So the attempt went nowhere. Shortly after the restoration rumor first surfaced, Survey announced that it was abandoning the effort. And a few days later, the entire lot of mangled pieces was sold for a song.
Harold Estavez was delighted with White’s bracelet.
He was tall, solemn, a man for whom a smile seemed painful. An initial impression suggested he’d never learned to enjoy himself during a long life. He was overcast and gloomy, always awaiting a storm that never arrived, convinced the worst would happen. Alex told me that Estavez felt he’d lost the one great love of his life. I suspected every other woman in the area would have bolted as well.
“Sorry to hear about it,” I said.
“A half century ago. He never got over it.”
However that might have been, I had the pleasure of watching him light up when he received the bracelet.
He called us as soon as the box arrived, and he unwrapped it in our presence.
Until that moment he didn’t know precisely what he’d gotten. (He’d shushed me when I tried to tell him what we were sending.) But his eyes went wide when he saw gold. And wider still when he saw the engraved name on the bracelet.
Nancy.
By that time, we were getting calls from all our clients, almost everyone on the list. Everybody was interested in the Polaris. They’d all heard we’d salvaged some artifacts. Was there perhaps a piece available?
Terribly sorry, we told them. Wish we could oblige.
I was glad we kept the jacket and the long-stemmed glass. Alex told me he’d intended to get something for me, too, and if I liked the glass, he’d be willing to part with it. But I could read the nonverbals. He wanted me to decline. I’d have loved to have it at home in my den. But better, I thought, was to have the boss feeling indebted to me. So I told him it was okay, keep it, think nothing of it. I’d see it every day anyhow. He nodded, as if he were doing me a favor by retaining it.
The ship’s registry number, CSS 117, had been retired ten years after the incident. No future vessel would ever be so designated. Nor, I suspected, would there be another Polaris. The people who name superluminals aren’t superstitious. But why tempt fate?
Alex bought a lighted display case for the jacket, which went into a corner of the office, near a cabinet and away from the imager. I folded and refolded it until it looked the way it should, with Maddy’s name (which was sewn over the left-hand breast pocket) visible. We closed and locked the case, and stood for a minute or two admiring our new possession.
But where to put the glass? We needed a place where it couldn’t be knocked over and wouldn’t get dusty. And where there’d be at least a degree of security.
Bookshelves were built into two of the walls. There was also a Stratemeyer antique bookcase, a half century old, that Alex had inherited from his uncle. It had glass doors and could be locked. “Yes,” he said. “It’s perfect.”
Not exactly. We had to move it out of range of the imager, so we found ourselves rearranging most of the furniture in the office. But when we were done, it looked good.
Alex stood back to admire the arrangement, opened the bookcase doors, made room on the top shelf, and handed the glass to me to do the honors.
Later that afternoon I got a call from Ida. “Check the news on sixteen, Chase,” she said. “There’s a weird piece about the Polaris. ”
I asked Jacob to take a look, and moments later a man and woman materialized in the office. The woman was Paley McGuire, who was one of CBY’s reporters. They were standing beside five packing crates on the dock at Skydeck. A ship’s hull protruded into the picture, its cargo doors open.
“-In orbit around the sun, Mr. Everson?” Paley was asking.
“That’s correct, Paley. It seemed the appropriate way to handle this.” The crates stood higher than he did. But they were, of course, in low gravity. Somebody picked one up and carried it through the cargo doors.
“But what’s the point?” she asked.
Everson was about twenty-five. If you could overlook his age, he had a scholarly appearance, reinforced by a black beard. He was conservatively dressed. Gray eyes, a deportment that suggested maturity beyond his years, and the long thin hands of a pianist. “In a sense,” he said, “these objects are almost sacred. They should be treated with respect. That’s what we’re doing.”
“Jacob,” I said, “what’s in the boxes? Do you know?”
“One minute, ma’am, and I’ll review the program.”
Paley watched another one get hauled away. “How far out will you be going before you jettison them?”
“One doesn’t jettison this kind of cargo,” he said. “One releases it. We’ll lay it to rest.”
“Chase,” said Jacob, “the crates contain the debris from the bombing at Survey.”
“You mean the artifacts?”
“Yes. What is left of them.”
“So how far,” asked Paley, “will you go before you release them?”
“Just to the moon. We’re going to leave Skydeck when it lines up with the sun.
When the moon lines up with the sun, that is. That’ll happen tonight. About 0300 up here. We’ll still be on this side of the moon when we let everything go.”
“Mr. Everson, I understand the containers will be going into a solar orbit.”
“Not the containers. We’re keeping the containers. Only the ashes will be released-”
“Ashes?”
“We thought it appropriate to reduce everything to ashes. But yes, they’ll be in solar orbit. Their average distance from the sun will be eleven point one million kilometers, which is one percent of the distance they were from Delta Kay when they were last heard from.”
McGuire turned and looked directly at Chase. “So there you have it, folks. A final farewell to the seven heroes of the Polaris. Sixty years later.”
I called Alex in. Jacob patched on the beginning, which consisted of no new information, and ran the program again. “You ever hear of this guy?” I asked, when it was finished.
“Never. Jacob, what do you have on Everson?”
“Not much, Alex. He’s independently wealthy. Born on Toxicon. Has been on Rimway six years. Owns an estate in East Komron. He runs a school of some sort up there. Morton College. It’s a postgrad school for high-IQ types. Not married. No known children. Plays competitive chess. Apparently quite good. And he’s on the board of directors of the Polaris Society.”
“The Polaris Society? What’s that?”
“It’s a group of enthusiasts. Branches around the world. They stage a convention in Andiquar every year. It’s traditionally on the weekend after the date that the Polaris was scheduled to arrive home.”
“Which is-?”
“This weekend, as it happens.”
I asked Alex offhandedly whether he’d be interested in going. It was intended as a joke, but he took me seriously. “They’re all crazy people,” he said.
Actually, it sounded interesting, and I said so. “They have panels, entertainment, and it might be a chance to meet some new clients.”
He made a face. “I can’t imagine any of our clients showing up at something like that. But you go ahead. Have a big time.”
Why not? I went to the Society’s data bank and read about them. It didn’t take long before I decided Alex was right; they were fanatics. The descriptions of the convention made the point: They read pseudoscholarly articles to each other; they played games based on the Polaris; they debated the finer points of the incident, whether the onboard lander had been disabled (some swore this had been the case); whether the AI had been a late substitution for the original system; whether the Nancy White who got on board was not the real Nancy White but an evil twin of some sort, and the real one had been living all these years in New York.
They were meeting for three days at the Golden Ring, a midlevel hotel downtown. I showed up the first evening, just as they were getting started.