Michaelmas

Seven

The sorry business wound itself down towards eleven-thirty. For his audience, Michaelmas ran off a few closing comments in dignity. After everything was off the air, Frontiere announced a small press reception in the dining-hall, “for those who could stay.” It was understood on occasions of this sort that crew technicians are too busy to stay, since it had long ago been discovered that even one cameraman at a buffet was worth a horde of locusts, and tended to make awkward small talk.

The dining-hall featured a glass overlook of the depths below and the heights above; even through the metallized panes, the sun would have driven in fiercely if a drape, gauzy as a scrim, had not been hung upon it. Air-warming ducts along the wall set it to rippling. The world beyond the dining-hall was beautiful and rhythmic. The press strolled from bunch to bunch of themselves and various UNAC functionaries, sanatorium staff, and of course Norwood. There was a bar at each end of the large room, and the carpet underfoot was conducive to a silent, gliding step that was both restful and ennobling. For some, stepping back and forth from one end of the room to the other was particularly exhilarating.

Michaelmas wore his smile. He took a Kirr and nibbled tender spiced rare lamb slivers on a coaster of trimmed pumpernickel. He found Norwood, Limberg and Frontiere all together, standing against a tapestry depicting medieval physicians in consultation at the bedside of a dying monarch. Up close, Norwood looked much more like he ought — fineline wrinkles in the taut skin, a grey hair for every two, blond ones, a few broken capillaries in his cheeks. By now Michaelmas had downed the hors d’oeuvre. He held out his hand. “Good morning, Walt. You don’t appear the least bit changed, I’m pleased to be able to say.”

“Hello, Larry.” Norwood grinned. “Yeah. Feels good.”

Limberg had taken off his white duster and was revealed in a greenish old tweed suit that accordioned at the elbows and knees. A tasselled Bavarian pipe curved down from one corner of his mouth and rested in the cup of one palm. He sucked on it in measured intervals, and aromatic blue wisps of smoke escaped his flattened lips. Michaelmas smiled at him. “My congratulations, Doctor. The world may not contain sufficient honours.”

Limberg’s hound-dog eyes turned upward towards Michaelmas’s face. He said: “It is not honours that cause one to accomplish such things.”

“No, of course not.” Michaelmas turned to Frontiere. “Ah, Getulio. And where is Ossip? I don’t see him.”

“Mr Sakal is a little indisposed and had to leave,” Limberg said. “As his co-host for this reception, I express his regrets.” Frontiere nodded.

“I am very sorry to hear that,” Michaelmas said. “Getulio, I wonder if I might take you aside and speak with you for just a moment. Excuse me, Dr. Limberg, Walter. I must leave for my hotel almost immediately, and Mr Frontiere and I have an old promise to keep.”

“Certainly, Mr Michaelmas. Thank you for coming.” Suck suck. Wisp.

Michaelmas moved Frontiere aside with a gentle touch on the upper arm. “I am at the Excelsior,” he said quietly. “I will be in Switzerland perhaps a few hours more, perhaps not. I hope you’ll be able to find the time to meet me.” He laughed and affectionately patted Frontiere’s cheek. “I hope you can arrange it,” he said in a normal tone. “Arrivederci.” He turned away with a wave and moved towards where he had seen Clementine chatting beside a tall, cadaverous, fortyish bald man with a professorial manner.

Clementine was wearing a pair of low canvas shoes, presumably borrowed from a crew member. She smiled as she saw Michaelmas looking at her feet. “Laurent,” she said with a graceful inclination of her head. He took her hand, bowed, and kissed it.

“Thank you.”

“Merci. Pas de quoi.” A little bit of laughter lingered between them in their eyes. She turned to the man beside her. His olive skin and sunken, lustrous, and very round brown eyes were not quite right for a pin-striped navy blue suit, but the vest and the gold watch-chain were fully appropriate. There were pens in his outer breast pocket, and chemical stains on his spatulate fingertips. “I would like you to meet an old acquaintance,” Clementine said. “Laurent, this is Medical Doctor Kristiades Cikoumas, Dr. Limberg’s chief associate. Kiki, this is Mr Michaelmas.”

“A pleasure, Mr Michaelmas.” The long fingers extended themselves limply. Cikoumas had a way of curling his lips inward as he spoke, so that he appeared to have no teeth at all. Michaelmas found himself looking up at the man’s palate.

“An occasion for me,” Michaelmas said. “Permit me to extend my admiration for what has been accomplished here.”

“Ah.” Cikoumas waved his hands as if dispersing smoke. “A bagatelle. Your compliment is natural, but we look forward to much greater things in the future.”

“Oh.”

“You are with the media? A colleague of Madame Gervaise?”

“We are working together on this story.”

Clementine murmured: “Mr Michaelmas is quite well known, Kiki.”

“Ah, my apologies! I am familiar with Madame from her recent stay with us, but I know little of your professional world; I never watch entertainment.”

“Then you have an enviable advantage over me, Doctor. Clementine, excuse me for interrupting your conversation, but I must get back to Berne. Is there an available car?”

“Of course, Laurent. We will go together. Au voir, Kiki.”

Cikoumas bowed over her hand like a trick bird clamped to the edge of a water tumbler. “A revenance.” Michaelmas wondered what would happen if he were to put his shoe squarely in the man’s posterior.

On the ride back he sat away from her in a corner, the comm unit across his lap. After a while she said :

“Laurent, I thought you were pleased with me.”

He nodded. “I was. Yes. It was good working with you.”

“But you are disenchanted.” Her eyes sparkled and she touched his arm. “Because of Kiki? I enjoy calling him that. He becomes so foolish when he has been in a cafe too long.” Her eyes grew round as an owl’s and her mouth became toothless. “Oh, he looks, so—comme un hibou, tu sais? —like the night bird with the big ears, and then he speaks amazingly. I am made nervous, and I joke with him a little, and he says it does not matter what I call him. A name is nothing, he says. Nothing is unique. But he does not like it, entirely, when I call him Kiki and say I do not think anyone else ever called him that before.” She touched Michaelmas’s arm again. “I tease too much.” She looked contrite, but her eyes were not totally solemn. “It is a forgiveable trait, isn’t it so, if we are friends again?”

“Yes, of course.” He patted her hand. “In the main, I’m simply tired.”

“Ah, then I shall let you rest,” she said lightly. But she folded her arms and watched him closely as she settled back into her corner.

The way to do it, Michaelmas was thinking, would be to get pieces of other people’s footage on stories Horse had also covered. A scan of the running figures in the mob, or the people advancing in front of the camera, would turn up many instances over the years of Watson identifiably taking positions ahead of other people who’d thought they were as close to the action as possible. If you didn’t embarrass your sources by naming them, Domino could find a lot of usable stuff in a hurry. You could splice that together into quite a montage.

Now, you’d open with a talking head shot of Watson tagging off: “And that’s how it is right now in Venezuela,” he’d be saying, and then you’d go to voice-over. Your opening line would be something like: “That was Melvin Watson. They called him Horse,” and then go to your action montage. You’d rhythm it up with drop-ins of, say, Watson slugging the Albanian riot cop, Watson in soup-and-fish taking an award at a banquet, Watson with his sleeves rolled up as a guest teacher at Medill Journalism School, Watson’s home movies of his wedding and his kids graduating. You’d dynamite your way through that in no more than 120 seconds, including one short relevant quote from the J class that would leave you only 90 for the rest of it, going in with Michaelmas shots of Watson at Maracaibo.

You’d close with a reprise of the opening, but you’d edit-on the tags from as many locations as would give you good effects to go out on: “And that’s how it is right now in Venezuela…” and then a slight shift in the picture to older, grimier, leaner, younger, neck-tied, cleaner, open-shirted versions of that head and shoulders over the years… “in Kinshasa… on board the Kosmgorod station… in Athens… in Joplin, Missouri… in Dacca…” And then you’d cut, fast, to footage from the helicopter that had followed Watson into the mountains: blackened wounds on the face of the mountain and in the snow, wild sound of the wind moaning, and Michaelmas on voice-over saying “and that’s how it is right now.”

The little hairs were rising on Michaelmas’s forearms. It would play all right. It was a nice piece of work.

“We are nearly there, Laurent. Will I see you again?”

“Ah? What? Oh. Yes. I’m sure you have good directorial talent, and I know you have excellent qualities. There’ll certainly be future opportunities.”

“Thank you. If you get a chance to review the footage, I think you will find it was good. Crisp, documentary, and with no betrayals that the event was essentially a farce.”

“How do you mean?” he asked quickly.

“There are obvious things missing. As if UNAC and Limberg each had very different things they wanted made known, and they compromised on cutting all points of disagreement, leaving little. They were all very nice to each other on camera, yet I think it may have been different behind closed doors. And why did Sakal leave without so much as a public exchange of toasts with Limberg? But I was not talking business, Laurent. I was suggesting perhaps dinner.”

That, it seemed to him, was just a little bit much. What would they talk about? Would they discuss why, if Clementine Gervaise had been able to see something, hadn’t the great Laurent Michaelmas delved into it on camera? What might a man’s motives be in such a case? All of that so she could wheedle him around into some damaging half-admission or other and then run tell her Kiki about it?

He smiled and said: “That would be an excellent idea. But I expect to be leaving before dinner time, and I also have some things I must do first. Another time, it would be a very pleasant thing.”

“Dommage,” Clementine said. Then she smiled. “Well, it will be very nice when it happens, don’t you think so?”

“Of course.” He smiled. Smiling, they reached the front of the Excelsior and he thanked her and got out. As the car drew away, she turned to wave to him a little through the rear window, and he waved back. “Very nice,” Domino said in his ear. “Very sophisticated, you two.”

“I will speak to you in the suite,” Michaelmas sub-vocalized, smiling to the doorman, passing through the lobby, waiting for the elevator, holding up his eyelids by force of the need to never show frailty.

In the cool suite, Michaelmas took off his suitcoat with slow care and meticulously hung it on the back of a chair beside the drawing-room table. He put the terminal down and sat, toeing off his shoes and tugging at the knot of his tie. He rested his elbows on the table and undid his cufflinks, pausing to rub gently at either side of his nose. “All right,” he said, his eyes unfocused. “Speak to me.”

“Yes. We’re still secure here,” Domino said. “Nothing’s tapping at us.”

Michaelmas’s face turned involuntarily towards the terminal. “Is that suddenly another problem to consider? I’ve always thought I’d arranged you to handle that sort of thing automatically.”

There was a longish pause. “Something peculiar happened at the sanatorium.”

Michaelmas tented his fingertips. “I’d gathered that. Please explain.”

Domino said slowly: “I’m not sure I can.”

Michaelmas sighed. “Domino, I realize you’ve had some sort of difficult experience. Please don’t hesitate to share it with me.”

“You’re being commendably patient with me, aren’t you?”

Michaelmas said: “If asked, I would say so. Let’s proceed.”

“Very well. At the sanatorium, I was maintaining excellent linkages via the various commercial facilities available. I had a good world scan, I was monitoring the comm circuits at your terminal, and I was running action programmes on the ordinary management problems we’d discussed earlier. I was also giving detail attention to Cikoumas et Cie, Hanrassy, UNAC, the Soviet spaceflight command, Papashvilly, the Watson crash, and so forth. I have reports ready for you on a number of these topics. I. really haven’t been idle since cutting away from your terminal.”

“And specifically what happened to make you shift out?”

There was a perceptible diminution in volume. “Something.”

Michaelmas raised an eyebrow. He reached forward gently and touched the terminal. “Stop mumbling and digging your toe in the sand, Domino,” he said. “We’ve all filled our pants on occasion.”

“I’m not frightened.”

“None of us are ever frightened. Now and then, we’d just like more time to plan our responses. Go on.”

“Spare me your aphorisms. Something happened when I next attempted to deploy into Limberg’s facilities and see what there was to learn. I learned nothing. There was an anomaly.”

“Anomaly.”

“Yes. There is something going on there. I linked into about as many kinds of conventional systems as you’d expect, and there was no problem; he has the usual assortment of telephones, open lines to investment services and the medical network, and so forth. But there was something—something began to happen to the ground underfoot.”

“Underfoot?”

“I have to anthropomorphize if I’m going to make sense to you. It was as if I’d take a stride of normal length and discover that my leg had become a mile long, so that my foot was set down out of sight far ahead of me. And my next step, with my other foot, might be done with a leg so short that the step was completed with incredible swiftness. Or it might again be one of the long steps — somewhat shorter or longer than other long steps. Yet I didn’t topple. But I would be rushing forward one moment and creeping the next. Nevertheless, I proceeded at an even pace. The length of my leg was always appropriate to the dimensions of the square on which I put down my foot, so that I always stepped to the exact centre of the next square. All the squares, no matter what their measurement in space, represented the same-sized increment of time.”

Michaelmas sucked his upper teeth. “Where were you going?” he finally asked.

“I have no idea. I can’t track individual electrons any more readily than you can. I’m just an information processor like any other living thing. Somewhere in that sanatorium is a crazy place. I had to cut out when it began echoing.”

“Echoing.”

“Yes, sir. I began receiving data I had generated and stored in the past. Fefre, the Turkish Greatness Party, Tim Brodzik… that sort of thing. Sometimes it arrived hollowed out, as if from the bottom of a very deep well, and at other times it was as shrill as the point of a pin. It was coded in exactly my style. It spoke in my voice, so to speak. However, I then noticed that minor variations were creeping in; with each repetition, there was apparently one electron’s worth of deviation, or something like that.”

“Electron’s worth?”

“I’m not sure what the actual increment was. It might have been as small as the fundamental particle, whatever that might turn out to be. But it seemed to me the coding was a notch farther off each time it… resonated. I’m not certain I was detecting a real change. My receptors might have been changing. When I thought of that, I cut out. First I dropped my world scan and my programmes out of the press links, and then I abandoned your terminal. I was out before the speaker actually started vibrating to tell you I was leaving. I felt as if I were chopping one end of a rope bridge with something already on it.”

“Why did you feel that? Did you think this phenomenon had its own propulsion?”

“It might have had.”

“A… resonance… was coming after you with intent to commit systematic gibberish.”

“It does sound stupid. But this… stuff… was — I don’t know. I did what I thought best.”

“How long were you exposed to it?”

“Five steps. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Hmm. And is it lurking in the vicinity now?”

“No. It can’t be. Simply because I dropped the press links first. I was worried it might somehow locate and hash up all my data storages. But since then it’s occurred to me that if I hadn’t, it could have taken any number of loop routes to us here. I consider we were just plain lucky. It’s back in whatever Limberg equipment it lives in.”

“Well, I’m glad of that. That is, if it was true that you were being stalked by the feedback beast of the incremental spaces.”

“That’s gauche. It’s simply that there’s some sort of totally unprecedented system in operation at Limberg’s sanatorium.”

“We’ve been assuming since last night that he has access to some peculiar devices.”

“I’ve encountered malaprop circuitry a fair number of times in this imperfect world. What I’m concerned about is not so much what sort of device Limberg has access to. It’s what the device has access to.”

Michaelmas sighed. “I don’t see how we can speculate on that as yet. I can tell you what happened. Not why, or how, but what. You ran into trouble that set upon you as fast as you can think. A condition common among humans. Even more common is having it advance faster than that.”

“Well, there at least I’m secure; unless of course, something begins to affect speeds within the electromagnetic spectrum.”

“Son, there is no man so smart there is no man to take him.”

“I wouldn’t argue that for a moment.”

“It’s nice to have you back.” Michaelmas pushed himself slowly away from the table and began walking about the room in his stockinged feet, his hands behind his back “The Tass man,” he said.

“The Tass man?”

“At the press conference. He didn’t ask whether Norwood was being reinstated in command of the expedition. Nobody else did, either—Sakal had thrown a broad hint he wouldn’t be. But if you were the correspondent of the Soviet news agency, wouldn’t you want it nailed down specifically?”

“Not if I’d been instructed not to show it was on my mind.”

“Exactly. They’ve made all their decisions, back there. Now they feel prepared to spring traps on whichever perfidious option the immoral West chooses to exercise. You know, even more than playing chess, I dislike dealing with self-righteous chess players.” Michaelmas shook his head and dropped down into the chair again. He sat heavily. It was possible to see that he had rather more stomach than one normally realized, and that his shoulders could be quite round. “Well - tell me about Fefre and all the rest of them. Tell me about the girl and the dolphin.”

“Fefre is as he was, and I don’t know what dolphin you’re talking about.”

“Well, thank God for that. What do you know about Cikoumas et Cie?”

“It’s owned by Kristiades Cikoumas, who is also Limberg’s chief assistant. It’s a family business; he has his son in charge of the premises and making minor decisions. He inherited it from his father. And so forth. An old Bernaise family. Kristiades as a younger man made deliveries to the sanatorium. One day he entered medical school on grants from Limberg’s foundation. The Sorbonne, to be exact.”

“Why not? Why not settle for the very best? What a fortunate young man! And what a nice manner he’s acquired in the course of unfolding his career.”

“You’ve met him, then?”

“Yes, I’ve met him. It’s been a while since he last shouldered a crate of cantaloupes. That package he’s slipped off to Missouri could be arriving almost any time, couldn’t it?”

“It’s been offloaded at Lambert Field and is en route to the Cape Girardeau postal substation. It’s addressed to Hanrassy, all right — it passed through an automatic sorter at New York, and I was able to read the plate. It can be in Hanrassy’s breakfast mail. It’s already a big day for her; she’s scheduled to meet all her state campaign chairmen for a decision on precisely when to announce her candidacy. Her state organizations are all primed, she has several million new dollars in reserve beyond what’s already committed, more pledged as soon as she wins her first primary, and two three-minute eggs, with croutons, ordered for breakfast. She will also have V-8 juice and Postum.”

Michaelmas shook his head. “She’s still planning to use that dinosaur money?” A lot of Hanrassy’s backing came from people who thought that if she won, the 120-mile-per-hour private car would return, and perhaps bring back the $120,000-per-year union president with it.

“Yes.”

“Damn fool.”

“She doesn’t see it that way. She’s laundered the money through several seemingly foolproof stages. It’s now greyish green at worst.”

“And her man’s still in the United States Treasury Department?”

“Ready and waiting.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway.” Treasury was holding several millions for her party, as it was in various other amounts for various others. It was check-off money from tax returns, earmarked by her faithful. As soon as she filed her candidacy, it was hers—subject to a certain degree of supervision. Hanrassy’s plan was to meld-in some of the less perfectly clean industrial money and then misrepresent her campaign expenditures back to her Treasury official. He’d certify the accounts as correct. Michaelmas’s plan was to make him famous as soon as he’d certificated the ledger print-out.

Domino said: “What we can do to her next year won’t help today.”

“I know.” There weren’t that many exploitable openings in US Always’s operations. “She’s quite something, really,” Michaelmas said. “But perhaps we’ll be able to manage something with whatever Cikoumas has sent her.”

“Whatever it is can hardly be meant for the good of anyone but Limberg and his plans.”

“Of course.” Michaelmas said. “Nevertheless: I would like to think this is a world for the hopeful.”

“Well, one certainly hopes so,” Domino said.

“What about the Watson crash?” Michaelmas asked carefully.

“Negative. The European Flight Authority has taken jurisdiction. That’s expectable, since the original crash notification appeared in their teleprinters with an Extra Priority coding added. They’ve autopsied the pilot and Watson; both were healthy and alert up to the time of impact. The flight recorder shows power loss without obvious cause. It reports Watson’s last words as ‘Son of a bitch!’ The crash site has been impounded and the wreckage taken to an AEV hangar here. It’s too soon for their examiners to have generated any inter-office discussion of findings.”

“Meanwhile, I find no meaningful defect pattern in the history of that model. It crashes, but not often, and the reasons vary. I’m now approaching it another way. On the assumption that something must have been done to the helicopter, I’m compiling a list of all persons on Earth who could conceivably have gotten to the machine at any time since its last flight. Then I’ll assign higher priority to anyone who could have reached it after it became clear it would be used in connection with Norwood. I’ll weight that on an ascending scale in correlation with general technical aptitude, then with knowledge of helicopters, then specific familiarity with the type, and so forth. This will yield a short list of suspects, and I expect to be able to cross-check in several ways after the flight authority investigation generates some data.” Domino paused. “If the crash was not truly accidental.”

“It could be, I suppose, couldn’t it?”

“The world is full of confusing coincidences.”

“And a man’s mind insists on making patterns from random data.”

“I know.”

“Do you think the Watson crash was a true accident?”

“I have learned to suspect all crashes.”

“When and where are the funerals?”

“The pilot was unattached, with no close relatives. She is being cremated by the canton; there will be a memorial service for her friends. I have sent a message in your name, citing the fellowship of news-gatherers.”

“Thank you. And Horse?”

“He is being flown home this afternoon. There will be a family service day after tomorrow. Interment will be private. You have spoken with Mrs Watson and have promised to visit in person as soon as you possibly can. I am holding a playback of the conversation, waiting for review at your convenience.”

“Yes. In a while.” Michaelmas got up again. He walked to the windows and back. “Get someone to buy five minutes' US time tonight for my Watson obit. I want an institutional sponsor; check and see who bought a lot of Watson footage in the past, and pick the best. Offer it English-speaking worldwide, but get me US prime time; waive my fee, and tell 'em I’m buying the production. All they’ve got to foot is the time charges, but we okay the commercial content. No pomp and circumstance for the Gastric Research Institute, right? And now here’s how it wants to play.”

He paced back and forth, outlining it. His hands seized and modelled the air before him; his face and voice played all the parts. When he was done he took a deep breath and sat down rubbing his forearms, perspiration glistening in the arced horizontal creases under his eyes. “Do you foresee any production problems?”

“No… no, I can do it.”

Michaelmas looked down at his hands. “Is it any good, do you think?” he said softly.

“Well, of course, you must remember that my viewpoint is not the same as that of its potential audience.”

“Allowing for that,” Michaelmas said a little more sharply, “what do you think?”

“I think it’s eminently suitable.”

Michaelmas’s lips narrowed. His eyeblink rate increased. “Is there something we should change?” he asked.

“No, it’s fine the way it is. I’m sure it could be very effective.”

“Could be?”

“Well, isn’t Watson’s employer network going to do something along the same lines?”

“I don’t know. Campion said he wasn’t doing one. There are other people they could get. Maybe they’ll want to take mine. Probably they’d rather do their own. But what difference would that make? Billions of people are familiar with Watson’s personality. He’s worked for every major outlet at one time or another. He’s a public figure, for heaven’s sake!”

“Yes, of course. I’m starting to look into it.” There was a pause. “Getulio Frontiere passed through the kitchen-entrance surveillance systems a few minutes ago and has taken a service elevator to this floor. He’s coming here.”

Michaelmas nodded with satisfaction. “Good! Now we’re going to learn a few things.” He stepped lightly across the room.

There was a soft rap on the door. Michaelmas opened it instantly. “Come in, Getulio,” he said. He drew the man inside and shut the door. “We are alone, and the suite is of course made secure against eavesdropping. I’m sure there is refreshment here to offer you. Let me look in the bar. Sit down. Be comfortable.”

Frontiere blinked. “For - for me, nothing, thank you.”

“Oh? Well, all right, then, I’ll have the same.” Taking Frontiere’s elbow, he hustled the man towards the central table, put him in a chair, and sat down facing him, “All right, let’s talk.”

Frontiere licked his lips. He looked across the table steadily enough. “You must not be angry with us, Laurent. We did what we could in the face of great difficulties. We are still in serious trouble. I cannot tell you anything, you understand?”

Michaelmas pointed to the terminal. The pilot lights were dead and the switch marked OFF/ON was set on OFF.

Frontiere looked uncomfortable. He reached inside his jacket and brought out a flat, metallic little device and put it down on the table. Two small red lights winked back and forth. “Forgive me. A noise generator. You understand the necessity.”

“Without a doubt.” Michaelmas nodded. “Now, speak, friend.”

Frontiere nodded bleakly. “There is evidence the Soviets sabotaged Norwood’s shuttle.”

Michaelmas rubbed his eyes with his thumb and fingers. The breath, released from his diaphragm after a pause, hissed in his nostrils. “What sort?”

“When Norwood was boosting up for the orbital station, he noticed that Ground Control was responding falsely to his transmissions. He called them to say so and discovered they were responding as if his voice had said something perfectly routine. He could not get through to them. Meanwhile, Ground Control noticed nothing. He began tearing away panels and tracing communications circuits. He found an extra component — one not shown on the module diagrams. He says it has proven to be a false telemetry sender of undoubtable Soviet manufacture. As Norwood was reaching for it, his booster systems board began showing progressive malfunctions cascading towards immediate explosion. He ripped out the sender, pocketed it, went to escape mode, and fired out in his capsule; the rest, as they say, is history.”

Michaelmas put his hand behind his head and tugged hard forward against the stiffened muscles of his neck. “What is the scenario?”

Frontiere’s voice was perfectly emotionless. “A timed destruct sequence and false telemetry in the module, backed by computerized false voice transmissions from an overhead station — probably from Kosmgorod. It was in an appropriate position, and the on-shift crew was almost one hundred per cent Soviet. Meanwhile, a pre-set booster sabotage sequence was running concurrently somewhere else in the system. By the time Norwood discovered the false telemetry sender, the destruct sequence was practically at completion. He extracted the sender and jumped; the booster blew immediately thereafter, and the telemetry gap is so slight as to be undetectable. That’s how Norwood has reconstructed it, and he was the engineer on the spot.”

“And the Soviet motive?”

“To reignite Soviet nationalism and establish Communist pre-eminence under the guise of world brotherhood.”

“You think so?”

Frontiere looked up. “What do you expect of me?” he said sharply. “Norwood says it, Norwood has turned over to us the Soviet telemetry sender, and Kosmgorod has already made a. computer simulation which times out to exactly that possible sequence. What do you think we were doing all night and morning? Washing our hands?”

Michaelmas’s tongue made a noise like a dry twig snapping. “What are you going to do?” He got abruptly to his feet, but then simply stood with his hands resting on the back of his chair and his eyes almost unseeing on the terminal, lying OFF upon the table.

“We don’t know.” Frontiere looked at Michaelmas with the wide eyes of a man staring out of a burning building. He shrugged. “What can we do? If it is true, UNAC is finished. If it is not true, what is true? Can we find what is true before UNAC is finished? Our own man is the best witness against us, and he is absolutely convinced. And convincing. To hear him speak of it is to doubt no one syllable. He has had months in hospital; his time has been spent analytically. Facts and figures issue from him unerringly. He is—he is like a man with an axe, chopping down the bridge across the world.”

Michaelmas snorted. “Hmm.”

“You find it amusing?”

“No. No! Resume your seat, please. No offence was meant. I take it Ossip ordered Norwood to be silent?”

“Of course. Ossip has the sender and is en route to Star Control to have it analysed. Perhaps Norwood made an error in evaluation, using Limberg’s facilities; perhaps better apparatus and better circumstances will show it is a counterfeit. Nevertheless, we halted Papashvilly from coming to Berne. He was at the aerodrome, boarding a courier craft to come here, and suddenly he was stopped at the gate by frantic staff people and hustled back to the Star Control complex. Dozens of people of all kinds saw it. Someone in the media will soon know about it. The Soviet Union will certainly react in some manner calculated to redress the insult. The ripples are spreading. We have very little time, Laurent. We have less than we might; we have the horse-eater, Limberg, to deal with.”

Michaelmas’s mouth twitched. “What of him?”

Frontiere held up a hand, its fingers spread. “What not of him? First, he holds Norwood and never says a word until he is fully assured everything is perfect. One has to wonder : had Norwood died, would Limberg ever have told anyone? Had he been somewhat warped, would Limberg have sacrificed him like any other human guinea pig? But never mind that. Second, he lets Norwood, for therapy— for therapy—construct for himself a little engineering analysis workbench in a corner somewhere. Third, he gives him time on a house computer to run the simulation so Norwood can have it all on tape for us when Sakal says we need one. For therapy. Fourth, he tells us it is our duty to the world to release the news of the telemetry device, in the name of justice and doing the right thing for Norwood and all brave people caught in the toils of international conspiracy. And he has of course photographs as well as holograms of the telemetry device, and a file copy of the simulation tape, since they were of course made in his house from his facilities. Fifth, therefore, it would be unwise for UNAC to suppress this news on the immoral grounds of self-preservation.” Frontiere’s right forefinger thudded audibly as he ticked off each point on his left hand. He wiped his lips. “Brutto,” he said softly.

“And what do you think of his motivation?” Michaelmas asked.

“Glory. The little sniffer sees himself of millennial stature.” Frontiere shook his head. “Forgive me, Laurent. You know I’m not like this often.” He thudded his hand down upon the table. “The truth! He claims to speak for truth!”

“And you for exasperation. What did you do when he exposed you to that?” Michaelmas asked.

“Ossip did it. He is not a man to lie down. First, he told Norwood that if one word of this got out before he had time to check it completely, one way or the other, there would never be the slightest chance of Norwood’s going on the expedition. Then he told Limberg the press conference would take place immediately, and that not a hint of the accusations would be given. He wants as much time as possible before the American and the Soviet general public formulate their mass opinions. He said Limberg could talk as much as he wished about his medical abilities but if he attempted anything more, it would be total war between Limberg and UNAC until one or the other exhausted its resources. And was that clear?”

Michaelmas pursed his lips. “And Limberg and Norwood agreed?”

“Why not? Norwood is under discipline as a UNAC assignee, and what has Limberg to lose? If a few hours go by and then the news gets out, Limberg looks better and UNAC looks worse than ever. For the sake of his glory! This tantalizer of birds, this connoisseur of things to be found in a garden, this — Laurent, please, you must do for us whatever you can.”

“Yes, I must,” Michaelmas said. “But what can that be?”

He began moving about the room, his hands reaching out to touch the handles of a breakfront, the pulls of the drapes, the switches on the little lights above the painting. “If it’s not true, there’s no problem. I can reinforce whatever facts you announce, we can play it correctly - well, hell, Getulio, we know how that’s done - but what to do if the facts confirm Norwood’s story?” He turned and stared at the public relations man. “Eh? What then?”

Frontiere looked at him uncomfortably. “Well, Ossip is of course due in conference momentarily with the entire UNAC directorship, and all eventualities will be considered.”

“What does that mean?”

Frontiere’s gaze steadied and he folded his arms. “You have always been a very good friend to us, Laurent. You have shared our ideal from the beginning. We understand the call for objectivity in your position. However, the fact is that you have always been slow to elaborate anything detrimental about us. To the contrary, you have been energetic in confirming what is good for us.”

Michaelmas put up a hand swiftly. “Because taken day in and out, UNAC is one of the excellent and well-run ideas of the late twentieth century.” He studied Frontiere’s expression, peering forward as if there were not quite enough light to show him all he wanted to examine. “What else are you hoping for? That in this case Laurent Michaelmas will lend himself to whatever UNAC directorship wants, no matter what? Even if Norwood’s story is proven true?”

Frontiere’s lips were pale at the corners. “It may be proven untrue.”

Michaelmas turned away. He stood with one hand on the wall, and looked out at the mountains. “Getulio, do you imagine the telemetry sender does not appear honestly Soviet under Norwood’s analysis? Do you conceive that he and Limberg have lent their names and actions to something like this, if they are not prepared to swear it was in Norwood’s pocket when he was hauled from the capsule? Have they told you where the capsule is located?”

“Of course.”

“And have UNAC technicians looked at it?”

“Certainly.”

“And is the physical evidence consistent with everything Limberg and Norwood have told you ?”

“Yes. But that’s not yet proof —”

“Proof.” Michaelmas turned sharply. “Proof will be conclusive when it comes. But you know what many people will believe even without proof. You know what even many of the more levelheaded will believe must be done when there is proof. Getulio Frontiere, you’re a good man in a good cause, yet you’re here on a shameful errand. And why? Not because there’s final proof. But because there’s already belief, and I can see it on your face as plain as you have it on your conscience. Thank you for trusting me.”

“Getulio, I’ll do what I can. That may be disappointingly little.”

Frontiere stood up without looking at Michaelmas. He busied himself with putting the noise generator back in his pocket and turning towards the door. “E bene, we each do what we can,” he said down to the carpet. “Sometimes we do what we must.”

“E vero,” Michaelmas said, “but we must not go beyond the truth in doing what we can.”