Part 21 (1/2)
”Can you tell us anything else about where he lives?”
”He's got a couple of survival pods tied together. But I don't guess that helps much.”
”Not a great deal.”
”Okay.” She tried to think. ”He lives on a lakefront.”
”All right.”
”And he's on a continent in the southern hemisphere.”
”Anything more?”
”That's it. It's all I have.”
”Do you know if there are any other habitations, houses, buildings, whatever, on Banshee?”
”I don't think so, Alex. We're talking about a world, and I've only seen a small part of it. But I can tell you there isn't anything close to his place.”
SEVENTEEN.
If you would grasp the reason for your existence, and reach the limits of what may be known, you must live on the edge. Get away from the crowds that distract and deflect. It is why we love mountaintops and deserted beaches.
-Tulisofala, Mountain Pa.s.ses (Translated by Leisha Tanner) Banshee was moderately larger than Rimway, but it was less dense, and consequently its gravity gradient was down a couple of points. It lacked the ma.s.sive oceans that were characteristic of living worlds. There were seas, but they weren't connected into a single globe-circling ent.i.ty. Polar caps were large, extending across as much as thirty percent of the planet.
Hugh Conover had what he'd always wanted: a world to himself. He'd made no secret of his wishes: Get away from the maddening crush of idiots. You couldn't escape them, he'd argued. They showed up on the talk shows, infested the web, wrote books, and won political office. They appealed to their fellow idiots, and the result was, not chaos, but life on a treadmill. Keep moving but get nowhere. Those kinds of comments-Conover had made no effort to conceal his opinions of the ma.s.s of humanity-had won him few friends.
Banshee had a lot of lakes. They were of all sizes, and they were scattered across the planetary surface like puddles after a heavy rainstorm. Some existed in mountain country and others on big islands that were themselves lost in the middle of larger lakes.
I saw no deserts, save one patch along the equator. And nothing that might have been described as a jungle.
”Looks like a cold place,” said Alex.
It's odd: You see an uninhabited world, and you don't think anything of it. You look at Banshee, with two people sheltered somewhere on its surface, and you feel an overwhelming emptiness.
There was a single small moon. It was less than a hundred kilometers in diameter, a captured asteroid probably, and was at the moment almost half a million klicks from Banshee. ”I doubt,” I said, ”that, from the ground, it would look like anything more than a bright star. Maybe not even that.”
Alex was looking out the viewport, shaking his head. ”Conover reminds me of Basil. I mean, neither seems to care much for a social life.”
”He's like like Basil?” I said. ”Alex, this guy is Basil with a stars.h.i.+p. By Conover's standards, Basil's in downtown Andiquar.” Basil?” I said. ”Alex, this guy is Basil with a stars.h.i.+p. By Conover's standards, Basil's in downtown Andiquar.”
”Cavallero's another one,” he said. But he waved it aside. Sociological chitchat. Let's get to the point. ”What's the best way to find him? Look for his s.h.i.+p?”
”Sure. Belle, any sign of it?” We were just moving across the terminator onto the nightside.
”We have something up ahead, Chase. It should be the Hopkin Hopkin.” Conover's s.h.i.+p. Conover's s.h.i.+p.
”Open a channel,” I said.
”Channel's open, Chase.”
I activated Alex's mike. ”All yours, boss.”
He nodded. ”Charlie Hopkin,” he said, ”this is Alex Benedict on the Belle-Marie Belle-Marie. Please patch me through to Dr. Conover.”
We got a burp of static. Then a baritone: ”Belle-Marie, this is the Charlie Hopkin Charlie Hopkin. Dr. Conover is not on board and cannot be reached. I'm sorry.”
We were on Banshee's nightside. Below us, the darkness was unbroken.
”Hopkin, you can't get a message to him?”
”Do you have the code word?” Belle got a visual of the Belle got a visual of the Hopkin Hopkin and put it on-screen. It was an Atlantic, same model as the and put it on-screen. It was an Atlantic, same model as the Belle-Marie Belle-Marie. Older, though.
”No. I do not have a code word. Could you inform him that I'm here and would like very much to talk with him?”
”I have strict instructions not to bother him for non-code-word non-code-word visitors.” visitors.”
Alex covered the mike. ”I don't believe it,” he said.
”Don't believe what?”
”That the messages aren't being relayed. He wouldn't be dumb enough to cut himself off that completely.”
”That's probably true. But we don't really know this guy. He might be be dumb.” dumb.”
”I doubt it.”
”Okay, then,” I said. ”I can think of one approach. Board the thing and take a wrench to the controls.”
”You're not serious.”
”We don't actually damage anything. Just pretend that we will if he doesn't answer. The AI would have to alert him, and I'd bet the farm he'd be in touch within seconds.”
”Sounds like a great way to get his cooperation.”
”Yeah, I know. That's the downside.”
”Fortunately, Chase, there might be an easier way.” He refilled his coffee cup and looked at the Hopkin Hopkin, cruising amiably on the navigation screen. ”The s.h.i.+p has to be able to contact him if necessary. So what sort of orbit do you put her in?”
”Oh,” I said.
”Right.” He held out his hands. Elementary. ”It has to pa.s.s directly overhead.”
”Sure.” I felt like the slowest kid in the room. ”We don't have an entire planet to search. Just the orbital area in the southern hemisphere over whatever continents there are.
”Okay,” I said. ”We can narrow the land area where he might be located to about nine thousand kilometers. But that's still a lot of area to cover.”