Polaris (9 page)

The Mazha had an appetite for liquor, and he loved a good laugh. You could hear him throughout the hour or so that we wandered around the reception room and the lobby, chuckling, unrestrained, his eyes illuminated. I began to suspect I'd get an invitation before the evening was over. His security detail strolled about with glasses in their hands, but I don't think they were drinking anything hard.

Then, with a bit of fanfare, Windy's people got everyone's attention and opened the doors to the exhibition hall. We looked in at a series of long tables supporting hundreds of
Polaris
items, articles of clothing, pressure suits, cups, glasses, spoons, boots, and an array of electronic devices. There were a chess set, game pieces, playing cards (with the ship's insignia embossed on their backs), and even a crystal containing musical recordings made by Tom Dunninger. (A data card stated that Dunninger had been an accomplished musician.) Most of the items were sealed inside display cases, each accompanied by an inventory number.

The walls were hung with banners portraying Maddy English and her passengers. There was Nancy White tromping through a jungle somewhere, and Warren Mendoza bent over a sick child. Martin Klassner sat beside a sketch of a galaxy. Garth Urquhart talked with journalists on the steps of the capitol. Chek Boland was done in silhouette, apparently deep
in contemplation. Maddy was in full uniform, gazing serenely out across the room. Finally, Tom Dunninger, in a print of the famous painting by Ormond, standing in a graveyard at night.

The Mazha, leading the way, paused to take it all in. Then he glanced back at Alex. Obviously, he'd been briefed about who else was enjoying the benefits of the preauction special.

Once in the room, he turned his attention exclusively to the items on display. Other people, for the most part, laughed and talked in his wake, paying little attention as they filed past the tables. But he walked slowly, absorbing everything that lay around him. Occasionally he spoke to an elderly aide, who nodded and, I thought, recorded his comment. Or perhaps the catalog number.

Some of the items were imprinted with names. A light gray shirt was marked with the initials
M.K.,
and a carryall wore a metal tag reading
WHITE
. The ship's jumpsuits were dark blue, with
Polaris
shoulder patches. Each patch contained the ship's registry, CSS 117, and its logo, a single star set above an arrowhead. Three of them were available, with the names
Warren, Garth,
and
English
stenciled in white letters above the right-hand breast pocket. The captain's own jumpsuit. “What do you think?” Alex asked me.

“It's just the thing,” I said, mentally checking off a client. “Ida would be thrilled.”

He signaled Windy. She complimented him on his taste, used her card to open the display case, and removed the jumpsuit. She handed it to a young man standing nearby. He placed it in a container, and we moved on.

The Mazha signaled that he would take Urquhart's suit. “The ship's emblem is clever,” he said to no one in particular. When one of the politicians trailing in his wake asked him to explain, he looked surprised. “Polaris was Earth's north star at the beginning of the age of expansion, Manny,” he said. “Thus the lone star. And, of course, the compass needle started out as a metal bar and gradually morphed into an arrow.”

So much for religious fervor.

There was a jacket with a pocket patch reading
DUNNINGER
, a comm link with Boland's initials, and a paper notebook with Garth Urquhart's name on the brown leather cover.

Several pressure suits had been hung near the wall. One of them read
CAPTAIN
across the left breast. Madeleine's gear again. Maddy, as she was known. A certified interstellar captain, single, beautiful, everything to live for. Where had she gone?

Alex was studying a gold chain bracelet with
NANCY
engraved on the connecting plate. “How much?” he asked Windy. She consulted her inventory. Enough to buy a good-sized yacht. He turned to me. “For Harold,” he said. “What do you think?”

Harold was one of Rainbow's charter clients. He'd become a friend over the years. He was a good guy, but his tastes were limited. He liked things that sparkled, things he could show off, but he had no real sense of historical value. “It's lovely,” I said. “But I think you could make him happy for a lot less.”

“You underestimate him, Chase.” He signaled Windy that we'd take it. “He has the gavel that was used in the first trial in his hometown. And he owns a circuit board from the Talamay Flyer.” The first overwater antigrav train in the Parklands. The Flyer had made its initial run more than three hundred years ago between Melancholy Bend and Wildsky. The trip was still a subject of legend, a race against Suji bandits, a cyclone, and, finally, an apparently lascivious sea serpent.

Windy passed the bracelet to the retainer and Alex decided the time had come to negotiate for more selections. “Winetta,” he said, “I have several people who would love to have items from this collection—”

She looked pained. “I wish I could help, Alex. I really do. But the agreement is six. I'm not authorized to go any farther.”

“We're more than willing to pay fair prices, Windy. I shook hands with your dictator. And Chase made a play for him. That should be worth something.”

She pressed her lips together, imploring him to keep his voice down. “You have my gratitude, Alex. Really. And you, too, Chase.” That seemed below the belt. “But there's no negotiating room.”

“You could say you had to make the commitment to get me over here.”

“Look.” She sighed. “I'll toss in an extra one. Make it seven. But that's all.”

“Windy, look at all this stuff. Nobody'll ever miss it. I need twelve pieces. You have enormous influence here, and it would mean a lot to me.” He actually managed to look downcast. I knew the routine. I'd seen him in action too often. He was good. He always made you feel sorry for him. “How many times have I spoken to audiences here about the Christopher Sim thing?”

“A lot,” she admitted.

“Have I ever declined an invitation?”

“No,” she conceded, “you haven't.”

“Have I ever charged a korpel?”

“No.”

“It must all have been volunteer work?”

“Yes, Alex, it was all volunteer work.”

“You bring other speakers in at a hundred per. Benedict does it free.”

The reason for that, of course, was that Benedict saw his appearances at Survey as an important channel for meeting and impressing prospective clients. Windy's eyes slid shut. She was no dummy, and she knew the routines, too. But she didn't want to offend him.

“You run the place, Windy. Everybody knows that. Whatever decision you make, Ponzio will go along with.”

“Nine,” she said, finally. “And so help me, Alex, that's it.
Fini. Completo.
”

“You're a hard woman, Winetta.”

“Yes, we can all see that.”

He smiled. “We'll try to get by. And thanks. I'm grateful.”

She looked at him sidewise. “When I get fired, Alex, I hope you can find room for me at Rainbow.”

“Windy, Rainbow will always have a place for someone with your talents.”

There were countless items, tableware, safety goggles, VR bands, towels, washcloths, even a showerhead.

“Windy,” I said, “where are the ship's logs?”

She looked around, checked her pad. “Over in the corner.” She indicated the rear of the room. “But we're holding them back.”

“Why?”

“Actually, we're not putting everything up for sale. We're saving a few items for the
Polaris
exhibition.”

It turned out they were withholding some prime stuff. In addition to the logs, there was Martin Klassner's leatherbound copy of Sangmeister's
Cosmology,
with comments penned in the margins, many of them believed to have been done during the flight (according to the data card); Garth Urquhart's notes, which had allowed his son to complete the memoirs of his political years, published a decade after his disappearance as
On the Barricades
; and Madeleine English's certification for interstellars. There was also a picture of the pilot and her passengers taken on the space station just prior to departure on that final flight. Copies of the picture, a data card said, would be available in the gift shop the next day. Alex picked up a glass imprinted with the ship's seal. It was long-stemmed, designed for champagne. For celebrations. “How do you think this would look in the office?” he asked.

It was gorgeous. Arrowhead. Star.
CSS
117. “You could never drink from it,” I said.

He laughed. The glass went into the container, and we moved on.

He found a command jacket that he liked. It was Maddy's, of course, blue and white, with trimmed breast pockets and a
Polaris
shoulder patch. He asked my opinion again.

“Absolutely,” I said.

He turned to Windy. “Why weren't the personal items returned to the families?”

We'd stopped beneath the banner depicting Nancy White. Even in that still image, she was a woman on the move, her eyes penetrating the jungle, while she listened, perhaps, to the rumble of a distant waterfall. “Quite a woman,” said Windy.

“Yes. She was.”

“The personal stuff was retained during the investigations. But they went on for years. Until recently, they'd never really stopped. At least not officially. I guess Survey just never got around to giving the stuff back. The families probably forgot about it after a while, or lost interest, so it just remained in storage.”

“What would happen if the families came forward now?”

“They no longer have a claim. They get seventeen years, after which the items become Survey's property.” She looked down at a pendant. “Another reason they weren't anxious to return this stuff was the possibility it might be contaminated in some arcane way. With a virus or maybe a nano.”

“A nano that makes people disappear?”

She softened. “What can I tell you? I wasn't there. But they must have been desperate for some kind of answer. They put everything into safekeeping, assuming that eventually something might be needed. I don't guess it ever happened. They even sterilized the hull, as if a plague might somehow have caused the problem.”

“And eventually they sold the ship.”

“In 1368. To Evergreen.” Windy sounded unhappy. “Evergreen got a bargain price. The
Polaris
became the
Sheila Clermo,
and last I heard she was still hauling engineers and surveyors and assorted VIPs around for them.” She smiled and checked the time. Got to move on. “Now,” she said, “what else would you like to look at?”

We picked up a leather-bound Bible with Garth Urquhart's name on the inside title page. And a plaque commemorating the eight earlier missions of the
Polaris.
Koppawanda in 1352, Breakmann in 1354, Moyaba in 1355. That was a Mute world. Or at least, it was in their sphere of influence.

“They thought they'd found a white hole,” said Alex, reading my mind.

Windy smiled. “Now
that
would have been earthshaking.” But they don't exist. Theoretical figments. White holes sound good, sound like something that should be there because they'd add a lovely symmetry to cosmic processes. But the universe doesn't pay much attention to our notions of esthetics.

Other destinations were listed, all places they'd named as they arrived, usually after one of the passengers. Sacarrio, whose sun was going to go supernova within the next ten thousand years; Chao Ti, once thought to be a source of an artificial radio signal; Brolyo, where a small settlement had taken root and prospered. The mission durations had extended as long as a year and a half.

I was headed toward a notebook, which, according to the attached certificate, had belonged to Nancy White. Its contents, to respect her privacy, had been deleted. That, of course, considerably reduced its value. But it was good to know there was still some integrity in the world. Alex lowered an eyebrow and went instead for a vest. It was the one Maddy could be seen wearing in some of the pictures from the flight. “Priceless,” he said, shielding the remark from Windy.

“That's seven,” I told him.

Before we'd arrived, he'd remarked that the items connected with Maddy would be especially valuable. I had my doubts. “She was carrying celebrities,” I told him. “Historical figures.”

“Doesn't matter,” he said. “The captain is the tragic figure in this. Add to that the fact that she's beautiful.”

“White looked pretty good.”

“White didn't lose her passengers. Take my word for it, Chase.”

He'd always been right before on such matters. So we added one of her uniform blouses (there were two available), and paused over a dark green platinum etui decorated with flowers and songbirds. It came with a certification that it had been the personal property of Madeleine English. Alex picked it up and opened it. Inside were a pen, a comb, a wallet, a string of artificial pearls, a set of uniform bars, and two pairs of earrings. “This all included?” he asked Windy.