A Talent for War (5 page)

"The Tanner file," I said, with sudden certainty.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"I guessed."

"It seems very odd to steal something one cannot use."

"The rest of it, the silverware, and whatever else they took, was a blind," I said. "They knew precisely what they were after. How many of them were there? Did you recognize anyone?"

"They knocked out the power before they came in, Alex. I wasn't functioning."

"How did they do that?" I asked.

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"It was easy. They simply broke a window, got into the utility area, and cut some cables. I do not have visuals down there."

"Damn. Wasn't there some sort of burglar alarm? Something to prevent this?"

"Oh, yes. But do you know how long it's been since there was a felony in this area?"

"No," I said.

"Decades. Literally decades. The police assumed it was only a malfunction. They were slow to respond. Even had they been more prompt, a single thief, if he was familiar with the premises and knew precisely what he was after, could have accomplished it all inside three minutes."

"Jacob, what was Gabe working on when he died?"

"I don't know whether I ever had that information, Alex. Certainly I don't now."

"How good is the security on the Tanner file? Are you sure the thief can't get at it?"

"In maybe twenty years. It requires your voice, using a security code that is in the possession of Brimbury and Conn."

"It'll be easy for the thief to get a recording of my voice to duplicate. We'd better notify the lawyers to take precautions with the code."

"That's already been done, Alex."

"Maybe the lawyers are involved."

"They do not have access to the code. They can only turn it over to you."

"What kind was it?"

"A sequence of digits, which have to be spoken by you, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, during a time period no shorter than a full minute. That prevents a high-speed computer attack.

Any attempt to circumvent the precautions results in immediate destruction of the file."

"How many digits?"

"The recommended standard is fourteen. I don't know how many Gabe used."

I sat quietly, watching the fire. The street lamps were yellow blobs, and the wind shook the trees.

Snow was piling up against the skimmer. "Jacob, who's Leisha Tanner?"

"Just a moment." The roomlights dimmed.

Outside somewhere, a metal door rattled shut.

A holo formed near the window, a woman in evening dress, her face angled away from me, as though her attention were fixed on the storm. In the uncertain light of the fireplace and the sodium postlamp, she was achingly lovely. She appeared to be lost in thought, her eyes reflecting, but not seeing, the snowscape.

"She's in her mid-thirties here. When this was taken, she was an instructor at Tielhard University on Earth. It's dated circa 1215, our time."

Six years after the Resistance. "My God," I said, "I assumed she was someone I was going to be able to talk to."

"Oh, no, Alex. She's been dead quite a long time. Over a century, in fact."

"What's her connection with the project Gabe was working on?"

"Impossible to say."

"Is there anyone else who might know?"

"No one that I know of."

I poured myself a drink, a real one, of the Mindinmist. "Tell me about Tanner. Who was she?"

"Scholar. Teacher. She's best known for her translations of the Ashiyyurean philosopher Tulisofala. They are still available, and some authorities consider them to be definitive. She's produced other works, but most are no longer in circulation. She was an instructor in Ashiyyurean philosophy and literature for forty standard years at several universities. Born on Khaja Luan, 1179. Married. Possibly one child."

"That it?"

"She was a star pilot, certified for small craft. A peace activist during the war. The records also
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show that she served as an intelligence officer and a diplomat for the Dellacondans."

"A peace activist and an intelligence officer."

"That is what the records say. I don't understand it either."

Jacob rotated the image. Her eyes brushed past mine. The jawline had a tilt that almost implied arrogance. Her lips were slightly parted, revealing even white teeth (but no smile); and a forehead possibly a shade too broad concealed by thick auburn hair.

"During the war, was she on the Corsarius?"

Pause. "There's not much information in the general files, Alex. But I don't think so. She seems to have been attached to Mercuriel, the Dellacondan flagship."

"I thought Corsarius was the flagship?"

"No. Corsarius was only a frigate. Sim used it to lead his units into combat, but it wasn't really adequate for staffing and planning functions. The Dellacondans used two different vessels for that purpose.

The Mercuriel was donated to them by rebels on Toxicon midway through the war. It was especially adapted for command and control, and it was named for a Toxi volunteer who died in the Slot."

"Do you know any more about her?"

"I believe I can give you rank, date of discharge, and so on."

"That it?"

"There may be something else of interest."

"What's that?"

"Just a moment. You understand that I'm scanning all this myself while we're talking?"

"Okay."

"Yes. Well, you should also be aware that she's an obscure figure, and there's not much on her."

"Okay. What are you leading up to?"

"She apparently returned from the war in a deep state of depression."

"Nothing unusual about that."

"No. I would react that way myself. But she did not improve for a long time. Years, in fact.

There is also an indication that she visited Maurina Sim about 1208, the year after Christopher Sim died at Rigel. No record that I can find on what they talked about. Now the odd thing is that

Tanner tended to drop from sight for long periods of time. On one occasion, for almost two years. No one knows why.

"This went on until about 1217, after which there are no more reports of unusual behavior.

Which of course is not to say there was none."

I gave up for the night. I had a snack, and picked out a room on the second floor. Gabe's bedroom was on the same floor, at the front of the building. I went in there, perhaps out of curiosity, but ostensibly because I was looking for comfortable pillows.

There were photos everywhere: mostly from the excavations, but there were also a couple of me as a child, and one of a woman he had once, apparently, loved. Her name was Ria, and she had died in an accident twenty years before I'd come to live with him. I'd forgotten about her during my long years away, but she still held her honored place on a table between two exquisite vases that were probably middle-European. I took a moment to study the image as I had not done since I was a child, and had never done with mature eyes. She was almost boyish in aspect: her frame was slim, her brown hair was cut short, and she sat with her hands hugging her knees to her breast in a pose that implied uninhibited exuberance. But her glance suggested deeper waters, and caused me to linger a long time. To my knowledge, Gabe had never been emotionally involved with another woman.

There was a book on the side table: a volume of poetry by Walford Candles. The title was
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Rumors of Earth, and though I'd never heard of it, I knew Candles's reputation. He was one of the people that no one really reads, but that you were supposed to if you were going to call yourself educated.

The book aroused my curiosity though, for several reasons: Gabe had never shown much inclination toward poetry; Candles had been a contemporary of Christopher Sim and Leisha Tanner; and, when I picked it up, the book fell open to a poem titled "Leisha"!

Lost pilot, She rides her solitary orbit

Far from Rigel

Seeking by night

The starry wheel.

Adrift in ancient seas, It marks the long year round, Nine on the rim, Two at the hub.

And she, Wandering, Knows neither port, Nor rest, nor me.

Footnotes dated it 1213, two years before Candles's death, and four years after the war's end.

There was some discussion of style, and the editors commented that the subject was "believed to be Leisha Tanner, who alarmed her friends by periodically dropping out of sight between 1208

and 1216. No explanation was ever advanced."

III.

They sent a single ship across the rooftops of the world. And when they saw that the Ilyandans had fled, a terrible anger came over them. And they burned everything: the empty houses and the deserted parks and the silent lakes. They burned it all

—Akron Garrity, Armageddon

I SPENT THE night at the house, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, and retired afterward to the big armchair in the study. Sunlight streamed through the windows, and Jacob announced that he was pleased to see me up and about so early. "Would you like to talk politics this morning?" he asked.

"Later." I was looking around for a headband. "In the table drawer," offered Jacob. "Where are you going?" "The offices of Brimbury and Conn." I tried the unit on, and it slid down over my ears.

"When you're ready," he said drily, "I have a channel." The light shifted, and the study was gone, replaced by a modern crystalline conference room. There was a background of soft music, and I was able to look through one wall at Andiquar from a height that far exceeded the altitude of any structure in the city. The woman from the transmission, tall, dark and now of oppressive appearance, materialized near the door. She smiled, approached with aggressive cordiality, and extended her hand. "Mr. Benedict," she said. "I'm Capra Brimbury, the junior partner." That provided my first inclination that Gabe's estate was worth considerably more than I had imagined. I was beginning to feel it was going to be a pretty good day.

Her tone was hushed and confidential. An attitude one adopts with a person who is temporarily an equal. Her manner throughout the interview was one of studied enthusiasm, of welcoming a new member to an exclusive club. "We'll never be able to replace him," she observed. "I wish there were something I could say."

I thanked her, and she continued: "We will do everything we can to make the transition easier for you. I believe we can get a very good price on the estate. Assuming, of course, that you wish to sell."

Sell the house? "I hadn't considered it," I said.

"It would bring quite a lot of money, Alex. Whatever you choose to do, let us know, and we will be happy to handle it for you."

"Thank you."

"We have not yet been able to set a precise value to the estate. There are, you understand, a number of intangibles, artwork, antiques, artifacts and whatnot, which complicate the equation.

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Not to mention fairly extensive commodity holdings, whose worth fluctuates from hour to hour.

I

assume you will wish to retain your uncle's investment broker?"

"Yes," I said. "Of course."

"Good." She made a note, as though the decision were a matter of little consequence.

"What about the burglary?" I asked. "Have we learned anything?"

"No, Alex." Her voice trailed off. "Strange thing that was. I mean, you don't really expect that sort of behavior, people breaking into someone else's home. They actually used a torch to cut a hole in the back door. We were outraged."

"I have no doubt."

"So were the police. But they are looking into it."

"What exactly was stolen?" I asked.

"Difficult to say. If your uncle kept an inventory, it was lost when the central memory banks were erased. We know they took a holo projector and some silverware. They may also have got some rare books. We've had a few of his friends look at the property and try to make a determination.

And maybe jewelry. There's simply no way to check his jewelry."

"I doubt if he had much," I said. "But there are some extremely valuable artifacts in there."

"Yes, we know. We compared them with the insurance listings. They are all accounted for."

She steered the conversation back to financial matters, and in the end I complied with her wishes pretty much down the line. When I asked for the security code, she produced a lockbox, of the sort that destroys the lock when it is opened. "It's voice-operated," she said. "But you need to tell it your birthday."

I did, lifted the lid, and extracted an envelope. It was signed by Gabe across the flap. Inside, I found the security code. It was thirty-one digits long.

He was taking no chances.

"I leave everything to you, with confidence."

It was a hell of a way to treat a worthless nephew.

Gabe had been disappointed in me. He'd never said anything. But his early satisfaction at my interest in antiquities had given way to reluctant tolerance when I failed to pursue a career in field work. He'd shown up at the graduations, had dutifully encouraged me, and had been openly enthusiastic about my academic "achievements." But beneath all that, I knew what he thought: the child who'd camped with him by the shattered walls of half a hundred civilizations was, in the end, more at home in a commodities exchange. Worse yet, the commodities were relics of a past which, he argued, grew constantly more vulnerable to our heat sensors and laser drills.

He had damned me for a philistine. Not in so many words, but I'd seen it in his eyes, heard it in the things he had not said, felt it in his gradual withdrawal. And yet, despite the existence of a small horde of professionals with whom he'd dug his way through countless sites, he'd turned to me with the Tenandrome discovery. I felt good about that. I even felt a vague sense of satisfaction that he'd played fast and loose with security, and allowed the Tanner file to be taken.

Gabe was no less fallible than the rest of us.

I went next to the police station, and talked to an officer who said they were hard at work on the case, but that there was no progress to report as yet. She assured me they'd be in touch as soon as they had something. I thanked her, feeling no confidence that there would be any movement by the authorities, and was reaching for my headband, about to break the link, when a plump short man in uniform hurried through a double door, and waved in my direction. "Mr.