Michaelmas (15 page)

Michaelmas frowned. "You're instructing Norwood to act in conformity with this line?"

Frontiere shook his head. "How can I do that? Issue an instruction to manage the news? If someone protested, or even remembered it afterwards, what would all our careers be worth? No,"

Frontiere said, "we simply trust to Cam-pion's ability to uncover his truth for himself." He sipped the wine. "This is very good," he murmured.

"I remember we would have it with crayfish," Michael-mas concurred, "on the Viti sea terrace, and watch the girls in little motorboats going out to the yacht parties."

"In the days when we were younger."

Michaelmas wondered how thoroughly "Campion had thought his action through. It was very delicate, for some-one nurturing himself toward prominence, to be quite so much of a volunteer.

Word got out quickly; the beginnings of careers were when appraisals were swapped most freely.

To be courtly was one thing; to be considered fast and loose was another.

But it was late to be thinking in terms of advice for Campion. And what sort of advice did he have for Getulio Frontiere on this sad occasion? Choose another career in your youth?

"Well, Getulio, I think you're still some years from turn-ing into a toothless old man with his hands between his knees."

"And you. I see the teeth," Frontiere said, surprising Michaelmas a little. "I have Papashvilly ready and waiting for you at Star Control. You have a crew already hired for the interview, I suppose? Good, they will be met and made comfortable pending your arrival, if necessary. Sakal and others will interrupt all but the most urgent business to speak to you at your convenience. I only regret there will not be time on this flight for you to more than begin with Norwood after Campion is done."

"I can always get whatever I need from him at Star Control. You've been very courteous and thoughtful, Getulio. And now I'll just amuse myself back there and let you get on with your responsibilities."

All protocol satisfied, he undid his seatbelt and rose to his feet. Frontiere rose with him, shaking his hand like an American. Interesting. It was interesting. They were a little afraid of him.

And well they ought to be: a person in his position could do immense things. But he had never thought his awareness of it could be discerned. He had spent his career perfecting a manner of an entirely differ-ent kind.

He smiled at Getulio again and stepped out of the com-partment, turning to move up the aisle toward the back of the plane. And yet of course one does not construct an exterior unless one is aware the interior is perhaps a little too true. Here were Norwood, Campion, and Clementine coming toward him from the lounge. Clementine leaned to speak over the shoulder of a seat, and a technician with hand-held apparatus rose and joined them. They all passed him in the narrow aisle. "Nice to meet you again," Campion said, closed his jaw, and was gone toward the cabin.

"Hey, there," Norwood said. Clementine smiled. "Perhaps later?" she murmured as she passed.

They had all been watching the cabin door without seeming to. Waiting on him. Only the technician walked by him without glancing, silently, with the toes-down step of a performer on high wires, his grace automatic, his skills coming to life within him, his face consequently reflecting nothing not his own. Of them all, he was the most pure.

Michaelmas went up toward the lounge, holding the terminal in one hand to keep it from bouncing against things. He nodded and chatted as the young press aides renewed or established acquaintances and saw to it he had a comfortable seat and a cup of coffee. After a few minutes they apparently saw he wanted to be alone, and went away one by one. He sat looking out the window at the mountains far below, and the blue sky and the Mediterranean coast beginning to resolve itself as far as Toulon. Then the Pyrenees emerged like a row of knuckles far beyond as the plane reached maximum altitude and split the air just north of Corsica. Try as he might, he had not been able to see anyone's handiwork in her face.

"Mr Michaelmas," Domino said in his ear.

"Uh-huh."

"Viola Hanrassy has postponed her state chairman meet-ing. Her information officer receipted the Cikoumas pack-age fifteen minutes ago."

Michaelmas's lips thinned. "What's she doing?"

"Too soon to tell. Her secretary called her Washington manager at home and instructed him to be at the US Always office there directly for possible phone calls. He lives in College Park and should be there in twenty minutes.

His local time is seven twenty-three am. That's all I have on it so far."

"Anything else pertinent?"

"I'm still working on Papashvilly's defence. He's
sur-rounded
by implanted devices! And I have something else you'll have to hear shortly. Wait two."

"What's the Watson obit status?"

He waited.

"Domino —"

"We've had no luck, Mr Michaelmas."

He straightened in the seat. "What do you mean?"

"I... can't place it."

"You can't place an obituary for Melvin Watson." He searched his mind for a convincer. "By Laurent Michael-mas."

"I'm—sorry." The voice in his skull was soft. "You know, it really isn't very probable someone would want to sponsor an obituary. I asked in a great many places. Did you know the principal human reason for seeking corporate employ-ment is awareness of death? And the principal motivation for decision-making is its denial?" Domino paused. "After reaching that determination, I stopped looking for sponsors and approached a number of the media. They might have underwritten the time themselves, if it had been some other subject. One or two appeared to consider it, but they couldn't find a slot open on their time schedules."

"Yes," Michaelmas gradually said. And of course, for the media it wasn't just a case of three unsold minutes and two minutes of house promo spots. It was making room for the piece by cancelling five minutes that had already been sold. It wasn't very reasonable to expect someone to go through that degree of complication. "Watson's frequent sponsors wouldn't go for it ?"

"Well, it's very late in the fiscal year, Mr Michaelmas. All the time-buying budgets are very close to bottom."

"What about Watson's network?"

"They're having a few words read by the anchorman on the regular news shows. Many of the networks are doing that, of course."

Michaelmas looked out the window and bounced his palms on the ends of his armrests. "What will five minutes' time cost us?"

"That's not something you should ever do for any reason," Domino said quickly. "You're a seller, never a buyer—"

"How comforting to have an incorruptible business manager."

"—and in any case the time isn't available."

Michaelmas shook his head, neck bent. "Damn it, isn't there anything?"

"We can get time on a local channel in Mrs Watson's community. At least she and his children will be able to see what you thought of him."

He settled back in the seat, his eyes closing against the glare while the plane dipped the offside wing, banked left, and took up a place on the MARS-D'AF route running southeastward from Marseilles.

"No. It wasn't written for them." Good Lord! It was one thing to have them see it build to that last shot when they could know it was making Horse real to the outside world. It was entirely different to have such a thing done essenti-ally in private. "Forget it. Thank you for trying." He rubbed his face.

"I am sorry," Domino said. "It was a good piece of work."

"Well, one does these things, of course, in the knowledge that good work is appreciated and good workers are honoured in memory." Michaelmas turned toward the nearest UNAC aide. "I wonder if there's another cup of coffee," he said. The aide got immediately to his feet, happy to be of help.

Time passed briefly. "Mr Michaelmas," Domino said.

"Yes?"

"I have that new item I was working on."

"All right," he said listlessly.

"An EVM crew in the United States is interviewing Will Gately. His remarks will be edited into the footage Campion is getting now."

"Has Gately gotten to his office already?"

"He's jogging to work. His morning exercise. The crew is tracking him through Rock Greek Road. But he has had a phone call at home from Viola Hanrassy."

Michaelmas's lips pinched. "Is he another one of hers?"

"No. It seems unnecessary. She simply addressed him as Mr Secretary and asked him if he'd be in his office later this morning. She said she appreciated his feeling of patriotic pride in Norwood's return, and hoped he'd have time to take a longer call from her later. I think it's fair to assume she plans to tell him something about astro-nautics."

Michaelmas sucked his teeth. "Does she, do you think?"

"I'm afraid so."

Michaelmas sat up a little straighter. "Are you?" His fingertips drummed on the armrests. "Her moves today look like it, don't they? Well—never mind that for now. What's Willy saying to the press?"

"Here's what he said a few minutes ago." There was a slight change in the sound quality, and Michaelmas could hear soft-shod footfalls and regular breathing as the man loped along the cinder path. He kept himself in shape; he was a wiry, flat-bellied biomechanism. His tireless search for a foolproof industrial management job had ended only in a government appointment, but it had not impaired his ability to count cadence. He chuffed along as if daring John Henry to ever whup him down.

"Mr Secretary," the EVM string interviewer said, "what's your reaction to the news Colonel Norwood will soon be visiting the United States?"

"Be nice to see him, of course. The President'll have a dinner for him. Maybe squeeze in ..

parade or two. Be nice. I have to wonder though. Every day he's here, that's a day he can't train."

The sound of muffled footsteps changed momentarily to a drumming—Gately had apparently crossed a wooden footbridge over one of the ravines — and then resumed.

The interviewer had to be in a car roughly paralleling the jogging path. It was impossible to imagine him and his camera operator running along beside Gately. "Sir, what do you mean by your reference to training? Do you have information that Colonel Norwood's been given a specific assignment?"

"He has an assignment, doesn't he? He's command pilot of the Outer Planets expedition.

Ought to have a lot of catching up to do."

"Let me make sure we understand," the interviewer said. "Is it your expectation that Colonel Norwood will resume his duties with the expeditionary team?"

"He damn well could, couldn't he? He's sharp. He's the best. Looked bright as a button this morning, didn't he?"

"Well, let me ask this: Has the UNAC informed you Colonel Norwood is being reinstated ?"

A bit of wild sound drifted by—a passing car, birds twittering, brook water rilling over stones.

Michaelmas guessed the technicians were letting Gately's facial expres-sion carry the first syllables of his response. "—they've informed me! Why should they inform me?"

"Are you saying, sir, that you're upset at UNAC's auton-omy?"

The furious pumping picked up speed. The man was nearly in a full-out sprint. The long legs would be scissor-ing; the shoulders would be thrusting forward, one-two, one-two, in the sodden sweatshirt, freckles standing out boldly against the stretched pallor over his cheekbones, the eyes slitted with concentration.

"This administration ... is committed ... to the UN . . . charter. President Westrum ... is behind .

. . UNAC . . . all the way. That's our set ... policy. UNAC has ... no frontiers. My job ... is to run . . .

just enough . . . test pilot training . . . for US servicemen . . . and qualified civilians. Then UNAC

takes . . . what it wants . . ."

Michaelmas frowned. It was no particular secret that Theron Westrum had given Gately his appointment for purely political reasons. It had gained him some support -or rather, mitigated some nonsupport - in Southern Cali-fornia, Georgia, and Texas, where they hoped to take more of their aerospace down to the bank every Friday night. It was also no particular secret that Gately would rather have had the job from almost anyone else not of Westrum's party or colour. But as long as Gately continued to talk anti-UNAC roundabout while lacking even the first idea of how to undermine Westrum's policies, it was a marriage made in heaven.

Why was Domino displaying this? It was a competently done segment, useful and necessary for balance against everything Campion was marshalling on UNAC's side of things. Set in the sort of context, the segment would have almost minimal effect on the audience but was a demon-strable attempt at fairness.

And once again, why was Campion playing UNAC's game? He was tough, proficient, and young. Junk moves were for clapped-out farts with little else to do and not much time left to regret it.

The stringer's voice in the background had lost its On the Air edge and become that of a man putting a tag memo on the end of a piece of raw footage. "Well, okay, you saw him wave us off and head on for his office. He's just not going to get in any deeper right this minute. But that's a very angry man. One wrong word from the Russkis or UNAC or even Westrum might tip him over. I think I ought to hang around his office for a while in case he blurts something."

"Uh, DC, good idea," said the flat, faraway voice of EVM's editorial director, using intercom bandwidth to save money. "We share your hunch. Look out for something from US Always.

They've been pretty quiet so far. Matter of fact, I think what we'll do now is go tickle her up and see what she thinks. Stand by for an advisory on that. And thank you for this shot; nice going. Paris out." The air went dead.

"That was five minutes ago," Domino said. Then EVM contacted US Always for an interview with Hanrassy. Her information people said she wanted to wait a while in case of further developments, but she'd be available by nine, Central US time. That's two hours and forty-seven minutes from now."

"A clear pattern seems to be emerging," Michaelmas said equably.

"Damn right. But that's not the pattern I'm showing you."