Polaris (10 page)

She nodded. “It had cosmetics in it, too,” she said. “But they were rotting out the interior.”

They agreed on a price that I thought was high, but it was a nice package, and Alex smiled benignly, the way he did when he wanted you to think he'd paid too much and was already having regrets. He gave it to Windy, and she handed it over to the aide, who showed us that we'd used up our allotment.

We wandered through displays of furniture and equipment across the back of the room. The captain's chair, a conference table, display screens, even a vacuum pump. VR gear. But these kinds of items, except the chair, were impersonal and would provoke less interest.

“You got the pick of the lot,” Windy said. She looked as if she meant it.

When we left, the Mazha was in the process of examining a wall plaque depicting the ship's schematic. “How many is
he
getting?” I asked.

She cleared her throat. “They didn't put a limitation on him.”

“That doesn't seem fair.”

“He's a head of state.” She allowed herself a smile. “When you take over a government, we'll do the same for you.”

We headed finally into an adjoining room, followed by the young man with the case. He wasn't much more than a kid. Nineteen, at most. While Windy tallied up the bill I asked him where he was from.

“Kobel Ti,” he said. West coast.

“Going to school here?”

“At the university.”

While we talked, Alex transferred payment. The aide told me how happy he was to have met me, made a self-conscious pass, and handed over the items. I decided it was my night.

Windy gazed down at the case and asked whether we wanted her to have it sent over to the office. “No,” Alex said, “thanks. We'll take it with us.”

I noticed the Mazha leave the exhibition room, surrounded by his people, and pass quickly into the corridor. He looked worried.

We were starting for the exit when a security guard appeared in midair. A projection.
“Ladies and gentlemen,”
he said,
“we've received a warning that there may be a bomb in the building. Please evacuate. There is no cause for alarm.”

Of course not. Why would anyone think there was cause for alarm? Suddenly I was being swept along by Alex. He had me in one arm and the container in the other. Windy, trailing behind us, called out that she was sure there was a mistake somewhere. Who would put a bomb in Proctor Union?

It became a wild scramble. The exit was through a doorway that would accommodate no more than three people at a time. A few of the less mobile ones went down. Alex told me gallantly to have no fear, and when we stopped to try to help a woman who had fallen, the crowd behind us simply pushed us forward. I don't know what happened to her.

“Stay calm,”
the projection was saying. Easy enough for him. He was probably in another building.

The crush in the passageway was a nightmare. People were yelling and screaming. I was literally carried through the front door without my feet touching the ground. We exploded out onto the portico. Alex briefly lost the case, and he risked getting trampled to retrieve it.

Security officers kept us moving.
“Please stay well away from the building,”
they were saying.
“Keep calm. There's no immediate danger.”

Nobody needed persuading. The crowd was scattering in all directions by then.

The security force directed the flow toward the bridges across the Long Pool. But they'd already jammed up as we came down the stone steps. So they changed tactics and moved the rest of us across the face of the buildings, out past the wings. I noticed Ponzio ahead of me. Windy, to her credit, was one of the last people to come out through the doors. And she barely got clear before Proctor Union shuddered and erupted in a fireball.

These watches and books and blouses are all that are left of the lives of their owners. It is the reason they are precious, the reason they have meaning. In most cases, we do not know the details of the person whom they served. We do not know what he looked like, or what color his eyes were. But we know he lived as surely as you and I do, that he bled if injured, that he loved the sunlight. One day, in another spot, others may congregate to gaze in awe at my shoes, or the chair in which I will sit this evening. It is why such things matter. They are simultaneously the link that binds the generations, and the absolute proof, if we needed it, that someone lived here before who was very much like ourselves.

—Garth Urquhart,
from the dedication of the Steinman Museum

The warning had come just in time. It helped that everything in the place was flame-resistant, so after the initial blast there was no fire. Nevertheless, it was a bad moment. The blast knocked us all off our feet. Hot debris rained down on us. A big piece of something hissed into the Long Pool, and a statue of Reuben Hammacker, one of Survey's founding fathers, was decapitated.

Emergency vehicles arrived within minutes and began picking up the injured. Other units showed up and sprayed water or chemicals on what remained of Proctor Union. A large cloud of steam formed overhead. I heard later that the Mazha was bundled into his skimmer and lifted away within seconds. We didn't know what kind of condition he was in, but at that point no one was thinking much about him.

The building was demolished. A smoking ruin. My first thought was that there had to be ten or twenty dead. We staggered around in a kind of daze. Everyone was in shock. I'd twisted a knee at some point during the panic and collected a couple of burns. Nothing major, fortunately, but it hurt. Alex complained that his jacket was torn, something I really needed to hear. He seemed otherwise okay. When I got myself together I went looking for Windy. But the place was boiling with confusion, people wandering around screaming and crying, searching for friends, trying to figure out a way to get home, asking one another what had happened.

I couldn't find her, although I found out later she was okay. Knocked down by the blast, but she came away with a few cuts and bruises and a broken ankle. One of the rescue workers corralled me and asked if I was all right and when I told her I was fine she insisted on looking in my eyes and the next thing I knew I was being loaded into a skimmer along with several others, and we were hauled off to a hospital.

They did an exam and told me everything was superficial, don't worry, gave me some painkillers, and suggested I have someone come get me.

Alex had followed the emergency vehicle, and he came to my rescue. While he filled out the forms, I talked on the circuit with a trim, blond, impeccably dressed man who identified himself as an agent from the NIS. Wanted to ask about the explosion. What did I recall?

“Just the bang,” I said.

“You didn't see anyone suspicious?”
He was good. He operated in low key, and he seemed sympathetic.

“No.”

“Are
you
okay, Ms. Kolpath?”

“Just bumps and bruises,” I said.

“Good. Did you happen to notice whether anyone left early?”

What the hell. “We were all leaving a bit early.”

“I mean before the warning.”

“No,” I said. “I wouldn't have noticed. I wasn't really paying attention.”

Alex signed me out of the casualty ward. They insisted on putting me in a wheelchair, and helping me get to the pad, where I was loaded into the company skimmer.

“Assassination attempt?” I asked.

“That's what they're saying.”

“That's pretty vicious,” I said. “They were prepared to take out all those people just to get him.”

“Don't be too harsh on them. The guy needs killing.”

“But
I
don't.”

“Look at it this way, Chase. It's a major break for us.”

I must have stared at him. “Have you lost your mind, Alex?”

“Think about it a minute. Rainbow now owns the only surviving artifacts from the
Polaris.
Other than the ship itself.”

“Well, good for us.”

We lifted off the rooftop, turned west, and headed for my place. “I'll take you home. Then, if you want, I'll get us something to eat.”

It was late, well after midnight, but I suddenly realized I hadn't had much dinner, and, in spite of everything, I was hungry. “That sounds good,” I said.

“Take the next couple of days. Stay off the knee until you're feeling okay.”

“Thanks. I will.”

“You can conduct any business that comes up from your place.”

“You're the world's greatest boss.”

He smiled. “Kidding.”

We passed over Lake Accord. I saw a boat down there, lit up, having a party. “All that security,” I said. “I wonder how they got the bomb past the guards.”

“They didn't have to. Whoever did it planted it in the storage area. On the lower floor, under the auditorium. The media are saying they came in the back way.”

“They didn't have the back sealed off?”

“Apparently not. They'd blocked off the stairways. You could get into the lower floor, but you couldn't get up to the auditorium. As it turned out—”

“—It didn't occur to anyone somebody might bomb the place?”

He fought back a yawn. “When's the last time you heard of anybody bombing a
building?
With
people
in it?”

“Do we have any idea who's responsible?”

“I'm sure they know. How many people in Andiquar want to kill the Mazha?” We were approaching the far shore of the lake. He lapsed into silence. I'd taken one of the painkillers at the hospital, and a feeling of general euphoria was settling over me.

We started down.

“There were several bombs,” he said.

“Several?”

“Four, they think. Whoever did it was taking no chances on missing the Mazha.”

“Except that the police found out before the blast.”

“They got a call.”

“Damned lucky. If the things had gone off three minutes earlier—”

“They were planted directly under the exhibition area.”

“Isn't this the second assassination attempt against him?”

“
Third.
There've been three in the last six months.”

Ponzio sent flowers, his regrets, and best wishes for my speedy recovery. The message was handwritten, which, of course, is
de rigueur
on these occasions. He was happy to report that no one had been killed, although there were a few serious injuries.

At about the same time, Survey announced that the entire
Polaris
collection had been destroyed. Reduced to rubble. That wasn't quite true, of course. Alex had the nine artifacts we'd purchased.

I got checked by my doctor, and the brace came off a couple of days later. The burns were gone by then, so I was feeling pretty good. Alex came by with dinner, and we talked a lot about crazy people with bombs, and how no doubt I could return to the office in the morning.

That evening, after Alex had left, I received a call from Windy. She was still hobbled, but she assured me she'd be fine, told me she'd heard I'd been carted off as well, and wondered how I was.

“Just a bent knee,” I said. “It's okay.”

“Good. I hope you managed to salvage your purchases.”

“Yes. Fortunately, we got everything out.”

“Glad to hear it. Thank God something survived.”
She looked genuinely relieved.

“It's a major loss,” I said. “I hope when they catch these people they hang them up by their toes.” I knew that when they were caught we'd wipe their minds and reconstruct their personalities. I'll confess I was never a fan of letting criminals off like that when they did horrendous stuff. The bombers, whoever they were, tried to kill the Mazha and had no compunctions about blowing up a lot of strangers because they were standing too close to the target. I was in favor of taking them up a few thousand meters and dropping them into the ocean. But, of course, that's not civilized. It seemed grossly unfair to respond to what they did by giving them a couple hundred and a fresh start. Which is what mind wipes amounted to.

“I understand completely, Chase.”
Long pause, which told me this was about more than the state of my health.
“I wonder if we might talk about the artifacts for a moment.”

“Of course,” I said. “The media are saying everything was destroyed.”

“Unfortunately, that's correct.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.”

“Yes. It's thrown a wrench into our plans.”
She was in her office, behind a desk covered with folders, chips, books, and paper. A sweater had been laid across it. She was getting ready to go home. I was the last piece of business for the day.
“Chase,”
she said,
“you understand that the situation has changed dramatically.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Survey would like to buy back the artifacts we sold Rainbow. To return your money. With a generous bonus.”

“Windy, I don't really have authority to return them. They don't belong to me.”

“Then I'll talk to Alex.”

“That's not what I mean. We've promised them to clients.”

She hesitated.
“You know we were planning a
Polaris
exhibit. A full-scale model of the ship's bridge. Avatars. People would be able to sit and talk with Tom Dunninger, or Maddy English, or whomever. We had the
Urquhart holo,
Last Man Standing.
Some of the Nancy White programs. Actually, a lot of planning and preparation has gone into it.”

“And without a few artifacts, you don't think it'll work.”

“Exactly.”

“Windy, I doubt the artifacts would make all that much difference. But I'll pass your request along to Alex. I'm pretty sure, though, he'll feel compelled to decline. I think you're underestimating the public. Set the exhibition up the right way, get your PR people on it, and it'll do fine.”

I could see that she'd not expected anything more. She simply nodded.
“I'm glad you're feeling better, Chase,”
she said, and blinked off.

And we had better not need any more favors from Survey.

Over the next few days, several of the Mazha's countrymen living locally were rounded up and questioned, but no arrests were made. It was Andiquar's worst criminal act in living memory. For the first time in my life, people were calling for a return to the death penalty. The public's blood was up. We needed to send a message.

The Mazha's government apologized and promised to send money to the victims and underwrite reconstruction of Proctor Union. I was surprised to receive a call from the Mazha himself, now safely back in his mountain retreat (or maybe not so safe). He'd seen my name among the injured. Was I healing well? Would I recover completely?

It was an odd feeling, to sit there on my sofa, in my own living room, talking with the world's most feared human being.
“I wanted to apologize for the imbecility of the would-be assassins,”
he said.
“They lack a basic sense of decency.”

“Yes,” I said.

“We tried to be careful. But one can never be certain about the lengths to which these fanatics will go.”

“I know. You're absolutely right, Excellency.”

“Be assured, Chase, that we know who is behind this, and we are in the process of seeing to it that they will harm no one else.”

“Yes. Good. I've no sympathy for them.”

“As you should not.”
He was in a leather chair, wearing black slacks
and a white pullover. A gold chain hung around his neck, and he wore a gold bracelet on his right wrist. He looked quite dashing.
“But I'm pleased to discover that your injuries are superficial.”

“Thank you.”

“I was worried.”

It occurred to me I hadn't inquired about him. “You look well, Highness. I assume you were not harmed?”

“No. Thank you. I came away untouched.”
The wall behind him was filled with books.
“I wanted to extend an invitation to you and to Alex to visit Korrim Mas as my guests. We have excellent accommodations, and I can assure you that you would find it an enthralling experience.”

Okay. I know what you're thinking. That I was sitting there making nice with a guy who does mass executions and runs torture chambers. But he'd been polite to
me,
so I found it impossible to say what I really thought. I told him I appreciated the offer, but that I was soon to be married, and that I was unfortunately quite busy. I considered suggesting that, after the ceremony, my husband and I would be delighted to accept his kind offer, but it occurred to me he might say yes, by all means, let's have both of you to my mountain retreat.