Chapter 11

"That wasn't good, Carlos."

Meiersdottir had cautiously waited until the next morning, ship time, to request a meeting, even then half-expecting the request would be denied. Igwanda had accepted, but his high dudgeon was apparent as she walked into the meeting chamber. She chose to begin with a chal­lenge.

He met it squarely, deliberately misconstruing the direction of her comment. "No. It was not. Are your people children that I must parent them?"

"Carlos—"

"I know. That was not what you meant. But to what degree do you expect me to coddle your sweet petunias?"

"Carlos, they were upset. They were expecting—"

"Expecting what? A walk in the park of a major city? A visit to the local zoo where the potentially lethal exotic species are carefully caged to prevent injury to the sightseers? I know they have all seen the scan of the Argo landing. Did they view it through fogged glasses? Or do they believe they are omnipotent beings who may walk through the Valley of Death unscathed because the Lord of Learning is with them?"

"All right, Carlos," she said firmly. "I can listen to more if you need to say it. But at some point we have to talk seriously."

Igwanda drew a long breath. "You are right, Amanda," he said more quietly. "I am distraught, and exasperated—with reason, I believe. But please understand my perception.

"I accepted the assignment to this mission in part because I believed I could best protect it. Another part of my thinking, though, was that in doing so I would have the opportunity to be in congress with some of the best minds of my lifetime. I yearned for the opportunity to meet with these intellectual giants, to converse with them, to sit at their feet as a disciple if I merited no greater status. But to simply have the opportunity to meet and talk with them..."

He paused to gather himself.

"And what, when I arrive, do I find? An assortment of arrogant snobs who take collective offense at a simple necessary requirement for the training of my task force. Who eject me and my troops from their midst at our first meeting. Who shun us for weeks as inherently inferior to their high calling and intellectual attainments."

"Carlos, I had no idea you felt this way," Meiersdottir interrupted. "Early on I tried to talk to you about—"

"And what response did you expect? Would you have offered me, offered my men and women, gratuitously sponsored entry into the society of those who had already rejected us? We military 'burrheads, ' as they call us, are proud people. We feel we have earned the right to that pride. Right by combat in some part, but mostly right by service—the service we have freely given, at some expense to our comfort and in some cases our bodies and our lives, to those whom we protect. We will not go begging for acceptance where it is not freely offered."

He paused, but she said nothing.

"I do not quarrel with our reception. There are indeed strata to any society, and it appears that the supposedly higher of those here represented finds its social inferiors too far beneath it for inclusion. Thus it is, and I must accept it.

"But last night I found that the bodies that house these supposedly remarkable intellects with whom I wished to share discourse are those of children. A treat is promised to a child, the child cannot wait for fulfillment in time, it must have its treat now and nothing else will suffice. Christmas and birthday gifts cannot await their calendar date, they must be opened immediately."

"Didn't you open presents ahead of time when you were young, Carlos?" Meiersdottir interrupted in an attempt at lightness.

"I? No, I did not; Christmas came on Christmas and birthdays on the date, I was taught. But no matter had I done so, I was then a child and children must be forgiven their foibles. These, however, are not children—are not supposed to be children. What am I to make of these brilliant intellects who whine and whimper and pitch public temper tantrums en masse because their instant gratification is denied? Am I perhaps blessed that I was not afforded the society of these so-called great minds as I so carefully designed their protection?"

"I understand your feelings from the standpoint of the job you were assigned to do on this mission," she said. "But—"

"Do you? Do you just? And where then, Amanda, was your sweet voice of reason in the tempest that assailed me last evening?"

"What did you expect?" she snapped, her control at its end. "Am I King Canute, to order the tides to cease at my command?"

He shook his head abruptly. "I suppose—"

"No supposition, Carlos. There were too many voices, too much anger. My role, my competence lies in building bridges. I could have crafted no bridge in that meeting ­after you'd done your bull-in-a-china-shop number; I could only have made things worse, undermined my own leadership. Would you rather be talking today with someone else who'd be telling you to shove your surveillance up your ass?"

The bluntness, as she'd intended, caught his attention. "With you, of course," he said. "But what is the bull and china shop nonsense? You and I have always spoken plainly; tell me my error."

"This long surveillance prior to landing has always been your plan, hasn't it?"

"Of course," he said. "A key axiom of military tactics has always been to know your enemy before you fight him. The information we have from the Argo—"