It was yet another day and my
third without a decent night’s sleep. This time Marstead sat across from me
behind the desk in his office on the sixty-fourth floor of the Marstead
building. I told you he was a famous trial attorney. He dabbles in other things
as well.
“I know you are familiar with all
this, but we have to go through it to satisfy the legality of the estate’s distribution
and closing,” Marstead explained.
Collin, Marstead’s assistant,
came in carrying a tray with all the accoutrements for tea. He set the tray
down on the table between the two Chippendale sofas behind us. Once he set the
service off, poured, and placed the small two tiered plate of savories and sweets
in place he nodded Marstead’s direction.
“Will you give us about fifteen
minutes and then bring it in?” Marstead asked.
“Of course,” Collin replied. He
took the tray and dismissed himself.
I gave Marstead a questioning
look.
“Later,” he said with a smile and
motioned me toward the table. “Let’s have some tea and I will run you through
the distribution.”
We adjourned to the sofas. I must
admit I was grateful for the tea. From a very young age my mother solved all
family-to-universal problems over a cup of tea. There was something reassuring
in picking up that cup and saucer and taking my first sip. It was almost like a
balm to my soul.
“Alex and Laura were very thorough
with their planning. Your parents didn’t want you to have to worry about
anything,” Marstead started explaining, as he put sugar in his tea. “Their
residence on the UOA campus reverted back to the Order along with all the
furnishings. Their private art and antiquities collection was donated in your
family name to the museum on campus with a trust to maintain it for the
duration. Their personal items were donated to a local shelter except for a few
things my staff and I thought you might want, your parent’s flat and your
mother’s limited collection of jewelry.”
At this statement we smiled at
each other. Mother always had her hands in dirt so she never wore any jewelry
other than a pair of pearl earrings my father gave her on their first
anniversary and her simple platinum wedding band. The flat would be the
valuable thing to me. It would have all the family pictures on it, letters
stored from years of correspondence back and forth between us and their
friends. It would also have their personal journals. The one in their home on
the UOA campus backed up every night from their field equipment.
“Did Captain Luchin have a chance
to look at the flat to see if it had anything useful on it?” I asked.
“He did and there had not been an
entry since their arrival at the dig.” He stirred and then sipped his tea.
“They came home from their previous assignment on a distant little speck of a
planet so small it had nothing other than a designation number. We had time
enough to say hello and almost finish dinner. They were very excited about the
dig they just came from. Alex said it was so special they were going to write a
paper on it for publication. I didn’t get to hear the details because during
dinner they were called by the UOA to head off to Titan Sirus 3 immediately.”
I reached out and picked up a
cucumber sandwich. I hadn’t eaten much of anything lately, but the sandwich
looked good.
“The UOA sends them off in such
an all-fired hurry and yet they don’t know what the dig was?” I asked with
disbelief.
“I don’t think Captain Luchin wanted
to get your hopes up and the UOA asked him to keep it hush-hush. The Captain
and I were told it was an early Arcanian colony, so they do have undercover detectives
keeping their ears and eyes open for anything remotely resembling artifacts
from that culture.” Marstead picked up a savory himself and bit off a mouthful.
He finished chewing and went on. “The trouble as it has been explained to me is
there are a lot of Arcanian artifacts already out there on the market. However,
this was supposed to be a much older site and would have pre-dated anything
previously found.” He wiped his hand on the napkin draped across his knee. “The
UOA intends to send another team out in order to see if anything might still be
there that was not excavated prior to the thieves showing up. They are going to
send a security team with the archeologists this time.”
The Arcanian’s were older than
the Valarian culture with a lot less written history, so a find, any find,
would have been of immense interest to the UOA. A find that pre-dated any
previous dig would have been an exceptional discovery. No wonder they were
secretive about it. No wonder the thieves moved in when they somehow got
wind of it.
There was a light knock on the
door and Marstead called for Collin to come in.
Collin walked around the back of
my couch with a small, dark blue box and an envelope.
Marstead put his cup down and
wiped his hands quickly before taking the items.
“Thank you, Collin.”
Collin nodded and withdrew
closing the door behind him.
Marstead laid the envelope on top
of the box and placed his real hand protectively over the two items in his lap.
“Of course, you know that your
parents left you a sizable monetary estate. I have been the conservator of it
for many years and though you hardly ever seem interested in it, you can be
assured it is large enough that should you chose to stop working today, you
could live very well the rest of your life. Alex and Laura did not spend
lavishly and the UOA was a generous employer. In addition to that, there was a
life insurance policy on both your parents that almost eclipses the monetary
estate they left behind.”
I took a sip of my tea. I would
trade all the money in the universe to have my parents back. At the moment
money was the furthest from my mind.
“If there is so much, perhaps
later we can talk about making some donations,” I said over the rim of my cup.
“That would be fine. I can draw
up a list of suggestions based on what I know about you and your parent’s
interests,” Marstead said. “I take it you are still fond of animals?”
“Yes.” I had always been an
advocate for ‘Save the (fill in the blank)’
campaigns since I was a child. “And feeding children,” I added, “any children.”
“There are certainly plenty of
charities to choose from to meet that criteria.”
Marstead shifted a bit as though
he were uncomfortable all of a sudden. I wondered if he hurt. I knew when I was
younger and he came to visit, only to leave abruptly, mother said he was often
in pain and didn’t want to admit it in front of us.
“Are you all right, Marstead?” I
asked.
He cleared his throat and looked
down at the box in his lap. “The last conversation I had with your parents was
when they handed me this at dinner.” He looked up with eyes that threatened to
tear. “You don’t know, but over the years I have always held something very
special for you in the event they were to die simultaneously. The item has
changed over the years. And each time it changed, my orders were to give the
previous item to the UOA for their collection. Each item was from your parent’s
most recent dig and came with a story, either how it was found or what it might
have been.”
Marstead took a moment to lift his
cup and have a sip of his now cooling tea. I could see he was having a
difficult time remembering those conversations. They were dredging up too much
emotion for a man known for control in any situation, whether battle or
courtroom. I reached over and poured some more from the pot in his cup to warm
it up. He added sugar and stirring lazily he went on.
“When you were about nine Alex
found a pot with animals dancing around it. It was in remarkably good shape and
the animals still had color to them. We talked about how much you would love
it. Then when the next item came along, which, if I remember correctly was a
BAllian flute, and I donated the pot to the UOA, they determined from the
residual markers that it had been a slop jar. We had a wonderful laugh about
that one.” He chuckled at the memory. “Leaving your daughter a chamber pot as a
parting gift,” he smiled, “not really what they had in mind.”
He sat quietly for a moment. I
could almost hear his mind sifting through the memories of those meetings over
dinner or a glass of spirits.
“When you went through the stage when you were interested in rocks, I had to find a
place to store a piece of lizatium the size of a football.”
Lizatium is a stone which glows
much like the fire opals of earth, only more so, but is extremely heavy.
Lovely, but totally useless. It is so hard it cannot be carved or worked in any
way. And far too heavy, even in small pieces to be used as jewelry.
“What did they expect me to do
with it?” I asked.
“You father said it could sit in
the corner of your room as a nightlight once I had the floor reinforced.”
I could imagine my father
thinking that was practical. He always was a dreamer and he knew I was afraid
of the dark. My imagination is too active not to wonder about things lurking in
dark corners.
“This item,” Marstead said, as he
caressed the box, “was from the dig on that little speck of a planet that they
were going to write the paper on.”
He handed me the box.
“Your mother requested I read
this to you before you open it.”
Marstead opened the letter. I
could see my Mother’s lovely cursive handwriting. My Father’s writing was the
scratch of a hurried note taker and almost impossible to decipher. His notes
often took on the form of treasure maps with scribbles in the margins and corners,
lines from one paragraph to another where the thoughts should be linked later
in the completed electronic form. On the other hand, Mother’s writing was a
series of lovely sweeping curves beautiful enough to be embroidered on silk.
Marstead smoothed the letter out
lovingly and started to read.
“Dearest 3su,
“If Marstead is reading you this,
I have to assume your father and I had an accident on the current dig. We are
sorry for causing you pain, but try to remember we died doing the thing we
loved most, unearthing artifacts. I only hope that you enjoy traveling and
trading throughout the stars even half as much as we love being archeologists.
“Now to what is concealed in the
box. Your father and I found this on 014.666.2460 in the Magnus System. You can
retrieve the exact coordinates from our journals. We were so impressed with the
site that we intended to write a scholarly paper on the subject.
“One day if you happen to be
passing by, you should stop and look around. I cannot put in words what we saw.
Our field pictures are on the flat. Gaze in wonder my dear, we did.
“Now open the box.”
I opened the box to reveal a smooth
sided octahedron. It looked like two black, stone cones glued end-to-end. But there
did not appear to be a seam between them. I picked it up and it vibrated in my
hand and emitted a soft hum, almost a purr.
“No doubt, you have picked it
up,” Marstead continued to read. “Your father and I only had time for a few
tests. The frequency is between 20 and 40 Hz. The same range our fusers use to heal
bones, but this instrument is something more. You can’t hear it, but at the
same time it is emitting the lower frequency hum, it is putting out an
extremely high frequency signal as well. Your father and I believe it is some
type of medical instrument, but it goes totally against all we saw at the site.
What we found around it was extremely primitive.
“So, my dear, we have left you a
mystery to solve. Perhaps one day you will work it out and write our paper for
us. I know you have at least one good scholarly paper in you.”
It was my mother’s last push to
get me out of my profession as trader and into hers as archeologist.
“The gift comes with strings,”
Marstead read on. “If you no longer want it, you must give it over to the UOA
to be added to our collection. No selling it, trading it, or giving it away.”
Mother knew me too well.
“Your loving Mother and Father,”
Marstead finished.
“Have you held it?” I asked him.
“Yes, it is quite soothing, isn’t
it?”
“Like holding a purring kitten,”
I agreed.
I reluctantly put it back in the
box.
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