The Voyage of the Joyous Venture

Part 17

Dear Mamma, I hope that you do not read this

Letter from Antonio Falchi to Maria Falchi

Unsent, dated 15 February 2304

Dear Mamma,

I hope that you do not read this, as I expect to be back before you return from work. Today I am going to meet with Victor Kea, who works for Kurita. You know that I recently left Kurita to work for Trilon, but may not know that this was without Kurita's consent. Given their treatment of colonists I couldn't stay with Kurita, and Trilon is the only other corporation big enough to offer shelter. In any case, if you receive this something may have gone wrong with my meeting with Kea.

As you know, Robert, Miho, Andi, and myself have been working for Komiko Jones on an expedition funded by Trilon. We have been investigating 'Ancients' sites. Along the way a number of people have warned us that Komiko may not be trustworthy, although we have seen nothing to support this position ourselves.

Other people have also shown interest in our mission. Robert has been spending time in the library investigating the ruins in India. Apparently they are over 11,000 years old. I'm not one for dates, but Robert says that this is more than four times as old as the Forum, and is older than previous evidence would have allowed. The ruins are of a large city (for the time) and show evidence of an advanced culture (again, for the time). There is also some evidence of similarities with the things we saw on Bheekhu and Eberhaven. I can't make much sense of it, so I've let Robert worry about it as he is very smart. I'm worried that he's not very sensible about women though. He met a girl named Therese Fidelio in the library and think he might have told her rather more about our mission than he should have.

Yesterday Robert and Teresa met for lunch and I followed them to see who she was working for. He brought his millisnake along, a pet he picked up on Bheekhu, and she seemed impressed. She was interested in G'Kah'Hah, which is the ritual combat, in my fight with the Bheekhu champion, and in Komiko's involvement. From what I could get out of Robert afterwards, Komiko seemed to be her main interest, and she seemed very well informed.

I followed her back to an office building at 149 Via Una Lithio, which included a P.I. company, Vitti and Associates. Asking after Ms Fidelio at some of the other businesses didn't reveal anything, so I sent a courier package to her at Vitti and Associates. It didn't come back, so I suspect that is who she works for. One other note about Ms Fidelio – on exiting the building I noticed an old, tall, somewhat overweight man, who called himself Mr Goldberg calling the P.I. firm on the intercom.

Other things that might be relevant include that Miho has been contacted by a woman named Maria de Sablo, and Andi's ex-husband has been causing trouble by all accounts. I am sure that Andi can take care of herself, but Miho's news is more worrying. According to Ms de Sablo, our employer was instrumental in the downfall of Galactic Carbide and therefore the murder of the other board members. It sounds a bit far fetched to me, but this isn't the first person to tell us such things.

Hopefully you won't receive this, but if you do remember that I love you always. I don't know if this information will be of any use, but I thought you should know what was happening.

Love, Antonio