“I can’t tell you much,” she said. “I just wanted you to know I’m okay.”
“I understand.” His silver hair and beard had become straggly. She suspected he hadn’t adjusted well to the news about Yoshi. “You lost a friend,” he said.
“Solly Hobbs. Yes.”
“I read what he did. Such friends are rare.” He reached beside him and picked up a cup. Steam was rising from it. “What will you do now?”
Good question.
“I think I owe Ben Tripley an apology,” she said.
“When are you going to do that?”
“Maybe tomorrow if I can get an appointment.”
“You’re going up there personally?”
“Yeah. I think I should. Anyway I want to get a closer look at the Valiant.”
“The Valiant?”
She hadn’t meant to say that. But what the hell, he already knew. “The ship in the mural,” she prompted. “You remember the model?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “How could I forget?” There was, she thought, something very strange in his eyes, but she let it go. Probably the light.
She got through to Tripley’s secretary, who said she could make room for her next afternoon toward the end of the day. Kim consented, and put in a call to Tora Kane.
Tora came right on. Strictly audio. “Yes, Kimberly. What did you want?”
The key to the Hunter logs, Kim thought, had to lie with the captain’s daughter. There was no one else.
“I wanted to apologize,” she said. “I know this has been a difficult time.”
“I really needed somebody to explain that to me.” She paused, and Kim could hear the ocean in the background. “Was there anything else?”
“Yes. I wanted you to know that I don’t believe your father’s in any way responsible for the deaths.”
“That comes a little late.” Her fury was barely restrained. “You’ve ruined his name. You know that, don’t you? You’ve destroyed him.” With no warning her voice broke. She swallowed, waited, took a deep breath. “Everything he lived for, everything he did, it’s all gone now. And what they’re saying about him is a lie.”
“Maybe we can get to the truth.”
“Sure we can. You want truth? Stop by the museum and take a look.” The voice was pure venom. “Anything else?”
Yes! Where are the Hunter logs? “Do you have anything, access to anything, that might show us what really happened on the mission?”
She paused. Kim wished she could see the woman’s face. “No,” she said at last. But the hesitation put the lie to it.
“Tora,” said Kim, “I can’t do this without your help.”
“Do me a favor, Doctor,” she said. “Don’t do anything, okay? I just don’t need any more of your help.” She broke the connection.
Kim walked over to the window and looked out at the sea.
She knows.
“Shep?”
“Yes, Kim.”
“I want to talk to Solly. How long will it take to—?”
“Acquire the data and assemble the psyche? Not long. And you’ll need to fill me in on the details of the mission. But I do not advise the procedure.”
“Do it anyway.”
“Kim, you’ve often advised against—”
“How long, Shep?”
“I won’t know until I see what’s available. If there is online access, you can speak with him tonight.”
An hour later she went up the front steps into the Mighty Third Memorial Museum.
It required no shrewdness to guess what she’d find: Another hero from the battle of Armagon had replaced Markis Kane. The attack on the Hammurabi was no longer on display. The glass case which had sheltered artifacts from the 376 was empty. Signs indicated that a new exhibition, describing the exploits of fleet physicians, was being prepared.
Even the pictures of Kane helping the museum staff assemble the display were gone.
She went looking for Mikel and found him conducting VIPs through a simulator designed to recreate an attack run against a capital ship in a laser boat. He saw her and signaled her to wait in his office. But she returned to the empty case. She was still standing there fifteen minutes later when he joined her. “I’m glad you’re well,” he said. “It must have been a terrible experience.”
“It wasn’t good, Mikel.” She watched him sit down, not behind his desk, but on a divan.
“Can we get you something?” he asked. “Coffee, perhaps?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “Mikel, what happened to the Kane display?”
“We removed it.”
“I see that. May I ask why?”
His eyes widened. “You can’t be serious. You of all people. The man’s a killer. What would you expect me to do?”
“You don’t know that.”
“Either he’s a killer or he protected Tripley after he did it. The details don’t much matter.” He looked at her accusingly. “I’m surprised that you would object. I mean, that was your sister they threw out the air lock. I’d have thought you’d be pleased we took down the display.”
“We don’t know yet what really happened out there.”
“Kim.” His voice acquired its bureaucratic tone. “I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand your attitude in this. Kane’s guilty of something, possibly murder, aiding and abetting at the very least, and everybody knows it.”
She pushed her hands into her pockets and looked through the office window at the exhibit, at the images of warships, the pictures of the captains. Off to her left a theater was running a recreation of Armagon.
“Children come in here,” Mikel continued. “How would it look to have a tribute to a killer?”
“Mikel,” she said, “when the truth comes out, I think you’re going to be embarrassed.”
He looked bored. “It’s hard to see how that could be. How many people were on the ship? But, okay, if I’m wrong, and it turns out that somehow or other he’s innocent, we’ll just put everything back up and no harm done.”
“No harm done.”
“Kim, do you know something I don’t?”
“No,” she said.
He took a deep breath. “Look, I didn’t want this. It was terrible news, learning about Emily. I really didn’t know much about Kile Tripley. But Kane—We don’t have many heroes. We couldn’t afford to lose one. Not this one, especially.”
“Then don’t give up on him.”
“Hello, Solly.”
He wore a green shirt, open at the neck; dark blue slacks; and the peaked cap that he usually affected when they were out sailing. Shep had given him his captain’s chair from the yacht. “Hi, Kim. It’s good to see you.”
Tears started immediately to run down her cheeks. She knew, had known all along, that this wasn’t a good idea. Still, psychoanalysts maintained this was the best kind of therapy after an unexpected loss. If one didn’t go too far. “I hate what you did,” she said.
“There was no point in our both getting killed.” He smiled, and Shep had it exactly right. “How are you making out?”
“I’ve been better.” She gazed at him, wishing she could will him back. Seize the image, hold him, never let go. It seemed somehow as if it should be easy. As if she could just reach across the room and snatch him into the world.
“How are they responding to the news you brought back? When’s the parade?”