"Evidence that will enable me to establish quite clearly that Commander Bruce is not the wanton murderer the Excelsior representative has alleged him to be."
"What if I were to tell you that Morton was right, that Bruce was in fact a murderer, and he did kill, or cause to be killed, forty-one colonists?"
"In punishment for which action he was reprimanded?" Sharva said. "There's more to it than that, Mr. Secretary."
"Yes, Lieutenant, there's a great deal more to it," said Fong. "But it was decided at the time that it would be against the general interest to publish the full facts."
" Whose decision, Mr. Secretary?"
"That of the President, in consultation with the Admirals of Space Corps," said Fong. "I might add that there have been times since then when the President has voiced to me certain doubts about the wisdom of that decision."
"Then surely, if he were conscious, he would agree to the release of the file?"
Fong placed his hands, palms downward, on the desk top and looked steadily up at Sharva. "I wonder, do we have the right to anticipate the thoughts of such a great man?"
"The file, Mr. Secretary ... ?"
"So young, and so impatient" The beginnings of a smile creased Henry Pong's smooth face. "All right, Lieutenant, I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll arrange for you to have a private room in this building where you can read the file and see the tapes that go with it. On one condition: when you've studied the information made available to you, you must come back to me and we'll talk again about whether or not you should make that information public knowledge."
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary," Sharva said. But, even as he agreed thankfully, he found himself thinking that there might be something in this for the President's secretary.
Henry Fong raised his hands from the desk. "No, Lieutenant, don't thank me now; you may wish to withdraw your gratitude later."
Sharva saluted and left.
Henry Fong knew that when that time came, some way had to be found, some new method of binding together the disparate elements that went to make up the empire of United Earth. He closed his eyes for a moment, in silent prayer to the Great Architect of the Universe that his judgment was a true one and that through the words and actions of two men, each of whom held duty and principle above all thoughts of self, United Earth would survive.
It was past midnight when he came to her room. She rose from her sleepless bed, flinging on a negligee, and opened the door for him.
"Paul, where have you been? I've ..." She stopped talking, immediately ashamed of her selfish preoccupation with her own agony, when she saw his face. His eyes held something beyond pain; they were the eyes of a man who had seen hell.
"Helen ..His arms reached out and pulled her close to him.
She yielded gladly, hungry for his affection. She sensed immediately that this was not the proud, animal sensuality they had known together on the previous evening, but a deeper, more spiritual need. They clung together like two children, each needing the security of the other's affection and warmth.
Later he undressed, showered and came back to her.
"Come and sleep," she said.
He laid his great head on her breast, and she held him, making small sounds of comfort, sensing his need, and feeling in this new, chaste relationship that she shared with him a greater love than she had ever experienced with any man. He was firstly her lover and then her child; she was strength to his weakness, yet knowing at the same time that this weakness was revealed to her alone because of his love and trust for her. She knew he had been hurt, deeply, and could not speak of it.
When he awoke, soon after dawn, the haunted look had gone from his eyes, as if sleep and her care had rationalized whatever had caused it. Fully awake, his face dark with morning stubble, he raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her.
"Thank you, Helen," he said. "Thank you for not asking for answers I can't give." He kissed her gently, then rose from the bed. "I have to go now," he said, buttoning the tunic of his uniform. "There's work, a great deal of work, to be done today."
"Can I help?"
He paused, looking down at her. "You have, already," he said gently.
"When shall I see you again?"
"If everything goes as I hope, this evening," he said. "Put some things in a bag, and I'll be here about eighteen hundred hours to collect you."
"We're going somewhere?"
He nodded. "The inquiry continues on Saturday, but tonight and tomorrow I want to be alone with you where we can forget it all."
"Can we do that?"
"Together ... yes, we can," he said. "Now, I must
go."
Admiral Sam Suvorov sighed as he picked a pile of accumulated papers from his in tray and laid them on the desk in front of him. The vid buzzed. Suvorov's heart leapt as he reached for the switch. Perhaps this was the call he had been waiting for.
"Yes?"
"Presidential Secretary Fong is calling you, sir."
"All right, put him on."
"Good morning, Admiral Suvorov." The bland, brown features of Henry Fong appeared in the screen.
"Any news from Moon?" Suvorov asked immediately.
Fong shook his head slowly. "No, I'm afraid not. And when it does come there doesn't seem any likelihood that it will be favourable. According to Hurwitz, there's no will to live. Physically the operation was a success, but the mind has made its own decision to lay down its burden."
"Then there's no hope of a Presidential statement?"
"On the subject of the Pandora's box? No. However
Suvorov leaned forward tensely.
"Senior Lieutenant Sharva of the Judge Advocate General's Department is a determined young man," Henry Fong said unhurriedly.
"You've spoken to him?" Suvorov asked.
"At considerable length," replied Fong. "He came to see me yesterday afternoon."
"He had no authority! IH have him—"
"Discharged from the Corps, I hope," Henry Fong said blandly. "I can use a man with Sharva's abilities in my department."
Suvorov glared at the slim, Buddha image of Henry Fong. Damn the man Why couldn't he ever come right out and say what he meant? To add to his exasperation, he became aware of a commotion outside in his secretary's office. As he looked up, his door burst open and Rear Admiral Junius Carter appeared, trailed by an apologetic female sub-Lieutenant.
"What do you mean, he's busy?" roared Carter, his stubbly scalp bristling. "He can't be too busy to see me!"
The secretary retreated at a glance from Suvorov, closing the door behind her.
"Sit down and behave yourself, Junius!" commanded Suvorov. "I'm talking to the presidential secretary."
Carter grunted and subsided, simmering, into a chair that creaked underneath his bulk.
"The ubiquitous Admiral Carter, I presume?" Henry Fong said, making a steeple of his slim fingers. "I understand that the investigation of Corps Records was, shall we say, only a partial success?"
"I found the leak!" roared Carter, moving round into the range of the vidphone seamier.
"You found an unfortunate Petty Officer with a history of sexual ... indiscretion, and scared him into taking a lethal dose of parathylide," Fong said. "Surely it would have been more constructive to have won the man's confidence with a view to finding out who was pressuring him?"
Carter looked uncomfortable. "I merely asked him a few simple questions."
"I can imagine," Fong said. "I would suggest that in future you stick to building spaceships and leave playing detective to those more suited to such work by temperament and training."
Admiral Suvorov ran the fingers of one hand through his thatch of gray hair. "Mr. Secretary, you were saying ... about Lieutenant Sharva?"
"A good man, Admiral—without attempting to appear pious—a good man in most senses of the word— sincere, truthful, honourable, dedicated. Old-fashioned virtues, but not outmoded ones."
Suvorov frowned. "I'll admit, he's shown up well, so far ...
"
"Looks good on a television screen, too," said Henry Fong. "Solid, dependable, the kind of man people trust instinctively."
"So what do you want to do? Make a politician of him?" rumbled Junius Carter, who was becoming impatient
"No, Junius, that's just what I don't want," Henry Fong said blandly. "Even if I thought he could be changed, I would want him just as he is."
"For what purpose?" asked Suvorov.
"I believe that such a man might be capable of presenting the facts of what happened on Minos IV in such a manner that he would win the unquestioning allegiance of his audience. In accordance with this belief, I have released into his keeping the Confidential File and all relevant data, assuring him that he has a completely free hand to handle the subject in any way he thinks fitting."
Both Admirals gaped at the smooth face on the screen.
"But surely that's a Presidential decision?" Suvorov said.
"Under normal circumstances, yes," Fong said. "But the President, as we all know, is not available."
"You mean you're going to let him go into open court and ..." Carter's words trailed away as he tried to assess the implications of Fong's statement.
"Can you think of a better way of getting Commander Bruce and the Corps off the hook, at this particular time?" said Henry Fong. "And now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, there is a great deal to be done." His face faded abruptly from the screen.
"Well IH be damned!" Carter's face wrinkled in puzzlement. "Why the hell would Fong, after a lifetime safe on the sidelines, commit himself by making a decision like that?"
Suvorov regarded his companion soberly. "If I was in need of any confirmation that the President is dying, that was it," he said quietly.
"How's that?"
"Look at it this way, Junius. When Oharo dies, what happens?"
Carter shrugged. "Vice-President Wilkins takes over, I suppose."
"For the interim period, yes," Suvorov said. "But according to the constitution there has to be a Presidential election within three months, right? Fong is a patient man. He has been quite content to serve Oharo all these years; but now, make no mistake about it, he's done with self-effacement. I'll lay you a year's pay to a bag of peanuts that Fong is already making his preparations. And what candidate can possibly stand against him, with the readymade platform at his disposal? He's ex-right-hand man of the late, beloved President Oharo, able to pursue a continuity of policy. Tell me honestly,
Junius; who would you rather see in the Presidential chair, that nonentity Wilkins, or Henry Fong?"
"Well, if you put it that way, I suppose it's obvious," Carter said. "But I still..
"Look, Junius, Fong knows all the angles, and all the right people. He'll make a damned good President," said Suvorov. "Something else he knows—that to be a strong, outward-looking President of United Earth, he needs the full backing of the Space Corps!"
A sudden animation fleshed out Carter's craggy features.. "By God, you're right, Sam!" he roared. "Let's just hope Lieutenant Sharva is as good as Fong thinks he is."
*18*
... But they are somewhere. They have to be. By all the laws of probability, We should have met them before. There, long before we reached the
Rim, we should have found them. Consider the odds. We cannot be the only men....
(KILROY : I Kavanin.)
The lake was in Northern Ontario, a sapphire between slopes of tumbled gray-brown rock topped with pines. There was a small beach made of transported sand, and a two-room wooden cabin sixty meters up the slope. The only neighbours were a pair of friendly squirrels and a few hundred water birds.
Paul Sharva stroked the length of her golden back. "You're sure you're not burning?"
Helen was lying, completely relaxed, her head cradled in her arms. "No, I had a light tan before."
Paul squinted up at the strong, morning sun. "Maybe, but a drop of this might help." He squeezed a colourless ointment out of a tube and began to apply it, working with loving care.
Drowsy and content as a stroked cat, she said: "The hire of all this must have cost you a packet."
"I have a friend in the business. But total exclusivity does come a little high."
"And all for yourself. Somewhere to think." 174
"Uh-uh."
"I think everyone should have a private lake, for thinking."
"And for fishing. But then, my kind of fishing just amounts to sitting and thinking." He was stroking her peachlike behind. "Mustn't miss this or you won't be able to sit down."
She wriggled gently. "How to make love -with suntan lotion."
"What?"
"That's what you're doing, isn't it?"
"So?"
"So go on doing it."
He went on doing it, down her buttocks, the back of her thighs and calves. "Now turn over ... Hey! Don't knock your communicator down."
She turned over and lay smiling up at him. "Damn my communicator. I only brought it to salve my conscience for goofing off like this. I'm sure the Corps can get along without me for one day, at least."
"At least," he repeated as he began to work down her neck and shoulders.
She reacted with sensuous pleasure to his light touch, as he spread the protective film over her breasts. "Mmm... Aren't we all bloody egoists?"
"Are we?" He spoke quietly, deliberately, as though words were valuable.
"Yes. I mean . . . look at the attention I'm getting."
"It's no more than you deserve. Besides, skin like yours, in this sun "
She laughed. "That's a lawyer's trick, pretending to misunderstand so as to sustain a line of thought."
"Your perspicacity does you credit, ma'am." His hand stopped just above her navel. "In the sunlight that bruise looks a beauty. Any pain?"
"You're smoothing it away."
"We try to give satisfaction." He continued with the gentle spreading of the lotion.
"When you've finished me, IH do the same for you," she said.
He laughed. "Me? All hair and mahogany?" He went on stroking; then he stopped. "I do need protection, but not against the sun."
She raised herself on one elbow. "Then against what?"
"Oh ... To many people I'm the lone Persian bull who walks by himself. They find me efficient—which I am—and they find me spare on words; I'm that too, to most people."
"But not to me."
He regarded her seriously. "I'm glad you've got that point. I have solitary hobbies, because ... well, because I’m that sort. I can fence myself in and get on with life better that way. But it doesn't mean that I don't want anyone inside the fence with me. Time for thinking, yes, but you can do your thinking with somebody if you find the right person."
"You mean that being with such a person can be as good as being alone, but better?"
He laughed. "And I never knew before that Lindstrom was an Irish name. Yes, that's exactly what I mean."
"Any religion, Paul?"
"My own mixture. A revision of Mohammedanism, plus my own bits of ancestor worship. It seems to work."
"I'm envious."
"Why?"
"Oh well, I suppose because you know where you fit in. You've organized yourself, looked right inside and said, 'This I ought to do, and this, and this.' And you've done it. You run life on your terms, don't you?"
"Pretty well, with some outstanding exceptions."
"Exceptions?"
"One, really. Before three nights ago, there were none."
She understood him perfectly. The summer morning suddenly became unbearably beautiful. Why didn't he have a wife and a family already? Because he was choosy, because he set a high valuation on love as opposed to making love. "And now there's me?"
"Yes." His answer was level, quiet, a statement of unchangeable fact and resolution.
It was what she had wanted to hear. She lay back again and closed her eyes. She felt his hand cup her breast, felt his thumb and finger caress a nipple. Then his hand patted her gently.
He said: "Closing your eyes won't make it go away."
"Shall we go up to the cabin?"
"That's no answer."
"There isn't supposed to be an answer. I enjoy you, and you enjoy me." She looked up at him sharply. "Don't you?"
"You don't have to ask that."
"Then what more do you want?"
"The real thing," he said seriously. "When we have each other it’s wonderful, but the mating is for enjoyment only. In time, surely you understand that even such joy can become meaningless if it is without purpose?"
Her hands were on his shoulders, feeling the firm muscle beneath the dark skin. "You're a strange one, Paul," she murmured.
"Is it so strange to long for the day when you lie there, quietly, letting what I give you do the work it should?"
She trembled, as everything that was woman inside her surged upward in a torrent that responded to the longing of this man. This was what she wanted, too. Perhaps it was what she had been created for. "Paul
He covered her mouth with his gentle, big hand. "Helen, I want a wife—you."
She was seeking now for defences and finding precious few. "My career..."
"I'll give you a career. Six sons. Wouldn't that be a career? You could sign out of the Corps."
"It's too late, Paul, years too late." She moved from him and sat with her hands clasped about her knees, aware of the stinging of unshed tears in her eyes.
"Helen, how can you be sad at what I've said?"
"Because some fools can be unhappy, even in heaven," she said, deliberately looking away from him. "Paul, how can someone as intelligent as you ask such a simple question?"
"The simplest ones are sometimes the hardest to answer," he said. "Don't make a decision now, just tell me you'll think about it."
"Are you sure, Paul?"
"I know the career for you, with the right man. And I'm the right man because I love you."
"You must be a rotten lawyer," she said softly. "You're so damned honest. I believe you think you mean it. But how can you know it's true?" She slapped a golden thigh. "It's not a bad body, Paul. It knows how to give as well as receive. That shows, even when I'm wearing uniform. Couldn't it be just that?"
A Thunder Of Stars Page 15