Entering the plush, dimly lit conference room, Henry Havelock could tell this was going to be bad.
Colleen Kinsella had arrived earlier, and she sat across the oval table from the room's four other occupants. There was only one empty chair, immediately to Kinsella's left. As Havelock settled into it, Kinsella gave him a sidelong look whose poison was brewed from humiliation at the grilling she'd been undergoing and anger at him for the position he'd placed her in.
Soon her opinions will cease to matter. The thought left no visible or audible spoor on Havelock's face or voice. He inclined his head graciously. "Gentlemen. Ms. Ziegler."
The man directly opposite him wasted no time on pleasantries, but cut in quickly before Central Committeeperson Vera Ziegler could launch into a time-wasting denunciation of Havelock's old-fashioned (and therefore ideologically unacceptable) way of addressing the three Central Committee members and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Director Kinsella has indicated that you can explain to us the intolerable position her agency's machinations have placed us in."
Havelock gave an eyebrow lift of bogus astonishment as he studied the speaker. Murray Morris was fat, bald, and totally unremarkable in appearance. For once, appearance was not deceiving. He possessed no talents whatsoever except the one that mattered: political survival. That single ability was also his single conviction. Under a regime of fascists or monarchists or plutocrats, he would have risen to prominence just as he had under the present one, by sheer longevity. He was a power on the Central Committee, and one of those who'd approved Kinsella's (meaning Havelock's) proposals to infiltrate, and later to attack, the Enclave.
"If memory serves, Mr. Morris," Havelock murmured, "the Central Committee authorized these `machinations,' which otherwise would never have been set in motion."
"Yes, yes." Morris gave a pout of overweight petulance. "We believed the potential benefits of the original plan outweighed the dangers. Then, after the terrorist killing of a Lokar, we allowed ourselves to be persuaded that direct action against the Enclave was the only way out of the impasse in which we found ourselves."
"If you'll recall, sir, I offered you an alternative at the time. Shortly after the New York incident, I obtained definitive evidence that the Eaglemen were responsible." No great feat, inasmuch as I'd directed them to do it. "I suggested that you offer this evidence to the Lokaron as proof of the government's innocence. I renew the suggestion now."
"But that won't satisfy them!" Morris' voice rose to a plaintive bleat. "It didn't even satisfy them before this new fiasco. They were demanding reparationsa demand to which we couldn't possibly accede"
"How typical!" Ziegler cut in shrilly. "What else can one expect of the Lokaron? They're bloodsucking capitalist exploiters of the masses, who naturally think exclusively in terms of money! If it hadn't been for their interloping, Americaunder our guidancewould by now have attained a higher state of consciousness, rising far above the profit motive and all the other obsolete, individualistic social patterns in which these grotesque, unhuman monsters are hopelessly mired. And without the temptation of their technological gimmickry, we would have achieved a sustainable society, living in harmony with the environment!"
The other two Central Committee members rolled their eyes resignedly heavenward. Among the cynical nomenklatura that ran the EFP, Ziegler was that rarest of birds, an old-line true believer. Permanently ensconced on the Central Committee as a sop to those of like mind among the Party's rank and file, she could always be relied on to support any action against the Lokaron, whose very existence was ideological anathema to her. Unfortunately, the price of her support was staying awake through her speeches.
"Of course, Vera, of course," Morris soothed her. "You are, as ever, the conscience of the Party. We can always count on you to remind us of the great ideals that gave birth to our movement."
"Especially," Earl Drummond added, deadpan, "when we're in danger of straying into mere practicalities."
He'll go too far, one of these days, Havelock thought as he eyed Drummond, the solitary Central Committee member for whom he had any respect. But Ziegler, too stupid to recognize sarcasm, just blinked twice and looked vaguely puzzled.
Drummond was black, by the logic-defying North American definitionhis face was the color of butterscotch and his features suggested about as much genetic material from West Europe as from West Africa. But his hair and neatly sculpted beard were wooly, and their snowiness contrasted beautifully with his skin. He was the only nonwhite on the Central Committee of a Party that had always taken care to exempt itself from the racial quotas it imposed on everyone else. His status was unique in another way as well, of which he proceeded to remind them without unnecessary subtlety. "And I certainly agree on the desirability of expelling the Lokaron and tearing up the trade treatiesto which my cousin, President Morrison, was opposed from the beginning."
Morris flushed. "All of us agree on the unfortunate nature of the treaties which we were unavoidably constrained to sign, as everyone is aware . . . at least everyone here," he intoned.
Havelock grinned inwardly as he recognized the defensiveness. It was curious: members of the EFP hierarchy were no more immune than anyone else to the mystique of the Presidency, an office which they themselves had politically emasculated. As John Morrison's cousin, Drummond partook of that mana. He was a voice on the Central Committee for the President's well-known and politically awkward opposition to the treaties. It was one reason he'd supported Kinsella's proposal, the other being that they were old friends and allies. Now he nodded pleasantly in acknowledgment of Morris' unsubtle point.
"Precisely, Murray. So perhaps we can return to the practicalities I mentioned before . . . such as the failure of the Company's attack on the Enclave." He swung his dark eyes toward Havelock.
"Strictly speaking, Mr. Drummond, the attack didn't fail. Rather, it never occurred. The on-scene commander quite properly called it off when his instrumentation indicated that our agents in the Enclave had not succeeded in deactivating the Lokaron security system."
"Pettifoggery!" snapped Morris. "The fact is, the Lokaron are quite aware the attack was planned. They aren't saying so openly, for obscure reasons of their own. But the point has been made abundantly clear to me by, uh, Huruva'Strigak, who seems to be in ultimate authority among themhe presented the original demand for reparations. Can you shed any light on this?"
"I believe I can, sir. Since the night of the abortive attack, I've been in communication through our message-drop system with Captain Rivera, our top person inside the Enclave." This got the attention of everyoneespecially Kinsella, to whom it was news. "According to her, one of the agents under her control, Ben Roark, sabotaged the operation. She concludes that he has evidently been turned."
General Hardin stirred into attentiveness and consulted his electronic notepad. "Roark? Roark? Oh, yes! A former agent of yoursnot a military man like the rest of them. Just goes to show." He puffed himself up and looked around, gleefully meeting Ziegler's glare of concentrated and distilled hate. "What can you expect of goddamned pansy civilians?"
Havelock, who knew the total fictitiousness of the citations behind all the fruit salad on Hardin's chest, restrained a laugh as he always did in the presence of the JCS chairman's affectations. (Rumor held that, had he dared, Hardin would have worn a brace of pearl-handled revolvers with his seven-star general's uniform.) The EFP, committed to generations of antimilitary rhetoric but just as dependent on the military for its survival as any other regime, had packed the upper echelons with creatures whose sole qualification was political reliability. Not too surprisingly, those bureaucrats in uniform had a tendency to overcompensate. It was a tendency Hardin took to extremes, although behind his posturing lay all the actual combativeness of the well-fed lap dog he resembled.
I shouldn't complain, Havelock reminded himself. If the real military people, the warriors, hadn't found themselves in a dead end in today's U.S. armed forces, I wouldn't have found it so easy to mold the Eaglemen into the instrument I needed. Their frustration was my tool, and the EFP created it. For that, it's even worth listening to Hardin's bluster with a straight face.
"Actually, General," he cut in, forestalling a diatribe by Ziegler, "I recruited Roark personally, believing his expertise in operations of this sort outweighed any doubts as to his reliability."
"A serious error in judgment," Ziegler said with venomous satisfaction.
"Undeniably. I take full responsibility for its consequences. And I offer to make amends by having him eliminated."
"What?" The outburst came from Kinsella, though all of them looked gratifyingly astonished. "But . . . but how can you get at him? He knows all your people in there, and"
"Not any more, Director. Even now, we're in the process of infiltrating three more agents into the Enclaveunderstudies of the original six. They were trained separately, for security reasons based on this very type of contingency."
"Still," Drummond observed, "now that he's gone public with his betrayal, surely the Lokaron have taken him under their wing. Which means he's untouchable."
Havelock spoke in carefully measured tones. "I believe that our agents can get to him even though, as you surmise, he's under direct Lokaron protection. I have reasons for this belief. For the present, I must ask you to not trouble yourselves about the nature of those reasons . . . and to give me a free hand in carrying out this operation."
Drummond gave him a narrow look. "I find myself intrigued by this Roark, Mr. Havelock. What could possibly have led him to betray not just his country but his very species? What could the Lokaron offer him?"
"Ha!" Hardin snorted. "What else? Money, of course. Damned civilians . . . !"
"Oh, come, General." Drummond smiled. "How would he spend it? He must know he'll never be able to show his face outside the Enclave again." He turned a shrewd look on Havelock. "Can you shed any light on his motives? I seem to recall that his earlier parting from the Company was less than entirely amicable."
"True enough, sir. He blamed me for the death of a female agent with whom he was romantically involved. But the actual killing was done by the Lokaron, or at least by their human hirelings. So he was at least equally embittered against them, which was what enabled me to recruit him. What could have led him to transfer his allegiance to them, as he seems to have done, is beyond my understanding."
Actually, Havelock understood it only too well. Anger stabbed painfully at his gut as he contemplated his blunder. It's Doyle, of course. It had been a long time since I'd even thought of her. So it never occurred to me to consider that she might still be alive inside the Enclave . . . and that if she was, then the cessation of her reports to the Eaglemen could only mean she'd somehow been turned. And it also never occurred to me that if she was alive and working for the Lokaron, Roark might meet her, and be influenced by her.
And that, it appears, is exactly what's happened. Murphy's Law stands confirmed! Only decades of practice at controlling his facial muscles kept his teeth from grinding together.
"So now you want us to let you assassinate him," Morris said, bringing him back to the present. "Even if, as you claim, the thing is possible, why should we assume you won't fail again?"
"And," Drummond added, "aside from revenge, why should we want him dead now? The damage is done."
"I must beg to differ, Mr. Drummond. This isn't just a matter of vengeance. Roark must be eliminated as a necessary precondition to getting our original plan back on track."
Kinsella stared at him. "Do you mean to say . . . are you actually suggesting that we try again?"
"Why not, Director? The arguments in favor of an attack are still as valid as they ever were. And our plan is still fundamentally sound."
"But we're hopelessly compromised! Roark has surely revealed the identities of all the other agents. The Lokaron must be watching them like hawks."
"Ah, but he doesn't know the new ones to whom I alluded a few minutes ago. Using them, we can try again. But not with Roark still alive inside the Enclave, working for the Lokaron. He's an uncontrollable factor which makes any planning impossible."
"Hmm . . . " Morris pondered for a moment. "Very well. If you think you can reach Roark, I'm inclined to let you try. Is this the sense of the meeting?"
"I suppose so," Drummond allowed. Hardin emitted a vaguely affirmative-sounding growl.
"Yes!" Ziegler's eyes held a feverish glitter of eagerness. "Kill the traitorous motherfucker! Vermin like him deserve to be exterminated! I wish they could be forced to watch their children being anally gang-raped to death first!" She raved on for a while in the same vein, while Havelock reflected that she was a typical advocate of "compassionate government": her love of ethnic and class abstractions was exceeded only by her loathing of actual people. "But," she finally concluded, getting her breathing under control and addressing Havelock, "you'd better not screw up this time."
"All right, then," Morris said with heavy finality. "We will so report to the full Central Committee. And we won't detain you any longer from putting the operation into effect."
As he departed from the Company building, Havelock decided it could have been a lot worse, all things considered. The thought was less than comforting as he proceeded through the Washington night toward his Massachusetts Avenue hotel and the meeting he really had to worry about.
Once in his suite, he went for the bottle he kept for such occasions. It was colored water, but he was a virtuoso at simulating the drunkenness that Kinsella's observers would think an appropriate reaction to his time on the hot seat. Once he'd reached a suitable state of simulated inebriationnot an extreme one, which would have been out of characterhe stumbled to bed and turned off the lights, leaving the room in that darkness which was the object of the entire charade. He lay awake for a time, until he was sure any surveillance monitor would have concluded that no further vigilance was called for. Then he slipped from the bed and felt his way to the walk-in closet. It was the one place he'd checked out in old-fashioned (and therefore undetectable) ways, satisfying himself that it was bug-free.
He sat down on the shoe ledge in the darkness and fumbled in a hidden compartment under the ledge. He found what he was searching for: a small, flat console attached by a fiber-optic cable to a latticework headpiece. He touched a button on the console, activating a signal undetectable by any human instrumentality, and waited. Presently an orange light blinked in acknowledgment. He put on the headset, touched another button, and was, to all the evidence of his senses, seated in an office in one of the Enclave's towers.
It was a technology so illegal that the Party hadn't even allowed it to be procured for limited use by government agents. Havelock gazed across a table at the being who'd provided it. The green Lokaron face showed that heightening of its bluish undertone that Havelock had learned to recognize as denoting intense emotionnotably anger.
Valtu'Trovon wasted as little time as Murray Morris had earlier. His mouth formed Lokaron words, but the virtual-reality software provided translation. "You're late," Havelock heard.
"I'm sorry, lord." By trial and error, he had arrived at this form of address, which the translator rendered as something acceptable to the Rogovon resident commissioner. "But I had to take security precautions. And before that, I had been detained in a meeting where I was called upon to explain the attack's failure."
"Well, now you can explain it to me."
"Of course, lord," Havelock murmured. The software faithfully conveyed his obsequiousness. It was how he always dealt with his superiors. (Who aren't as clever as I am, ran the automatic mental addendumbut barely above the level of consciousness, for it went without saying.) It seemed to work regardless of species.
He gave a succinct and accurate account of what had happened. Valtu heard him out, then spoke in portentous tones. "This is not good. You assured us that in your dual role as a high-ranking government intelligence operative and clandestine leader of the Eaglemen, you were in a unique position to create the kind of political climate we require. We accepted your assurances, and agreed to your price. This could have resulted in serious embarrassment for Gev-Rogov. Fortunately, I was careful to take no irrevocable steps in advance, knowing the inadvisability of relying on natives."
Havelock sustained his expression of polite attentiveness despite Valtu's insult and his own inward gloom. The plan really had been perfect, from his standpoint as well as Valtu's. The Rogovon, forewarned, had been standing to arms in their tower that night. The attack, having swept everything else before it, would have smashed itself against that obstacle. All the Eaglemen would have died, and with them the knowledge of his duplicity. All the other surviving Lokaron would have come around to the Rogovon viewpoint on how Earth should be dealt with. And Henry Havelock would have ruled Gev-Rogov's share of occupied Earth as the native governor he'd persuaded them they would need to squeeze the maximum return out of their human subjects. Damn Roark to hell! Him and that bitch, Doyle! Yes, she dies too.
"Fortunately, lord, I've already laid the groundwork for persuading my superiors to authorize another attack. The organization for it is still in place. And as I've explained to you, it's easy to exploit the personal and familial ambitions of the director of the agency I work for. But a necessary precondition is the removal of the two rogue agents involved. I've already obtained permission to mount such an operation against the man, Roark. Naturally it will also target the woman, Doyle, of whom my government superiors know nothing."
Valtu cogitated for a moment. "I've known for some time that Svyatog'Korth, the factor for Hov-Korth, has a confidential advisor on human affairs. Evidently it is this Doyle female. Why didn't you ever tell me about her?"
"If you'll recall, lord, I did mention the Eagleman agent who'd ceased reporting. I had no way of knowing she had become a confidant of Svyatog'Korth and, through him, a source of information for Gev-Harath in general. I probably never mentioned her name, considering it unimportant."
"All human names sound alike anyway," Valtu acknowledged offhandedly, dismissing the point. "At any rate, she's not part of Gev-Harath's general human labor population. She must live in the middle residential levels of the Hov-Korth tower. Among the Harathon," he added parenthetically, "each hovah has its own tower." The translation pitilessly reproduced a tone Havelock had heard often enough among humans: envy of affluence masquerading as contempt for extravagance. "And now, after his little escapade, Roark has doubtless joined her there. What makes you think your assassins can reach them?"
"That very point was raised by the more intelligent of my human superiors. I assured them that I had reason for optimism. Of course I couldn't tell them what that reason was: your help."
Havelock permitted himself a moment of satisfaction at having taken Valtu aback. The Rogovon commissioner spoke slowly. "This presents difficulties. Remember, Gev-Harath is almost as powerful as Gev-Rogov." Havelock had learned to recognize this as the closest the Rogovon could bring themselves to admitting Gev-Harath's primacy. "Naturally, we have nothing to fear from them," Valtu went on, a little too emphatically. "Still, the kind of involvement you request could result in . . . diplomatic awkwardness. So it's quite out of the question."
Havelock looked up from his humble posture, met Valtu's slit-pupiled eyes, and held them. "I can only remind you, lord, that the plan is unworkable as long as Roark and Doyle are active within the Enclave. And, as you yourself so rightly pointed out, they are invulnerable to my merely human efforts as long as they are under Harathon protection. The corollary is obvious: if you want me to undertake a second, successful attack on the Enclave, you must give me the support I need to eliminate them."
"You dare to tell me what I must do, you . . . you . . . you native?" The volume rose to an ear-hurting level as the software sought to reproduce Valtu's rage.
"Not at all, lord. I merely suggest that Gev-Rogov's clandestine operations resourcesnaturally far superior to Gev-Harath's security apparatusshould enable you to give my agents access to Roark and Doyle without involving your gevah in the kind of public embarrassment you naturally wish to avoid."
Havelock waited patiently while Valtu got himself under control and considered the practicalities in light of the prestige-preserving formula he'd just been offered. The Rogovon really are impossible, he reflected. From what he'd been able to infer about Gev-Harath and the others, editing all the bias out of what the Rogovon said, he often wished he'd been able to go to work for them instead. But, he admitted to himself, it was no accident he'd gravitated to Gev-Rogov. None of the other gevahon had the kind of limitless ambition to which he could attach his own.
And, he told himself, there were compensations. Since going on Gev-Rogov's payroll he'd learned more about the Lokaron than any other human. . . .
Except, of course, Doyle. And now Roark.
Yes, they must definitely die.
"So be it," Valtu interrupted his thoughts. "The necessary arrangements will be made. You will be contacted in the usual way." Abruptly, the connection was severed and Havelock was back in the darkness, alone with his certainty that he'd be able to manipulate this alien just as he'd always manipulated his own kind.
Valtu'Trovon sat brooding for a few moments after removing his headset. His assistant, Wersov'Vrahn, who hadn't been included in the shared virtual reality but who'd been observing Havelock's half of the byplay in noninteractive format on a two-dimensional screen, waited patiently while his boss brooded.
"I shouldn't lose my self-control like that," Valtu finally said.
"Who could blame you?" exclaimed Wersov. "What a creature!"
"Yes. Utterly beneath contempt, like all of them. But useful." Valtu laughed. In the Rogovon subspecies, the rapid-fire clicking held a vaguely metallic resonance. "You know, don't you, that he thinks he's using us?"
"So you've explained to me. He's convinced himself that we're going to make him our puppet ruler among his own species." Wersov made his own sounds of amusement. "Odd. He seems shrewd . . . for a native."
"He is. But he's also a human. Their thought processes are incomprehensible." Privately, Valtu wasn't so sure. He'd known many a Lokar who, after successfully manipulating his fellows for too long, had fallen into a solipsistic conviction of invulnerability, feeling himself safely removed from the universe his victims inhabited. Could it be that it worked the same way among humans? Valtu instinctively shied away from the vaguely subversive thought. He stood up and strolled over to the nearest transparency, and gazed at the landscape which never failed to interest him.
Soon, of course, it would become less interesting . . . but only temporarily.
Havelock couldn't really be blamed, he thought indulgently. After all, the Harathon and all the rest of Gev-Rogov's enemies among the Loakron hadn't guessed it, either. The reason for their failure was easy to understand. They could manage tours of duty on this planet, but its gravityover a third again that of the species' birthworld and its Harathon and Tizathon offshootsdragged at them. They would never think of it as a potential home. It never dawned on them that the Rogovon actually liked it. It was similar to the environment the Rogovon genotype had been engineered for, only better in all respects.
Except, of course, for its indigenous race, Valtu amended. But that will be corrected, after war is provoked and Gev-Rogov is found to be the only gevah still in a position to wage it. In such an atmosphere of outrage against the humans, no one will complain when we deal with the situation in our own way. . . .
Afterwards, it will be simple enough to reseed a world that nobody else wants. And such a colony, once it matures, will put our power base in a class by itself. Gev-Rogov will be a giant step closer to assuming its rightful place as the preeminent gevah.
Havelock will be dead with all the rest, of course. But he'll have served his purpose.