Usually, when I check in, he says good morning, tells me what our priorities are for the day, and goes upstairs to look over the markets. But this time he seemed at a loss for words. He told me he was glad it was nothing serious, that I hadn’t been injured, that it must have been a scary experience. He bounced out of the chair and came back minutes later with coffee and toast.
He made a few more comments about how glad he was I’d come through it okay, and was I sure I wasn’t hurt, had I been to see a doctor. And before I’d quite locked in on him again he got one past me. “Before we give up on the Margolians,” he said, “we have another lead I’d like you to follow. If you feel up to it.” He waited while I ran it through a second time and realized I was receiving an assignment among all the well wishes. “Last one,” he promised. “If nothing comes of this, we’ll write the whole thing off.”
“What do you need?” I asked.
“Mattie Clendennon. She trained at navigation school with Margaret and stayed close to her.”
“Okay,” I said. “What’s her number? I’ll talk to her first thing.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Another off-world run, I thought.
“No.” He looked guilty. It takes a lot to make Alex Benedict look guilty. “She’s apparently a bit strange.”
“Stranger than Hap?”
“No. Nothing like that. But it looks as if she likes to live alone. Doesn’t much talk to anybody.”
“She’s off-line.”
“Yes. You’ll have to go see her.” He put a picture up. “She’s in her eighties. Lives in Wetland.”
It was hard to believe Mattie Clendennon was that young. Her hair had gone white; she appeared to be malnourished; and she simply looked worn-out. The picture was two years old, so I wondered if she was even still alive.
Alex assured me she was. So I took the misnamed nightflyer next morning and arrived in Paragon by midafternoon. From there I caught the train to Wilbur Junction, rented a skimmer, and went the last hundred kilometers to Wetland. Despite its name, it was located in the middle of the Great Northern Desert; Wetland was a small town that had been a major tourist draw during the last century when desert sports were all the rage. But its time had come and gone, the tourists had left, the entrepreneurs had bailed out, and fewer than two thousand inhabitants were left.
From a distance it looked big. The old hotels were clustered on the north side around the water park. The gravity works, where dancers and skaters had free-floated, resembled a large covered bowl in the downtown area, and the Egyptian replicas, pyramids, Sphinx, and stables, lay windblown on the western edge of the city. Here, in the good days, you could bring your friends, mount a drome (the closest thing Rimway had to a camel) and set off to explore the glories of the ancient world. The Temple of Ophir toward the sunrise, the Garden Palace of Japhet the Terrible a few kilometers farther on (where, if you stayed alert and rode with skill, you might be able to get out with your valuables and your life). This was a place where you came to escape from VR, where the adventure was real. More or less.
It was all before my day, of course. I’d have enjoyed spending some time there during those years. People today sit in their living rooms too much. Everything’s vicarious, as somebody said. No wonder most of the population’s overweight.
The streets were quiet. A few people wandering around. No sign of kids.
I had an address. Number one Nimrud Lane. But Carmen had been unable to match it with a location. So I had no idea where I was going. There were only a few landing pads, and those all seemed to be private. You wanted to come down, you came down on the desert.
I descended near a stone building designed to look like an enhanced pagoda, climbed out, and dropped down onto the sand. The sun was in the middle of the sky, bright and unblinking, but it was cold rather than hot. Not at all what you’d expect.
I tried my address out on a couple of passersby, but they shrugged and said they had no idea. “Try City Center,” one said, pointing to the pagoda.
I walked into it five minutes later and stood in the lobby, which felt like a place bypassed by history. A bank of elevators lined the far wall. Worn chairs and divans were scattered about. There was only one other person there, an elderly man on a sofa peering at a notebook.
I approached a service counter and a male avatar appeared, looking fresh and helpful.
Dark hair brushed back, amiable features, eyes a bit larger than you’d see in a normal human. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “My name’s Toma. May I help you?”
I gave him the address, and he looked puzzled. “It doesn’t seem to be in the atlas.
May I ask you to wait a moment while I consult my supervisor?”
He was gone less than a minute. “I should have realized,” he said. “It’s out at the Nimrud exhibit. Or at what used to be the Nimrud exhibit. It’s in private hands now.”
It was nine kilometers northwest of the city. One of the old stops from the days when caravans filled with tourists ran out of Wetland.
Mattie Clendennon lived in a palace. High stone walls, spires at each of the four corners. Arched entrance, up a flight of broad stairs, everything guarded by sculptures of people in antique dress. Enormous windows. Angled skylights. Flags and parapets.
There was a large interior courtyard filled with more statuary, shrubs, and trees. A fountain threw spray across the walkway. The only sign of decay was a dust-filled pool in a portico on the eastern side of the building.
I debated landing in the courtyard, thought better of it, and set down in front of the main entrance. I used my link to say hello, but got no response.
I got out, pulled my jacket tight against a cold wind, and stood admiring the building for several moments. The town officially claimed that the various ancient outposts surrounding Wetland were authentic, in the sense that this was how Nineveh and Hierakonopolis and Mycenae had actually looked, and felt, in their glory days.
Nimrud, according to my notebook, had been part of the Assyrian Empire.
The truth was that the only thing I knew about Assyrians was the line from Byron.
I went up the front steps (cut at the actual dimensions from the original, according to the claims), walked beneath the arch, and stopped before a pair of ornately carved wooden doors. They were big, maybe twice my height. Iron rings were inset at about eye level. I pulled on one.
“Who’s there, please?” Female voice. Not an AI, I decided.
“Chase Kolpath. I was looking for Mattie Clendennon.”
“What about? I don’t know you, Kolpath.”
“You’re Ms. Clendennon?”
“Who else would I be?”
A grump. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to talk to me for a few minutes about Margaret Wescott.”
Long pause. “Margaret’s gone a long time. What could there possibly be to talk about?”
The wooden doors remained shut. Hunting cats were carved into them. And guys with war helmets and shields. And lots of pointed beards. Everybody had one. “Might I come inside?”
“I’m not alone,” she warned.
“That’s fine. I mean you no harm, Ms. Clendennon.”
“You’re too young to have known her.”
“That’s so. I did not know her. But I’m doing some research about her.”
“Are you a journalist?”
“I’m an antiquarian.”
“Really? That seems an odd way to make a living.”
“It’s been a challenge.”
Another long pause. One of the doors clicked and swung out. “Thank you,” I said.
“Come straight ahead until you reach the rear of the passageway. Then turn left and go through the curtains.”
I crossed a stone floor into a shadowy chamber. The walls were covered with cuneiform, and stone cylinders mounted around the room depicted kings accepting tribute, archers stationed atop towers that looked exactly like the ones surrounding the palace, warriors going head-to-head with axes, shining beings handing tablets down from the sky. Weapons racks, filled with axes, spears, and arrows, ran along two sides of the chamber. Shields were stored near the entrance.