The Octagonal Raven (45 page)

Kewood

Switchover was set for noon local time, and Majora and I arrived at seven. I kissed her outside her office, and headed for mine. There, Devit Tal was waiting by the door.

“Security said you were on the way up, ser.” His eyes were red and sunken, and he’d clearly lost weight. I hadn’t been sure he’d get back, but he was there and had been waiting for a time. “I said I’d be here, ser.”

“You did. You’re acting managing director for programming, and if anyone gives you trouble, don’t argue. Just tell them to see me. I don’t want you handling politics right now. I suspect the technical aspects are going to be enough in the way of headaches.”

“May be, ser.” He handed me a case. “There’s the rest of what you need. I’m sorry it’s a bit late, but it’s worth it.” He gave me a crooked smile. “Wanted to do something like this for years. Let’s see if it makes any difference.”

“It’ll make a difference,” I suggested. “How much is another question.”

“I’d better get on with it.” He nodded and was gone, and I took the case into my office.

Once inside, I set the case on the conference table and looked at the documents first. There was actually a budget laid out for the PST group, handwritten, with a signature comparison to that of Grant Escher, which allocated two million credit for “technical support/BGP.” Again, not exactly conclusive, but why would the PST Trust need genetic technical support, except for reprogramming monoclones?

I hadn’t been in my office more than thirty minutes, and I was still sitting at the conference table going over Devit’s work, and with more intriguing suggestions and pointers, yet probably not enough facts to set before an advocate general, when a tall and youngish pre-select appeared at my door. I recognized him—Roberto Paras, Brin Drejcha’s deputy. His face was flushed.

“Why don’t you come on in and have a seat, Roberto.”

Paras looked from one side to the other, then sat on the front edge of the green armchair by the corner of the desk closest to the door. He clearly didn’t want to sit across the conference table from me.

“What’s the problem?”

“Devit Tal…he just appeared…said he was acting managing director for programming. He’s changing everything. There’s nothing on the schedule boards about it. There’s nothing in the technical notes. Director Drejcha didn’t say anything about it.”

“Have you tried to reach him?”

“Ah…no, ser. Tal said I was supposed to see you before I did anything.”

“That’s right. We’re making the program switchover early. There’s no point in waiting until everyone knows what you’ll do and can counter it.”

“But…he’s pulled everything!”

“Not everything. The suds and porndraggies are pretty much the same as they were, except for some infospots in place of the sponsor spots. So are the sports and outdoor reports.”

“But all the news…the backdrops…” Paras shook his head. “No one told me.”

“That was my decision.”

“But word’s going around that every pre-select in UniComm has been superseded….”

I nodded. “Except me. And I ordered it.”

“Ser…but…why?”

“To save my ass and your future, Roberto, while we still can—if we can.”

His mouth opened wordlessly.

“Watch the programming, and watch it closely before you say anything to anyone outside UniComm. Then, if you have any questions, come see me.” I smiled. “All right?”

“Ah…yes, ser.” Still shaking his head on the way down the ramp, Paras looked like a stunned puppy when he left.

Eliasar Bezza was next, not fifteen minutes later. He was the pre-select Gerrat had put in charge of sponsor slots. “Ser…what am I going to do? This programming change…we have programs without sponsors, and sponsors without programs.”

That was the most expensive part of my project, and one that might take years to recover from. I’d tried not to think too much about the financial implications. “Assign them to the closest fit, then wait two or three days, and then contact each sponsor with the viewer data. If their ratings are up or within the past margins, give them the choice of keeping the slot, or selecting what’s available. If they’re down, readjust the billing, and offer them the same kind of choice.”

“Ser…why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it wasn’t possible. After you see the program changes, you’ll see why. And try not to worry too much. A good seventy percent of our program content isn’t changing, except for the promos and cross-leads.” Those were changing drastically.

After he left, I looked at the small pile of documents and at the small cases that held even more information. It all seemed real enough to me, but most was electronic, mere energy arrangements in magnetic lattices or the like. In a way, life was like that, looked at from the structural level. But after weeks and months of effort, as Majora had pointed out, the only time we got hard evidence, and it was the kind that couldn’t be tracked back, was when someone was meant to die—or when some sort of power play or takeover was already in progress.

We had to act on inadequate evidence—or it would be too late to act at all.

And that evidence—or our interpretation of it—could be wrong. Very wrong.

Kewood

Majora and I sat and watched the noon edition of AllNews, the lead-off program under the “new” regime.

The image of a woman’s form barely concealed by flames gave way to a line of shadowy figures sitting around a conference table, their faces edited into blank ovals.

The openers, buried behind the headline news, seemed innocuous enough to me, beginning with a shimmering image of the latest Droguet glider.

I looked at Majora. “Seems tame to me.”

“Seems is the right word. The way we’ve set them up will take time to work.”

“Will we have time?”

She shrugged.

We looked at each other, then smiled, and she went back to her office, and I went back to working on the outlines for the last stories from the materials Devit Tal had brought back. I got almost an hour of work done, in surprising quiet, before the first call came in—from Mother.

“Have you hired additional security forces, dear?” There wasn’t a sign on her unmarked face of the tiredness that had followed her bout with the second pre-select plague.

“I did that for the houses weeks ago.”

“You might consider it an investment for the UniComm offices.” Her eyes were amused or coldly ironic. I wasn’t sure which. “That is, if this represents a long-term programming outlook.”

“You think it will have an effect?”

“It already has, dear, but not necessarily the one you intended. A number of my acquaintances have already contacted me. With their condolences.”

The next call was from Klevyl.

“I’d avoid any private clubs for a while, Daryn. Maybe for the rest of your short life.” He followed the somber words with a grin and a headshake. “You really don’t want many friends, do you?”

“For just offering a few observations on lifestyles?” I asked.

“Let’s see…in three hours, you’ve managed to suggest on the world’s largest net that pre-selects have rigged the system so that only they can have gliders, arranged the school system so that only their children have the best choices, and are using explosive clones as assassins against those who cross them. Oh…and that they want to remove or kill the man who’s out to expose them. Isn’t that a little heavy on the paranoia?”

I laughed. “Could be. Also could be that even if I am paranoid, they’re still out to get me.”

“How much of that’s true? Be honest, now.”

“More than I could possibly put on the nets,” I answered.

His image looked at me for a time. “You’ve never steered me wrong. I think it’s time for a vacation. Talk to you in a few weeks…if there’s still a net system.”

I was looking at the cherry bookcase again.

Then I looked at the raw infeeds from correspondents. Nothing. The world beyond UniComm headquarters looked the same as it always had.

Kewood

Sixday came…and went, and sevenday, and oneday, and as they did, so did sponsor commitments and revenues. Not by huge amounts, but by enough that I’d have plenty of explaining to do at the next stakeholders’ meeting. If I survived until then.

Eliasar Bezza had kept coming into my office, with close to the same set of comments that he was delivering across the conference table this time. “ComProds…they’ll keep the show, but only if we give them a ten percent cut.”

“Can you stall them for a week? Our market share is starting to go back up. In some slots, it’s higher.”

“I can try, ser.”

“Point out to them that they’re getting a break for greater exposure, and suggest that dumping greater exposure would look very bad at their next stakeholders’ meeting.”

“Ser?” Bezza looked scandalized. I must have broken some unspoken convention.

“Look. They pay for exposure. In the eight o’clock spot, watchers are up nine percent. Isn’t that normally a cause for a three percent rise in charges?”

“Yes, ser.”

“If they dump a chance for a nine percent increase at no cost…in their target market, that might be construed as against the stakeholders’ best interests. It also might be considered collusion with DGen and BGP. Now…you’ve been around a lot longer than I’ve been, Bezza, but I’m sure you can get the point across…if you have to.”

“Ah…yes, ser.”

He understood. He just didn’t want to.

I got a bit more worried when Tomas Gallo showed up.

“Director Alwyn, there have been five orders filed with the Federal Union Justiciary….” He inclined his head with a wry smile.

“What do they want us to stop broadcasting? Besides the truth, of course.” I motioned to the chair across the conference table from me.

He slipped into it. “Truth is a relative matter, as you know, ser.”

How well I knew that.

“The complaints allege that although UniComm has not broadcast any fact that is untrue, the presentation of facts and questions creates an impression that is inaccurate, and that such inaccuracy amounts to libel…. They also suggest that the Federal Union evidentiary standard be applied to potentially damaging material….

“So…unless we can prove that they’ve done something wrong, hard enough to stand up before a good old pre-select advocate justicer, we can’t say it?”

“That’s what they want.”

“Can you counterfile, and suggest that their standard is absolutely correct, but that it should be applied to them? That is, a news and information system’s job is to question, and that we have every right to raise such questions until they meet the hard evidence standard in rebuttal?”

“I can try.”

“In the meantime, we’ll write some stories on that.”

“It is generally not a good idea to comment on pending judicial issues, ser.”

“I am sure you’re generally right, Tomas, but in this specific case, I want the whole world to know that the PST types are effectively trying to shut down questioning of their actions and motives. If someone has the resources to suppress or avoid evidence, and you can’t even question their motives without the evidence you can’t get because it’s been suppressed, then, in effect, those who have the resources to suppress the evidence are outside the law, and can do anything they want so long as they can find a way to keep evidence from being found or produced.”

The general counsel winced. “I wouldn’t put it that way, Director Alwyn.”

“You wouldn’t, but I would,” I said with a laugh that was clearly forced-sounding, even to me. “And much as I hate it, you’d better consult with all those retained advocates we’re paying. See if one of them can come up with the kind of argument we want. Also, can you send me copies of the complaints against us? I’m sure those are public.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good.” I might be able to do something with those complaints. Their very existence would suggest that the PST-related multis had a lot to hide. “I’ll be writing some things based on them, and we’ll need the outside counsel to vet them quickly.”

Gallo nodded, but with the expression of an advocate whose client was losing his mind—or his funds. He got up slowly. “I’ll see what we can do, ser.”

“Thank you.”

In the meantime, I needed to come up with the ideas for more stories. I hadn’t seen any public reaction yet, but I trusted the PST group’s reaction. If they were going to legal action so quickly, there was something there, and they felt they couldn’t wait it out.

“Majora…” I pulsed over the link. “Can you come up here? We need to figure out some more stories in each of the target series, and maybe yet another investigative angle.”

“I’ve already started work on some outlines. I’ll bring them.”

About half the time, if not more, she was ahead of me. We made a good team, and would make a better one, if we could make this plan work.

If…