Worlds in Chaos (24 page)

He still hadn’t begun cooling when Karen announced, “His department says he won’t be there for probably two weeks. The woman I talked to isn’t at liberty to give out his personal code. She did give me a Washington number, but he won’t be accessible through it until tomorrow or the day after. I have got a home number for him in New Haven, though.”

Of course, Keene thought to himself. Voler would be getting ready for the circus in Washington. “That’ll do,” he growled. “Maybe someone there might know where he is. . . . And thanks, Karen.” Moments later, he found himself staring at the features of his one-time wife, Fey.

She looked cool, sophisticated, her hair shorter than he had known it, more composed and organized—altered in the same direction as her life, no doubt. She was wearing a powder blue blouse with a sparkling brooch that looked both stylish and expensive, and what looked like a loose, black cardigan. Glimpses of subdued wallpaper and wooden paneling in the background completed the image of polish and refinement—a fitting setting for a senior academician who was going places.

Surprise flickered barely long enough to be visible before being brought under control. The eyes scanned and recorded, extracting in a matter of moments all the information to be had from the screen confronting her. In the way that happens with people who have spent years together, his mood had communicated itself already.

“Well,” she said. “The face from a former life. I had a premonition it might only be a matter of time. You’ve been in the news a lot lately. But I see it hasn’t done anything to sweeten your temper. What do you want, Lan?”

Keene drew a long breath in an effort to steady himself. “Hello, Fey. You’re right. . . .” As she always was; it infuriated him. “I wish I had some pleasantries to swap, but I’m not in the mood. I need to talk to him. Is he there?”

“By ‘him,’ I presume you mean my husband. His name’s Herbert.”

Keene nodded curtly. She was right again. Whatever the grievance, incivility wasn’t called for. In any case, it would only be giving away free ammunition. “Yes. Your husband, Professor Voler. If he’s there, I need to speak to him . . . please.”

“I’m afraid he’s not. He’s in Washington, preparing for the talks next week with your . . . friends. I’ll be joining him tomorrow morning. Didn’t they tell you that at his office? You must have tried there first.”

“Do you have a number that will get me through to him?” Keene said. “I presume I don’t need to spell out that it is extremely important.”

Fey eyed him critically for a few seconds. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t think so. You’re clearly spoiling for a fight over something. I’m not going to be the one to expose him to such disruptive influences with this business next week coming up.”

“Dammit, isn’t it obvious that the business next week is what I want to talk to him about?” Keene said shortly.

A hint of mockery played on Fey’s lips, just for an instant. “I really don’t think Herbert would be concerned with engineering details.” She made it sound like the chauffeur’s job.

Keene felt his blood rush, knew his buttons were being pressed, but was powerless to stop it. “Look, some work that’s crucial to those talks has been recently completed here in Texas,” he fumed. “I’ve just heard that the committee has been instructed to disregard it, and that the instruction came from him. This isn’t a trivial matter, Fey. It’s a travesty of science and deliberate sabotage of affairs vital to the interests of every person in this country. He won’t be allowed to get away with it. If he tries, the effects could be very damaging to that precious career of his. Do you understand that?”

“Oh, how pompous. And now I do believe you’re making threats. Please tell me you are, because dealing with them is very simple and straightforward. Make my day, as they say.”

“Take it any way you want,” Keene retorted. “But if you won’t let me tell him myself, then convey this to him: That deliberately misrepresenting scientific evidence by someone in his position is bad enough; but we have a truckload of evidence that goes beyond that to organized disinformation and manipulation of the media on a scale that for my money qualifies as criminal conspiracy. I’m talking about things like denial and suppression of dissenting views; intimidation of hostile witnesses; organized censorship. Those things would be criminal if the subject of a court case. Well, how is the public going to judge it when they find out? Because that’s what’s going to happen if he’s not willing to reconsider. I’m talking about full exposure of the whole shit heap. And I’m serious. So you just tell Herbert that.”

Fey’s expression had frosted over while Keene was speaking. The eyes had turned to steel encased in ice. “I think you’ve made yourself clear,” was her response. “If you have any more to say, I suggest you direct it through your attorney.” And with that she cut the connection.

Keene was still simmering late that afternoon when Karen put a call through from Sariena. She was still aboard the
Osiris,
due to come back down in two days’ time. Gallian, in Washington, had told her the news about the Terran scientific committee’s ruling, and she was distressed. The whole Kronian delegation was in disarray. They had been trying to get some guidance from their scientists back at Saturn, who had worked feverishly to have the probe data available in time, but the two-hour communications delay was making things impossible. So Gallian was trying to organize some defense locally. Neuzender at Princeton had declined to speak at the conference on the grounds that his part had been purely to advise on the mathematics, but Gallian was pushing to have Charlie Hu and a couple of his people from JPL attend. Keene had arranged the corroboration run at Amspace, and Allender had performed it. Would he and Jerry be willing to come to Washington next week and testify on the nature and validity of the work they had done?

“Of course I’ll be there,” was Keene’s immediate response.

He called Allender while Sariena was still connected from the
Osiris
, and Allender’s answer was equally unhesitating and affirmative. So at least it seemed they were back in with a chance. But it was going to be a nasty fight.

Leo Cavan confirmed as much when he called Keene at home late that night. He’d heard that Keene had been recruited to help the Kronian cause. “I don’t know what else you’ve been saying, Landen, but you’ve certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest,” was the further piece of information he had to proffer. “I’ve been hearing your name all over the place today, and not with the friendliest of connotations. I have a bit of advice: Tread very carefully, Landen. Check that none of your library books are overdue, make sure not to roll through any stop signs, and don’t even look in the direction of a female who’s under age. There are departments in the bureaucratic netherworld of this fair capital of ours that specialize in dredging up sleaze, and some of the things they come up with would astound you. You are targeted for anything they can get on you. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with the scientific case. If I can find anything specific that they’re onto, I’ll let you know, but it’s hardly the kind of information they leave lying around. In any case, don’t underestimate these people, Landen. They can be frighteningly effective.”

19

Keene found himself constructing visions of gleaming metal cities and icy landscapes under star-filled skies; of strange habitats orbiting above distant moons; the hugeness of Saturn seen from outside its ring system. He tried to imagine life where science was not dominated by preconceptions, and to grasp the puzzling yet alluring culture with its different concept of value.

All he was trying to do was get Earth’s institutions to acknowledge the possibility that they could be wrong about something vitally important to the entire future of the human race. Yet the response was to be ridiculed, shouted down, and now, it seemed, viewed like some kind of political threat to the nation’s security. He analyzed his own feelings to ask himself if he was serious about giving Earth up as a lost cause if this attempt failed, and leaving to start anew in Kronia.

He didn’t try to deny that his thoughts about a new world and a new life included an element of intrigue for Sariena. Talking to Fey had brought home how fully he had immersed himself in his work at the expense of any meaningful personal life since they split up—not that it had been remarkably great before. So perhaps new challenge and adventure in a different direction was just what his life needed. It surely wouldn’t be before time. He thought back over his conversations with Sariena, looking to see if there was anything that, with a bit of wishful thinking, he could read as hints or leaders that might have failed to permeate his pragmatic engineer’s filter of awareness. With someone from a culture that had to be described as alien, it was difficult to tell. At other times he grew impatient with himself, asking what reason she might have for harboring any interest in him that went beyond the professional. . . . But on the other hand, why should that have to be a prerequisite to anything? These things had to start somewhere. Sometimes he caught himself half hoping that the talks would come to nothing and give him a reason for making the break.

Yet, for all that, another part of him deeper down was uncomfortable, and the only honest admission was that he didn’t know why. He wanted to rationalize that it would be quitting and he wasn’t a quitter, but he knew there was more to it. Because it would be “abandoning” Vicki and Robin, somehow? There was no reason, really, why that should be. He had never let a relationship develop with Vicki in a way that might have implied some kind of commitment, and certainly she had never indicated that she felt he owed her any. And yet it was true that he had drifted into something of a role with them, he supposed, especially where Robin was concerned, even if as little more than an emotional anchor and a psychological prop over the years. But reason and emotion communicate on different wires that don’t cross. Had he anticipated this situation a long time ago and avoided any involvement with Vicki precisely to give himself a moral escape hatch now? If so, then had the entire part he’d been acting out for months about caring what Earth did been a charade manufactured to prop up his self-respect, while all along he waited for the time to come when he would follow the course that he had already chosen?

He didn’t know. But the effort of thinking about it gradually brought the realization that even if a mental switch were to flip and reveal that going to Kronia was a decision he had already unconsciously taken, suffering defeat here first wasn’t necessary as a pretext for a motive. If going there was what he wanted, then that was good enough. In other words, there was no reason why he shouldn’t win the battle here first, and still go anyway—and with Earth committed to full cooperation, the prospective future out at Kronia would be immeasurably more promising.

He liked that way of looking at things, he decided. Thereafter, his demeanor brightened considerably. His optimism regarding the forthcoming Washington conference climbed again, and the atmosphere in the offices of Protonix returned to its normal level of productive geniality.

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