“That would take all the fun out of it.”
“Look, Alex. You mind if I tell you what I really think?”
“I wasn't aware you haven't been doing that all along.”
“You've accomplished more than most people dream of. Kids look up to you. Everybody except people like Colter respects you. And he's just jealous. They'll name some schools after you one day. But who knows when it might all turn around. I'm tired of watching you risk your reputation.”
“Chase-”
“Let me finish: For you, this is always a game. It's the same game you played with your uncle. It almost destroyed your relationship with him. It's time to give it up. It really is. You don't need the money. God knows you don't need the celebrity.” I wanted to stop, but I couldn't. “Screw it up now, one misstep, and it's going to be gone. If people start to believe these stories, it'll be over. Once they decide you're a con artist, you won't get your reputation back. Not ever.” I was trying to hold my temper in check.
“Chase.” He looked offended. “I have an obligation to our clients, too.” He stopped and stared at me. “Is that what you think I am? A con artist?”
“Sometimes, Alex, I'm not so sure.”
“Okay.” His face paled. “Chase-” Then he bit down on whatever he was about to say. I don't think I'd ever seen him seriously angry with me before. “All right,” he said. “Let it go.” He took a piece out of one of the buns, pushed them across to me, and chewed silently. When he'd finished, he commented that Jacob had come across another sighting that we hadn't known about previously.
The display lit up, and we were looking at a dispatch dated 1385.
(KPR) An unidentified ship passed within tracking range of Tippimaru last night. Authorities at the space station reported that the vehicle did not respond to repeated directives to turn flight control over to the operations center. All attempts at communication proved fruitless.
Failure to comply put the vehicle in violation of at least six provisions of the transport code. An investigation is under way.
An operational representative added that no one was in danger at any time.
“That's interesting,” I said. “I hope you're not going to tell me that Chris Robin was there again?”
He smiled. “No. I'd have liked it if he had been.” A hologram appeared in the center of the room. Reporters at one of the terminals. Hurling questions at a woman in a StarCorps uniform. “They're saying that it wasn't a standard drive, Commander. Is it possible it was an alien?”
“Did you actually see the thing, Commander?”
“What did it look like to you?”
She held out her hands. “One at a time, please.” They quieted. “I can't believe you guys are asking me seriously about aliens.” She smiled. Foolish notion. “Give us a little time, and I'm sure we'll figure out what happened out there this morning. To start with, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be a Mute.”
“Well,” I said, “Mutes are aliens.”
“Not anymore.” Alex looked amused. He poured two glasses of orange juice and passed one over. “This one never amounted to much. Tippimaru's a small out-of-the-way place, and nobody pays much attention to what goes on there. But they never did come up with an explanation.”
“Did they check with the Mutes?”
“Yes. They said it wasn't one of theirs.” He sat back, looked out at the morning sun. “I think we should do a little traveling, Chase.”
“Tippimaru?”
“No. Remember Tereza Urbanova?”
“Umm. Not exactly.”
“She was the Ops officer at Sanusar.”
“Okay. Yes, of course.”
“Jacob found an interesting posting about her online.”
“Really?”
“Her husband is quoted by a friend as saying she never got over the sighting.”
“Why not?” I asked. It wasn't as if the incident had threatened the station.
“I don't know. But she's still at Sanusar. Retired now.”
We watched every available visual involving Robin that we could find. He gave out awards, addressed community gatherings, presided over graduations. He was an accomplished speaker and invariably won over his audience right from the start because he consistently made them, rather than himself, the center of his remarks. If the audience was composed primarily of teachers and librarians, he inevitably pointed out that it was teachers and librarians who had given us civilization. On one occasion we watched him talk to a crowd of law-enforcement officials, and he observed that it was the police who held civilization together. With engineers and architects, he doted on the sheer joy of living in a modern city, with its combination of convenience and majesty.
He was good.
The Carmichael Club was a group of mathematicians who'd loved him, and apparently had invited him in at every opportunity. They took particular pleasure in jousting with him. They tended to talk about a hidden universe rather than an alternate one. And during the Q amp;A sessions, he was invariably asked the off-the-wall questions that everyone enjoyed. Was entanglement evidence of another level of cosmic law? Had he yet found a bridge for crossing over to another reality? If there was an alternate Chris Robin out there somewhere, was there any chance he was a lawyer?
“But here's something I wanted you to see,” said Alex.
At one of the Carmichael events, a young woman with auburn hair got the floor for a moment. “In all seriousness, Professor Robin,” she said, “you often speak of blue sky science. You're enthusiastic about concepts that may always be beyond our reach. How much effort are you willing to expend, how far are you willing to go, on, say, the shadow universe, before you concede that no proof is possible?”
Robin nodded. “How far am I willing to go? What's my transportation look like?”
Laughter rippled through the audience. “Whatever you like.”
“Okay. Whatever it takes. Put me in the Constellation, and I'll ride to the other side of the Milky Way. If I'm on foot, I'll walk a thousand kilometers, if I have to, to get the result I need.”
Someone in front jumped in: “Why a thousand kilometers?”
“Because I'll be headed south, into better weather, and a thousand kilometers will bring me more or less to the shoreline.” That got more laughter. Then he continued: “I guess what I'm trying to say, Catherine, in my mangled way, is that the chase is never over.”
“So, Alex,” I said, “what did we learn from that?”
“Hold on. Here's something from an address to undergraduates at Que Pakka University. Robin had been telling them how shy he'd been as a graduate student, and how important it was that he'd learned to trust himself, how it was something they all needed to do. “Until you believe in yourself,” he said, “no one else will believe in you. Except maybe your mother. No one else will ever take you seriously.”
A male student, moments later, commented that it was hard to believe that Robin had ever been shy. “You've come a long way, Professor,” he said.
Robin nodded. “A thousand kilometers. And I had to. Or I would never have had the opportunity to speak with you.”
“He likes the reference,” I said. “A thousand kilometers.”
“I found six other times that he used it.”
“Okay. So what do we take from that?”
“All eight occasions occur between 1389 and 1393. I couldn't find any prior to that period.”
“I still don't see-”
“I know. It probably means nothing. But it's worth keeping in mind. It certainly seems to have been in his.”
Alex went on the Kile Ritter Show that evening, where he was his usual charming self while describing his interest in the missing physicist and how he certainly didn't want to suggest that Robin had walked across a bridge
