We were both surprised by the number of hits. Unfortunately most of them were connected with a Venture theme park, several Venture restaurants, and two films: , a romance, and , in which a group of teenagers spend the night in a haunted house. The name showed up in several other categories. “I guess,” said Gabe, “we need to narrow this a bit. Let’s include ‘Orion Express’ in the search.”
That reduced the number of hits to just over two hundred. “Okay,” said Gabe, “I’ve got half of them. Read through the rest and see if you can find something.”
Half were from people who’d known someone who had taken a tour. A few described their plans having been canceled at the last minute, or arriving too late and discovering they’d been replaced. One claimed to have tried to buy the . Others reported having made plans to ride the but then dropped the subject. We ended with seventeen people who said they’d been passengers.
Harding got generally good reviews. “The kids loved it.” “Mom thought it was long, but she enjoyed it.” “It was scary. I didn’t actually throw up, but I wouldn’t try it again.” “It was the ride of my life.”
Others described planetary rings, Bentley’s Cepheid Variables (without using the term), dragons on a cliff top, and riding a lander down to a planetary surface in a light rain. A few had stories that were hard to believe. One described a near collision with a comet, another claimed to have seen an asteroid with some glock art painted on it. “Glock” is a Chippewa term for abstract. Another insisted she’d seen a passing vehicle in hyperspace that had blinked its lights at them. Another claimed there’d been a close encounter with another lander just before they’d touched down. And there was the inevitable report of the appearance of an alien vessel.
There were several who claimed to have met their spouses on the journey. One of them commented that the flight had been the luckiest move he’d ever made. It had given him Tara.
I mentioned the alien sighting to Gabe but he shook his head. “We can check it later, but it sounds unlikely. Where’d the trophy come from? Did they stop and exchange gifts?”
We broke and went for dinner where, for the most part, we talked about what we’d been reading. We ordered a local wine, which was exquisite. Can’t remember the name, but I recall thinking, as we finished and started back to the hotel, that the wine would be the part of the trip I’d always remember.
We were only a few minutes back at work when Gabe looked up and said he thought he had it. A vid portrayed a guy talking about his experience on the . The guy was identified as “Big Jonathan Harway.” The date translated to 1415 on the Rimway calendar, the fifth year of Harding’s service for Orion Express and about eight years before he joined the Octavia team.
according to Big Jonathan.
I stopped the vid. “Bingo,” I said. “That’s the hotel with the trophies.”
“Yes, indeed.” Gabe couldn’t have looked happier. “But it probably won’t amount to anything.”
We restarted the video clip: would .
living .
He broke off there and went on to talk about a visit to a zoo with his niece. There was nothing more. We did a search on Big Jonathan. He had posted a ton of comments on every imaginable subject, politics, scientific advances, HV shows he enjoyed, eruptions over the behavior of online commentators. But if we added either “signals” or “radio” to the search, we got nothing we hadn’t already seen.
We took a look at the Orion Express Center pamphlets. One of them had a picture of the Oceanside Hotel with a description of how to obtain reduced rates. But there was nothing about silver trophies or invented languages.
Gabe sent Big Jonathan a message asking to talk with him. The guy was obviously not shy. He called, reversing the charges, a half hour later. I was in my own room when it happened.
“So what did he say?” I asked.
“The pilot Harding. And yes, we may have gotten some results. I recorded the call. You want to watch?”
Big Jonathan didn’t appear to be very big. I’d have guessed he was not quite Gabe’s size. He’d been around awhile. His face and hair were gray. He was spread out in a large armchair, and he looked tired. He was wearing a blue pullover shirt and light fatigues.
Gabe asked him about the world with the scary animals.
he said, .
.
.
We went through the Orion Express advertising. It was concentrated on the tours conducted from Chippewa, although we found out they had operational sites on two other stations, at Dellaconda and Fishbowl. But that was irrelevant. Eventually Gabe sighed. “I don’t see any mention of a New Worlds Tour.”