Eschaton 2 - THE SIEGE OF ETERNITY

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Scarecrow message changed many things for Hilda Morrisey. Not just for her. For the whole damn world, of course… but all that she would have to think about later, when she found time. What it meant for her right now was another all-nighter, still wearing her makeout dress with no time to go home and change, up to her unsatisfied loins in things that had to be attended to this instant, if not before, loaded on wakeup pills, frazzled, harassed, overtaxed… and, yes, loving it, because it sure-hell beat doing nothing at all.

Lacking a specified job description, Hilda took a hand wherever she was needed. The entire Bureau headquarters staff had to be found and wakened and called in. The team had to be convened. Situation estimates had to be prepared. Current Bureau missions had to be prioritized. Some would go forward unchanged-the "clear and present danger" ones like imminent bombings, ongoing hijack plans, missions that involved serious loss of life or major property damage-though probably even some of them would be starved of manpower. Everything else had to go on hold. By 2 A.M. the headquarters was fully staffed and buzzing like a wasp nest, and Hilda had her own most urgent jobs under control. She had time, finally, to stop in at the clinic and get a pill for the head that was still pounding from the assault in the roadhouse parking lot.

That turned out to be a mistake. "About time you got here," said the duty doctor. "We buzzed you hours ago."

"For what?"

"For your post-trauma checkup, of course," the doctor said, picking up the phone to call in supporting staff. Then there was nearly three-quarters of an hour gone out of Hilda's life, just when she wanted the time most: X rays, blood tests, peeing into a bottle, having one or more medics stare, in relays, into the pupils of her eyes.

Not to mention the infuriating business of having to count how many fingers were being held up before her.

It could not be helped. She'd hoped that no one would have reported the incident. That hope was doomed; Tepp, of course, had quite properly ratted her out.

At least no one was having quite enough gall to ask her what she had been doing in a pickup bar. Probably didn't have to, she thought gloomily as she finally made her escape. By now the rumors about Hilda Morrisey's sexual habits were no doubt already flying around the Bureau.

Just before she went through the door the head medic at last gave her the pill she'd asked for. "You really should get some sleep," the medic warned. "And you've been taking a lot of those wakeup pills; they're not advisable for more than seventy-two hours."

"Thanks for your concern," Hilda said, swallowing the pill and walking out on him. Sleep! Who wanted to sleep when the world was going insane? It wasn't just the Bureau, it was all of government. The President would be getting in an emergency meeting with his immediate staff, maybe the whole Cabinet; the Pentagon War Room would be filling up; all over the world, in every country, people in high places would be doing just what they were doing here.

Hilda reflected that headquarters duty might not be so bad, if it could always be like this. It was almost like one of those triumphantly glorious nights in the field when the net was spread and the evidence collected and it was time to spring the trap on the unsuspecting malefactors and open the celebratory bottle of champagne.

And then, as soon as convenient thereafter, to perform that other rite of celebration and get laid.

Unfortunately, neither one of those was going to happen very fast this time… but then, Hilda reminded herself philosophically, you couldn't have everything. For now, the rush was enough.

When Hilda entered the conference room Marcus Pell was already in the chair, conducting the meeting that, for a change, was unexpectedly dealing with matters of actual importance. He wasn't fooling around, either. The man the deputy director had in his sights was the astronomer from the Naval Observatory, and the man was sweating. "Yes, they did get a line on the broadcast, but it was too short for a real fix. The source is somewhere within about a five-degree area, but that's a lot of space to examine-"

"Examine it!" Pell snapped. "That message came from some kind of a spaceship, and I want to know exactly where it is. I thought you already had plates of the whole damn solar system."

"Not quite that much," the man said stubbornly. "And nobody was looking for this particular emission source. Unless it turns up serendipitously we're out of luck. So we'll need to organize a search-"

The Lessons of History

Our nation, which successively endured the tyranny of Spain, the United States, Japan and then the United States again for many years, is now said to be a free and equal state, with all the rights of every other member of the General Assembly. But do we have them? We have been denied a seat on the Security Council. We have been refused our request to make Tagalog one of the official languages of the United Nations. Our delegate has been given posts on only the most menial committees of the General Assembly, and no Filipino has ever been appointed to high office in the UN bureaucracy. And now we are told that our delegate will not even be permitted to take part in questioning the witnesses in the present emergency session.

It is time to make a stand. The forthcoming summit meetings on trade and human rights issues with the United States, Japan and the People's Republic will be the place to do this. If we are not to be given the status we deserve, we can retaliate. It is our right to do so, and it is our duty.

– Manila Herald

"Fine," said the deputy director. "See to it. What about you, General?"-looking at the man from the space agency. "If we find this thing, can we bring any of the space-based weaponry to bear on it?"

"Maybe yes, maybe no," the man said, and went into a lengthy explanation of why that would depend on where it was and, also, on whether or not the damn things would still fire after decades of neglect. "But the warsats aren't in optimum position for that purpose. You ordered us to redeploy them to protect Starlab, if you recall."

"And what position would be optimum?" the D.D. said fretfully- he too was paying the price for all those wakeup pills.

"Again, that depends on where it is. Those weapons were meant to be used primarily against other-nation assets and ground-launched missiles, not for targets that can be millions of kilometers away." The general coughed. "Excuse me, but I have to ask you this. Are you sure you're going to want us to fire on this extraterrestrial vessel?"

"That decision will be made when we have to make it; what I want now is to know what our options are." Pell checked the notes on his popup. "Let's talk about security," he said. "We assume the Scarecrows are monitoring all our broadcasts again, so we want to make sure nothing goes out to the public about using the orbital weaponry. God knows what kinds of armaments these people might have, so if it does come to pulling the trigger, we want to shoot first and we don't want them warned in advance." He paused, looking at Hilda, who had her hand up.

"It's the bugs, Deputy Director," she said. "I've been talking to Colonel Makalanos. There's another security problem there. Remember what the returned people told us? They said they knew everything the people on Earth wearing bugs knew."

The D.D. turned to the electronics man. He was calm. "We haven't detected any transmissions from them. Besides which, what would they be going to transmit anyway? The bugs don't have a chance to pick up much information while they're on a shelf in the lab."

"Then make damn sure nobody accidentally gives them any," the deputy director ordered. "No conversation inside the lab, especially gossiping about what goes on here. Is that what you wanted, Hilda?"

The Siege of Eternity 197

"Up to a point, sir. Colonel Makalanos called my attention to another possible problem. The one they call Dopey may be bugged, too-so as to communicate with the ones that don't talk, if nothing else."

"Ah," said Deputy Director Pell, sinking back in his chair. "Now, that's a problem." He looked around the table. "Recommendations?"

"Yank the damn things out of 'em," growled the man from the Pentagon.

Hilda spoke up. "I think not. If we did that, then Dopey couldn't communicate with the other two things. Besides, who would take the bug out of the one who knows how? If we have to make sure he isn't transmitting, it would be easier to kill him outright."

Pell stared at her. "Is that your recommendation?"

"No, sir! Only to take precautions. We can just keep them ignorant. But there are two bugs still in place-General Martin Delasquez in Florida and Commander James Lin in China."

The man from the State Department came alive. "Right! Can I pass this along to their embassies?"

"Just the fact that they may be broadcasting to the Scarecrows, yes. Make them an offer: if they bring the subjects here we'll have the bugs taken out; if not, they should at least take maximum precautions to keep either of them from knowing anything that might be useful to the Scarecrows."

The man from State made a note, and then looked up. "One other thing. Your agent in Ukraine has caused us a bit of trouble by-"

"I know what our agent in Ukraine did," Pell said irritably. "Can't we just apologize?"

"We already have, of course. They may want more."

"More what?"

The man from State looked ill at ease. "Well, they've suggested informally that we return him and the woman to Kiev for possible trial…"

Hilda caught her breath, but before she could speak, Pell answered for her. "Not a chance."

"Well," said the man from State, "we may want to keep that option open, you know. There's all this trouble from the little countries in the UN. They're even talking about conducting hearings in the General Assembly."

"Since when do we give a damn what they do in the UN?" Hilda demanded, but the deputy director shook his head.

"Since we want them to support an exclusively American flight to Starlab," he said. "He's right. Let's keep our options open."

Turning her own agent over to some hanging judge in Kiev was not an option Brigadier Hilda Morrisey intended to keep open. If Dannerman had screwed up, he would get his lumps. But those lumps would be delivered by Hilda herself, not by some damn Ukrainian.

What she needed to do was to talk to him herself before anyone else did. Which meant she would have to arrange to see him first. She needed to find out when and where he would be arriving, and the place to do that was in her office. When she got there she found Lieutenant Colonel Makalanos waiting, and Merla Tepp sitting at a desk in the anteroom. "About those people from Kiev-" Hilda began, and Tepp nodded.

"Yes, ma'am. I checked. They'll be arriving in New York in two hours," she said. "I assumed you would want to interview Agent Dannerman, so I've booked you a place on the courier flight at 1400 hours."

"Hmm," Hilda said, eyeing her. Apart from her difficulties with the extraterrestrials, the woman wasn't bad at her job. Which reminded her to ask the question that had been on her mind. "Did you report what happened last night?"

"Yes, ma'am. As required by regulations. I-ah-I mentioned that the reason you and I were there was that we were looking into the question of electronic security leaks."

Was that a little presumptuous? But it wasn't a bad way to handle the present problem, so Hilda just said, "Fine. Get me a car to the courier plane, and send Colonel Makalanos in."

A doctor showed up uninvited to check her over again, and she allowed him to do it while she talked to the colonel. "Dopey's all right," he reassured her, pulling a sheaf of papers out of his bag. "When that message from space came in I didn't know if you'd want Dopey to know about it. So I told the people at Smolley to keep it under their hats until they got further orders from you."

Well. She hadn't lost her touch at picking good staff. She didn't comment, only asked, "What have you got there?"

"More of the Doc's drawings. According to Dopey, he's now given us pictures of everything on Starlab."

She nodded. "Give them to Tepp, tell her to make one copy for me and pass the others on to the deputy director. I'll look them over on the plane."

And she rose to shake his hand as he got up to leave. Priam Makalanos had a nice, firm grip, and a nice male aroma. What's more, he was damn good at his job. As she turned to collect her messages she reflected what a pity it was that he wasn't eligible for anything more personal.

A Father's Rights

Everyone is familiar with the high-handed actions of the Americans in the case of Commander J. P. Lin of the People's Republic of China and his solicitude for the welfare of his unborn child or children. The Delegate of the Mongolian People's Republic should support the demand of the People's Republic for the custody of this infant or infants, as well as the PRC's rights, and our own, to share in whatever benefits these space persons may bring.

– Steppes Times, Ulaanbaatar, MPR.

But the first message on her screen was a note from the Maryland police, and it took her mind off Makalanos.

They had interrogated the survivor of the two who had attacked her. Apparently they had been told that she had been carrying big bucks, in cash, of all things. Why? Because she was planning to run off with somebody. Who had told them this crock of crap? The vindictive wife of the man she was supposed to be planning to run off with. But the only description they had of this woman was that she was kind of elderly and pleasant-faced, and how many thousand women like that were there in the District?

Hilda scowled at the screen. Was it remotely possible, she wondered, that maybe Wilbur's ex-wife had suddenly taken an interest in who her former husband was seeing, and decided to do something about it?

No. Not possible at all. The whole thing was nonsense. There was no ex-wife, only somebody who had wanted to get Hilda herself attacked or maimed. Very possibly somebody she had put away, sometime in the long course of her work for the Bureau.

So who was this individual who had gone to so much trouble to get her attacked? Hilda didn't know. She didn't care, either. She only cared that, regretfully, she would have to be somewhat more cautious next time she went to a singles bar.