A Dark and Hungry God Arises (16 page)

Contact with the Amnion changed this equation.

In a display of profound foresight, SMI used its new wealth, and every other dollar the company could scrape together, to acquire Intertech, like SpaceLab Inc. a research and development company which had expanded into exploration. At the time, Intertech was uniquely vulnerable to acquisition. In the aftermath of the Humanity Riots - which had been triggered by Intertech's efforts to understand humankind's first encounter with an Amnioni mutagen - the company itself was devastated. And no one else wanted it: no one else realized the potential implied by its role in the riots. The takeover of Intertech put SMI in the position of being the only human enterprise capable of both reaching the Amnion and responding to what they offered.

To capitalize on this position, SMI used all of its recently achieved vigor and muscle to pursue trade with the Amnion.

Suddenly a door of vast opportunity opened, and SMI held the knob in one hand, the key in the other. Intertech owned everything humanity knew about the Amnion: SMI owned the ships and facilities needed to take advantage of that knowledge. And Earth had a nearly bottom-less hunger for new resources - as well as new markets.

Rather than risk failing to gain the benefits offered by the Amnion, Earth's governments re-chartered Space Mines Inc. as the United Mining Companies and gave it the mission of developing Amnion trade for the sake of all humankind.

Ultimately trade with the Amnion provided the UMC

with both its reason and its means for being.

That was the public history.

Eventually, of course, Godsen Frik caught up with Warden Dios. The director of the United Mining Companies Police couldn't avoid his own director of Protocol indefinitely.

Before Godsen found him, however — and before the first peremptory, predictable demand for a video conference came in from the Governing Council for Earth and Space — Warden managed to sequester himself with Hashi Lebwohl for more than an hour.

Their conversation took place in one of the several secure offices which Warden maintained throughout UMCPHQ. Naturally no room, however private, could be secure from what Milos Taverner might have called

'buggery'. But the director of Data Acquisition was no

'bugger': where secrets were concerned, he was as safe as a tombstone. The distinction of being the only person in UMCPHQ who might reveal what was said in one of those offices belonged to Frik himself. And the offices themselves, with their baffled walls and electronic shielding, were proof against any kind of eavesdropping.

As an additional precaution, the techs and guards who tended those offices had strict orders never to acknowledge that Warden Dios ever used them. While he was inside, he ceased to exist in every official sense. Even Min Donner would have been turned away with a blunt, We haven't seen him, sir, ' if she'd tried to locate the UMCP

director while he was sequestered.

As a result, Godsen had no idea where Warden had hidden himself, and therefore no idea in which direction events were moving, when he finally succeeded in confronting Dios.

Warden wasn't usually a petty man; but he took a certain small satisfaction in Godsen's ignorance. Ignorance led to discomfiture — and Warden liked seeing the PR director discomfited. Relations between the two men left him few other grounds for satisfaction.

By this time he was in his formal office - a huge, expensive, and generally useless space which he reserved for those occasions on which a display of status was more important than the status itself. At the moment when his public secretary informed him that Godsen wanted to see him immediately, he'd just settled himself behind a wide mahogany desk - polished wood hydroponically grown at immense cost - in an armchair, also of polished mahogany, which rolled on old-fashioned casters. Both desk and chair, like all the furnishings and appurtenances of the room, had been given to him several years ago by Holt Fasner: a congratulatory gift on the completion of the UMCP's orbiting headquarters. Perhaps that was the real reason he never used this office if he could avoid it. Now, however, he had no alternative.

He quickly reviewed the arrangements he'd made for the next hour. Then he keyed the intercom and told his secretary - a woman whom he privately considered to be as polished and useless as the furniture - to let Godsen Frik in.

The PR director entered at once, looking harried.

The look didn't suit him. His fleshy self-confidence and rather flagrant dignity were effective masks for his schemes as well as his pleasures; but they did nothing to conceal a sense of harassment or an air of grievance. His pontifical head with its panoply of white hair, which usually gave him the appearance of the quintessential elder statesman, now made him resemble an aging boy who'd been caught in a particularly shameful act of sodomy.

Observing this was another of Warden's small satisfactions.

It changed nothing, however. Godsen Frik was always transparent to him, thanks to his prosthetic eye. In this Godsen was unlike his fellow directors. Hashi Lebwohl could have betrayed the universe without giving so much as a hint to Warden's infrared sight, not because he was a natural traitor, but because he made no essential distinction between the many levels of his natural duplicity. And Min Donner's intense concentration and devotion were inherently honest. But Godsen exposed himself by physiological clues too obvious for Warden to miss -

every scheme, every mixed motive, every falsehood showed in the rate of his heart, the temperature of his sweat, the aura of his skin.

Whenever Warden Dios dealt with his PR director, he knew he had to be prepared for the consequences, which ranged from Frik's own simple obstructionism to active intervention by Holt Fasner.

That was a curse. Nevertheless Warden counted on it, planned for it; used it.

'Come in, ' he said unnecessarily. 'Sit down. ' Because he disliked Frik, he always treated him with mildness and courtesy.

Godsen seemed unconscious of his director's dislike.

As soon as the door closed behind him, and the indicators showed that the room's monitors were inactive, he came toward the desk, hitched one of his hams onto the gleaming surface in an effort to appear self-confident, and said, 'I did what you told me. Now I'm getting my ass roasted. '

The effort failed. His voice was too tense to project its usual assured rumble.

Warden spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

'I don't suppose it occurred to you that you don't have to deal with him? You could always leave him to me. '

'He' in this context could only be Holt Fasner.

Unfortunately Godsen had no difficulty choosing among his disparate loyalties. Harried but unrepentant, he replied, 'You know I can't do that. For one thing, you didn't hire me for this job. He did. He says he has plans for me. You can't expect me to ignore that. And for another, there isn't a man or woman here — hell, there isn't a skeleton in the damn closet - that can refuse to accept a call from him. '

This last assertion wasn't notably accurate. Neither Min Donner nor Hashi acknowledged any authority outside UMCPHQ. Nevertheless Godsen believed what he'd just said: that was obvious.

Warden resisted the impulse to respond, I've got plans for you, too. Instead he inquired, 'So what did he say?'

'He said' - Godsen was good at mimicry -' "What the fuck do you think you're doing, telling the whole world Thermopyle and Taverner got away? Don't you know what's going to happen now?"'

'And what did you reply?'

'I told him I was acting on your direct orders. ' Godsen's aura was crimson with tension and vulnerability, undermining his efforts to sound staunch. 'I told him we did it to back up Joshua's alibi, so he can get into Billingate. And I told him' — the fluctuation of his readings signaled a lie — 'I think you made the right decision. It's worth the risk. Everything we've done with Joshua won't be worth spit if Billingate decides not to trust him. '

Warden dismissed all this. 'And you didn't mention Morn Hyland?' His tone was particularly mild because his question was especially threatening. 'You didn't point out that by risking public exposure of our operation I'm increasing the pressure on myself to rescue her? You've been eloquent in your desire to see her saved. ' Or elimin-ated. 'You've often pointed out that we'll have a serious disaster on our hands if anyone ever learns we've deliberately left one of our ensigns in her position. Did you perhaps suggest to him that he should urge me to reconsider Joshua's programming where she is concerned?'

He didn't expect a true answer. But he'd posed his question to glean as much information as possible from Godsen's readings.

IR sight was wasted on Godsen: he exposed himself by body language alone. In blustery indignation, he retorted, 'No!' Pulling himself off the desk, he retreated a few steps, nearly turned his back as if he wanted to hide his face. That's ancient history. I lost that argument long ago. '

So. Godsen hadn't been given any special instructions.

He'd played the Morn card - again - and Holt Fasner had left it lying on the table. The Dragon had decided that the situation didn't call for intervention. Yet.

Warden permitted himself an entirely private sigh of relief.

That's good, ' he said kindly. 'You ought to know he doesn't care about her. I'm not entirely sure he cares about you. You're both just means to an end. ' He wouldn't have said such things to anyone but Godsen Frik. Only Godsen might be alarmed by them - and only he might report them. In a subtle way, Warden was trying to tell both Godsen and Holt the truth about himself.

'If I knew what that end was, I would be easier in my mind. '

Palpably striving to recover his balance, Godsen lowered himself into a chair. For a moment he braced his hands on its arms, then he pulled them together on his thighs. Studying them as if they had notes written on the palms, he asked, What is going to happen now?'

Warden dismissed that as well. 'It's not your problem.

PR isn't an easy job, but it does have one advantage.

Nobody expects honesty.

'Still, I'm glad you're here. You've saved my secretary the effort of tracking you down. ' Warden smiled at his own irony. 'I want all of us to be absolutely clear about what our position is from now on. '

Unobtrusively he pressed a button which relayed a private signal to his secretary. On cue she chimed his intercom to announce, 'Director, Min Donner and Hashi Lebwohl are here. '

'Send them in. '

At once the door opened, and the remaining UMCP

directors entered the office.

'Come in, ' Warden said by way of greeting. Because he hadn't stood to greet Godsen, he remained sitting. In any case neither Hashi nor Min needed courtesy from him. They both knew more than Godsen did about why they were here. 'I hope I haven't kept you waiting. '

Min's shrug said, It doesn't matter.

'Not at all, ' the DA director wheezed equably. When I am in the presence of a woman as lovely as your secretary, I am never "waiting". '

'Good. ' Warden pointed out chairs and said, 'Sit, ' in a tone he didn't use with Godsen Frik.

The ED director seated herself as if she were coiling into the chair, poised to spring.

Perhaps to acknowledge the importance of the occasion, Lebwohl had put on his dirtiest lab coat over stained pants and an appalling shirt. That and his scrawny frame made him look like a scarecrow. The laces trailed from his ancient shoes, threatening to trip him at every step. Slumping from his thin nose, his glasses were so badly scratched and smeared that they seemed to blur everything he saw - or everything other people saw when they looked at him. His movements and even his posture appeared somnolent: the boundless energy hidden inside him showed only in his charged eyebrows and the con-ceptual purity of his blue eyes.

As he sagged into a seat, he had the look of a man who was ready only to be measured for a winding sheet. But Warden Dios knew better. In his own fashion - a style utterly unlike Min Donner's - Hashi Lebwohl was coiled and poised; ready for everything except death.

Still Warden didn't explain what was 'going to happen now'. Min and Hashi already knew - although only Hashi had been briefed - and Godsen could be allowed to sweat a little longer. He glanced at his desk chronometer: twelve minutes left. There was never enough time; but twelve minutes would probably suffice. If they didn't, he could always fake a brief transmission delay.

'Now. ' He faced each of his subordinates in turn, scanning their emanations like a craftsman checking the condition of his tools. On the most fundamental level, he didn't believe in using human beings: not as tools; not as genetic raw materials. That more than any other aspect of his personality explained why he'd become a cop. The fact that his personal dilemma required him to do so many things he abhorred gave him another moment of nausea. It didn't show, however. He'd perfected the art of keeping the worst cost of whatever he needed and did to himself.

Bland and careful, as if all his defenses were impenetrable, he announced, 'Trumpet is gone. For better or worse, Angus and Milos are on their own.

'You all know this is the most hazardous position we've ever put ourselves in. Never before have we risked so much on people in situations so far outside our control.

And never before has so much depended on our ability to keep what we're doing to ourselves. So it's time for us to be clear. ' Warden said this despite the fact that he had no intention whatsoever of being clear himself. 'If you still object to this operation - if you believe it's misguided or doomed - if you think I haven't adequately considered the difficulties - I want you to say so now. '

Godsen went back to studying his hands. Hashi smiled around the room as if he didn't know what doubts or objections were.

Min didn't hesitate, however. 'Why bother?' she asked bluntly. 'As you say, Trumpet is out of reach. Assuming we could give Milos new orders, we have no way of knowing when, how, or even if he would put them into effect. '

'You aren't listening. ' Warden spoke more harshly than he intended. Min sometimes had that effect on him - or rather his own falseness toward her did. 'I didn't offer to change Angus' programming. Whether sending him out this way is a stroke of genius or an act of suicide, he's out of our hands. I'm concerned about us here, not him.