“I don’t care.”
“We could handle it so he wouldn’t know where the information came from. It would not involve you. He’d never know.”
She shook her head. Absolutely not.
“How about this? If he has any more artifacts like the cup, we’ll keep you out of it, and we’ll make him an offer without telling him what they’re really worth. Then you and I can split whatever we make.”
That would have been a trifle unethical, and Alex would never have gone for it. Me, I wouldn’t have had a problem. I was beginning to feel some sympathy for Amy, so I had no trouble taking her side.
She started having second thoughts. “You’re sure he’d never find out? About me?”
“Absolutely. We’ve handled these things before.” If we could get a name, it would be easy enough to look into the situation without alerting him. If it turned out there were actually more souvenirs from the Seeker lying around, then we could go back and negotiate some more with Amy.
“He would know it was me the minute you mentioned the cup.”
“We’d be careful.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’d know.”
“We wouldn’t mention the cup.”
“Don’t bring it up at all.”
“Okay. We won’t. We won’t say a word about it.”
She thought about it some more. “His name’s Hap.” Her face tightened and I thought she was going to cry again. It was turning into a weepy evening. “Actually, it’s Cleve Plotzky. But everybody calls him Hap.”
“Okay.”
“If you tell him, he’ll come after me.”
“He’s assaulted you,” I said.
She wouldn’t look at me.
“Does he live in Andiquar?”
“Aker Point.”
Aker Point was a small community west of the capital. Most of the people who lived there were either unable to hold a job or satisfied subsisting on the minimum ration.
I saw Alex loitering across the room, pretending to examine the artwork. He figured out that the negotiation had ended, lingered another minute or two, said something to a waiter, and rejoined us. Moments later a fresh round of cocktails arrived.
Cleve (Hap) Plotzky did work for a living. He was a burglar. But not a very successful one. We got that much from the public record. He was good at rigging devices that shut down security systems, but he always seemed to make a beginner’s mistake. Sometimes he got caught trying to move the merchandise. Or because he sneezed and left his DNA on the property. Or because he bragged to the wrong people about his skills. He also had a record of assorted assaults, mostly against women.
So we went back to see Fenn Redfield. The police inspector had been a burglar himself at one time, sufficiently prone to the profession that the courts eventually ordered a mind wipe. He knew none of this, of course. His memories of his past life, up to about fifteen years earlier, were all fictitious.
He let Alex look through the court documents regarding Hap but could not show him the police reports. “Against the rules,” he said. “Wish I could help.”
The court documents didn’t go into sufficient detail about what had been stolen. “How about,” Alex said, “if I tell you what I’m looking for, and you tell me if it was among the stuff this guy took?”
So Alex described the cup with its English inscription, and Fenn looked at the record and said no. “It’s not listed.”
“Is anything like that on the list? Any kind of drinking vessel?”
Fenn explained that Hap Plotzky only took jewelry. And ID cards if he found any. And maybe electronic devices that were lying around loose. But pots and dishes and collectors’ items? “No. Not ever.”
Our next step was to talk with Plotzky himself.
We put together a mass-distribution ad. Jacob gave us an attractive female avatar, dark-skinned, dark-eyed, lithe, long-legged, with spectacular bumpers, and we had her sit in a virtual office surrounded by virtual antique dishware. We used my voice, which Alex told me was sexy, then smiled to let me know he was kidding. And we wrote a script.
“Hello, Cleve,” the avatar would say, “do you have some old pottery or other similar items that have been around a long time and are just gathering dust? Turn them into instant cash with us. . . .”
We used “Cleve” instead of “Hap” because we wanted to be sure he concluded this was a mass mailing and not a message directed specifically at him. We figured this guy wasn’t very bright.
“Will it get past the AI?” I wondered.
“Sure,” said Alex. “Plotzky will have a basic, no-frills model.”
So we sent it off.
We got no response, and after a couple of days we went to Plan B. If Hap had given the cup to Amy, he had no idea of its value. That made it likely any similar object he owned wouldn’t be locked away. It would be on a shelf somewhere. All we really had to do was gain entry.
Jacob connected me with Hap’s AI. I introduced myself as a researcher with the Caldwell Scientific Sampling Survey and asked to speak with Mr. Plotzky. The AI gave me an avatar to look at, a large, hostile, ill-kempt female. The sort of woman you might find enjoying a good fight. That image told me everything I needed to know about Hap. In fact, you can tell quite a lot about people from the images their houses show you. Anyone who calls Alex, for example, first sees a well-dressed, polished, impeccably polite individual. It might be a male or female figure. That’s left to Jacob’s discretion. But there’s no question it holds a master’s degree from New London.
“Why?” she asked, making no effort to mask her owner’s hostility. “What do you want?”
“I’d like very much to ask Mr. Plotzky some survey questions. I’ll only take a few minutes of his time.”
“Sorry,” she said. “He’s busy.”
“I could call back later.”
“You could, but it wouldn’t matter.”
Alex was sitting back out of range of the image pickup so he couldn’t be seen. But he was nodding vigorously, egging me on. Don’t lose your patience. “There’s money in it for him,” I said.
“Oh? How much?”
“Enough. Please tell him I’m here.”
She ran the idea through her software. Then the picture froze. She had her arms folded and was staring directly at me. That sort of thing tends to hold your attention. A minute later she blinked off and I was looking at Hap himself. “Yeah?” he said. “What’s the problem?” He looked as if he’d been asleep. We knew he was thirty-two, but he had the battered, caved-in features of someone much older.
“I’m conducting a survey for the entertainment industry. We want to make a determination about what people are watching. It would only take a few minutes.”
“Lulu tells me you said something about money.”
“Yes,” I said. “There’s a modest stipend.”
“How much?”
I told him.
“Okay,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, I’d need to come by the house, Mr. Plotzky. We need to complete a document on your equipment as well.”
“I can tell you what I have, lady. Save you the trip.”
“Sorry. We can’t do it that way. I’d like to, but I have to certify that I’ve made the visit.”
He nodded and took a long look. It was as if he hadn’t noticed me before. Then he said okay, and tried a come-hither grin. It was crooked and repulsive but I smiled back.
Actually the place wasn’t the hovel I expected. Plotzky lived nineteen or twenty floors up in one of the vertical cities that made Aker Point infamous. There wasn’t a lot of space, but it was reasonably clean, and he had a pretty good view of the Melony. I mean it was well south of lush, but if you’d decided just to drift through life, you could have done worse.
He opened the door and attempted a smile. There was a woman with him, hard-eyed, short, solid as a bowling ball. It struck me he should have tried to keep Amy on board. This one made the avatar look good. She watched
me suspiciously, the way women do when they think you’re out to steal their guy.
Hap was wearing a workout suit with a top that said DOWNTOWN AND LIKE IT, under a picture of a shot glass and some bubbles. He was short and barrel-chested with thick black hair, lots of it, growing everywhere. He indicated the chair I could use. I complied and took out my notebook.
Hap Plotzky was more congenial than he’d been on the circuit. Maybe it was because I’d become a money source, but I decided he was trying to figure out how to make a play for me while the steamroller was sitting there. I was willing to bet he’d tried unsuccessfully to get her out the door prior to my arrival, and that was what explained the woman’s animus.
“So what did you want to know, Ms. Kolpath?”
I asked him about his favorite programs, how much he participated, what he would prefer to do other than what was available, and so on. I recorded his answers and admired the furniture, which allowed me to get a good look around the living room. The decorations were, you could say, sparse. What he had, essentially, was a sofa, a couple of chairs, and walls. The walls were lemon-colored. There was a cheap laminex shelf adjacent the front door, but the only thing on it was a pile of data chips.
“Yeah,” he said, “I like cop shows. Nothin’ much else worth a damn.” He thought he’d cut off the angle on his female guest—or roommate—and he tried leering.
I felt sorry for the guy. Don’t ask me why.
When we’d gotten through my list of questions, I took out a monitor that’s designed to interact with the AI in my skimmer. It’s in a small black case and it had red and white status lamps. It doesn’t do anything else, and it certainly wasn’t capable of what I was about to claim for it, but he had no way of knowing that. “If you don’t mind, Hap, I’m going to record the capabilities of your system now.” We were on first-name terms by then.
“Sure,” he said.
I pointed it in the general direction of the projectors and squeezed. The monitor lit up and the lights chased each other around the case. “Good,” I said. “Uh-huh.” As if I’d picked up a significant piece of information. The kitchen opened off the living room. I could see a table, two chairs, and a mounted plate that said YOU’RE IN MY KITCHEN NOW. SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. And another that said I’M THE BOSS HERE. There was no sign of an antique.
The bedroom—there was only one—opened through a door to my right. I got up and walked coolly into it.
“What the hell,” demanded the woman, “do you think you’re doing?”
“Just checking the projection system, ma’am.” Hap had thrown her name in my direction but I hadn’t caught it. “Have to be thorough, you know.” I saw nothing of interest. Unmade bed. More bare walls. A clothes chute stuck open. A full-length mirror with a chipped frame.
I aimed at the projectors and set the lights running again. “What does that do?” Hap asked.
I smiled. “Damned if I know. I just point and press. Somebody else does the download and analysis.”
He grinned at me, looked at the monitor, frowned, and for a moment I thought he was getting suspicious. “I’m surprised Dora hasn’t said something about being probed.” Dora would be the AI.
“They tell me it’s noninvasive,” I said. “Dora probably hasn’t noticed.”
“Is that possible?” He looked as if I were introducing gremlins.
“Anything’s possible these days.” I shut the instrument down. “Well, thank you very much, Hap.” I strolled back into the living room and picked up my jacket. The woman never took her eyes from me. “Nice to have met you, ma’am,” I said.
Hap got the door. He could have told Dora to open it, but he got it himself. It was a gesture that didn’t get by his companion. I smiled, wished him good afternoon, and slipped into the hallway. The door closed, and I immediately heard raised voices inside.
“Hap has a sister,” Alex said after I’d told him I didn’t think Hap had any more pieces from the Seeker.
“Do we care?” I asked. “About the sister?”
“She might be able to tell us where he got the cup.”
“That’s a long shot.”
“Maybe. At the moment it’s all we have.”
“Okay.”
“She lives on Morinda.”
“The black hole?”
“The station.”
Interstellar flights had become a lot less inconvenient with the arrival of the quantum drive. It was near-instantaneous travel within a range of a few thousand light-years. After a jump, you had to spend a few hours recharging, then you could go again. Theoretically, you could have jumped all the way to Andromeda in maybe a year or so, except that the equipment would require maintenance and would wear out long before you got there. And you couldn’t carry enough life support, or enough fuel. Nevertheless, the trip is feasible if we’re willing to make some adjustments. But nobody’s come up with a good reason yet to go. Other than a few politicians looking to find an issue to run on that won’t alienate people. The Milky Way is still ninety percent unknown territory, so it’s hard to see the point of an Andromeda mission. Other than to be able to say we did it. But in case anyone in authority is reading this and has plans along those lines, don’t look at me.
“I take it you want me to go talk to her,” I said.
“Yes. Woman to woman is best.”
“We promised Amy we wouldn’t let the family know we’re interested in the cup.”
“We promised her that Hap wouldn’t find out. Chase, the woman is on Morinda. Moreover, she and her brother haven’t spoken for years.”
“Where’s the mother?”
“Dead.”
“And the father?”
“Dropped out of sight early. I can’t find anything on him.”
FIVE
There’s something about having a black hole in the neighborhood that leads to sleepless nights.
—Karl Svenson,
Strumpets Have All the Fun, 1417
Morinda is one of three black holes known to exist inside Confederacy space. The name also serves the large armored orbiting space station that was home to a thousand researchers and their support staffs, who were measuring, poking, taking the temperature of, and throwing assorted objects into, the beast. Most of them, according to the info tabs, were trying to learn how to bend space. There were even a few psychologists conducting experiments related to the way people perceive time.
I had never been there, nor had I ever seen a black hole before. If that’s the correct terminology, since you don’t really see a black hole. This one wasn’t particularly big, as these things go. It was maybe a couple hundred times the mass of Rimway’s sun. A ring of illuminated debris, the accretion disk, enclosed it, firing off X-ray jets and God-knows-what other kinds of radiation, and sometimes even rocks.
That’s why the station is armored and equipped with Y-beam projectors. Most of the action is predictable, but the experts claim you never really know. They don’t worry much about the rocks, which they can dissolve. But radiation is a different kind of problem.
I jumped into the system at a range of about 70 million kilometers from the hole. That was closer than I should have been, but still a safe distance. Quantum travel is convenient because it’s instantaneous. But the downside is that there’s a larger degree of uncertainty to it than there was with the old Armstrong engines. It’s a modest difference, but it’s there, and it’s enough to get you killed if you don’t give yourself plenty of room so you don’t materialize inside a planet, or for that matter in the same space as anything too big for the prods to push out of the way.
I needed three days to coast into the station. While en route I arranged billeting, called my old friend Jack Harmon who was there on assignment and let him know I was coming and he could expect to buy me a drink, and checked out what I could find on Hap’s sister.
Her name was Kayla Bentner. She was a nutritech, whose chief responsibility was to see that food supplies at the station were healthful. Her husba
nd Rem was a lawyer. I know you’re wondering why a space station needs a lawyer, but this is a big operation. People are always renegotiating contracts and quarreling over assigned time on the instruments. They also get married, make out wills, file for separation. And occasionally they sue one another.
At a place like that, the lawyer is the neutral party, the guy everybody trusts. Not like back home.
I thought about letting Kayla know I was coming, but then decided it would be best not to make a big deal of it. So I cruised into my assigned berth on the evening of the third day, checked into my hotel room, met Harmon in a small bistro, and spent the evening recalling old times and generally enjoying myself. I’d hoped he might know either Kayla or her husband. That would have made the job easier, but no such luck.
In the late morning I planted myself outside the offices of the Support Services, where Kayla worked, and when she came out to go to lunch, I fell in behind.
She was with two other women. I followed them into a restaurant called Joystra’s, which was a no-frills place. The tables were too close together and management expected you to eat up and move on. Furniture, curtains, and tableware all looked as if they had been made on the run. But it was located on the station’s outer perimeter, and there was a wall-length window with a view of the accretion disk. It wasn’t much to look at, a large shining ring that under other circumstances would have been just another shining ring, of which the Orion Arm has plenty, but it was ominous because you couldn’t get out of your mind what was at the center of the thing.
Kayla didn’t look much like her brother. She was tall, trim, serious. Civilized. You looked into her light blue eyes, and you could see somebody was home. Half the people in the restaurant seemed to know her, and exchanged greetings with her as she passed.
She and her friends were shown to a table, and I was next in line, wondering how to manage getting an introduction when I caught a break. Sharing tables during peak hours was a common practice at the station. “Would madam mind?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Perhaps the three ladies who just came in—”
Seeker Page 6