“I want to hire you,” Norman said stonily.
“Hire me? You must be hitripping. On the one hand, I’m too rich to have to work. I figured out I can exhaust myself just about twice as soon as I can exhaust my money. I’m trying to get that down to a fifty per cent margin and going to work would screw me up. On the other hand, I can’t make anybody listen to me so what’s the good of my working? That’s settled, I hope. Have a drink—no, have a joint. Come out with me and collect some shiggies and we’ll celebrate your return. Anything!”
“I have an almost completely free hand on the Beninia project. I want you, at a salary you can name yourself.”
“Whatinole for?” Chad’s astonishment seemed genuine.
Norman hesitated. “Well—you’ve heard Elihu singing the praises of Beninia, haven’t you?”
“You were there at the time. Sounded like he had his private pipeline to Paradise.”
“Think I’m the sort of codder who’s easily persuaded?”
“You mean do I think you’re a hard case? Uh-uh. But you like to come on as one. What are you working up to—understudying Elihu’s PR job?”
“Exactly. Chad, that is a country which just seems to have been getting on quietly with its own business in the middle of all kinds of chaos. There used to be others, but they’ve all been caved in by outside interference—Nepal, Tahiti, Samoa—gradually reduced to Jettex Cursion status.”
“What else would you expect? Like I keep telling people, we’re a disgusting species with horrible manners and not fit to survive.” He added irrelevantly, “Did you get the letter I sent you?”
“Yes, of course I did. I didn’t reply because I was too sheeting busy. Now listen to me, will you? Outside interference or not, the Beninians haven’t had a murder in fifteen years. They’ve never had a mucker at all, not even one. They talk a language in which you can’t say that a man has lost his temper except by saying he’s gone temporarily out of his skull. Thousands of Inoko and Kpala poured over the border as refugees only a generation ago and there’s never been any tribal disorder between them and the people who were there already. The president runs the whole shtick—a million population, which is piddling by modern standards but a lot of people if you try and count heads—he runs it like a household, a family, not a nation. Is that clear? I don’t think I can explain what the difference is, but I’ve seen it going on.”
He was beginning to get through. What he could see of Chad’s face above the beard and moustache expressed concentration.
“One big happy family, hm? Okay, so what do you want me to do about it? Sounds as though they’re getting along all right by themselves.”
“Haven’t you caught any of the news bulletins where the need for the Beninia project was explained? I saw a replay of what Engrelay Satelserv is carrying while I was down at the GT tower just now, and all it left out was the risk that Dahomalia and RUNG may fight over Obomi’s grave.”
“Sure I’ve been catching the news. Been following the progress of your old beddy Donald.”
There was a moment of blank puzzlement. “What about Donald?” Norman demanded.
“It was in the same bulletin where I saw about the Beninia project!”
“I guess I didn’t catch the whole bulletin, only the extract they were replaying at GT … What did he do?”
“Saved Sugaiguntung from a mucker, is all. Killed the man with his bare hands.”
“Donald? Chad, are you orbiting? Donald could never in a million years—”
“All human beings are wild animals and they’re not fit to roam around loose.” Chad got to his feet and approached the liquor console. “I’d better have a hair of the dog.”
Norman shook his head, dazed. Donald? Coping with a mucker? It seemed so fantastic he dismissed it from his mind and switched back to what he had been saying before.
“Chad, I’m going to keep hammering at you until you cave in, understand?”
“About going to Beninia?” Chad measured out a generous helping of vodka and began to compose a whistler manually, as though he distrusted the programmed mixing instructions. “What for? You want a sociological advisor, you go get someone with the proper background. What do I know about West Africa? Only what I’ve read and seen on screens. Go hire some specialists.”
“I have specialists. I want you, Y-O-U.”
“To do what that you think they can’t?”
“Turn Beninia upside down and shake out its pockets.”
Chad tasted the whistler critically and added another shake of angostura. “Uh-uh, Norman. You just leave me to rot myself into my grave, there’s a sweet codder. And I promise I’ll comfort my premature old age with the idea that there really is a place somewhere on the pocky face of Mother Earth where people don’t kill each other and don’t run amok and generally behave like decent people should. I don’t want to go there because at the bottom of my mind I guess I just don’t believe in such a place.”
“Nor does Shalmaneser,” Norman said.
“What?”
“Shalmaneser has rejected every single attempt we’ve made to integrate the facts about Beninia into his real-world awareness. He says he won’t accept what we tell him about its history, its commerce, its culture, or its social interactions. He claims there are anomalies in the data and they get spewed back.”
“Can’t you order him to accept the data?”
“If he refuses, you can no more order him to compute with them than you can make him act on the assumption that objects fall upwards. We’re going out of our skulls, Chad. The whole Beninia project was predicated on our being able to process every step of it through Shalmaneser—not just the hardware of it, but the educational programmes, the probable diplomatic crises, the entire economy of the country practically down to the prodgies’ pocket-money for half a century from now. And he keeps on about these anomalies which I know from my own experience aren’t there!”
Chad stared at him. After a pause he began to chuckle. “Of course they’re there,” he said. “You’ve just been telling me all about them. Don’t catch, hm? Norman, you must be suffering from brain-rot, I guess. Okay, you win—never let it be said I refused to help a friend out of trouble. Hang on until I finish my drink and I’ll come along and pay a call on Shalmaneser with you.”
Still baffled, yet convinced from Chad’s manner that to him there was a solution of transcendental obviousness, Norman was about to reply when the phone sounded. He swivelled his chair and reached for the switch.
The screen lit to show Rex Foster-Stern’s agitated countenance. “Norman!” he burst out. “Whatinole are you doing there? Prosper is going into orbit with fright—when we couldn’t find you for the press conference he practically fainted!”
“That’s okay,” Norman said. “Tell him I’ve been arranging to hire a special advisor.” He glanced at Chad, who gave a shrug and spread the hand that wasn’t holding his drink.
“Sheeting hole, couldn’t you have picked a better time to worry about recruitment?” Rex demanded. “Who is this advisor, anyhow?”
“Chad Mulligan. I’m bringing him down to talk to Shalmaneser now. Have him cleared for vocal interrogation in half an hour, will you?”
“Half an hour? Norman, you must be—”
“Half an hour,” Norman repeated firmly, and cut the circuit.
“Y’know something?” Chad said. “It might be quite interesting, at that. I’ve often thought I ought to get acquainted with Shal.”
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NO REASON, PURPOSE OR JUSTIFICATION
The sergeant kept 019 262 587 355 Lindt Gerald S. Pvt. to the last and when handing over his pass accompanied it with a scowl.