Toward the end of the evening someone mentioned World’s End. Donna Carpenter, a veteran pilot whom I knew only from the Club, was in the conversation. She responded about some experiences she’d had with them. And when I had a chance, I asked her what it had been like working for them.
“I didn’t work for them,” she said. “Harry did.” I had no idea who Harry was. “He retired a few years ago. Never thought I’d see the day.” She looked wistful. “Harry always said he’d die on the bridge.”
“Instead he pulled the pin?” I asked.
“I loved Harry. He was really a good guy. Can’t believe he’s gone.”
There were four or five of us at the table. One of the other people pointed out that Harry had only retired. “You’re talking as if he died.”
“Same thing,” she said.
“When did he work for World’s End?” I asked.
“For about the last twenty years.”
Damn. I wanted to get up and walk away. Go talk with someone about politics or religion. Anything but World’s End. But I just couldn’t let go. “I knew a pilot from that era, too.”
“Who’s that?”
“Well, not really that era. Turn of the century, really.”
“Who?”
I didn’t want to mention Rachel’s name. So I went with my number two guy. The scout. “Hal Cavallero.”
“Oh, yeah.” Donna paused. “That name rings a bell.” She’d had a little too much to drink. “I remember the name from somewhere. I don’t think I ever met him.” There was no way to know her age. Somewhere between twenty-five and a hundred and forty. She looked good. Blond hair, an easy smile. She wore a red jacket with a ship’s name scrawled across the front: STARCAT.
Somebody else commented that he’d heard World’s End had been a great place to work. But Donna’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Cavallero,” she said. “I know that name.” She seemed lost in thought for a few moments. Then she brightened. “Sure. That’s the one. Hal Cavallero. I did meet him.”
“Where was that?”
“Here. At the Club. I was in here one evening. With Harry.” That set her off on Harry again, and I had to guide her back. “Must have been twenty, thirty years ago. Cavallero came in. A little guy. With red hair.”
“That sounds like him,” I said.
“He had a big fight with Rachel Bannister. You know her?”
“I met her once,” I said, trying to sound casual. “A fight about what?”
She shrugged. “Damned if I know.” Donna was drinking dark wine. She studied it for a moment. “Bannister was a cute little thing. I can still see it. She was sitting over there in that corner table.” She looked that way. “She was another of the World’s End pilots.”
“So what happened?”
“He came in and sat down. Cavallero did. There were a couple of guys with him. Or women, I really don’t remember. I mean, this was a long time ago.” She stopped for a breath. “Anyhow, Rachel got up, walked over, and just stood there staring down at him. He didn’t see her at first, but then he did. And he said something, and she said something. I wasn’t close enough to hear much of it. But I caught the end.”
“What was that?”
“She told him she hoped he burned in hell.”
“That sounds pretty serious.”
“That’s what she said.”
“What did Cavallero do?”
“I don’t know. Next time I looked over, he was gone.”
“You ever ask Rachel what it was about?”
“I didn’t know her well enough to do that. But Suze would probably know.”
“Who’s Suze?”
“Suze Castor. His ex. She lives over in the Starlight.”
Seventeen years before, long after she’d divorced Cavallero, Suze had married another pilot, Lance Peabody. Lance was currently on his way to Omicron IV with a load of physicists who were studying a biosystem that had developed in a methane environment. Or something like that.
I got some pictures of her from the data banks but decided it wouldn’t be a good idea simply to go knocking on her door. Instead, I waited for her next morning in the hotel dining room, where I nursed several cups of coffee. But she didn’t show up, and eventually I moved out into the lobby, just in time to see her come through one of the doorways, pass the desk, and start out of the building.
I followed at a discreet distance.
She looked pretty good. The kind of woman who will always attract stares. She had sharply defined features, with brown hair cut short in the fashion of a female executive. She wore an expression that suggested she could take care of herself.
She looked in some shop windows and eventually went into Karl’s Dellacondan Restaurant. They were showing her to a table as I wandered in. They put me on the opposite side of the room. I started another cup of coffee. Then, after a few minutes I got up and went over. “Excuse me,” I said, “but aren’t you Suze Castor?”
She looked up, surprised. “Yes, I am. And you’re—?”
“Chase Kolpath. I work for Rigel.”
“Oh.” She gave me an inquisitive smile. “How did you know my name?”
I tried to look puzzled. “We’ve met somewhere. I think maybe the Pilots’ Club?”
“I haven’t been in there in a year or more.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know. Your face just looked familiar. Are you by any chance staying at the Starlight?”
“Is that important?”
“Somebody pointed you out.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Ummm. World’s End. That’s what it was. I’d mentioned that I had an uncle who’d run flights for World’s End, and they said you had some sort of connection to them.”
“Oh.” Her manner softened somewhat. “Yes. I used to be married to one of their pilots.”
“Who was that?” I said. “I might know him.”
She looked at one of the chairs. “Join me?”
“Sure.” She mentioned Hal Cavallero. Then we babbled for a few minutes. “My husband works for Rigel,” she said.
“I just started myself. Seems like a decent company.”
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t guess you get to see much of him, though.”
When an opening presented itself, I took the conversation back to Cavallero. “I understand he was the guy who decided where the tours went.”
“That’s right. Yes.”
A bot brought water and took our orders. When it had gone, I commented casually that she’d probably noticed World’s End was in the news a few weeks ago.
“Bannister,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And that goofy antique dealer.”
“Benedict.”
“Yeah. I never quite got the connection between the two, but to be honest, I didn’t care very much.”
“Did you know her? Rachel Bannister?”
“I can’t really say I did. I met her a couple of times. But I couldn’t have picked her out of a crowd.”
“I understand she had a temper.”
She laughed. “She went after Hal one night in the Club.” She paused. Sipped the water. “It’s so long ago I’d forgotten about it.”
“What was it about?”
“Damned if I know. I was there when it happened, and all I remember is a lot of staring back and forth. Then Bannister burst into tears and said how something was Hal’s fault.”
“But you don’t know what the something was?”
“No idea. I just don’t recall. I remember not understanding at the time what they were talking about.”
I nodded sympathetically. “I’d heard she could be like that.”
“Yeah. Whatever it was, she was really upset.”
“Hal never told you what it was about?”