The two of them were standing in the middle of the floor, looking at him. He was counting in his head. He estimated about thirty minutes since Norwood’s conversation with Gately. “Well, here we three are!” he said, resting his hands on his thighs and leaning towards them attentively. “Yes. Let’s talk.”
Twelve
Limberg put his head back and looked at him warily, his lips pursing. Then his mouth twitched into a flat little grimace. He turned and dropped into one of the two very comfortable-looking stuffed chairs. Against the raspberry-coloured velour, he seemed very white in his crisp smock and his old skin and hair. He brought his knees together and sat with his hands lying atop them. He cocked his head and said nothing. His eyes darted sideward towards Cikoumas, who was just at the point of drawing himself up rigid and thrusting his hands into his pockets. Cikoumas said : “Mister—ah—Michaelmas—”
“Larry. Please; this isn’t a formal interview.”
“This is no sort of interview at all,” Cikoumas said, his composure beginning to return. “You are not welcome here; you are not—”
Michaelmas raised an eyebrow and looked towards Limberg. “I am not? Let me understand this, now… Medlimb Associates is refusing me hospitality before it even knows the subject I propose, and is throwing me out the door summarily?” He moved his hand down to touch the comm unit hanging at his side.
Limberg sighed softly. “No, that would be an incorrect impression.” He shook his head slightly. “Dr. Cikoumas fully understands the value of good media relations.” He glanced at Cikoumas. “Calm yourself, Kristiades, I suggest to you,” he went on in the same judicious voice. “But, Mr Michaelmas, I do not find your behaviour unexceptionable. Surely there is such a thing as calling for an appointment?”
Michaelmas looked around him at the office with its rubbed shelves of books, its tapestries and gauzy curtains, its Bokhara carpet and a broad window gazing imperviously out upon the slopes and crags of a colder, harsher place. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked. “It seems so serene here.” How much longer can it take to run? he was asking himself, and at the same time he was looking at Cikoumas and judging the shape of that mouth, the dexterity of those hands which quivered with ambition. “It’s only a few questions, Kiki,” he said. “That’s what they call you, isn’t it—Kiki?”
Cikoumas suddenly cawed a harsh, brief laugh. “No, Mr Michaelmas, they don’t call me Kiki,” he said knowingly. “Is that what you’re here to ask?”
“Would he have found some way to beg a lift on a military aircraft,” Limberg commented, “if that was the gravity of his errand ?”
It didn’t seem Cikoumas had thought that through. He frowned at Michaelmas now in a different way, and held himself more tensely.
Michaelmas traced a meaningless pattern on the rug with his shoe-tip. He flicked a little dust from his trouser leg, extending his wristwatch clear of his cuff. “A great many people owe me favours,” he said. “It’s only fair to collect, once in a while.”
There was a chime in the air. “Dr. Limberg,” a secretarial voice said. “You have an urgent telephone call.” Michaelmas looked around with a pleasant, distracted smile.
“I cannot take it now, Liselotte,” Limberg said. “Ask them to call later.”
“It may be from Africa,” Michaelmas said.
Cikoumas blinked. “I’ll see if they’ll speak to me. I’ll take it in my office.” He slipped at once through the connecting door at the opposite side of Limberg’s desk. Michaelmas traded glances with Limberg, who was motionless. “Liselotte,” Limberg said, “is it from Africa?”
“Yes, Herr Doktor. Colonel Norwood. I am giving the call to Dr. Cikoumas now.”
“Thank you.” Limberg looked closely at Michaelmas. “What has happened ?” he asked carefully.
Michaelmas stood up and strolled across the room towards the window. He lifted the curtain sideward and looked out. “He’ll be giving Cikoumas the results of the engineering analysis on the false telemetry sender,” he said idly. He scratched his head over his left ear. He swept the curtain off to the side, and turned with the full afternoon light behind him. He leaned his shoulders against the cool plate glass.
Limberg was twisted around in his chair, leaning to look back at him. “I had heard you were an excellent investigative reporter,” he said.
“I’d like to think I fill my role in life as successfully as you have yours.”
Limberg frowned faintly. A silence came over both of them. Limberg turned away for a moment, avoiding the light upon his eyes. Then he opened his mouth to speak, beginning to turn back, and Michaelmas said: “We should wait for Cikoumas. It will save repeating.”
Limberg nodded slowly, faced forward again, and nodded to himself again. Michaelmas stayed comfortably where he was, facing the connecting door. The glass behind him was thrumming slightly, but no one across the room could see he was trembling, and the trembling had to do only with his body. Machinery hummed somewhere like an elevator rising, and then stopped.
Cikoumas came back after a few moments. He peered at Michaelmas up the length of the room. Behind him there was a glimpse of white angular objects, a gleam of burnished metals, cool, even lighting, a pastel blue composition tile floor. Then he closed the door. “There you are.” He progressed to a show of indignation. “I have something confidential to discuss with Dr. Limberg.”
“Yes,” Michaelmas said. “About the telemetry sender.” Cikoumas made his face blank.
Limberg turned now. “Ah.” He raised a hand sideward. “Hush one moment, Kristiades. Mr Michaelmas, can you tell us something about the sender?”
Michaelmas smiled at Cikoumas. “Norwood has told you UNAC’s analytical computer programmes say the sender isn’t Russian. It’s a clever fake.” He smiled at Limberg. “He says it’s probably from Viola Hanrassy’s organization.”
Cikoumas and Limberg found themselves trying to exchange swift glances. Limberg finally said: “Mr Michaelmas, why would they think it’s from Hanrassy?”
“When it isn’t? Are you asking how has UNAC fooled Norwood?”
Cikoumas twitched a corner of his mouth. “To do that, as you may not realize, they would have to reprogramme their laboratory equipment. Events have been too quick for them to do that.”
“Ah. Well, then, are you asking why has Norwood become a liar, when he left here so sincere?”
Limberg shook his head patiently. “He is too fine a man for that.” His eyes glittered briefly. “Please, Mr Michaelmas. Explain for me.” He waved silence towards Cikoumas again. “I am old. And busy.”
“Yes.” Not as busy as some. “Well, now, as to why the sender appears a fake, when we all know it should appear genuine…” He rubbed his knuckles gently in his palm. “Sincere. If it could talk; if there was a way you could ask it Did He who made the lamb make Thee, it would in perfect honesty say Da. And how does it do that, I wonder. Or how did they convince it? Which is it? What’s that noise beyond Cikoumas’s door? Then if you see the impossible occurring, Doctors, I would say perhaps there might be forces on this Earth which you had no way of taking into account.” He addressed himself directly to Limberg. “It’s not your fault, you see?”