Wilson smiled. Tall, recondite, with a quiet, calm demeanor, he was the aristocrat in the room. “Might they? Of course they might. Anything’s possible. But if there’s any other evidence, I haven’t seen it. I mean, it could easily be a creation of Looney-Pack. It’s only a piece of stone with a few unfamiliar characters on it. It doesn’t mean anything.” He went a bit further: “To understand what’s really going on here, you have to know about Benedict. Look, Peter, I’d be the last person on the planet to denigrate the solid contributions he’s made. I mean, what he’s done isn’t bad for a guy who sells antiques for a living. But he’s inclined to turn everything into the Holy Grail. Does somebody bring him a flowerpot that dates from the Time of Troubles? Well, it must have belonged to Andrew Koltavi. That’s the way he operates. He loves the spotlight. And I don’t mean by that to attack his character. A lot of people are like that.”
Greengrass described her conversations with me, suggested I was “emotional,” and said how the tablet had always been in the garden. She didn’t know how it had gotten there.
At that point, the host introduced a clip with Teresa Harmon, who’d bought the house from Basil Tuttle. She’d found the tablet in a cabinet and couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it. “I’m the one who used it to decorate the garden,” she said in the clip.
“Were you, at any time,” McCovey asked Greengrass, “offered money for it?”
“I was.”
“By whom?”
“By Chase Kolpath.”
“Representing Benedict?”
“Yes.”
“Did they offer much?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“What was your feeling when that happened?”
“I was shocked. And I’ll tell you, Peter, I was sorry I’d let it get away.”
“Did you try to recover it?”
“When I found out it had been taken by what’s-her-name, Rachel Bannister, I called and asked to have it returned.”
“And what did Ms. Bannister say?”
“She told me it had been dropped in the river.”
“Dropped in the river?”
“In the Melony.”
“I should mention for our audience,” McCovey said, “that we also invited Ms. Bannister to participate. Like Benedict, she had other things to do.” He turned back to Greengrass. “Did she do that on purpose? Drop the tablet in the river?”
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
“She said she’d changed her mind and didn’t want it after all.”
“Did you know that there’s been an attempt to locate it in the river? That no one can find it?”
Greengrass looked annoyed. “Is that true? No, I wasn’t aware of that.”
McCovey turned to Holverson, who looked as if he’d been sitting in his living room too long. He’d been around for a lot of years, and it showed. He was also overweight. And he had a self-important, methodical response time. Ask him a question and he’d lean forward, nod, suck on his lower lip, and thereby make it clear that here was the unvarnished truth. “Professor,” McCovey said, “a week ago, you were quoted as saying there was no possibility that Tuttle could have discovered an alien civilization and kept it secret. Do you still hold to that view?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve had time to think about it. And I’ve come to realize there are several reasons why, if he’d seen anything, he might not want to go public with it.”
“For example?”
“Well, the obvious one is that they could be very dangerous. Maybe it’s a society that would like to have us for dinner.”
“What else?”
“Once it gets out, you can’t control access. Every nitwit with a ship would want to go take a look. Maybe, if there were aliens, they simply asked to have their privacy respected.”
“Would Tuttle have gone along with that?”
“It’s funny. There was a time I thought that being known as the discoverer of an alien civilization would have been more important to Sunset than the discovery itself.”
“But you don’t think that anymore?”
“No. So, yes, if he’d found aliens, and they asked to be let alone, I think he’d have honored their request.”
“And you say that because—?”
“He was an honorable man.”
“Okay. Any other reasons to keep it secret?”
“Oh, yes. The one that comes immediately to mind is the possibility that they’re a million years beyond where we are.”
“You mean they’d constitute an existential threat?”
“Not in the sense I think you mean. But what would happen to us if suddenly we were given their knowledge? So that we had a complete map of the galaxy, we knew where everything is, knew what’s there and what isn’t? Maybe they have the details about alternate universes. They can solve all our problems—”
The host broke in: “You make that sound dangerous—”
“What would we have left to live for? Another possibility: How would we react in the presence of a species who lived indefinitely? Who didn’t die? Who were enormously smarter than we are? Whose creations and accomplishments made ours look like children’s toys?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Peer. “There’s the real danger.”
Alex glared at the hologram. “So what would you suggest?” he demanded. “That we keep everybody home? To make sure we don’t find anything?”
“Alex—” I said.
“Idiots. What’s wrong with these people?”
“It’s why you should probably have gone this evening.” We heard Bannister’s name.
“So she bought the tablet and got rid of it,” said McCovey. “Is anything going on here?”
“She was close to Sunset,” said Holverson. “Probably lovers. I doubt he’d have kept a secret from her. Especially something like what we’re talking about here.”
Jacob broke in: “You have a call, Alex.”
“Who is it?”
“Leslie Cloud.”
“Tell her I’m not here. That you can’t reach me.”
“As you wish. And you have another call. Two more, in fact.”
“Same response for everybody.”
“Alex,” I said, “you’re going to have to respond.”
“I know.”
My own link began vibrating. “Who’s Leslie Cloud?” I asked.
“Columnist for Archeology Today.”
“You can’t really just—” I shrugged and opened my link. It was Carmen.
“Chase,” she said, “I know you don’t like to be disturbed, but we have three calls. All from media representatives. No, make it four.”
“Tell them I’m not presently available.”