For a long minute I couldn’t find the Chesapeake. But then it passed across one of the moons. I was able to follow it, nothing more than a cluster of lights, moving through the night, curving in, descending, gliding across the barren moonscape.
It was coming.
Alex tugged at my leg. What was happening? We still couldn’t talk, especially at that moment. I tried to signal with my hands that she was on her way. Taking the bait.
The Chesapeake came close enough that I could see her clearly, burnt orange in the ghastly light. The twin hulls looked like missiles riding slowly beneath the stars.
Her attitude thrusters fired once, twice, lining her up, then she made a final adjustment and began to accelerate.
Here we go, I thought.
But no. She was slowing down again.
Alex’s helmet touched mine. He was up beside me now. “She’s thinking it over,” he said.
If she took too long, if the lander actually reached Belle, we were dead.
He was baring his teeth. “Look at her!” The Chesapeake was still tracking the lander, still closing, but still slowing down. “Maybe she’s figured it out.”
“She’s wondering whether she can do it without sustaining major damage herself.” I opened my channel to the lander and spoke one word, trying to disguise my voice as something else. Anything else. “Blip,” I said. Then I shut it down again.
Gabe, using my voice, said, “We’re right here, you dumb bitch. If you have the guts.”
For several seconds the tableau remained virtually unchanged. The lander struggled to gain altitude. And then the Chesapeake fired its main engine and lurched ahead.
Maddy knew that if she hit the lander too hard, there was a possibility of an explosion. Nevertheless she continued to accelerate, raced across a range of about six hundred meters, and blasted into the smaller vehicle, knocking it sideways. But the Chesapeake literally bounced off. The lander’s engines erupted in a fireball.
The Chesapeake went spinning toward the east.
We scrambled out onto the surface. Alex had hold of one of my arms, a death grip. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Don’t know.”
The starship gradually faded into the night.
We waited.
A star appeared where it had been. It expanded, burned brightly for a minute or so, faded, and vanished.
TWENTY-SEVEN
We are all transients. None of us is any more than a visitor who has dropped by for coffee and a few minutes’ conversation. Then it’s out the door and don’t let the damp in.
- Margo Chen, The Toxicon Chronicles
I don’t know how Tab Everson arranged to be informed about us, but we were still fourteen hours out of Rimway when Belle reported we had a transmission from him. (We’d arrived back home well off target and had been inbound by then almost three days.) I took a longer look at him this time. Black beard, gray eyes, the mien of a young and gifted scholar. We were still too far out for a meaningful face-to-face, so all we had was a recording. “Alex,” he said, “I’m glad you got back safely. It’s important that we talk. I’ll be waiting at Skydeck. Please take no action until we’ve had a chance to discuss things. I beg you.”
That wasn’t the kind of language a young man uses. “He knows the cat’s out of the bag,” said Alex.
“You want me to contact Fenn? Have him arrange an escort for us?”
He’d been reading. It was a novel, and I wondered how long it had been since I’d seen him read anything other than Polaris -related stuff. “No,” he said. “I don’t think we need worry about our safety.”
“Why do you think that?”
“For one thing, he doesn’t know what kind of information we’ve already given Fenn.”
I was trying to figure out who he was. Since Maddy had turned up looking twenty-five, I assumed Everson was also one of the Polaris passengers. But which? I tried to imagine what Everson would look like after another thirty or forty years. If he were aging normally. But none of the other passengers looked remotely like Tab Everson. Boland had been more handsome; Urquhart bigger with more presence;
Mendoza was shorter and more intense.
And that left only“That’s right,” Alex said. “That’s exactly who he is.” He scribbled some notes onto a pad, studied them, changed his mind and struck something out, and finally looked satisfied. “Belle,” he said. “Reply for Everson.”
“Ready.”
“Mr. Everson, we’ll be weary on arrival and in no condition to carry on a discussion. I’ll be happy to talk with you. But not at Skydeck. I’d like you, and the others, to come by my office tomorrow, nine o’clock sharp. I don’t need to tell you that if you’re unresponsive, I’ll have to consider my options.”
Despite my qualms, we abandoned our false identities and the town house and went directly to Andiquar. Alex was reassuring, but I thought we were putting ourselves at risk. He invited me to stay over at the country house, and I agreed and took one of the guest rooms.
We had a leisurely breakfast in the morning. By eight o’clock, Alex had drifted into the back somewhere, and I was in the office, utterly unable to concentrate on anything. At nine, a skimmer appeared overhead, hovered for a few moments, and descended onto the pad.
Four people got out. Everson, two other men, and a woman.
Ordinarily I’d have gone to the door and met them at the front of the house, but in this case I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t shoot the first person they saw. I notified Alex.
He was at the door talking to them when I arrived. All looked as if they were in their twenties. Everson was talking about “difficulties encountered throughout the entire process, absolutely unavoidable.” He wished things might have gone otherwise.
Alex smiled coldly and turned to me. “Chase,” he said, “I’d like to introduce Professor Martin Klassner.”
I’d known it was coming, of course, but still, seeing the reality was something of a shock. Old and dying in 1365, his brain damaged by Bentwood’s, this was the man they’d suspected might not survive the flight. He stood before me like a young lion, watching me curiously. He was taller than he’d seemed on the Polaris.
I’d spent most of the last few weeks building resentment against the people who’d been trying to kill us. And most of the last few days, since seeing Maddy, trying to digest the reality of age reversal. And here they were. The legendary passengers of the lost flight.
Nancy White was tall and elegant. Distant now, not at all like the figure who’d charmed everyone with her science chats. Her hair, which had been brown at the time of the Polaris, was blond. She was dressed casually, trying hard to look relaxed and confident.
And Councillor Urquhart. Once one of the seven most powerful people on the planet. This version had red hair and was so young it was barely possible to see the great man concealed within the trim youth. I couldn’t believe it was actually him. He looked barely twenty. But the amiable expression belonged to the older man, the Defender of the Afflicted. He’d lost most of the bearing he’d possessed during his political years. Can’t really give the impression of wisdom and gravitas when you look just out of school.
And Chek Boland. He could have been a leading man. His hair had gone from black to blond, but there was no mistaking the classic features and the dark eyes.
Mendoza was missing.
I pulled my attention back to Klassner. “Good morning, Professor,” I said, without offering my hand.
He took a deep breath. “I think I understand how you feel. I’m sorry.”
It was they. No question. In the prime of their lives, apparently. Young and strong, as people are before gravity sets in.
Alex steered them into the living room, where we’d have more space. Please make yourselves comfortable. I’d left the door to the office open purposely. We’d moved the display case so that Maddy’s jacket was visible. Not prominently displayed, but set in a way that visitors could not miss it. Klassner saw it, nodded as if some great truth had just been revealed, and took a seat by the window. He checked his wrist, probably assuring himself that we weren’t running a recording system. It struck me that, in this most extraordinary of meetings, we nevertheless retained the usual social niceties. Could we get anyone something to drink? Did you have any problem finding us? You don’t look entirely comfortable; would you care for a cushion? (That last was directed at Klassner, who chuckled and allowed as how, yes, he was not entirely at ease, but the furniture had nothing to do with it.) They passed on the refreshments. Everyone got more or less comfortable, and there was some clearing of throats and a couple of comments about what a nice place the country house was.