Chapter 7

The summons she'd expected, from SES Executive Director Eugene Mallet, reached her in her hotel the next morning. Would she please present herself in his office as soon as possible, preferably immediately?

She was of course under no obligation to comply. It had been several decades since she was in any way beholden to SES, and they had no authority whatever to command her. But it suited her purposes perfectly to obey the peremptory directive; indeed, had it not arrived prompt­ly she would her sought out the meeting on her own initiative.

Exhausted as she was from her nearly hour-long performance the evening before, she nevertheless told her grandson to call and schedule for early that afternoon. She wanted to leave no opportunity for the agency to gear up a publicity counter-campaign. They were momentarily off-balance, her late-night appeal for public support had taken them by surprise, but she was well aware that they had formidable arguments to offer on their side of the issue and equally formidable capabilities to promote those arguments once their ponderous bureaucracy could overcome its inertia.

She and Igwanda were ushered into Mallet's office almost as soon as they arrived—"almost" only because of an initial attempt by Mallet's assistant to separate them, leaving Igwanda in the outer office to cool his heels. Meiersdottir simply withered the man with a single glance, held her arm out to her grandson and said "with me, Carlie," and they walked in together.

She knew Mallet casually from prior encounters of several years before, and was amused to hear him presume on their acquaintance with an effusive greeting. "Amanda!" he exclaimed with feigned joy. "How very good of you to come, and on such short notice!"

"Eugene," she responded coolly. "A pleasure, as always."

"Thank you again, Amanda." He took in Igwanda with a hard stare. "I'd, er, I'd thought we might talk in private, without the need for assistants present," he began tentatively.

"I'm a hundred and six years old, Eugene, and as I think you know I had a long night yesterday," she said. "This is my grandson, Carlos Igwanda. He's named after his grandfather, with whom he also shares a few other characteristics. I need him by my side. Carlie," she said, turning to the young man, "this is SES Executive Director Eugene Mallet. So long as his behavior warrants you may call him Director Mallet."

Mallet's eyes narrowed at her tone, and he nodded slowly. "Very well, Amanda, gloves off." He walked behind his desk and took his chair, ostentatiously without inviting her to sit. She did anyway, not in the chair carefully positioned in front of the desk but rather on a more comfortable settee slightly further away and to his right, obliging him to rotate somewhat to face her. Igwanda remained standing, moving behind her on the settee.

"Amanda, I think you know you embarrassed the Service considerably with your little display last night," he said sternly, his eyes directly on her.

"Did I?" she murmured, returning his gaze.

"I'm sure you're aware that the question of Eden and Chen's nova was something we'd prefer not to have been made public at this time," he said in the same tone. "We still have the matter under study."

"A 'study' that should last, let's see, at least another eight years and seventy-four days now, am I right?" she asked pointedly.

He sighed. "All right, Amanda. I assume your source was either Dr. Toshimura or Dr. Komosaki, and both of them know the real reason for our refusal and I'm sure they told you, so you know quite well that our reason isn't the one you presented in that rabble-rousing exhibition you put on."

"Do I?" she asked.

"Dammit, Amanda!" he expostulated, slapping his palm on the desk. "Do you really consider us the heartless, mindless drones you made us out to be? Or do you love these damned Edenite ... well, bugs, so much that you're willing to risk wiping out humanity down to the last man and give them our entire planet?"

"Balderdash!" she snapped. "I'm not sure whether you're heartless, though all the evidence seems to suggest so, but mindless ... if the shoe fits, wear it. I said last night you were wrong and I could prove it, and what I meant was your so-called 'real reason, ' not the rest of what I had to say."

"Amanda, we've had the best scientific minds in the world look at this—"

"Who?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "You wouldn't know the names," he said in a patronizing tone.

"If they're the best, I would now," she retorted. "I've been pretty busy the last two months. Busy enough to know you're full of shit, Eugene. And not only can I prove it, I will right now if you care to listen."

"Amanda—"

"Alternatively, you can go public, as I'm sure you've already thought about, and we will, too," she went on. "Want to do it that way? I'll warn you some of it's going to embarrass holy hell out of SES and plenty of other government agencies as well. So: are you going to listen now, or listen later?"

He looked at her speculatively. "Go ahead, then," he said.

"Oh, not me," she said. "I'm no biologist or ecologist, you know that. But I know people who are—the real 'best scientific minds' in the field, and even better, ones with actual experience. They're waiting right now for my call. All we need is your link. Carlie?"

"May I, Director Mallet?" asked Igwanda politely, pointing to the set on Mallet's desk.

"In a minute," barked the director. "All right, Amanda, you want a showdown now, you'll get a showdown now. I've got Barry Watesi and Dorothy Yuan on call. You say you know who the 'best minds' in the field are, do you know them?"

"Of course," she answered. "I've spoken to both of them, in fact, and I'm quite aware of what they've been saying. I just went a little deeper than they did."

"We'll see," he said. "I'm going to ask both of them in now. Then you can make your call, if you still want to."

The two he'd named arrived within seconds of his summons on the intercom; evidently they'd been waiting nearby. Mallet made introductions with little of the effusive cordiality he'd shown when Meiersdottir first arrived, and the atmosphere was strained even more when Watesi immediately spoke.

"Yes, Dr. Meiersdottir and I have talked," he said testily. "I thought I had made our position quite clear, doctor," he told her. "And I must say I found your deliberate mischaracterization of that position last evening highly offensive."

"What a pity," she replied in a voice utterly devoid of sympathy. "I can only imagine what you'll think of this, then. Carlie, make the call."

"Who's he calling?" asked Mallet.

"For right now, only one man. Manfred Vogl." She turned to Watesi and Yuan. "You both know who he is?"

Yuan rolled her eyes. "I thought you told the director you'd talked to the best," she said. An interesting observation, Meiersdottir thought, considering she'd said that before Yuan had arrived. Evidently her talk with Mallet had been piped in where the two xenobiologists had been waiting. So much for his professed desire for a "private" discussion.

"Manfred is second-rate at most," Yuan continued, clearly unaware of what she'd inadvertently revealed. "He doesn't even speak decent Standard!"

In fact, Meiersdottir had found, Vogl's grasp of Standard was excellent; it was taught worldwide to children from their first school days. It was simply that he spoke it with a marked Teutonic accent. Whether that was because he had a tin ear for languages or out of a perverse desire to display the German heritage of which she'd found he was inordinately proud, she had no idea; nor did she care.

"He, on the other hand, has spent most of his long career doing what both of you have not," she said to Yuan. "That is, working with the specimens of Eden life that we returned."

"In a contained laboratory," Watesi scoffed. "His work is of no value whatever in the context of open-air exposure on Earth, as all you 'rescue' enthusiasts are contemplating."