Read Online The Devil's Eye by Jack McDevitt - Free Book Online Page A

because of it, there was still the flavor of another time. We checked into the Blue Gable Hotel. Alex had made appointments to talk with a few of the people who'd responded to our appeal. While he did that, I sat down with the hotel AI and started to search the archives for Vicki Greene. Mostly I was looking for general news. But I also kept an eye open for dead bodies. Other than an announcement of her arrival in Marinopolis, there wasn't much. A few speaking engagements. Some signings. A couple of interviews that told me nothing. Alex was in his room talking over the link with one of the contacts. I decided I was hungry so I left a note and went down to the hotel restaurant for an early lunch. When I got back, he was out of the building, gone to visit a book dealer. It was a warm day, and they had a rooftop pool. One of the nice things about pools is that, when you're trying to make a gravity adjustment, they're exactly what you need. So I changed into my swimsuit and went topside. But things were a bit more freewheeling in Marinopolis than they were at home. Topless bathing was in vogue. I drew a few disappointed stares, thought about it, and decided what the hell, a little exhibitionism can be good for the soul. I took a deep breath, and, as casually as I could, as if I did this sort of thing every day, I removed my top. Somebody applauded. I draped it across the back of a chair and dived into the water. When I came back up, several guys were trying hard not to look directly at me. It was a little bit like hanging out with Mutes.
    I didn't stay long. Exposure provides a kick, but it wears fast. As soon as I was out of sight of the pool I put my top back on. Then I rode the elevator up and checked the room again. Alex was still gone, so I went for a walk. A pedestrian ramp, several kilometers long, skirted the edge of the ocean. This was the Seawalk. It was three blocks from the hotel and something about it rang a bell. When I asked in the hotel lobby, a young female staffer explained: "It's where Aramy Cleev was assassinated. Right down from here. Go to the Seawalk and turn right. One block. They have a marker." Aramy Cleev had been the last in the line of dictators who'd run the Bandahriate. The assassination had happened in the early spring thirty-three years earlier. "He was shot by his own guards," she said. Her voice acquired an angry tone. "Pity it didn't happen sooner." Like most colony worlds, Salud Afar began its calendar with the arrival of the first mission. In this case, it had been the Aquila , with William Corvier in charge. There was a statue of Corvier outside the hotel, although I learned later no one was certain precisely what he had looked like. Furthermore, the exact date of the initial landing was in doubt. The log had disappeared thousands of years before, and the range of estimates varied by as much as six centuries. But Salud Afar had made its best guess, and that became the year 1. It was now 4198. The woman in the lobby was too young to have been alive at the time of the assassination, but the animosity was there all the same. That was when I started discovering that feelings about the former dictator still ran high. On both sides. There were some who would have liked to get him back. The assassination had been followed by three years of turmoil, of revolution and counterrevolution. The Bandahriate, a worldwide polity, had split first into four states, and eventually, through evolution and a series of upheavals, into nine. Komalia emerged by 4184, a kind of corporate republic. Eventually, the states formed various cooperatives and reunited as the Coalition. Komalia's executive authority, the Administrator, was Tau Kilgore, who also possessed some sort of senior status in the Coalition's Executive Authority. I listened to a political show while looking out at the ocean. "He's not the brightest guy in the world," one panelist was saying. "He means well," said another. And a third: "Everybody knows