He offered no further explanation. But he glanced at a woman’s framed photo. We all went for the wine.
He brought it out and settled into a large chair that might have been custom-made for him. We raised our glasses to Garnett Baylee, “who was,” according to Fremont, “one of a kind.” Then he folded his hands. “Alex, how may I be of assistance?”
Alex explained about the Corbett.
Fremont almost went into shock. “Really? Are you sure? He found a Corbett transmitter and didn’t tell anybody? Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s correct, Les.”
“Why?”
“That’s why we’re here. We’re hoping to get an answer.”
“When you do, I’d like to hear what it is.”
“Did you have much contact with him when he lived here?”
“I saw him pretty often. Garnie and I were friends. And we were both interested in Golden Age archeology. Although, if you want the truth, I think he was a little over-the-top.”
“That’s pretty much what we’ve heard generally.”
“The thing he really cared about was the Huntsville museum artifacts. He spent a lifetime trying to figure out what happened to them.”
“And what did he conclude?”
“I don’t know if he ever did reach a conclusion. The last time I saw him, which was a year or so before he left us, he was still on the hunt. You know he lived near here, right?”
“No. I wasn’t aware of that. Do you have the address?”
“Let me write it down for you.” He reached for a pad, wrote on it, and handed the sheet to me. He’d have had to get up to pass it to Alex.
Alex looked at it. “Thanks,” he said. “He lived nearby, but you lost contact with him for a year?”
“He just wasn’t around much.”
“Okay. By the way, Les, the Corbett transmitter Baylee’s son-in-law found in his closet was on the Huntsville museum inventory.”
“Why did I think you were going to say that? Is that really true?”
“Yes.”
“That’s hard to believe, Alex. If he’d found something like that, he would have told me. There’s no way he’d have kept it to himself.”
“Can you recall anything specific? Did he ever express any theory about where he thought the artifacts might be?”
“Well, he entertained different theories at different times. But none of them ever worked out. He was still wandering around trying to get an answer when I lost touch with him. So I don’t know where he was looking during his last year or two here. He might even have backed off. He did that periodically. He’d join a mission to the Middle East, or Germany or somewhere. I was always glad to hear about that, that he was doing something else, because the whole thing seemed hopeless. I mean, we’re talking about ancient history. What kind of condition was the transmitter in?”
“Actually, it was in pretty decent shape.”
“Really? That seems strange.”
“I know. I wondered about that, too. Wherever he found it, it had been in a safe place.”
There was nothing more to be gained from Fremont, so we rode over to Baylee’s former house. It was a modest place, a cottage with a view of a river, and, in the distance, a bridge. Several trees rose above the lawn. Two women were seated on the porch, one in a canvas chair, the other in a rocker.
Alex told the cab to stop. We got out and stood at the end of a walkway. The women looked in our direction, and we waved. One raised her hand in a halfhearted return of the gesture.
We went about halfway to the porch and stopped. “Hello,” Alex said amiably. “We’re doing some research on Garnett Baylee. I wonder if we could talk with you for a minute?” They glanced at each other. Neither appeared to have any clue who Baylee was. “I believe he owned this place at one time. About eighteen years ago.”
The woman in the rocker frowned as we went closer. “Who are you?” she asked.
“My name’s Alex Benedict.” He smiled at me. “This is Chase Kolpath.”
“Hello,” I said, putting as much good cheer into it as I could manage.
The other woman got to her feet. “Is there a problem, Mr. Benedict?”
“No,” he said. “No problem. But Garnett Baylee was a famous archeologist. He used to live here.”
“I never heard of him. I’m not even sure what an archeologist does.” She laughed as she saw Alex’s reaction. “Just kidding,” she added.
“We’re writing a paper on Baylee, and I wanted to get a look at where he used to live. It’s quite nice.”
“Thank you. We like it.”
Alex said something about the beautiful view and what an attractive neighborhood it was. “Did you buy the property from him?”
“I really don’t recall what the owner’s name was,” said the woman in the rocker.
“Are you the current owner?”
“Yes, I am.”
“May I ask how long you’ve been here?”
She had to think about it. “About seventeen, eighteen years. So it probably was him.”
“Mr. Baylee died a few years ago, on Rimway. His family found a valuable artifact in one of the closets of his home there. It was a mechanism used by the early starships.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, both women looked interested. The one in the canvas chair asked whether that translated into a lot of money?
“Thousands,” said Alex. “The reason we stopped by is that we wanted to let you know. Have you by any chance found anything he might have left?”
“No,” said the owner. “I don’t recall anything. Other than a couple of rakes out in the shed.”
“Okay,” said Alex. “If you do find something, would you let me know? I’m an antiquarian. I can give you a good idea what it would be worth.”
“Sure,” she said. She put her thumb under a link-bracelet, and lifted it slightly.
Alex moved his hand in front of his own and sent her his code. “Good luck,” he said. “I hope you come up with something.”
“I’ll let you know if we do.”
They looked relieved to see us leave. And Alex was obviously unhappy. “What’s wrong?”
“I’d give a lot to be able to look through the property. But I don’t think they’d be very receptive.”
“That’s probably an accurate call. We could always arrange to have them win a dinner somewhere, then wait for them to leave the house.”
Alex likes to say I have a great sense of humor. On that occasion, he said nothing.
“In case you’re thinking about buying your way in,” I said, “they’d have no reason to lie. And I know it happened once, but it’s not likely there’d be anything on a closet shelf they hadn’t noticed.”
Seventeen
We love artifacts because they provide a connection with the past and permit us, for a moment, to share in ancient glories. To own a pen that once belonged to Winston Churchill is to bring the man himself into our living room. A helmet worn by Andrey Sidorov allows us to climb out of the hatch with him onto Europan soil and to take that first up-close glance at Saturn. To touch the cup of Christ, could we find it, would put us in touch with Jesus himself.
Moonbase had been in place almost a thousand years when they closed it down. It had become irrelevant to interplanetary travel as anything other than a monument. You could probably argue it had always been effectively irrelevant. But it must have been a glorious accomplishment when they first raised the flags. One of the old videos is still available, the clip that people must have watched around the world, the speeches, the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the raised glasses, the confetti drifting down ever so slowly.