by Sam Smith
Hambro proceeded to quiz Anton about details. Anton opened his case, called up some of the information he had purloined from the ship. At one point Hambro laughed,
“How do you come by all this stuff Anton? Your usual questionable sources?”
“My usual unquestioned sources,” Anton grinned at him, glanced to Petre, who, smiling, turned away. This man, she thought, was unscrupulous; yet he offered her trust and expected trust in return. As if following her thoughts Hambro chuckling laid his hand on Anton’s shoulder.
“I’d sooner trust,” he told Petre, “this self-confessed scoundrel than any number of guessed-at hypocrites.” The two men smiled briefly with shrewd understanding at one another, resumed their conversation.
Once Hambro Harrap had allowed himself to be convinced that something was definitely afoot on Happiness, Petre — from her discreet distance — beheld in muted pantomime the subtlest exchange of signals. Hambro’s silver head, one groomed eyebrow lifted in question, was tilted slightly in her direction. In response Anton’s sharp chin marginally rose and his eyes partially closed in assent. She was, she realised, cleared to share the confidences of the confidence breakers.
“So what do we do?” Hambro said. “I could use it to steal a march on my rivals. But the bearer of bad tidings can end up carrying the stigma of those bad tidings. One isn’t credited with vigilance, just with being a busybody. And I could, with some justification, be accused of inciting panic. This has to be handled with care.”
Petre’s opinions had been in a constant state of reversal and revision since her meeting Anton Singh. She had been shocked by his tampering with the mail, and had quickly become bored with its banal contents. She had been impressed by his being on familiar terms with a City Senate Member, and had subsequently rebuked herself for having believed Anton Singh to be a selfish rogue when, in bringing this information to Hambro Harrap, Anton had all the while had the public interest at heart. So she had forgiven him his unorthodox methods. Now she was shocked again to realise that all that this City Senate Member cared for the information was what use he might personally make of it.
For someone who had so cynically exploited her own sexuality, her naivity and her trust might appear remarkable. But Petre Fanne was one of those who did not examine her own motives nor apply them to others. She believed other people to be different. However, like so many of the other people in this tale, Hambro Harrap also had his humble ambitions.
Where, for instance, Munred Danporr had had a single future picture of himself, Hambro had a collage of such pictures — himself haranguing a spellbound Senate, himself jubilantly waving his arms aloft on the victory rostrum, his media-self confidently addressing the citizenry, himself mentioned in the press, himself the subject of speculation by the pundits.... Fame was the name of his game.
“How long have we got?” Hambro asked Anton.
Petre, fascinated by the machinations of these two men, and scornful of her own recent naiveté and wanting to learn more, came and sat near Anton.
“Time Tulla Yorke gets back to XE2, makes it official...” Anton pursed his lips, “Five days before it reaches here.” Anton at this juncture was unaware that, apart from her being about to be delayed, Tulla’s work had taken longer than she had anticipated. “How long before the news breaks...” Anton spread wide his palms, “...depends what tag they put on it. If it’s an Urgent, even a Priority, it could break immediately. Then again it might get passed to some specialist office, be sat on for weeks. Like you said, no-one wants to break bad news.”
Although this cynical appreciation of the way Service operated offended Petre — out of the faint ghost of a loyalty to Munred and his profession — such a view, she had to admit, was more or less accurate. Because, as we have already seen with the police, with Munred, with Nero Porsnin, the majority of those in positions of authority are all too ready to talk themselves into doing nothing, into leaving the problem for someone else somewhere else.
As has been said before this inactivity is deliberate policy. However, the result is, because of its indolent personnel and its size, our civilisation is slow to respond to crises, practically always fails to read the signals in advance, with the consequence that apparently trivial imperfections often go unchecked for decades, gather their own momentum, until the point is reached where drastic action has to be taken. As with the intentional underproduction of past centuries — to keep food prices and profits high — until we were faced with a near calamitous food shortage in two whole galaxies. Only then were laws promulgated to fix a minimum of food production. So too with communication — not until the administration was in near chaos was the Service formed and Space Time introduced.
On the other hand our civilisation’s slowness to respond to internal pressures is one of its strengths. We do not go fleeing from false crises. In fact, because of its turgid response, what often at first appears to be a crisis, by the time the facts have all been garnered, the situation has changed of its own accord and a crisis no longer exists. The result being that when officialdom finally gets around to considering them most crises have resolved themselves and the issue is worthy of historical analysis only.
Our civilisation has often been derogatively likened to a body without a head. A more fitting analogy would be to liken it to a primitive organism which is the sum of its cellular parts. Hence its often uncoordinated and sluggish response to stimuli. Although one has to say that this sluggish response can exacerbate a genuine crisis. But that is both the nature and the policy of our civilisation, its impediment and its boon.
Politicians like Hambro Harrap thrive on crises of their own invention. Our system of government has, therefore, been expressly formulated to prevent such self-seeking politicians mismanaging our affairs. Those politicians love nothing better than to create artificial divisions, than to manufacture bogus issues on which they can expound at length, and from which superfluous laws are created. Realising this our civilisation has so ordered itself that no individual City Senate can change any law on its own. Any change in any law has to be done in consultation and with the accord of every other City Senate. And every City Senate has the right of veto. Add to that the referrals back for amendments, addendums, etcetera, and legislation can take not years but decades to come into effect. The Trading Charter for instance took fifty six years to be ratified; and the politicians are still tinkering with it.
Because of the far flung nature of our civilisation, by the time every City Senate has been persuaded of the need to change a law, the very earliest any legislation can be enacted is within eight months. Of course any executive can act independently within the existing law, within their own orbit of interest; but that depends on their being told. Which is why Communication is such an important and powerful post in Service.
Even so, whatever the system, and because of the notorious slowness of our system, large gaps are bound to be left for the unscrupulous politician (Know one who isn’t?) to leap through, to enjoy for a while popular acclaim, to hold sway as an expert opinion, to taste a little prestige and power, which is what such men and women want. And ours being an infamously slow apparatus of government, it leaves many holes for politicians like Hambro Harrap to leap through.
However, it must be emphasised, governments too susceptible to change can, by their frantic fickleness, create hysteria; whereas a stoic government, like ours, can see crises come and go like so many bursting bubbles. If change is necessary and inevitable then it carries its own impetus; and, for all their shouting, politicians will neither arrest it nor alter it. The most they can do is to channel it and claim copyright.
All very well, but, in a case like this, where the stimulus was not self-generated but external, and where rapid response was required, the situation was open to be exploited by an ambitious politician — a politician such as Hambro Harrap.
Hambro and Anton were well aware how the system worked, and were most likely correct when they estimated that it would be three weeks
before official news of the Nautili on Happiness came to the attention of any of Hambro’s fellow Members of the Senate.
“What about the media?” Hambro asked.
“They’re not likely to run a scare like this without first verifying it. Apart from which I’ve already copyrighted the story. Quietly. A speciality on planetary life. Happiness in particular. My exclusive.”
“Two-jumps-ahead-Anton,” Hambro grinned.
Another reason Anton was not unduly concerned about the media is because of the amount of information they receive daily from all quarters of the galaxy and beyond. Deciding what is news exercises their minds more than the actual broadcasting of it. Because, again, we come up against contemporaneous events.
Often, by the time the news they proclaim returns to the stations whence it came, the news itself has made news. Added to which they also have to decide what their rivals might choose as the more interesting news. One newspaper might confidently lead with what it thinks of as an exclusive, only to find the same scoop in another paper. For instance someone else somewhere else could be writing this same book. Added to which, as a further constraint, if it can be proved that any news service has presented unfounded rumour as fact than that establishment can lose its licence. So the media, too, plays safe.
What Petre, who was beginning to understand Anton’s and Hambro’s way of thinking, couldn’t fathom was what Hambro hoped to gain from the information that Anton had brought him. Later Anton explained to her that the city Senate elections were due in five months. Prospective Senate Members are not allowed to start officially campaigning until four weeks before polling day. (These were for the City Senate, not the District Senates.) But, as for all Senates, there were only sixteen available places; groups of this size having been found to be too small for strict polarisation along dogmatic lines. The competition for Senate seats was therefore tremendous; and, if Hambro could attract media coverage before the official start of the election campaign, he would steal a march over his many rivals, possibly secure the votes of some of the majority who do not normally vote.
Unfortunately our elections rouse much enthusiasm, but little interest. Politicians, like Hambro Harrap, jostle for media time, and the uninterested electorate switch them off. Our city, like everywhere else, has an abysmal voting record. However, to make voting compulsory, as some think is the answer, would be to inhibit our freedom of choice — the choice not to vote for any of the candidates on offer.
In the last city elections 15% of those who were eligible to vote did so. Hambro was aiming himself at the 85% who did not. If he could capture but 2% of that apathy vote his re-election to the Senate was a certainty. But first he had to overcome their inertia, achieve something which would capture their interest, would put him in the news.
Such was the plan that Anton outlined to Hambro Harrap.
“There is a scientist here, Tevor Cade.” Petre had heard the name mentioned on one of his phone calls from the ship. “He’s a psychologist,” Anton told Hambro. “For the past three years he’s been raising funds for an expedition to investigate the Nautili. It’s not, at the moment, a fashionable cause. The Nautili, as far as our citizenry are at present concerned, are not even in this galaxy. But Tevor Cade has a ship, fully equipped, ready to leave. His docking fees are considerable. At the moment his fund-raising is stationary. The money he does manage to raise goes on his current debt, which increases because he’s still in dock.”
“So?”
“So his expedition is expressly designed to communicate with the Nautili. If he goes to Happiness, proves that their intentions are peaceful, that they are no threat to this city, and if you have so enabled him to do that — you could even go with him — then you will be seen as this city’s saviour.”
The two men once more grinned appreciatively at one another.
“Anton,” Hambro patted him on the knee, “I thank my lucky stars you’re not standing against me for the Senate.”
“If this Tevor Cade proves amenable,” Anton asked him, “will you be going with him?”
“How long will it take?”
“According to his prospectus, he reckons to be on the planet no more than two or three weeks. No doubt you could hurry him along.”
“The planet is three days away?”
“Yes. And if you do go I’ll be sending a cameraman.” Anton winked, “Record the moment Man met Nautili for posterity.”
Hambro swallowed the bait that Anton had laid for him. Because, although the story was interesting in itself, the presence of a City Senate Member would give it a focus, make it eminently newsworthy in the city.
“I’ll call Tevor Cade,” Hambro said.
“Better pay him a visit. Don’t want anyone overhearing our news.”
“Quite,” Hambro stood. “If I need you, where will you be?”
“At home,” Anton snapped his case closed.
As if impulsively Hambro took Petre by the hand. Petre glanced at him, favoured him with a quick smile: so this man too was a flirt.
“This is some mover-and-shaker,” Hambro shook his head admiringly at Anton.
“But won’t there be a scandal?” Petre asked wonderingly, at the same time returning the slight pressure of his hand: “If it should be discovered that you knew about this and didn’t tell anyone?”
“But they’ll know and they’ll do nothing.” Hambro released her hand the better to gesticulate, “My knowing won’t matter in the least”
Although Hambro was a candidate for public office, although he was in public office, he had technically taken no oath, did not have to inform the Senate of his every intention, and so there was nothing to prevent him making this a private venture.
“Deals made in private,” he confided in Petre, “are rarely recanted in public. Whereas deals made in public are very often recanted in private. Let me educate you my dear. Tonight’s news has made of today’s events legend — if today’s news was worthy of it. Historians may trace a course of events, may apply cause and effect current with the predominate thinking of their own times; but legend of a sort will remain. The most these dry historians can hope to achieve is to rewrite legend. While we, my dear, have to write our own legends. I intend, thanks to Anton here, to be the central character of a legend. The facts will be irrelevant.”
Anton impatiently awaited an end to Hambro’s political waffling, then it was a rush of leaving.
Not until Anton and Petre were in another cab did Petre ask the question that had been bothering her,
“Is he going to pay you for that information?”
“Not in cash,” Anton said. “Maybe in kind. He has influence. And I the exclusive copyright to one helluva story.”
Petre was beginning to share Hambro Harrap’s admiration for this small scheming man.
Nor did Anton Singh’s apartment disappoint her. As discreetly opulent and spacious as Hambro Harrap’s, she was to have three rooms to herself, rooms larger than any she had shared with Munred. Saying that she felt the need for some exercise after the confines of the ship, and realising that sooner or later Anton had to become aware that she exercised, she excused herself and changed into her leotard.
Excitedly moving the furniture from the centre of the room, she was overjoyed to discover that she could do four forward flips with ease diagonally across the room. And, with that assertion of her original talents, Petre Fanne arrived in the city. Indeed, so pleased was she with herself, so proud of her undiminished ability, that she called Anton to watch her. Somewhat startled by her cartwheels and tumbles, he stood at a safe distance and politely applauded, abruptly left her to answer the phone. Flushed, Petre followed him.
It was Hambro.
“When do you leave?” Anton asked him, said Yes a few times, and wished him luck.
“Just one call,” he said to Petre. He dashed off a number.
“Awen?” he said. “It’s on. Leave in ninety minutes.” No sooner had Anton replaced the phone than it rang again.
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“Is it always this hectic here?” Petre asked him.
“The busy,” Anton reached for the phone, winked at her, “have the best lives.”
Chapter Twenty
The three men, each in their own way, waited for the big woman with the spiky blonde hair to give them her attention.
Inspector Eldon Boone sat, with his elbows on his knees, the fat fingers of one hand groping inside his ginger beard.
Jorge Arbatov sat, one stringy leg crooked over the other, his bald head to one side studying the transcript on the screen beyond her.
Across the other side of the office Nero Porsnin sat small, erect and eager on the edge of his seat.
The transcript Tulla was reading was of Munred Danporr’s interview with Happiness’s Spokesman.
Tulla had called the meeting immediately on her arrival on XE2, leaving herself two hours to catch up on any new developments. She had gone to her apartment to change, expecting Petre to be there. When she had come up to the Director’s office she had asked Eldon Boone what had become of her. Having been on Torc, Eldon Boone hadn’t known. Nero had fawningly told Tulla that Petre had left for the city in the company of someone called Anton Singh; and he returned to her the spare key that had been found in the Director’s apartment.
While Nero had been out of the office collecting the extra chair Tulla had queried his presence at the meeting.
“One Director,” Jorge had said, “has already disappeared, leaving Nero in ignorance. Should anything happen to me he has to be cognisant of all that is happening.”
Tulla had the impression that this scrawny old man had taken little Nero under his wing. (The reputation of Jorge Arbatov had not previously reached Tulla’s ears.)
Tulla’s case was plugged into the desk console. Now, having skipped once more through Munred’s interview and the police reports — the police had learnt nothing new on their third visit to Happiness — she turned in her seat to face the three men.