Yawning teacup mouths open to the dry Saharan sky.
Gresham came back. He looked down at her as she sprawled on the carpet, breathing. "You okay?"
"I'm hollow. Eviscerated. Absolved."
"Yeah," he said. "You talked just like that, the whole time." He sat cross-legged before his console and typed away, carefully.
Minutes passed.
A woman's voice erupted from the console.
"Attention North Africa broadcast source, latitude eighteen degrees, ten minutes, fifteen seconds; longitude five degrees, ten minutes, eighteen seconds. You are broadcasting on a frequency reserved for the International Communications Con- vention for military use. You are advised to desist at once."
Gresham cleared his throat. "Is Vassily there?"
"Vassily?"
"Yeah. Da."
"Da, okay, looking good, hold on, please."
Moments later a man's voice came on. His English wasn't as good as the woman's. "Is Jonathan, right?"
"Yeah. How's it goin'?"
"Very well, Jonathan! You are receiving the tapes I sent?"
"Yes, Vassily, thank you, spaseba, you're very generous.
As always. I have something very special for you. this time."
The voice was cautious. "Very special, Jonathan?"
"Vassily, this is an item beyond price. Unobtainable elsewhere. "
Unhappy silence. "I must ask, can it wait for our next pass over your area. We are having small docking problem here at the moment. Very small docking problem."
"I really think you'd better give this one your immediate attention, Vassily."
"Very well. I will key in scrambler." Moment's wait.
"Ready for transmission."
Gresham tapped his console. High-pitched whir. He leaned back, turning to Laura. "This'll take a while. The scramblers are kind of clunky up on old Gorbachev Memorial."
"That was the Russian space station?"
"Yeah." Gresham rubbed his hands briskly. "Things are looking up."
"You just sent our tape to a cosmonaut?"
"Yeah." He tucked in his legs, resting his elbows on his knees. "I'll tell you what I think might happen. They're gonna look at it up there. They're gonna think it's craziness-at first. But they may believe it. And if they do, they won't be able to hold it back. Because the consequences are just too extreme.
"So-they'll pipe it down to Moscow, and that other place, Star City. And the ground teams will look it over, and the apparatchiks. And they'll copy it. Not because they think there ought to be a lot of copies, but because it needs study.
And they're gonna start shipping it all around. To Vienna first, of course, because their people are all over Vienna. But to the rest of the Socialist bloc, too-just in case ..."
He yawned into his fist. "And then those guys on the station are going to realize they've got the publicity coup of a lifetime.
And if anyone's willing to fool with it, they are. I've got a lot of contacts, here and there, but they're the craziest bastards I know! Five will get you ten, they start dumping it, direct broadcast. If they can get permission from Star City. Or maybe even without permission."
"I don't understand, Gresham. Direct broadcast? That just sounds lunatic."
"You don't know what it's like up there! Wait a minute, you do know-you've lived on a submarine. But see, they've been just burning, ever since little Singapore threw that guy up with the laser launch. Because they've been up there for years, hanging their ass on the edge of the-infinite, and nobody paying attention. Didn't you hear how pathetic Vassily was? Like some ham-radio geezer locked in a basement."
"But they're cosmonauts! They're trained professionals, they do space science. Biology. Astronomy."
"Yeah. Lot of girls and glory in those two. Boy. " Gresham shook his head. "I give it three days at the outside."
"Okay ... what then? If it doesn't work."
"I call 'em again. Threaten to give it to somebody else.
There are other contacts... . And we still have the original tape. We just keep trying, that's all. Till we get through. Or
Vienna nails us. Or till FACT makes a demonstration on a city and makes the news obvious to everyone. Which is what we have to expect, isn't it?"
"My God! What we've just done could cause... worldwide panic.... '
He sneered. "Yeah-I'm sure that's what Vienna has been telling itself while they sat on the truth. For years. And covered up, and protected the people who shot up your house."
A bolt of rage short-circuited her fear. "That's right!"
He grinned at her. "It was one of the least of their crimes, actually. But I figured it'd bring you around.
She thought aloud. "Vienna let them do it. They knew who killed Stubbs and they came into my house and lied to me. Because they were afraid of something worse."
"Worse? I'll say. Think of the political consequences.
Vienna exists to keep order against terrorism, and they've been sucking up to terries for years. They're gonna pay. The hypocrites. "
"But Gresham, what if they start bombing people? Millions could die."
"Millions? Depends on how many warheads they have.
They're not a superpower. Five warheads? Ten? How many launch racks in that submarine?"
"But they could really do it! They could murder whole cities of innocent people while they're sleeping, peacefully....
For no sane reason! Just stupid fascist politics and power mongering-" Her voice caught hoarsely.
"Laura-I'm older than you. I know that situation. I re- member it vividly." He smiled. "I'll tell you how it worked.
We just waited and went on living, that's all. It didn't happen- maybe it'll never happen. In the meantime, what good is this doing you?" He stood up. "We're through here. Come with me, there are things I want you to see."
She followed him unwillingly, feeling wretched, spooked.
The way he talked about it so casually-ten warheads-but for him it was casual, wasn't it? He'd lived through a time where there were thousands of warheads, enough to exterminate all human life.
Responsible for mass death. It filled her with loathing. Her thoughts raced and suddenly she wanted to flee into the desert, vaporize. She never wanted to be near anyone who had ever touched such a thing, who was shadowed by that kind of horror.
And yet they were everywhere, weren't they? People who'd played politics with atomic weapons. Presidents, premiers, generals... little old men out in parks with grandkids and golf clubs. She had seen them, lived among them-
She was one of them.
Her mind went numb.
Gresham slowed, took her elbow. "Look."
It was evening now. A ragged crowd of about a hundred had gathered before one of the domes. The dome had been pulled in half, as a kind of crude amphitheater. The Inadin musicians were playing again, and one of them stood before the crowd, swaying, singing. His song had a wailing meter and many verses. The other Inadin swayed in time, some- times giving a sharp cry of approval. The crowd looked on open-mouthed.
"What's he saying?"
Gresham began speaking again in his television voice. He was reciting poetry.
Listen, people of the Kel Tamashek,
We are the Inadin, the blacksmiths.
We have always wandered among the tribes and clans,
We have always carried your messages.
Our fathers' lives were better than ours,
Our grandfathers' better still..
Once our people traveled everywhere,
Kano, Zanfara, Agadez.
Now we live in the cities and are turned into numbers and letters,
Now we live in the camps and eat magic food from tubes.
Gresham stopped. "Their word for magic is tisma. It means,
`the secret craft of blacksmiths.' "