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house. We sent out for sandwiches. Then Alex got caught up in a conference with two people who’d just come back from an excavation at a thousand-year-old military base in a star system I’d never heard of. Of course, there was nothing unusual about that. If you haven’t traveled much off Rimway, you probably have no idea how big it is out there.
    I was sitting in my office, finishing what was left of a pot-roast sub, when Jacob indicated we had a caller. “It’s Professor Wilson. He wants to talk to Alex, but Alex is busy. Did you want to take the call?”
     
    Wilson appeared to be at home, relaxing in a large fabric armchair. I couldn’t see much of the room, but it had dark-stained panels, and the lighting was subdued. A trophy case guarded a doorway behind him, placed so that it was visible to callers. Concert music rumbled through the background. Heavy stuff. Barankov or somebody, I thought. But the volume was turned down. “Ah, Chase,” he said. “I was calling for Mr. Benedict.”
    “He’s busy at the moment, Professor. I can have him get back to you, if you like.”
    “No, no. I’ve looked again into the tablet engraving. It’s definitely not Late Korbanic. Which is not a major issue. But there’s nothing like it anywhere in the record. I have found a few similarities to other systems, but nothing close enough that would give us an identification.”
    “What about the Ashiyyur? Could it be a Mute artifact?”
    “Possibly. We don’t have complete information on ourselves, let alone on them.”
    “So we’ve no idea where this thing might have come from.”
    “None. I’d say it’s either a hoax, or you have something quite valuable on your hands. What does Alex think?”
    “I don’t know. I’d guess he’s on the fence.”
    “Well, let me know if I can do anything else.”
     
    That evening, I finally got through to Greengrass. “Madeleine,” I said, “the tablet was gone when I got there.”
    “I know. Stafford told me.”
    Stafford? That would be the AI. “We think it may have some intrinsic value.”
    “Too late now. It’s gone, Chase.” She had a laid-back manner, probably a result of doing presentations for the visitors at Silesia Park.
    “Can you tell me who took it?”
    “No idea.”
    “You don’t know?”
    “I think that’s what I said.”
    “They didn’t give you their names?”
    “I didn’t give my approval for anyone to take it. A couple more people called after you did. I thought I told them it was no longer available, but there might have been a communication breakdown. I don’t know. I just wanted to get rid of it, okay? I’ve no idea where it is now, and I don’t particularly care. I apologize, though, that you made the trip for nothing.”
    “I was hoping you could help us retrieve it.”
    “How valuable do you think it is?”
    “We don’t know yet. Maybe a lot.”
    “Well,” she said, “it’s only money.”
    “Ms. Greengrass, I’m not promising anything, but it might have bought you another house.”
    “You’re not serious.”
    “As I say, we don’t know yet. Is there anything you can think of that might help us locate it?”
    “Well, I wish I could. But I just don’t see anything. I don’t even know who those people were.”
    “How about if we take a look at what your AI has. We might be able to identify whoever took it.”
    “Hold on a second,” she said.
    I waited. After a minute or so she relayed some images to me, and we watched two men and a woman walk up onto her porch. The tablet was sitting there, between two chairs. “Madeleine,” I said, “don’t you log skimmers?”
    “Yes, we do. Stafford?”
    “They came in a Sentinel, Madeleine.” Late model. White, split-wing. The woman had dark hair. She was wearing athletic gear, but she looked like money. She knelt to examine the tablet. After a minute or two, she looked up at the others and nodded. The two men, dressed in the same sporting style, moved the chairs out of the