The Return of Nathan Brazil

They all had to laugh at that. Still, Mavra told herself, there was something extremely odd about the man. His strange powers went beyond empathy. In an age in which everyone showed the proper papers just to go to the bathroom and even Mavra’s had had to be carefully faked, Gypsy, according to Marquoz, had never been asked for them. In a customs line he would simply be ignored; stiff-necked hotel clerks, even when robots, never thought to ask for his documentation. Even on New Pompeii he strolled into high-security areas without a challenge. Why? What strange power did he have? Where did he get it? Could he influence Obie? Was that why the computer had taken no readout?

Seemingly ignorant of this mental speculation, Gypsy plopped down in a chair, yawned, and rubbed his eyes.

Even as Mavra stared, her preoccupation passed; her mind turned to other channels, dismissing the mystery of Gypsy as unimportant to their present work. She turned to the intercom and Obie and never once even questioned why the problem of Gypsy had suddenly become something she shouldn’t concern herself with.

Nautilus

The Com computers were, with the exception of Obie, the greatest and fastest gatherers, analyzers, and disseminators of knowledge in the Com sector of space. To this had been added Obie, a pleasantly human personality that masked the ability to do millions of different, complex projects all at the same time. The speed and rate of human conversation and the slowness of the human mind must have been agonizing to him, yet he never complained about it or seemed to think of himself as something apart from man. Obie thought of himself as a human being and acted accordingly.

Still, with all the speed and versatility at their command they had the problems of bureaucracy and interstellar distances. The information they needed would probably be available to Obie in fractions of a second—if he had all the data. Data, however, were gathered on a thousand planets over an immense area. The data were collected by millions of departments, eventually stored, eventually correlated, eventually—sometimes after years —sent on to higher authorities. The searchers couldn’t wait for this information finally to reach the Com; they had to go out and get it.

And that, of course, was where the Fellowship of the Well came in. The Acolytes probed, sifted, stored, and passed on all they could. They were everywhere. If they could obtain the information freely, they did; if it took official sanction, they got it; if they couldn’t obtain official sanction, then they begged, bribed, or stole what they wanted. Mavra Chang had once been an expert at computer thievery; Obie was an even better tutor.

Occasionally, Acolytes were caught with their hands in the informational till. In such cases, human and lower-government agencies were taken care of directly by Marquoz; if all else failed, Mavra and the Nautilus crew could break anybody out of anywhere. If a coverup was needed, Obie could be counted on to provide one.

Obie was working on the three common points in Brazil’s history. Certainly he would try to disguise himself, but it would be a true disguise, not one of the new popular shape-changing techniques. He wouldn’t risk exposing himself by resorting to an experimental device.

Only a small number of Jewish communities remained, and those were carefully monitored. Then there was his occupation—Brazil had always been a captain. It gave him mobility, peace and quiet, and anonymity, all of which he required. Mavra would check in with Obie daily on the Nautilus to keep up with events. Having just returned from bailing out two Fellowship adherents accused of stealing garbage disposal records on the largest city of an obscure frontier world, she was eager to hear of any progress.

“Progress is where you find it,” Obie said philosophically. “So far I have amassed a lot of information on Jewish captains—there are a surprising number considering how tiny a minority they are—but very little that is specific. Material that came in this morning seems to add to what I need, yet it’s not enough. I have a number of suspects, none of which might be Brazil. I need an additional correlation.”

“Of what with what?”

“All the Jewish captains and Brazil’s life and disappearance—that’s the data still coming in. Check back in a couple of hours when I have the rest of it. I may be able to pinpoint it accurately.”

So she went Topside and asked Marquoz and several of the Olympians to meet her later on. They would come running, although it could take a day or two to assemble everybody on the Nautilus.

By late afternoon, when Mavra contacted Obie again, he had the search narrowed down fairly well.

“First of all,” he began, “do you know what a rabbi is?”

She admitted she didn’t, so Obie continued.

“Well, he is a priest in the Jewish faith—except he has no mystical powers, real or imagined. Literally the term is ‘teacher’ and means that his education has specialized in Jewish law and culture so that he’s an expert— just as any other profession is the product of education. Each Jewish temple has a rabbi selected by the congregation for his knowledge of the faith—but there are numerous rabbis who have no congregation, who have other jobs, even, but who are considered experts and can instruct others. Many of these specialize in fine points of the law and live the faith, yet make their money in secular occupations. It’s really a fascinating thing. Do you know, for example, that there are three rabbis who are also freighter captains?”

She was surprised. “Captains? Religious teachers?”

“See what I mean? And yet it’s a triply good living, since it’s not only lucrative and provides a lot of time for study but also is the best way to reach the small congregations scattered across hundreds of worlds. Of the three, all have at one time or another worked jobs in which Brazil’s ship, as a private contractor, was also involved, so they all have met him. Two of them seem to have had extensive contact with Brazil over the years—decades, in fact—and may be considered close friends. But only one of them owns his own ship; the others work for shipping companies. I had encountered this before but had rejected the man because he was Hassidic—the strictest of the sects, or degrees, of Judaism, whose members are bound to rigid laws of dress, of eating, of religious form and observance. The Hassidim function in a modern world without compromising, basically keeping the laws that are thousands of years old. I had not expected to find Brazil in such a role since, clearly, he has observed very few of those laws himself. Also, this particular rabbi, is old; he’s already undergone two rejuves, and he’s taller and stouter than Brazil, with a full white beard. But, then, data that came in today persuades me of the logic of it all.”

Mavra frowned. “Well, I can see that it would be an easy disguise—some padding, a false beard, some lifts in the shoes like I use. Yes. But beyond that?”

“Well, I was able to reconstruct route descriptions of this man’s ship and Brazil’s Stehekin for a period of three decades. You would be shocked at how often their routes are congruent—and remember, they both owned their ships, so they weren’t bound by a traffic manager. Their side trips particularly interested me—they touched practically every strict Jewish community at some point in a two- to three-year period. During the twenty years prior to Brazil’s disappearance, they had celebrated the highest of Jewish holy days together at one or another congregation. They knew each other very well over a very long time.”

“Doesn’t that rule him out, though? Wasn’t it Brazil’s M. O. to find a young man to replace?”

“This is just as good. An old man who has outlived all his contemporaries. A freighter captain of repute and reputation. But, more important, roughly six months before his disappearance Brazil and this man met on a small planet. Our man was old, he was having medical problems, his physical was coming up and he couldn’t possibly pass it without a rejuve—but medical records indicated that he just couldn’t stand another rejuve. Yet, some four months later, with no rejuve, he took and passed a complete examination with flying colors!”

Mavra looked puzzled. “But—four months? You said they met last six months before.”

“Sure! Don’t you see? They swapped identities way back then! Brazil used the time to get the last of