Page 25

A nd so we read. Me on the couch, Frank in his office. Some of the emails were interesting, the tone possibly a little more than just friendly in a few, although I might have been reading more into them than was actually there. Hard to tell with emails, you know? There was no inflection. You couldn’t see the person’s expression. That was just how it was.

Most of the emails were straight-up boring. Really. Just dry, simple exchanges of information. Dates and times, meetings being arranged, status reports given. So much of it just seemed like the grind of business. It took me nearly an hour to get through them all.

About that time, Frank came out of his office, scratching his head. “Did you find anything?”

“Nope.” I set Frank’s borrowed tablet down and yawned, covering my mouth quickly. The tedium was getting to me. “But I now believe Fathia. I don’t think she and Dr. Saetang are having an affair. If they are, they aren’t using email to talk about it. Most of that was boring.”

Frank sat next to me and leaned back with a sigh. “I agree. Everything I read was cordial but strictly work-related. What do you think? Should we take them off the board? Or do you want me to attempt to hack into their texting apps? See if there’s something else there?”

I almost hated to remove them as suspects in case we were wrong, but we had to start narrowing things down at some point. “I doubt their texts are going to reveal anything else, but if you want to check them, I’m okay with that. For now, though, let’s take them off the board.” I groaned at how little progress we were making. “Somehow, we have got to find Olan. More and more, I think he’s the key to this.”

Frank tapped his fingers against his thigh. “Wherever he’s tucked away, he has to have access to food, water, a bathroom, the basic necessities. Someone’s either hiding him in their quarters or providing him with access to those things. Could be on the cruising decks, but it would be easier to stay hidden on a deck that didn’t have people around all the time.”

“You think he’s on one of the staff or crew decks? But he’d stand out there.”

“Not if he never left the quarters he was staying in. Same thing goes for the cruising decks, but they have regular housekeeping that comes in and out. We just have vuums.”

“True. How do we figure this out?”

He shook his head, looking as frustrated as I felt. “It’s a long shot, but maybe I can scan the vuum logs. See if any of them are reporting higher levels of debris than usual in any areas? That’s pretty thin, I know, but it’s all I can think of. Which reminds me, I need to upload the nebulite energy detection program I built to the vuums’ interface. If we can’t find Olan, maybe we can at least find the Star.”

“Either one is worth a shot.” We had nothing else. I briefly returned to the idea of setting Harry free to play bloodhound, but my gut knew that wouldn’t go well. “The vuum search aside, what do we do now? Where do we go next? I feel like I have no more ideas.”

He put his feet up on the table, then slipped his arm around me. “I guess it’s time to look at the people we suspect the least.”

“So … everyone else who was at the gala? Maybe we should confront the premier about the Star being gone. Make him own up to it and see where that leads.”

“That’s your daughter’s decision to make. We can’t cross that line.”

“Yeah, I know.” I leaned into him, comforted by his warmth and sturdiness. “Maybe I should go see her tomorrow and try to talk her into it.”

“Not a bad idea. You can certainly use our astonishing lack of evidence to sway her.”

I laughed softly, because it was laugh or cry. “You’ll let me know if the vuum search turns up anything?”

I could feel him nod. “I will. But it won’t be quick. It’ll take at least one full shift before I get any intel back. In the meantime, I’m going to look at a few other factors as well. Water and power usage, that kind of thing. There’s got to be some way to find this guy.”

“I hope you’re successful.” I put my hand on his knee. “I’m going home to get some sleep, and maybe I’ll dream of a solution. At the very least, a good night’s rest might help me think more clearly tomorrow so I can talk to my daughter intelligently. Don’t stay up too late.”

“I won’t.” He kissed the side of my head. “Come on. I’ll see you out.”

Harry was asleep on the bed when I got in but woke up and gave me a chirp of greeting. It was sweet and made me smile, but the mood I was in was not so easily dismissed.

Plain and simple, I was still in a funk. It hung over everything like a cold, damp fog. I didn’t want to watch a show, I didn’t want to read, I didn’t want to knit, I didn’t even want to think, because all that would do was remind me how far we were from figuring anything out.

I cleaned my face, brushed my teeth, put my nightgown on, and got into bed. I wasn’t sure if I was really tired or just mentally exhausted, but I opaqued the window, turned off the light and did my best to sleep.

Apparently, it worked, because I woke up, startled from a nonsense dream about trying to get people to help me search for Harry, who’d gone missing. In real life, I felt him nestled up against my hip.

I stared into the dark. The sleep that had come so quickly now eluded me. “Computer,” I said softly. “Clear the window.” The cloudy glass cleared, and the nebula came into view.

It was just as beautiful as the last time I’d seen it. “Computer, what time is it?”

“The time is zero two thirteen.”

I sighed and thought about doing some knitting. I’d picked up some beautiful DK weight yarn at the last starport and planned to make a prayer shawl for Vashti for her birthday, but I hadn’t started it yet. I had three months, but a shawl with DK weight yarn was not a quick project.

Even with the deadline looming, I didn’t feel like starting it. Although knitting was a great way to let the mind focus on something else.

“Can’t sleep, Mum?”

“No.” I reached down to put my hand on Harry, petting his fur. “But you can.”

He got up anyway, deciding a better way to converse was standing directly on top of me. “We could do something.”

I looked at his adorable face, more visible now in the subtle light of the nebula. “We could, could we? Like what?”

“Go search for Olan.”

The smile left my face, not because the suggestion upset me but because he was right. We could. I wasn’t about to let Harry out on his own, but if I went with him…

“Let me get out of bed and get dressed.”

He hopped down and ran into the other room. I had a feeling he was getting into his charging bed to be sure he had a full tank for our adventure. I pulled on jeans, a T-shirt, and a gray Athos sweatshirt jacket, then stuck my feet in my sneakers.

After a quick visit to the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and gathered my hair into a low ponytail, I was ready. I went out to the living room, strangely jazzed by what we were about to do.

It felt a little wrong but not in a bad way. More secretive. Clandestine. That kind of thing. Would anything come of it? No clue. But it was better than lying in bed staring at the ceiling and feeling like I was letting my daughter down.

Harry was in his bed on the couch, as I’d suspected. I stopped in front of him. “We need a plan.”

Harry nodded. “Start at the bottom and work our way up? Or start at the top and work our way down?”

Either way, he was right. If we were going to search, we should do it systematically. The thing was, we couldn’t really start at the top. First of all, Decks 30 through 39 were primarily reserved for cruisers. Yes, anyone could access them, but their main purposes revolved around the onboard guests.

The rest of the decks were for crew, staff, and functionality. We lived, worked, and recreated on many of those levels. Some held the labs and research facilities that were used by the scientists; some held the vast spaces taken up by the agricultural departments. The starliner’s engines and internal systems were on those decks, too.

And then there were Decks 40 through 45. No one could access those unless they were a FAN employee, which mostly meant Federation Military, like Hazel. The escalators didn’t go there. Separate stairs served them, and the elevators required your wristband to carry a Federation clearance.

I couldn’t get there, but that was no big deal because Olan wouldn’t have been able to either.

But we still couldn’t search the remainder of the starliner. It would take too long. At some point, I’d want to get a little sleep. “How about we stick to the cruiser decks? Those are the ones Olan is most likely to have been on anyway.”

“Sounds good, Mum.”

We left our quarters and headed for the elevator.

At two thirty in the morning, even the cruising decks were sparse with people. All the shops would be closed, although the casino and one eatery, the Stardust Diner, would be open. The 1950s-themed restaurant was open twenty-four hours and staffed primarily by robots in the off hours.

I supposed the cruiser-level simdecks would be open, too. They never really closed. If you reserved one for 4 a.m., it would be ready for you to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or take dance lessons from Gene Kelly or visit a 1930s speakeasy or whatever you wanted to do.

There was virtually no limit to what you could do on a simdeck, no pun intended. Even things that weren’t technically legal were okay on a simdeck. Fun, huh?

We started at Deck 30 and walked the corridors, which were basically two loops, an inner and an outer, with five connecting spokes, all in an oval shape. Those who passed us paid us little attention. At this hour, a woman and her compdroid out for a walk were apparently no big deal.

We did our best to walk the deck as a grid, starting at the elevator banks and working our way methodically through each section, even though that meant some overlap. I let Harry lead. Or rather, let his nose lead.

I expected him, much like a dog, to sniff everything in his path. Walls, floors, whatever.

He didn’t. He simply walked along, nose in the air, occasionally shifting his head to the right or left. Once in a while, he’d stop, lift his head a little higher, take a deeper sniff, then move on.

We finished Deck 30 with no revelations and decided on the escalator, since we were only going one floor. Decks 31 and 32 provided no further news either. I was getting a little sleepy but wanted to see it through.

Deck 33 was the last of the fully residential decks. I knew Harry would get a hit here because this was where Olan’s quarters had been.

Sure enough, in Corridor B, Harry did a full stop in front of the guards’ quarters, the ones he’d already been in. He looked at me and gave a little nod. He rarely spoke to me in public, even when we were alone.

“I know,” I said softly. “That’s his room. Are you picking up anything? There ought to be some kind of scent trail here. Is it enough for you to follow?”

With a nod, Harry started moving again. I assumed he was locked on to the scent.

An obviously inebriated passenger staggered past us, the aroma of alcohol coming off him in waves. I hoped the man made it back to his quarters all right, but then two more doors and he was touching his wristband to the scanner on the keypad.

I watched without being too obvious. Took three tries but he made it in.

Harry’s sniffer led us to the escalators. He looked at me.

I nodded. “All right, let’s follow it up.”

Deck 34 began the intermingling of guest rooms with commerce and recreation. Normally, that would have meant more people, but in this case, the ladies’ boutique, the beauty salon, the barber shop, and the sundries store were closed.

Harry walked slowly, nose in the air. He went halfway down one corridor, then abruptly turned and went in the other direction. I followed. He went about as far, then sat down and let out an audible sigh.

I took a guess. “The trail disappeared?”

Harry glanced up at me, utter disappointment in his eyes.

“It’s okay. Maybe he didn’t get off here. Maybe he went straight up to the observation deck. Let’s keep going. You never know.”

Harry got back on his feet. We finished up and took the escalator to the next deck. We searched it, and all the decks after it, finally arriving on Deck 39. Harry seemed to be enjoying himself, but I could tell he’d imagined different results.

We were the only two on the observation deck. I couldn’t help but be mildly distracted by the nebula. It was impossible not to look at, especially when I knew the Star on display was a fake and not worth my attention. Otherwise, I probably would have been all over it. I let Harry do his thing while I sat and stared at the cluster of gases that was the Omega Min Nebula.

Harry returned after a few short minutes, hopping up onto the seat beside me. He sat, and I shifted to face him. “Find anything?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“It’s all right. You can talk. We’re the only ones here.” At this hour, there were no guards on duty by the Star, just the protective shaft of light ready to zap anyone who tried something.

Harry frowned. “Olan’s scent is everywhere on this deck. I can’t make any sense of it. Might be impossible to tell where he went, Mum.”

I nodded sympathetically. I’d suspected as much. “It’s okay. We tried.”

Harry looked up, his gaze settling on the balcony ceiling above us. “We didn’t go up there.”

“No, but— Do you want to?”

He stood up, clearly eager. “We’re here.”

“Yes, we are.” I got to my feet. In for a penny, in for a pound.