"The only Dellacondan frigate known to have survived the war was the Rappaport. It’s on display at the Hrinwhar Naval Museum on Dellaconda. In fact, to a considerable extent, it is the museum. But it’s been the subject of considerable controversy. Propulsion and data processing systems and weapons are missing. They’ve always been missing. The theory is that museum officials removed everything to ensure that no one would, say, fire a nuclear charge into the personnel office."
"Reasonable enough position," I said.
"Yes. But unfortunately, whoever removed the pieces didn’t save them. There’s a lot that historians would like to know; but without the works, the Rappaport is just a shell. No help to anyone.
"Consequently, the recovery of a bona fide Dellacondan warship would be a marvelous find."
I thought about Llandman and the Regal Jacob guessed. "He was unfortunate," he said. "Nevertheless, finding the vehicle was a considerable achievement. He worked on the problem for forty years. When they found it, it was 175 billion kilometers from the battle site, which should give you a sense of the magnitude of the calculations."
"Quinda thought it was deliberately destroyed, Jacob. What do we know about what actually happened?"
"She may be right. Shortly after the research team boarded, one of the nuclear weapons armed itself and an ignition sequence started. Damaged systems, careless handling, sabotage: no one knew. Llandman almost lost his life trying to jettison the bomb, but none of them really knew much about the ship’s systems."
"What happened afterward?"
"There was talk of another expedition for awhile. Another ship. But that died out. In the end, there was only laughter. Llandman became depressed, grew ill, and retired. He was a bitter man by the end of his life. Some of the mockery rubbed off on your uncle as well.
But Gabe was tougher material. He told his critics what they could do."
"What finally became of Llandman?"
"I’m looking at the record. He took an overdose of something. The autopsy was never released. He was suffering from a variety of medical problems, and no one was ever prepared to say it was suicide. There was apparently no note."
"Why do you say apparently?"
"Because a cousin claimed to have seen one. If so, the family never released it."
"Understandable."
"Yes. An unfortunate end for a talented man."
I thought of him leading me through the lost places of dead cities. I could remember his smile, and his gnarled hand holding mine, helping me over slabs, past digging equipment.
"There were even rumors that he destroyed the ship himself. Deliberately."
"That’s crazy!"
"One would think so." Jacob’s tone dismissed the idea as unworthy of further consideration. "On a different note, I came across more information on Matt Olander while you were gone."
"Who?"
"Olander. Leisha Tanner’s missing friend. It turns out he’s buried on Ilyanda. I was reading through a travel guide put out by their tourist people. Did you know that Ilyanda is a very popular tourist site?"
No, I didn’t.
"It’s still mostly wilderness, unexplored country, great fishing and hunting, and some ruins that no one has yet explained. They have a strong affection there for Christopher Sim, judging by the number of boulevards, parks, and universities named after him. The reason, I gather, is that, during the darkest days of the Resistance, he saved them all."
"The evacuation," I said.
"Yes. At the time of the war, the entire population of the world was concentrated at Point Edward. There were twenty thousand people, and Sim learned somehow or other that the Ashiyyur planned to bomb the city."
"Another puzzle," I said. "Neither side attacked populated areas at that time in the war."
"Except Point Edward. Maybe you could visit your friend S’Kalian again and ask why. In any case, Sim went in with everything he could collect, big commercial liners borrowed from Toxicon and Aberwehl, a fleet of shuttles, and his own frigates. They got just about everyone off. But for some reason or other, Tanner’s old friend stayed behind. The Ilyandans have a tradition that he’d lived in Point Edward as a young man, and that he’d met his wife there."
"Jill," I said.
"Yes. Jill. Who died during the assault on Cormoral. Anyhow, the Ilyandans say that he remained at Point Edward because he knew the city was going to die, and he thought it should have a defender. His grave is inside the spaceport. They’ve made a memorial out of it, and turned it into a park.
"There’s something else you might be interested in. I’ve been digging into transportation records. This is technically confidential, but there’s a unit down at Lockway Travel that owes me a favor. Your uncle left here for Dellaconda about two months before the disappearance of the Capella."
"Dellaconda," I said. "Christopher Sim’s home world."
"Yes. Furthermore, it appears that Gabriel went there several times over the past year and a half."
"Jacob, it all keeps leading back to the Resistance. But I’ve been over it and over it, and I can’t imagine what connection there could be between a two-hundred-year-old war and the Tenandrome."
"Nor I. Perhaps some one made off with a payroll and hid it somewhere in the Veiled Lady."
"Well, dammit," I said. "Something happened. Maybe it’s time to get a look at the combat area."
Jacob complied, the lights dimmed, went out, and a sprinkling of stars flicked into existence. "The battlefield can be defined as an area approximately one hundred twenty light years wide and forty deep, stretching roughly between Miroghol and Wendrikan." Two stars, floating near opposite walls, momentarily brightened, one blue, one white. "Minimum travel time between them, in hyper, would have been no less than six days."
"How about a modern vessel?"
"About the same. We’ve been using the Armstrong for about five hundred years, and you can’t really speed it up. I don’t know why, but I could produce an explanation if you wish."
"That’s all right."
"We are looking at the area, by the way, from the human side. The leading edge of Ashiyyurean influence, as it was at the beginning of the war, is across the room." A bank of about a dozen stars glowed more fiercely, and then subsided. All but one: a dull red sun whose identity I could guess. "Yenmasi," said Jacob.
That was where it had started. A human colony, planted on Imarios, the fourth world of Yenmasi, had revolted over some trivial question of taxes. And there, nearby, was Mistinmor, the yellow sun which illuminated the skies of the parent world Cormoral, whose warships had intervened, and whose destruction had galvanized the frontier worlds.
It was all there: the blue supergiant Madjnikhan, home of the unfortunate Bendiri, who had sent their only ship to assist the Dellacondans; golden Castleman’s, where several of Sim’s frigates had been lost in the futile effort to save the City on the Crag; the solemn beauty of the dozen stars whose symmetrical pattern created a light-years-long cylinder known to history as the Slot, where a small force of allied vessels had inflicted a devastating defeat on an Ashiyyurean armada; the yellow sun Minkiades (so much like Sol), still despised because its two populated worlds, full of fear, had thrown in with the invaders; the white dwarf Kaspadel, home star to Ilyanda; and brilliant white Rigel, where Sim and his ship had died…
"Let’s see the Veiled Lady."
"Change of scale," Jacob said. The war zone shrank into a glittering cloud about the size of the fireplace, and retreated toward the windows. In the center of the room, a second luminous patch appeared. "The Veiled Lady. Distance from nearest point in the combat area to the nebula’s leading edge is somewhat more than eleven hundred light years."