“What time is it there? In Desmond?”
“Please connect me.”
We listened while it rang. Someone picked up. A woman’s voice.
“Hello. My name is Benedict. I’m trying to locate Royce Poliks. He’s a contract engineer. I think he’s currently working on one of your projects.”
“Can you tell me if he’s actually working on a project now?”
Alex switched back to the datanet. “Can you tell me what kind of work Poliks does?”
We received several pages of data regarding past projects. Poliks specialized in designing and constructing living quarters for interstellars, space stations, and other offworld accommodations. He’d helped put together the interior of the Octavia and also the control center on the cannon.
“Has Orion Express begun working on any recent projects?” he asked.
“What kind of animals will they be looking for?”
Alex took a deep breath and started again: “What other projects are there?”
Moranda was the one human world where things had gone terribly wrong. It was, at the height of its glory in the eighth millennium, considered the most advanced civilization in the known cosmos. But they suffered a revolution, the government broke down, violence erupted all over the planet, and millions died. It was the worst catastrophe on any human world.
“It’s been a gold mine for archeologists,” said Alex. “I’ve been there a couple of times. They’ve put everything back together. The architecture is incredible. And there are all kinds of legends about what’s been lost in various places. ”
“So I’ve heard.” He gave me that curious frown. “When were you there, Alex?”
“When I was a teen. I went with Gabe.”
said the datanet.
“Why would anyone want to go there?” I asked.
“I suspect they’ll fill the place,” said Alex. “People love seeing worlds get destroyed.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“Well,” said Alex, “if they set it up right, they might get to see part of the process. Enough of it to send them home happy.”
“Okay. So which one do they want Poliks for?”
“I suspect the End Times Hotel.” He hesitated. “That sounds like the perfect place for an engineer who specializes in living quarters.”
XXXII.
,
,
.
Aldebaran is a red giant, about thirty-five times the size of Rimway’s sun. Its planetary system is home to an enormous Jovian world. It has a dazzling set of rings and about thirty satellites. Belle told us.
A moon almost the size of Rimway was effectively lost among the satellites. Or it would have been had a survey mission forty-two years earlier not noticed that it was a living world and that it was in a dying orbit. When Alex and I arrived, it had approximately twenty years left before it would crash into the gas giant.
We were looking out at a spectacular sky, filled with moving lights. A magnificent set of glowing rings orbited Aldebaran IV, and a large dark spot loomed on its surface. A storm probably. “Belle,” I said, “are we picking up any radio signals?”
“Okay. Let’s get closer to the End Times world.”
“That’s an impressive sky,” said Alex, seated beside me. “I don’t know about people showing up out here to watch a planet-sized moon getting ready to crash into a gas giant, but I can understand vacationing in a place with this kind of view.”
“You ready to call them?”
“Sure.”
The response was immediate: , Belle-Marie, A woman’s voice.
“End Times,” Alex said, “we are looking for Royce Poliks. We understand he’s working on the project.”
“Please. If you will.”
“No. There’s no problem. We’d just like to talk with him for a few minutes. Can you get a message to him in the morning? Let him know we’re in the area?”
“That’ll work.”
“No. I’m Alex Benedict. He won’t recognize my name either. But I would appreciate hearing back from him.”
“You think he’ll call back, Alex?”
“I don’t know. He’s not likely to have any problem figuring out what this is about. Did Belle track the signal? Do we know where they are?”
said Belle.
As we approached the End Times world, Belle turned the scopes on it. It had oceans. They weren’t massive, dominating the planet. But they were there. It was covered with forests and jungles. The planet was in tidal lock, and if you’re building a hotel where people could stay and watch their world falling into a gas giant, you’d want them to be able to see it happening. That meant they’d be located in the area that was always looking up at the giant. The entire process was about scaring the customers. They were safe, and they would know it, but nevertheless they’d want to be able to watch the source of approaching doom getting larger in the sky every day.
So we knew which side of the world they’d be on. Belle needed only a few minutes to locate the construction with the telescope.