So I dressed for the occasion, a white blouse, beige slacks, and a gold necklace Alex had given me for precisely these kinds of events. The necklace featured an ankh, which made me automatically one of the crowd.
Alex had been granted an honorary membership after the Christopher Sim experience, so we had no trouble gaining entrance. There were seven or eight people present, seated in two groups in the Sakler Room, named of course for the woman who’d found the Inkata ruins on Moridania four hundred years ago. We collected a couple of drinks at the bar and joined one of the groups.
They were talking about tribal instincts and gestalt exercises, and I wasn’t there five minutes before I began looking at the time. The conversation was on a casual first-name level, but then, suddenly, as the topic of tribal cultures took hold, someone recognized Alex as the man who’d found the Corsarius. And everyone’s attention swung his way.
He tried to do his modesty routine. “I’m just here,” he said, “to listen to you guys. Fascinating idea, that tribes would react to a shifting climate in the way that Liz suggests.” With the exception of a wiry, bearded guy who’d been dominating the conversation, they declared themselves delighted that he was present. “And Chase, too, of course.” One claimed to have had lunch with him two years ago at the Blackfriars’ event in Peshkong. Another explained he’d been on Salud Afar, coincidentally, at the same time that we had, last year. “I have cousins there, believe it or not.”
“So,” the Blackfriar said, “what are you working on now?”
And Alex had his opening. “Nothing much,” he said. “I’ve gotten interested in Sunset Tuttle.”
“Why?” The bearded man broke out in laughter. “Why on earth would you do that?” His name was Braik. I never got a last name. Or maybe that was his last name. “What did Tuttle ever do?”
“We’re putting together a history of Survey operations during the last century and a half. He’s part of it.”
Braik laughed again and waved it away. “Okay,” he said. “But really, no kidding around now, why are you interested in him?”
“He represents a whole class of scientists, Braik. The people who went out to the stars and looked around. Who hoped to make contact.” Alex normally didn’t talk like that, but he kept a straight face, and everybody seemed to buy it. “He was passionate about exploration. Yet he broke away from it in 1403. Never went back. He lived only a few years after that, but it’s the only period in his adult life that he never went out on a mission. I wonder why that is.”
Braik did something with his mouth and jaws to suggest who cared? “He probably pulled the pin because he figured out his career wasn’t going anywhere. Never would go anywhere.”
Liz was actually Elizabeth McMurtrie, who’d made her reputation as a climatologist. She whispered something to the guy who’d been to Salud Afar. Alex invited her to say it for everyone.
“Maybe he was exhausted,” she said. “I’d be willing to bet if he hadn’t died prematurely, he’d have gone back. Probably, he’d be out there somewhere now.”
“He was an idiot,” said Braik, “who might have made a contribution. Instead, at the end, what did he have to show for his life?”
“I was just wondering,” said Liz, “who he really was.” She was the only person among the members in the room who might have been justly described as young.
“He’s nobody, my dear,” said the Blackfriar. “He’s a man who spent his time chasing moonbeams. Am I right, Alex?”
Alex sipped his drink. “I think people should set whatever goals they want. As long as they don’t create problems for anybody else, where’s the harm? Tuttle didn’t fail because he never found anybody. He looked, and that’s all you can ask. The real failure would have been not to try.”
Liz started to say something, but she got elbowed aside by Braik. “Tuttle,” he said, “recognized his own failure. That’s why he quit.”
Liz got through: “What’s your dream, Braik?”
Braik responded with a sound that was half snicker half snort. “Make a contribution,” he said. “And leave a good reputation behind me.”
The conversation wandered for a while, but eventually Alex brought it back to Tuttle. Braik, though, was the only person present who had known him personally, and he was too interested in disparaging him to be helpful. Every question we asked produced a derisive response. “Does anybody know,” Alex said, inserting the question as a matter of no consequence, “whether Tuttle ever brought any artifacts back from his expeditions?”
“He had some,” Braik said. “A holistic link supposed to be from Chaldoneau, a captain’s hat from the Intrepid, stuff like that. But I’d bet everything was a duplicate picked up in a gift shop somewhere.”
“Any stone tablets that anyone knows about?”
“No,” said the Blackfriar, looking around to see whether anyone had ever heard of anything.
Eventually, we drifted away and joined another group. But they, too, had nothing to contribute. Only one of them, a short, bleak-eyed blonde, had ever even seen Tuttle. “It was at a conference,” she said. “In Dreyfus, I think. Or maybe at Kaldemor.” She made a face. “Actually, it might have been—”
I broke in: “Did you get a chance to talk with him?”
“No. He was on a panel, and I might have asked a question or two. But I’m not sure. I can’t really say I had a chance to talk with him. The panel was on radio archeology.”
“I’ve lost an old friend I was hoping might be here tonight,” said Alex. “Hugh Conover. Anybody know him?”
Several of them nodded. “He’s long gone,” said the blonde. “Dropped out of sight years ago.” She looked around. “Anybody hear from him recently?”
Nobody had.
We had several calls during the next few days from people who’d heard about our visit to the Plaza and claimed connections, usually tenuous, with Tuttle. I thought they were really just looking for an excuse to talk with Alex, who, by that point in his career, had become a major celebrity.
One of the callers identified himself to Alex as Everett Boardman. “I’ve always admired Tuttle,” he said. “My father was a colleague of his. I’m sorry to say he was one of the ones who never took the man seriously.” Boardman was the sort of guy you immediately felt you could rely on if you were in trouble. Dark hair and beard, clear eyes, a good smile that suggested he didn’t take himself too seriously.
“You’re an archeologist?” asked Alex.
“Yes. And I shared a lot of Tuttle’s interests. I really don’t care all that much about ancient interstellars and buried ruins. Those are just historical details.”
“You want to find little green men.”
Boardman’s eyes brightened. “Mr. Benedict, I would kill to find someone else out there. It’s all I care about.”
“Are you still looking?”
“Whenever I can make time away from work.”
“Well, I wish you luck.”
“Thanks.” He was seated at a table, covered with papers, maps, books. A cup of coffee rested at his right hand. “Some of the people at the Plaza got the impression that you thought Tuttle might have found something.”