“So you agree with me. It is terribly dangerous to have a masochist as humanity’s representative to the Stellar Group.”
“I agree. But you can’t change it — and neither can I. He’s too well established.”
“He has to be handled even more carefully than we thought. You are the only person who has that influence. You can persuade Dougal MacDougal to do anything you want.”
“Don’t try flattery, Esro. It doesn’t suit you. And I’m sure you didn’t come to talk about the Ambassador. What s the real agenda?”
“I came to give you some information.”
“You never gave away anything in your life.” Lotos did not say it as a criticism. It was a compliment. She was the daughter of a hard-rock miner herself, raised in the dust-tunnels of Iapetus, and every step out had been a fight. By the time she was ten years old she was as tough and sharp as a drill bit. Lotos had evaluated her only asset. When she was thirteen, the calculated optimum age, she had carefully traded youth and virginity (innocence she had never had) for an escape from Iapetus.
She was never going back to a life like that. Never, never, never. And somewhere in Esro Mondrian, behind the refined tastes and formal manners, she could sense the same early struggle and the same determination.
“You don’t mean give,” she went on. “You mean trade information.”
“Say it however you like.” Mondrian paused, to choose his words carefully. “I know something. You will know it also, in just twenty-four hours. It will arrive over the Mattin Link communication system, addressed to Ambassador MacDougal. I will be giving you — or if you prefer, trading you — one full day of knowledge. You and I, alone in the solar system, will have that knowledge.”
“And where did you get it?” The question was automatic, but Lotos certainly did not expect an answer and Mondrian showed no sign of offering one. She dialled for two cups of sugared tea. “All right. I’ll bite. What’s on the line — apart from the hook?”
“The rogue Morgan Construct has been tracked down. I can tell you its location.”
“Ahhh.” Lotos’s eyes were sparkling. “Damn it, I’ve had not even a hint of this.”
“I know. You are furious.”
“I have every right to be. I’m going to fire the Ambassador’s information officer.”
“That’s up to you. But you should not do it just for this. There is no way that she — or anyone else — could possibly have learned what I just told you. I assume you are recording?” Lotos nodded. “Personal system.”
“Keep it that way. I’m only going to say this once. Out near the Perimeter is a star system named Talitha — Iota Ursae Majoris in the catalogs. It is a trinary, a little more than fifty lightyears away from here. The main star is stellar type A7 V, about ten times as bright as Sol. The others are a close binary pair of red dwarfs, very dim, only a thousandth as bright as the primary.
“We’ve known all that for quite a while. What we didn’t know, until the probes got there seventy years ago, was about the planetary system around the primary. Three gas giants, six smaller metal-rich planets. The probe reported evidence of life on one of the inner worlds. It was named Travancore. It is small, less than half of Earth’s mass, and it has flourishing native life-forms — vegetation and fungi, at least, and probably animals. The probe didn’t detect any evidence of intelligent life, so there was no great interest in immediate exploration. As a result we don’t know too much about the place.”
“Fifty lightyears away, unexplored. How could you possibly have tracked the Morgan Construct there?’
“We didn’t. The Angels did, and it’s a waste of time any of us asking how they did it. They insist that it’s still there on Travancore, still alive, and hiding down under some sort of continuous canopy of vegetation.”
“Doing what?”
“Doing whatever a Morgan Construct does. You tell me. You now know as much as I do, except for one more thing. The Angels sent one of our smart probes down towards the planet.”
“Bad move.”
“I know. Try explaining that to an Angel. The probe stopped signalling before it reached the surface, and never came back. We have to assume that the Construct destroyed it.”
“And knows it has been discovered.” Lotos leaned back in her chair, sipping tea from a porcelain cup that looked as delicate and fragile as she did. “It will be ready for anything that comes after it. Tough for your Pursuit Teams.”
“I’ll be breaking the news to them — tomorrow.”
“And today? Are you looking for any action from me?”
“I do not ask any. I would suggest that you decide for Dougal MacDougal what his line ought to be when he discusses this with the Stellar Group Ambassadors. And you ought to know what I am doing with your pseudo-Construct. We have the first Pursuit Team assembled and waiting, out on Dembricot: one human woman, one Tinker ten-thousand Composite, one sterile female Pipe-Rilla, and their preferred form of Angel — an experienced Singer carried by a new-grown Chassel-Rose.”
“How’s the pseudo-Construct working out?”
“It is ideal for the purpose.” Mondrian laid his empty teacup on the table beside him. “It is, of course, an Artefact. I assume that Ambassador MacDougal does not know that.”
“He signed the approval for its use.”
“Which is not the same thing at all.” Mondrian stood up. “I have taken enough of your time.”
“One more thing.” Lotos took a slender blue cylinder from a drawer in her desk. “I owe you an information favor, and I may as well try to pay it at once. This contains a new edict from the Stellar Group. It will be officially released in three days, but I took the liberty of a preview.”
“You think it is relevant to me?”
“I know it is. And you won’t like it. According to this ruling, you will no longer outrank Luther Brachis in the Anabasis. The two of you will have equal rank and equal powers.”
Mondrian dropped back into his seat. “That’s crazy — and impossible. You can’t have two people running things. Why would the Ambassadors make a mad change like that?”
“Do you understand Stellar Group Ambassador logic? If you do, you can explain it to me. They make a rule, I just pass it on to you — a lot sooner than you would normally hear it. You will have time to make your own plans.”
“Plans be damned.” Mondrian stared right through Lotos Sheldrake for a few seconds. “When will the new ruling be effective?”
“As soon as it is announced. Three days from now.”
“Not enough.” Mondrian was silent for a longer period. “I can t do it in three days. Lotos, I want something else from you. If you can swing it, you’ll have a big piece of equity with me to trade whenever and however you want to. Does the new ruling divide up duties?”
“Not in detail. That responsibility stays with Dougal MacDougal.”
“Then I want just two things. I want to control access to Travancore. And I want to manage the operation that will destroy the Morgan Construct. Can you arrange both of those?”
“Could be. What do I give Luther Brachis?”
“Anything else he wants. Offer him the rest of the Galaxy, I don’t care.”
“You want it that bad, eh?” The doll’s face was still calm, but the mention of Luther Brachis brought anger to Lotos Sheldrake’s eyes. “Very good. I want something, too. I’ll do my absolute best to get you what you want — if you will do something for me.”
“Name it.”
“It’s not it — it’s her. Do you know a woman named Godiva Lomberd.”
“I’ve met her. She’s a well-known figure on Earth.”
“She’s not on Earth. She’s here. Luther Brachis has entered into a contract with her.”
“You know Luther. He’s had a thousand women. They come and go. Godiva Lomberd is just another one.”
“That was what I thought, when he brought her up from Earth. A month here, at most two, and she would be gone. But this is different. Luther is different.”