The young kzin looked at them both. “But that is of historical interest. The question is, should you suppress your finding in the interests of kzin-man relations. The answer is ‘no,’ you must not. Sell it to your television station. Only complete honesty and openness between our species can help us forge the trust we both need. This is history, it is our task to make the future, we must not let the past dictate to us. And now, please join my mate and me for afternoon tea. I hope you like cucumber and tomato sandwiches, Karan is rather proud of her sandwiches. She has even tried eating some of them…I must confess my own vices include a taste for cake. My Sire took me when I was a very young kit to his secretary’s children’s party. She gave me cake and a large ball of fiber to leap upon. I sometimes wondered where she got that idea-until I found out.” His ears lifted in the kzin equivalent of a smile.
“I trust you were not offended,” Sarah said nervously.
“On the contrary, I have had some made for my own kits.”
Senator von Höhenheim was busy. He was always busy. So when the little sharp-faced man knocked on his door and came in without being asked, the senator switched on a scowl that would have astonished his electorate. The senator was a bulky man, and on television could have passed for a bald Santa Claus out of uniform, but just at the moment his glare would have smashed mirrors and broken camera lenses. “What the hell do you want, you grubby little runt? I’m busy. I’ve got a committee to chair in ten minutes.”
Alois Grün was apologetic. “I’m sorry, Senator, but it’s important. The evening news will have some footage of a spaceship from Earth that crashed into the Great Southern Ocean some years ago. Nobody knew of it until now, apparently. Well, hardly anybody.” He looked meaningfully at the senator.
“Why should it be of the slightest interest to me, for G-Oh.” There was a pause which, if not in fact pregnant, had definitely been going into overdrive on the chocolate biscuits.
“Oh. You don’t think…”
“Well, Senator,” Grün was still deferential, but there was more than a faint hint of something a great deal less gentle. Skinny little Smeagol of a creature the man might be, but, Senator von Höhenheim reminded himself, he had survived the Occupation, where perhaps eight Wunderlanders in every ten had not. Darwin had operated ruthlessly among the humans of Wunderland for more than sixty years. There was cunning there, and even more importantly, ruthless determination. “It is hard to explain otherwise, is it not? I mean, your orders were obeyed instantly. I was there to see the missiles launched in accordance with your instruction. Obviously I didn’t see the actual strike, but there must have been one, must there not? And since the ship was never found, well, this might well be it, don’t you think?”
The senator looked at him and considered. “Is it too late to damp the story down? Can we prevent it going out?”
“I have read Earth history. I was a schoolteacher once, a long time ago, before the invasion.” A not-so-subtle reminder that he had been one of the fortunate or cunning few who had retained access to geriatric drugs. And that he knew a lot. “The Marconi scandals, Watergate, the climate change falsifications. In each case the cover-up was worse than the original wrongdoing. To cover up now would surely cause an even bigger storm than the video itself. It would prove there was something to hide. I cannot recommend that approach, Senator.” The little man rubbed his hands together. It didn’t show in any too obvious way, but he was enjoying this, just as he enjoyed lecturing the senator on subjects he would know nothing about.
“Of course, it goes without saying that should an unfortunate accident befall me, I have left a record that would be published. Killing my attorney, banker, or other obvious trustees would be an inadequate means of suppression. It is not in an obvious or vulnerable place, and indeed, there may be more than one copy.”
The senator looked at him narrowly. “Well, it surely is inconsequential. After all, it’s been eighteen years. The thing has been in the sea and must surely be corroded. There will be nothing to show what brought it down. And one hole must look much like another. Everyone will take it for granted that it was some kzin attack that destroyed it.”
“Forensic science is very advanced, Senator. And some modern materials resist corrosion. Spaceship hull alloys, for instance.”
“Most of the police stations and laboratories were destroyed at Liberation.”
“Only ‘most.’ Some records survived. As did a few of the police-the lucky ones. You know how collaborators were dealt with…Except for those smart enough to keep a foot in each camp,” Grün said. “The Kzin got most of those early, with telepath sweeps.” He went on: “Meanwhile, ARM has been bringing in new up-to-date detection equipment. To say nothing of the rumors we hear that they’ve got kzin telepaths working for them on interrogations. Kzin torturers, too, some say.”
“I refuse to believe that, even of ARM. If the population found out…”
“I could not be at all sure that there won’t be some that tell the truth,” Grün said. “And if that got out, well, you would be in serious trouble, Senator. Hanged as a traitor, very likely. You’ve seen plenty of hangings, and worse. You know what they entail. Certainly the story of how you only pretended to join the collaborators to spy on them would be…difficult…to sustain. At best, it would be the end of your career. Even if you escaped the noose or the axe, I doubt you would find eking out a living as a laborer in some back-block farm very appealing. And don’t forget there are still plenty of people who wouldn’t let an acquittal by a court inhibit them.”
“But there cannot be many of the KzinDiener left alive. Who could tell that the order was mine?”
“Well, I was there, of course, and I saw you give the order. Oh, not that I would say anything, of course.” The little man rubbed his hands together again. “But there might well have been other survivors. The abbot at Circle Bay Monastery tried to protect von Thoma, and maybe…some others. Naturally, they would not be anxious to draw attention to themselves at this stage of things, but they might seek amnesty in exchange for testifying against you. I don’t say this is inevitable or even likely, but are you prepared to completely rule it out?” He looked with his head tilted to the side, at his master. His master pursed his lips and looked back.
Stan Adler was in fine form. His current affairs program always beat the competition in the audience ratings. He spoke into the camera with his trademark lopsided half-grin. “Tonight, the Appropriations Committee Chairman, Senator von Höhenheim, has again objected to funding a proper investigation of the downing of the spaceship Valiant in the Southern Ocean. Our news investigators, following the initial sighting of the wreck by honeymooners Sarah and Greg Rankin in the Southern Ocean,” the screen cut to a wedding picture of the happy pair, “have gone diving in difficult storm-tossed waters to find the wreck and have positively identified her.
“It is known that she was bringing military and medical supplies, which might have saved many lives had they arrived and been transferred to the Resistance. Perhaps even shortened the final phase. Tell me, Senator, why exactly do you object to a properly equipped government investigation of this tragedy?”
The camera facing the senator showed a green light, and he looked into its lens rather than at his interrogator. “Well, Stan, you know that I am only the chairman, I don’t make these decisions all on my own.” The senator was genial.
Stan the Man smiled in the way that, his admirers had suggested, would make a kzin warrior nervous. He wore a casual shirt with his monogram, a small stylized eagle in black, over the pocket holding his phone. Cell phones had been back in the city for less than six months, so it was something of a status symbol.