Moonstruck. Part 4

points are all. Trade is a good thing, and they know things we'd like to learn. Commonwealth

members.h.i.+p would help us trade. The longer we study them, the less I, for one, understand them."

Britt Arledge spoke for the first time that session. "Then I should antic.i.p.ate the full commission recommending an application for members.h.i.+p?"

Across the room, heads of commissioners and staffers alike bobbed yes. All heads but two: his and

Darlene's.What was so bothering him that he'd pa.s.s up the secret of practical fusion power? That he'd risk never knowing what marvels Earth and the aliens could next agree to share? Even if he could convince the commission to say no, what was his justification?

"Kyle?"

Feeling that he'd failed, but not knowing how or why, Kyle was reluctant to meet his boss's gaze.

Instead, he found himself peering into the galactic orb that sat on the table in front of Arledge. Not sure to which of them he was speaking, Kyle finally and unhappily answered. He willed his voice to be firm.

"So it would appear."

CHAPTER 5.

President Lauds Galactic Commission Recommendation -USA Today Protect Earth's Information Birthright -yesterday's most popular dialogue on the

Modern Revelations News Group, AmericaNet Chernykov Denounces Western Cultural Imperialism -Moskva Daily News Gustafson Quits Galactics Commission

-Was.h.i.+ngton Post Cleaning out an office, Kyle mused, wasn't the ch.o.r.e that it used to be. Those of his files that could be retained, he'd copied over the Internet to rented ma.s.s storage. He'd download them onto longer-term storage once he started at the new job.

His physical possessions fit in one box: favorite desk accessories, pieces of executive fidgetware, and framed photos of himself with dignitaries he'd met as science advisor. In the last category was a picture with Harold s.h.i.+vely Robeson, shot at Kyle's swearing in; it memorialized the first and last time he'd met the President.

On top of everything else, he set an orb. "What secrets do you keep?" he asked, gazing into its

s.h.i.+mmering depths. Like everything else Galactic, it kept its opinions to itself.

The PalmPilot in his coat pocket chose that moment to chime, announcing an incoming call. The screen revealed the familiar face of his Russian counterpart. Ex-counterpart. "h.e.l.lo, Sergei Denisovich."

"Good morning, my friend. I'm glad I caught you."

Kyle set the palmtop on the now-bare desk where its camera plug-in could capture him. "At least you're not a reporter.""Still, I wish to know why you did such a stupid thing.""Take a number, Sergei." The Russian waited silently for more of an answer. "Oh, h.e.l.l, Sergei, why not tell you? There are too many things about the F'thk I don't understand. Most of the commission wanted

to move now, locking up the secret of fusion; I wasn't ready yet."

"We simple Russian peasants are new to this democracy business, but don't people get to vote their consciences?"

"I did, by leaving the commission. It was pretty clear what the administration wanted." Kyle grimaced.

"There are also rules about how much, and just plain how, a political appointee embarra.s.ses the

President who named him."

"Deciphering politics in Moscow is difficult enough; I'll leave you to sort out the rules in Was.h.i.+ngton."

As the Russian spoke, the picture briefly broke up. When the image returned, Sergei was smiling

sardonically. "Well, my friend, at least we will always have Canaveral. As to your future endeavors, I wish you luck."

They chatted a bit more, mostly about Kyle's imminent return to his pre-Was.h.i.+ngton position-he'd

resigned as the presidential science advisor as well as from the commission-but the conversation never

quite homed in on a real topic. Kyle wondered just why the Russian had called.

That mystery was replaced with a new one when, by then in his soon-to-be-vacated apartment, Kyle checked his e-mail. Judging from a timestamp, the bad transmission during Sergei's call had somehow registered as an incoming message-and it was all garbage, of course.

His mind would not let go the conversation. What an odd phrase: deciphering politics. Could this be an encoded message?

Like many Internet users, Kyle had posted half a pair of encryption keys to a public key-management server. Anyone could send him a confidential message by encrypting it with this public key; only Kyle, using his private key could decrypt it. He ran the "message" through his e-mail reader's decrypter and got different garbage.

This is foolishness, he thought-a diversion from the serious packing the DC apartment yet required. The Cold War had ended years ago; did he really suspect his Russian colleague of practicing intrigue? Still, their conversation nagged at him. We will always have Canaveral.

Academic cryptologists had decried the government-sanctioned encryption algorithm as breakable; cynics claimed that Was.h.i.+ngton wanted the ability to eavesdrop. Did Sergei share such fears? Was Sergei telling him that the Russians had broken the code?

Or was Kyle simply paranoid about a burst of static that had confused his comp?

A Web query revealed ziplock to be the hacking community's secret-key algorithm of choice. He downloaded an executable for the alternative privacy software from a file server.Kyle was relieved when the key Canaveral failed to decrypt the message. He had no better luck with Atlantis, with any of the crew names, or with the date of the explosion. Get a life, he told himself; his self, instead, tried again with "Apollo/Saturn V" as the key. The ziplock decrypt program now revealed: I don't trust the F'thk either.

P. A. Nevsky Another Net search explained the vague familiarity of the alias. Prince Alexander was an early Russian military hero, dubbed Nevsky for his defeat of Swedish invaders on the banks of the Neva River. Alexander later reached an accommodation with the conquering Mongols, a deal with the devil that maintained a degree of Russian autonomy.

Was Sergei likening the F'thk, some Russian faction, or the West to the barbarian Mongols? Retrieving a morning headline that his news filter had culled for him, Kyle hyperlinked to the Russian president's polemic about spiritual pollution from encroaching Western values. Chernykov's speech blasted the very idea of F'thk using decadent Western culture to represent humankind to the Galactic Commonwealth.

Multimedia client software in his palmtop subverted to accept an e-mail message transmitted surrept.i.tiously as static during an international video call-a capability that the Russian intelligence

service surely didn't want known. The equivocal subtext about a compromised (but by whom?) public encryption system. The ambiguous alias. Russian nationalist hysteria.

The mind boggled.

Amid the expanding set of questions, Kyle clung to one certainty: a peer whom he deeply respected

shared his own distrust of the F'thk. * * * In public life, one has contacts and a.s.sociates. In politics, balloons drop by the thousands at nominating conventions and are otherwise unseen. In government, banners bear simplistic slogans writ large in standard fonts.

At Franklin Ridge National Labs, Kyle's once and future employer, the cafeteria brimmed with dozens

of old friends, hundreds of balloons, and a mildly bizarre welcome banner obviously plotted by a fractal

program. He wondered why he'd ever left.

Full of punch-spiked, his spinning head told him-and sheet cake, he let himself be led to his new office. The path chosen by Dr. Hammond Matthews, Kyle's friend, guide, and successor as lab director, began to look suspicious. "Hold it, Matt. We're heading for the director's office."

"Not so," Matt dissembled, nonetheless leading the way to Kyle's former office. Matt gestured at the door, which read Office of the Director Emeritus. "The director, that poor, benighted bureaucrat, parks himself one aisle over. Some carefree researcher with a fat, unenc.u.mbered budget hangs out here." Kyle was seldom speechless, but finding this such an occasion, he threw open the door and went inside . . .

. . . Where he was even more surprised to discover Britt Arledge standing. Matt shrugged apologetically, and closed the door from the outside.

"Good man, that," began Britt.

Kyle pointed to a seat, then settled into the chair behind the old, familiar desk. He could've taken another spot at the conference table; his anger led to the unsubtle reminder that he no longer worked for Britt.

"Miss me already?"

"I have work for you already."

Kyle had been in Was.h.i.+ngton too long to lose his temper with one of the most powerful men in the administration. Lest that temper escape confinement, he kept his answer short. "Oh?"

"Did you plan to spend some time here studying our F'thk friends?"

Kyle spared the barest hint of a noncommittal nod.

"Then fifty million dollars of the black may prove helpful."

Black money: intelligence-agency funds. A lot of it, and from a budget which by its very nature was

subject to the most minimal of oversight. He considered various possible answers before settling for the simplest. "Thanks." As silence stretched on uncomfortably, he added, still in a monosyllabic mode, "Why?"

"In case you're right." Arledge took a cigar from his jacket before continuing; failing to spot an ashtray, he sniffed the cylinder longingly before putting it back. He climbed to his feet. "Since I mean us to get fusion before the Russians do, I needed America's best talent to find out."

The Russians again. Essential as news filters were, they had their downside: when you were too busy to

follow what was happening, you didn't know to update them.Wondering what, if anything, about the Alexander Nevsky message to mention, Kyle almost missed the subtext. Almost. "You wanted me off the commission. You pushed." This time, he left the why? unstated.