Firebird by Jack McDevitt Page B

to get rid of him? Anything you're aware of?”
    His expression told me that if she did, I'd never hear it from him. “No,” he said. “If there was any trouble between them, I didn't know about it. Why do you ask?”
    “I'm just trying to understand what might have happened that night.”
    He nodded. “We'd all like to know.”
    “Did Robin have any enemies?”
    “Not that I know of. Again, I just didn't know him that well. I understand there were people who didn't like him all that much. He had a reputation for not being very sociable, though I never saw any sign of it. He was always okay around me. Eliot told me once that he tended not to trust people. He might have had a rough time growing up. Who knows?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Well, he'd have been so much smarter than the other kids, and he probably didn't mind showing it. Which would have made him pretty unpopular.”
    “You can't think of anyone who might have wanted him out of the way?”
    “There were rumors that he was working on a new version of the star drive that would provide an extra kick, something capable of intergalactic flight. Something like that might create a problem with the corporate heavyweights. But I never heard anything about that from a credible source.”
    I was looking out at a gray sky. The sun was trying to break through but I didn't think it was going to happen. “Mr. Shimazaki—”
    “Mitsui, Chase.”
    “Mitsui. The name has a rhythm.”
    “Thank you, Chase. I suspect its owner does not, however.”
    “Mitsui, I understand Robin lost some yachts—”
    His AI showed an incoming call. From someone who wanted to sell him something. “Have them call back,” he said. His face scrunched up while he thought about the yachts. “That's correct. Some junkers. Four of them, I believe.”
    “How'd it happen? That they lost all of them?”
    “They were doing some sort of experiment. I don't know the details. Eliot didn't talk about things like that, and I really wasn't very interested. I do know they didn't expect to bring them back. They didn't even have AIs, I believe. At least some of them didn't.”
    “Thank you, Mitsui,” I said. “You've been very helpful.”
    “I'm glad, Chase. And the next time you would like to go somewhere exotic, I hope you'll think of us.”
    “I will—”
    “You're a pilot, too, aren't you?”
    That surprised me. “Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”
    “I'm not sure. You sound as if you know what you're talking about.”
    “Thank you.”
    “I miss it,” he said. “The cockpit. And the women. You and your sisters are a special brand.”
    A thunderstorm swept in off the ocean that night, blurring the village lights and bringing high winds and lots of rain. I spent the evening going through the list of names associated with Robin, looking for anybody who might be able to shed light on what had happened to him. I made some calls but came away with nothing.
    I ran a search on Eliot Cermak. He'd been a self-employed interstellar pilot. CEO of Cermak Transport. Born in Templeton, on the Dimrok Plains, in 1326. Joined the fleet in 1348. He picked up a pilot's license in 1351. And rose through the ranks to command a destroyer. Retired, 1373.
    He launched Cermak Transport the same year, purchasing a yacht he christened Breakwater. (That would have been the vehicle that he and Robin were riding when they engaged in the Skydeck pursuit.)
    He prospered as an independent, hiring out to those with unusual destinations that the big carriers didn't serve. That meant he frequently carried research teams, and occasionally wealthy patrons who simply didn't like to travel with the general public.
    He formed several special relationships with CEOs and scientists, Robin among them. He was the pilot, in 1383, when William Winter was lost on the mission to Indikar. I looked up Winter. He'd specialized in ancient history, especially the Great Expansion, the period during which the first colonial worlds