Alex Benedict 07 - Coming Home Read Free Page B

gets back, he can check the record, and if he needs to see it, we’ll have you bring it over.”
    “Fine. I’d like to get an estimate of the value. You don’t have any idea, do you?”
    “No, Marissa. I’ve never seen one of these things before.”
    “Oh,”
she said.
“I thought you were a pilot.”
    “In my spare time, yes.” I was running a quick check on my notebook. And got a jolt. “Holy cats,” I said.
    “What? What is it, Chase?”
    “The Corbett is the breakthrough unit. It’s the earliest model there was.” The information I was getting indicated it dated from the twenty-sixth century. The early FTL flights had no reasonable way to talk to Earth. Until the Corbett came along. If the Brandenheim had it right, the thing was over eight thousand years old. There was only one known model in existence. So, yes, it was going to have some serious trade value. “Your grandfather never told you he had this?”
    “No. He never mentioned it.”
    “He must have said something to your parents.”
    “My dad says no. He never knew it was there until he went into the closet to put some wrapping paper on the top shelf. There were already a couple of boxes on top of it, and a sweater. There wasn’t enough room, so he took everything down.”
She looked at the transmitter.
“This was in a case. It was the first time he’d seen it. In fact, he came close to tossing it out. Fortunately, he showed it to me on his way to the trash can.”
    “All right. We’ll get back to you.”
    “The museum says if I contribute it, they’ll put up a permanent plate with my name on it.”
    “Is that what you want to do?”
    “Depends how much I can get for it.”
    “You say your grandfather gave them some artifacts?”
    “Yes.”
    “But they didn’t recognize this when you showed it to them? I mean, he hadn’t shown it to them at some point himself?”
    “Apparently not. Maybe it was just something he decided to keep. Maybe he forgot he had it. He was getting old.”
    I nodded. “Jacob, can you give me a three-sixty on this thing?”
    Jacob magnified the transmitter and closed in on it. I got a close-up of the controls. Then he rotated the angle. It wasn’t especially striking, and it looked like a thousand other pieces of communication gear. About the size of a bread box. The exterior had a plastene appearance. There was a push pad, some dials, selectors, and a gauge. Imprints and markers were all in ancient English. And a plate on the back. “Jacob,” I said, “translate, please.”
    “It says ‘Made by Quantumware, 2711, in Canada.’”
    One side appeared to have been scorched. I ran a search on Quantumware. It had been the manufacturer of the early FTL communication units. I was hoping to see
Judy Cobble
engraved on it somewhere, or the name of one of the other early starships.
    “The people at the Brandenheim,”
said Marissa,
“say it’s just an identification plate.”
She looked momentarily unhappy.
“They can’t match it up to anything because it’s so old.”
    Most people establish an online avatar, creating a more or less permanent electronic presence that can represent them if they’re out of town. Or after they’ve passed away. Usually, the avatar looks exactly like the person for whom it substitutes. But like the original, it can be unreliable. People create them to make themselves look good, possibly to mislead others, and to lie like a bandit, if that’s what it takes to make the desired impression. And it provides a kind of immortality. “Marissa,” I said, “would you object to our contacting your grandfather’s online presence?”
    “He didn’t have one.”
    “Really?”
    “According to my father, there
was
an avatar at one time. But he must have gotten rid of it.”
    “Okay. Did he come back on a transport?”
    “Back from where?”
    “Earth.”
    “I don’t know. I can check with my father. Probably.”
    “Okay. Do that. See if he remembers. Did your grandfather ever say