Firebird

by Jack McDevitt

  The show’s intro ran segments depicting guests arguing with him, throwing things around, and stomping off in a rage. There had even been an incident in which a prominent politician had tried to hit him with a chair. Ritter was loud, occasionally abusive, and thought of himself as a crusader for decent behavior.

  Alex liked him.

  In fact, off the set, they got along quite well. They shared an interest in antiques, and in history, and took each other to lunch at least once a month. They even attended many of the same social events.

  Alex was dressed casually, in a dark blue sport shirt and iron gray slacks.

  The show began as it always did, with Ritter welcoming his guest at what seemed to be the front door of his home. He introduced Alex as “a man who needs no introduction.” Then they sat down in armchairs on opposite sides of a small round table, obtained for him by Alex years before. It had been part of Aria Chan’s set, when she famously warned Michael Delarosa to avoid the war with the Mutes.

  Alex described the Villanueva experience.

  Ritter shook his head disapprovingly and looked occasionally surprised, pretending he hadn’t been briefed prior to the show. When Alex finished, he wanted to know why we’d gone there.

  “Just doing some historical research,” Alex said. “Would you like to come with us next time?”

  Ritter’s laugh was at least part snort. “How many of these things are there?” he asked, referring to the AIs.

  “We don’t know. Probably not very many. Not after all this time.”

  “Guess.”

  “Well—maybe ten or twenty thousand.” There were probably a million, but Alex knew how that would sound.

  “And some are maniacs.”

  “A few, yes.”

  “And you want to get them out?”

  “Some of them, yes.”

  Another smile, accompanied by a shake of the head. “Why?”

  “Kile, you’ll have to bear with me, but—”

  “You’re one of those touchy-feely guys who think that the boxes are alive.”

  “They might be.”

  Ritter stared at him across the table. “All right,” he said. “I’ll give you that. I guess it’s possible. And you would like to get help to put together a rescue mission. Do I have that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’ve you talked to?”

  “A few people in the government.”

  A big grin. “You don’t want to give us any names?”

  “There’s no point in it.”

  “What did they say?”

  “That if they move to get the AIs out of there, they’ll be laughed at. If anybody dies in the effort, it would be political suicide.”

  “How about shutting down the power stations?”

  “If they do that, they’re concerned they’ll be attacked for brutality.”

  “By AI huggers.”

  It was Alex’s turn to smile. But he said nothing.

  “Alex,” Ritter continued, “if we went in, some of the rescuers would probably be killed, though, wouldn’t they?”

  Alex nodded. “It’s possible.”

  “Would the extraction, however many there are, be worth human lives?”

  “I think it can be done without sustaining casualties. If we do it right.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “It’s a hypothetical. I don’t think it’s a consequence we would have to face.”

  “But you can’t guarantee that.”

  “No. Unfortunately not.”

  Ritter sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “The problem here is that you want politicians to do the right thing even though there’s no political benefit to be had. Even though they’ll take a beating no matter how it turns out. Even though it’s not even necessarily the right thing.”

  “I think it is, Kile.”

  “Okay, Alex. Let’s assume you’re right, and it’s the moral thing to do. A lot of people, probably most people, wouldn’t agree. But you want their representatives to act against their wishes.”

  “It’s called leadership.”

  And so it went. Neither of them spared either the administration or the legislature. Or each other. In fact, I felt a bit sorry for the pols. All they really wanted was to be let alone, and here was Alex asking them to commit suicide.

  Toward the end of the interview, Ritter went back to his earlier question: “Alex, what were you doing out on Villanueva in the first place? Don’t they discourage people from going there?”

  Alex managed to look guilty of some trivial trespass. “We do this sort of thing all the time, Kile. I hadn’t expected to get caught up with AIs.”

  “So you risked your neck for antiques?”

  “We don’t think of it that way. We’re in the business of recovering history. Of working to establish a more complete picture of where the human race has been. A lot of it’s lost, you know.”

  Ritter’s eyes closed briefly. “Alex, you obviously don’t want to explain why you were there. So let me ask flat out: Is there a connection with Chris Robin?”

  “I wouldn’t want to say that there is, no.”

  “Well, I take that as a yes. What’s the link?”

  Alex did an I-guess-you-got-me laugh. “There’s probably nothing. But Robin was investigating the occasional sightings of ships over the years, ships that nobody could account for.”

  “And what has that to do with Villanueva?”

  I could see Alex making up his mind how much he wanted to reveal. “He thought the sightings might actually be interstellars that disappeared into hyperspace. Like the Capella.”

  “You mean they got lost somehow, and they’re still wandering around out there? In the dimensions?”

  “It’s an idea that Robin had.”

  “Again, why Villanueva?”

  “Because he saw one of them there.”

  Strictly speaking, that was true.

  During those years we normally received fifty to seventy-five calls during the course of an average business day. Most of them were from people asking about artifacts, of course. They’d read that a sports shirt belonging to a recently deceased celebrity had become available, and they wanted to confirm that and, if possible, put in a bid for it. Or they were hoping to find something, anything, that had once belonged to the vocalist Jules Arnot.

  But within minutes after Alex had begun talking with Ritter, the occasional call turned into a steady flow. By noon, it had become a flood.

  “Glad to see someone’s finally standing up for the AIs,” one young man said. “It’s goddam time.”

  Another one, an elderly guy who identified himself as a physician, complained that Alex needed help. “And the sooner the better. Before he gets somebody killed.”

  Three obviously angry women stood behind a fourth, who spoke for the group: “Mr. Benedict has lost his mind. Why doesn’t he go back there himself?”

  The calls, according to Jacob’s summary, were about five to one opposed to helping the AIs. Six, during the first hour, came from Rainbow clients, four in support, the others denouncing us and stating that they would have no further dealings with the firm.

  When Alex got home, he tried to brush the reaction away, but I could see he was disappointed. “The truth is,” he said, “that a couple of weeks ago, I’d probably have felt the same way they do. I wish I could have been more persuasive.”

  “You did a good job. It’s just a hard case to sell.”

  “I guess.”

  “Away from the AIs for a minute—”

  “Yes?”

  “That last business, about the ships being lost in the dimensions,” I said. “That’s pretty creepy stuff.”

  “I know.”

  “You didn’t bring up how Robin managed to be present for two sightings. That’s a critical part of the story.”

  “I didn’t mention it because I don’t know how he managed it. Kile would shrug and dismiss it as coincidence.”

&nb
sp; “We need Robin’s logs.”

  “Or a set of notes, a journal, something.” His eyes narrowed. He wanted me to tell him there’d been a report from Belle.

  Shara finally got back. Alex was out with a client when she called. “You guys have stirred up a small tempest,” she said. “What on earth were you doing on Villanueva?”

  I told her. Alex had gone looking for confirmation that the sightings were ships. And that they appeared to be lost in time as well as in space.

  “My God,” she said. “You really think that might be true?”

  “Alex does. I still can’t get my head around it.”

  “It is possible,” she said. “There could be an instability of some kind.”

  “What’s that mean, exactly, Shara?”

  “There might be a discontinuity in the space-time continuum.”

  “Which means what? That the space-time continuum is broken?”

  “You could put it that way. Space is made out of rubber.” She grinned at my reaction. “I don’t know how else to put it. Chase, we know space can be bent. We get a demonstration of it every time somebody trips over something. Or falls off a roof.”

  “Okay.”

  “If it can be bent, it can be twisted out of shape. Distorted. The same thing’s true of time, and that might be what we’re seeing here.” She went on like that for several minutes, talking about how time in transdimensional space doesn’t flow the same way it does in normal space. And that if it gets disrupted, really strange things can happen. I listened, and when she’d finished, I made no effort to hide what I was thinking.

  “I don’t guess that was very clear,” she said.

  It was hard not to laugh. “I love physics, Shara.”

  She held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

  “So people have been getting killed for thousands of years because there’s an instability. And nothing ever changes. Don’t we notice when ships go missing?”

  “I guess not. It happens so seldom. We lose a ship every thirty years or so, and we get excited for a few weeks, then we forget. When you think of the literally tens of thousands of flights that run safely for every one that we lose, I guess it’s easy to overlook.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “The reality of it is that nobody seriously believes there’s a problem. Every now and then, you’ll have a breakdown of some kind. Or maybe an inebriated pilot. Or a defective rotor. Whatever. We assume, correctly, that there is no single cause.

  “Chase, I know this is personal for you and Alex. And I’m sorry. If Robin actually found something, he never told anybody. At least not that we know of. There was supposed to be a notebook somewhere, but nobody’s ever come up with it. Maybe if we could find that, it would help.” Her eyes locked with mine. “It’s painful to think about it, but if Robin had been more open, he might have gotten some support. Maybe, if that had happened, we wouldn’t have lost the Capella. And the Abonai .” She took a deep breath.

  There was a picture of Gabe on the far wall of my office. He was holding a trowel in one hand and a bone in the other. A hip bone. I was looking at it, thinking how everything might have been so different, when Alex walked in. “Shara called,” I said.

  Three minutes later, he was on the circuit with her.

  “We need his notes,” she told him. “You’ve provided some evidence that might persuade a few people to look at the problem. But even if we could get working seriously on this, it could take years. What we need is to find out what Robin knew. Do that, and things would go a whole lot quicker. One way or the other.”

  When she’d disconnected, Alex sat quietly, looking at nothing in particular.

  I let it go for a minute or two. “You okay?” I asked, finally.

  “Yes.”

  “Alex—”

  “You know,” he said, “I could live with the knowledge that the Capella came apart, and they all died. That it was over in a short time. It’s what I’d always assumed anyhow. But this sounds as if they may have been diverted somewhere. Down some tunnel that never ends. Like the Sanusar vehicle with the woman screaming at the window. Imagine what that would be like: twenty-six hundred people trapped in one of those tin cans with limited food and water, knowing there’s no way out.” His eyes had grown dark.

  “I’m sorry, Alex.”

  “So am I.” He looked up at the clock. Rubbed his forehead. I thought about the picture we’d seen, of Robin walking through the terminal, carrying two pieces of luggage and the notebook. Find him, find the notebook. “Got to get back to work. I have to meet Colby in an hour.”

  I didn’t know who Colby was, and at the moment I didn’t care much. “Alex,” I said, “you’re probably never going to get completely away from this. But it’s part of the price of being alive. We all lose people we care about. I know you can’t let it go. But once you recognize that, that it’s part of who you are, maybe it’ll be a little easier to live with. Gabe would have been pleased to know you cared this much.”

  He walked to the door, paused as if to respond, but let it go.

  “Chase,” said Jacob. “Incoming from Belle.”

  “Put it through.”

  1806: Chase, we’ve arrived at the second marker and have begun scanning the area for the Firebird. Will let you know immediately if we detect anything.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  There are such things as ghosts, Henry. Your mistake is that you assume they are inevitably the spirits of people who have died. But many things leave a presence when they have ceased to exist: a childhood home, a lost jacket, a school that has been torn down to make a parking lot. Go back to the street where the home existed, visit the parking lot on a quiet afternoon, stop by the field where you removed the jacket and laid it on the ground while you played ball, and you will feel their presence as you never did in the mundane world.

  —Vicki Greene, Midnight and Roses, 1419

  We got a call from a tall, well-pressed guy with sandy hair and an expression that suggested he’d just come from a funeral. His name was Riko Calvekio. He identified himself as representing United Transport, and asked for an appointment to see Alex. “He’ll be available this afternoon,” I told him. “At three.”

  He showed up on the hour, still looking like a man in mourning. I took him back to Alex’s office. Alex was studying his display screen. He raised a hand, signaling that he’d be with us momentarily. When, after a few seconds, he turned his attention toward us, I did the introductions. Our visitor smiled politely, looked at me, then at Alex, and the smile grew defensive. “I wonder if we can do this privately?” he said.

  “No need, Mr. Calvekio. Ms. Kolpath has always been quite discreet.” Alex has commented that he likes to have me present when he senses someone is going to try to put pressure on him. He thinks they tend to turn things down a notch.

  “Very good.” Calvekio used a tone that suggested it was anything but. He sat down. “Mr. Benedict—may I call you Alex?”

  “Of course.”

  “Alex.” Calvekio was suddenly talking to an old buddy from high-school days. Somebody he knew he could trust. “You were at the meeting of the Chris Robin Society recently.”

  “Last month, yes.”

  “Some of our employees are members of the same group. We’ve known for a long time that Robin was interested in the sightings.” He crossed one leg over the other. “It’s a pity he died early. Or whatever it was.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “The reality, though, is that he was chasing a false premise.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Well, he seems to have thought there was something defective in the interstellar-drive units. That, if he could uncover it, it would become possible to stop these accidents from happening. But he couldn’t find anything. That’s because there is no defect.”

  I got them some coffee. “Mr. Calvekio,” said Alex, “why are you coming to us with this?”

  “Because you’re about to blame this problem on the
drive. May I point out that this is the same technology that was used by the Dellacondans during the Mute War? The same technology you uncovered yourself?”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “If there’s a problem with the technology, I’m sure you realize you would share the blame.”

  Alex frowned. “I don’t think we’re looking for anyone to blame, Mr. Calvekio. And anyhow, what you heard is not true.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That I think the drive units are responsible. That’s foolishness. I’d be interested in knowing where you heard it.”

  “From half a dozen different sources.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have taken long to get around. But you’re getting an incorrect version.”

  “So that’s not the conclusion you’ve reached?”

  “No. We’re interested in the disappearances, but we have no idea why they’ve been happening.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Alex shut down the display screen. “Mr. Calvekio, I take it you’re certain that the drive units aren’t involved.”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “If I may ask, how can you be so sure?”

  “Alex, we’ve had our own people working on this problem for years. Just to be safe. Some of the top physicists and engineers available. There is nothing wrong with the drive. Moreover, ships have been vanishing ever since the Great Migration. With all kinds of drive units.

  “The Mutes have lost ships, too. With a drive that is absolutely nothing like ours. They just don’t put these events together into a mysterious pattern the way we do. They recognize the reality. Sometimes an engine fails. Sometimes a passenger runs amok. Sometimes the mass detector malfunctions. Over thousands of years, bad things will happen. A pilot will have a heart attack at the same time that the AI goes off-line.