Infinity Beach

6

“We should do more of this,” Matt said. “Get ahead of the curve. Hand out prizes. It’s an easy way to make friends for the Institute.”

Well-heeled friends. Management had directed it be called the Morton Cable Award, after the man who’d done the breakthrough work for the development of transdimensional flight. Happily, Cable also had connections with the Institute.

Kim readily agreed—”great idea, Matt”—and suggested that, in view of Tripley’s affinity for decorative starships, they put the award in that form, rather than using a standard plaque. Matt approved and left the details to her judgment.

The cab picked her up early Friday morning. The ocean was still misty as the flyer rose into a crystal sky and arced toward the mainland. There were relatively few private vehicles on Greenway because taxis were cheap, well maintained, and readily available. She saw no seagoing traffic, save for a westbound yacht. A couple of other cabs were in the air, circling aimlessly over the islands, waiting for calls.

Matt had arranged that Averill Hopkin would make the presentation to Tripley. Hopkin was a prizewinning authority in hyperspace propulsion techniques. He was already at Sky Harbor, doing consulting work for Interstellar. So it was all very convenient. Hopkin was dark skinned, dark eyed, a man without substance, Kim thought. His life seemed to be completely entwined in physics. She doubted that he had any idea how to enjoy himself.

The cab dropped her at the terminal. Fifteen minutes later she was on the Seahawk, a maglev gliding south over Seabright’s parklands. The Institute passed on her right, and the beaches on her left. Once outside the city it accelerated smoothly to six hundred kilometers per hour, occasionally tracking over open water, leaving a roiling wake in its passage.

The view from her window became a blur of seacoast, forest, and rivers. Passengers drew their shades and settled in with their links or a book. Some slept, some put on a helmet and watched a selection from the train library.

Kim brought up the Autumn on the screen mounted in front of her seat and looked for a long time at her own image. It chilled her, yet produced a curious sense of her own beauty and power. Markis’s affection for his subject was quite obvious.

Another passenger, a woman, paused in the aisle behind her. She self-consciously wiped the screen.

During the early days after Emily’s disappearance, Kim had occasionally sat with her mother while she conducted conversations with a simulation of the lost daughter. Her father had objected. Emily was his daughter too, he’d said. And it was best for all of them to let her rest. He’d been right: it had been a chilling business, and Kim had sworn she’d never do anything like it herself. When someone is gone, she’d decided, she’s gone. Using technology to pretend otherwise is sick. It had turned out to be easier to make the pledge than to keep it, though. Kim had spoken regularly with Emily during her adolescence, and with her lost parents in the years immediately following the accident. In character, her father had abjured her during these sessions to let go. You have your own life to live, Kimberly, he’d said, frowning. You can manage on your own.

The encounters had always left her hurting. Achieving maturity had been largely a matter of leaving phantasms behind. But she found that to do it, she had to confront the reality, to admit to herself that they were all really gone. To a degree, she understood that she’d been damaged by those conversations, especially those with Emily, because the woman who had vanished from her life when she was barely old enough to remember had lingered for another dozen years. By then, when Kim finally broke away, she had come to understand fully the depth of her loss.

She found a picture of Emily, Yoshi, and Tripley, taken during a farewell luncheon shortly before the departure of the Hunter. Emily was immaculately tailored in dark green slacks, light green blouse, off-white jacket. The ensemble emphasized the effect of her gold-flecked dark eyes.

Emily had had a reputation as an effective junior executive for a communications firm before joining the Tripley Foundation. Kim took a few minutes to listen to an address at a country club during which she described the purposes of the Foundation, what they had accomplished, and what they still hoped to achieve. “There’s life out there somewhere,” she’d said. “And with your help we mean to find it.”

Emily was passionate, with a comedic sense of timing. She had all the qualities of a good speaker: she knew where she was headed, she told jokes on herself, and she knew how to deliver a one-liner. The applause at the end of her speech was loud and enthusiastic, and it was obvious that Emily could have recruited the whole bunch had she desired.

She’d married twice, but was unattached at the time of her disappearance. There had been no children.

Terminal City was located on an equatorial island two kilometers offshore. The Seahawk left the mainland at Mikai, passed over a series of rocky headlands and began to slow down as it approached the Chibatsu Tunnel. The lights in the car brightened, and they saw a few gulls. Birds had learned to keep their distance from the trains, save at those sections along the route where they cut back to a safe velocity. From this point the train would be moving across the barrier islands, alternately accelerating and decelerating in rhythm with the tunnels. They were on the equator now, westbound.

Kim had begun reading Markis Kane’s favorite detective, Veronica King. She’d finished four of the books during the week since returning from the Severin Valley, and made several efforts during the ride to start another, but it was hard to keep her mind on it. She was thinking ahead to her interview with Benton Tripley, sculpting the questions she would ask.

They stopped at Cleavis Island. The train almost emptied out, but more people swarmed aboard. After they’d gotten moving again, Kim wandered down to the dining car and had lunch.

As she finished up a meal of greens and chicken, the train cleared its last tunnel, leaped Morgantown Bay, and ran into a heavy rainstorm. Along this section of coastline, the mountains came directly down to the sea. The Seahawk plunged into a canyon, and crossed the Edmonton Defile, which was really a series of ridges and channels.

They were twenty meters over the ocean, running along the side of a cliff, when Kim returned her attention to Veronica King and “The Demon Lamp.” The gimmick in the stories was that critical information was inevitably hidden in plain sight. “The Demon Lamp” was set at an archeological dig several layers deep on the large desert island Kawahl. Two people have been murdered, and the motive is said to be concealed in a tower. But there is no tower anywhere on that baking landscape. Except, of course, that there is: the dig site is the tower, now buried after several hundred years and a climate shift.

Kim finished the story as the Seahawk dropped gradually to sea level and the mountains fell away. She was on the wrong side of the train to see it, but she knew that the skyhook was now visible.

There were always a few gasps from travelers who were looking at it for the first time. Skyhooks were, if not the most incredible of human engineering marvels, then certainly the most spectacular. Five of the nine worlds had them, and one was under construction on Tigris. Greenway’s skyhook, which was connected to Terminal City, was now about twelve kilometers away. Its enormous bulk rose out of the downtown area and soared into the clouds.

People were out of their seats, crowding to the right side of the car. Kim caught a glimpse of it, watched the sunlight strike its weathered sides. It always made her proud in some indefinable way.

Minutes later the train pulled into the terminal building and stopped. Passengers filed out into a vast agglomeration of shops and concourses, waiting areas and restaurants. Kim took a minute to locate herself, and then moved off at a leisurely pace toward the lift. There were people distributing religious literature, others soliciting signatures for political and social campaigns. Some wanted the board chairman of one of the train lines removed, others hoped to get support for a drive demanding research on increasing longevity.

Kim had some spare time, so she stopped on the main promenade for a glass of fruit juice. It occurred to her she’d put herself in Sheyel’s position: unless she was careful, Benton Tripley was going to conclude she was a lunatic.

The lift went up every other hour. The vehicle was divided into a lounge area, a VR facility, a souvenir shop specializing in Sky Harbor mugs and T-shirts, a coffee shop, and the Four Moons, a private club where members could relax around a leather-lined bar, shoot billiards, take over a VR booth, or nap.

The coffee shop was Nik’s. It was overpriced and the sandwiches tasted like plastic, but the coffee was good. The walls were covered with autographed pictures of celebrities who had passed through. Once on board, Kim headed directly for Nik’s and found a corner table.

The lift’s capacity was listed at 120 people. On this day it was carrying half that number. Kim ordered coffee and cantaloupe, looked out her window at the vast interior of the mall, and heard the announcement that they would be departing in a moment. The gates closed with a click.

The floor trembled and unseen engines engaged. The concourse, with its crowds and brightly decorated shops, began to fall away. Then Kim was passing through a tangle of struts and cables.

It was all she’d be able to see for about ten minutes. The lift would rise on the inside of the central support until it cleared the lower atmosphere. Then, when it was beyond potential wear and tear from weather conditions, it would emerge into the sunlight.

Several of her fellow travelers were VIPs also headed for the Star Queen. She finished her snack, leaving most of the cantaloupe, and wandered through Nik’s, saying hello, renewing acquaintances. McWilliam was there from Extron Industries, and Larry Dixon from the National Philanthropic Society, and Jazz White, the counterball player who was featured in the Star Queen’s promotional campaign.

The lift came out of its protective sheath and the coffee shop filled with sunlight.

She strolled into the lounge and found a cushioned bench. Some of the passengers were buying souvenirs, and most of the kids were in the VR rec center. Others stood near the windows looking out at the view.

Like the “windows” on the Hunter, these were really screens, which displayed views from external imagers. Transparent panels were a hazard, the weakest point in an airtight environment, so they had long since been phased out. But only a close examination could reveal the difference.

Matt had wrangled the invitation to the Star Queen ceremonies by pointing out that the designer of her engines had been Max Esterly, onetime Institute director, and that an Institute presence on the day the great liner was converted into a hotel was only appropriate. In fact, a plaque of Esterly had been mounted in the vessel’s main lounge. Matt’s real purpose, of course, was to remind the assorted decision-makers of the joys of technology, and that nothing worthwhile came free. It was Kim’s job to make them believers.

He’d given her a set of points to be driven home: If society does not move forward, it will decline. It is declining. We need to make some changes in the way we do things. The primary force in modern scientific research is the Institute. That was probably something of an exaggeration, but they said it at every opportunity so it had acquired the ring of truth.

She didn’t entirely agree with Matt’s approach. The belief that society was in decline was a permanent characteristic of every era. People always believed they lived in a crumbling world. They themselves were of course okay, but everybody around them was headed downhill. It was a tired drumbeat and she didn’t think bringing it up during the launch of the Star Queen Hotel would help generate anything except boredom.

Nevertheless she wondered whether something really was wrong. More than the end of scientific investigation. More than a society that sought its own pleasures to the exclusion of everything else. Some doomsayers were suggesting that the human race had simply grown old, exhausted itself in some metaphysical way. That it needed a challenge. Perhaps it needed to find others like itself, among the stars, with whom it could cooperate and compete. And trade war stories. That as things were, the species was just sitting on the back porch, waiting for God.

Much of the pessimism seemed to be coming from Earth, where it was almost the end of the third millennium, standard calendar. Historically such times had always generated cries that midnight had come for the race.

Whatever the truth might be, Kim thought that cutting the ribbon on the Star Queen Hotel was hardly an appropriate moment to throw a dead cat up the aisle.

Although the advent of artificial gravity had obviated the need for wheel-shaped space stations, the traditional configuration had remained in use everywhere except for the newest unit going up at Tigris. At one time there’d appeared to be a possibility for antigravity as well, but that breakthrough had proved elusive and was now thought to be impossible. Too bad: it was just the sort of goal the Institute needed to enlist the enthusiasm of the Star Queen crowd.

She was looking down on cloud banks and the curve of the world as the lift began to slow. People wandered about, collecting bags, making last-minute purchases, getting jackets onto their kids. It was a persistent belief among parents that Sky Harbor was drafty. The engines whined, the lift stopped, and the doors opened. Passengers filed out into the lobby of the Starview Hotel. Most inserted their cards into the registration dexes. Kim picked up the package she’d sent ahead, went to her room, showered, and worked on her remarks for the dedication. Through her window she could see Sky Harbor’s tail, the enormous counterweight to the lift, snaking out toward Lark, the innennost moon.

First up on her schedule was the award for Benton Tripley.

She had just time for a quick nap. Then she dressed and checked herself in the mirror. Satisfied that she looked pretty good, she took the elevator down to C deck, where most of the corporate suites were located.

It was a luxurious section, well away from the tourist and operational areas, featuring dark-stained paneling, potted plants, and thick carpets. The walls were hung with landscapes. Soft music whispered out of unseen speakers. The lighting was restrained, lending an aspect of quiet significance to the digitals marking the individual offices.

Interstellar, Inc., was located behind a pair of frosted-glass double doors. A young dark-skinned woman looked up from a desk as she entered. “Good afternoon, Dr. Brandywine,” she said. “They’re waiting for you. Please follow me.”

She showed Kim into a compact conference room. A recording crew was already at work, setting up for pictures. Averill Hopkin arrived on her heels, looking frazzled. After a minute’s conversation Kim realized he didn’t like making presentations. He was nervous and irritated, and not at all anxious to participate in a public forum. But there’d been no easy way out for him, and so here he was, his gaze running between Kim, the lectern, and the time. “I hate these things,” he told her.

“It’s the price of being celebrated,” she said, keeping her amusement out of her voice. She thought briefly about advising him that 90 percent of everything is public relations, but prudently let it pass.

“I’ve just got more important things to do, Kim,” he said. She put a hand on his arm. It was rigid. “I’m not good at this sort of thing,” he persisted.

“Relax, Avy.” She gave him an encouraging smile. One of her best. “You’ve nothing to prove. All they want is for you to be here. You could fall over a chair, and they’d think that’s just the way genius behaves.”

He nodded solemnly, accepting the accolade without a flicker of humility.

The lectern was set on a low platform at the front of the conference room, flanked by four chairs and a side table. Behind it, the company shield hung proudly on the wall, framed by blue and white bunting, Interstellar’s colors. Kim had kept the award in its container, which she now placed on the side table after showing it to Hopkin.

Corporate employees were beginning to come in. She knew a couple of the executives, and she introduced the physicist to them. They fawned over him, and she was pleased to see him calm down somewhat.

A tall, blond woman entered and everyone snapped to attention. This, Kim knew, was Magda Kenneal, Tripley’s chief administrative assistant. Magda took over, introduced herself to Hopkin, said hello distractedly to Kim, and began giving directions. There were now about twenty people in the room. After she’d gotten everyone satisfactorily seated, Magda apparently got a signal from somewhere. She nodded, stepped behind the lectern and the conversation stopped. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “I’d like to welcome you here this morning. As you may be aware, Mr. Tripley has long been a staunch supporter of the Seabright Institute—”

She continued in that vein for a few minutes, extolling her boss’s efforts on behalf of a world of worthy causes. Then she stood aside. A door to her right opened, and Benton Tripley himself came in.

The audience applauded enthusiastically. There was no question here who signed the paychecks.

Tripley, dressed formally in white for the occasion, sat down on Kim’s left. He smiled graciously at her, and she returned the gesture. Kim had never met him. Magda had always represented Lost Cause at Institute events.

Up close, she sensed that Benton was a more electric personality than his father. Everything she’d seen about Kile suggested a serious, somber man, with an intellectual side, and a tendency toward abruptness. But one did not get the feeling of unseen depths. The current Tripley, on the other hand, looked far more congenial, if she disregarded his eyes, which revealed a flatness that left her cold.

He was not a man she’d have over for dinner. Yet the charm was undeniably there, and it washed over her when he favored her with a broad smile. It made her want to be wrong about disliking him.

Magda identified Kim and then introduced Hopkin, who looked intimidated. The physicist shambled clumsily to the lectern, plopped his notes down, and began. He talked about the Beacon Project, and described a few other current initiatives. He explained why private help was needed to carry on scientific work in an age of belt-tightening. And he was starting in on some efforts he wanted especially to recommend to his audience when Kim succeeded in catching his eye and signaling that he should cut it short. Hopkin got the message and broke off in midsentence. “But that’s of no real concern today,” he finished lamely. “We’re here this afternoon to present the Morton Cable Award to Mr. Tripley in appreciation of his exemplary contributions to the cause of science.”

Tripley got up and joined him at the lectern.

Kim retrieved the container, unlatched it, and passed it to Hopkin. He opened it and brought out the model of the Hunter, circa 573. Its aluminum turrets and propulsion tubes gleamed in the lights. He held it up so everyone could see it. They got more applause. Then he read the inscription:

He handed it to Tripley, shook his hand, and sat down.

Tripley leaned into the mike. “It’s beautiful,” he said graciously. “My father would have been proud.” He added a few remarks suitable for the occasion, that Interstellar would continue to support scientific research, and that he was pleased to be able to make a positive contribution to a good cause. He thanked everyone for coming, delivered a few more generalities, and gave the lectern back to Magda amid sustained applause.

After the ceremony, he invited Hopkin and Kim into his office and showed them where he planned to put his newest award: beside the Regal, Admiral ben-Hadden’s flagship which had led Greenway’s fleet in the Pacifica War.

But he looked tired. It might have been a lassitude born of too many ceremonies that day, too many meetings with functionaries like Kim. She sensed that he was on automatic. It was hard not to conclude that, when he wasn’t on stage, a different personality took over. Nonetheless, she could see that the Hunter trophy was a hit. Kim hadn’t been certain he would recognize it.

The office was large for Sky Harbor, tastefully but not extravagantly furnished. Plaques and framed certificates and pictures of Tripley with various VIPs hung everywhere. A wall-length window looked out on the long planetary arc. Most of the visible land was white.

A portrait of a young girl playing with a dog stood prominently on his desk. His daughter, Choela, he explained. A virtual fire burned cheerfully in a grate. Bookshelves lined two walls. There were about eighty volumes, leather-bound antiques. And she saw, besides the Hunter and the Regal, three other starships.

“You did your homework,” he said, indicating the Hunter. “Can I offer you some coffee?”

“Yes, please,” she said. “Black.”

Hopkin passed.

“I’m glad you like it,” she said.

Tripley leaned toward a link, relayed her wish to someone on the other end. “It’ll fit very nicely with the fleet.” His features brightened and his eyes came alive. Whatever else he might be, she decided, he was an overgrown adolescent.

The Regal occupied a shelf of its own. A second model was encased on a table apparently designed specifically for the purpose. The two remaining ships were on opposite sides of the office, one on a side table near a chair, the other on a wall mount.

“They look realistic,” said Hopkin, strolling from one to another. Kim suspected he could not have been less interested but was using the decorations to cover his social disorientation.

“Thank you.”

The coffee arrived. Hopkin watched while his companions sampled the brew and commented on it. Then he continued, using a tone that signified he was now proceeding to serious matters. “You’ve an efficient operation here, Benton,” he said. “But I wonder if I might suggest something—?”

“Of course.”

“The engine designs—” Hopkin flashed disapproval. “You could do much better.”

“They’re standard,” said Tripley, puzzled.

Hopkin had an idea to improve energy output. Kim lost track of it early, during his description of intensification of the magnetic fields at the moment of hyperspace penetration. Her physics was too weak to follow the logic, but Tripley listened closely, jotted some of it down, interrupted occasionally with a technical question, and finally nodded his head. “Put it on paper,” he said. “Let me see a proposal.”

She noticed that he never asked about cost.

The basic problem with flight through hyperspace was that the upper limits of velocity seemed to be fixed at a real-space equivalent of 38.1 light-years per standard day. The Karis Limit. It was fast enough for travel among the Nine Worlds and their outlying regions, but there were other places researchers would like to go. Like the center of the galaxy, to which a round-trip would require four and a half years. Would Hopkin’s idea, she asked, push vehicles beyond the Karis Limit?

“No,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way to do that. But we will be able to save a considerable amount of fuel, and thereby significantly increase range.”

She was eager to talk about Mount Hope. “It sounds,” she said, “like the kind of drive the Hunter could have used.”

Hopkin blinked, not sure of the reference. “Benton,” he said, “I hate to cut this short, but I really do have to be going.” He got up and smiled benevolently. “It was good to see you again, Kim.” He bent to kiss her cheek, shook hands with Tripley, and disappeared out the door.

“It would be helpful,” said Tripley, “if he could really do what he says.” His gaze drifted from his notes to the model Hunter. “I take it the choice of trophy design was yours?”

“We thought it seemed appropriate. Most famous of the Foundation’s vessels.”

A cheese tray showed up. Kim sampled a piece. “I was impressed that you knew about the models,” Tripley said.

“They provide a distinctive decor, Mr. Tripley. Do they represent actual vessels?”

“My name’s Ben, Doctor. May I call you Kim?”

“Of course, Ben,” she said.

His brow furrowed and his eyes caressed the Regal. It was long and sleek, its lines curving in unexpected directions, designed to resist enemy sensors. A beautiful ship. She wondered why warships, of whatever nature, were always so compelling. Was it their utilitarian nature, that they were designed for a single purpose? It suggested Eisenstadt’s misdirected definition of a beautiful woman, but it seemed applicable in this case.

“My grandfather served on it,” said Tripley.

“During the war?” asked Kim.

“He was ben-Hadden’s helmsman.” The pride in Tripley’s voice was evident. He sat back quietly to allow her a moment of appreciation.

The other models were quite striking.

One was saucer-shaped. “This is the Choela,” he said, glancing at the little girl with the dog. “It’s corporate. We have two of them in service, actually.”

And a liner. “The Buckman. Gave out years ago, I’m afraid. But it was Interstellar’s first contract. In my father’s time. Launched us, you might say.”

The final vehicle was a flared teardrop mounted on an elliptical platform. Kim saw no propulsion tubes. It looked somewhat like a turtle. “It belonged to my father,” he said. “It’s purely fictitious. As you can see.”

“No propulsion tubes,” she ventured.

He nodded. “It’s not a very thoughtful design, but it’s what got me interested in the business.”

“A boyhood toy?” asked Kim.

“Yes.”

“What is its name?”

He actually managed to look sheepish. “I called it the Valiant.”

“That sounds like a warship. It doesn’t look like one.” Toy warships usually came bristling with weapons.

“To a kid, everything’s a warship.”

Of the five models it was the most intricately detailed, with realistic antennas and sensor dishes and hatches. Its dark shell was tooled to catch the light. In the flickering glow cast by the fire it was sometimes black and sometimes purple. She touched it. Her fingertips tingled with the kind of sensation one gets from hewn marble. “I think Valiant is the right name,” she said.

“In its day,” he smiled, “it’s gone out against all sorts of pirates and monsters.” He took it down from its shelf and held it in both hands, as if weighing his childhood. “My grandmother passed it on to me.”

“But,” she said, “you discovered there were no pirates.”

“Alas, no. At least not in starships.” His fingers lingered against its burnished hull. “What’s the old saying? The stuff of dreams.”

The books on the shelves included Harcourt’s Principles of Galactic Formation, Al Kafir’s Alone in the Universe, McAdam’s The Shores of Night, Magruder’s Far As the Eye Can See, Ravakam’s The Limits of Knowledge.

Not at all the sort of reading she’d have expected from a man whose primary concern was running a major corporation. One never knew.

The fireplace crackled and a log broke. Sparks rose into the room.

“The Hunter is a lovely ship,” she said, to steer the conversation back toward Kile Tripley.

“Yes, it is. I was on it several times when I was a boy. But never in flight, I’m sorry to say.”

“It was a Tripley Foundation vehicle for forty-some years, wasn’t it?”

“Precisely thirty-three years, seven months,” he said.

“They sold it after your father’s death?” She deliberately misstated the facts, not wanting to seem too knowledgeable about the details.

“His disappearance,” he said. “His body was never found.

But yes, they sold it a few years after. There was no longer any point in keeping it. No one else was interested in deep-space research. At least, nobody who mattered. You know, of course, that’s what they used it for.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know.” Tripley, she was aware, had been eleven years old when he lost his father. He’d been living with his mother at the time, and apparently had seen little of the star-hopping Kile. “Do you share your father’s interest in exploration?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Not especially. He wanted to find life somewhere. And sure, if it’s out there, I wouldn’t mind being the one who bags it. But no, I can’t say I’m prepared to devote time and money to it. Too much else to do. And the odds are too long.” He glanced at his commlink, checking the time. Signaling her that the meeting was drawing to a close.

“Ben,” she said, “do you think the Hunter was in any way connected with the Mount Hope explosion?”

His face might have hardened. She couldn’t be sure. But his voice cooled. “I’ve no idea. But I’m not sure I see how it could have been.”

“There was a lot of talk about antimatter at the time,” she said.

Suspicion clouded his face. “I’m sure you have the details tucked away where you can find them, if necessary, Kim. Look: I’ve heard the speculation too. God knows I grew up with it. But I honestly can’t imagine why either Markis or my father would have removed any of the fuel from the Hunter, taken it to the village, and used it to blow up a mountain. Or for that matter, how they could have done it. Remove a cell from its magnetic container, and it explodes on the spot.” He transfixed her with a stare that was not angry, but wary. And perhaps disappointed. “What do you think happened, Kim?”

She let her eyes lose focus. “I don’t know what to think. The explosion does have an antimatter signature—”

“There’s no evidence to support that.”

“The yield suggests it.”

He shook his head and let her see he’d lost confidence in her common sense. She had intended to say that the only people in the neighborhood who had a connection with antimatter were Kane and his father. But she was needlessly antagonizing him. And she didn’t know for a fact there was no one else anyhow.

“Let me get this straight,” Tripley said. “You think my father and Kane were conducting an experiment of some kind. And the experiment went wrong. Or that they were involved in a theft.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“The implication is clear enough.” He stared at her. “It didn’t happen. My father wasn’t an experimental physicist. He was an engineer. He wouldn’t have been involved in anything like that. Couldn’t have been.”

“What about Markis?”

“Kane was a starship captain.” He had settled back into his chair. “No. You can forget all that. Look, I don’t know what happened in Severin any more than anyone else does. But I know damned well it wasn’t my father playing around with a fuel cell. Chances are, it was a meteor. Plain and simple.”

“Ben,” she said, “do you have any idea whether Yoshi Amara might have been at your father’s villa around the time of the explosion?”

His gaze sharpened. “What makes you think that? I’ve never heard that charge made before.”

She’d gone too far. What was she going to tell him? That she’d found a shoe that was her size? “There’s some indication,” she said, plunging ahead.

Tripley looked like a man dealing with gnats. “May I ask what sort of indication?”

“Clothing. It’s probably hers. No way to be sure.”

“I see.” He glanced over at the Hunter. “Sounds weak to me. Kim, I hope you aren’t going to drag it all out again. Whatever might have happened, the principals are dead.”

She nodded. “Not all the principals. Some of them are still wondering what happened to their relatives.”

He clapped his hands together. “Of course,” he said. “That’s why you look so much like Emily.”

“Yes.”

“Her sister? daughter?”

“Sister.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I truly am. Then you must know how I feel. But I think it’s a mutual loss that we simply have to accept.” He’d come around the desk and was escorting her to the door. “Let it go, Kim. I don’t know what happened to them any more than you do, but I’ve long since come to terms with it. I suggest you do the same.”

Worldwide Interior specialized in custom decor for executive and personal yachts and the entire range of corporate vehicles. They were fond of saying that after Interstellar put in the electronics, Worldwide added the ambiance and made every vessel into a home.

Kim was given the tour by Jacob Isaacs, the public information officer. Isaacs was in his fourth quarter, as the saying went, in excess of a hundred fifty years old. He’d begun to gray, and he walked without energy. “They think I provide dignity,” he confided to her with a smile. In fact, in a society in which almost everyone looked young, persons who’d begun to show their age were at a premium and were often given what some thought was an unfair preference in hiring and promotion.

They walked together around a virtual Hunter, while Jacob described the ship’s features. Not her sensing capabilities or her propulsion systems, but the more cosmetic qualities. Hull design and esthetic considerations. Note the balance between architrave and portico. Observe the second-floor terraces. This was a ship that could have been placed on manorial grounds in the most sedate part of Marathon and it would not have been out of place. Except, of course, for the propulsion tubes extending from the rear.

And the lander, which was connected to the ship’s underside.

She’d explained that she was working on a history of the corporate fleet during the past half century, and to this end she’d become interested in Worldwide. How had they gotten started refurbishing spacecraft interiors?

“The founder, Ester DelSol, started in food distribution. DelSol and Winnett.” Isaacs looked at Kim as if she should have recognized the firm. She nodded as though she did. “The story is that she took a flight to Earth to visit her family and noticed how bad the onboard food was. And she saw her chance. She took over the franchise and provided the carriers first-class cuisine at reasonable prices. One thing led to another. There were plenty of corporations around to service engines and handle electronics, but the carriers themselves had to take care of the cosmetic stuff. It was expensive but necessary and it was done on a hit-or-miss basis.”

“And now you’re into all kinds of shipboard furnishings.”

“And exteriors. The cosmetics, that is. We don’t do food anymore, by the way. That was sold off years ago. But we handle pretty much everything else.”

He took her down to operations to see the ship itself. It floated just off the wheel, connected by a support structure. A couple of technicians were replacing an antenna. “Is it going somewhere?” asked Kim.

“Tomorrow. It’s bound for Pacifica.”

They strolled over to the entry tube. “Did you want to look inside?”

“Please.”

They went through the air lock and emerged on the main floor, in a gallery lined by a dozen doors. A foldback staircase mounted to the upper level. Another, directly opposite, descended to the lower.

The interior was elegant. Carpeting and furniture were of the highest order. Fixtures had the feel of silver. Windows were curtained, appointments polished, walls decorated with photos from the Hunter’s recent past. She found nothing related to the ship’s days with the Tripley Foundation. And it was impossible not to contrast the Hunter with the drab, spartan vehicles that the Institute used to transport its technicians around the stellar neighborhood.

The mission control center took up much of the main floor. They inspected it, looked into the dining room and the rec area.

The pilot’s room was upstairs. They went up and she stood before it, feeling the tug of history. Markis Kane’s last mission as a starship captain. Inside, a pair of leather chairs faced a control panel and a set of screens. She went in and sat down in the left-hand chair, the pilot’s position.

The rest of the upper floor was dedicated to living quarters. She wondered which cabin had belonged to Emily.

The utility area, which housed cargo, storage, and life support, was located on the bottom floor. It was spacious, considering the modest dimensions of the vehicle, and divided into five airtight compartments and a central corridor running the spine of the ship. “Kile Tripley knew from the beginning that he wanted the capacity to make long flights,” said Isaacs. “So the Hunter has lots of storage capacity, as you can see. It’s also got a water refiltering system that, when it was built, was far ahead of its time.”

There was a cargo hold on either side of the passageway. Each had its own loading door, its own crane, its own sorter, and movable decks. Jacob showed her the refrigeration compartment. “We don’t use much of this space anymore,” he said. “Don’t really need it on commuter flights.”

The portside loading door was as broad as the compartment into which it opened. “Tripley always believed he’d find a ruin out there somewhere, some kind of place not built by us. By people. And he wanted to be able to bring back pieces of it and not be hindered by the size of his doors.”

“A ram?”

“Oh yes. He was convinced that other civilizations had developed, but he expected they’d all be dead. Thought there wasn’t much chance of finding a living one. He certainly knew our own was in a state of decay.” They were standing just outside the lander launch bay. The vessel’s cockpit rose through the floor into its housing. “And of course he was right.”

That startled her. “Right? In what way?”

“Well.” Now it was his turn to look surprised. “Dr. Brandywine, we’re going to hell in a handbasket. You know that. Everybody’s out for himself now. Not like the old days.”

“Oh,” she said.

They strolled aft, talking idly, Kim agreeing, although she didn’t really believe it, that times had been changing for the worse. The corridor ended outside the entrance to the power plant. “Jacob,” she said, “I wonder if I could look at the maintenance records.” Solly had assured her that, unlike the logs, a complete maintenance record was stored onboard for the life of the ship.

“If you want,” he said. “I don’t see any harm to it.” He punched the control panel mounted beside the door. It opened, they went inside, and he sat down at a console. “But it strikes me,” he said, “that maintenance makes for dull reading.”

“My problem is that I don’t know enough about these things. The maintenance records’ll give me a feel for what it takes to keep a ship like this in operation.”

“Do you want me to get our maintenance chief? He could probably answer whatever questions you might have.”

“No, no,” she said. “That’s okay. No need to bother anybody.”

Isaacs shrugged and brought up a menu. He had a little trouble finding what he wanted. He was, after all, a public information officer. But after a few anxious minutes she watched an engineering history of the Equatorian Interstellar Vehicle (EIV) 4471886 begin to scroll across the screen. Jacob got up and gave her the seat.

Kim paged through as casually as she was able, commenting innocuously on grades of lubrication and periods between engine inspections, trying the whole time to sound as if she were only interested in generalities.

She took it back to the beginning. The Hunter went into service Midwinter 3, 544. “It takes a lot of work to keep one of these things operating,” she said innocently.

Isaacs agreed. She scrolled forward, locating and then familiarizing herself with the system which revealed the type of maintenance or repair and the signature of the technician. She noted the extensive maintenance performed toward the end of 572, prior to departure for St. Johns. Weeks later, a final inspection was completed at that distant outpost before the Hunter left for the Golden Pitcher.

On March 30 it was back at Sky Harbor, and another general inspection was done. She ran quickly through the items, and found that an air-lock door had been replaced in the port cargo hold, and the jump engines had required repairs. She wondered what the problem had been with the door, but the record didn’t say. As to the engines, she wasn’t skilled enough to understand the significance of the damages. She saw only that numbered parts were installed and the engine pronounced okay.

The name of the technician was Gaerhard. She couldn’t make out the first name. But it shouldn’t matter.

She passed on through a few more pages, thanked Jacob, and left.