Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [18]
“If eventually,” she concluded, “the program gets a response, and someone shows up to see what we’re really like, I believe I’d try to bring them over here to sit down with you folks and have lunch. I know that would get everything off to a good start. Thank you very much.” She stepped away from the lectern as her audience broke into enthusiastic applause, and sat down. Overall time consumed was roughly thirteen minutes.
Solly, waiting just outside the entrance to the dining room, had caught most of it. “You have no shame at all,” he said, when they were alone.
She grinned. “To be honest, if I could arrange to have our first visitors eat with the Germane Society, instead of with the Council, I’d do it in a minute.”
Solly had rented a lime-colored, twin-mag Starlight for the flight to the Severin Valley. They went up to the roof and climbed in.
“I expected to go by train,” she said.
“We always take trains,” he replied. “I thought it would be nice to fly for a change.”
“Okay. How about we make for Eagle Point? Get settled in there first.”
He turned on the magnetics and they lifted off the pad and headed west.
Kim had spent much of the previous evening researching Severin legends and folklore. There were indeed tales of apparitions, of strange lights, of voices in the forest. There had been for years, long before the Mount Hope incident. But there did seem to have been an acceleration, although much of that might be attributed to efforts by residents of nearby Eagle Point to drum up the tourist trade.
Severin’s prime claim to fame, at the time of the incident, was that it had been the home of Markis Kane. Artist. War hero. Starship captain. The lone survivor of the Hunter.
And fan of Eve Colon’s classic detective, Veronica King. Kane had served a term as president of the Scarlet Sleeve Society, a group dedicated to the sleuth and named for one of her more celebrated exploits.
During Greenway’s war with Pacifica, the sole interworld conflict in history, he’d been captain of the famed 576, and was probably best known for the attack on the Hammurabi, the only capital ship ever put out of action by a single escort vessel.
When peace came, Kane left the fleet and spent half a century piloting vessels around the Nine Worlds and their outposts. He compiled an exemplary record, engendered no complaint by any employer, no problem of any kind. His crews were unfailingly loyal, and no one seemed to have a bad word to say about him.
Kim used the Starlight’s AI to bring up photos: Kane at flight school on Earth’s moon, Kane as a young lieutenant in Greenway’s self-defense force, Kane running a tug, Kane in full-dress uniform. She found six wedding pictures, and six brides; a certificate of appreciation from the Severin Valley Art Society; a graduation picture, Kane at eighteen, wearing a smirk that bordered on the mischievous. She found several commendations, Kane retaining control of a cargo ship after its main engines had started an explosive decompression, Kane rescuing a lost child during a Severin flood, Kane talking a suicide down from a window.
He favored decorated shirts and loose trousers tucked into ankle boots. And flashy tunics and wide sashes. In later pictures, after his time with the Tripley Foundation, he’d grown a black beard and let his hair grow to shoulder length. Something about the man in those later years had darkened, intensified. The older Markis Kane gazed out of his photos with equal parts disdain and resignation.
And there was Kane the artist. His posted work consisted primarily of portraits, landscapes, and a few experimental paintings. Most of the portraits were of women. One, dated 575, two years after the Hunter, shocked her.
“That’s you,” said Solly.
“My God.” It was Emily.
“He was using your sister for a model?”
She looked at the date again. “More or less. He must have used a virtual. This was done two years after she disappeared.”