“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.
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.
FIVE
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 flameresistant, 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.