Jack McDevitt - SEEKER

“Harry Williams,” said Alex, sitting up.

“At your pleasure, sir. And, Chase, I would not be too quick to dismiss the possibility they survived.” He crossed the room, and took a seat in the armchair closest to Alex.

“Do you think you can find the colony world?”

I froze the picture. “Alex, I understood no likeness of him had survived.”

“You just have to persevere.” He grinned. “Never give up. That’s my motto.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“In fact, there are a few of them. This one came from a set of memoirs by a contemporary.”

The guy looked good. Noble aspect and all that. I could understand why people were willing to follow him. Even to distant places that didn’t have restaurants. Alex flipped through his notebook and reactivated Harry. “The goal was ‘to create free minds in a free society.’ Right, Harry?”

“Your words?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Noble sentiment.”

He nodded. “Unfortunately, the truth is it’s pure hyperbole. Nobody lives in a free society.”

“We do.”

“I doubt it. We all believe what our parents believed. You get filled up during the first few years when the mind is open to everything, and you assume adults know what’s going on. So you’re vulnerable. And if later on you decide to reject the local mythology, whatever it might be, you pay a price. Parents frown, old friends are shocked, you get ostracized. There’s no such thing as a completely free society.” A sofa appeared and he unwound into it.

“You’re not talking about us,” I said.

He smiled. “Freedom’s an illusion.”

We looked at one another across the expanse of the office. At that moment we might have been separated by light-years. Alex grinned at me. Are you really going to argue philosophy with this guy?

I plowed ahead. “Harry, aren’t we exaggerating a trifle?”

“We’re tribal, Chase. We talk about freedom, but you better not say things the tribe doesn’t care to hear. Or act outside approved norms.”

“For example?”

“I don’t know where I am.” He looked around the room, at the antiques on display for clients. At the several framed commendations. “You collect artifacts.”

“Yes.”

“That is your profession.”

“That’s correct,” I said.

“On-site? You recover some of them personally?”

That much was evident from the framed scroll presented us by Coryn University.

“Yes. Sometimes.”

He looked over at Alex. “Have you and your associate been accused of being grave robbers?”

“That’s very good,” Alex said.

“So much for your free society.”

“That’s different.”

“How is it different? You’re making an honest living, are you not? But there’s this tribal instinct about burial places being sacrosanct. Unless you work for a museum.”

Alex broke in. “Maybe we can hash this out another time. Harry, we’d like to find the colony world. Do you know where it is?”

“I have no idea. None whatever. The sources Jacob tapped to create this program did not have that information.”

“Pity.”

The guy had charisma. Or maybe that’s the wrong word. Presence. I sat there knowing I was in the company of a heavyweight. The way he smiled, the way he crossed one leg over the other, the way he engaged with us. He was accustomed to giving direction, taking charge, confronting what he had to. And I know that’s all part of the installation program, and the real Harry Williams might have been quite different. But nevertheless, his dialogue and persona were both extracted from what was known about him. “How long has it been?” he asked.

“Nine thousand years.”

His eyes widened at that. He took a deep breath. Swallowed. And I saw fear in his expression. “Are you telling me you don’t know where they are?”

“No.”

“How’s that possible?”

“Nothing’s been heard from them. Ever.”

“Since when?”

“Since they left Earth.”

He’d almost stopped breathing. “My God.” He threw his head back. “I don’t understand how that could be. May I ask where we are?”

“We’re not on Earth,” said Alex.

“Amazing.” He smiled. “This isn’t a joke, is it?”

Alex shook his head. No.

Harry got up, went to the window, and looked out. “It looks like home.”

“Most of the garden is designer plants. Everything else, trees, grass, you name it, is native to Rimway.”

“And that is the name of this place? Of this world?”

“Yes. We are well out toward the edge of the Orion Arm. At one time, no human world was farther from Earth.”

“Wonderful,” he said. But there were tears in his eyes. “And you never came across the colony?”

“No.”

“In nine thousand years?”

“No.”

“Incredible.”

I felt sorry for him.

“Was there any contact at all after they left Earth?”

“None that we know of.”

“Well,” he said, “that was the plan. I thought we were being optimistic.”

I listened to voices outside. Kids playing somewhere close by.

“You kept your secret too well, Harry. It’s not available to us. And therefore not to you.”

“Something went wrong.”

“Yes. I think so.”

“It’s hard to understand what could have happened. We planned to be on our own until we put together the kind of society we wanted. But to disappear forever? That’s inconceivable. It couldn’t have happened.”

“It was a risky venture,” I said. “Surely you knew that.”

“We considered every eventuality.”

“You missed something.”

“Yes. It would seem so.”

Alex shook his head, puzzled. “Harry, you did not have FTL communications, did you?”

“No.”

“So if a major problem did develop, you had no way to get help. Other than sending back either the Bremerhaven or the Seeker.”

“That’s correct.”

“Which meant help was two years away.”

“Yes.”

“What are you driving at, Alex?” I asked.

“Mattie Clendennon says the Wescotts found the Seeker adrift. That at the time it broke down, or whatever, it was loaded with passengers.” He returned his attention to Harry. “Were there any plans to move large chunks of the population elsewhere?

After you colonized Margolia?”

“We thought it might happen. In time. But no, we had no relocation plans. There weren’t enough of us even to consider anything like that.”

“So where were they going?” When Harry shook his head, Alex asked whether there were other ships in the group.

“No. Only the two transports.”

“The two interstellars were old when you bought them, right?”

“Yes, Alex. That’s correct. But they were certified for us. We spent the money to have them inspected and maintained.”

“But according to the record, after each of the missions they made for you, they had to be refitted. If they’d both broken down, or maybe were allowed to fall into disrepair, your people might easily have been stranded.”

“The odds against both of them breaking down were pretty long, Alex.”

“I’m not so sure. They’d have required maintenance. Were you prepared to maintain them? Over an extended period of time?”

“Yes. We had a service organization.”

“What about after the first generation died off? Was there a program to ensure replacements?”

“Not when we left, of course. It wasn’t one of the things we were especially worried about. Look, we had a hospitable world to go to. It was safe. We took all the technology with us that we could possibly need. We wanted no contact with Earth, and we set things up deliberately so that none would be necessary.” He seemed to take a deep breath. “I can’t get hold of the time,” he said. “Nine thousand years is just too long. Is there still an organized political system on Earth?”