Read Seeker for Free Online Page B

into a reading room and opened one of the data files.
    The Third Millennium was a turbulent era. Earth was crowded well beyond capacity. Its inhabitants seemed to be constantly at war with each other, over politics, real estate, or religion. Political systems were generally corrupt and prone to collapse.
    There were serious environmental problems left over from the Industrial Age, and the deterioration of the global climate seemed to coincide with political leaders who grew increasingly ruthless. The worst of these was Marko III, known to his American subjects as The Magnificent.
    Midway through the twenty-fifth century, while Marko was jailing and killing as his mood dictated, Diane Harriman did her groundbreaking work in the dimensional structure of the space-time continuum, and twenty years later Shi-Ko Han and Edward Cleaver gave us the interstellar drive.
    Another four years, and we’d discovered the first habitable world. It’s not surprising to read that a lot of volunteers signed up to head for the frontier.
     
     
    I was getting ready to go home for the day when Jacob passed a call to me. “
Chase
,” said a familiar voice. “
I think I have what you want
.”
    It was Marquard. “You’ve identified the
Searcher
,” I said.
    “Yeah.”
There was an odd intonation.
“May I ask why you wanted to know?”
    I told him about the cup. He listened without comment, and when I’d finished, the silence stretched out. “Your turn,” I said finally. “What have you got?”
    “A surprise. Could you arrange to come by the school?”
    “Can’t you just tell me what you have?”
    “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you join me for dinner?”
    Subtle as an avalanche. “Dr. Marquard, I really haven’t time to go all the way out to Barcross.” Not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it, but it’s a long run.
    “Call me
Shep.
And I guarantee you’ll find it worth your while.”
     
     
    Barcross is a large diamond-shaped island, probably best known as a summer resort for singles. Years ago I went through a phase during which it was an occasional part of my social calendar. It was part surf, part moonlight, part dream. The kind of place that felt as if the love of your life was in the wings somewhere. I’m a bit more realistic now, but I still felt a touch of regret as I came in low over the ocean and looked down at the empty beaches and the villas beyond. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and lights were beginning to come on.
    The island is engineered. It’s arranged with consecutively rising terraces as you move inshore, so that everyone, theoretically, has a view of the sea. It was off-season. A few hardy souls moved along ramps and walkways. Most of the shops and restaurants were closed.
    Base population was forty thousand, with an additional forty distributed among surrounding islands. The university served seven thousand students, who came from all over the archipelago and from the mainland. It had a good reputation, especially for the sciences. If you planned to be a physician, it was exactly the right place to start.
    The campus spread across two broad terraces, immediately below the municipal buildings, which occupied the highest point on the island. I turned the skimmer over to the guide, which brought me down onto a landing pad adjoining a dome. The dome housed a student center, several shops, and a restaurant. The restuarant was Benjamin’s. I remembered it from a long time ago, when it had been down near the beach.
    Marquard surprised me by appearing from a side door. He strode quickly out onto the pad, opened the hatch, and provided a hand to help me down. In an age when chivalry ranks up there as just one more antiquity, it was a good way to start things off.
    Barcross has probably the loveliest campus on the planet. It’s all obelisks and tortoiseshell buildings and pyramids, with a spectacular command of the sea. But it was cold that day, and a sharp blast of wind stayed at our backs and