Seeker (9 page)

“Did you know,” said Jack, “that the suicide rate among people with genius-level IQs is almost three times what it is among the general population?”

“We’re dumb for a reason,” I said.

“That’s right.” Bentner grinned. “And thank God for it.” He lifted a glass. “To mediocrity,” he said. “May it flourish.”

A few minutes later, I mentioned as a by-the-way that my hobby was collecting antique cups. That caught nobody’s interest. But I turned to Kayla. “Now that I think of it, you guys had one.”

“One what?”

“An antique cup. Remember? It had that strange writing on it.”

“Not us,” she said. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

“Sure,” I said. “I remember it clearly. It was gray, with a green-and-white eagle. Wings spread.”

She considered it. Pursed her lips. Shook her head. Then surprised me. “Yes. I remember. It was on the mantel.”

“You know,” I said, “I always admired that cup.”

“I hadn’t thought about it in years. But that’s right. We
did
have one like that.”

“Those were good days, Kayla. I don’t know why that cup sticks in my memory. I tend to associate it with happy times, I guess.”

“That sounds as if you’re having problems.”

“No. Not at all. But that was a more innocent age. You know how it is.”

“Of course.”

She and I were drinking tea, and we each took a sip. “I wonder where it is now,” I said. “The cup. Do you still have it?”

“I don’t know where it is,” she said. “I don’t have it. I haven’t seen it since I was a girl.”

“Maybe Hap has it.”

“Could be.”

“You know,” I said, “when I get home I think I’ll look him up. It would be nice to see him again.”

Her features hardened. “You wouldn’t like him now.”

“Oh?”

“He’s too much like his father.” She shook her head in disapproval. “Well, let it go.”

We talked about her work on the station, and when I saw an opening, I went back to the cup: “You know, I was always intrigued by it. By the cup. Where did it come from originally, Kayla? Do you know?”

“I’ve no idea,” she said.

“Hap never struck me as someone interested in antiques.”

“Oh,” she said, “I doubt it’s an antique. But you’re right about Hap.” A darkness drifted into her eyes. “He wasn’t interested in anything this side of alcohol, drugs, and money. And women.”

She regretted having said that, and I tried to look sympathetic and moved the conversation along. “Somebody probably gave it to him.”

“No. We had it up on the shelf as far back as I can remember. When Hap and I were both kids.” She thought about it. “I suspect he
might
still have it.”

“You know,” I said, “I seem to recall there were a couple other pieces like it.”

“No, Chase,” she said. “I don’t think so.” Dinner finally arrived. “I’m pretty sure it’s the only one we had. Now that I think of it, I believe Mom told me once that my father gave it to her.”

Alex’s celebrity has spilled over, to a degree, on me. I seem to have not quite enough to draw autograph seekers, but I do get the occasional crank. Next morning, I was standing in a souvenir stall picking up a snack to take back to my room when a small, sharply dressed, middle-aged man with disheveled black hair asked whether I wasn’t Chase Kolpath. The tone was already vaguely hostile. And it took me a moment to realize this was the same guy who’d disrupted Ollie Bolton’s remarks at the Caucus. Kolchevsky.

I could have denied who I was. I’ve done that in the past, but I didn’t think it would work with this character. So I owned up.

“I thought so,” he said.

I started edging away from him.

“No offense intended, Ms. Kolpath. But you seem like a capable young lady.”

“Thank you,” I said, grabbing a cherry cheesecake more or less at random and pointing my key at the reader to pay for it.

“Please don’t run off. I’d like a moment of your time.” He coughed lightly. “My name is Casmir Kolchevsky. I’m an archeologist.”

“I know who you are,” I said. Kolchevsky, despite his hysterical behavior on that earlier occasion, was
not
small potatoes. He had done major excavations on Dellaconda, in Baka Ti. It was a civilization that had prospered for almost six hundred years before going into a sharp decline. Today it was nothing more than a handful of villages. The reasons behind its collapse remained very much a subject for debate. Some thought their technological development had outrun their good sense, others that they’d been victimized by a cultural revolution that had split them into a series of warring subgroups, and still others that their dinnerware had contained too much lead, leading to widespread infertility. Kolchevsky had done much of the fieldwork at Baka Ti, had in the process recovered a substantial number of antiquities that were now housed in museums. And he’d established a reputation for both brilliance and bellicosity.

“Good. No need then to stand on ceremony.” He looked up at me as he might have looked at a cat with a broken leg. “I’ve read about you,” he said. “You’re obviously talented.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“May I ask what in heaven you’re doing working for Benedict?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, come now. You know what I’m talking about. You and your partner are a pair of temple thieves. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I’m really quite appalled.”

“I’m sorry you disapprove of what we do, Professor.” I tried to get by him, but he blocked my exit.

“The day will come, young lady, when you’ll look back over these years and regret your actions.”

“Professor, I’d appreciate it if you would let me by.”

“Of course.” But he didn’t move. “Benedict,” he went on, warming to his subject, “is a grave robber. A looter. Objects that should be the property of everyone wind up as showpieces in the homes of the wealthy.” His voice softened. “You know that as well as I do.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said. “You don’t sound as if you’re open to other opinions, so why don’t we just agree to disagree and let it go at that? Now, I’ll ask you again, please stand out of my way.”

“I
am
sorry,” he said. “I really didn’t mean to give offense. But I wonder whether you’re aware what your association with him does to your own reputation?”

“I’m inclined to wonder, Professor, who appointed you guardian of the world’s treasures?”

“Ah, yes. By all means, when no defense will suffice, go on the attack.” He stood aside. “That’s not a very satisfactory response, is it?”

“It wasn’t a very satisfactory question.”

I’d decided to spend a couple of days with Jack. But before going down to meet him for lunch, I sent a message to Alex, advising him that the mission had been futile. I was coming home with nothing. I didn’t mention Kolchevsky.

Talent is important, perseverance good. But in the end there’s nothing quite like blind luck.
— Morita Kamalee,
Walking with Plato,
1388

When I got home, Alex had news for me. He’d been to see Fenn and had information about Hap’s father. “His name was Rilby Plotzky. Known to his associates as
Rile
. Like his son, he was a burglar.”

“With a name like that, I can understand it.” Skills ran in the family, I guessed. “You say he
was
a burglar. Did he reform? Or die?”

“Mind-wiped.”

“Oh.”

“I asked whether we could talk to him.”

“Alex, you know they’d never let us do that. And it wouldn’t do any good anyhow.”

It was snowing again. We were sitting in the office watching big wet flakes come down, and it didn’t look as if it was ever going to stop. Snow was hip deep out to the landing pad. “Mind wipes aren’t always complete,” Alex said. “Sometimes it’s possible to reverse the effects.”

“They wouldn’t let you do that either.”

“I know. I’ve already inquired.”

“What did they say?”

“It didn’t get past the official filters.”

I was surprised that Alex would even consider going that far. If the elder Plotzky had established a new life under a new name, he had a complete set of false memories and the lifetime habits that came with them. He would be a solid citizen. Break through that wall and it was anybody’s guess what might happen.

He resented my disapproval. “We’re talking about objects of enormous value, Chase,” he said. “I can’t say I’d have all that much sympathy for him. If he was worth a damn, they wouldn’t have had to do the procedure in the first place. And, anyhow, they could put him under again.”

“Are we assuming he
stole
the cup?”

“You think he was likely to have been a lover of the finer things in life?”

The first Plotzky’s burglary career had ended almost twenty years before, in 1412, when he was convicted for the third time, on seventeen counts. That was when they imposed the wipe. His first arrest had been in 1389. The evidence indicated he’d been active in his chosen profession during most of the intervening twenty-three-year span.

“So,” I said, “how does any of this help us?”

“We try to pin down which burglary might have produced the cup.”

“How do we do that? Are there police reports?”

“Yes. Of all the unsolved burglaries in Plotzky’s area of operation. But they can’t be made available. Privacy laws.”

“So we have to go through the media.”

“I’d say so.”

“There’s no point. He must have taken it because it caught his eye. He obviously didn’t realize the value of the thing or it wouldn’t have sat on that shelf all those years. If somebody had reported the theft of a nine-thousand-year-old cup, Plotzky would have known what he had.”

“That’s a good argument,” said Alex.

“Okay. Look, I hate to point this out, but we now have reason to suspect we’re aiding and abetting. We’re helping unload stolen property.”

“We don’t know that, Chase. It’s guesswork.”

“Right. This family of burglars, on the side, has a taste for antiques.”

He was getting uncomfortable. Frustrated. Outside, the wind was picking up, and the storm was growing worse. “Let’s do
this
,” he said. “We’ll set some parameters for Jacob and let him run a search through news reports covering the period. If we can’t find a break-in where the cup might have been taken, what have we lost?”

Actually, that wasn’t as unlikely a possibility as it sounded. Burglary’s a rare phenomenon. Most people have high-tech security. And criminal behavior itself is relatively unusual. We’re living in a golden age, although I doubt most people realize it.

It got me thinking about the Margolians, and the kind of world that would drive five thousand people to clear out, to jump on the
Seeker
and the
Bremerhaven
and make for an uncertain frontier. What had it really been like to live in the twenty-seventh century? Widespread criminal behavior. Intolerance. Political oppression. Environmental problems. Religious crazies. You name it.

“Jacob,” said Alex, “check through the news stories relating to burglaries in the Andiquar region from 1389 to 1412. You’re looking for any reference to the
Seeker
or to a nine-thousand-year-old drinking cup.”

“Commencing search,”
he said.

Alex was sitting in the big, soft, hand-tooled sofa facing the desk. He was wearing a frumpy gray sweater and looked distracted. He picked up a book, closed it, wandered over to the window, and stared out at the snowstorm. “I can call you,” I told him, “when he finishes.” I’d have liked to see him go upstairs to his office.

“It’s okay,” he said.

Ten minutes later Jacob was back. “
Negative
,” he said. “
No matches
.”

“All right.” Alex closed his eyes. “Try any thefts involving antiquities.”

Jacob’s lights went on and the electronic hum in the walls picked up.

I’d been going over the latest items coming onto the market, looking for objects that might be of interest to our clients. Someone had found an eighty-year-old handmade clock. None of our customers would care, but I liked the way it looked. It wouldn’t cost much, and it would give my living room a bit of cachet. I was trying to make up my mind about it when Jacob reported negative again.

“All right.” Alex sank back into the sofa and crossed his arms. “What we need to do is find thefts from homes whose occupants would have been likely to own antiques.”

“How do we do that?”

“Hang on a second.” He flipped open a notebook. “Jacob, would you see if you can get Inspector Redfield on the circuit for me?”

Fenn and a slice of his desk appeared in the middle of the office. “
What can I do for you, Alex
?” He sounded as if he were having a long morning.

“The case we were talking about yesterday—?”

His brow furrowed. “
Yes
?” He looked as if he’d already heard enough about that one.

“I wonder if you could tell me whether the burglaries were limited to a single area?”

“Wait one.”
He made weary sounds.
“What was the name again?”

“Plotzky.”

“Oh, yes. Plotzky.”
He gave instructions to an AI, reminded Alex that that week’s card game would be at his place, and took a bite out of a sandwich. Then he looked up at a monitor.
“Bulk of the cases were in Anslet and Sternbergen. There were a few elsewhere. Pretty well spread around, actually.”

“But all in the region immediately west of Andiquar?”

“Oh, yes. Plotzky didn’t travel much.”

“Okay, Fenn. Thanks.”

In his final trial, Plotzky had been charged with seventeen counts of theft by breaking and entering. We had the names of the property owners from the court records. The prosecutors had tagged him with more than a hundred over his career. “What we do is use the media to track down every burglary we can find in the target area while Plotzky was active.”

“That’s going to be a lot of burglaries.”

“Maybe not. The records don’t indicate that he had much competition.” He got up and went over to the window and looked out at the snow. “Jacob?”