Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [49]
“Hello, Kim,” said Andra. “How’d the Star Queen go?”
“Out of this world,” she said. “Are you busy?”
“Sure. I’m always up to my ears. You know that.”
“Right. When you get out from under the pile I want you to do something for me. There was an explosion in the Severin Valley in 573. Side blew out of a mountain, lot of people killed. You ever hear of it?”
“Vaguely.” That meant no.
“It happened at Mount Hope. I want you to find everything you can on the event and lay it out for me: media coverage, police reports, whatever. One of the victims, Kile Tripley, was only a couple of days back from an interstellar mission on board the Hunter. Two other members of that crew, two women, vanished at about the same time.” She gave her their names. “Get whatever you can on them, what they did with their spare time, who their friends were, anything you can find. And Kile Tripley too. He was the CEO at Interstellar. And I’d like to know if anybody was ever arrested or charged with anything.”
“Okay. May I ask why?” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Not sure myself yet, Andra. Can you get everything together this afternoon?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Please. And send it to my place. I’ll be going directly home. And Andra—?”
“Yes?”
“There’s an archeologist at Wheeling Bay. Her name’s Kane. Tora Kane. See if you can arrange for me to stop by there tomorrow and see her.”
Kim leaned back, the e-book resting on her lap, and closed her eyes. A shiver of excitement rose up her spine.
When she got home she found a note from Matt congratulating her on what was, “from all reports, an outstanding effort.” She also had a three o’clock appointment next day with Tora Kane at something called the Colson site, along with a code locator for the cab.
Other than Kane’s ex-wives, his only known relative, and the only person with whom he’d maintained a close relationship, was his daughter Tora. Tora Kane had been quoted in the record to the effect that her father had never been the same after the Mount Hope event, that he had tried to stay on at Severin Village, hoping the town could rebuild. But everyone had given up. Too many bad memories. And then the news had arrived that the dam would have to come down.
The ex-wives had all built other lives for themselves. They seemed to harbor no ill will toward Kane, but it was evident that all had made a clean break after the marriages had expired.
She was watching visuals of the daughter when the files on Emily and Yoshi and the Mount Hope event arrived.
Kim collected a dinner of cheese and fresh fruit, and carried it into the living room. She set it on the coffee table, went back for wine, and told Shepard to begin.
Most of the information Andra had gathered about Emily was well known to her, of course. Where she’d gone to school, that she’d written some articles, that she’d been a junior executive for Widebase Communications Systems before landing with the Foundation.
But as she read the articles, looked at the pictures, glossed over comments about her by her colleagues, she began to realize that she’d never been close to understanding the real Emily Brandywine.
An extract from one typical essay revealed the depth of Emily’s commitment:
Somewhere, other eyes than ours watch the stars. Let there be no doubt about that. Were it not so, we would have to confess there is little point to our existence, other than to eat, drink, and procreate. We have come to life on the shore of an infinite sea. Whatever power has designed this arrangement surely intended that we not be alone, that we set out to map its currents and its deeps, explore its islands, and ultimately embrace whatever other sailors we encounter.
Unfortunately, the islands are farther apart than we could have imagined. Many among us suggest we should simply give it up and stay home. Be content under our own warm suns. Hang around on the beach. But I would suggest to you that if we take that course, we will lose that part of us which is most worth preserving: the drive to push into the unknown. If we are true to ourselves,