He was standing, facing the center of the room, watching the two of us, and moving his weapon casually back and forth to keep us both in the line of fire. He was looking simultaneously malevolent and pleased with himself when the Baylok leaped into the room, snarling and spitting.

Hap jumped.

The thing roared and charged. Amy shrieked. Its jaws gaped and a tentacle sliced toward Hap’s head. Hap fired once and fell backward over a footrest.

I should have gone after the weapon. But I was fixated on Philidor and I swept it off the shelf as he went down. The phantom roared past and I brought the statuette down on Hap’s skull with everything I had. It produced a loud bonk and he screamed and threw both hands up to protect himself. Carmen shut off the VR and I nailed him a second time. Blood spurted. Amy was off the sofa in an instant, begging me to hold fire. The people in the hallway pounded on the door. Was I okay?

I was trying to get another clear shot at Hap. Amy went to her knees on the floor beside him and blocked my angle. “Hap,” she sobbed. “Hap, are you okay, love?”

Maybe I don’t understand these things, but I could have bopped her, too.

I was there when the Seeker left orbit, December 27, ’88. I’d made my decision and stayed behind. So I watched my sister and some of my lifelong friends start out for a distant place that had no name and whose location had not been disclosed. I knew, as I watched the monster ship slip its moorings and begin to move into the night, that there would never come a time that I would not question my decision to stay behind. And I knew, of course, that I would never see any of them again.

- The Autobiography of Clement Esteban, 2702 C.E.

When I walked into my office next morning, Alex asked what had happened to my lip.

By then I’d pretty much had it with the Seeker, the cup, and the Margolians.

“Hap paid me a visit.”

“What?” Alex turned purple. “Are you okay? Where is he now? Here, sit down.”

How wobbly did I look? “I’m fine,” I said. “A few bruises, nothing more.”

“Where’s he now? That son of a bitch.”

I believe that was the only time I ever heard Alex use the term. “I talked to Fenn this morning. He says they’ll probably put him away for a while. This one is over the top.

He’s assaulted Amy twice now, plus a couple of other girlfriends. Maybe they’ll finally decide he’s not responding to treatment.”

I described what had happened. He broke into a huge grin when the Baylok showed up. “Good,” he said. “That was a brilliant idea.”

“Yes. It was Carmen’s.”

“Who’s Carmen?”

“My AI.”

He squinted at my bruises, told me he hoped they got Hap off the streets. Then he sat down beside me. “How about Amy?”

Usually, when I check in, he says good morning, tells me what our priorities are for the day, and goes upstairs to look over the markets. But this time he seemed at a loss for words. He told me he was glad it was nothing serious, that I hadn’t been injured, that it must have been a scary experience. He bounced out of the chair and came back minutes later with coffee and toast.

He made a few more comments about how glad he was I’d come through it okay, and was I sure I wasn’t hurt, had I been to see a doctor. And before I’d quite locked in on him again he got one past me. “Before we give up on the Margolians,” he said, “we have another lead I’d like you to follow. If you feel up to it.” He waited while I ran it through a second time and realized I was receiving an assignment among all the well wishes. “Last one,” he promised. “If nothing comes of this, we’ll write the whole thing off.”

“What do you need?” I asked.

“Mattie Clendennon. She trained at navigation school with Margaret and stayed close to her.”

“Okay,” I said. “What’s her number? I’ll talk to her first thing.”

“It’s not that easy.”

Another off-world run, I thought.

“No.” He looked guilty. It takes a lot to make Alex Benedict look guilty. “She’s apparently a bit strange.”

“Stranger than Hap?”

“No. Nothing like that. But it looks as if she likes to live alone. Doesn’t much talk to anybody.”

“She’s off-line.”

“Yes. You’ll have to go see her.” He put a picture up. “She’s in her eighties. Lives in Wetland.”

It was hard to believe Mattie Clendennon was that young. Her hair had gone white; she appeared to be malnourished; and she simply looked worn-out. The picture was two years old, so I wondered if she was even still alive.

Alex assured me she was. So I took the misnamed nightflyer next morning and arrived in Paragon by midafternoon. From there I caught the train to Wilbur Junction, rented a skimmer, and went the last hundred kilometers to Wetland. Despite its name, it was located in the middle of the Great Northern Desert; Wetland was a small town that had been a major tourist draw during the last century when desert sports were all the rage. But its time had come and gone, the tourists had left, the entrepreneurs had bailed out, and fewer than two thousand inhabitants were left.

From a distance it looked big. The old hotels were clustered on the north side around the water park. The gravity works, where dancers and skaters had free-floated, resembled a large covered bowl in the downtown area, and the Egyptian replicas, pyramids, Sphinx, and stables, lay windblown on the western edge of the city. Here, in the good days, you could bring your friends, mount a drome (the closest thing Rimway had to a camel) and set off to explore the glories of the ancient world. The Temple of Ophir toward the sunrise, the Garden Palace of Japhet the Terrible a few kilometers farther on (where, if you stayed alert and rode with skill, you might be able to get out with your valuables and your life). This was a place where you came to escape from VR, where the adventure was real. More or less.

It was all before my day, of course. I’d have enjoyed spending some time there during those years. People today sit in their living rooms too much. Everything’s vicarious, as somebody said. No wonder most of the population’s overweight.

The streets were quiet. A few people wandering around. No sign of kids.

I had an address. Number one Nimrud Lane. But Carmen had been unable to match it with a location. So I had no idea where I was going. There were only a few landing pads, and those all seemed to be private. You wanted to come down, you came down on the desert.

I descended near a stone building designed to look like an enhanced pagoda, climbed out, and dropped down onto the sand. The sun was in the middle of the sky, bright and unblinking, but it was cold rather than hot. Not at all what you’d expect.

I tried my address out on a couple of passersby, but they shrugged and said they had no idea. “Try City Center,” one said, pointing to the pagoda.

I walked into it five minutes later and stood in the lobby, which felt like a place bypassed by history. A bank of elevators lined the far wall. Worn chairs and divans were scattered about. There was only one other person there, an elderly man on a sofa peering at a notebook.

I approached a service counter and a male avatar appeared, looking fresh and helpful.

Dark hair brushed back, amiable features, eyes a bit larger than you’d see in a normal human. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “My name’s Toma. May I help you?”

I gave him the address, and he looked puzzled. “It doesn’t seem to be in the atlas.

May I ask you to wait a moment while I consult my supervisor?”

He was gone less than a minute. “I should have realized,” he said. “It’s out at the Nimrud exhibit. Or at what used to be the Nimrud exhibit. It’s in private hands now.”