"Thank you for coming here today," Paulina Koch said, looking out over the rostrum at the horde of video cameras. They peered back like so many long-nosed cyclopean beasts, and seemed more the masters than the servants of the people accompanying them. People and cameras alike were predators, she knew, and the blood they sought today was hers. The solid timber of the rostrum felt like a shield, holding them at bay.
"Chairman, do you have an opening statement?" called one of the reporters.
"No, I do not. I am here to respond to questions, and that is what I will do," Paulina Koch replied. She found no point to handing her foes free ammunition. Anything they wanted from her, they would have to earn. She pointed to one of the many upraised hands. "Yes, Mr. Karakoyunlu?"
The newsnet man was so surprised and excited at being called first that he forgot his carefully prepared question and blurted, "What about Bilbeis IV?"
Paulina Koch resisted—as many would not have—the temptation to reply, "Well, what about it?" Her answer was as painstaking as if the question had been a good one. "Bilbeis IV is a pretechnological world outside the Federacy. It was first visited by a Survey Service team in FSY 1186, at which time its civilization was early Bronze Age-equivalent."
"No!" Karakoyunlu was hopping up and down in frustration. "What about the interference on Bilbeis IV?" he shouted, hoping to make himself clear.
Again the Chairman chose to take him literally. "You are quite correct, of course. The anthropologist on that first expedition did interfere, contrary to all Survey Service policies and regulations, which even then were both clear and stringent. Upon his return to the Federacy, the individual in question could offer no acceptable defense for his actions and was quite deservedly cashiered." She chose another reporter. "Ms. Zedong?"
"What about the results of that anthropologist's interference on Bilbeis IV? Aren't they reflected in the recent report from the Survey Service ship Jêng Ho, and don't they show the interference caused a profound change in the planet's development, a change of exactly the sort the Survey Service is pledged to prevent?"
"Is that all one question?" Paulina Koch asked, raising some polite mirth. She grew serious at once, though, both because that was far more in her nature than frivolity and because she knew she could not seem to be evading the issue that had prompted the news conference. She said, "I presume, Ms. Zedong, you are referring to the report bearing the FSY date 2687:139."
"Of course, Chairman Koch. This is the report that first surfaced on Hyperion and is now vouched for by the Noninterference Foundation and by the one surviving crewmember of the Jêng Ho—"
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the Survey Service's position on that report has not changed since it—what was the word you used?—surfaced. Yes, that is apt. The person who brought it forward then is at the moment a fugitive from justice—a fugitive from a murder indictment, I might add. He hardly seems a trustworthy source."
"He denies it," three people said at once.
"Wouldn't you?" Paulina Koch retorted. She had strong doubts that this Monemvasios was guilty of anything—far more likely that was one of Roupen Hovannis's acquaintances—but she also knew she had told the precise truth: Monemvasios had run, and he was charged.
"Well, what about—" Zedong looked down to check her reminder screen. "—Magda Kodaly? She, after all, was present on Bilbeis IV and is the source of much of the critical data in the report."
"Certainly Magda Kodaly was a crewmember aboard the Jêng Ho. Whether the person using that name today has any right to it is another matter, however. Note that Magda Kodaly was reliably reported to have been killed in the tragic crash of the Clark County, and her credit card was recovered from the wreckage. Note also that the woman currently employing Kodaly's name has been using on Topanga the credit card of a certain Marie Roux. Nor did this alleged Kodaly respond to the recent subpoena sent to Topanga on behalf of the Assembly Subcommittee on Non-Federacy Contacts."
"Yes, but how much of an effort was made to serve that subpoena, Chairman Koch? After all, by then the Clark County had already gone down."
"So it had. As for what went into serving the subpoena, you would have to inquire at the Assembly. I am certainly not in a position to comment on the diligence of its employees." The small bit of sarcasm went down well; the newsnet people were avid for dirt on any segment of the Federacy government, not just the Survey Service. "You do understand, however, that I am not yet in a position to acknowledge that the person claiming to be Magda Kodaly is in fact she. If anything, her association with Monemvasios would tend to make me think otherwise . . . Mr. Salaam?"
"Isn't it a fact, Chairman Koch, that Kodaly's association with the Noninterference Foundation is what prejudices you against her?"
"Certainly not. The Noninterference Foundation is a public-spirited body with the highest ideals, many of which I share. The Survey Service has nothing to hide or to fear."
Salaam's eyes twinkled as he asked his follow-up question. "Chairman Koch, isn't it a fact that you wouldn't believe it if the Noninterference Foundation told you the sun was shining?"
"I would look outside, Mr. Salaam." Paulina Koch had not intended the reply to be funny and was taken aback by the laugh she got. She did not show it; she had schooled herself not to show anything. When the chuckles subsided, she nodded to another reporter. "Mr. Mir?"
"Hasn't Magda Kodaly taken steps to reestablish credit in her own name, and don't the physiological data she has submitted match those of the person who previously held credit under that name?"
"There you have the advantage of me, Mr. Mir. I would have to check on that." Again the Chairman spoke the truth, but not all of it. One of Hovannis's better computer people was still trying to change Magda Kodaly's credit system records. So far she had had no luck; the credit system's safeguards were the toughest in the Federacy. It was a losing battle, anyway. Sooner or later, Kodaly would be able to establish her bona fides.
Mir shrugged but was not through. "There is also the matter of the eighteen missing days, Chairman Koch."
Paulina Koch's expression of polite interest did not change. "To what eighteen days are you referring, Mr. Mir?"
"You and the Survey Service have insisted the report on Bilbeis IV is not genuine. It is, however, dated 2687:139. On 2687:157, on Hyperion, your computer reported to Hyperion Newsnet that the Jêng Ho had not yet come back from its mission to make a report. When asked when the ship would return, though, it gave a date of 2687:139. You stated at the time that this was computer error, yet Magda Kodaly insists that 139 is in fact the correct date of the Jêng Ho's return. Your comments?"
Only that it appears you're able to add two and two, the Chairman thought. She tried to picture what the newsnet man's face would look like if she said that out loud. Too late if she intended to stay in the post she'd held so long—too late if she intended to stay free, for that matter. "I have seen nothing to make me change my mind, Mr. Mir, and you already know my reaction to the person claiming to be Magda Kodaly. It is remotely possible, however, I suppose, that an error has been made that is not accountable to computer malfunction. Accordingly, I have ordered Dr. Cornelia Toger, Survey Service Internal Affairs Director, to conduct a full investigation of any possible wrongdoing in this matter—which I stress I do not find likely—and to cooperate fully with any outside agencies conducting similar inquiries."
The newspeople sat up straighter—that was something they didn't know. They scribbled notes and muttered into recorders. Paulina Koch went on. "Dr. Toger will respond to your questions as to the nature of the inquiry now. I assure you that she is fully familiar with all aspects of the situation." She stepped away from the podium and beckoned Dr. Toger forward.
Dr. Toger did not know anything, did not suspect anything, and would not be allowed to find out anything. She fielded questions as best she could. She was earnest and sincere but very much out of her depth.
Paulina Koch listened to her luckless aide flounder. She realized she herself had had no questions about the immortal Queen Sabium. Down deep, she suspected, the reporters had trouble believing in the existence of a woman fifteen hundred years old, no matter what the report on Bilbeis IV said. She understood that. She had trouble believing it herself, and she knew only too well the report was real. Sabium would have been so much more . . . convenient as a legend.
When the conference was finally over, she went back to her office, where Hovannis waited. "What do you think, Roupen?"
He shrugged. "We're down, but we're not out. In a way, having the Noninterference Foundation weigh in against us does us a good turn. People know they hate us—it'll be easier to tar everything Kodaly says with their brush."
"Sensible plan." The Chairman nodded. "She's Survey Service herself, too, you know, even now. I wonder how much she cares for her new friends."
The talk-show host was suave without being oily, smooth without being facile. He had every hair perfectly in place. "Thank you for being with us, Ms. Kodaly," he said. "I'm sure you must be relieved to have formal use of your own name again."
"Yes, I certainly am, Mr. Vaughan." Magda's ears were full of the applause the audience had given her; she was still not used to being a celebrity. "Now that I've proved who I am, I can do a better job of proving just how accurate my colleagues' report on Bilbeis IV is."
"Of course." Vaughan nodded. "And of course you must agree with Dr. O'Brien that this kind of meddling on primitive planets can never be allowed to happen again."
Magda glanced toward the man sitting to the right of her on the couch. Peter O'Brien was the Foundation's head on Topanga, and fit the part: he was closing in on fifty and looked more like a well-fed executive than an activist. He was directing the media campaign against the Survey Service; he had pulled the strings to get Magda into the studio.
She did not resent O'Brien for appearing with her. The Noninterference Foundation was backing Stavros and her to make political capital for itself; she understood that. But she had no more intention of turning into a Foundation puppet than she'd had of turning a blind eye to what the Survey Service had done on Bilbeis IV.
She said, "I do agree with Dr. O'Brien on that, Mr. Vaughan, but—"
"Call me Owen, please," the emcee broke in. "Sorry to interrupt. But what, Magda? Tell us, please."
"But I don't necessarily feel the remedies he proposes are the right ones."
Beside her, O'Brien shifted in annoyance. Vaughan's eyes lit up. Magda had no idea what his politics were, but a good argument would liven up his show. "Why is that, Magda?"
"They're too drastic. The Survey Service monitors thousands of planets, almost every one of them with no trouble at all—in spite of what happened on Bilbeis IV—hell, partly because of what happened on Bilbeis IV back in FSY 1186. The Service takes the rule of interference very seriously. Disbanding it would be like cutting off your leg because you've an ingrown toenail."
"Dr. O'Brien, what do you think of—"
O'Brien did not need Vaughan to prompt him. "Magda's views reflect her training, naturally. I'd hoped the frantic concealment effort the Survey Service is making here would have opened her eyes to the cynicism inherent in all its policies."
"I don't see that." Magda was beginning to get angry; there was a difference between political capital and bullshit.
"Don't you?" O'Brien might look like a businessman and even act like one most of the time, but underneath that veneer he was still passionately convinced of the righteousness of his cause. "I'm referring to the cynical pretense that Survey Service fieldwork has no influence on planets where it occurs," he growled.
"It doesn't, and you know it perfectly well," Magda said. "You're acting as if you don't know a damned thing about the training we go through—"
"'We'?" O'Brien said icily. "I'm sure Paulina Koch would be pleased to hear you say that."
"Well, up yours, too. She's wrong, but that doesn't make you right, you sanctimonious know-nothing son of a bitch."
Owen Vaughan sat back, steepled his fingers, and kept his mouth shut. His sponsors had been complaining that nothing really juicy had happened on his show since the night the actress got drunk and threw a glass of brandy in the mullah's face. They'd have nothing to grumble about tonight.
"Doesn't it?" O'Brien shot back. "Why do we have any right to meddle in the affairs of people whose only crime is being culturally younger than we are? Let them develop their own way, I say, instead of corrupting them by our presence. I thought you would agree with me: you're the one who brought to the attention of the whole Federacy the sorry spectacle of millions of deluded people on Bilbeis IV following their false religion because of what the Survey Service did long ago."
"With Queen Sabium as she is, they have a lot better reason for believing what they believe than most worshipers I know." But even Magda backed away from that one in a hurry—she needed to swing people to her way of thinking, not alienate them. "Besides, you're making it sound as if all the primitive planets the Service visits are more Bilbeis IVs—"
"They are, just waiting to happen."
""They are not!" Magda slammed her fist down on the arm of her couch. "For one thing, Survey Service procedures are different from what they used to be: we've already talked about that. For another, there just aren't that many Sabiums around, or key situations where interference really affects a world's development."
"Where's your evidence for that?"
"Where's yours?" Magda retorted. "If interference were as widespread a problem as you claim, we'd see cases like Bilbeis IV every other year. And we don't. We don't. Most of the time, the Survey Service does a good job. But when it doesn't, it has to be called to account. That's why I'm here tonight. That's supposed to be the purpose of the Noninterference Foundation, too, as I recall, not wrecking the Service altogether."
"That is what we are for," O'Brien said, giving ground before her vehemence and also remembering she was valuable to him. "Where you and I differ is in judging how likely interference is. There's no doubt, though, that Bilbeis IV is a particularly flagrant case."
Magda nodded; she too was recalling that they had interests in common. "The worst of it, though, is the way Survey Service Central has done its best to sweep the report under the rug after the Jêng Ho submitted it. All my crewmates are dead, and so is the professor who first accessed it from public files . . . which it isn't in any more."
"There's such a thing as too much coincidence," O'Brien agreed. He did not say any more than that, not when he had no proof linking any deaths to Survey Service Central.
Owen Vaughan sighed imperceptibly. He had been hoping they would come to blows—that would have sent ratings through the roof on half the planets in the Federacy. But Vaughan was a practical man who took what he could get and knew how to cut things short when the heat went out of them. "Let's take a short break for these words from our sponsors," he said, "and we'll be right back."
Magda pounded on Stavros's door. They were staying in side-by-side furnished apartments in a building owned by a prominent contributor to the Noninterference Foundation. Both apartments still kept the air of sterility that such places have when uninhabited: neither Stavros nor Magda had enough in the way of belongings to dissipate it.
He took his time answering the door. Undoubtedly, Magda thought, he was checking the security camera first. She didn't blame him. She was cultivating the same habit herself.
"How did it go?" he asked. "You still have your makeup on."
"Yes, I know. I haven't even been in my own place yet—I'm too disgusted to sit by myself. You're in this same miserable boat with me; if anybody would understand, you're the one." She threw herself into a chair. Except for being blue instead of green, it was identical to the one in her apartment, right down to the scratchy upholstery.
"That bad, was it?"
"Worse. Let me put it like this: if this O'Brien person had Paulina Koch's job, we'd be in the exact same mess we are now. Well, maybe not, on second thought—Koch can keep her mouth shut and deny everything with a straight face. That's not O'Brien's style. He likes to hear himself talk, so he gives away more than she would. The other delightful thing is that he's a damned Purist and hardly bothers to hide it."
"I got that feeling, too, when I met him," Stavros said. "So much for the impartiality the Noninterference Foundation is supposed to show. Trouble is, we need him."
"I know, I know, I know. Otherwise I'd have loosened a few of his teeth for him. I still wish I had. He left a bad taste in my mouth."
Stavros got up. "Want to clean it out with a drink?"
"That's the first sensible idea I've heard since I got on camera." Magda held up a hand. "Wait a second, though—you don't like the sweet slop they drink here, do you?" Topangan taste in spirits ran heavily to liqueurs and creams, all of which Magda found cloying.
"Is vodka over ice all right?"
"Sure; that's fine."
Stavros went into the kitchen. Magda heard ice rattle in glasses. He brought the drinks back, handed Magda hers, and shook a few drops from a small bottle into his. It turned milky. "What's that?" Magda asked, intrigued.
"Anise extract," he answered. "It turns the stuff into poor man's ouzo. Everybody drinks ouzo on New Thessaly."
"I know what you mean. We're the same way with plum brandy on Kadar, where I come from." She held out her glass. "Let me try some." He gave her drink the same treatment he had given his. Knocking back a good-sized swallow, she felt her eyes water. She tried not to cough, and almost succeeded.
"Are you all right?" Stavros asked anxiously.
"Takes getting used to," she said. She drank again, more cautiously. "Not bad, I suppose, but it must be a lethal hangover mix."
"Retsina—resinated wine—is worse."
Magda's stomach lurched at the very idea. The things some allegedly civilized people drank—
She glanced over to the screen above the apartment terminal. She had noticed it was on when she came in but had been too full of irritation to pay any attention to what Stavros was looking at. It was a sequence from the report on Bilbeis IV. She tried to recall whether it came from Irfan Kawar's ring camera or the one she had worn on the shattering day when they found the locals' undying goddess was in fact Queen Sabium of Helmand.
Stavros followed Magda's eye. "I don't know how many times I've been through that part of the report," he said. "I keep trying to get a feel for what it must be like to have lived so long and to have been the focus of a whole planet's devotion for—how long?—fifty or sixty generations."
"I know what you mean. I've been trying to do the same thing myself, ever since I met her. The other thing to keep in mind is that the tape can't convey more than a fraction of the presence she has. It really is as if she can see into your heart."
"I believe it," Stavros said. "There can't be much she hasn't seen, dealing with century after century of priests and courtiers and petitioners. There's nothing anywhere to compare her to: she's been the keystone of that planet's culture for almost as long as its had civilization."
"There's more to it, though." Magda was glad for the chance to talk about Sabium. The flap over Central's suppression of the report on Bilbeis IV had pushed the queen herself into the background, even in Magda's own mind, and Sabium was too remarkable for that. Stavros made a good audience, too; he had studied the report enough to be as familiar with Bilbeis IV as anyone outside the Jêng Ho's crew could be. As familiar as anyone alive, Magda realized, was another good way to put it.
But he had not stood before Sabium's throne, had never felt the crashing awe that came with meeting the queen who had become divine. Magda struggled to put that into words. "It's not only the length of life Sabium's had. Even more of it, I think, is the person she was before we tinkered with her immune responses."
Stavros frowned. "I'm not sure I understand."
"I'm not sure I do, either. But even back in her mortal days, Sabium was a good queen. She cared about her people and about bettering the way they lived. The first Survey Service crew saw that—it's the main reason their anthropologist decided to cure her cancer. I suppose it's why he managed to talk the rest of them into it. And look at the mess he left behind."
"He didn't know—"
"No, he didn't." Magda cut off Stavros's beginning protest. "That's why you don't interfere—you don't know. I've sometimes shuddered, thinking how much worse things might have been if Sabium hadn't really been the able, kindly queen the first expedition thought she was."
"That hadn't occurred to me," Stavros said in a low voice. By his expression, he was going through the same set of appalling possibilities Magda had already imagined.
She said, "Here's something else to worry about: you're about the same age I am, aren't you—around thirty standard years?" She waited for him to nod and went on. "Did you ever have the feeling you're more distinctly yourself these days than you were, say, eight or ten years ago?"
Stavros nodded again. "Sure. The older I get, the more experience and knowledge I have to judge things by. My tastes are more settled, too: I like this kind of music and that kind of food. I expect I'll keep adding things as long as I live, but in the context of the structure I already have."
"That's exactly it—that's clearer than I ever thought it through, as a matter of fact," Magda said in surprised admiration. Because she was doing fieldwork while he was still a grad student, she automatically thought of herself as being more mature. His answer made her wonder. She continued more carefully, trying now to make each word count. "You and I have been growing into ourselves as adults for those eight or ten years. Sabium's been doing it more than a hundred times as long. As much as anything else, I think that's what makes her so intimidating—she's uniquely herself, uniquely an individual, in a way that no one who hasn't lived so long ever could be."
Stavros raised his glass in salute. It was nearly empty. "Well put," he said. "That's part of what I was looking for when I booted up the report tonight." He downed the rest of his drink and muttered something under his breath.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that," Magda said.
Stavros's swarthiness could not quite hide his flush. He hesitated, plainly of two minds about repeating himself, then blurted, "I wonder what she's like in bed."
Magda burst out laughing. "Well, there's one I hadn't thought of." She looked at the screen again. Sabium appeared no different from the way she had at the time of the first Survey Service visit to Bilbeis IV, fifteen centuries before: a handsome woman in the first years of middle age. Her gray-pink skin, blue hair, and the light down that grew on her cheeks were only exotic details. They might even make her more attractive to a man, not less, Magda thought. "She'd be interesting, I expect," she said.
"Even with the chance, I don't know if I would," Stavros said, "or could, for that matter. I can't imagine anything more inhibiting than thinking of how much experience I'd be measured against." He shivered in mock fright at the very idea.
"Don't worry about it," Magda advised. "It's not as if it's something that's likely to come up."
"I thought I just said that."
Magda snorted. She held out her glass. "Fix me another one, will you? I'll pass on the anise this time, though."
She was not surprised to end up sharing Stavros's bed that night. Alcohol had little to do with it; that the two of them were trapped in the same precarious situation counted for much more. She and Irfan Kawar had slept together when Sabium's priests conveyed them across the main continent of Bilbeis IV to meet the undying goddess. It had brought comfort to them both, and did again, until Magda thought of Kawar's dying on the Clark County with the rest of the Jêng Ho's crew.
She did not want to remind herself of that, not again, not tonight. She turned to Stavros and touched his shoulder. "I don't think Sabium would complain." She was not exaggerating much; her knees felt pleasantly unstrung. He hardly seemed to notice the compliment, though. She wondered if she had pleased him. "What's wrong?" she asked.
He brought himself back to the here and now with a visible effort. Magda recalled she was not the only one with dark memories. "Sorry," Stavros said. "It's nothing to do with you, not really."
Any reassurance he'd meant to give collapsed with that two-word afterthought. He realized it at once and made an annoyed noise deep in his throat. Magda lay beside him, waiting till he was ready to go on. After a little while, he did. "I'm sorry, Magda. It's just that this reminds me too much of the way Andrea and I ended up making love with each other not so long ago."
"Oh." It was Magda's turn to be silent and thoughtful. She finally said, "You told me once—I think it was the first time we met, after we came out of the Survey Service office—that you were falling in love with her."
"Yes, I think so." Stavros's eyes went first distant, then furious. He sat up and slammed his fist into the mattress so hard that he and Magda both bounced. "And those bastards didn't just kill her, they landed the blame for it on me."
"You ought to talk with the Foundation people about that. There's bound to be a branch on Hyperion. Heaven knows I don't love them, but they have the money to dig out whatever they need to prove you were innocent—and once that's done, people are bound to start wondering just who did kill your Andrea, and why."
"You're right!" Stavros bounded out of bed. "Fogelman belonged to the Foundation. In fact, I think he was one of the higher-ups. And he was murdered, too, and all his data banks scrubbed. What burglar would bother? Andrea and I tried to bring that up on Hyperion, but no one took it seriously—until the Clark County crashed, and then all it did was scare people. Now, though—" His lips drawn back in a predatory grin, he started for the phone.
Magda coughed dryly. "Probably a good idea to put some clothes on first."
"Hmm? Oh!" Stavros clutched at himself.
"No need to hide from me, not now. Just pick up your pants." Watching while Stavros dressed, Magda saw she was forgotten for the moment. Now that he was reminded of his Andrea, she wondered whether he would have any more interest in her. If nothing else, life would be less lonely if he did.
She rolled onto the wet spot on the bed, swore, and then laughed. That was realism on the most basic level. Very few men, she thought, turned down the chance when it was there. That was realism, too. She got out of bed and went into the bathroom to clean up.
"It is always a privilege to meet with you, of course, Mr. Prime Minister," Paulina Koch said, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle on the sleeve of her gray smock, "but may I ask the reason for which you invited me to Government Mansion?"
Amadeo Croce matched her formality. "It is this Bilbeis IV matter, Madam Chairman." He tried to sound stern, and did not succeed well. Administrations came and went, but senior bureaucrats held the real, the lasting power in the Federacy. He and Paulina Koch both knew it.
"In what connection, sir?" the Chairman asked, deferential as protocol required. She would not flout his nominal authority, not now, not when the Survey Service needed every scrap of political help it could get.
Croce frowned a little. The expression did odd things to the lines on his face, which years of smiling at cameras had set in a mold of permanent affability. He said, "I feel the Service is, uh, unduly dilatory in dealing with the accusations of mishandling that have so persistently wrapped themselves around the situation relating to that planet."
"To which accusations are you referring?" Paulina Koch asked coolly. "The ones that allege Survey Service personnel guilty of everything from sabotage to murder to who knows what else? If you believe those, sir, I can only wonder why you called me here and not to the Office of Rehabilitation."
"No, no, of course not," Croce said, to Paulina Koch's well-hidden relief. One power the prime minister did have was control over the constabulary. It was a more brutal sort of power than the clashes of influence that formed the usual government shake-ups, but it was there. The Chairman had never had to fear it before. Now she did. She was the only one who knew it, but it still weakened her.
Her musings made her miss the prime minister's next sentence, which was also unlike her. "I beg your pardon, sir?" She had no great regard for Croce, but the apology was genuine; she did not like to slip.
"I was just saying that as far as I can see, no convincing evidence for anything past happenstance has surfaced concerning those charges. But the ones touching on Survey Service Central's handling of the report on Bilbeis IV itself do concern me."
"Given the nature of the people making those charges, sir, I must confess to wondering why. The Noninterference Foundation has been sniping at the Survey Service for several hundred years now—"
"I wasn't referring to the Foundation," Croce interrupted. "I meant the principals themselves, this Monemvasios person and the anthropologist off the Jêng Ho itself. If they are to be believed, Bilbeis IV has encountered interference in its development, interference caused by Survey Service personnel, and the report documenting that interference is genuine. And I have to tell you, the more they talk, the more credible they sound."
"It does appear that the person who claims to be Magda Kodaly may in fact be she," Paulina Koch admitted grudgingly. "As for the other one, though—"
The prime minister broke in again. "I know what you are going to say. I have information, however, that the authorities on Hyperion are dropping all charges against him: he definitely was in a classroom when his girlfriend's murder took place."
"Really?" Paulina Koch's eyebrows arched in surprise, but she had known that bit of news for a day and a half. Croce's interrupting her twice worried her more. Attuned as she was to the nuances of bureaucratic maneuvering, she read there the warning that he no longer felt as much need to conciliate her as he once had.
"Yes, it is true. And if this Monemvasios individual is to be believed, and if the woman Magda Kodaly was in fact aboard the Jêng Ho, I hope you will not be offended by my repeating that their view of the report on Bilbeis IV is also enhanced."
"Sir, I take no offense, but I respectfully have to disagree with you."
Croce raised an eyebrow. "You must tell me why."
"Even if Kodaly was in fact on Bilbeis IV, that says nothing about the accuracy of the document submitted as a report on the mission of the Jêng Ho. Kodaly was, if you recall, one of the two main actors in the wilder claims that the text of the document makes, and the interpretation of events going into those claims is almost exclusively hers. To put it as mildly as possible, her objectivity is suspect. If she were well-disposed to the Service, would she be associating with the Noninterference Foundation?"
"An interesting question," the prime minister said. Paulina Koch studied him with sudden sharp attention, thinking she scented irony, but his politician's face was proof against her scrutiny. He continued, "A pity we lack the remaining members of the Jêng Ho's crew to give her the lie, is it not?"
"A great pity, and a great tragedy." Paulina Koch reminded herself that she still did not know exactly what had happened to the Clark County. She did not remind herself that she had not tried to find out. Ignorance felt more comfortable, to say nothing of safer.
"That being the case, however, I suppose you are going to accede to the Noninterference Foundation's request that they conduct a new investigation of the situation on Bilbeis IV, to ascertain precisely what that situation is."
Only the Chairman's wariness and experience let her evade the trap. She was sure her meeting with Croce was being recorded; a panicky shout of "No!" could be plenty to sink her, while a "Yes" was even more unthinkable. Her voice came out steady as she replied, "I have several reasons for believing that to be inadvisable." Down deep where it did not show, she was proud of her sangfroid.
"Let me hear them." If the prime minister felt disappointment, he was also a dab hand at not showing it.
Many sessions of testifying before the Assembly without notes had given Paulina Koch the knack of quickly organizing her thoughts. "First, of course, is the question of impartiality. The Noninterference Foundation's ties to the Purists are notorious, and have been only too evident throughout the present affair."
"That statement is self-serving, you realize."
"Yes." Paulina Koch was always ready to yield a small point to gain a large one. "That does not make it any less true."
Croce chuckled. "Well, maybe so. Go on."
"Thank you, sir. I also must remind you that for the Noninterference Foundation to undertake such a mission is in itself a contradiction in terms. Are the Foundation's people so steeped in moral purity that they can avoid causing the very kind of interference they claim to reject?"
"Were you to ask them, I am certain they would tell you so," the prime minister said. He had been in his profession far too long to have escaped cynicism.
"Yes, no doubt," Paulina Koch agreed as sardonically. "I was, however, asking you. I would also ask you to consider that while they spend so much of their time complaining about what we do, they lack the training for survey missions of the type we do routinely, let alone for one as delicate as this."
"I begin to see your drift."
Croce did not sound happy with it. Paulina Koch played her trump card. "Finally, think about whether you would be happy at the precedent set for a private organization's usurping here the function of a government bureau. Are you willing to have that happen whenever a publicity campaign whips people into a frenzy, deserved or not?"
The prime minister stiffened. That, thought the Chairman with the first real optimism she had felt during the meeting, had hit him where he lived. No official, elected or appointed, could warm to the notion of having authority taken out of his hands. "What do you suggest, then?" Croce asked.
"I suppose that in light of the hue and cry over Bilbeis IV, regular procedures must be set aside." The distaste in Paulina Koch's voice was twofold. Setting aside regular procedure was unpleasant to her in and of itself. And when doing so also involved having to retreat to a fallback position, that only made things worse. She did her best to maintain a bold front. "Any new survey team that visits the planet will have to be extraordinarily discreet. Survey Service personnel are the only logical choice for the mission."
She already had most of the crewmembers in mind—loyal, pliable souls one and all, people who would see only what did the Service the most good. Fallback positions were stronger when prepared in advance.
"I had thought you might say that." Amadeo Croce took a deep breath. "I must tell you that in the view of this administration, what you have suggested is not adequate. I shall so state on the floor of the Assembly. I would sooner have the Noninterference Foundation conduct the inquiry. The Survey Service is too deeply compromised to be the sole arbiter of its own affairs."
Behind her unrevealing features, Paulina Koch's mind raced. This was what Croce had summoned her here to tell her. Normally, the administration backed its bureau chiefs to the hilt; they were the ones who carried out the policies the politicians set. And Croce was no Purist, nor were the members of his cabinet. He had no strong ideological commitment to going after the Survey Service. He had simply scented weakness and decided to get clear of it.
"What plan do you have in mind, then, sir?" the Chairman asked, tasting gall.
"I shall propose a solution that would make Solomon proud," the prime minister answered. Seeing that the allusion meant nothing to Paulina Koch, he explained, "You are right in one way, Madam Chairman—we have to send a new mission to Bilbeis IV. I think you also make good sense when you advise against putting the expedition in the hands of the Noninterference Foundation. One of your people will retain overall command. But I will urge that the mission be made up half of Service personnel, half of individuals chosen by an independent agency, and for that role the Foundation seems the obvious choice."
The solution struck the Chairman as contrived; whoever this Solomon had been, he hadn't had much upstairs. On the other hand . . . she nodded slowly. A divided expedition could be counted on to produce an ambiguous report. At the moment, she—and the Survey Service—could hope for nothing better. A couple of other possibilities also occurred to her.
"Very well, sir," she said.
The prime minister had opened his mouth to argue her down. He shut it again in glad surprise.
"They're not going to get away with that!" Stavros exclaimed, staring at the formal hard-copy message he had just opened.
Magda read it over his shoulder. "You bet your life they're not." Her voice was full of the same furious disbelief that filled his.
Stavros took her cliché literally. "Yes, I have, and so have you. Is this the gratitude we get for it?" He read in a singsong voice: "'Thank you for your interest in participating in the renewed investigation of the planet Bilbeis IV. Unfortunately, these positions require more experienced individuals.'"
"There are no people more experienced with Bilbeis IV than the two of us," Magda said. "Me directly—hell, now I'm the only person in the Federacy who's ever been there—and you because you've been through our report until you probably know it better than I do. And so—" She took her anger out on the phone buttons.
A well-scrubbed young man's face appeared on the screen. "Noninterference Foundation."
"We're Kodaly and Monemvasios. Put us through to Dr. O'Brien right now. If he doesn't feel like talking to us—and he probably won't—tell him his other choice is listening to us on the newsnets later, and that he'll like that even less."
"Remind me not to let you get angry at me," Stavros whispered when the screen went momentarily black. "I think I'd sooner just stand in front of a shuttle and get everything over with at once."
Magda managed a grim chuckle. "I'll take that for a compliment. You know what we're going to hit him with?"
"A hammer, by choice," Stavros growled. His temper was not as quick as Magda's, but she had already found he was impossible to move from a position once he dug in his heels. He squeezed her hand, saying, "I think so. I'm with you all the way. I—"
He broke off abruptly, because Peter O'Brien's image replaced that of the Foundation underling. O'Brien eyed Magda with a singular lack of warmth. "What's this all about?" he demanded.
"I think you know," Magda said. She smiled a little when Stavros wordlessly held up the form letter; sure enough, he knew what she was up to.
"I am sorry." O'Brien did not sound sorry. "You must understand that we have to involve only the most qualified people on a project of the importance of this one. There is nothing personal involved."
"For one thing, I don't believe you. For another, where will you find anybody else who's met Queen Sabium, the undying goddess a whole planet worships? For a third, where would you be without Stavros and me? You owe us slots, and you will pay off, or I'm sure the newsnet people—and the whole Federacy—will be fascinated to hear how the high and mighty Noninterference Foundation shoved us to one side the minute we weren't useful to you anymore."
"Do you think you can blackmail me?" O'Brien snapped.
"Damn right I do," Magda said gleefully. "Fix it and fix it now, or we'll have other calls to make. Remember, the more you look like Purists, the less reason people will have to believe your side of the story. And kicking us off your crew will make you look an awful lot like a Purist to an awful lot of people. Me, I'm one of 'em."
"I'm another," Stavros added.
"Now," Magda said with a sweet smile, "shall we ring off and start getting hold of the newsnets?"
"I can't permit that," O'Brien said. "It would be—"
"Can't?" Stavros broke in. "Can't? How do you propose stopping us? The same way the Survey Service stopped Professor Fogelman and Andrea and the Jêng Ho's crew? Do we ask for protection from you next?"
"No, of course not." O'Brien made a pushing-away gesture, as if to put distance between himself and Stavros's suggestion. For the first time, he seemed flustered. "We would never do, never think of such a thing. Of course you are free to do as you wish. It would hurt your cause as well as ours, though. Please think of that, please don't do anything you might come to regret—"
"You know what we want," Magda said implacably.
"Let me get back to you," O'Brien pleaded. "This is too big a decision for me to make on my own."
"We'll wait until tonight, no longer," Stavros told him.
"Tonight?" Now O'Brien looked horrified. "That's much too soon. Some of the people with whom I have to consult are offplanet, and—"
"Tonight." Stavros switched off the phone in the middle of O'Brien's protest. When it chimed again a moment later, he hit the refuse button. The noise cut off. He grinned a small-boy grin at Magda.
She hugged him. "You couldn't have backed me better! Nothing makes the Foundation angrier than being compared to the Service."
"I meant it." Stavros was still serious. "The minute any power group sees an edge, it grabs, and anybody in the way had better look out. And we aren't the kind of friends Purists feel comfortable with. That show you did with O'Brien must have made him sure of that."
"I don't want any Purists feeling comfortable with me," Magda snorted. "All they want to do is set every social science there is back a couple of thousand years. And speaking of setting back, you just cost the Foundation a nice tidy sum there."
"Yes, I know. If O'Brien does have to confer offworld—and he probably does—he'll need to use the FTL links, and those aren't cheap. But I figured that setting a deadline he'll have to scramble to meet would show him we weren't fooling."
"Smart." Magda was still discovering just how good an ally Stavros made. He was unprepossessing, especially at the moment—he was regrowing the beard he'd shaved off when he escaped from Hyperion. Unlike her, he was given to hesitating before taking something on. But once he committed, himself, he did not back away, and the rein he held on his temper let him keep getting in telling shots after she was reduced to outraged incoherence.
His single-mindedness could also be irritating. Once O'Brien was no longer an immediate concern, he went back to what he had been doing when the Foundation's letter arrived: poring over the report on Bilbeis IV. Magda draped herself against his back. "Shall we kill some time until they call us again?"
Without looking away from the screen, Stavros said, "Let's wait until we know whether we have anything to celebrate." She angrily strode away and had very little to say to him the rest of the afternoon. She would have got more satisfaction from her silence had he noticed it.
But they both dashed for the phone when O'Brien called back not long before sunset. "You win," he growled, and switched off himself.
"Probably making sure you didn't beat him to the—" Magda began.
Stavros found a very effective way to interrupt her. She never did finish the sentence. Sometimes, she thought a good deal later, single-mindedness was an advantage.
Survey Service crews normally departed with no more fanfare than anyone else going off to do a job. The takeoff of the Hanno was different. It drew Assemblymen, Noninterference Foundation bigwigs, the Chairman of the Survey Service, and enough newsnet people to fill a luxury liner past takeoff weight.
Magda preferred the usual way. Everybody wanted to make a speech, and everybody's speech was running long. The only thing she was grateful for was that the crew got to sit down. A camera woman, on her feet for hours, had already passed out.
A black Assemblyman named Valleix was just finishing putting five minutes' worth of idea into a twenty-minute speech. Listening with one ear, Magda gathered that he was against the Survey Service and everything it stood for; he did not seem clear on what that was. The Foundation honchos up on the platform with him applauded lustily. Gritting her teeth at having to work with such people, Magda only wished he would shut up and go away.
Stavros might have been reading her mind. He leaned over and whispered, "I'd sooner be meeting interesting people instead of going through all this nonsense."
"Me, too." The crew of the Hanno, at least the half of the contingent that the Noninterference Foundation had chosen, was a high-powered group. Magda knew several members' work.
Paulina Koch was coming to the podium. Magda's feelings about the Chairman were still mixed; it was hard to think of her longtime boss, the head of the organization in which she had wanted to spend her whole career, as the enemy. At least Paulina Koch was not long-winded. She would say what she had to say and then quit. Magda turned and said as much to Stavros.
"A subtracter is also nice and straightforward," Stavros said. "All it does is kill you."
"What's a subtracter?"
"A big poisonous worm-type creature we have at home."
"We have something like that on Kadar, too. We call the thing an adder, after the Terran snake."
"I suppose one of our early settlers decided that didn't make much sense," Stavros said, "considering what it does. Greeks are very logical people." He grinned. "We also love to play with words."
The byplay had made Magda miss Paulina Koch's opening remarks. The Chairman was saying, "It is our hope that this mission will succeed in bringing back an unbiased account of conditions on Bilbeis IV, so that we can, if necessary, evolve new techniques for making contact with pretechnological cultures even more effective yet discreet than is the case at this point in time."
" 'If necessary'!" Stavros snarled. He was no friend of the Chairman's and never would be.
"In all candor, we initially doubted the necessity for a new visit to Bilbeis IV," Paulina Koch continued, "but we are now convinced that valuable data may be gleaned from it. It will also serve as a model of cooperation between our agency and organizations which hitherto have not always been in accord with us. From it we may learn to go forward in harmony."
"And I may learn to go into stardrive without a ship," Magda muttered. She had been in the Survey Service too long to believe the Service and the Noninterference Foundation were ever going to get along. She did not believe Paulina Koch thought so, either. The hypocrisy in the speech made her grimace; it reminded her all too much of the political games she had had to play herself lately.
Paulina Koch stepped down. Somebody else stepped up. More rhetoric spewed out for the cameras. Magda endured it, dose after dose. Finally it was done.
"At last, the point of the exercise," Stavros said as the crew of the Hanno followed their commander to the ship. As was customary, the commander paused at the top of the boarding ramp to greet the people with whom he would be traveling.
He was a dark, broad-shouldered man who looked more like an engine tech or a stevedore than any sort of leader. That was Magda's first impression of him, at any rate. She changed her mind when she saw his eyes, which were shrewd and opaque. He wore Survey Service coveralls.
"Captain Hovannis," she said, holding out her hand.
He did not take it. "Ms. Kodaly," he said. His voice was deep and rough. He did not shake Stavros's hand, either, and ignored the glare he got.
Stavros was still fuming as he got ready for lift-off. "Coldblooded bastard," he complained over the intercom.
"Screw him," Magda said. "He's Service, and he doesn't have any reason to like us. The angrier we let him make us, the happier he'll be. If I do get angry at him, I want it to be for my reasons, not his. Make sense?"
"Yes," Stavros said reluctantly.
"Relax, then. We're on our way."
"We are?"
Magda waved at her outside viewscreen. It showed the black of space.
Stavros laughed at himself. "I keep missing takeoffs."
"You're here, and that's what counts."
"No," he said. "What counts is when we get there."
Magda thought about it. "You're right."