On the 27th, Arnie told Heather that there was an immense spike in communications traffic, including radio, to and from Olympia and Athens. “That’s it,” he said.
“How much time do we have?”
“At a guess, with the tech they use, and where I think the Navy carriers are, seventy-two hours before one side or the other jumps. But it could be less. They’re racing each other; the one that’s ready to go all-out first probably wins.”
Heather nodded. “Is your land line phone link up to the experiment? Could you send them something, and if you ordered them to broadcast it, could they do it?”
“Yeah, but you don’t mean—”
“Can you power it up?”
“Yeah, but none of the instruments are in place yet and—”
“Well, then. All right. I’ll build you another one, I promise, with my bare hands, if big bad EMP cooks your experiment. But tell your scientists they can take any observations they want as long as they get this sent now.” She handed him a little folio of ten neatly typed sheets. “Can they record off the phone line?”
“That was always the intention, but they won’t be happy because this is all out of order.”
“By which you mean—”
He shrugged, plainly unhappy himself. “We were going to do a set of sequential tests, starting with raw noise and then ramping up until we were broadcasting outright anti-Daybreak propaganda, and see at what point the EMP hits. Obviously if it’s for random noise, it’s a system artifact, and if they won’t hit us till we’re screaming Everybody kill a Daybreaker and cut down a forest, it’s an enemy. This broadcast, if we were following the rules for the experiment, would be the last, not the first, one we would run, because it will draw fire for sure if anything can. But you know, we’ll at least still get the observations that might let us figure out where the bombs are coming from. And I hate to be practical and sensible, but you’re right. No point waiting to run better experiments if we’re about to lose civilization to an idiotic civil war right this minute anyway.” Arnie looked down at the document she’d drafted, leafed through, and whistled. “You’re really going for broke, here. Just to make sure, this is what you intend?”
“Yep. Transmit at full power. Broadcast it in clear, then in Athens code, then in Olympia code, like a Rosetta stone, loop the recording, and keep playing it till we get replies.”
“All right, I’ll phone Mota Elliptica and tell them to stand by, then wake up Manckiewicz—if he ever sleeps—and by the time he’s practiced, they’ll be ready to record him. Just like you asked. Probably we’ll have it going out over the air within three hours.”
“You still look pretty unhappy, Arn.”
“I’ll get over it.” He let out a whew as if he’d run five miles and barely made it in time, and Heather saw that he was refusing to tell her how big a sacrifice this really was—which means he’s convinced it is necessary too, and he’s shutting up to avoid putting any pressure on me. Arnie held his hands up, palm out, in complete surrender. “Heather, it’s the right thing to do. But we are throwing away an experimental protocol that all my people worked very hard on, and I will have to soothe them about that, and of course this might not work.”
“Sitting on our thumbs for sure won’t work.”
“Like I said, I hate being sensible and practical, especially when it’s the right thing to do. I better run; if we’re doing it we need to do it now.”
TWO DAYS LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 2:58 P.M. MST. MONDAY. APRIL 29.
Weisbrod arrived first, in Quattro Larsen’s DC-3. He looked like the oldest man in the history of the world, exhausted and sad, and for the first time she could remember, Heather saw no welcome in his eyes and no smile when she shook his hand. “Where to?” he asked.
“By agreement, you each get a secretary, no guards, and a side of the table in my office. You can rest and wait in an adjoining room with a bed, bath, and food till Mr. Nguyen-Peters arrives; we expect him this evening. I take it that the First Lady, here, is now your secretary?”
“You could be less sarcastic,” Allie said.
“I could. You should hear me with Cameron.”
Later that evening, Heather met the Black Express, the fast unmarked steam train that carried Cameron Nguyen-Peters to Pueblo.
She knew that both of them were men of honor; she had not worried at all about the possibility of being seized or kidnapped while meeting each of them.
The horse-drawn carriage, a replica stagecoach from some tourist spot, had been blacked out. When she, Cameron, and the quiet young man who was to be his secretary were seated, Cam said, “This is very nearly blackmail and certainly trading on our old friendship.”
“Graham Weisbrod said the same thing.”
They rode quietly for a while. Cam peeked around the blind. “How are things out here?”
“Not bad. Rail lines are up and running to Austin and Albuquerque, and even though there’s not much Denver left, the connection’s still there for east-west lines. Between that, the big post office, and the GPO, Pueblo will probably grow rich on trade.”
“I can see why you would want peace.”
“There’s something selfish about preferring to be free to build and prosper?”
Cameron made a face. He bent forward, clenching himself as if he were in a straitjacket. “You always had a knack for the awkward question.”
They said no more till at last the President and the Coordinator sat across the table from each other in Heather’s inner office.
Heather said, “I appreciate your coming today. I know I have traded on our past friendship, nearly blackmailed you—and of course I have ensured that by broadcasting a Rosetta-stone version of your codes, if you weren’t reading each other before, you are now. So now I have you both at a table you don’t care to be at. I’m just glad to see you here. And here’s your special guest.”
“Special—”
Chris Manckiewicz came in looking as if he were about to be hanged, except less comfortable.
Cameron leaped to his feet. “I didn’t think it was necessary to say ‘no press!’”
Graham rose almost as quickly, saying, “And neither did I—”
Chris looked sicker than both of them put together. “Heather has made me swear to absolute secrecy, and added that I can’t publish until she gives permission or until twenty years after both of you are dead.”
“Nonetheless—” Cameron was packing his briefcase.
“I am not here as press,” Chris said. “I may someday turn out to have been here as a historian, but that’s not the point.”
Weisbrod looked as if he’d been hit across the back with a bat. He glared at Heather. “It does seem to me, looking back, that this is far from the first time you’ve manipulated me, and that my friendship for a lost, angry girl—”
“Is still appreciated more than anything in my life,” Heather said. “In so many ways, you are the man who taught me to think. Did you expect me to give it up?”
Chris said, “Perhaps if you explain what you have me here for—”
Heather said, “Sit down, both of you, and I will tell you what Chris is doing here.”
Graham hesitated, shrugged, and sat, and Cameron hastened to sit at the same time.