"Well—" Tommy snapped his fingers. "There's that woman who lost the spacecraft."
"Shit, boy! What do you want a dummy for?"
"She's going to come clear on that one, Dad. It wasn't her fault. And she's got a good TV presence." She also looked as though she might have a good bedroom presence. "She's an astronomer, and that's involved—"
The old man grunted. "I won't interfere," he said. "What about that geologist you were telling me about?"
As a matter of course, Tommy had informed the old man about the scene at Los Angeles International; he made it a rule never to keep anything from his father, unless he absolutely had to. "He's a pain in the ass, Dad!"
"He's a pain in the ass you owe, boy. Always pay your debts. And, hey, you probably need a weather expert, too. Try Meredith Bradison."
"Sam Houston's wife? Cripes, Dad! I thought you couldn't stand him."
The old man grinned fondly at his son. "Then we'll trade. You take one pain in your ass, and I'll take one in mine." There was also the consideration that if the investigating commission came out of this thing looking stupid, some of the embarrassment could be deflected onto the wife of Sam Houston Bradison. "I'll call your brother and fill him in," he promised.
"He's in Illinois, Dad."
"I know where he is." It was either the O'Hare Hilton or the Hyatt Regency, and that woman from Elgin would of course be there with him; Townsend Pedigrue did not keep many secrets from his father either. "Push me out to the door, will you?"
"Sure thing, Dad." After Tim Paradine had hurried over to take care of the task of shifting the old man from wheelchair to limousine, Tommy Pedigrue hesitated for a moment, then turned toward the hotel. There was a reception of some kind about due. Maybe he would find some of the people he was looking for there. Committee of three. Chosen freely by him, except that two of the names had been his father's.
But the good-looking one had been his own choice, and there ought to be some dividends from that. Tommy Pedigrue was not dissatisfied. In a horse trade you took what advantage you could get and you didn't worry if the other guy thought he got something too. That was the way he had been brought up, and it wasn't a bad way to run a life.
Every year on the continent of Asia twenty thousand square miles of forest are cut down, eight thousand square miles in Africa, and somewhere between twenty and forty thousand square miles in Latin America. Civilization, as Chateaubriand said in the eighteenth century, is preceded by forests and followed by deserts.
Tuesday, December 8th. 5:10 PM.
The ASF meeting had got itself back on track after the unfortunate episode of the crazies. It always did. The ASF was so ponderous an institution that its momentum would get it back on track no matter what the diversion. And the momentum of Rainy's life continued its track, too.
It was not a track she was enjoying. After the debacle on the panel meeting, the fire marshal had come in and cleared everybody out. Rainy's brilliant little talk was not heard; the panel on the Jupiter Effect that was to follow it had simply been canceled; the newspeople who had been tuning up for it began looking for other targets; and there Rainy was. Fat lot of brownie points she was going to get out of this day, she thought bitterly, as every conversation she struck up with some power in radio astronomy was interrupted by a reporter or a cameraman. When it was time for the six o'clock news she located a friend with a room and a TV set, and had the pleasure of watching herself once more, bracketed by the same familiar stories of the crazies raining paper airplanes on the scientists and the mobster hurrying out of the federal court building with his jacket over his face. She forced herself to go to the reception in the grand ballroom, but after half an hour of it she began to feel claustrophobia setting in. She thought longingly of those long, dull nights with Tinker, with her shoes off and reruns of Mary Tyler Moore or Kojak on the television. Dull? Oh, yes. Incredibly, incontestably, crashingly dull; but right at the moment a little dullness sounded extremely nice.
She looked around, speculating on whether there was any point in staying, and caught Tibor Sonderman staring at her across the room. She nodded, and the man took it for an invitation. He excused himself to the people he was talking to and came hurrying over to her. "I am sorry we became separated after the meeting," he said. "I looked for you, but there was such a crush— Can I get you a drink?"
"Actually, I was just thinking of leaving. "
"I, too," he said promptly. "It is very hot in here." He took her arm and guided her through the press. "The fine thing about this hotel is that it has the little conversation nooks on the balconies—perhaps a quiet drink where we can sit down?"
"Well—" But he had already guided her to the elevator bank and pushed both buttons. There was a crowd there, too, but Tib was quick enough in some situations, and he managed to pull her through the first door that opened. Behind them a slim, dark man was hurrying to the same elevator. Rainy recognized him; the Soviet cosmonaut, hurling something over his shoulder to another Russian, who nodded and turned away.
Tib held the door for him and said politely, "Pozhalsta, gospodin Mihailovitch."
The Russian grinned broadly as the door closed behind him. "Ponimaete pozrusski?" he asked.
Tib grinned, shaking his head. "I learned to talk in Zagreb in 1947," he said in English, "so how could I not know a little Russian? But I've forgotten most of it."
"We're going up," Rainy said in dismay.
"What goes up must come down, so we'll go for a little extra ride. Oh. Miz Rainy Keating, this is Cosmonaut Lev Mihailovitch."
"Miz Keating, of course." The cosmonaut managed to turn around far enough to lift her hand and kiss it. "We were both becoming stars of television this afternoon, is that right? Yes. I hope the person who interviewed you was more sympathetic than mine—a dragon, I swear to you. " He looked more carefully at Tib. "And we have met also."
"You have an excellent memory," Sonderman nodded.
"And in a moment I will recall the exact place," the Russian said, making room for a couple who wanted to get out and glancing up at the indicator. "The next floor is mine—I have a splendid idea! I have some excellent Armenian brandy in my room. If the two of you will care to join me for a drink . . . ?"
Tib looked at Rainy. "Why, thank you."
"Excellent! It is just down the hall—room 1812, it is a number not difficult to remember, for a Russian."
Lev Mihailovitch was one of the mysterious early Russian cosmonauts who appeared in group photographs of cosmonaut trainees, was never identified by name, and was never seen taking part in an actual mission—for nearly twenty years. The assumption was that there was some sort of political trouble. Then, in the early 1970s, he turned up again, and this time in a full glare of publicity. He had occupied the Salyut space station for more than 80 days, setting a new record, if a short-lived one, for duration in orbit. Sonderman remembered that there had been a story about him in the morning's Los Angeles Times that said he had been carried out of the landing vessel on a stretcher. Bone calcium loss? A depletion of the blood corpuscles? Something of the sort; the Russians had never said exactly what. But he looked healthy enough as he scurried ahead of them to open the door.
He waved them to seats and began fishing things out of drawers. "What a crowd," he said over his shoulder, uncorking a slim green bottle. "I have not seen anything like that since G.U.M. had nylon panty-hose on sale. But I must say your police were more gentle than the ones who work for the department store—they have no patience at all!" He was opening jars and laying out little dishes in a typical Russian drinking buffet: smoked fish, pickled fish, dried fish—"And these," he said, holding up a packet of Fritos. "They are not very Russian, but I like them."