Sakal was looking earnestly into the camera, his hands gripping the sides of the podium. “The number of Man’s space pioneers has not today been made one more. We have all been made greater—you and I as well as those whose training and experience are directed at actually piloting our craft in their journeys upon this mighty frontier.”
Michaelmas kept still. It wasn’t easy. For a moment, it had seemed that Sakal’s private fondness for John Kennedy would lead him into speaking of this new ocean. His natural caution had diverted him away from that, but only into a near stumble over New Frontier, an even more widely known Kennedyism. Sakal wasn’t merely enraged; he was rattled, and that was something Michaelmas had never seen before.
“We look forward to working with Colonel Norwood again,” Sakal said. “There are many projects on the schedule of the UNAC which require the rare qualities of someone like himself. Whatever his assignment, Colonel Norwood will perform faithfully in the best traditions of the UNAC and for the good of all mankind.”
Well, he had gone by way of Robin Hood’s barn, but he had finally gotten there. Now to point it out. Michaelmas keyed Transmit and locked.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we have just heard the news that Colonel Norwood will indeed be returning to operational status with UNAC. His new duties cannot be made definite at this time, but Mr Sakal is obviously anxious to underscore that it will be an assignment of considerable importance.” As well as to let us all know that he is as concerned for his good buddy’s well-being as anyone could be, and as well as to betray that UNAC is suddenly looking back a generation. Damn. Organizations nurtured specialists like Frontiere to dress policy in jackets of bulletproof phrasing, and then the policy-makers succumbed to improvisation on camera because it made them feel more convincing to use their own words.
Speaking of words…
“A position of high responsibility is certainly in order for the colonel if he is fully recovered,” Michaelmas was saying. It was gratifying how automatically the mind and the tongue worked together, first one leading and then the other, the one never more than a millimicrosecond behind the other, which ever was appropriate to the situation. The face, too : the wise older friend, the worldly counsellor. The situation is always important, but neither inexplicable nor cause for gloom. “The vast amount of physical catching-up to do — the months of training and rehearsal that have passed in Colonel Norwood’s absence from UNAC’s programmes — would make it extremely difficult to rejoin any on-going project.” Smooth. As the sentence had flowed forward, he had considered and rejected saying impossible. In fact it probably was barely possible; with a large crew, redundant functions, and modern guidance systems, space-flight was far from the trapeze act it had been in Will Gately’s day. And if I am going to make UNAC work, if I am going to make work all the things of which UNAC is only the currently prominent part, then the last thing I can do is be seen trying to make it work. So I can’t really be any more direct than Sakal was being, can I? Smile inside, wise older friend. They call it irony. It is in fact the way of the world. “It’s possible Mr Sakal is hinting at the directorship of the Outer Planet Applications programme, which will convert into industrial processes the results of the engineering experiments to be brought back by the Outer Planets expedition.” It’s also possible Laurent Michaelmas is throwing UNAC a broad hint on how to kick Norwood upstairs. Perhaps in the hope that while they kick him, his arse will open to disclose gear trains. What then, Dr. Limberg? What now, Laurent Michaelmas? All he had beside him was a magic box full of nothing — a still, clever thing that did not even understand it was a tool, nor could appreciate how skilfully it was employed. “And now, back to Mr Sakal.”
All Sakal was doing was introducing Limberg, and waiting until the old man was well advanced from the wings before circling around the table and taking one of the three chairs. Everyone was so knowledgeable on playing for the media these days. They kept it short, they broke it to allow time for comment, they didn’t upstage each other. Even when they were in a snit, they built these things like actors re-creating psychodramas from a transcript. It was not they who had pushed the switch, nodded the head, closed the door, written the voucher. Someone else— someone wild, someone devious, someone unpredictable — had done that. No such persons would be thrust upon the audience today. Or ever. Such persons and their deeds were represented here today. And each day. There is a reality. We will tell you about it.
Of course, these people here on Limberg’s stage were the survivors of the selection process. The ones who didn’t begin learning it early were the ones you never heard of.
“Dr. Limberg naturally needs no introduction,” Michaelmas said to a great many millions of people—few of them, it seemed, buried deep in the evening hours. Prime Time was advancing slothfully out in the Pacific wasteland. Why was that? “What he appears to deserve is the world’s gratitude.”
Unlock. The great man stands there like a graven saint. The kind, knowing eyes sweep both the live and the electronic audience. The podium light, which had cast the juts and hollows of Sakal’s face into harsh no-nonsense relief, seemed now to be more diffuse, and perhaps a more flattering shade. Michaelmas sighed. Well, we all do it one way or another.
“Welcome to my house,” Limberg said in German. Michaelmas thought about it for a moment, then put a translator output in his ear. He could speak and understand it, especially the western dialects, but there might be some nuance, either direct from Limberg or unconsciously created by the translator. In that latter case, what the translator made of Limberg would be more official among whatever ethnic group heard it that way. Eventually the Michaelmases and Horse Watsons of the world would have to track down the distortion if they could or if they cared, and set it right in one corner without disturbing another. Not for the first time, Michaelmas wished Esperanto had taken hold. But recalling the nightmare of America’s attempt to force metrication on itself, he did not wish it quite enough.
Limberg was smiling and twinkling, his hands out, the genial host. “My associates and I are deeply honoured. I can report to you that we did not fail our responsibilities towards the miracle that conveyed Colonel Norwood in such distress to us.” Now the visage was solemn, but the stance of his shoulders and slightly bowed head indicated quiet pride.
Over-weening, Michaelmas thought. The man radiates goodness and wisdom like a rich uncle in a nephew’s eyes.
And so it is with the world; those who claim mankind knows nothing of justice, restraint, modesty, or altruism are all wrong. In every generation, we have several individuals singled out to represent them to us.
Disquieting. To sit here suddenly suspecting the old man’s pedigree. What to think of the witnesses to his parents' marriage? Is there sanctity in the baptismal register? If Uncle’s birth certificate is an enigma, what does that do to Nephew’s claim of kinship when probate time comes round? Better not whisper such suppositions in the world’s lent ear just yet. But how, then, for the straight, inquiring professional newsman to look at him just now?
No man can be a hero to his media. The old man’s ego and his gesturings were common stock in after-hours conversation. But they all played along, seeing it harmless when compared to his majesty of mind — assuming he had some. They let him be the man in the white coat, and he gave them stitches of newsworthy words to suture up fistulas of dead air, the recipient not only of two Nobel awards but of two crashes…