I spent the next few days linking in with university libraries and out-of-the-way archives, looking for whatever information might be available on Tanner. At night, I read myself to sleep with the works of Rashim Machesney. I managed a dinner with Quinda, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. For the first time, we did not pass the evening discussing the Resistance.
Several nights after my ride on the Kudasai, Chase called to say she’d found something. She wouldn’t tell me what it was, but she sounded excited. That didn’t exactly come as good news: I was beginning to hope I might have reached a blank wall, one that would allow me to back off with a clear conscience.
She arrived an hour later carrying a crystal and looking immensely pleased with herself. "I have here," she said, holding out the crystal, "the collected letters of Walford Candles."
"You’re kidding."
"Hello, Chase," said Jacob. "Dinner will be ready in about a half hour. How do you like your steak?"
"In, Jacob. Medium-well."
"Very good. It’s nice to see you again. And I’m anxious to examine what you’ve brought."
"Thank you. I’ve been talking to people at literature departments and libraries all over the continent. This was in the archives of a small school in Masakan. It was compiled locally, but the editor died, and no one ever formally published it. It includes a holo from Leisha Tanner, sent from Millennium!"
Millennium: the last entry in Tanner’s Notebooks.
I inserted the crystal in Jacob’s reader, and sat down in the wing-back.
The lights dimmed.
Tanner’s image formed. She wore a light blouse and shorts, and it was obvious she was operating from a warm climate.
Wally, she said, I’ve got bad news. Her eyes were troubled, and she looked frightened. The woman who had stood up to the mob in the Square on Khaja Luan had been badly shaken.
We were right: Matt was here after the loss of the Straczynski. But the Dellacondans are trying to hide it I’ve talked to a couple of the people who knew him, and either they won’t discuss him at all, or they lie. They don’t like him very much, Watty, but they pretend they do. I was talking to a computer specialist, a woman whose name is Monlin or Mollin or something. When I caught up with her she’d had too much to drink. I had learned by then not to approach the subject of Matt in any direct way, because when you do they pretend not to know anything at all. So I gradually led the conversation with Monlin around to how we had a mutual friend who’d mentioned her name to me once or twice. She looked interested, but when I named Matt, she lost her composure, and got so upset that she broke a glass and cut her hand. She literally screamed that he was a traitor, and a son of a bitch, and that she’d have gladly killed him if she could. I’ve never seen such venom. Then suddenly, as if somebody threw a switch, she stopped and wouldn’t say any more.
Next morning, I tracked her down at breakfast, but she told me it had just been the alcohol talking. She said she liked Matt, but claimed shed never really got to know him very well. Sorry about his death, etcetera. That evening, she was gone. One of the officers told me she’d been sent on a temporary assignment. He didn’t know where.
The thing that bothers me is this: Matt was always hard to get to know. But he’s not the sort of person anyone could hate. Watty, these people despise him. His name doesn’t exactly excite a little irritation. These people—all of these people—would like to kill him.
I suppose I should leave it at this and go home. I’m tired of talking to military types anyway. They hate rather easily. But my God I’d like to know the truth. I never knew anyone more loyal to Sim and his damned Confederates than Matt Olander.
This place is a madhouse now. It’s overrun with refugees from Ilyanda, and it’s hard to get near any of the groundside naval installations. I look around at these people, displaced from their homes, and I get very discouraged. Did you know that the Ashiyyur bombed Point Edward? How can they be such fools? I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, but sometimes I wonder whether Sim isn’t right about them. It’s hard, Wally. It really is.
I’ve heard that Tarien will be making a speech downtown tomorrow, dedicating a housing area for the Ilyandans. I’m going to make an effort to talk to him there. Maybe he can be persuaded to look into this business with Matt.
I’ll keep you informed.
The image faded.
"Is that it?"
"There’s no other transmission," remarked Jacob, "with this crystal."
Chase must have been sitting with her eyes closed, listening. "That’s all there is," she said. "The introduction indicates that subsequent volumes were planned. But none of them got put together. The editor died too soon."
"His name was Charles Parrini, of the University of Mileta," said Jacob. "He’s been dead thirty years."
"Somebody else might have finished the project."
"Maybe." Chase straightened. "But if so, it never got published."
"It might not matter," observed Jacob. "Parrini must have collected some source documents. Find them and you might get your answers."
The University of Mileta was located in Sequin, the smallest of Rimway’s six continents, in the desert city Capuchai. Parrini had been an emeritus professor of literature there for the better part of a productive lifetime. The library overflowed with his books: the man must have been extraordinarily prolific. His commentaries ranged across every literary epoch since the Babylonians. He’d edited several definitive editions of the great poets and essayists (including Walford Candles). But, most interestingly, he’d translated a shelfload of Ashiyyurean poetry and philosophy. Chase and I, working from Gabe’s study, spent an entire afternoon and part of the next morning scrolling through the books.
Toward noon of the second day, Chase called me to her terminal. "Parrini’s Tulisofala is interesting. I’ve been looking at the principals on which she bases her ethical system: Love your enemy. Return good for evil. Justice and mercy are the cornerstones of a correct life; justice because it is demanded by nature; and mercy because justice erodes the soul."
"Sounds familiar."
"Maybe there’s only one kind of ethical system that works. Although, with the mutes, it doesn’t seem to have taken."
"Is this what you wanted to show me?"
"No. Just a minute." She scrolled back to the title page, and pointed to the dedication. For Leisha Tanner.
None of the librarians knew anything about Parrini. To them, he was simply a couple of crystals in the reference room, and three boxes of documents in a storage area on the third floor. (Or maybe there were four boxes. No one was sure.) At our request, they moved the boxes down to a viewing room and showed us the contents. We found student reports, grade lists, financial records that had been old when Parrini died, and invoices for furniture, art work, books, clothes, a skimmer. You name it.
"There has to be more," Chase said, after we’d removed our headbands and started on a hot lunch. "We’re not looking in the right place. Parrini couldn’t simply have accumulated the material for the first volume without simultaneously getting large chunks of material for the succeeding books."
I agreed, and suggested that the place to start was the literature department.
Jacob had a transmission code ready for us when we finished, and we linked into a shabby office with run-down furniture and two bored-looking young men who lounged at old terminals, their feet propped up and their fingers laced behind their heads. One was extremely tall, almost two and a half meters. The other was about average size, with clear, friendly eyes, and straw-colored hair. A monitor was running rapidly through blocks of text, but no one seemed to be paying any attention.