The Devil's Eye

by Jack McDevitt

  “Your imagination,” said Alex.

  Maybe. By then, as far as I was concerned, tentacles were minor stuff.

  FOURTEEN

  A person must have time to grow accustomed to the idea that he will die soon.

  When it happens violently, suddenly, unexpectedly, he is simply not ready to

  leave. He will cling to a favorite chair, or retreat inside an AI. He will hang on to

  the things that are familiar and resist all effort at removal. In the end, you must

  throw out the furniture. If that doesn’t work, sell the house.

  —Midnight and Roses

  The werewolf was a bust. Something howled in the woods around Morningdale, but there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a maharé, the local wolf-equivalent. Besides, I asked the lady at the hotel where we stayed, how could you have a werewolf when you don’t get a full moon? Don’t have a moon at all?

  “When Callistra is directly overhead,” she said solemnly, “it happens.”

  I laughed.

  She got annoyed. “It’s true,” she said. “That star is the Devil’s Eye.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Stay close to the hotel, and you should be okay.”

  The Devil’s Eye. There it was again. The title for Vicki’s next novel.

  The archives revealed there’d been a series of gruesome killings in the Morningdale area forty years earlier. But those had been attributed to an unusually malevolent maharé. The werewolf legend had started because a young man with mental problems had claimed to be the killer. When the authorities decided he needed psychiatric help, he’d resisted. Police had been summoned; the man had fled into the forest. Next day his body was found in the river that runs past the town.

  The killings stopped.

  But there were two similar incidents later. Each was accompanied by a string of murders, of people apparently torn apart by a wild animal. Each time, someone came forward, claiming guilt, claiming to be a werewolf. One of the nutcases was a woman.

  The killings were never resolved. And the confessions were attributed to a psychiatric disorder and the simple need to draw attention to oneself. In each case, according to one psychiatrist described as prominent, the victim had developed a morbid interest in the original werewolf story. “Ordinarily,” he said, “maharés will not attack a human, but there are exceptions. What clearly happened in Morningdale is that there was a string of killings, and an unbalanced person attributed the actions to himself. Or, in this case, three unbalanced people. And I suspect, in future years, the pattern will repeat.”

  It had been eleven years since the last outbreak. But the town kept the story alive with the usual gift shop and several books purporting to reveal “the truth” about the killings, and an HV presentation put together by a group of true believers. I’d have thought that the possibility of running into a werewolf would keep people out, but it apparently didn’t work that way.

  In any case, I was relieved to learn that Vicki hadn’t spent a night in the woods. She’d rented a room in a house at the edge of the forest and simply made herself comfortable on the porch during the hours when Callistra was overhead.

  The Devil’s Eye.

  So we followed suit. We sat out there and listened to the sound of the woods. Occasionally, something howled. Presumably a maharé. The owner of the house, who stayed with us for a while, assured us that the creatures rarely came near the town. “They’re scared of people,” he said.

  The psychiatrist seemed to me to have a handle on things. Nevertheless, I had my scrambler with me. Alex smiled at that. “It’s a good move,” he said. “You never know. But—”

  “But what, Alex?”

  “We’d probably be safer if you had something that shoots silver bullets.”

  We followed Vicki around the world. We spent a quiet night in a church supposedly infected by demonic forces. We visited an office building that claimed to have a haunted storage room on the eighth floor. We spent three nights on Fermo Beach, where the only thing that came ashore was a harmless creature with an oversized shell.

  We visited an archeological site where, seven hundred years earlier, the inhabitants had sacrificed children and virgins. (It was hard to believe that was still going on nine thousand years after the Enlightenment.) We dropped in on several haunted houses. We watched in vain for the appearance of a phantom aircraft that was said to be a relic of an accident that had occurred three thousand years ago. The vehicle developed engine trouble over a populated area, and rather than attempt a landing that endangered people on the ground, the pilot turned out to sea. The plane went down, and the pilot was lost before rescuers could reach him.

  According to local legend, the plane reappeared each year on the anniversary of the event. Vicki had planned her trip well, and arranged to be present on the correct night. We couldn’t duplicate the date without waiting the better part of a year.

  Was there anything to the story?

  There had been sightings of the ghostly aircraft, but it was easy enough to put a plane in the air and do a flyby. One year, as a stunt, the locals were able to persuade the airfields in the area to watch the traffic on that night “to prevent hoaxes.” They got a lot of publicity out of it, and of course the plane was sighted anyhow. Some years there have been two or three ghost planes. “The kids,” one shopkeeper told us in a moment of unbridled rectitude, “love it.”

  The most interesting site, for me, was the Time Lab at Jesperson. It’s out in the woods, not much more than a ruin now. It was originally built and operated eight centuries ago. The government funded it for a while, but there was no success, and eventually, according to the story, they gave up and abandoned the place.

  The townspeople insist that there was a breakthrough, though, but that the program directors, confronted with the ability to move through the ages, decided it was too dangerous. So they hid the truth. The lab was officially abandoned. Some of the researchers, however, had disappeared into the past and the future. People there claimed they still showed up on occasion. It’s been eight hundred years, and, if you believe the story, they’re still young.

  “Why,” a waitress at the Copper Club told us, “Gene Korashevski was here just last week.”

  “Who’s Gene Korashevski?”

  “One of the researchers. He lives in the Carassa Age.”

  “Lives? You mean he’s still alive? After eight hundred years?”

  “In the Carassa Age, he is.”

  Alex couldn’t resist himself. “Never heard of the Carassa Age,” he said. “When was that?”

  “It hasn’t happened yet.” She was good. She was talking as if this was matter-of-fact stuff. The way you might tell somebody you collect cats.

  Later, when we were alone at the table eating lunch, Alex speculated on how nice it would be to have the capability to travel in time.

  “What would you do with it?” I asked him. “Where would you go?” He loved the idea. “Imagine what we could do. How about going back and securing the cup that held Socrates’ poison? Can you even begin to imagine what that would be worth?”

  “Alex, is that really the best thing you can think of to do with a time machine? How about going back a few years earlier and actually talking to Socrates? Maybe take him to lunch?”

  “I don’t speak classical Greek.”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess you have a point.”

  “And it would be nice to get an early draft of First Light.”

  First Light. The masterpiece by Saija Brant, the greatest dramatist of all time.

  “I think I’d still settle,” I said, “for a chance to say hello to Saija Brant.”

  Our salads came. He studied his for a moment, then looked up. “Chase, you have no imagination.”

  FIFTEEN

  There’s no such thing as the supernatural. Everything, by definition, is natural.

  But you have to find out what the rules are.

  —Love You to Death />
  Eventually, we tracked her to Livingstone, the two-hundred-year-old estate of Borgas Cleev, where the dictator had delighted in personally running drills and lasers into anyone who displeased him, and where, according to legend, the cries of his victims could still be heard on windswept nights, when Callistra commanded the heavens. But the trail went cold there. Vicki had arranged to spend a night inside the mansion, talked the next day with a few of the townspeople, then gone away.

  We could find no sign of her after that. We roamed the area, questioning book dealers, librarians, police officers, journalists, anyone we found in the streets. Several reported having seen her, and a few said they’d talked with her. She’d seemed in good spirits, they’d said. But there was no indication of her destination after she’d left Livingstone.

  So we sat frustrated in a hotel suite. Alex had been tracking the time line, and Vicki’s appearance in Livingstone had come near the end of her stay on Salud Afar. Ten days after she’d left here, she would board the Arbison and return to Rimway.

  “I wonder,” Alex said, “when she decided to leave.” He made a couple of calls, got the StarFlight ticket office, and identified himself. He asked when the Arbison would have had to leave Salud Afar. They gave him the date. It was eleven days after she’d left Livingstone.

  “I’m trying to find an old friend,” he said. “She was on that flight. I wonder if you could tell me when she bought her ticket?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t give out that kind of information.”

  Alex ran the original transmission, Vicki Greene with fear in her eyes and her hands rolled into fists.

  “I know this will strike you as odd, but I don’t know who else can help me.” The white-and-gold blouse lifted and fell. HASSAN GOLDMAN, the blouse read. Who the hell was Hassan Goldman? “Since you’re not here, I’m asking your AI to forward this message. I’m assuming the cost.” And the arc of six stars. “I’m in over my head, Mr. Benedict. God help me, they’re all dead.”

  He ran it again.

  “I’m in over my head.”

  “Chase,” he said, “who or what is Hassan Goldman?”

  He ran a search. Hassan Goldmans were more numerous on Salud Afar than they had been on Rimway. One did medical enhancements. Another Hassan Goldman was a noted law firm in the capital. Hassan Goldman specialized in caring for pets. He was an actor, dead these twenty years, who’d performed comedy, and was still beloved by a substantial portion of the population. Another Goldman did landscaping in a place neither of us had ever heard of. He had been the captain years ago of the tour ship Leesa, who’d sacrificed himself, after his engines had blown, in a largely successful effort to save his passengers. Three Hassan Goldmans had lived in various places and apparently never done anything except reproduce. He’d been a major sports figure. He’d been one of seven people killed in an avalanche while skiing in a cordoned-off area that skiers weren’t supposed to use. He prepared special lotions to help aching backs.

  There were more.

  Was there any connection between any of these Hassan Goldmans and Vicki Greene?

  None that we could find.

  Were any of the Hassan Goldmans connected with claims of paranormal events?

  “None known.”

  Alex kept the image of Vicki frozen over a coffee table while we looked. The name on the blouse was inscribed in black above an arc of six black stars.

  Six stars.

  “Six people,” said Alex, “died on the Leesa. Five other than himself.” The heroic captain had saved seventeen. “Coincidence?”

  “So where,” I asked, “does that leave us?”

  Alex sank into his chair.

  I asked the AI if any of the five passengers had been connected with claims of paranormal events.

  “None known.”

  “We’re asking the wrong questions,” said Alex.

  “What’s the right one?”

  “The obvious one. Who sells shirts with Hassan Goldman imprints?”

  “There is no sales source on record.”

  “Somebody’s making his own,” I said. “Probably a church, a charity, some sort of special event.”

  He asked the AI to connect him with the space station. “The general information desk,” he added.

  A young woman in a dark green uniform appeared. “Orbital Center,” she said. “How may I assist you?”

  “Can you tell me,” said Alex, “if the name Hassan Goldman is used by any of the businesses on the station?”

  “No, sir,” she said. “However, there is a tour ship here by that name.”

  “Do they give out shirts to passengers?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Okay. What can you tell me about it?”

  “How about if I switch you over to the tour company?”

  “Okay. Please.”

  There was a pause. Then a male voice: “Starlight Tours.”

  “My name is Benedict. One of your ships is the Hassan Goldman?”

  “Yes. That’s correct.”

  “I’m trying to locate a friend. Her name is Vicki Greene. I think she took a tour on the Goldman several months ago. I was wondering if you could verify that?”

  “I’m sorry. But we don’t give out that kind of information.”

  Alex looked in my direction. Worth a try. “I wonder if it would be possible to speak to the captain of the Goldman.”

  “He’s off duty,” came the response. “He’ll be in tomorrow morning.”

  Alex said thanks, switched off, and looked up the specifications for the Goldman. Among them he found the captain’s name. Ivan Sloan.

  “Ivan?” I said.

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “He was one of my trainers at StarFlight.”

  “Good,” said Alex. “Marvelous.” He asked the AI to find the number for Ivan Sloan. “You’ll probably find him at Samuels.”

  “That is correct, sir. Do you wish to be connected?”

  “Please.” Alex got up, signaled for me to do the call, and left the room.

  Ivan was one of those people who strikes you as being a bit slow until you get to know him. He was always there when I needed him and, when I was having some doubts about whether I’d ever graduate, he took me aside and asked how serious I was about piloting interstellars.

  I told him I was serious. That there was nothing in my life I wanted more than that.

  “Then get your act together,” he’d told me. “You’ll be okay. You’ve got all the talent you need. Hell, it doesn’t take that much talent. All you have to do is be smart enough to tell the AI what to do.” He said that as if he meant it. “What you don’t have,” he added, “is confidence in yourself. Probably from too many people over a lifetime telling you what you’ve gotten wrong.” There was truth to that. My dad was forever warning me not to touch stuff, so I wouldn’t break it.

  When he saw me he knew me at once, and broke into a big smile. “Chase,” he said, “what are you doing out here?” He was seated at a table, with a cup in one hand, a dinner plate and silverware in front of him. Behind him I could see a mural. A sailboat.

  “Came out to see you, Ivan. How are you?”

  “I’m serious. You’re the last person I expected to see in this corner of the cosmos.”

  “I’m on vacation,” I said. “How about you? How do you come to be here?”

  “I’m from here.”

  “You’re kidding. You’re from Salud Afar? I never knew that.”

  He shrugged. “I might not have mentioned it.”

  “Running tours?”

  He looked embarrassed. “That’s pretty much what it’s come down to.”

  Tours from Salud Afar? I looked through a viewport at the black sky. “So where do people go? What’s to see?”

  “Varesnikov,” he said. “It has a magnificent set of rings and moons. And people like Sophora, too. It’s a crystal world. Looks great when you get the right angle on the sunlight.”

 
“I guess.” I saw something in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or embarrassment. As if his life hadn’t turned out the way he’d expected. “So how’d you turn up on Rimway?”

  “I cleared out of here when I was twenty-two, Chase. Those were bad times. I didn’t much like living under the Bandahr.” He turned away for a moment. Spoke to someone else, then angled the link so I could see the people with him: a man and two women. We did a quick round of introductions. One of the women was his wife Mira. She was attractive, congenial, probably twenty years younger than he was. The other couple were friends.

  “Let me ask a quick question, Ivan,” I said, “and I’ll get out of your way. A couple of months ago, you had a passenger named Vicki Greene. Do you remember her?”

  “The company did,” he said. “I didn’t.”

  “I assumed she’d gone out on the Goldman.”

  “As a matter of fact, she did. But it wasn’t my ship then. Haley Khan was running her at the time.”

  “Would it be possible for me to talk to Haley? Can you give me his code?”

  “He’s gone, Chase. Disappeared.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He vanished. Right off the station.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “Don’t know. It happened several months ago. Right after Vicki Greene had been here. There’s no record he took the shuttle down. But he didn’t show up for work one day and we’ve never been able to find him.”

  “You called the police?”

  “The CSS. Yes. They couldn’t find him either.” He paused. Said something to the others at the table. Came back to me: “What’s your connection with him, Chase?”

  I told him about Vicki. “Do you know where she went? On the Goldman?”

  “Probably the standard tour route. I never got a chance to talk to him after the flight.”

  “Did anybody else?”