Jack McDevitt: A Talent for War

"How about Gabe? You remember him, right?"

"I know I would have liked him. His house indicates that he had many interests, and I feel safe in concluding he was worth knowing. I console myself that I did know him. But, no: I don’t remember him."

I sat for some minutes, listening to the fire, and the sound of the snow at the windows. Jacob was not alive. The only feelings involved here were my own. "How about the data files? I understand something was taken from them."

"I checked the index. It’s rather strange, really. They took a data crystal. But it could not have been of any use to the thief. He would need to know the security code to get access to it."

"The Tanner file," I said, with sudden certainty.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"I guessed."

"It seems very odd to steal something one cannot use."

"The rest of it, the silverware, and whatever else they took, was a blind," I said. "They knew precisely what they were after. How many of them were there? Did you recognize anyone?"

"They knocked out the power before they came in, Alex. I wasn’t functioning."

"How did they do that?" I asked.

"It was easy. They simply broke a window, got into the utility area, and cut some cables. I do not have visuals down there."

"Damn. Wasn’t there some sort of burglar alarm? Something to prevent this?"

"Oh, yes. But do you know how long it’s been since there was a felony in this area?"

"No," I said.

"Decades. Literally decades. The police assumed it was only a malfunction. They were slow to respond. Even had they been more prompt, a single thief, if he was familiar with the premises and knew precisely what he was after, could have accomplished it all inside three minutes."

"Jacob, what was Gabe working on when he died?"

"I don’t know whether I ever had that information, Alex. Certainly I don’t now."

"How good is the security on the Tanner file? Are you sure the thief can’t get at it?"

"In maybe twenty years. It requires your voice, using a security code that is in the possession of Brimbury and Conn."

"It’ll be easy for the thief to get a recording of my voice to duplicate. We’d better notify the lawyers to take precautions with the code."

"That’s already been done, Alex."

"Maybe the lawyers are involved."

"They do not have access to the code. They can only turn it over to you."

"What kind was it?"

"A sequence of digits, which have to be spoken by you, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, during a time period no shorter than a full minute. That prevents a high-speed computer attack. Any attempt to circumvent the precautions results in immediate destruction of the file."

"How many digits?"

"The recommended standard is fourteen. I don’t know how many Gabe used."

I sat quietly, watching the fire. The street lamps were yellow blobs, and the wind shook the trees. Snow was piling up against the skimmer. "Jacob, who’s Leisha Tanner?"

"Just a moment." The roomlights dimmed.

Outside somewhere, a metal door rattled shut.

A holo formed near the window, a woman in evening dress, her face angled away from me, as though her attention were fixed on the storm. In the uncertain light of the fireplace and the sodium postlamp, she was achingly lovely. She appeared to be lost in thought, her eyes reflecting, but not seeing, the snowscape.

"She’s in her mid-thirties here. When this was taken, she was an instructor at Tielhard University on Earth. It’s dated circa 1215, our time."

Six years after the Resistance. "My God," I said, "I assumed she was someone I was going to be able to talk to."

"Oh, no, Alex. She’s been dead quite a long time. Over a century, in fact."

"What’s her connection with the project Gabe was working on?"

"Impossible to say."

"Is there anyone else who might know?"

"No one that I know of."

I poured myself a drink, a real one, of the Mindinmist. "Tell me about Tanner. Who was she?"

"Scholar. Teacher. She’s best known for her translations of the Ashiyyurean philosopher Tulisofala. They are still available, and some authorities consider them to be definitive. She’s produced other works, but most are no longer in circulation. She was an instructor in Ashiyyurean philosophy and literature for forty standard years at several universities. Born on Khaja Luan, 1179. Married. Possibly one child."

"That it?"

"She was a star pilot, certified for small craft. A peace activist during the war. The records also show that she served as an intelligence officer and a diplomat for the Dellacondans."

"A peace activist and an intelligence officer."

"That is what the records say. I don’t understand it either."

Jacob rotated the image. Her eyes brushed past mine. The jawline had a tilt that almost implied arrogance. Her lips were slightly parted, revealing even white teeth (but no smile); and a forehead possibly a shade too broad concealed by thick auburn hair.

"During the war, was she on the Corsarius?"

Pause. "There’s not much information in the general files, Alex. But I don’t think so. She seems to have been attached to Mercuriel, the Dellacondan flagship."

"I thought Corsarius was the flagship?"

"No. Corsarius was only a frigate. Sim used it to lead his units into combat, but it wasn’t really adequate for staffing and planning functions. The Dellacondans used two different vessels for that purpose.

The Mercuriel was donated to them by rebels on Toxicon midway through the war. It was especially adapted for command and control, and it was named for a Toxi volunteer who died in the Slot."

"Do you know any more about her?"

"I believe I can give you rank, date of discharge, and so on."

"That it?"

"There may be something else of interest."

"What’s that?"

"Just a moment. You understand that I’m scanning all this myself while we’re talking?"

"Okay."

"Yes. Well, you should also be aware that she’s an obscure figure, and there’s not much on her."

"Okay. What are you leading up to?"

"She apparently returned from the war in a deep state of depression."

"Nothing unusual about that."

"No. I would react that way myself. But she did not improve for a long time. Years, in fact. There is also an indication that she visited Maurina Sim about 1208, the year after Christopher Sim died at Rigel. No record that I can find on what they talked about. Now the odd thing is that Tanner tended to drop from sight for long periods of time. On one occasion, for almost two years. No one knows why.

"This went on until about 1217, after which there are no more reports of unusual behavior. Which of course is not to say there was none."

I gave up for the night. I had a snack, and picked out a room on the second floor. Gabe’s bedroom was on the same floor, at the front of the building. I went in there, perhaps out of curiosity, but ostensibly because I was looking for comfortable pillows.

There were photos everywhere: mostly from the excavations, but there were also a couple of me as a child, and one of a woman he had once, apparently, loved. Her name was Ria, and she had died in an accident twenty years before I’d come to live with him. I’d forgotten about her during my long years away, but she still held her honored place on a table between two exquisite vases that were probably middle-European. I took a moment to study the image as I had not done since I was a child, and had never done with mature eyes. She was almost boyish in aspect: her frame was slim, her brown hair was cut short, and she sat with her hands hugging her knees to her breast in a pose that implied uninhibited exuberance. But her glance suggested deeper waters, and caused me to linger a long time. To my knowledge, Gabe had never been emotionally involved with another woman.