Free Echo by Jack McDevitt Page A

one of the groups.
    They were talking about tribal instincts and gestalt exercises, and I wasn’t there five minutes before I began looking at the time. The conversation was on a casual first-name level, but then, suddenly, as the topic of tribal cultures took hold, someone recognized Alex as the man who’d found the Corsarius . And everyone’s attention swung his way.
    He tried to do his modesty routine. “I’m just here,” he said, “to listen to you guys. Fascinating idea, that tribes would react to a shifting climate in the way that Liz suggests.” With the exception of a wiry, bearded guy who’d been dominating the conversation, they declared themselves delighted that he was present. “And Chase, too, of course.” One claimed to have had lunch with him two years ago at the Blackfriars’ event in Peshkong. Another explained he’d been on Salud Afar, coincidentally, at the same time that we had, last year. “I have cousins there, believe it or not.”
    “So,” the Blackfriar said, “what are you working on now?”
    And Alex had his opening. “Nothing much,” he said. “I’ve gotten interested in Sunset Tuttle.”
    “Why?” The bearded man broke out in laughter. “Why on earth would you do that?” His name was Braik. I never got a last name. Or maybe that was his last name. “What did Tuttle ever do?”
    “We’re putting together a history of Survey operations during the last century and a half. He’s part of it.”
    Braik laughed again and waved it away. “Okay,” he said. “But really, no kidding around now, why are you interested in him ?”
    “He represents a whole class of scientists, Braik. The people who went out to the stars and looked around. Who hoped to make contact.” Alex normally didn’t talk like that, but he kept a straight face, and everybody seemed to buy it. “He was passionate about exploration. Yet he broke away from it in 1403. Never went back. He lived only a few years after that, but it’s the only period in his adult life that he never went out on a mission. I wonder why that is.”
    Braik did something with his mouth and jaws to suggest who cared? “He probably pulled the pin because he figured out his career wasn’t going anywhere. Never would go anywhere.”
    Liz was actually Elizabeth McMurtrie, who’d made her reputation as a climatologist. She whispered something to the guy who’d been to Salud Afar. Alex invited her to say it for everyone.
    “Maybe he was exhausted,” she said. “I’d be willing to bet if he hadn’t died prematurely, he’d have gone back. Probably, he’d be out there somewhere now .”
    “He was an idiot,” said Braik, “who might have made a contribution. Instead, at the end, what did he have to show for his life?”
    “I was just wondering,” said Liz, “who he really was.” She was the only person among the members in the room who might have been justly described as young.
    “He’s nobody, my dear,” said the Blackfriar. “He’s a man who spent his time chasing moonbeams. Am I right, Alex?”
    Alex sipped his drink. “I think people should set whatever goals they want. As long as they don’t create problems for anybody else, where’s the harm? Tuttle didn’t fail because he never found anybody. He looked, and that’s all you can ask. The real failure would have been not to try.”
    Liz started to say something, but she got elbowed aside by Braik. “Tuttle,” he said, “recognized his own failure. That’s why he quit.”
    Liz got through: “What’s your dream, Braik?”
    Braik responded with a sound that was half snicker half snort. “Make a contribution,” he said. “And leave a good reputation behind me.”
    The conversation wandered for a while, but eventually Alex brought it back to Tuttle. Braik, though, was the only person present who had known him personally, and he was too interested in disparaging him to be helpful. Every question we asked produced a derisive response. “Does anybody know,”