Manta's Gift

TWENTY-NINE

They found a small discussion room down the corridor that—not surprisingly, given the hour—was unoccupied. Liadof stomped her way inside, with Faraday right behind her. Hesse, grim and silent, followed a distant third.

"Sit down, Colonel," Liadof ordered as she dropped into the chair at the head of the table. "Mr.

Hesse, close the door."

"You're not taking hostages, Arbiter," Faraday said as he sat down at the opposite end of the table.

"Absolutely not."

"I'm impressed by your high moral standards, Colonel," Liadof bit out. "I'm equally impressed by the shortness of your memory. Have you forgotten our earlier conversation?"

"No," Faraday said tartly. "Have you forgotten your own high-ground position? I thought getting the stardrive was your first and only priority."

"There is no stardrive," Liadof said sourly. "You heard him: 'I cannot give you a stardrive to study.'

What else can that mean but that they haven't got anything?"

" 'But after you have broken the barrier, we will take you to the path between worlds,' " Faraday finished the quote. "What's the difference between that and actual hardware?"

"The difference is that if there's no physical stardrive, then there's nothing we can use," Liadof said.

"Some esoteric stargate or wormhole buried deep inside Jupiter may be handy for them, but it's useless to us."

Faraday shook his head. "No. I'm not convinced this is anything but a semantics problem. That statement could just as easily mean that there is a stardrive, but that they're simply not going to let us study it."

"In which case, there's still no point in continuing this process, is there?" Liadof retorted. "Mr.

Hesse, sit down. You're making me nervous."

Silently, Hesse stepped over from where he'd been fidgeting by the door. Choosing a chair equidistant from the two antagonists, he sat down.

"I didn't mean they would never let us study it," Faraday said patiently. "But they clearly want their problem taken care of first."

"Fine," Liadof said. "And I'm willing to meet them halfway. But if it does exist, I want to at least get a look at it before we proceed any further."

Faraday shook his head. "We need to show good faith," he said. "You heard what Dr. Sprenkle said.

If we do that, we can trust Manta to come through on his part of the bargain."

"Can we?" Liadof demanded. "Dr. Sprenkle's opinions notwithstanding, the fact is that we really don't know how Mr. Raimey thinks anymore. If he decides to stiff us, we go home empty-handed."

Faraday leaned back in his seat. "And that's what you're really afraid of, isn't it?" he said. "The fear of looking foolish; of not being able to deliver the hand-wrapped birthday present your faction promised the Five Hundred when they took power."

"My personal political standing is not the issue, Colonel," Liadof said evenly. "And, just for your information, that standing is also not in any danger."

"Then what does it cost you to be magnanimous?" Faraday urged. "Fix the problem for them. Be a hero on Jupiter, and at the same time buy yourself some goodwill throughout the System. All it'll cost will be a couple of nuclear warheads that no one's using anyway."

"And you'll also be demonstrating great foresight," Hesse murmured. "After all, you're the one who asked for the weapons in the first place."

"That's right," Faraday said, pouncing on the idea. If he could just persuade Liadof that helping Manta was in her best interests... "In fact, if you'd like, we could even backdate the radiation studies we're going to do so that you could claim to have noticed the decrease in equatorial output a couple of months ago. You suspected the problem, deduced a solution, and commissioned more study."

"Interesting idea," Liadof said. "Unfortunately, I've already told the Five Hundred and Sol/Guard that the weapons were for a sonic study."

"You could say you weren't yet absolutely sure of the facts," Hesse suggested. "Rather than start rumors, you used the sonic study idea to get the weapons transferred here. If the radiation thing turned out to be a false alarm, you could still use them for the sonic study."

"Very clever," Liadof agreed. "Both of you."

Her face settled into its deep lines. "And all that would cost would be letting you assist me in a lie, which would give you a lever you could use against me for the rest of my life." She shook her head.

"Nice try, Colonel."

Faraday sighed. "Arbiter, what's it going to take to get through to you? I'm not interested in power, or levers, or your destruction. All I want is to open up the universe to humanity, and to do it in a way that lets me sleep at night. Is that too much to ask?"

"You'll have to ask your friend Mr. Raimey about that," Liadof said brusquely, getting to her feet.

"He's the one standing in your way. Excuse me, but I have to get a report ready to send to the Five Hundred."

Faraday took a deep breath. "Then you're going to have a fight on your hands," he warned her. "I'm going to use those nukes to fix Manta's logjam problem. And if you get in my way, I will take you down."

Liadof paused halfway to the door. "Are you insane?" she asked, the skin around her eyes crinkling as she stared at him. "You have no authority here."

"On the contrary," Faraday said. "I'm in complete charge of Project Changeling. You said so yourself less than an hour ago."

"And I can just as easily take that authority back," she said, sounding vaguely bewildered. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen power go to someone's head quite so fast."

Faraday shook his head. "No. Half an hour ago you could have done that, and there would have been nothing I could have done to stop you. But not now. By now, Mr. Beach will have sent the full transcript of our conversation with Manta back to Earth."

"Nonsense," Liadof retorted. "I didn't hear you give any such orders."

"Sure you did," Faraday said. "When they all came in, remember? 'Procedure is by the book,' I told them. I don't know how you did things when you were in charge, but my book always included automatic forwarding of all Jovian conversations."

A touch of uncertainty edged into Liadof's glare. "Mr. Hesse, go see what's going on back there," she ordered. "And put a stop to it."

"Don't bother," Faraday advised as Hesse stood up. "By now, the transcript is shooting toward Earth at the speed of light. In half an hour the Five Hundred will know we've been offered the way out of the Solar System in exchange for help with the Qanskan logjam problem. Half an hour after that, the public will know all about it, too."

"Only if the Five Hundred want them to know," Liadof countered.

"Maybe not," Faraday said. "We also have access to the newsnets from here on the station."

"You can't put classified material on the newsnets," Liadof snapped. "That's a direct violation of Sol/Guard regulations."

"Ah, but I'm the one in charge here," Faraday reminded her. "As long as we're not talking official military or government secrets, I'm the one who gets to decide what's classified and what's not."

"The Qanskan stardrive is a governmental secret," Liadof snapped.

"Not officially," Faraday said calmly. "As far as I know, its existence has never even been acknowledged, let alone classified."

He lifted his hands. "Face it, Arbiter. An hour from now my name and that of Project Changeling will be back at the top of the conversational stack."

Liadof smiled coldly. "And you think I didn't recognize that possibility when Mr. Raimey first contacted us? Come, Colonel, give me at least a little credit for brains. Why else do you think I sent Mr. Hesse scrambling to make sure you signed that paper before I let you back in?"

"Because you didn't think a man who'd convicted himself of treason could afford to stand against you?" Faraday suggested.

"Because even if such a man were brash enough to try, his signature on that paper would quickly destroy whatever public popularity he might have," she said. "But if you choose to commit social suicide on the newsnets, by all means do so. I certainly don't need you anymore."

"Oh?" Faraday asked. "What about Manta? He won't talk to anyone but me, you know."

"I don't need him anymore, either," she said. "I'm sure Counselor Latranesto will be more than willing to take his place as bargainer for the Qanska. If they have anything left to bargain with.

Come along, Mr. Hesse." She turned back toward the door—

"All right, then," Faraday said. "I guess there's nothing more to be said. We'll take this to the public and let them decide."

He gestured to Hesse. "In which case, you probably ought to retrieve your Judas document from Mr.

Hesse."

"Indeed," Liadof agreed, turning back. "Mr. Hesse?"

"Yes, Arbiter." A pained expression on his face, Hesse reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded paper.

"And," Faraday added softly, "you might also want to take a look at the signature."

For a moment Liadof froze, her hand stretched halfway toward the paper in Hesse's hand. Then, like a pouncing rattlesnake, the hand darted out to snatch it from his grip. She pulled it open, her eyes dropping to the line at the bottom—

Her head twisted back up toward Faraday. "What the hell is this?" she bit out.

"It says 'Charlie the Carp,' " Faraday said helpfully. "He's that animated spokesman for the Association of Fish Hatcheries—"

"I know who he is," Liadof snapped. She turned her glare on Hesse. "Hesse?"

Hesse's mouth was hanging partway open in disbelief. "Arbiter, I swear—"

"Don't blame Mr. Hesse," Faraday told her. "The fact of the matter is, I've been on to your little game from the very beginning."

"Really," Liadof said icily, her eyes still on Hesse. "I wonder how."

"Don't blame him for that, either," Faraday said. "He played his part just fine." He cocked an eyebrow. "The problem was with the script you gave him to read."

"What do you mean?" she demanded. "What problem?"

"Problems like telling me Mr. Beach was giving him the inside scoop on what was happening on the project, but then describing Manta's new caretakers as a male and female," Faraday said. "Mr. Beach would never have referred to them that way; he'd have called them a Protector and Nurturer, which was what they were. Then there was the whole idea of an opposing faction in the Five Hundred who wanted me to join them. That one was just a little too convenient."

"I wondered about that," Liadof muttered.

"Yes," Faraday said. "And finally, the crowning touch: the fact that after several weeks he was still their only representative here. They could surely have brought in someone with more experience by that time, If they really existed."

"I see," Liadof said, her voice sounding like she was trying to grind the words into powder between her teeth. "So you signed a phony name. It's still your signature."

Faraday shrugged. "I held the pen rather awkwardly. It might or might not be close enough."

"Your fingerprints are on the paper."

"I never picked it up."

"Your sweat, then," she persisted. "DNA analysis."

"I never even touched it," Faraday told her. "I held it down with shirtsleeved elbow. Sol/Guard issue shirt, by the way—there are millions of them around the System. And I rested my hand on the edge of the desk, not the paper. There's absolutely nothing there to link me to that document."

Liadof's breath, Faraday noted, was coming rather heavily. "And you think this was all I had against you?" she asked, waving the paper.

"Maybe not," Faraday said. "But without that paper, you don't have enough to beat me. Not now. If you choose to fight, you're going to lose."

He paused. "The alternative is to settle this quietly, right here and now," he added. "And it's still not too late for you to get the credit and glory for getting humanity out of the Solar System."

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. "Are you telling me," she said slowly, "that you don't want it yourself?"

"Not at all," Faraday confirmed. "I've already told you what I want."

"Really." She smiled tightly. "Not even if all that credit and glory translates to more political power in my pocket? Power which I could easily turn around and use against you?"

Faraday gestured toward Hesse. "Mr. Hesse told me you never seek revenge for its own sake," he said. "I'm willing to take the chance."

Slowly, almost unwillingly, Liadof stepped back to her chair. "All right, Colonel," she said, laying the paper down on the table. "I'm listening."