“Like what?”

“Anything. Anything unusual.”

Suddenly she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. “I’m not sure,” she said, throwing her planned response overboard. She described the missing footprints. And she almost told him about the moving shadows she’d seen behind Sclly, but that sounded downright paranoid so she let it go.

“Yes,” he said. “That is precisely the sort of thing that seems to happen regularly out there. Or used to, when there were people in the area.” He recommended a couple of books on the subject and finished by asking if she was still convinced there was nothing strange going on.

“I think the wind did it, Sheyel.”

“You really think that’s possible? Well, never mind. What are you going to do next?”

“What’s to do?” She listened for his answer, but only heard the silence draw out. “Maybe you can do something for me.”

“If I can.”

“Do you think you could find out Yoshi’s shoe size?”

She listened to him thinking about it. “Not easily,” he said at last. “She’s been gone a long time. I doubt any of her shoes were kept.”

“Was she a clone?”

“Yes. Oh yes, I see what you mean. Of course.”

“When you find out, leave the information with Shep.”

“Very good. I’ll do it today.” Solly came back into the room, ready to go. “May I ask why?”

“I’ll tell you if it amounts to anything.”

Kim couldn’t resist suggesting they fly back over the Severin valley. Solly complied and they followed the river south again, this time in broad daylight. It was a bright, cloudless morning, already unseasonably warm. They watched a train come out of the Culbertson Tunnel, southwest of the city. At twenty-six kilometers, the Culbertson was the longest mag-lev tunnel in the world.

They stayed low so they could observe the countryside, gliding over canyons and through rifts. The previous night’s snow had coated everything. Just before passing the dam, they saw a pair of deer strolling casually through a glade. At Kim’s insistence, Solly took the Starlight around, but they were gone.

They came down low over the lake. Just offshore from Cabry’s Beach, they saw a raft, left from the days when Severin was alive with swimmers. It was. bobbing gently, as if waiting for someone to return.

They zeroed in on Tripley’s villa and spent several minutes inspecting it from the air. It looked even more bleak by day.

The surrounding area was lonely and beautiful, adorned with its fresh coat of snow, its spruce and oak trees, its towering peaks. The surface of Lake Remorse gleamed in the sun. The skeletal houses provided a grotesque mixture of transience and majesty. Kim wondered what it was about desolation that inevitably seemed so compelling.

“Seen enough?” asked Solly, for whom flying in circles held no charms.

She nodded and he directed the AI to take them back to Seabright.

They rode in silence for the first several minutes. Then Solly reached behind him for the coffee, poured two cups, and handed her one. “How did we get the spot with the Star Queen?” he asked.

Her mind was picking again at the missing footprints, trying to construct an explanation, anything that was possible. Channeled wind. Local hoaxers. Solly’s question consequently didn’t immediately register and she had to replay it. “Matt has friends everywhere,” she said. “There’ll be a lot of VIPs on hand, and he thought it would be a good PR spot for us.” The old liner was being converted into a hotel. The grand opening was Saturday.

“Have you reconsidered my suggestion?”

Lake Remorse drifted off the scopes. “What suggestion is that?”

“Talk to Benton Tripley. Since you’re going to Sky Harbor anyhow, it should be no trouble. And he might be able to tell you something about his father and about the Hunter.”

“You think he’d consent to talk to me?”

“Sure. Why not? He has a reputation for being pretty open to people.”

“Yeah,” she said. “What’s to lose? I’d have to leave a day early, but I’ll try it.” She looked up the number for Interstellar executive offices and punched it into the commlink.

A male voice answered: “Interstellar. General Administration.”

“Hello,” she said. “My name’s Dr. Kim Brandywine. I’m with the Seabright Institute. I’m going to be at Sky Harbor next Friday. Would it be possible to speak with Mr. Tripley? If he has some free time.”

Solly rolled his eyes.

“And what would that concern, Dr. Brandywine?”

“I’d like to talk with him about the Mount Hope incident.”

“I see. And you say Friday?”

“Yes.”

After a pause: “I’m sorry. That really won’t be possible. His schedule is booked for quite a while in advance. I can pencil you in for August eleventh.”

“August?”

“Yes. That’s really the best I can do.”

“Let it go.” She disconnected, turned and glared at Solly. “What?”

He shrugged.

“No,” she continued. “You have something to say, say it.”

“Kim, he is a CEO. You have to do better than suggest that maybe if he’s free, you’d like to see him. If possible.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Be a little less tentative. And have a better story than Mount Hope. You’re writing a book and you need his input.”

She pointed at the link. “Talk’s cheap. You want to try your luck? See if you can get me in?”

“It’s too late,” he said. “You’ve blown it. You’re going to have to take another tack.”

She looked at him, waiting.

“Give him an award,” Solly said.

“What?”

“Give him an award. Think public relations. Look at this as just another piece of public relations. Does Interstellar do anything for the Institute?”

“Yes,” she said. “They’re a major contributor. Not through generosity, of course. It’s a good tax write-off for them. And they get a lot of favorable publicity.”

“All right. Arrange for formal recognition. A plaque with his name on it. Take it up and present it to him.”

“The Solomon J. Hobbs Award,” she said.

“That would be good.”

“For service above and beyond.”

“My thought exactly.”

Actually it wasn’t a bad idea. It wouldn’t cost anything. Just a trophy. All she’d have to do would be run it by Matt. He’d go for it in a minute. “You think Tripley’d be amenable? On such short notice?”

“Are you serious? These guys at the top of major organizations—you can’t go wrong playing to their egos.”

She resisted the idea because she should have taken this route from the start. But Solly was right, of course. She wrote out several versions of the inscription for the award, decided what they should call it, and put together a submission letter.

Then, because time was short, she called Matt and laid it all out. He listened, liked the idea as she knew he would, informed her she was to speak to the Civic Welfare Society in a few days, and told her he’d get back to her. Twenty minutes later he was on the circuit. “It’s all set,” he told her. “You’ve an appointment at the Interstellar executive suites Friday at two P.M.”

“Very good,” she said. The link was only audio, so a triumphant smile was safe.

“You’re really getting into this,” said Solly.

They flew through a cloudless sky. Kim saw another aircraft in the distance, headed north.

She connected with Shepard.

“Hello, Kim,” said her house AI. “Can I be of assistance?”

“Yes. Have you heard anything this morning from Sheyel Tolliver?”

“No. Do you want me to alert you if something comes in?”

“Yes,” she said. “Please do.”

“Anything else?”

“What can you tell me about the Hunter? The Tripley Foundation starship? What do we have on it?”

There was a brief pause. “The Kile Tripley Foundation no longer exists. It was terminated thirteen years ago by Benton Tripley, and replaced with—”