Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [40]
“In its day,” he smiled, “it’s gone out against all sorts of pirates and monsters.” He took it down from its shelf and held it in both hands, as if weighing his childhood. “My grandmother passed it on to me.”
“But,” she said, “you discovered there were no pirates.”
“Alas, no. At least not in starships.” His fingers lingered against its burnished hull. “What’s the old saying? The stuff of dreams.”
The books on the shelves included Harcourt’s Principles of Galactic Formation, Al Kafir’s Alone in the Universe, McAdam’s The Shores of Night, Magruder’s Far As the Eye Can See, Ravakam’s The Limits of Knowledge.
Not at all the sort of reading she’d have expected from a man whose primary concern was running a major corporation. One never knew.
The fireplace crackled and a log broke. Sparks rose into the room.
“The Hunter is a lovely ship,” she said, to steer the conversation back toward Kile Tripley.
“Yes, it is. I was on it several times when I was a boy. But never in flight, I’m sorry to say.”
“It was a Tripley Foundation vehicle for forty-some years, wasn’t it?”
“Precisely thirty-three years, seven months,” he said.
“They sold it after your father’s death?” She deliberately misstated the facts, not wanting to seem too knowledgeable about the details.
“His disappearance,” he said. “His body was never found. But yes, they sold it a few years after. There was no longer any point in keeping it. No one else was interested in deep-space research. At least, nobody who mattered. You know, of course, that’s what they used it for.“
“Yes,” she said. “I know.” Tripley, she was aware, had been eleven years old when he lost his father. He’d been living with his mother at the time, and apparently had seen little of the star-hopping Kile. “Do you share your father’s interest in exploration?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Not especially. He wanted to find life somewhere. And sure, if it’s out there, I wouldn’t mind being the one who bags it. But no, I can’t say I’m prepared to devote time and money to it. Too much else to do. And the odds are too long.” He glanced at his commlink, checking the time. Signaling her that the meeting was drawing to a close.
“Ben,” she said, “do you think the Hunter was in any way connected with the Mount Hope explosion?”
His face might have hardened. She couldn’t be sure. But his voice cooled. “I’ve no idea. But I’m not sure I see how it could have been.”
“There was a lot of talk about antimatter at the time,” she said.
Suspicion clouded his face. “I’m sure you have the details tucked away where you can find them, if necessary, Kim. Look: I’ve heard the speculation too. God knows I grew up with it. But I honestly can’t imagine why either Markis or my father would have removed any of the fuel from the Hunter, taken it to the village, and used it to blow up a mountain. Or for that matter, how they could have done it. Remove a cell from its magnetic container, and it explodes on the spot.” He transfixed her with a stare that was not angry, but wary. And perhaps disappointed. “What do you think happened, Kim?”
She let her eyes lose focus. “I don’t know what to think. The explosion does have an antimatter signature—”
“There’s no evidence to support that.”
“The yield suggests it.”
He shook his head and let her see he’d lost confidence in her common sense. She had intended to say that the only people in the neighborhood who had a connection with antimatter were Kane and his father. But she was needlessly antagonizing him. And she didn’t know for a fact there was no one else anyhow.
“Let me get this straight,” Tripley said. “You think my father and Kane were conducting an experiment of some kind. And the experiment went wrong. Or that they were involved in a theft.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“The implication is clear enough.” He stared at her. “It didn’t happen. My father wasn’t an experimental physicist. He was an engineer. He wouldn’t have been involved in anything like that. Couldn’t have been.”
“What about