"No reason," I said.
That brought a lovely, rueful smile. And then she surprised me: "I mean, why do you care about Scott?"
I told my cover story, and she sympathized that I’d missed him. "When I see him again," she said, "I’ll tell him you were here."
We drank some more, and walked some more. The night had a bite to it, and I was conscious of her hips as we strolled along the skyway. "He’s become very strange," she said again. It was an observation she made several times during the evening. "You wouldn’t know him."
"Since the Tenandrome?"
"Yes." We stopped, and she leaned against the rail, looking out to sea. She looked lost. The wind whipped at her jacket, and she pulled it tightly about herself. "It’s lovely out here." Fishbowl has no satellite; but on clear nights the sky is dominated by the Veiled Lady, which is far more luminous—and intoxicating—than Rimway’s full moon. "They brought something back. The Tenandrome. Did you know that?"
"No," I said.
"Nobody seems to know what it was. But there was something. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Not even McIras."
"The captain?"
"Yes. A cold-blooded bitch if I’ve ever seen one." Her eyes hardened. "They were in, and then they were gone again. Out on another long mission. The crew was gone almost before anyone knew they were here."
"How about the research team?"
"They went home. Usually they go home and then come back here for a debriefing. Not this time. We never saw any of them again. Except, of course, Hugh."
We were walking again. Pellinor’s waterfront was brilliant and inviting, its dazzling lights floating on the water. "In a sense, he never really came home. At least not to stay. He’s always away somewhere. Like now."
"You say he goes to battle sites. Where, for example?"
"The City on the Crag last time. Ilyanda. Randin’hal. Grand Salinas."
It was a roll call of celebrated names from the Resistance.
"Yes," she said, reading my reaction. "He’s got a fixation about the Sims. I don’t know what it is, but he’s looking for something. He comes home after weeks or months away somewhere, and he comes back to Survey for a couple of days, and then next thing we know he’s gone again. He was never like that before." Her voice shook. "I don’t understand it."
Lest anyone think I wasn’t making a serious effort, I have to tell you I also tried a direct approach. Toward the end, after my informal inquiries had taken me as far as they could, I walked through the front doors of the administration building, which they call the Annex, and asked to see the Director of Special Operations. His name was Jemumba.
I was referred to a secretary. State your business please, we’ll get back to you, maybe six months. I was eventually able to talk to one of his flunkies, who denied that anything unusual had happened. Yes, he’d heard the rumors, but in this business there were always rumors. He could assure me, unequivocally, that no aliens existed out there, at least not on or around any of the worlds Survey had visited. Also, the notion that there had been any casualties of any sort on the Tenandrome was simply untrue.
He explained that withholding the log and other information regarding the flight was standard operating procedure when litigation was involved. And there was a great deal of litigation over Tenandrome XVII. "The failure of a major drive unit is no small matter, Mr. Benedict," he explained pointedly, and not without passion. "The Service has incurred considerable expense, and the liability position is quite tangled. Nevertheless, we anticipate that everything will be settled within a year or so. When that happens, you may have access to whatever information on the flight you wish, other than crew and research team data, which of course is never made public. Privacy considerations, you understand.
"Please leave your name and code. We’ll get back to you."
So I had no choice but to go to Hrinwhar. There are no regular flights, of course. I leased a Centaur and hired Chase to pilot the damned thing. The jump is even tougher in a small craft, and I got sicker than usual going out and coming back, and I swore again that that was the end.
There was no need to land. Hrinwhar was a cratered, airless, nickel-iron rock located just inside the rings of a gas giant, which I suppose is why the Ashiyyur thought it would make a good naval base. Some say the assault against it was Sim’s finest moment. The Dellacondans lured off the defenders, and literally took the base apart. They left here with some of the enemy’s most closely guarded secrets.
The physical evidence of the raid remains: a few holed domes, a gaping shaft which had once been a recovery area for warships, and chunks of metal and plastic strewn across the surface. Probably exactly as it looked when Christopher Sim and his men withdrew two centuries ago.
Chase didn’t say much. I got the impression she was watching me more than the moonscape. "Enough?" she asked after we’d made several passes.
"He couldn’t be down there," I said.
"No. There’s no one here."
"Why would he come out to this barren place?"
VI.
Call forth the fire—!
Sim is a son of a bitch: fourteen thousand years of history to learn from, and it’s still the same old blood and bluster.
WHO HAD GABE’S traveling companion been on the Capella?
Sixty-three others had boarded the vessel from the Rimway shuttle, of whom twenty were bound for Saraglia Station. (The big interstellars, of course, never actually stop at ports of call. Too much time and energy would be wasted fighting inertia, so they skim planetary systems at high velocity. Passengers and cargo are transferred in flight from local vehicles.) It seemed likely that his companion had been among the twenty.
I scanned their death notices looking for a likely prospect. The group included elderly vacationers, naval personnel on leave, three sets of newlyweds, a sprinkling of businessmen. Four were from Andiquar: a pair of importIexport brokers, a child being shuttled between relatives, and a retired law enforcement officer. Nothing very promising, but I got lucky right away with John Khyber, the law enforcement guy.
I secured the code of his next of kin from the announcement, and linked in. "I’m Alex Benedict," I said. "May I speak with Mrs. Khyber?"
"I’m Jana Khyber." I waited for her to materialize, but nothing happened.
"I’m sorry to bother you. My uncle was on the Capella. I believe he was traveling with your husband."
"Oh?" There was a sea change in the voice: softer, interested, pained. "I’m sorry about your uncle." I heard Jacob’s projector switch on. There was a flutter of color in the air, and she appeared: dignified, a trifle matronly, attentive. Perhaps irritated, though with me, or Gabe, or her husband, I could not tell. "I’m glad to have a chance to talk to someone about it. Where were they going?"
"You don’t know, Jana?"
"How would I know? Trust me, he said."
Son of a bitch. "Did you know Gabe Benedict?"
"No," she said, after a pause. "I didn’t know my husband was traveling with anybody." She frowned, and her bosom, which was substantial, rose and fell. "I didn’t know he was traveling at all. I mean off-world."
"Had he ever been to Saraglia before?"
"No." She crossed her arms. "He’d never been off Rimway before. At least not that I know of. Now I’m not so sure."
"But you knew he was going to be away for a while?"
"Yes. I knew."
"No explanation?"