“See who?” He knew damn well who I was talking about.
“April.”
“She invited me to stop by for a visit. Said I’d like Craig. Her husband.”
“Oh.”
“He’s a judge. She couldn’t resist telling me.”
“Are you going to take her up on it?”
He was looking off into the distance. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Anyhow, I’m pretty busy right now.” He fell silent again. Moved around in his seat. Adjusted his belt. Went back to staring out at passing clouds. And then sighed. “Best thing I can do, Chase, is to stay out of her life.”
We both knew that. But it hurt.
The hunt for intelligent life has been a mainstay of space science since the first moon flights nine thousand years ago. We haven’t found much. The Ashiyyur, who lived among a relatively close cluster of stars, have been pretty much the entire game. There’ve been a few worlds with ruins, but on the whole life seems to happen on only a small fraction of even the most ideal worlds, filled with water and sunlight. And on the rare occasions that a technically advanced culture showed up, once they developed explosives they showed a tendency to use them. The Ashiyyur were the only ones we’d found who seemed to have survived through eons of advanced technology.
“Gabe,” I said, “why do we care so much about finding aliens?”
“I guess because the universe seems so empty. For thousands of years, we rode around the Orion Arm and saw . If you read the histories of the period, people seemed to be convinced that they were probably alone. I mean, those years were seriously depressing. They find an occasional world with trees and squirrels, but they were rare.” He turned and stared at me. “Why am I telling all this stuff? You know this as well as I do.”
“The thing that amazes me,” I said, “is that when we finally find somebody, we got into a war with them.”
“Yeah. That was dumb.” We were approaching a small town surrounded by forest. “Is that it?”
“Next one over.” We kept going and a few minutes later came out of the rain, saw Newbury, and started down. The town consisted of about two hundred homes, a town hall, a theater, a church, a school, and a couple of bars. We descended into a field behind 716 Thornberry Avenue, Angela Harding’s home as recently as 1431, four years earlier. Some kids were playing cards in a tree fort. As we touched ground, they stopped and waved.
The house was an attractive gold-and-white two-story villa with lots of windows, a cluster of palm trees, a swing, and a fountain. We climbed out and Gabe led the way to a timber fence. We passed through a gate into the front yard, checked the number, and climbed four steps onto the porch, where we introduced ourselves and explained that we were looking for Ms. Harding. A minute later the door opened and a congenial young man appeared. He was probably just at the end of his high school years. He smiled but shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t think I can help you. I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“She lived here, in this house, a few years ago,” said Gabe.
“Oh. Well, come on in. Maybe Mom knows her.” He backed away to make room for us. We went into an interior filled with fabric furniture and a table that might have served for doing puzzles or playing games. We heard a woman’s voice from another room: “Who is it, Mack?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “They’re looking for—” She emerged, wiping her hands on a towel. Her hair was brown and a bit disheveled. She pushed it back away from her forehead and inspected us with matching brown eyes. “They’re looking for a Ms. Harding, Mom. Is she the lady we bought the house from?”
Mom shrugged. “I’ve no idea. We never met the owner.” Her tone suggested she had no interest in hunting through paperwork. “Sorry.”
Gabe glanced at me. . “Ma’am,” I said, “maybe your AI could help?”
“Allie came here with us.”
“Oh. May I ask how long you’ve been here?”
“About five years.” She looked around the room, indicating she had better things to do. “Listen, I don’t want to rush you people, but I’m busy at the moment, and I don’t think I can be of any help.”
“You never heard her name at all? Angela Harding?”
“Not that I can recall.” She opened the front door and stood aside. “I hope you find her.”
We took the hint. “She was probably the wrong person to ask anyhow,” I said after we got outside.
“Why’s that?”
“I never met the people I bought my place from, either. I suspect that’s generally true. Let’s try the neighbors.” The homes on Thornberry Avenue were not far apart. You could walk to whatever was next door in a couple of minutes. So they probably knew each other fairly well.
The house on the opposite side of the road was one of the more stylish properties in the area. It rose three stories, with an arched doorway and side panels, sliding glass walls, neatly cut terraces, and a swimming pool off to one side. We crossed over, followed a pebbled walkway through the garden, climbed a stairway onto a veranda, and were greeted by an AI. she said.
Gabe identified himself. “We are trying to locate Angela Harding. She lived across the street a few years ago.”
A German shepherd appeared on the street. It stopped and looked toward us before moving on. The AI was still consulting when a skimmer rose from one of the properties at the east end of the avenue, turned in our direction, passed overhead, and faded into the distance. Then the door opened and a stout bearded man looked out at us. “You’re looking for Angela?”
“Yes,” said Gabe.
“Come in.” He backed away and we followed him into a lushly furnished living room, dominated by a three-piece sectional dark leather sofa. A beautiful young woman sat in one of two matching chairs. He took a seat in the other and left the sofa for us. “Are you relatives?”
“She was a client,” said Gabe. “I need to talk to her about a project we were working on.”
“I see. May I ask the nature of the project?”
Gabe made up something about an effort to improve funding for area schools. Our host responded with a tolerant smile. “She lived across the street, but she moved four or five years ago.” He looked over at the woman. “You have any idea where she is, Ari?”
“No,” Ari said. “She’s still in the area somewhere, or at least she was. But I’ve no idea where she actually lives.” Ari’s black hair was cut short. She had classic features.
We did a round of introductions. Then Gabe picked up the thread: “Do you guys by any chance know whether she got married? Maybe changed her name?”
They passed the question on to their AI.
she said.
Gabe got up. “Okay. Thank you. Maybe one of the other neighbors will have something.” We started for the door.
“Wait,” said Ari. “I have a better idea. Angela had a pretty close friend you might try talking to.”
We stopped in our tracks. “Who’s that?”
“Esther Horn. She owns a bake shop across the street from the Burrows School.”
“That’s the one on the edge of town?” I asked. We’d passed over a school coming in.