Seeker by Jack McDevitt Read Free Book Online Page A

have it with you?”
    I smiled. “If I’d tried to take it off the premises, Alex would have had cardiac arrest.”
    “And you’re sure it’s nine thousand years old?”
    “That’s the reading we got.”
    “Incredible.” He handed me my glass and lifted his own. “To the Margolians,” he said.
    Indeed. “So what really happened to them?”
    He shrugged. “Nobody knows.”
    The wine was good. Candles. Firelight. And good wine. And good news. It was a hard combination to beat. “They vanished completely?”
    “Yes.” The waiter was back. I tend to eat light meals, even when someone else is buying. I settled for a fruit salad.
    The waiter asked whether I was certain, and assured me that the Cordelia breakers were excellent.
    “The
Seeker
,” Marquard continued, “left Earth December 27, 2688, carrying approximately nine hundred people. Two years later they were back, and took off another nine hundred.”
    “There was a third trip as well, wasn’t there?” I was beginning to remember the story.
    “Yes. The other ship was the
Bremerhaven
. They made three flights each. Carried more than five thousand people out to the colony world.”
    “And nobody knew where it was? How’s it even possible? You can’t leave the station without filing a movement report.”
    “Chase, we’re talking about the beginning of the interstellar age. They didn’t have many rules then.”
    “Who owned the ship?”
    “The Margolians. According to the record, it was refitted after each flight.”
    “That doesn’t sound as if it was in the best of shape.”
    “I don’t know what it took to maintain an interstellar in that era.”
    “Was a search conducted for them?”
    “Hard to say. The records aren’t clear.” He finished off his wine and gazed at the rim of the glass, which sparkled in the candlelight. “Chase, the authorities probably didn’t try very hard. These were people who didn’t want to be found.”
    “Why not?”
    An easy smile spread over his features. He
did
look good. He sat a few moments, admiring my charms, or my physical attributes, or the breadsticks. He signaled his approval as the waiter showed up with a dish full of nuts and grapes. “They were perceived as troublemakers. They wanted to stay out of sight, and the government was happy to oblige them.”
    “How were they troublemakers?” I asked.
    “You ever been to Earth, Chase?”
    “No, as a matter of fact. I’ve been wanting to make the trip for years. Just never got around to it.”
    “You should do it. That’s where it all began. For an historian, the trip to Earth is
de rigueur
.
    “You go there, and you see the great monuments. Pyramids, statues, dams. The Kinoi Tower. The Mirabulis. Stop by Athens, where Plato and his colleagues launched the civilized world. Visit London, Paris, Berlin. Washington, and Tokyo. St. Petersburg. Famous places, once. Centers of power in their day. You know what they’re like now?”
    “Well, I know they’re not capitals anymore.”
    “Except Paris. Paris is forever, they say. Chase, Earth has always had a problem: It’s loaded with more people than its resources can support. It’s always been that way. Ever since the Industrial Age. The results of too many people are that someone’s always hungry, there’s always a plague running loose somewhere. Ethnic jealousies always get worse when times are hard. Nations become unstable, so governments get nervous and impose strictures. Individual freedoms break down. One thing the place has never been short of is dictators. People there have old habits, old hatreds, old perspectives that they keep passing down from generation to generation, and never get rid of.
    “The planet’s population today is about eight billion. When the Margolians left, it was more than twice that. Can you imagine what life must have been like?”
    “So,” I said, “the Margolians were, what, downtrodden? Trying to find a place where they could feed their kids?”
    “No.