"I hope to God you were wrong." Hilda thought for a moment. "Still," she said, "I wouldn't mind thinking about having you in my command if you wanted to come to New York."
Tepp looked disappointed. "Thank you, ma'am, but I'd really like to stay at HQ for a while."
"Fine. Now if you'll excuse- Wait a minute."
It was the deputy director on her screen. "Hilda, we need that Ad-cock woman. Get her down to the pit galleries."
So that was where he'd been holed up! Pell didn't wait for an answer. Hilda started to get up just as Agent Tepp was doing the same, saying regretfully, "Thank you for the meal, ma'am. It was a pleasure to talk to you."
Hilda put her hand on the woman's arm. "Maybe you can do me a favor. You look like you're about my size. Do you keep a change of clothes here? Fine, then lend me some clean underwear and find me a shower I can use."
CHAPTER FIVE
Dr. Patrice Adcock hadn't been taken back to her cell. Instead they put her in a quite comfortable bedroom in a little suite that apparently was kept for VIP visitors who couldn't, or didn't choose to, go home to sleep. It had a really comfortable bed, which was a nice change from the iron-hard cot in her old cell. For all the good it did her. First she lay awake, wondering just what the hell was going on now? Another Dannerman? Radioing to Earth from Starlab? When she did at last fall asleep it didn't last, because that Morrisey woman woke her to say the deputy director needed to talk to her. Right now.
So Pat climbed wearily back into her jail uniform. She let herself be conducted to where Marcus Pell and six or seven other people were huddled around screens and little tables littered with coffee cups and the remains of largely uneaten food, and then what was it he asked her? It was, Did Starlab have facilities for something called a 300-digit-prime coordinated-chaos encryption system? Of course she had no idea about that. Whatever it was. Well-less patiently-who would know the answer? Anyone at the Observatory? She thought about that, then shrugged. Maybe, but they would all be asleep now, for God's sake, and anyway the real expert was Rosaleen Artzybachova, who was dead.
And then, the funny thing, they all suddenly looked both surprised and relieved. The deputy director man-was his name Pell?- nodded to the Morrisey woman. That was the end of it. The woman took Pat back to her new home and left her to lie awake an hour or so longer, with all the old questions and a dozen new ones to keep her from sleep.
So when a uniform knocked at her door and opened it a crack she woke at once. "Good morning, ma'am," the woman said civilly. "It's oh-eight-hundred, and you might want to get ready to see the deputy director." Then she closed the door, without saying when the deputy director was likely to arrive. Or why.
But when Pat Adcock came out of her very own private bathroom-another touch of luxury, complete with a full array of toiletries in their original unopened wrappings-she made a pleasing discovery. The guard must have come back while she was in the shower. Pat's own clothes-the ones she had been arrested in-were draped over the foot of the bed, cleaned and ready to put on.
A few minutes later, dressed in something other than that jail uniform after all these long weeks and pleased about that much, anyway, she opened the door. It led into a little sitting room, with comfortable chairs and pictures on the wall and even a fireplace-fake, of course, but a nice touch. A moment later Dannerman came out of his own room to join her, just in time for the guard to roll in a cart loaded with breakfast.
Dannerman gave her an appreciative grin. "Hey, nice outfit. Did you have a good night's sleep?"
She didn't bother to answer that, and after an uncertain moment lie turned his attention to their breakfast. Pat took a while longer to get to it, but when she tasted the fresh, ripe papaya and the cold, sweet juice she dug in as well. It was the best meal she'd had since the police had picked her up at her Observatory.
Her Observatory. She wondered if it was really still hers.
Well, probably the Observatory itself was still running, more or less normally; Uncle Cubby's money was still available to finance its op-rations, and no doubt Pete Schneyman, or one of the other senior scientists, had taken over as acting director in her absence. Gwen Morisaki would be going right on with her Cepheid counts and Kit Papathanassiou with his cosmological studies and all the rest of it, whether she was present or not. Things might even be going better without her because, Pat had to admit, her last few months at the Observatory she'd been a lot more interested in Starlab than in doing science.
The other question that entered her mind was to wonder if she herself were in bankruptcy yet.
How "United" Are the United Nations?
The current imbroglio in the United Nations General Assembly reminds us once more of the worser consequences of the infamous Resolution 1822. Under this, you may recall, the General Assembly decreed that each signatory nation was to elect one delegate to the Assembly by means of popular vote. This well-meaning "reform" was intended to ensure that the people at large, rather than some junta or clique, represented each country in its deliberations; the models for this were the European Community's Council and, more appositely, the United States Senate.
But what has been the effect? Rather than achieving unity, the delegates now represent parochial issues and, worse, political parties. In this "Parliament of Man," with its lamentable tendency toward passing sweeping resolutions that are meant to micromanage purely internal matters throughout the world, our own delegate, Mr. Hiram Singh-who, it will be remembered, was until recently First Lord of the Admiralty in the New Labor Party government-is not least at fault.
Do we really want to import the tawdry political practices of the Americans to govern our planet? We think not. We think it is time for a thoroughgoing reconsideration of this ill-advised measure.
– Financial Times, London
The economic fact was that she had hocked just about everything she owned to raise the money for her flight to the orbiter. Money shouldn't have been any problem at all. The government should have financed or provided the whole thing. But the government hadn't. So she'd had to find the money herself. It came to serious money, too, enough to bribe the Floridian authorities who controlled the launch pads at the Cape, to hire pilots, to fight the Feds' lawyers through the courts until, reluctantly, they did give in and provide a launch vehicle for her.
And then she had managed to get that Clipper launched with the five of them in it. And then-
And then it all went to hell. "Dan-Dan?" she said tentatively.
He looked up warily from his eggs Benedict. "Yeah?"
She said slowly, trying to think it through as she spoke, "You know what's funny, Dan? I can remember the flight up to orbit; I can remember the flight back. But all I can remember of what we saw in Starlab was that everything was just the way it was left when the satellite was abandoned. There wasn't anything there that wasn't on the specs. Nothing had changed."
"Nothing had."
"Well, I know that. I remember remembering that, when we were on our way back. But I don't remember seeing it. Do you know what I mean?
He frowned. "Well, that's the way it was for me, too. It's funny, now that you mention it."
"Do you think your Bureau people know why that is?"
But he was shaking his head. "Not those turkeys. They don't know any more than we do."
When the door opened again, the man who came in was the deputy director, Marcus Pell. He was followed by one of the uniformed cops. "Coffee for you too, sir?" the cop suggested.
"Coffee my ass. It might be breakfast time for you, but for me its lust the tail end of a long, long night. Get us a bottle of Jim Beam and some glasses." He turned to Pat. "You were right, Dr. Adcock." He caught her off-balance. "What was I right about?" "Alien technology. The man said so himself. The orbiter's loaded with it… among other things. No"-he held up his hand-"I don't know exactly whose technology, or how it got there. We're having to be careful about communicating. You know all about that, Dr. Ad-cock; that's what we got you out of bed for."