Seven aging, somber faces circled the conference table. These were the masterminds of the Revolution—a band of eccentrics who had spent decades of their lives under a remote mountain in the range known among the ancients as Blue Ridge. The Revolution was done. Mission accomplished, partly at the hand of this youngster summoned before them for interrogation.
Gregory stood nominally at attention at one end of the table. Feet apart, hands behind his back. He had been home for forty-five minutes.
Virginia Quale was fripping at the corner of a note pad covered in her furious scribblings. She leaned back into the chair padding and sighed. "My goodness, it is a harried life that you have been leading these past couple of years, Gregory." She was beginning slowly. "And it is well recognized by every member of this committee that your adventures and endangerment and injuries have all been in the service of the Revolution and its subsequent Government. Now. . .."
Winston Weet could not contain himself. He thrust his pudgy face forward: "But dammit Gregory, you had been ordered by Mr. Webb merely to contact this Big Tom, to determine his willingness to construct an ocean ship—not to begin the construction of one! And your actual orders, you may or may not know, did not even carry the weight of this council."
"My orders were to contact the old slaver about the possibility of making a ship, ya," Gregory responded rigidly. "And after my accident my instructions, as relayed by the Rafer Pec-Pec, were to recuperate on Thomas Island until travel worthy."
Quale jumped in again. "You are being elliptical, Gregory. Our concern is that there have been many other matters in Merqua to be straightened out before we can allocate resources to a mission over the Big Ocean. Just how is it, then, that this Big Tom on a remote island is constructing an expeditionary vessel for the new Government?"
Gregory gripped his hands together behind his back and felt his scalp growing sweat-moist. Webb was sitting there appearing unemotional, except for the nervous thrumming of his finger nubs against the conference table. Webb, Gregory's long-time mentor, had set the project in motion with the complicity of the Rafer magic man Pec-Pec. That would not sit well with the angry council.
Gregory surveyed the ring of dour faces and made his decision: He would employ a common Revolutionary field technique designed to alleviate vexing dilemmas among human beings. He would lie. With just enough truth to make it seem plausible.
"Forgive my, uh, 'liptical testimony," Gregory began, "but there's a sequence of events what makes my actions clearer. After my injury, the island Rafers delivered me to the home of Big Tom the tradesman and shipbuilder—the very man I had been sent to find—where they apparently thought I would receive the best medical care. By irony, it was another Rafer, Pec-Pec, who brought me around."
Quale still fripped impatiently at her pad of paper.
"When I regained my full faculties on Thomas Island, ya see, circumstances had changed since I was given my orders—juss to approach Big Tom. Boatsmen were bringing in rumors from the mainland that the Monitor was dead, that there was a new Government, and that it was hanging all enforcers of the old system of forced labor." Gregory shrugged. "I knew that much was true. It was also rumored that a crew of new Government musclers were sailing for the islands, an' that meant doom for Big Tom and his men."
Gregory paused and cast his eyes down for a humble effect. "I had feared that the loss of Big Tom would be the loss of Merqua's best shipbuilder, now and for all time. So with Pec-Pec's help, I persuaded Big Tom to start immediately the construction of the Government's ocean ship. Even yer gentleman Fel Guinness would know better than ta whack a man working on a project for the new Government, former slaver or no."
Eliot Korhn was wearily resting his forehead on his fingertips. "Now that the plans fer the ship are drawn an' the construction's begun," he said, "what's ta stop us from, uh, whacking Big Tom now and completing the craft ourselves?"
Gregory pressed his lips together. "True, any builder could follow the old bugger's blueprints, except for one thing: Big Tom says the plans are not complete. Built as the plan specifies, the ship 'ud go down in the first heavy sea. There's some structural detail he's left out, something that can be added late in the building."
"But at some time the ship must be absolutely finished," Weet put in. "And from that point any rack of sailors could take her ta sea if Big Tom were, uh, absent." While his words were diplomatic, his expression showed his distaste for the slaver.
Webb laid his hand flat on the table, his sign for an emphatic pronouncement. He spoke for the first time in the meeting: "Get your minds right, please people, that we'll not be putting Big Tom away anytime soon. He aims to captain the ship, ya see. And even as detestable a man as he may be, that would do little harm. But the good it would do us: Well, he'll not only see the ship finished, but he'll see her rigged right, and seaworthy, and across the Big Ocean. That's a seaman's pride we can count on."
"If I could be dismissed now?" Gregory interjected. He let his shoulders sag an inch to illustrate his fatigue.
"Of course, Gregory," Quale replied in that motherly tone that no one took to be genuine. "How long a rest would you say your body requires?"
"Through the night would be it," he answered. "Twelve or thirteen hours."
Quale leaned over and spoke quietly into Webb's ear, then listened to his whispered response, nodding. She drew a timepiece from the side pocket of her blouse and clapped its copper cover open and closed again. "So gentlemen, we shall meet at ten A.M.? Now that it seems inevitable that we will have an ocean craft, against the wishes of some of us, I believe it will be in order to brief Gregory on his next assignment in the morning."
Gregory felt the sickening disbelief churn his stomach. All spring and summer he had spent in a head-pounded haze. Now he would be allowed to rejuvenate just a day or so before shipping out again.
He marched silently to the opposite side of the room, pulled the exit hatch open and thrust himself through it. After being away for so long, he found the dim corridors smothering. He stooped instinctively to avoid the lacquered black piping and conduits—a lifetime of that did not dissipate so easily. Footsteps were clacking up the concrete after him. It had to be Rosenthal Webb. No one else had that limping pace, that determination in his stride.
"The Revolution," Webb began explaining, even before he had caught up. "The Revolution is done, but it means nothing unless we put the rest of it in place, Gregory. You can not stop. I'm sorry. The Government alone will take years to recreate. The ocean ship must sail—there is speculation that parts of ancient Europe might have gone untouched. Can you imagine what that would mean?"
Gregory stopped by the hatch in the corridor floor where the ladder, bolted to the wall, would take him to the sleeping quarters down on Level Five. Already, mentally, he was checking in at the desk, taking the fresh sheets and spreading them out. . ..
"No, Mr. Webb, what would that mean? Another Government to overthrow? Eh? What are the chances that whatever form of rule we find over the Big Ocean is going to be of our liking? The rumors point the other way, don't they?"
Webb pressed his lips together and put a friendly hand on Gregory's shoulder. "You sleep now."
"Hard ta sleep when you've juss had yer butt chewed by the council of the new Government"—he jabbed a finger angrily—"while lying to protect you."
Webb smirked. "And a good lie it was. They see it was a mistake ta put Guinness into the field like they did—he killed many people unnecessarily, and could have killed Merqua's best shipbuilder. Embarrassed as they are, an' with the ship already under construction, I'm sure they'll give the rest of the expedition the go-ahead."
Gregory mounted the ladder and began to climb down. "Well, excuse me. I'd better give sleep a try if I can calm down. I'm the one what's gotta leave soon on a new mission."
"The next assignment, what Quale has in mind is not so bad," Webb said. "We want you to gather the crew and emissaries for the ocean ship, those that aren't already on Thomas Island. It should take long enough, the recruiting, that you probably wouldn't be done much before Big Tom finishes the ship—spring, hey."
"You want me to recruit the expedition?"
"Ah, within limits. Ya. An' most people of use to us, I would think, could be found in Chautown—it being such a shipping center." The old man's eyebrows rose suggestively. "You know anyone in Chautown? Any friends?"
"Ah," Gregory replied. "I did leave Moori there, didn't I?"
"One lass thing," Webb said. "That part about Big Tom's blueprints—that was part of the lie, right? That the ship would collapse?"
Gregory looked perplexed. "Not at all. He's holding something back."
As Gregory climbed down the ladder into the blackness, he thought about the word elliptical. How appropriate. Putting aside the chance to see Moori again, he still seemed to be circling farther and farther from what he really wanted for himself—but what did he really want?