Jefferson said, “We’ve been very satisfied with the Mendoza Treaty. It’s worth noting that there wasn’t a single violation of the truce in the whole ten years, not by either side.”
Fisher’s little gray toothbrush mustache quivered. Paula watched him through the tail of her eye. In a salesman’s voice, Jefferson was recounting all the virtues of the Mendoza Treaty. Paula guessed Jefferson had been caught out on a thin branch, to have Fisher forced on her. Paula was willing to let them make her out the hero. Now Fisher was leaning across the table.
“Miss Jefferson, I have to insert one small comment.”
Paula raised her head. “I thought you were an observer.”
“I am.”
“Then observe, and keep the comment in back.”
In the big chair on her right, Saba put his hand out to quiet her. Fisher’s mustache jerked up like a curtain from his little teeth. “This negotiation is in the interests of the Council. I am here for the Council.” He straightened up, looking at Saba. “Maybe there have been no technical violations of the truce, but the past ten years, the years of this much-acclaimed Mendoza Treaty, have been the bloodiest between the Styths and the Middle Planets in centuries. Only fifteen months ago there was an awful raid against a Martian colony in the Asteroids—civilians, women and children—carried off into an unspeakable life of slavery.”
“I have no treaty with the Martians,” Saba said.
“We have a right to insist on minimum standards of human decency.”
Paula shoved her chair back and walked away across the room. There were no windows; book racks like honeycombs covered the walls. At the closet door, she tried the latch. It was locked. Saba said, “What’s your minimum standard for murder?” His voice had a short-tempered edge. In the next chair Tanuojin sat picking at his claws, his eyes on his hands. Around the corner of the table from Jefferson, Leno looked bored: their observer. He could barely speak the Common Speech.
Fisher said, “I beg your pardon.”
“I’m talking about the Sunlight League,” Saba said.
“The Sunlight League?”
“Sure.” Saba’s hand struck the table. “It’s too bad we didn’t bring some pieces of the man you sent to murder me.”
“We are not responsible for the actions of private citizens.”
The air smelled bitter. Behind the Styths, Paula watched Tanuojin’s long hands flex. Jefferson was scratching her throat, her pale eyes on Fisher.
The Martian said, starchy, “We will not accept a new treaty that does not settle the issue of slavery. That’s absolutely fundamental.”
“I’m not treating with you,” Saba said. “I’m treating with her.” His hand jerked toward Jefferson.
“You’re treating with the Council,” Fisher said.
“I wouldn’t lower myself.”
“That’s enough,” Jefferson said.
Fisher snapped up onto his feet. “I will not—”
“Fisher.”
He turned toward her; the strings showed in his neck. “I—”
“Fisher,” Jefferson said, “sit down.”
Meekly Fisher took his place again. The old woman said, “In the interests of progress, suppose we all go and have lunch, and when we come back this afternoon try to talk like people with wits and objectives and not like little boys in a sandpile.”
Fisher was still watching her, and when she stood he stood. Paula went back to her chair for her jacket. Around her the Styths’ chairs growled and the big men got to their feet. Jefferson, busy with her purse and her candy and scarf, her eyes lowered, was giving no opening for conversation. She headed for the door.
“Don’t touch me,” Fisher snarled.
Paula looked up. Tanuojin was moving away from him.
Saba went out the door. The rest of the Styths followed him. Leno and Tanuojin reached the door simultaneously and bristled at each other. After a moment Tanuojin let Saba’s cadet go first. They went down past Paula’s old office to the way out into the park. Paula squeezed between Tanuojin and the wall.
“What did you find out from Fisher?”
His shoulders moved. “Nothing.” He stretched his legs and went ahead of her out the door to the gulley.
When Paula went back into the building, she found Jefferson in her office, her fingers going like hammers over her keyboard. The bare white walls of the office were stained in streaks, like watermarks. The only thing hanging on them was a long calendar behind the desk. Jefferson looked up from her work.
“Oh. Mendoza. I thought you were Michalski and my diet biscuit.” The old woman rolled her chair away from the keyboard shelf. “Sit down. Have you eaten?”
“We just had lunch.”
Paula sat down sideways in a straight chair. She took her jacket off and draped it over the back. Jefferson said, “Where are your companions?”
“Out in the park cooling off. This will never get us any place as long as Fisher is there.”
“Caleb Fisher is no problem.”
“Not to you, maybe. What did he do, murder his mother and bury her in your backyard?”
Jefferson daubed at her bad eye. Her hair was mushroom-white. She looked old. The door opened for Michalski carrying a cup of coffee on a little tray, which he put on Jefferson’s desk. A white plastic heat-folder steamed beside the cup.
“Mendoza,” he said. “You’ve really gotten bad-tempered. There’s a message for you on the board in the waiting room.” He went out. Jefferson was tearing open the heat-folder. A hot biscuit rolled out onto the tray.
“I’m on a diet.” She nodded at the biscuit. “Now they say my heart will have to be replaced. They’re turning me into a robot piece by piece. We won’t get anywhere unless the Styths are reasonable.”
“They’re reasonable,” Paula said. “As long as it profits them.”
“What do they want?”
“Everything. You might as well give it to them, it will make them easier to handle.”
Jefferson chuckled. She broke the biscuit in half and scattered crumbs across the desktop. “You like to talk in code, Mendoza. Rather like a Styth. I don’t entirely accept your proposition that you’re a new kind of creature.” She ate a mouthful of biscuit, burped, and patted her chest. “All this shooting at people does have to stop.”
Paula hung her arm over the back of the chair. “We need a universal truce.”
“The only people we’re having any difficulty with are your clients, dear girl.”
“Right. So we will arrange a universal truce, and let Saba enforce it.”
Jefferson munched her biscuit. Her bad eye was tearing. Slowly her head began to nod. “Ingenious. I like that, Mendoza. Have you discussed it with them?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Certainly Tanuojin knew. He and Saba had been happy to see her off to this meeting; they wanted to talk alone.
“You gave me to think you want something for yourself.”
“I’d like to be recognized.”
“In what form?”
“I’m the only link you have with the Styths. I’ll stay that. Keep Bunker out of Styth, and stop trying to make contacts behind my back.”
“Have some coffee.” Jefferson reached for her cup.
“No, thanks.”
“What about the Styths? Do they recognize you?”
“I’ll need your help.”
“How?”
Paula said, “We’ll get to that.” She looked around the stained walls of the room, thinking of Bunker again. “I want rank. My own means and place to live, free of either of them. The right to have my son inherit from me.” She felt Bunker hiding somewhere, watching.
Michalski came in again, saying, “Jefferson, two-thirty.” He popped out without pausing. Paula stood, picking up her jacket.
“You’re busy, I guess.”
“My dear, you can’t know. Is there anything else?”