Alex let her see he had no idea. “Marissa, my guess at the moment is that you’d be better able to answer that question than we are. I can’t think of any possible explanation other than that he was in failing health and simply forgot about it. Or that he misunderstood the significance of his find. But he was a major player among archeologists. I just can’t believe that could have happened.”
“No.” She chewed her upper lip. “Neither of those is possible. My grandfather was in good health for a few years after he came back. He was a bit morose, but he kept his mind right until the end. I just can’t imagine how he could have forgotten to tell us he had this.” Her eyes focused on the transmitter. “There must be something else. Something we’re missing.”
When Marissa was gone, we went into my office. “I guess you’re aware,” Alex said, “Baylee was another one of these guys who had no avatar.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We need to start looking into this. Baylee must have had some friends. Somebody we can talk to.”
“Marissa mentioned a Lawrence Southwick.” He made a note of the name. “You want me to set up an appointment?”
“No. I’ll take care of it. How about family members? Somebody probably knows something.”
“His daughter’s name is Corinne. She married Larry Earl. Larry’s a technician. Corinne is the chief executive of Random Access.”
“Health services,” said Alex.
“Correct. Marissa tells me neither of her parents were ever all that interested in the archeology. At least with regard to what her grandfather was doing. They just wanted him to come home safely. They were apparently as surprised as Marissa when they found the transmitter.”
“All right. Let’s talk to them, too.” His mood darkened a bit. “By the way, there’s a movement to have families and friends of the people stuck on the Capella write messages for them. To be delivered in a single package.”
“They going to do a burst transmission?” I said. “They’ll get a lot of traffic, so they’ll have to.”
“It’s a bad idea. I don’t know who started it. But the people on board the ship may not be aware of what’s happening, and almost certainly don’t know it’s not 1424 anymore. I’m not saying it would start a panic, but if they’re trying to get people off in an orderly fashion, that kind of news won’t help.”
Marissa came in to talk with Alex. He told me later that there was no new information. But she wanted to keep us on as consultants. “I need to know what happened here,” she told him. Alex agreed to do everything he could.
Later that day, we sat down with her parents, Larry and Corinne. Larry was convivial and easygoing, a low-pressure type who showed no inclination to get caught up in the possibility that something the family had found in a closet could make him wealthy beyond his dreams. “I’ll believe it,” he said, “when they transfer the money.”
“Who found the transmitter?”
“I did,” Larry said. “It was on the top shelf of a closet, under some blankets.”
“And you never knew anything about its existence before?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Are there any other artifacts around the house? Anything else your father-in-law brought home?”
“Not that I know of. Now, I’m not so sure.” He looked at Corinne.
Like her daughter, she was a charmer, with dark brown hair and animated features. But she shook her head. “There’s nothing else that I’m aware of. After we found out about the transmitter, realized what it might be worth, we turned the place upside down. Found nothing.”
“Professor Baylee,” said Alex, “was on Earth for a long time, wasn’t he?”
“My dad was there for probably six or seven years on that last trip,” said Corinne.
“Did he ever talk about what he’d been doing there?”
“Not really,” she said. “In general terms, maybe. Mostly what I remember was his saying it had been a waste of time. He’d been there before, of course. He probably lived there for twenty years altogether. He’d come back once in a while and talk about the pyramids or the Shantel Monument or something. But after that last one, he seemed depressed. Worn-out. He always denied it, claimed everything was fine, but he never really told us what had been going on.”
“It’s true,” Larry said. “Something happened. Something changed him. He never went back. Never showed any inclination to.”
“Did he keep a diary? Any kind of record at all?”
“None that I knew of,” Corinne said.
“Marissa mentioned a guy named Lawrence Southwick. Do you know him?”
They looked at each other. “Not well,” said Larry. “We’ve met him. He’s an archeological enthusiast. A rich one. And he was a close friend of Dad’s for years. Even funded some of the expeditions.”
“Do you think he might know anything about this?”
“I’ve asked him. He was as stunned as we were to hear about the transmitter.”
“Okay. Marissa said your father didn’t have any health problems. Is that correct?”
Corinne shook her head. “If he did, he concealed them pretty well. For five or six years, anyhow. Then he was gone.”
“What happened to him?”
“A stroke. We never knew he had a problem until it killed him.”
“Did he ever say why he stayed on Earth so long? Was there something special he was looking for?”
“We knew,” said Larry, “that he was primarily interested in the Golden Age. He had a picture of one of the early space museums on his bedroom wall.”
“The Florida Space Museum?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Chase told me that you’d mentioned he’d been diving there. He told you about that, but he never mentioned why he was doing it?”
“No.” Corinne closed her eyes. Her cheeks had grown damp. “I never really thought to ask.” She looked at Larry, who shrugged and shook his head. “All this business about the transmitter has made me realize I never took the time to talk to him. He sat up in his room every night and read or watched HV. He almost never went out. That was nothing like the man who’d been my dad. Who took me to zoos and parks and beaches.” She took a deep breath. “Look, Alex, I was never into all the archeology. Neither of us was. He knew that, and he was disappointed in me. Looking back on it now, I wish I had it to do over. That I’d shown a little interest.”
Alex understood. He shared a similar sense of guilt over Gabe.
Lawrence Southwick III lived in Shelton, which is about forty miles southwest of Andiquar. Alex asked me to do background checks on everybody we were talking to, and Southwick was the only local who, as far as we could tell, had ever joined Baylee on one of his expeditions to the home world. He was a retired manufacturer, one of the major people behind the success of the Banner skimmers. He’d been friendly with Baylee since both were kids.
If anyone outside the family could help us, Southwick seemed like the guy. That meant Alex would prefer to meet him casually rather than call him. He tended to spend time at the Idelic Club, on the shoreline. I checked our records, and came up with two people who had connections with the Idelic Club. One was a journalist, and the other a client. Either, I thought, would be open to inviting Alex along to an event that might lead to a chance meeting. Naturally, Alex chose the client. But Southwick didn’t show up as expected. A second attempt also failed, so in the end we just played it straight and called him. I stayed back out of sight during the conversation.
Lawrence Southwick came from money. I knew that as soon as I saw the way he dressed and his furnishings. A Kopek painting hung on the wall behind him over a lush black sofa. He was tall, lanky, with sapphire eyes and thick brown hair, and the easy manner of a guy who had always been in control. His appearance suggested that he worked out regularly. “It’s been a long time,” he said, “since I’ve heard Garnett’s name. He was a good guy. He loved sports. Especially golf.”