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the records say. I don't understand it either."
    Jacob rotated the image. Her eyes brushed past mine. The jawline had a tilt that almost implied arrogance. Her lips were slightly parted, revealing even white teeth (but no smile); and a forehead possibly a shade too broad concealed by thick auburn hair.
    "During the war, was she on the Corsarius?"
    Pause. "There's not much information in the general files, Alex. But I don't think so. She seems to have been attached to Mercuriel, the Dellacondan flagship."
    "I thought Corsarius was the flagship?"
    "No. Corsarius was only a frigate. Sim used it to lead his units into combat, but it wasn't really adequate for staffing and planning functions. The Dellacondans used two different vessels for that purpose.
    The Mercuriel was donated to them by rebels on Toxicon midway through the war. It was especially adapted for command and control, and it was named for a Toxi volunteer who died in the Slot."
    "Do you know any more about her?"
    "I believe I can give you rank, date of discharge, and so on."
    "That it?"
    "There may be something else of interest."
    "What's that?"
    "Just a moment. You understand that I'm scanning all this myself while we're talking?"
    "Okay."
    "Yes. Well, you should also be aware that she's an obscure figure, and there's not much on her."
    "Okay. What are you leading up to?"
    "She apparently returned from the war in a deep state of depression."
    "Nothing unusual about that."
    "No. I would react that way myself. But she did not improve for a long time. Years, in fact.
    There is also an indication that she visited Maurina Sim about 1208, the year after Christopher Sim died at Rigel. No record that I can find on what they talked about. Now the odd thing is that
    Tanner tended to drop from sight for long periods of time. On one occasion, for almost two years. No one knows why.
    "This went on until about 1217, after which there are no more reports of unusual behavior.
    Which of course is not to say there was none."
    I gave up for the night. I had a snack, and picked out a room on the second floor. Gabe's bedroom was on the same floor, at the front of the building. I went in there, perhaps out of curiosity, but ostensibly because I was looking for comfortable pillows.
    There were photos everywhere: mostly from the excavations, but there were also a couple of me as a child, and one of a woman he had once, apparently, loved. Her name was Ria, and she had died in an accident twenty years before I'd come to live with him. I'd forgotten about her during my long years away, but she still held her honored place on a table between two exquisite vases that were probably middle-European. I took a moment to study the image as I had not done since I was a child, and had never done with mature eyes. She was almost boyish in aspect: her frame was slim, her brown hair was cut short, and she sat with her hands hugging her knees to her breast in a pose that implied uninhibited exuberance. But her glance suggested deeper waters, and caused me to linger a long time. To my knowledge, Gabe had never been emotionally involved with another woman.
    There was a book on the side table: a volume of poetry by Walford Candles. The title was Page 18

    Rumors of Earth, and though I'd never heard of it, I knew Candles's reputation. He was one of the people that no one really reads, but that you were supposed to if you were going to call yourself educated.
    The book aroused my curiosity though, for several reasons: Gabe had never shown much inclination toward poetry; Candles had been a contemporary of Christopher Sim and Leisha Tanner; and, when I picked it up, the book fell open to a poem titled "Leisha"!
    Lost pilot, She rides her solitary orbit
    Far from Rigel
    Seeking by night
    The starry wheel.
    Adrift in ancient seas, It marks the long year round, Nine on the rim, Two at the hub.
    And she, Wandering, Knows neither port, Nor rest, nor me.
    Footnotes dated it 1213, two years before Candles's death, and