Algis Budrys - Michaelmas

Michaelmas said : “UNAC hospitality is always gracious. I’m quite comfortable, thank you.” He relaxed against the partition, and he and the aide exchanged pleasantries for a few score miles. Domino’s terminal hung from Michaelmas’s shoulder and rested flush against the bulkhead. “Harry Beloit,” the aide was saying, “but I’m from Madison. My dad taught Communications at Wisconsin, and I guess it just crept into me over the dinner table.” Inside the office, Norwood was saying in an insufficiently puzzled tone: “Maybe I don’t understand, Getulio. But I think we should have told Campion the whole story. Hell, he’s not going to be out with it until tonight. By then there’s not going to be any doubt where that component came from.”

Frontiere took a noticeably deep breach: “By then we will not know any more than who seems to have made the thing. We won’t know who installed it, what they represent, or why they did it. There are many more doubts than facts, and—”

“Oh, yes, I get back as often as I can: especially in the fall. I go out to Horicon Marsh and watch the waterfowl gathering. Pack a lunch, bring along my favourite pipe, just sit with the wife on a blanket and try to teach the kids the difference between a teal and a canvasback, you know.”

“ — ulio, look, the only way all of these doubts of yours make sense is if they expected it not to work. You follow me? If whoever did it was counting on my turning up with the part in my hand. I don’t think they could have been counting on that. I think they expected me and it to be all blown away. So I think the people who did it are the people who look like they did it, you know?”

“They fly altogether differently. You can tell from the wingbeats when they’re just coming into sight. My dad showed me.”

“I’ve run a stress analysis on Norwood’s voice. There’s the overlay of irritation, of course. But he’s sincere. He’s completely relaxed with himself; knows who he is, what he’s saying, what’s right, and he’s right.”

“That may all be, but it is not conclusive, nevertheless. We are not going to destroy UNAC and perhaps a great deal more on the basis of a supposition. Now, in a few moments, unless I can delay long enough, you’ll be speaking with Laurent Michaelmas, whom you would not be advised to underestimate, and —”

“Canada geese. They’re altogether different; they’re bigger, they beat slower. You know, by and large, the bigger the bird is, the less often it beats its wings. Sometimes I think that if you could see a pteranodon coming in out of the west at dusk, silhouetted against the sun, first you’d pick up the dot of its body, and then gradually you’d see little dark stubs growing out one to each side, as you began picking up the profile of the wings, and they’d never move. It would just get bigger and pick up more definition, and you’d see those motionless wings just extending themselves farther and farther out to the side, completely silent, just getting closer like it was riding a string from the top of the sky right to the bridge of your—”

“I don’t think I have to make these estimates. I’m an engineer, and I ran all the tests you’d want on that component. Now, I’m military, and I understand following orders, and I hope I’m capable of grasping big pictures. But there’s no way you’re going to get me to change my opinion on what it all means. Now, I know it’s a big Goddamned disappointment to you, and maybe a lot of the rest of the world, and maybe even to me. Pavel and I are good buddies, and this whole idea’s had a lot of promise. But I just don’t see it any way except that the boys in Moscow said, ”All right, that’s long enough playing nice and catching our breath, now let’s go back to doing business in the good old-fashioned way.“ And I don’t think it matters what you’d like to think, or I’d like to think, or how many good buddies we’ve got all over the world, I think we’ve got to face up to what really was done, and I think we’ve got to go from there. And damned quick.”

“Nevertheless, until superior authority tells you what is to be done —”

“Yes, sir, for as long as I’m detailed to serve under that authority, that’s exactly correct.”

“Signals. You know, everything that lives is constantly sending out signals. My dad pointed that out to me. It’s how animals teach and control their young, it’s how they mate, it’s how they move in groups from place to place. They’ve got these fantastic vocabularies of movement, cry, and odour. Any member of any species knows them all. It can recognize its own kind when you’d swear there was nothing out there, and it knows immediately whether that other creature is sick or well, at rest or frightened, feeding or searching, or whatever.”

“Mr Michaelmas, he’s going to resign and talk if he gets no satisfaction.”

“Yes.”

“They know all of that about each other all the time. I guess that’s about all there is to know in this world, really. Seems a shame the animal that signals the most seems to need individuals like me to help it along, and even so—”

“Even so,” Michaelmas said. “Even so, we’re the only animal whose signals can’t be trusted by its own kind.” He smiled. “Except for thee and me, of course.”

Harry Beloit smiled with awkward kinship. Then the plane tilted and he glanced out a window. “We’ll be in the Afrique approach pattern in a few moments,” he said. “I’m sorry—it seems as if Signor Frontiere’s and Colonel Norwood’s conference took longer than expected.”

“No matter,” Michaelmas said equably. “I’ll catch them in the limousine.” He waved a hand gently and turned. “Ours was a pleasant conversation.” He moved up the aisle until he reached Clementine. Putting one buttock on the armrest of the seat across the aisle, he smiled at her. She had been sitting with her eyes down, her lips a little pursed and grim. “A pleasant flight?” he said politely.

Domino snorted.

Clementine looked up at Michaelmas. “It’s a very comfortable aircraft.”

“How do you find working with Campion?”

She raised an eyebrow. “One is a professional.” It had very much been not the sort of question one is asked.

“Of course,” Michaelmas said. “I don’t doubt it. Since this morning I’ve made it my business to look into your career. Your accomplishments bear out my personal impression.”

She smiled with a touch of the wistful. “Thank you. It’s a day-to-day thing, however, isn’t it? You can’t remain still if you wish to advance.”

He smiled. “No. No, of course not. But you seem well situated. A very bright star in a rapidly growing organization, and now in one day you have credits with me and with a rising personality, both on a major story…”

“Yes, he is rising overnight,” Clementine said, unconsciously jerking her head toward the back of the plane. “Not a Campion but a mushroom,” she said in French.

Michaelmas smiled. Then he giggled. He found he could not control it. Little tears came to his eyes. Domino said, “Stop that! Good heavens!”

Clementine was staring at him, her hand masking her mouth, her own shoulders shaking. “Incredible! You look like the little boy when the schoolmaster trips.”

He still could not bring himself to a halt. “But you, my dear, are the one Who soaped the steps.”

They laughed together, as decorously as possible, until they had both run down and sat gasping. It was incredible how relieved Michaelmas felt. He was completely unconcerned that people up the aisle were staring at them, or that Luis, the camera operator, sat beside Clementine stiffly looking out the window like a gentleman diner overhearing a jest between waiters.