“You don’t need to find a duplicate,” I told him. “Anybody who looks remotely like her would do.”
“There are no persons, male or female, licensed to operate interstellars, who at any time lived in Womble on Korval.”
“Try the same search,” said Alex. “But go planetwide.”
He produced three pilots, two male, one female. I didn’t think any of them looked much like Barber. “It’s the best I can do.”
“Proximity to Womble?” asked Alex.
“Closest one is eight hundred kilometers.”
Detailed information on the families was blocked under the privacy laws.
“Doesn’t matter,” Alex said. “I don’t think Teri Barber exists. Let’s try something else. Same search, substitute Rimway. The Associated States.”
I wondered whether Fenn would institute a search of college yearbooks from, say, 1423 to 1425. “She had to graduate from somewhere.”
“The database would be pretty big,” said Alex. “Anyhow, who says she had to graduate from somewhere?”
“I have a hit,” said Jacob. “A female pilot.”
“Let’s see her, Jacob.”
She looked like Teri Barber. She was wearing a gray uniform and her hair was brown instead of black. But the certificate was dated 1397. Thirty-one years ago.
“She’s a pretty good match,” Alex said. The woman would now be in her midfifties.
Barber was no more than twenty-five.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Agnes Shanley.”
“Another Agnes.” Alex smiled. Not a real smile. More like a reflexive one. “Did Agnes have any daughters?”
“It doesn’t say. She married in 1401. To one Edgar Crisp.”
“Do we have an avatar for her?”
“Negative.”
“How about a locator? Can we talk to her?”
“Yes,” said Jacob. “Her file’s been inactive for twenty-five years. But I have a locator code.”
“Good. On-screen, please.”
“We should pass it to Fenn,” I said.
Alex ignored me. He does that when he doesn’t want to deal with me. But I wasn’t so sure I wanted to get directly involved again. This was precisely the sort of behavior that had gotten us into trouble already.
“If we tell Fenn,” Alex said, apparently judging that the silence between us had become strained, “he’ll shrug and say the fact that she looks like Barber is irrelevant.
I can hear him now: You look through every pilot certified worldwide over the last sixty years, of course you’ll find someone who looks like her.”
“Actually,” I said, “that’s a pretty strong argument.”
He laughed. “You have a point.”
“I still think-”
“Let’s just stay with it for a bit. I want to know what’s so important that somebody tried to kill us.” I heard anger in there somewhere. Good for him. Alex had always seemed to me to be a bit too passive. But I wondered if we weren’t picking a fight with the wrong people. I get a little nervous around bomb throwers. He turned back to the AI. “Jacob, see if you can get me on the circuit to Agnes Shanley Crisp.”
Jacob acknowledged. I got up and wandered around the room. Alex sat listening to the birds outside. They were especially noisy that afternoon. Then Jacob was back: “Alex,” he said, “it appears the code is not currently in service.”
TWELVE
There’s a lot to be said for doing a disappearance. You bamboozle the bill collectors, upset the relatives, rattle the local social group, and give them all something to talk about. It’s an easy way to become a legend. And it feels good. I know because I’ve done it several times myself.
- Schaparelli Cleve, Autobiography
Alex had some questions to ask Hans Waxman, the math teacher. But Waxman didn’t know us and would probably be reluctant to talk to strangers about his girlfriend. So we looked for a better way.
Waxman ate breakfast most mornings at a quiet little place called Sally’s, just off the northern perimeter of the Trinity University campus. Several days after we’d toured Teri Barber’s apartment, I arranged to be waiting for him.
I’d selected a table near the front window. Alex waited in a park across the street, relaxing on a bench, trying to look inconspicuous. I wanted Waxman to be able to see the passing traffic, so I put my hat on the chair that had its back to the window.
I set my reader on the table and brought up The Mathematical Dodge. It’s a collection of puzzles and logic problems, and I made sure I angled it so he could see the title as he came in the door.
He arrived at his usual time, looking thoughtful and distracted, his mind presumably on that morning’s classes. He was, as they say in the girls’ locker, a juicy piece-tall, blond, nice jaw. Looked even more congenial in person than he had in the picture. We made eye contact and I smiled and that was all it took.
He came over, shuffled his feet a bit, and said hello. “I see you enjoy doing puzzles,” he added.
“Just a hobby.” My. He was attractive. In an innocent sort of way. The kind of guy you don’t see around much anymore.
I’d ordered a fruit plate with hot chocolate. The chocolate arrived while he was considering how to pursue the gambit. I decided to save him the trouble and held out a hand. “Jenny,” I said.
The smile widened. It was a shy grin, made all the more appealing in a guy who should have been able to get anybody he wanted. “Nice to meet you, Jenny. My name’s Hans. May I join you?”
The truth is I started regretting the lie before I delivered it. Alex had instructed me to avoid using my name, but I was thinking, yes, he was a bit young for me, but what the hell. Now, with the deception, he was forever off-limits. “Sure,” I said.
He picked one of the remaining chairs, with the window view that I wanted him to have, and sat down. “Are you a teacher, Hans?” I asked.
“Yes. Math. How did you know?”
I nodded toward the book. “Most people would take no notice.”
“Oh.” The smile widened. “Am I that obvious?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way. But we’re close to the school, and you look as if you belong-” I stopped, canted my head, and let him see I was impressed. “I don’t think I’m getting this right.”
“It’s okay, Jenny. Thank you. In fact, I have a class in forty-five minutes.” He ordered eggs and toast, and I asked where he was from. He started talking about faroff places. My fruit dish showed up, and things went swimmingly. He wondered what I did for a living.
I admitted to being a financial advisor finishing a vacation on Trinity. “From Wespac,” I said. Wespac was safely in the middle of the continent. “Going home tomorrow.”
His face dropped. He looked genuinely distressed, and I have to confess I was charmed. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “It would have been nice to be able to get together again. Assuming you’d have been willing.” He picked up the menu but didn’t look at it. “Are you by any chance free this evening? I’d love to take you to dinner.”
I hesitated.
“There are some excellent restaurants on the island. But you know that.”
“Yes. I do. And I wish I could, Hans. But I’m committed.” Sweet temptation. I would have enjoyed doing it and letting the rest of the evening play out as it would. It wasn’t a reaction I usually had with strangers, even handsome ones. I was thinking, though, that it would be a way to get back at Barber. Take her guy and show him the time of his life. But that would have been an indecent way to treat Hans.
“What’s funny, Jenny?”
“Nothing, really,” I said. “I always meet the good-looking guy as I’m headed out of town.” I let him see I wasn’t entirely joking.
I steered the conversation back to teaching, to his passion for mathematics, to his frustration that his students rarely recognized the elegance of equations. “It’s as if they have a blind spot,” he said.
“How long have you been at Trinity, Hans?” I asked.
“Six years. Ten if you count my time as a student.”
“I have a friend who teaches here. In the literature department.”
That got his attention. “Really? Who?”
“Her name’s Teri.”
He smiled. “I know her,” he said. Noncommittal.
“I’d expected to surprise her, but she seems to have gone off somewhere.”