Asimov's Mysteries

'No, you wouldn't have,' said Shea, suddenly thoughtful. 'I think I remember something. There was one passenger who never left his cabin. The steward was talking about it He wouldn't even come out for meals.'

'And that was Quentin?' said Brandon, stopping his pacing and staring at the spaceman eagerly.

'It might have been, Mr. Brandon. It might have been him. I don't know that anyone said it was. I don't remember. But it must have been a big shot, because on a spaceship you don't fool around bringing meals to a man's cabin unless he is a big shot.'

'And Quentin was the big shot on the trip,' said Brandon, with satisfaction. 'So he had something in his cabin. Something very important. Something he was concealing.'

'He might just have been space sick,' said Moore, 'except that-' He frowned and fell silent.

'Go ahead,' said Brandon urgently. 'You remember something too?'

'Maybe. I told you I was sitting next to Dr. Hester at the last dinner. He was saying something about hoping to meet Dr. Quentin on the trip and not having any luck.'

'Sure,' cried Brandon, 'because Quentin wouldn't come out of his cabin.'

'He didn't say that. We got to talking about Quentin. though. Now what was it he said?' Moore put his hands to his temples as though trying to squeeze out the memory of twenty years ago by main force. 'I can't give you the exact words, of course, but it was something about Quentin being very theatrical or a slave of drama or something like that, and they were heading out to some scientific conference on

Ganymede and Quentin wouldn't even announce the title of his paper.'

'It all fits.' Brandon resumed his rapid pacing. 'He had a new, great discovery, which he was keeping absolutely secret, because he was going to spring it on the Ganymede conference and get maximum drama out of it. He wouldn't come out of his cabin because he probably thought Hester would pump him-and Hester would, I'll bet. And then the ship hittherock and Quentin was killed. Trans-space Insuranceinvestigated, got rumors of this new discovery and figured that if they gained control of it they could make back their losses and plenty more. So they took ownership of the ship and have been hunting for Quentin's papers among the pieces ever since.'

Moore smiled, in absolute affection for the other man. 'Mark, that's a beautiful theory. The whole evening is worth it, just watching you make something out of nothing.'

'Oh, yeah? Something out of nothing? Let's ask Multivac again. I'll pay the bill for it this month.'

'It's all right. Be my guest. If you don't mind, though, I'm going to bring up the bottle of Jabra. I want one more little shot to catch up with you.'

'Me, too,' said Shea.

Brandon took his seat at the typewriter. His fingers trembled with eagerness as he tapped out: What was the nature of Dr. Horace Quentin's final investigations?

Moore had returned with the bottle and glasses, when the answer came back, on white paper this time.

The answer was long and the print was fine, consisting for the most part of references to scientific papers in journals twenty years old.

Moore went over it. 'I'm no physicist, but it looks to me as though he was interested in optics.'

Brandon shook his head impatiently. 'But all that is published. We want something he had not published yet.'

'We'll never find out anything about that.' The insurance company did.'

That's just your theory.'

Brandon was kneading his chin with an unsteady hand. 'Let me ask Multivac one more question.'

He sat down again and tapped out: Give me the name and tube number of the surviving colleagues of Dr. Horace Quentin from among those associated with him at the University on whose faculty he served.

'How do you know he was on a University faculty?' asked Moore.

'If not, Multivac will tell us.'

A slip popped out. It contained only one name. Moore said, 'Are you planning to call the man?'

'I sure am,' said Brandon. 'Otis Fitzsimmons, with a Detroit tube number. Warren, may I-'

'Be my guest, Mark. It's still part of the game.'

Brandon set up the combination on Moore's tube keyboard. A woman's voice answered. Brandon asked for Dr. Fitzsimmons and there was a short wait. Then a thin voice said, 'Hello.' It sounded old.

Brandon said, 'Dr. Fitzsimmons, I'm representing Trans-space Insurance in the matter of the late Dr. Horace Quentin-' 

'For heaven's sake, Mark,' whispered Moore, but Brandon held up a sharply restraining hand.

There was a pause so long that a tube breakdown began to seem possible and then the old voice said,

'After all these years? Again?'

Brandon snapped his fingers in an irrepressible gesture of triumph. But he said smoothly, almost glibly,

'We're still trying to find out, Doctor, if you have remembered further details about what Dr. Quentin might have had with him on that last trip that would pertain to his last unpublished discovery.'

'Well'-there was an impatient clicking of the tongue- 'I've told you, I don't know. I don't want to be bothered with this again. I don't know that there was anything. The man hinted, but he was always hinting about some gadget or other.'

'What gadget, sir?'

'I tell you I don't know. He used a name once and I told you about that. I don't think it's significant.'

'We don't have the name in our records, sir.'

'Well, you should have. Uh, what was that name? An optikon, that's it.'

'With a K?'

'C or K. I don't know or care. Now, please, I do not wish to be disturbed again about this. Good-bye.'

He was still mumbling querulously when the line went dead. Brandon was pleased.

Moore said, 'Mark, that was the stupidest thing you could have done. Claiming a fraudulent identity on the tube is illegal. If he wants to make trouble for you-'

'Why should he? He's forgotten about it already. But don't you see, Warren? Trans-space has been asking him about this. He kept saying he'd explained all this before.'

All right. But you'd assumed that much. What else do you know?'

'We also know,' said Brandon, 'that Quentin's gadget was called on optikon.'

'Fitzsimmons didn't sound certain about that. And even so, since we already know he was specializing in optics toward the end, a name like optikon does not push us any further forward.'

'And Trans-space Insurance is looking either for the optikon or for papers concerning it. Maybe Quentin kept the details in his hat and just had a model of the instrument. After all, Shea said they were picking up metal objects. Right?'

'There was a bunch of metal junk in the pile,' agreed Shea.

'They'd leave that in space if it were papers they were after. So that's what we want, an instrument that might be called an optikon.'

'Even if all your theories were correct, Mark, and we're looking for an optikon, the search is absolutely hopeless now,' said Moore flatly. 'I doubt that more than ten per cent of the debris would remain in orbit about Vesta. Vesta's escape velocity is practically nothing. It was just a lucky thrust in a lucky direction and at a lucky velocity that put our section of the wreck in orbit. The rest is gone, scattered all over the Solar System in any conceivable orbit about the Sun,' 

They've been picking up pieces,' said Brandon.

'Yes, the ten per cent that managed to make a Vestan orbit out of it. That's all.'

Brandon wasn't giving up. He said thoughtfully, 'Suppose it were there and they hadn't found it. Could someone have beat them to it?'

Mike Shea laughed. 'We were right there, but we sure didn't walk off with anything but our skins; and glad to do that much. Who else?'

That's right,' agreed Moore, 'and if anyone else picked it up, why are they keeping it a secret?'