"You're welcome, but I have to say it again—no guarantees."
"Noted. As long as I'm good for the day. E.D.'s due at noon."
"Not to mention the vice president."
"Lomax has been here since seven this morning. The man's an early riser. He spent a couple of hours conferencing with our Martian guest and I'm conducting the goodwill tour shortly. Speaking of which, Wun would like to see you if you have a few minutes free."
"Assuming national affairs aren't keeping him busy." Lomax was the man most likely to win the national vote next week—in a walkover, if the polls were to be trusted. Jase had been cultivating Lomax long before Wun's arrival, and Lomax was fascinated with Wun. "Is your father joining the tour?"
"Only because there's no polite way to keep him out."
"Do you foresee a problem?"
"I foresee many problems."
"Physically, though, you're all right?"
"I feel fine. But you're the doctor. All I need is a couple more hours, Tyler. I assume I'm good for that?"
His pulse was a little elevated—not surprisingly—but his AMS symptoms were effectively suppressed. And if the drugs had left him agitated or confused it didn't show. In fact he seemed almost radiantly calm, locked in some cool, lucid room at the back of his head.
So I went to see Wun Ngo Wen. Wun wasn't in his quarters; he had decamped to the small executive cafeteria, which had been cordoned off and encircled by tall men with coils of wire tucked behind their ears. He looked up when I came past the steam table and waved away the security clones who moved in to intercept me.
I sat down across a glass-topped table from him. He picked at a pallid salmon steak with a cafeteria fork and smiled serenely. I slouched in my chair to match his height. He could have used a booster seat.
But the food agreed with him. He had gained a little weight in his time at Perihelion, I thought. His suit, tailored a couple of months ago, was tight across his belly. He had neglected to button the matching vest. His cheeks were fuller, too, though they were as wrinkled as ever, the dark skin softly gullied.
"I hear you had a visitor," I said.
Wun nodded. "But not for the first time. I met with President Garland in Washington on several occasions and I've met with Vice President Lomax twice. The election is expected to bring him to power, people say."
"Not because he's especially well loved."
"I'm not in a position to judge him as a candidate," Wun said. "But he does ask interesting questions."
The endorsement made me feel a little protective. "I'm sure he's amiable when he wants to be. And he's done a decent job in office. But he spent a lot of his career as the most hated man on Capitol Hill. Party whip for three different administrations. Not much gets past him."
Wun grinned. "Do you think I'm naive, Tyler? Are you afraid Vice President Lomax will take advantage of me?"
"Not naive, exactly—"
"I'm a newcomer, admittedly. The finer political nuances are lost on me. But I'm several years older than Preston Lomax, and I've held public office myself."
"You have?"
"For three years," he said with detectable pride, "I was Agricultural Administrator for Ice Winds Canton."
"Ah."
"The governing body for most of the Kirioloj Delta. It wasn't the Presidency of the United States of America. There are no nuclear weapons at the disposal of the Agricultural Administration. But I did expose a corrupt local official who was falsifying crop reports by weight and selling his margin into the surplus market."
"A rake-off scheme?"
"If that's the term for it."
"So the Five Republics aren't free of corruption?"
Wun blinked, an event that rippled out along the convolute geography of his face. "No, how could they be? And why do so many terrestrials make that assumption? Had I come here from some other Earthly country—France, China, Texas—no one would be startled to hear about bribery or duplicity or theft."
"I guess not. But it's not the same."
"Isn't it? But you work here at Perihelion. You must have met some of the founding generation, as strange as that idea still seems to me—the men and women whose remote descendants we Martians are. Were they such ideal persons that you expect their progeny to be free of sin?"
"No, but—"
"And yet the misconception is almost universal. Even those books you gave me, written before the Spin—"
"You read them?"
"Yes, eagerly. I enjoyed them. Thank you. But even in those novels, the Martians…" He struggled after a thought.
"I guess some of them are a little saintly…"
"Remote," he said. "Wise. Seemingly frail. Actually very powerful. The Old Ones. But to us, Tyler, you're the Old Ones. The elder species, the ancient planet. I would have thought the irony was inescapable."
I pondered that. "Even the H. G. Wells novel—"
"His Martians are barely seen. They're abstractly, indifferently evil. Not wise but clever. But devils and angels are brother and sister, if I understand the folklore correctly."
"But the more contemporary stories—"
"Those were deeply interesting, and the protagonists were at least human. But the truest pleasure of those stories is in the landscapes, don't you agree? And even so, they're transformative landscapes. A destiny behind every dune."
"And of course the Bradbury—"
"His Mars isn't Mars. But his Ohio makes me think of it."
"I understand what you're saying. You're just people. Mars isn't heaven. Agreed, but that doesn't mean Lomax won't try to use you for his own political purposes."
"And I mean to tell you that I'm fully aware of the possibility. The certainty would be more correct. Obviously I'll be used for political advantage, but that's the power I have: to bestow or withhold my approval. To cooperate or to be stubborn. The power to say the right word." He smiled again. His teeth were uniformly perfect, radiantly white. "Or not."
"So what do you want out of all this?"
He showed me his palms, a gesture both Martian and terrestrial. "Nothing. I'm a Martian saint. But it would be gratifying to see the replicators launched."
"Purely in the pursuit of knowledge?"
"That I will confess to, even if it is a saintly motive. To learn at least something about the Spin—"
"And challenge the Hypotheticals?"
He blinked again. "I very much hope the Hypotheticals, whoever or whatever they are, won't perceive what we're doing as a challenge."
"But if they do—"
"Why would they?"
"But if they do, they'll believe the challenge came from Earth, not Mars."
Wun Ngo Wen blinked several more times. Then the smile crept back: indulgent, approving. "You're surprisingly cynical yourself, Dr. Dupree."
"How un-Martian of me."
"Quite."
"And does Preston Lomax believe you're an angel?"
"Only he can answer that question. The last thing he said to me—" Here Wun dropped his Oxford diction for a note-perfect Preston Lomax impression, brusque and chilly as a winter seashore: "It's a privilege to talk to you, Ambassador Wen. You speak your mind directly. Very refreshing for an old DC. hand like myself."
The impression was startling, coming from someone who had been speaking English for only a little over a year. I told him so.
"I'm a scholar," he said. "I've been reading English since I was a child. Speaking it is another matter. But I do have a talent for languages. It's one of the reasons I'm here. Tyler, may I ask another favor of you? Would you be willing to bring me more novels?"