Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [74]
When asked by the lab people if she’d uncovered a vein, Kim nodded and observed that she and Solly were about to acquire some serious wealth.
The unit tested to a range of about thirty meters for the quantity of gold one would expect to find in a bracelet roughly equivalent to the one Yoshi had been wearing.
Afterward, they caught the Snowhawk, which connected a half dozen cities across the central tier of the Republic, from Seabright on the east, through Eagle Point, to Algonda on the west.
They retired into a first-class cabin and were back reviewing the Hunter logs minutes after the train left the station.
The sun was already down as they eased out of Wakonda Central, picking up speed until the landscape blurred and eventually faded into the darkness. Solly sprawled leisurely in a padded chair; Kim sat on a cross bench, her arms wrapped around drawn-up knees.
They went back to the point at which the Hunter had dropped out of hyperspace, and watched Kane work on the AFS.
They ran the segment again, slower this time.
Kane finished up, notified the AI, and disappeared offscreen. Forty minutes later, scrubbed down and in a fresh uniform, he arrived in the pilot’s room. Emily came up and they surveyed the enormous star-clouds.
“In there somewhere,” Emily said, dreaming of celestials.
“Maybe,” said Kane. He was invariably more forthright with her than with Tripley. “But unless you’re damned lucky, you’ll need more than a single lifetime to find them.”
She sat down in the right-hand seat.
“Eight minutes to jump,” said the ship.
Kane pushed back and let his eyes half close. “We’ve been fortunate,” he said. “This is the first serious technical problem we’ve had in, what, a dozen or more missions? That’s not bad.”
She looked across at him, her spirits visibly sagging. Emily did not want to go home. “A lot more than a dozen. Markis, how long do you think it’ll take to make the repairs?”
He considered it. “They’ll pull the unit and replace it. A couple of days. No more than that. But the ship needs some general maintenance too before it goes out again.”
They continued in that vein while the AI counted down. The minutes ticked off and the conversation subsided while Kane turned his attention to the console. The power buildup that routinely preceded a jump became audible.
At thirty seconds, the main engines shut down and Hunter went into glide mode.
“There’s nothing here,” said Solly, somehow disappointed, as if they hadn’t already seen the sequence, didn’t already know nothing was going to happen. The jump procedure was now too far along to stop. If a celestial had pulled alongside and waved, they could have done nothing.
When the Hunter made its transition to hyperspace, Emily was staring out the window at the stars.
The Snowhawk was passing through a valley. Two of Greenway’s moons were in the sky, drifting among wisps of cloud. Dark slopes rose on either side. Treetops swayed in the blast of the passing train. Away to the north she could see the glow of a town. “Can’t really expect to hit it right away,” said Markis. “You have to be patient.”
“We’ve been patient.”
“Okay,” said Solly. “That does it for the celestials. Now we’re just looking for a motive for murder.” He looked at her. “You think if someone killed them, Yoshi and Emily, he wouldn’t have taken the gold?”
“If it was a burglar, something like that, sure he would have. But Tripley’s the prime suspect. You think he’d kill over some jewelry?”
“You really think Tripley did it?”
“No. But I can’t bring myself to believe they were killed by a robber. Wherever Yoshi is, she’s wearing her gold.”
Kim and Solly fast-forwarded through more conversations, all routine, mundane, what they would do when they got home, how they would spend the unexpected time. Tripley made it clear that he planned to mount the next mission as quickly as time permitted, and that he hoped to retain the services of the current crew. They didn’t hear