Heads. Part 8

'You speak of actions not yet taken, perhaps not even contemplated,' the president said.

Thomas looked around the room and smiled. 'Madam President, I address those who have already received their instructions.'

'Are you accusing the president of partic.i.p.ating in this so-called conspiracy?' Fiona Task-Felder continued.

Calls of 'Let him speak', 'Let him have his say'. She nodded and motioned for Thomas to resume.

'I have not much more to say, but to recount a tale of masterful politics, conducted by an extralunar organization across the solar system, in support of a policy that has nothing to do with lunar well-being or business. Even my a.s.sistant, Mickey Sandoval, has been trapped into giving testimony on private family affairs, through a ruse involving an old council law not invoked since its creation. My fellow citizens, he will testify under protest if this council so wishes - but think of the precedent! Think of the power you give to this council, and to those who have the skills to manipulate it - skills which we have not ourselves acquired, and are not likely to acquire, because such activity goes against our basic nature. We are naive weaklings in such a fight, and because of our weakness, our lack of foresight and planning, we will give in, and my family's activities will be interfered with, perhaps even forbidden - all because a religious organization, based on our home planet, does not wish us to do things we have every legal right to do. I voice my protest now, that it may be put in the record before the council votes. Our shame will be complete by day's end, Madam President, and I will not wish to show my face in these chambers thereafter.'

The president's face was cold and pale. 'Do you accuse me, or my chartered BM, of being controlled by extralunar interests?'

Thomas, who had sat quickly after his short talk, stood again, looked around the council and nodded curtly. 'I do.'

'It is not traditional to libel one's fellow BMs in this council,' the president said.

Thomas did not answer.

'I believe I must reply to the charge of manipulation. At my invitation, Mickey Sandoval came to Port Yin to render voluntary testimony to the president. Under old council rules, designed to prevent the president from keeping information that rightfully should be given to the council, the president has the duty to request testimony be given to the council as a whole. If that is manipulation, then I am guilty.' Our first extrafamilial advocate stood up beside Thomas. 'Madam President, a tape of Mickey Sandoval's visit to your office is sufficient to fulfil the requirements of that rule.'

'Not according to the council thinker's interpretation,' the president said. 'Please render your judgment.'

The thinker spoke. 'The spirit of the rule is to encourage more open testimony to the council than to the president in private meetings. A voluntary report to the president implies willingness to testify in full to the council. Such testimony must always be voluntary, and not under threat of subpoena.' Its deep, resonating voice left the council room in silence.

'So much for our auto counsellors,' the first advocate muttered to Thomas. Again he addressed the council. 'Mickey Sandoval's testimony was solicited under guise of casual conversation. He was not aware he would later be forced to divulge family business matters to the entire council.'

'The president's conversations on council matters can hardly be called casual. I am not concerned with your a.s.sistant's lack of education,' the president said. 'This council deserves to hear Sandoval BM's plans for these deceased individuals.'

'In G.o.d's name, why?' Thomas stood, jaw outthrust. 'Who asks these questions? Why is private Sandoval business of concern to anybody but us?'

The president did not react as strongly to this outburst as I expected. I cringed, but Fiona Task-Felder said, 'The freedom of any family to swing its fist ends at our nose. How the inquiry has arisen is irrelevant; what is relevant is the damage that might occur to lunar interests. Is that enough, Mr Sandoval-Rice?'

Thomas sat down without answering. I looked at him curiously; how much of this was show, how much loss of control? Seeing his expression, I realized that show and inner turmoil were one. Only then did I understand, gut-level, that he knew things I did not know, and that our situation was truly desperate. Thomas was a consummate and seasoned professional syndic, a true lunar citizen in the old sense of concerned and responsible free spirit, quickly losing his few illusions as to power and government and lunar politics.

I turned my gaze to the president's dais, to Fiona Task-Felder, feeling for the first time a flash of real hatred. I date my present self to that moment; it was as if I had been reborn, more cynical, more calculating, sharper, no longer young. My hands trembled. I made them still, wiped their dampness on my pants, swiftly calculated what I might give in testimony and what I might withhold.

The representative from Richter BM stood and was recognized by Janis Granger. 'Madam President, I move that we have Mr Mickey Sandoval stand forward and testify, as required by the rules, but that Mr Sandoval's testimony be restricted to those areas that will not reveal information that could adversely affect future profit potential for his family. That is, should this council vote to allow the project to continue.'

Thomas's expression brightened the merest of a mere. I hoped for the president to falter, to acknowledge this limitation to her success, but she hardly blinked an eye before saying, 'Is there a second?'

Cailetet and Nernst reps seconded in unison. A quick vote was taken and the decision was unanimous; even the Task-Felder rep joined the flow.

This was the first block in the path of the juggernaut. It was a small block; it was quickly crushed; but it provided us with an immense amount of needed relief.

I testified, following an outline quickly prepared by Thomas and vetted by the advocates; the council listened attentively. I did not discuss our success in deciphering some of the mental contents of one of the dead.

The Task-Felder rep stood at the end of my testimony and urged the council to vote now on whether our project would continue. The motion was seconded. Thomas did not object or ask for delay.

Cailetet, Nernst and Onnes voted for the project to continue.

The remaining fifty-one reps voted for the project to be shut down.

History was made, political paradigms s.h.i.+fted, all according to the rules.

After adjournment, Thomas and I went out to a Port Yin pub and sat over two schooners of fresh ale, saying very little for the first five minutes.

'Not so bad,' Thomas commented after draining the last of his gla.s.s. 'We didn't go down in glorious flames. Bless ma.s.sive old Richter; draw and quarter us, but leave us our dignity before we're spiked.'

'I don't want to tell Rho,' I said.

'She already knows, Mickey. My office has called the Ice Pit. She wants to talk with you, but I don't want you to talk to anyone until we chat a while. All right?'

I nodded.

'Do I detect a change in your att.i.tudes?' Thomas asked gently.

I smiled. 'Yes. And in yours?'

'I'm not as good a syndic as you might believe, Micko.' He waved off my weak objection. 'Save it for your memoirs. I couldn't stop this. But I can delay the results. The council is going to have to design a plan for us, some way to end the project with minimal loss of resources. That will take a few weeks, and I don't think Task-Felder Fiona or her BM can speed things up. I'll make sure they don't, if I have to resort to a.s.sa.s.sination.'

He didn't smile. In my present frame of mind, I didn't care whether he was serious or not.

'You know, Micko, I've always had my doubts about this project. I think the reasons we lost in the council are less political and more psychological, perhaps even mystical. Deep down, I think they believe - and maybe even I believe - we're interfering where we shouldn't. If Rho succeeds, it's going to change a lot of things. We're a peculiar kind of conservative lot here on the Moon, spiritually, however much we keep our religious observances to ourselves.'

'She has,' I said.

'She has what?'

'Succeeded. They have, actually.'

'Yes?'

'They've accessed a head. They're working on a second head now. We know their names. We-'

My face contorted and I s.h.i.+vered, cursed, half-stood. Something walked over my future grave; I almost literally saw a ghost sitting beside us at the table, the image of an immensely fat Pharaoh covered with ice, watching us all balefully. Thomas reached out to take hold of my arm and I sat. The ghost was gone.

'Don't lose it now, Mickey,' Thomas said. Other customers stared at us. 'What's wrong?'

'Christ, I don't know. Thomas, I've got to go back. To the Ice Pit. Something just occurred to me, something really bad.'

'Can you tell me?'

'h.e.l.l, no,' I said, shaking my head. 'It's too stupid and wild. But I have to go back.' I stood. 'Please forgive me. It's a hunch, a ridiculous hunch.'

'You're forgiven,' Thomas said, and credited the tab to his personal account.

I caught the regular Ice Pit shuttle; luck and the timetable were on my side. I was in a fever of inspired unease. I could not shake my theory. My head spun with disbelief; this could not be, yet it all fitted together so smoothly, yet again the chances were more than astronomical; and I realized that if I were wrong, and I had to be, no doubt about it, I wouldn't be worthy of my position in the Sandoval BM. I would have to resign. If I played such wild hunches, if I could become so obsessed by them, I was a useless crank.

We flew over the external generation plant, a bright red building against pale grey dust and rock. The shuttle banked over the Ice Pit radiators, hunkering in their shadowy trenches, glowing dull red-orange as they broadcast heat into the darkness of s.p.a.ce.

We landed and I disembarked, small case in hand. I was eight hours past reasonable sleep time but did not stop to stimulate or simulate. I barely took time to drop my case off in my water tank.

I rang up Rho, waking her.

'Have they pulled their equipment yet?' I asked.

'Who?' she responded sleepily. 's...o...b..rt and Cailetet-Davis? No. They're waiting to get orders from their BMs. Thomas said you'd fill me in on some things - he was going to talk with you.'

'Yes, well there are delays, and I have to do some research. Have you accessed the third head yet?'

'We've downloaded some patterns, but they're not translated. This mess has kind of put a crimp in our enthusiasm, Micko.'

'I understand. Rho, get them to translate what you have.' 'You sound a bit crazed, brother. Don't take this personally. This is my screw-up, not yours. Tulips, remember?'

'Just get those patterns translated. Please. Humour me.' I leaned back in my chair, stunned by all that was happening, a.s.sessing my position, our position, if my hunch was correct.

Then I began yet more research. There was no way around it - what I needed to know would very likely be found only on Earth, and it would cost me dearly.

I would charge it to my personal account.

I crossed the white line six hours later. I still hadn't slept. My world of warrens and alleys and water tanks and volcanic bubbles and bridges and force disorder pumps was taking on a quality of bitter dream; I do not know why I felt William was the still point in the centre of my life, but he was, and I needed above all else to find out how his project was proceeding. There seemed something almost holy and pure in his quest, above human conflict; I sensed I could take comfort in his presence, in his words.

But William himself was not comfortable. He looked a wreck. He, too, had not slept. I entered the laboratory, ignoring the soft voices from the chamber below, and found him standing by the QL thinker, eyes closed, lips moving as if in prayer. He opened his eyes and faced me with a jerk of his shoulders and head. 'Christ,' he said softly. 'Are they done down there?'

I shook my head. 'I'm afraid I've set them on to something new.'

'I heard you've been checkmated,' he said.

I shrugged. 'And you?'

'My opponent is far more subtle than any human conspiracy,' he said. 'I've gone so far as to be able to switch between plus and minus.' He chuckled. 'I can access this new state at will, but there's real resistance to reaching the no-man's-land between. I have the QL cogitating now. It's been working five hours on the problem.'

'What's the problem?' I asked.

'Micko, I haven't even engaged the force disorder pumps to achieve this new state. No magnetic field cut-off, no special efforts - just a sudden jerk-down to this negative state, absorbing energy to maintain an undefined temperature.'

'But why?'

'The best the QL can come up with is we're approaching some key event that sends signals back in time, affecting our experiment now.'

'So neither of you know what's actually happened?'

He shook his head. 'It's not only undefined, it's incomprehensible. Even the QL is befuddled by it and can't give me straight answers.'

I sat on the edge of the QL's platform and caressed the machine with an open palm as if in sympathy. 'Everything's screwed, top to bottom,' I said. 'The centre cannot hold.'

'Ah, Micko - there's the question. What is the centre? What is this event we're approaching that can reach subtle fingers back and befuddle us now?'

I smiled. 'We're a real pair of loons,' I said.

'Speak for yourself,' William said defensively, p.r.i.c.kly. 'I'll solve this dustover, by G.o.d, Micko.' He pointed down. 'Solve your little problem, and I'll solve mine.'

As if on cue, Rho stood in the open laboratory door, face ashen. 'Mickey,' she said. 'How did you know?'

The shock of confirmation - and confirmation was not in doubt - made me tremble. I glanced at William. 'A little ghost told me. A fat nightmare on ice.'

'We don't have too much translated,' she said. 'But we know his name.'

'What are you talking about?' William asked.

'Our third unknown,' I explained. 'We have three unknown heads below, three among four hundred and ten. Alleged bad record-keeping.'

'Do you know something, Mickey?' Rho asked.

'There were four Logologists employed by StarTime Preservation between 2079 and 2094,' I said. 'Two worked in records, two were in administration. None were ever given access to the heads themselves; they were kept in cold vaults in Denver.'

'You think they screwed up the records?'

'It was the most they could manage.'

'It's so cynical,' Rho said. 'I can't believe such a thing. It would be like our ... trying to kill Robert and Emilia. It's sickening.'

William uttered a wordless curse of frustration. 'Dammit, Rho, what are you talking about?, 'We know why we're having such problems with Task-Felder. I've hit the jackpot, William. I've brought a real wolf into our fold. I apologize.'

'What wolf?'

'K. D. Thierry,' I said, the breath going out of me. I didn't know whether I might laugh or cry.

'You've got him down there?' William asked.

Rho and I hugged each other and laughed, near hysteria. 'Kimon David Thierry,' Rho said when we had recovered. She wiped her eyes. 'Mickey, you're brilliant. But it still doesn't make sense. Why are they so afraid of him?'

I spread my arms. I couldn't come up with an immediate answer.

'The Logologist himself?' William still couldn't grasp the whole of the truth.

Rho sat and put her legs up on the QL stand. She leaned her head back. 'William, could you get my neck, please? I'm going to twist my head off with a muscle cramp if someone doesn't ma.s.sage me soon.'

William stood behind her and rubbed her neck.

'What are we going to do, Micko?' Rho asked.

'They're afraid of him because they think we can access secrets, truths,' I said, finally articulating what I had known for hours. 'We can look into his memories, his private thoughts. They suppose if we go far enough, we can access what he was thinking when he wrote their great books, when he organized their faith ... '

'They know he was a fraud,' Rho said. 'They're doing all this because they know they're living a lie. I can't believe how cynical that is.'