Several days after our visit from Olivia Hill, Gabe came into my office carrying two packages. “What have you got?” I asked.
“Some artifacts. Do you have time to take these over to the University Museum?”
“I’m a little bit on the run, Gabe. Do they have to go today?”
“No. It’s all right. Let it go. I’ll take them.”
I was involved in an afternoon of boring, purely administrative routine details, and I didn’t want to go home with them still hanging over my head. That was the only reason I dodged his request. “It’s okay, Gabe,” I said. “I’ve got it.”
“No, Chase. Finish your work.”
I looked at the packages. “What are they?”
“A picture and an electronic log. I picked them up on a research outing a couple days before I got on the . In fact, come to think of it, you were with me at the time.”
It had something to do with the ninth-century biologist Daniel Grantner. That’s ninth century, of course. What I remembered mostly was that we’d gotten something, but two days later Gabe was gone.
Grantner had been originally from Chippewa. He’d come to Rimway as a teenager, and eventually written numerous tracts on human behavior, primarily concentrating on why a creature capable of such compassionate behavior could also commit acts of extreme cruelty. In his view, it came down to a clash among forces released by the empathy gene, the basic drive for survival, and a human capability to overlook reality. “In other words,” he once added in an address to a graduating class, “being stupid.”
His most celebrated work is . Gabe had gone through a library in the town where Grantner had lived. I couldn’t remember the name of the town, but he’d come across the electronic log, which had belonged to him. It contained a first draft of , notes on several of his seminal works, an avatar, and photos of Grantner and his family. When we showed it to the librarian, she told us it was of no use that she could see, and we could have it.
The library also owned a framed portrait of him, which had found its way into a storage room. Gabe was invited to take that as well. “Poor woman,” Gabe had said. “She has no idea.” He was still talking as if that had happened only a few weeks ago.
“Is that what you have in the packages?” I asked. “The log and the portrait?” The portrait depicted Grantner as a young man, probably in his mid-twenties, kneeling by a tree with a Dalmatian at his side.
“Yes. I spoke to Amanda at the museum a few minutes ago. She’s pretty excited.” He grinned. Amanda would be walking on the ceiling.
“What’s going on?” It was Alex’s voice. I hadn’t noticed him standing in the doorway.
“I’m headed for the museum,” said Gabe, “with a first draft of ”
It was as far as he got. “Daniel Grantner’s book?”
“Yes. It’s in a log.”
“And what else?”
“An avatar. Letters. You name it.” Gabe couldn’t resist smiling. Alex’s attention focused on the packages. “Gabe, those would be worth a fortune. You’re them?”
“Sure.”
He came the rest of the way into the office and slowly lowered himself into a chair. “Is this what you were really doing when you said you were out wandering around on Bowman’s World?”
I thought about jumping in and changing the subject at that point but decided to stay out of it.
“No. I got them eleven years ago.”
“They’ve been here all this time?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Gabe. They’re yours, so you can do what you want with them. You’ll get no objections from me.”
“Funny. I thought I was just getting one.”
“I’m sorry. Let it go.”
Gabe kept his voice leveclass="underline" “Maybe it’s not such a good idea that I’m here.”
“No. I just hate seeing us throw away this kind of money.”
“I’m not throwing it away. I never had it.” He picked up the two packages and walked out the door.
Alex turned in my direction. His displeasure was palpable. He left the room without saying another word. I walked over to the window and watched Gabe climb into his skimmer. Moments later it lifted into the sky. He never looked back. I hated seeing these two guys at odds with each other. And I’d have loved to be with Gabe when he turned the Grantner log over to Amanda.
He came back with an expression that tried to project casualness while concealing a smug sense of accomplishment. The world was his oyster. “Hi, Chase,” he said, pausing at my office door.
I said hello. He smiled and turned away, but I knew he was expecting me to stop him. “How’d it go?”
“I thought Amanda was going to have a heart attack. You know Grantner never had an avatar anywhere on the net. Other than when he was about twelve years old.”
“I think I know that. You might have mentioned it to me when we were coming home that last time.”
“Okay. Anyhow, yes, everybody down there was pretty excited.” He was glowing.
“Well, congratulations.”
“Thanks, kid. Congratulations to us both.”
“Have they offered to give you your job back?” Gabe had been a professor in the archeology department at the university to which the museum was connected.
“Oh, they did that two weeks ago. I’ll be starting in the fall.”
“Beautiful.” It reminded me of something I’d forgotten. “When you were missing, the news media reported that your PhD was in history, not archeology.”
“That’s correct.”
“How come you’re in the archeology department?”
He grinned. “I think it’s because I’m lazy.”
“You want to explain that?”
“Chase, we have thirteen thousand years of history. A lot of it’s missing. Places and times where we don’t really know what happened. But most of it is on the record. It’s just overwhelming. It’s hard to make it interesting for students when there’s so much out there. So when I got the opportunity to jump ship, I took it.” He sat down. “More important issue: Is Alex okay?”
“He’s good,” I said.
The glow was gone and discomfort was settling in. “It was my fault. I should be used to it by now.” He pushed the tab on his commlink. “Alex, you busy?”
A pause. Then:
Gabriel started for the door. “Why don’t you wait here?” I said, making it a point to look up at the clock. “I’ve gotta go. Past my quitting time.”
When I ran into them the following morning, they were eating an amicable breakfast, and it was obvious whatever ill will had surfaced was gone. I was happy they weren’t discussing the Grantner documents. The conversation was mostly about local politics where they were generally in agreement.
Eventually, somebody brought up Octavia. “I was interested,” Gabe said, “that so many people thought the station had been grabbed by aliens. There was still a lot of excitement about it when I got on the . I was surprised, when I got back here, that nobody had figured out what happened. You think there could possibly be anything to the alien theory?”
“Well,” said Alex, “I’d guess that anything that doesn’t violate physical law is possible. But I’d be more inclined to accept the idea that they all fell asleep, the system broke down, and they got sucked into the black hole.”