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.