Seeker Read Free Page A

immortal playwright, nobody cares. But the jumpsuits, which usually carry a shoulder patch, or a stenciled identity over a pocket, GIDEON BASE or some such thing, are worth their weight. We found only one, badly frayed. The inscription was of course in Celian characters, framing a tall, narrow peak. “
The station’s emblem
,” said Alex.
    They’d also stripped the operations center. Electronic gear had been taken. They’d torn the panels apart to get access. Again, the objective had been to find parts marked as belonging to the base. It looked as if anything not meeting that standard had been yanked out and dropped on the deck.
    Alex was in a rage by the time we were finished. All four domes, and the underground network, had been treated the same way. There’d been one exception to the general chaos. We found a common room, littered with debris. The deck was covered with projectors and readers, and data crystals that would have gone dry long before six centuries had passed. A broken pitcher and some ice lay in one corner, and a partially torn-up carpet had been dragged into another. But a small table stood in the center of the room, and a book lay open on it, arranged for the convenience of anyone seated in the lone chair.
    “Well,” I said, looking down at it, “at least it won’t be a complete blowout. That thing will bring some money.”
    Or maybe it wouldn’t.
    It was last year’s edition of
The Antiquarian Guide
.
    “Look as if the vandal knew we’d be here,” Alex said. “He’s saying hello.”
     
TWO
     
I told him he was an idiot. I explained that he was auctioning off our history, converting it to baubles and handing it over to people who had no concept who Mike Esther was. And that when he was finished, when the last crystal had been taken from the museum and sold to the jewelers, there would be nothing left of the men and women who had built our world. He smiled and shook his head and I thought for a moment that his voice caught. “Old friend,” he said, “they are already long gone.”
— Haras Kora,
Binacqua Chronicles,
4417 C.E.
     
     
    Winetta Yashevik was the archeological liaison at Survey, and she doubled as their public relations chief. Windy was the only person to whom I’d revealed our destination, but I knew she would never have given information away to any of Alex’s rivals. She was a true believer. In her view, we turned antiquities into commodities and sold them to private buyers. It was an offense against decency, and she always contrived, without saying anything directly, to make me feel that I was ethically unfit. I was, if you like, the lost sheep. The one that had been corrupted by the mendacity of the world and didn’t seem able to find its way home.
    It was easy enough for her to sit in judgment. She’d been born into wealth and never known what it was to go without anything. But that’s another matter.
    When I stopped by her office at the Survey complex, on the second floor of the Kolman building, she brightened, waved me inside, and closed the door. “You’re back more quickly than I expected. Did you not find the place? I hope.”
    “It was there,” I said. “Right where Alex said it would be. But somebody got there first and broke in.”
    She sighed. “Thieves everywhere. Well, anyhow, congratulations. Now you know how the rest of us feel when you and Alex have taken over a site.” She paused, smiled as if she wanted me to think she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, just kidding, you know how it is. But she was enjoying herself. “Were you able to make off with anything at all?”
    I ignored the phraseology. “The place was cleaned out,” I said.
    Her eyes slid shut. I saw her lips tighten, but she said nothing. Windy was tall, dark, passionate about the things she believed in. No halfway measures. Me she tolerated because she wasn’t going to throw a friendship overboard that went all the way back to when we were both playing with dolls. “No idea