Endmar Lee was a short, almost fragile, man, spare of body and speech. He was young, yet he seemed to lack the energies and certainty of youth. "Ah," he said at length, projecting a holo into the middle of the room. "Here she is now. We think this was taken before the war."
She was attractive, lean with wide shoulders, her features perhaps a trifle nonchalant. Dark hair, worn long. Not someone who was likely to be hurried along by other people’s concerns.
"What do you know about her?" I asked.
"There’s not much to know," said Lee. "I don’t think there’s anything especially remarkable about Kindrel. She went through a lot very early in her life—"
"How do you mean?"
"Her husband died during the third year of their marriage. Freak boating accident of some kind. I don’t know the details; they’re lost. Then shortly after that, the war came."
"It might actually have made things easier for her," said Chase. "Forced her to concentrate on other things."
Lee hesitated. "Yes." The word trailed off, leaving something unsaid.
"Did she come back? After the war?"
"Yes, she did. She came back with the rest."
"Does the name Leisha Tanner mean anything to you?"
He thought about it, and shook his head. "I can’t say that it does. Does she have some connection with Kindrel?"
"We don’t know," said Chase. "Did Kindrel ever marry again?"
"No," he said. "Or at least she wasn’t married when she left Ilyanda. After that we lost track of her. But she was well along in life by then anyhow. The last holo we have of her—" He worked the control device in his lap, "—is this one." She appeared again, almost elderly now, standing close beside Jina, her niece, who was by then middle-aged. The resemblance between the two was striking.
"Kindrel was a bit wild, I guess. She owned a yacht, and lived aboard it for years. Took long cruises, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. There might have been a drug problem.
"She was very close to the niece. Jina died four years after this was taken, but she’s not mentioned as having attended the funeral. That was in 707, and it suggests she was no longer on Ilyanda by then, though we know she was here in 706. That fixes the date of her departure pretty well."
"Yes," I said. Figuring it all in standard time, I decided Kindrel had left her home world almost forty years after the attack. "How do you know she was still here in 706?"
"We have a document dated by her."
"What’s the document?"
"Medical certificate," he said, a trifle too quickly.
"Were there any children?"
"None that I know of."
Chase studied the woman in the holo: Kindrel at an advanced age. "You’re right," she said, directing her comment to Lee.
"About what?"
"She looks as if she’s had a difficult time."
Yes, I thought: she does. It was not simply that she’d grown older, that her early exuberance had faded, but that her expression had grown distant, distracted, wary.
Chase braced her chin on her fists, and studied the image. "What was her connection with Matt Olander?"
His expression didn’t change, but there was a reaction: a tic, a brief flicker in the eyes, something. "I don’t think I understand."
"Mr. Lee." I leaned forward and tried to assume a no-nonsense attitude. "We know that Kindrel knew Matt Olander. Why don’t you tell us about it?" He sank deeply into his chair, exhaled, and fixed his attention on the holo. I strove for an attitude of disarming candor. "I’m prepared to pay for information." I mentioned a sum that I considered generous.
"Who are you, anyhow?" he asked. "Why do you care about any of this?"
"We’re researchers from the University of Andiquar," I said. "We’d just like to know the truth. If you’re worried about something getting out, you needn’t be."
"Researchers don’t have that kind of money," he said. "What’s this all about?" The way he asked the question, I knew he had what we were looking for.
"The money’s from a government grant. If you’re not interested, there are other avenues open to us."
"Name one."
Chase’s eyes narrowed. "I can see we’re wasting our time here, Alex."
"No," Lee pressed the control device, and the holo faded. "Listen, you want my honest opinion about all this? I offer it free."
We waited.
"Olander died pretty much like everybody said, and the thing you’re looking for is a fraud." He took a deep breath. "There’s no story here." His eyes had grown small and hard.
"I can transfer funds now," I said. "What is it that’s a fraud?"
"The money’s fine," he said, "though that’s not the point. I don’t want to be made a fool of."
"Nothing like that," I said.
"I can tell you straight out I don’t like what’s in it, and I don’t think it ought to get around. You follow me?"
"Yes," I said. "I understand."
"There’s a statement by Kindrel. I shouldn’t show it to anybody. But I let myself get talked into it once, so maybe once more doesn’t matter. But you look at it here. Nothing leaves this house. No copies. If you’re going to insist on giving me something, make it cash. I don’t want a record."
"Okay," I said.
"Because," he continued, "if anything comes out, I’m going to deny it. I’ll deny everything."
Chase leaned across and touched his arm. "It’s all right," she said. "We won’t cause you any trouble." She switched her position, glanced at me, and looked back at Lee. "Who else came here about this document?"
"Tall man. Dark skin. Dark eyes." He watched us for a sign of recognition. "About three months ago."
"What was his name?"
He went back to his commlink, spoke briefly to it, and looked up. "Hugh Scott"
XV.
There were few professional soldiers among the Dellacondans. Sim worked his miracles with systems analysts, literature teachers, musicians, and clerks. We tend to remember him primarily as a strategist and tactician. But none of that would have mattered, had he not possessed the capacity to draw, from ordinary persons, extraordinary performance.
Attachment: THE STATEMENT OF KINDREL LEE
Point Edward
13I11I06
I’m not sure who will read this, if anyone. Nor have I any reason for setting down these facts, other than to accept in some visible fashion my own responsibility, which I cannot hope to shed in this life.
I will leave this with my niece, Jina, who is familiar with its contents, and who has been a friend and confidante throughout my ordeal, to do with as she sees fit.
To ME, ILYANDA has always seemed haunted.
There is something that broods over its misty seas and broken archipelagos, that breathes within its continental forests. You can feel it in the curious ruins that may, or may not, have been left by men. Or in the pungent ozone of the thunderstorms that strike Point Edward each night with a clocklike regularity that no one has yet explained. It is no accident that so many modern writers of supernatural fiction have set their stories on Ilyanda, beneath its cold hard stars and racing moons.
To the planet’s several thousand inhabitants, most of whom live at Point Edward on the northern tip of the smallest of that world’s three continents, such notions are exaggerated. But to those of us who have traveled in more mundane locations, it is a place of fragile beauty, of voices not quite heard, of dark rivers draining the unknown.