Coming Home

by Jack McDevitt

  “You say there’s a community out here?” I said.

  Amy and Reika both started to respond, but Amy got out of the way. “Oh, yes,” Reika said. “I wouldn’t exactly describe them as next-door neighbors, but we have a homeowners group, and we visit back and forth, and, when needed, we take care of one another.”

  Reika was the smallest of the three, with black hair and dark eyes and, obviously, Asian blood. Tori was the tall one. Red hair fell well below her shoulders, and something in her manner suggested she was the one most likely to enjoy life in a remote place.

  “So what brought you out here?” asked Amy. “Looking to move in?”

  “Actually,” said Alex, “we were looking for an asteroid that used to be called Larissa. Ever hear of it?”

  They looked at one another and shook their heads.

  “Does this asteroid have a name?” I asked.

  “Amora,” said Amy.

  “Oh. Sure, I forgot. Did you guys name it?”

  She smiled. “No. It’s always been Amora. As far as I know.”

  I glanced at Alex. Tokata had spotted us and supplied a false lead.

  He took a deep breath. “Anybody know Heli Tokata?”

  They looked at one another again and shook their heads. “Who’s she?” said Tori.

  “A young lady who has managed to stay a step ahead of us.” He sighed and turned his attention to the piano. “Who plays?”

  Amy smiled. “I do. But Reika is the serious one.”

  Alex tried his drink. “Excellent,” he said. Then to Reika: “What do you play?”

  “The violin,” she said.

  Tori finished her drink. “Anyone need a refill?”

  Alex passed.

  I opted for a second round. And Amy decided she could use a refill, too. “Reika can play anything,” she said. “But she’s a composer. She writes beautiful music, which is why we are here.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  Reika looked uncomfortable.

  “Don’t be so shy,” Amy said. “You know it’s true.”

  Alex was seated behind the coffee table on a long divan. “What kind of music do you write?” he asked.

  Amy got up, walked over to a cabinet, opened it, and took out a violin. She handed it to Reika. “Show them, love,” she said.

  Reika looked at us as if seeking approval. Tori returned with the drinks.

  “Please,” I said.

  Reika had been seated with Alex on the divan. She got up, shouldered the violin, and raised the bow. Then she began to play. I’m not sure what I’d expected, but the music was incredible. It was soft and majestic and wistful. It filled the room and subsided and filled the room again. Finally, somehow, it ended in heartbreak.

  “It’s called,” said Tori, “‘Tides.’”

  Amy sat with a triumphant smile playing on her lips. “Tell them about it.”

  “It’s two lovers standing near the ocean,” Reika said. “Listening to the sea. And one of the two is saying good-bye. It’s over. I like you, but it isn’t going to work. And she walks off, leaving the other one to try to put his life back together.”

  “When Reika writes a song about shattered love,” said Tori, “the people in the audience all get hit pretty hard.”

  “You’re a professional,” said Alex. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. I used to play with the Ningata Symphony Orchestra. Tori did, too. That was how we met. I always loved composing, but I didn’t think I was any good at it. I showed Tori something I’d written. She took it and showed it to the Banner Boys. You know who they are, right? No? They’re pretty big.” We got a smile that suggested she was wondering where we’d been all our lives. “They asked if they could perform the piece. It was called ‘Seaview.’ I said okay, sure, and it became a big hit. After that, I knew there’d be no stopping me.”

  “Marvelous,” I said. “You like oceans.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Yet you’re out here.”

  “In the middle of the biggest ocean there is.” She put the violin down on a side table. “I’ve always loved oceans because of the sense that they go on forever. When I was a kid, I used to stand on the beach and listen to the rumble of the surf, and you couldn’t see anything all the way out to the horizon except water. There were no boundaries. No limits. I don’t know why, but every human emotion, out here, is also boundless. And there’s no reason for restraint. It’s where I get to be who I really am. Does that make any sense?”

  “But,” I said, “you guys are entertainers. Entertainers hang out in public places.”

  “We don’t live here, Chase. Amora is a retreat. This is where we hang out. It’s where we can be ourselves.”

  “One final question,” said Alex. “You don’t have any artifacts stored here anywhere, do you?”

  They looked at one another. Reika smiled. “What kind of artifacts? I have an old coat upstairs.”

  “Okay,” said Alex, “thanks.”

  I turned to Amy. “I assume you run the P.R. operation.”

  She laughed. “Not really. In fact I’m the comedian.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  There’s no such thing as an idle threat.

  —Arnold Case, The Last Hunter, 1114

  “I guess Tokata isn’t as dumb as we thought.”

  “I guess not.”

  Tori, Reika, and Amy came out under the dome and waved as we lifted off. We waved back, and I asked Alex if we were headed home?

  “No,” he said. “We still don’t know what this is all about.”

  “So it’s back to Galileo?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are we going to do now? Try to beat the truth out of Tokata?”

  He was seated beside me, staring out at the stars. “There might still be a way to manage this.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We need to scare Tokata. And Southwick. They’ve got one vulnerability.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re trying to keep a secret. All we need to do is put the secret at risk.”

  “So how exactly do we do that? We don’t know what they’re hiding. We can’t even find the asteroid.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to.”

  * * *

  We went back to the Maui Museum and made ourselves visible for two days, looking through every section of the place, asking questions of the tour guides, spending substantial time in the gift shop, and sitting out in the lobby. Alex was hoping to draw the attention of somebody from the media, but it didn’t happen.

  “Can’t find a reporter when you need one,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to take a more direct approach.”

  “You going to call a press conference?”

  “One of the reporters was a big guy named Bill Garland. Or Phil Garland. I forget which. But he works for the Golden Network, and he shouldn’t be hard to find.” He checked his link. “It’s Bill.” The link made the connection, and a half hour later, Garland walked in the door. He was one of the people who’d sat down with Alex while I’d wandered off and found the Wendell Chali collection.

  “Hello, Mr. Benedict,” he said. “And Ms. Kolpath. Nice to see you again.”

  “Good to see you, Bill,” said Alex. We took seats in a corner of the lobby.

  “So what’s going on?”

  “Well, I’m sorry to say that when you and your colleagues were here a few days ago, I wasn’t entirely honest with you.”

  Garland was young, still on the right side of thirty. But the enthusiasm that usually goes with the age wasn’t there. The guy was good, controlled, ready to listen, but not overwhelmed by the reputation of his source. “Mr. Benedict,” he said, “it was obvious you had something you didn’t want to share. I understand that. It happens all the time. But I’m delighte
d to see you back here. This time, I assume you’ll tell me what it’s about.”

  “I’m Alex, Bill. And you know what the Apollo artifacts are?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “They’re from the Golden Age, from the early spaceflights. From the first few centuries.”

  “Okay. What kind of artifacts are we talking about? Can you specify?”

  “I can’t be sure. But I suspect we’d find parts of the ships that made the first Moon flights. Maybe some personal items that belonged to the astronauts.”

  “Wait a minute. What’s an astronaut?”

  “Sorry. That’s what they called the people who went into space. When we were first getting off Earth.”

  He smiled. “All right.”

  “The artifacts might include a radio from the Mars colony. Or a coffee cup belonging to Neil Armstrong.”

  “He was one of the early astronauts, right?”

  “First person to set foot on another world.”

  “Oh. I guess I should have known that. I’m not strong on ancient history.”

  “That’s okay. There might be a pen that belonged to Regina Markovy. She was captain of the first Mars flight. What I’m trying to say is, there might be anything.”

  “All right. That all sounds pretty valuable. Are you going to buy these things?”

  “No, Bill. We’re trying to find them. They disappeared eight thousand years ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I may know where they are.”

  “Really?” His eyes widened. “Good. But you say you may know.”

  “I can’t be certain. I’m going to need some help finding them.”

  Bill nodded. “What can I do?”

  “If you run this part of the story, somebody out there might have information that would be helpful. I’m only missing a couple of pieces. The person who can help might not be aware of it. With a little luck, someone will read your report and get in touch with me. I’m going to set up headquarters at the Majestic Hotel.”

  “All right,” he said. “I don’t see a problem there. But if this thing works out, and you actually find this stuff, I’ll want an exclusive.”

  “Bill, if we find ourselves in a position to start selling Golden Age artifacts, we’ll want all the publicity we can get. But yes, you’d get the lead story. Okay?”

  “These artifacts, I assume, are seriously valuable?”

  Alex met his eyes. “They’re priceless. But you know, of course, there’s always a chance this will come to nothing.”

  “Of course.” Bill was writing in his notebook. “Let’s hope not.”

  * * *

  “So what’s the point of all this?” I asked him when we were alone again.

  “We’re going to put some pressure on Southwick. He’ll find out from Tokata what I’m threatening to do. And I think—I hope—they’ll get in touch with us to talk things out.”

  “Or maybe the bomb will be real this time.”

  “Chase, I don’t think these people are psychopaths. If they were, we’d know by now.”

  We went back to the hotel and wandered into the bar. “So what exactly are you threatening to do?”

  “I thought it was plain enough. Or it will be to them. What Tokata should get from this is that, in a few days, I’m going to state publicly what I know, that the Prairie House artifacts were taken to an asteroid, that the asteroid was known as Larissa, and that meant it was pretty big. That there’s a good chance they are still out there. The probable result of that will be that everyone who has access to a yacht will head out and look. Ultimately, somebody will stumble across it.”

  “Are you actually planning to do it?”

  “Good question,” Alex said. “I don’t know. If we don’t make this work, I might have to resort to something like that.”

  “Alex, I don’t see how this can work. Tokata’s in the British Isles, and we’re sitting here in Hawaii. She won’t even see Garland’s report.”

  “You’re underestimating her, Chase. She knew we were onto her and came up with a number on the spot to send us off on a wild-goose chase. You don’t think she’s been doing searches since then, trying to keep an eye on us? She knows we wouldn’t have gone quietly into the sunset. She’s probably waiting for us to call again.”

  “Instead of doing all this roundabout stuff with Garland, why don’t we just do that?”

  “I can’t see how it would do any good. I don’t think we can buy her cooperation.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But I can’t believe this will work.”

  Alex managed a smile. “It depends on what they’re hiding.”

  * * *

  It took two and a half days, approximately as long as it required a hypercomm message to reach Rimway and draw a response. “Alex,” it said, “please don’t do anything rash until we’ve had a chance to talk. I’m on my way.” It was from Southwick.

  “I guess you were right,” I said.

  FORTY-SIX

  Make some day a decent end,

  Shrewder fellows than your friend.

  Fare you well, for ill fare I:

  Live, lads, and I will die.

  —A. E. Housman, “The Carpenter’s Son,” 1896 C.E.

  A second message arrived in the morning. “Alex, I’ll be on the Vistula. In port on the eleventh your time. Will contact you then.”

  That was five days away. “I’m going to charge him,” Alex said. “If he’d been up front with us from the beginning, we could have avoided all this.”

  “You want to tell me what it’s all about?”

  “I don’t know yet, Chase. To be honest, I haven’t even been able to come up with a decent theory.”

  “I think he’d like you to meet him at the space station.”

  “I don’t think there’s any question about that. But we’ll let him come to us. How about heading for Barkova? We could do some sightseeing.”

  * * *

  I don’t know why Alex decided out of nowhere that he wanted to go halfway around the planet. If he’d left the call to me, we’d have stayed on the beaches. But I said sure, and did a search on the place.

  Barkova had been, for two thousand years, one of the major cultural centers of northern Europe. Alex, it turned out, was interested in it, though, because it’s located less than a hundred miles south of the group of islands that are all that remains of Moscow. That ancient city, shaken for centuries by earthquakes, had been all but swallowed by its overflowing rivers. Consequently, we spent most of our time there in a rented skimmer surveying the ruins. The only visual evidence of the former capital consists of a few wrecked buildings jutting out of the water. The onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral are still visible, glittering in the sunlight. As is the magnificent turret of the Valkan, which was the seat of government for almost three thousand years.

  Today, the islands are home to an army of tourists. We wandered along an elevated walkway, rode a roller coaster, played some games in a casino, and ate dinner at Sergev’s, a pricey restaurant overlooking Lake Kaczinski. Sergev’s had pictures of the old days on the walls, of giant snowstorms and people wandering city streets wrapped in heavy overcoats and wearing fur hats. Hard to believe it was the same place.

  We took one of the sub tours. I’d hoped to get a good look at the ancient buildings and streets, but most of what had been Moscow was buried in mud. We did get to see the Bolshoi Theater and the Kremlin Armory, more or less.

  On the third afternoon, our hotel was hosting a wedding in its ballroom. I’m no longer clear on how it happened, but we became involved in the celebration. I always enjoy celebrating and will take any excuse to jump in. Alex, on the other hand, is not normally drawn to social events. He’s an effective speaker, but take his audience away, and he seems to become almost shy. On that afternoon, though, he wandered away fo
r a few minutes and returned with a woman who would become a lifelong friend, Galina Mozheika. She had bright amber eyes and long dark hair that fell below her shoulders. A cousin of the bride, she worked as one of the tour conductors. “It doesn’t pay much,” she told me, “but I love what I do.”

  I needed about three minutes to grasp what Alex saw in her: She had a taste for history. Her prime interest seemed to be ancient Russian literature. She knew all the stories, and on that night was talking with him about the accidental discovery of Dostoevsky’s long-lost Brothers Karamazov during the Seventh Millennium. A three-hundred-year-old hardcover edition had been found in the library of a deceased book collector who apparently never realized what he had. And she knew about the trunkful of Third Millennium Russian novels found in a Greek attic and placed on board an interstellar that subsequently vanished. It sounded like another of the Sanusar vehicles.

  He spent the rest of the evening with her. In years to come, they communicated back and forth. She made it to Rimway on a few occasions, and I never knew him to go back to Earth without visiting the Moscow Islands. But as far as I could tell, nothing romantic ever came of it. They were friends.

  Maybe it was enough.

  On one occasion, when we were alone together, Galina told me that Earth and Rimway were too far from each other. “And I’m not just talking about kilometers.” By which I concluded that she wasn’t ready to leave family and friends, and she assumed the same to be true of Alex.

  It was an enjoyable party. People asked about my accent. Where was I from? Off-world? Really?

  * * *

  That night, somewhere around 3:00 A.M., my link sounded. It was Khaled. I reached over and took it from the bedside table. “Hello,” I said.

  His image appeared over by one of the windows. “Chase. Ah, so you are still here.”

  “More or less, Khaled.”

  “I can’t see you.”

  “I’m in bed.”

  “Oh. At this hour?”

  “It’s the middle of the night here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Barkova.”