by Algis Budrys
"Of course. What's your—" Michaelmas closed his phone and sat again while the aircraft flew.
He pictured Campion turning to Gervaise again.
"Mr Michaelmas," Domino said after some silence. "I just got Konstantinos Cikoumas's export licence pulled. Perma-nently. He might as well leave Africa,"
"Very good."
"Hanrassy has placed two calls to Gately in the past ten minutes and been told he was on another line."
"Ah."
"Gately's talking to Westrum."
"Yes."
"When they get confirmation from Norwood, they'll accept Wirkola's plan. Then Westrum will call Hanrassy and play her a recording of Norwood's confirming data. Gately was very pleased that Mr Westrum was making it unnecessary for Gately to speak to her at all."
"It's funny how things work out."
"You'll be landing in a few moments. Touchdown point is the meadow beyond the sanatorium parking lot. Even so, we may unsettle the patients."
"Can't be helped. If they can stand news crews, they can absorb anything. That's fine, Domino.
Thank you."
There was another pause.
"Mr Michaelmas."
"Yes."
"I'll stay as close as I can. I don't know how near that will be. If any opportunity affords itself, I'll be there."
"I know."
The flight crewman's voice said : "We are coming down now. A bell will ring." The vibration became fuller, and the tone of the engines changed. Michaelmas sank and rose in his cushions, cradling the terminal in his hands. There was a thump. The bell rang and the ladder flew open.
Michael-mas hit his quick release, slid out of his straps, and dropped down the ladder. "Danke,"
he said.
He stepped out into the meadow above the parking lot, looking down at where they'd been parked, and the long steps down which the lens had rolled. He strode quickly forward, quartering across the slope towards the sanatorium entrance. Sanatorium staff were running forward across the grass.
"I have to go," Domino said. "I can feel it again."
"Yes. Listen—it's best to always question yourself. Do you understand the reasons for that?"
There was no reply from the terminal.
The attendants were close enough so that he was being recognized. They slowed to a walk and frowned at him. He smiled and nodded. "A little surprise visit. I must speak to Doctors Limberg and Cikoumas about some things. Where are they? Is it this way? I'll go there." He moved through them towards the double doors, and through the doors. He passed the place where she'd broken her heel. He pushed down the corridor towards the research wing, his mind automatically following the floor plan Harry Beloit had shown Clementine. "Not a public area?" he was saying to some staff person at his elbow. "But I'm not of the public. I speak to the public. I must see Doctors Limberg and Cikoumas." He came to the long cool pastel hallway among the labs. Limberg and Cikoumas were coming out of adjoin-ing hall doors, staring at him, as the Type Beta rumbled up. "Ah, there!" he said, advancing on them, spreading his arms and putting his hands on their shoulders. "Exactly so!" he exclaimed with pleasure. "Exactly the people I want.
We have to talk. Yes. We have to talk." He turned them and propelled them towards Limberg's door. "Is this your office, Doctor? Can we talk in here? It seems comfortable enough. We need privacy. Thank you, Doctors. Yes." He closed the door behind him, chatty and beaming. "Well, now!" He propped one buttock on the corner of Limberg's desk.
The two of them were standing in the middle of the floor, looking at him. He was counting in his head. He estimated about thirty minutes since Norwood's conversation with Gately. "Well, here we three are!" he said, resting his hands on his thighs and leaning towards them attentively. "Yes.
Let's talk."
Twelve
Limberg put his head back and looked at him warily, his lips pursing. Then his mouth twitched into a flat little grimace. He turned and dropped into one of the two very comfortable-looking stuffed chairs. Against the raspberry-coloured velour, he seemed very white in his crisp smock and his old skin and hair. He brought his knees together and sat with his hands lying atop them.
He cocked his head and said nothing. His eyes darted sideward towards Cikoumas, who was just at the point of drawing himself up rigid and thrusting his hands into his pockets. Cikoumas said :
"Mister—ah—Michaelmas—"
"Larry. Please; this isn't a formal interview."
"This is no sort of interview at all," Cikoumas said, his composure beginning to return. "You are not welcome here; you are not—"
Michaelmas raised an eyebrow and looked towards Lim-berg. "I am not? Let me understand this, now . . . Med-limb Associates is refusing me hospitality before it even knows the subject I propose, and is throwing me out the door summarily?" He moved his hand down to touch the comm unit hanging at his side.
Limberg sighed softly. "No, that would be an incorrect impression." He shook his head slightly.
"Dr. Cikoumas fully understands the value of good media relations." He glanced at Cikoumas.
"Calm yourself, Kristiades, I suggest to you," he went on in the same judicious voice. "But, Mr Michael-mas, I do not find your behaviour unexceptionable. Surely there is such a thing as calling for an appointment?"
Michaelmas looked around him at the office with its rubbed shelves of books, its tapestries and gauzy curtains, its Bokhara carpet and a broad window gazing imperviously out upon the slopes and crags of a colder, harsher place. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked. "It seems so serene here." How much longer can it take to run? he was asking himself, and at the same time he was looking at Cikoumas and judging the shape of that mouth, the dex-terity of those hands which quivered with ambition. "It's only a few questions, Kiki," he said. "That's what they call you, isn't it—Kiki?"
Cikoumas suddenly cawed a harsh, brief laugh. "No, Mr Michaelmas, they don't call me Kiki,"
he said knowingly. "Is that what you're here to ask?"
"Would he have found some way to beg a lift on a military aircraft," Limberg commented, "if that was the gravity of his errand ?"
It didn't seem Cikoumas had thought that through. He frowned at Michaelmas now in a different way, and held himself more tensely.
Michaelmas traced a meaningless pattern on the rug with his shoe-tip. He flicked a little dust from his trouser leg, extending his wristwatch clear of his cuff. "A great many people owe me favours," he said. "It's only fair to collect, once in a while."
There was a chime in the air. "Dr. Limberg," a secretarial voice said. "You have an urgent telephone call." Michael-mas looked around with a pleasant, distracted smile.
"I cannot take it now, Liselotte," Limberg said. "Ask them to call later."
"It may be from Africa," Michaelmas said.
Cikoumas blinked. "I'll see if they'll speak to me. I'll take it in my office." He slipped at once through the con-necting door at the opposite side of Limberg's desk. Michaelmas traded glances with Limberg, who was motion-less. "Liselotte," Limberg said, "is it from Africa?"
"Yes, Herr Doktor. Colonel Norwood. I am giving the call to Dr. Cikoumas now."
"Thank you." Limberg looked closely at Michaelmas. "What has happened ?" he asked carefully.
Michaelmas stood up and strolled across the room to-wards the window. He lifted the curtain sideward and looked out. "He'll be giving Cikoumas the results of the engineering analysis on the false telemetry sender," he said idly. He scratched his head over his left ear. He swept the curtain off to the side, and turned with the full afternoon light behind him. He leaned his shoulders against the cool plate glass.
Limberg was twisted around in his chair, leaning to look back at him. "I had heard you were an excellent in-vestigative reporter," he said.
"I'd like to think I fill my role in life as successfully as you have yours."
Limberg frowned faintly. A silence came over both of them. Limberg turned away for a moment, avoiding the light upon his eyes.
Then he opened his mouth to speak, beginning to turn back, and Michaelmas said: "We should wait for Cikoumas. It will save repeating."
Limberg nodded slowly, faced forward again, and nodded to himself again. Michaelmas stayed comfortably where he was, facing the connecting door. The glass behind him was thrumming slightly, but no one across the room could see he was trembling, and the trembling had to do only with his body. Machinery hummed somewhere like an elevator rising, and then stopped.
Cikoumas came back after a few moments. He peered at Michaelmas up the length of the room. Behind him there was a glimpse of white angular objects, a gleam of bur-nished metals, cool, even lighting, a pastel blue composi-tion tile floor. Then he closed the door. "There you are."
He progressed to a show of indignation. "I have something confidential to discuss with Dr.
Limberg."
"Yes," Michaelmas said. "About the telemetry sender." Cikoumas made his face blank.
Limberg turned now. "Ah." He raised a hand sideward. "Hush one moment, Kristiades. Mr Michaelmas, can you tell us something about the sender?"
Michaelmas smiled at Cikoumas. "Norwood has told you UNAC's analytical computer programmes say the sender isn't Russian. It's a clever fake." He smiled at Limberg. "He says it's probably from Viola Hanrassy's organization."
Cikoumas and Limberg found themselves trying to ex-change swift glances. Limberg finally said: "Mr Michael-mas, why would they think it's from Hanrassy?"
"When it isn't? Are you asking how has UNAC fooled Norwood?"
Cikoumas twitched a corner of his mouth. "To do that, as you may not realize, they would have to reprogramme their laboratory equipment. Events have been too quick for them to do that."
"Ah. Well, then, are you asking why has Norwood become a liar, when he left here so sincere?"
Limberg shook his head patiently. "He is too fine a man for that." His eyes glittered briefly.
"Please, Mr Michael-mas. Explain for me." He waved silence towards Cikoumas again. "I am old.
And busy."
"Yes." Not as busy as some. "Well, now, as to why the sender appears a fake, when we all know it should appear genuine . . ." He rubbed his knuckles gently in his palm. "Sincere. If it could talk; if there was a way you could ask it Did He who made the lamb make Thee, it would in per-fect honesty say Da." And how does it do that, I wonder. Or how did they convince it? Which is it? What's that noise beyond Cikoumas's door? Then if you see the impossible occurring, Doctors, I would say perhaps there might be forces on this Earth which you had no way of taking into account." He addressed himself directly to Limberg. "It's not your fault, you see?"
Limberg nodded. The flesh around his mouth folded like paper.
Cikoumas dropped his jaw. "How much do you know?"
Michaelmas smiled and spread his palms. "I know there's a sincere Walter Norwood, where once over the Mediter-ranean there was nothing. Nothing," he said. "He'll be all right; nice job in the space programme, somewhere. Ad-ministrative. Off flight status; too many ifs. Grow older.
Cycle out, in time. Maybe get a job doing science com-mentary for some network." Michaelmas straightened his shoulders and stood away from the window. "It's all come apart, and you can't repeat it, you can't patch it up. Your pawns are taken. The Outer Planets expedition will go, on schedule, and others will follow it." And this new sound, now.
It was a faint ripple of pure tones, followed by a mechan-ical friction as something shifted, clicked, and sang in one high note before quieting. Perhaps they didn't know how acute his ear for music was. Cikoumas had taken longer in there than he might have needed for a phone call.
Limberg said : "Mr Michaelmas—these unknown forces . . . you are in some way representative of them?"
"Yes," Michaelmas said, stepping forward. His knees were stiff, his feet arched. "I am they."
His mouth stretched flat and the white ridges of his teeth showed. The sharp breath whistled through them as he exhaled the word. "Yes." He walked towards Cikoumas. "And I think it's time you told your masters that I am at their gates." As if I were deaf and they were blind. He stopped one step short of Cikou-mas, his face upturned to look directly at the man. There's something in there. In his eyes. And in that room.
Cikoumas smiled coldly. That came more naturally to him than the attempts to act indecision or fear. "The op-portunity is yours, Mr Michaelmas," he said, bowing from the waist a little and turning to open the door. "Please follow me. I must be present to operate the equipment at the interview."
"Kristiades," Limberg said softly from his chair, "be wary of him."
There was no one beyond the door when Michaelmas fol-lowed Cikoumas through it.
It was a white and metal room of moderate size, its exterior wall panelled from floor to ceiling with semi-globular plastic bays, some translucent and others trans-parent, so that the mountains were repeated in fish-eye views among apparent circles of milky light. Overhead was the latest in laboratory lighting technique : a pearl-coloured fog that left no shadows and no prominences. The walls were in matte white; closed panels covered storage. The composition underfoot was very slightly yielding.
To one side there was a free-standing white cylindrical cabinet, two and a half metres tall, nearly a metre wide. The faintest seams ran vertically and horizontally across its softly reflective surface. It jutted solidly up from the floor, as though it might be a continuation of something below.
Ahead of Michaelmas were storage cubes, work surfaces, instrumentation panels, sterile racks of teasing needles, for-ceps and scalpels, microtomes, a bank of micromanipula-tive devices — all shrouded beneath transparent flexible dust hoods or safe behind glassy panels.
Michaelmas looked around further. At his other hand was the partition wall to Limberg's office.
From chest height onwards, it was divided into small white open compart-ments like dovecotes.
Below that was a bare workshelf and a tall, pale-blue-upholstered laboratory stool to sit on.
Cikoumas motioned towards it. "Please."
Michaelmas raised his eyebrows. "Are we waiting here to meet someone?"
Cikoumas produced his short laugh. "It cannot come in here. It doesn't know where we are.
Even if it did, it couldn't exist unprotected here." He gestured to the chair again. "Please." He reached into one of the pigeonholes and produced a pair of headphones at the end of a spiral cord. "I do not like the risk of having this voice overheard," he said. "Listen." He cupped one earpiece in each hand and moved towards Michaelmas. "You want to know?" he said, twisting his mouth. "Here is knowledge. See what you make of it."
Michaelmas grunted. "And what would you like to know?"
Cikoumas shrugged. "Enough to decide whether we must surrender to these forces of yours or can safely dispose of you, of course."
Michaelmas chuckled once. "Fair enough," he said, and sat down. His eyes glittered hard as he watched Cikoumas's hands approach his skull. "Lower away."
Cikoumas rested the headphones lightly over his ears. Then he reached up and pulled out another set for himself. He stood close by, his hands holding each other, bending his body forward a little as if to hear better.
The voice was faint, though strong enough, probably, at its origins, but filtered, attenuated, distant, hollow, cold, dank: "Michaelmasss . . ." it said. "Is that you? Cikoumas tells me that is you.
Isss that what you are—Michaelmasss?"
Michaelmas grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "How do I answer it?" he asked Cikoumas, who momen-tarily lifted one earpiece.
"Speak," Cikoumas said, shifting eagerly around him. "You are heard."
"This is Michaelmas."
"An entity... you consider yourself an intelligent entity."
"Yes."
"Distinguishable in some manner from Limberg and Cikoumasss..."
"Yes."
"What does A equal ?"
"Pi R squared."
"What is the highest colour of rainbows?"
"Red."
"Would you eat one of your limbs if you were starving?"
"Yes."
"Would you eat Cikoumas or Limberg if you were starv-ing?"
Cikoumas was grinning faintly at him.
"First," Michaelmas said coldly.
"An entity ... to speak to an intelligent entity ... in these circumstances of remoteness and displacement... you have no idea how it feels ... to have established contact with three entities, now, under these peculiar circumstances ... to take converse with information-processors totally foreign . . . never of one's accustomed bone and blood . .."
"I — ah — have some idea."
"You argue?"
"I propose."
"Marriage?"
"No. Another form of dialectical antagonism."
"We are enemiesss . . . ? You will not join with Limberg and Cikoumas ...?"
"Why should I ? What will you give?"
"I will make you rich and famous among your own . . . kind . . . Contact with my skills can be translated into rewards which are somehow gratifying to you . . . indivi-duals . . . Cikoumas and Limberg can show you how it'sss done ..."
"No."
"Repeat. Clarify. Synonimize."
"Negative. Irrevocable refusal. Contradiction. Absolute opposition. I will not be one of your limbs." He grinned at Cikoumas.
"Ah-hah! Ah-hah! Ah-hah! Then is your curiosity in the name of what you think science...?"
"Justice."
"Ah-hah! Ah-hah! Complex motivations . . .! Ah-hah! The academician Zusykses sssaid to me this would be so; he said the concept is not of existences less than ours, but apart from oursss in origin only, reflecting perfectly that quality which we define as the high faculties; I am excited by your replies ... I shall tell my friend, Zusykses, when we reunite with each other this afternoon; his essential worth is validated!"
"I might be lying."
"We know nothing of lies . . . No, no, no ... in the universe, there is this and there is that. This is not that. To say this is that is to hold up to ridicule the universe. And that is an absurd proposition."