Michaelmas (9 page)

Michaelmas keyed the Transmit button of his comm unit once, to let Clementine know he was about to feed. Then he locked it down, faced into the nearest reflector, and smiled. "Ladies and gentlemen, good day," he said warmly. "Laurent Michaelmas here. The man who is about to speak" — this lily I am about to paint—"has a well-established reputation for quickness of mind, responsible decisions, and an unfail-ing devotion to UNAC's best interests." As well as a ten-dency to snap drink stirrers whenever he feels himself losing control of the betting.

With his peripheral vision, Michaelmas had been watch-ing Sakal stand mute while most of the people in the room did essentially what Michaelmas was doing. When Sakal put his hands on the podium, Michaelmas said: "Here is Mr Sakal." He unlocked.

"How do you do." Sakal looked straight out into the pool camera. He was a wiry man with huge cheekbones and thick black hair combed straight back from the peak of his scalp. There was skilfully applied matte make-up on his forehead. "On behalf of the Astronautics Commission of the United Nations of the World, I am here to express our admiration and delight." Michaelmas found it noteworthy that Sakal continued to address himself only to the world beyond the blandest camera.

"The miracle of Colonel Norwood's return is one for which we had very much given up hope.

To have him with us again is also a personal joy to those of us who have long esteemed his friendship. Walter Norwood, as one might expect of any space-faring individual, is a remarkable person. We who are privileged to work for peaceful expan-sion of mankind in space are also privileged by many friend-ships with such individuals from many nations. To have one of them return whom we had thought lost is to find our hearts swelling with great emotion."

He was off and winging now. Whatever Frontiere had written and drilled into him was now nothing more than an outline for spontaneous creative rhetoric. That was all right, too, so far, because Frontiere in turn had based the words on guidelines first articulated to him by Sakal. But so much for the skills of prose communication.

Sakal was looking earnestly into the camera, his hands gripping the sides of the podium. "The number of Man's space pioneers has not today been made one more. We have
all
been made greater—you and I as well as those whose training and experience are directed at actually piloting our craft in their journeys upon this mighty frontier."

Michaelmas kept still. It wasn't easy. For a moment, it had seemed that Sakal's private fondness for John Kennedy would lead him into speaking of 'this new ocean'. His natural caution had diverted him away from that, but only into a near stumble over 'New Frontier', an even more widely known Kennedyism. Sakal wasn't merely enraged; he was rattled, and that was something Michaelmas had never seen before.

"We look forward to working with Colonel Norwood again," Sakal said. "There are many projects on the schedule of the UNAC which require the rare qualities of someone like himself.

Whatever his assignment, Colonel Norwood will perform faithfully in the best traditions of the UNAC and for the good of all mankind."

Well, he had gone by way of Robin Hood's barn, but he had finally gotten there. Now to point it out. Michaelmas keyed Transmit and locked.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we have just heard the news that Colonel Norwood will indeed be returning to operational status with UNAC. His new duties cannot be made definite at this time, but Mr Sakal is obviously anxious to underscore that it will be an assignment of con-siderable importance." As well as to let us all know that he is as concerned for his good buddy's well-being as anyone could be, and as well as to betray that UNAC is suddenly looking back a generation. Damn. Organizations nurtured specialists like Frontiere to dress policy in jackets of bullet-proof phrasing, and then the policy-makers succumbed to improvisation on camera because it made them feel more convincing to use their own words.

Speaking of words ...

"A position of high responsibility is certainly in order for the colonel if he is fully recovered,"

Michaelmas was saying. It was gratifying how automatically the mind and the tongue worked together, first one leading and then the other, the one never more than a millimicrosecond behind the other, which ever was appropriate to the situation. The face, too : the wise older friend, the worldly counsellor. The situation is always important, but neither inexplic-able nor cause for gloom. "The vast amount of physical catching-up to do — the months of training and rehearsal that have passed in Colonel Norwood's absence from UNAC's programmes — would make it extremely difficult to rejoin any on-going project." Smooth. As the sentence had flowed forward, he had considered and rejected saying 'impossible'. In fact it probably was barely possible; with a large crew, redundant functions, and modern guidance systems, space-flight was far from the trapeze act it had been in Will Gately's day. And if I am going to make UNAC work, if I am going to make work all the things of which UNAC is only the currently prominent part, then the last thing I can do is be seen trying to make it work. So I can't really be any more direct than Sakal was being, can I? Smile inside, wise older friend. They call it irony. It is in fact the way of the world. "It's possible Mr Sakal is hinting at the directorship of the Outer Planet Applications pro-gramme, which will convert into industrial processes the results of the engineering experiments to be brought back by the Outer Planets expedition." It's also possible Laurent Michaelmas is throwing UNAC a broad hint on how to kick Norwood upstairs. Perhaps in the hope that while they kick him, his arse will open to disclose gear trains. What then, Dr. Limberg? What now, Laurent Michaelmas? All he had beside him was a magic box full of nothing — a still, clever thing that did not even understand it was a tool, nor could appreciate how skilfully it was employed. "And now, back to Mr Sakal."

All Sakal was doing was introducing Limberg, and wait-ing until the old man was well advanced from the wings before circling around the table and taking one of the three chairs. Everyone was so knowledgeable on playing for the media these days. They kept it short, they broke it to allow time for comment, they didn't upstage each other. Even when they were in a snit, they built these things like actors re-creating psychodramas from a transcript. It was not
they
who had pushed the switch, nodded the head, closed the door, written the voucher. Someone else— someone wild, someone devious, someone unpredictable — had done that. No such persons would be thrust upon the audience today. Or ever. Such persons and their deeds were
represented
here today. And each day. There is a reality. We will tell you about it.

Of course, these people here on Limberg's stage were the survivors of the selection process.

The ones who didn't begin learning it early were the ones you never heard of.

"Dr. Limberg naturally needs no introduction," Michael-mas said to a great many millions of people—few of them, it seemed, buried deep in the evening hours. Prime Time was advancing slothfully out in the Pacific wasteland. Why was that? "What he appears to deserve is the world's grati-tude."

Unlock. The great man stands there like a graven saint. The kind, knowing eyes sweep both the live and the elec-tronic audience. The podium light, which had cast the juts and hollows of Sakal's face into harsh no-nonsense relief, seemed now to be more diffuse, and perhaps a more flatter-ing shade. Michaelmas sighed. Well, we all do it one way or another.

"Welcome to my house," Limberg said in German. Michaelmas thought about it for a moment, then put a translator output in his ear. He could speak and understand it, especially the western dialects, but there might be some nuance, either direct from Limberg or unconsciously created by the translator. In that latter case, what the translator made of Limberg would be more official among whatever ethnic group heard it that way. Eventually the Michael-mases and Horse Watsons of the world would have to track down the distortion if they could or if they cared, and set it right in one corner without disturbing another. Not for the first time, Michaelmas wished Esperanto had taken hold. But recalling the nightmare of America's attempt to force metrication on itself, he did not wish it quite enough.

Limberg was smiling and twinkling, his hands out, the genial host. "My associates and I are deeply honoured. I can report to you that we did not fail our responsibilities to-wards the miracle that conveyed Colonel Norwood in such distress to us." Now the visage was solemn, but the stance of his shoulders and slightly bowed head indicated quiet pride.

Over-weening, Michaelmas thought. The man radiates goodness and wisdom like a rich uncle in a nephew's eyes.

And so it is with the world; those who claim mankind knows nothing of justice, restraint, modesty, or altruism are all wrong. In every generation, we have several individuals singled out to represent them to us.

Disquieting. To sit here suddenly suspecting the old man's pedigree. What to think of the witnesses to his parents' marriage?
Is
there sanctity in the baptismal register? If Uncle's birth certificate is an enigma, what does that do to Nephew's claim of kinship when probate time comes round? Better not whisper such suppositions in the world's lent ear just yet. But how, then, for the straight, inquiring pro-fessional newsman to look at him just now?

No man can be a hero to his media. The old man's ego and his gesturings were common stock in after-hours con-versation. But they all played along, seeing it harmless when compared to his majesty of mind — assuming he had some. They let him be the man in the white coat, and he gave them stitches of newsworthy words to suture up fistulas of dead air, the recipient not only of two Nobel awards but of two crashes ...

If Domino were here, Michaelmas thought, oppressed, he would have pulled me up for persiflage long before now. What
is
it? he thought. What in the world are they doing to me and mine? Who are they?

Limberg, meanwhile, was spieling out all the improb-ables of Norwood's crash so near the sanatorium, so far from the world's attention. If it weren't Limberg, and if they weren't all so certain Norwood was waiting alive and seamless in the wings, how many of them here in this room would have been willing to swallow it? But when he looked around him now, Michaelmas could see it going down whole, glutinously.

And maybe it's really that way? he thought, finally. Ah, no, no, they are using the mails to defraud somehow. And most important I think they have killed Horse Watson, probably because he frightened them with how swiftly he could move.

When he thought of that, he felt more confident. If they were really monolithically masterly, they'd have had the wreckage all dressed and propped as required. More, they would have been icy sure of it, come Nineveh, come Iron Darius and all his chariots against them. But they hadn't liked Watson's directness. They'd panicked a little. Someone on the crew had said, "Wait — no, let's take one more look at it before we put it on exhibit." And so they had knocked Watson down not only to forestall him but to distract the crowd while they sidled out and made assurance doubly sure.

It was good to think they could be nervous.

It was bad to think nevertheless how capable they were.

Now Limberg was into orthopaedics, immunology, tissue cloning; it was all believable. It was years since they'd announced being able to grow a new heart from a snippet of a bad one; what was apparently new was being able to grow it in time to do the patient any good.

Keying in, Michaelmas said a few words about that to his audience, just as if he believed it.

Meanwhile, he admired the way Limberg was teasing the time away, letting the press corps wind up tighter and tighter just as if they were ordinary rubes awaiting the star turn at the snake oil show, instead of the dukes and duchesses of world opinion.

"— but the details of these things," Limberg was finally concluding, "are of course best left for later consideration. I am privileged now to reintroduce to you the United States of North America astronaut Colonel Doctor of Engineering Walter Norwood."

And there he was, striding out of the wings, suddenly washed in light, grinning and raising one hand boyishly in a wave of greeting. Every lens in the room sucked him in, every heart beat louder in that mesmerized crowd, and the media punched him direct into the world's gut. But not on prime time. Of all the scheduling they could have set up, this was just about the worst. Not that there was any way to take much of the edge on this one. Nevertheless, when this news arrived at Mr and Mrs America's breakfast table, it would be hours cold —warmed over, blurred by subsequent events of whatever kind. A bathing beauty might give birth and name a dolphin as the father. Professional terrorists, hired by Corsican investors in the Carlsbad radium spa, might bomb President Fefre's palace. General Motors might announce there would be no new models for the year 2001, since the world was coming to an end.

It suddenly occurred to Michaelmas that if he were UNAC, he'd have had Papashvilly here to shake Norwood's hand at this moment and throw a comradely arm around his shoulders, and thus emphasize just who it was that was being welcomed home and who it was that had drawn the water and hewn the wood meanwhile.

But they had retreated from that opportunity. Why? No time to wonder. Norwood was standing alone at the podium. Limberg had drifted back to join Sakal at the table, Fron-tiere was blended into the walls somewhere until Q and A time, and the American colonel had the attention. He had it pretty well, too. Limberg's lighting electricians were doing a masterful job on him.

"I'm very glad to see you all," Norwood said softly into the cameras, his hair an aureole of backlighting. He raised his chin a little, and his facial lines were bathed out by a spot mounted out of sight somewhere in the podium box itself. "I want to thank Dr. Limberg and his staff." He was like an angel. Michaelmas's, hackles were rising. "And now I'm ready to sit down and take questions." He smiled, waved his hand again, and stepped back.