I struggled out of reverie, stood, grabbed my case, and ordered the door to open. As I marched down the corridor, I tried to dam the flood of insight.
Did Charles think and see this way all the time?
The Republic Information Office had scheduled three interviews for me in a six-hour period, beginning fifteen minutes after my arrival in Mispec Moor. Ilya gave me a quick squeeze as we walked onto the shuttle platform, into a blast of warm moist air from the protein farms. Mispec Moor was strictly hardscrabble protein production and carbonifer mining. “You’re on your own,” he whispered in my ear. “I hate the limelight.”
“Thanks,” I said ruefully. “Enjoy the view.” He would be given a tour of Mispec Moor’s rather common fossil formations while I met the reporters. His attendance was as ceremonial and political as mine, but we still pretended Ilya was above the fray.
The info officer accompanying me introduced two reporters from Mars and Triple Squinfo, a moderate but influential LitVid firm that kept a heavy emphasis on substance and revelation. I had only interviewed with reporters from MTS once before. It had been a tough go.
The officer, a pleasant young man connected by marriage to Klein BM, escorted the reporters and me into a threadbare lounge.
The reporters had come in from North Noachis on a mid-speed train, a journey of eight hours through cratered flatness. They did not seem in a good mood.
We sat on the worn couches and the older of the two reporters placed his slate on the table between us, voice and vid active. The younger, a nervous woman with thick black hair, began the questioning.
“Your interim government has two more months to bring Cailetet and the other dissident BMs into the fold,” she said. “There’s been talk by some members of the transition team that Cailetet simply needs to be given incentive, and that you have a personal grudge against Achmed Crown Niger .”
I raised my eyebrows and smiled, then quickly decided to preempt what the young woman must have thought was a terrific bit of research. “Mr. Crown Niger once represented Freechild Dauble, and presided over the incarceration of a group of students at University of Mars Sinai. I suppose that’s what you’re referring to?”
The reporter nodded, eyes intent on the prey.
“That was a long time ago. Mars has changed, I’ve changed — ”
“But do you believe Crown Niger has changed?” the second reporter chimed in. He leaned forward. I felt like a mouse circled by hawks.
“He’s certainly moved up in the world,” I said. “Advancement changes people.”
“And you think your government can work with him, bring him into the fold before the elections?” the first reporter asked. The third seemed content to listen and bide his time.
“We aim for complete participation. We’d hate to have Mars divided any longer than necessary.”
“But Cailetet says that the interim government supports projects that may endanger stability in the Triple,” said the second reporter.
“I haven’t heard that.”
“It’s a general release to the LitVids, dated for spread on the ex net and broadband Squinfo at twenty-two Triple Standard.” He gave me a second slate with the message. I read it quickly.
“Have you made contact with the Olympians?” the first reporter asked.
“That’s not for me to say one way or another.”
“How could they endanger the Triple?”
I laughed. “I don’t know.”
“We’ve actually dug into this a bit,” the first reporter continued, “and we’ve discovered that Cailetet funded these scientists for a while before cutting. The scientists went elsewhere — supposedly to UMS. They’ve actually come to you now, haven’t they?”
“Cailetet seems to know more about this than I do,” I said. “Have you spoken with Crown Niger ?”
“We have,” the third reporter said. “Off the record. He believes the interim government is behaving very foolishly and inviting a lot of pressure from Earth. He sounds frightened.”
“If Mr. Crown Niger wishes to express his views seriously, on whatever matter real or imagined, he should talk to us directly, not through the ex net.”
The first reporter blinked and nodded. “Crown Niger isn’t stupid. What is he trying to do?”
“I can’t begin to guess,” I said. I glanced at the info officer and he efficiently ended the meeting.
There were no special perks in small stations like Mispec Moor. In a rickety cab traveling through the ancient tunnels, air thick everywhere with the yeasty smell of active nano, the info officer glanced at me cautiously and said, “What can we expect?”
I shook my head grimly. “Crown Niger is trying to sink the elections.”
“Is there anything more the RIO should know?” he asked.
“Not for the moment,” I said. I leaned back in the stiff seat and felt the enhancement’s tickle. Memories of the briefings from the Olympians mixed with my new sophistication. New questions tangled in my head. I visualized certain equations in the papers Charles had transferred to my slate. The symbols flared out in red, green, and purple, sorting themselves in the enhancement and being presented to conscious awareness. I did not savor the feeling yet — it was unsettling, having this powerful expert attached directly to both conscious and subconscious thinking.
The equations — which I still only vaguely understood, the enhancement’s assets not yet having penetrated deeply — kept pointing to vague discrepancies. I shut my eyes, trying to clear these distractions and think about Crown Niger . But the equations would not clear.
There is more.
I shook my head and swore under my breath.
“Are you all right?” the officer asked.
“I’m thinking,” I said, the best answer I could give at the moment.
Diane Johara had gained a couple of kilos in the years since I had seen her last, and her face had taken on a gentler, more knowing expression, but she was still Diane, and we hugged each other as if we were students and roommates again. Joseph and Ilya stood awkwardly beside each other, shaking hands, fresh male acquaintances sizing each other up. The apartment had three rooms and a sanitation alcove, spare even by Mispec Moor standards, but it was neat and comfortable and immaculately decorated with quilts from Diane’s family and colorful, fanciful paintings from Joseph’s.
Diane wore a long black velvet dress and a tiny yarmulke on the crown of her head. In New Reform Judaism, men and women equally had to hide their heads from God’s gaze. Her hair had been coiled into a dove-shaped bun on one side, and I found the style at once very dignified and very attractive. She had found her true beauty.
I was so happy seeing her and being distracted from my almost painful welter of thoughts that I felt like crying with relief. I did cry a little, the allowed tears of renewed friendship. Joseph led us into the middle room, a circular dig about seven meters wide with banded red and black rock walls over insulation. Ilya recognized the mineral immediately and he and Joseph had something to talk about — deposition of oxidized iron during Mars’s early history, the fluctuation of oxygen-producing organisms in the ancient Glass Sea and the chemical binding of their wastes.
I was glad that Ilya and Joseph had found topics of interest to keep them occupied. Diane and I had a lot of catching up to do. The evening progressed pleasantly into dinner, and this was the surprise — after a day of yeasty smells and reduced expectations, the food Diane and Joseph prepared and served was wonderful. Fresh vegetables, the finest salad I had tasted in months, premium protein cakes wonderfully spiced with curry and laced with fresh chutneys. We ate until we could hold no more, reconsidered, and tamped the excess down with a few more bites.
“We keep our own farm vats here,” Joseph explained. Whenever he looked at Diane, Joseph’s face beamed rapture. I don’t think I had ever seen a couple so much in love.