Next day, I visited half a dozen universities, the Quelling Institute, the Benjamin Maynard Historical Association, and the meeting rooms of the Sons of the Dellacondans. I was naturally interested in anything connecting Tanner with Talino or, more broadly, the Resistance. There wasn’t much. I found a few references to her in private documents, old histories, and so on. I copied everything, and settled in for a long evening.
Little of the material seemed to have much to do with Tanner herself. She appears peripherally in discussions of Sim’s staff, and of his intelligence gathering methods. I found only one document in which she could be said to be prominent: an obscure doctoral thesis, written forty years before, discussing the destruction of Point Edward.
"Jacob?"
"Yes. I’ve been reading it. It has always been a mystery, you know."
"What has?"
"Point Edward. Why the Ashiyyur destroyed it. I mean, it was empty at the time."
I remembered the story: during the first year of the war, both sides had discovered that population centers could not be protected. Consequently, a tacit agreement came into being, in which tactical targets would not be located near populated areas, and cities became immune to attack. The Ashiyyur violated that understanding at Point Edward. No one knew why.
"But Sim found out what was coming," continued Jacob. "And he evacuated twenty thousand people."
"There were only twenty thousand people?" I asked. I’d always assumed there’d been a lot more.
"Ilyanda was settled by the Cortai. A religious group that never cared much for outsiders. Controlled immigration rigidly, so much so that they’d stagnated, culturally and economically. That’s all changed now. But during the Resistance, the city was a theocracy, and virtually everyone on the planet lived there. Communal life was very important to them."
According to the document, Sim compromised his entire intelligence network by reacting the way he did. The Ashiyyur immediately understood that their communications were being intercepted and read, and they changed everything: hardware, cryptosystems, transmission schedules, and routes. Not until the advent of Leisha Tanner eight months later did the Dellacondans begin to recover what had been lost. "Is that possible?" I asked.
"She was evidently a highly intelligent young lady. And you will note that the Ashiyyur responded to their own crisis without imagination. The changes in their cryptosystems were inadequate, and they knew it. So they tried to compensate by using an ancient form of their base language. You haven’t got to that yet, but it’s in there."
"I thought they had no language. They’re telepaths."
"No spoken language, Alex. But they require a system for the permanent storage of data and concepts. A written language. The one they used was of classical origin. It was one every educated Ashiyyurean knew."
"And Leisha."
"And Leisha."
"Now we know, at least, why Sim would have tried to recruit her."
"It’s curious, though," said Jacob.
"What’s that?"
"Not about Tanner. But Point Edward. The mutes destroyed the city even though it was empty when they arrived. They must have known no one was there. Why would they bother?"
"Military target of some kind," I suggested.
"Maybe so. But if it was, nothing ever came out. And another strange thing is that there was no retaliation. Sim could have appeared off one of the Ashiyyurean worlds and smashed flat any city he chose. Why didn’t he do so?"
"Maybe because they got everybody out at Point Edward, and he didn’t want to start a series of reprisals."
We found a holo of Tanner tucked away with those of a group of staff officers in Rohrien’s Sword of the Confederacy. She was about twenty-seven at the time, and lovely even in the dark and light blue Dellacondan uniform. But her amiable expression was clearly out of place among the glowering, hostile males gathered round her.
I tried to read meaning into her eyes: had she known something that sent Gabe tracking off into the Veiled Lady two centuries later? I was sprawled on the downstairs sofa, her image soft and close. Pity that the sponder technique had not been in existence then: how much easier it would be to simply link with her and ask a few questions.
I was still staring at it when Jacob quietly informed me we had a visitor.
A skimmer was descending onto the back ramp. Tanner’s image vanished, and the aircraft appeared on the overhead monitor. It was late by then, and dark. Jacob turned on the outside lamps, illuminating the walkway. I watched the pilot lift the canopy, and drop lightly to the ground.
"Jacob, who is she?"
"I don’t know."
She knew where the cameras were. She looked directly into one as she strolled past, pulled off her hat, and shook out long black hair. Then she strode purposefully around to the front porch, and mounted the steps.
I was waiting for her. "Good evening," I said.
She was tall, gray-eyed, long-legged, wrapped in an olive cloak which fell almost to her knees. Her features were partially concealed by shadows. The wind had picked up, and the snow swirled round her. "You must be the nephew," she said, in a tone that suggested vague disapproval. "I assume he was on the Capella?" Her voice was husky, and the fluttering light from the streetlamp caught in her eyes.
"Please come in," I said.
She stepped inside, glanced quickly around, her eyes gliding over the stone demon. "I thought he must have been." She removed her cloak, and hung it by the door in a gesture that implied familiarity. She was not unattractive. But there was no discernible softness in those features. The eyes were penetrating, and the thrust of the jaw was aggressive. Her diction and tone stopped just short of arrogance. "My name’s Chase Kolpath."
She said it in a way that suggested I should recognize it. "I’m Alex Benedict," I said.
She appraised me quite frankly, canted her head slightly, and shrugged. I could see she was disappointed. "I was in your uncle’s employment," she said. "He owes me a considerable amount of money." She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "I’m sorry to bring up this sort of subject at a difficult time, but I think you should know."
She turned away, terminating further discussion of the matter, and led the way into the study. She took a chair near the fire, and said hello to Jacob, who replied smoothly and without hesitation that she looked well. He produced warm fruit drinks, laced with rum. She sipped hers, put it down, and held her hands out to the blaze. "Feels strange here without him."
"Yes. I thought that too."
"What was it about?" she asked suddenly. "What was he looking for?"
The question startled me. It wasn’t an encouraging beginning. "Were you working with him on the project?"
"Yes," she said.
"Let me ask you the same question. What was he looking for?"
She laughed. It was a clean, liquid sound. "He didn’t tell you either, I take it?"
"No."
"And he didn’t tell anybody else?"
"Not that I know of."
"Jacob would know at least some of it."
"Jacob has been lobotomized."
She glanced with amusement at the monitor, which still carried the image of her skimmer. "You mean no one has any idea what he’s been up to these last few months?"
"Not as far as I can tell," I said, with growing irritation.
"Records," she said, in the way one explains things to a child. "There’ll be some records."
"They’ve got lost."
That broke her up. She laughed like a young Viking, throwing shoulders and throat into it, shaking her head, and trying to talk all at the same time. "Well," she got out between spasms, "I’ll be damned. But it’s just like him."
"Do you know anything? Anything at all?"