Algis Budrys - Michaelmas

“You’d think,” Michaelmas grumbled, “UNAC might look more deeply at who comes and goes through Star Control.”

“They do. They think they do. But they don’t think in terms of this sort of attack. They think in terms of someone ripping off souvenirs or trying to sell insurance; maybe an occasional lone flat-Earther; maybe someone who’d like to be an ardent lover. Look what they’ve done - they’ve put Papashvilly in his own apartment, which they consider is secure, which it is, and fully private, and they’ve left him alone. He’s playing belly-dance recordings and drinking Turkish coffee, oblivious as a lamb.”

Michaelmas snorted. “He eats lamb. But something’s got to be done; they’re piling trash all around my ability to concentrate.” He blinked vigorously, sitting up in his seat, and rubbed his eyes, now that he’d remembered himself. He felt the taste of verdigris far back on his tongue, and growled softly to himself. Except that Domino overheard it, of course. There is no God-damned privacy! he thought. None whatever. Any day now, he decided, Domino’s receptor in his skull would begin being able to receive harmonics from his brain electrical activity, and then it would be just a matter of time before they became readable.

Merde! he cried in his mind, and hurled something down a long, narrowing dark hallway. “All right. Are you sure you’ve found all the little gimmicks around Papashvilly?”

“I’ve swept the main building, and everything else Papashvilly might approach. I’m fairly certain I have them. I don’t understand,” Domino said peevishly, “where they got so many of them, or who thought of them, or why this technique. It seems to me they’d want to plant one good bomb and get it over with.”

“Not if what they want to kill is the whole idea of effective astronautics. They don’t want isolated misfortunes. They want a pattern of wrangling and doubt. They want to roil up the world’s mind on the subject. Damn them, they’re trying to gnaw the twentieth century to death. They just don’t want us poking around the Solar System. Their Solar System? Any ideas along those lines?”

“I believe they are the descendants of the lost Atlantean civilization,” Domino said. “Returning from their former interstellar colonies and battling for their birthright. It seems only fair.”

“Very good. Now, the gadgets. Do you understand what each of those gadgets could do?”

“I think so. There’s a nearly infinite variety. Some will start fires and cut off the adjacent heat sensors simultaneously. Others will most likely do things such as overloading Papashvilly’s personal car steering controls—at a moderate speed if you’re right, at a higher one if you’re not. The elevator you know about. There’s something I think will cut out the air-conditioning to his block of flats, probably at the same time the night-heater thermostat oversets. If I were doing it, that would also be the time the fire doors all dropped shut, sealing off that wing with him inside it, at, say, no degrees Fahrenheit. Should I go on?”

“That will do for samples. Are all of these pieces wired into the building circuits?”

“All that aren’t concerned with free-standing machinery like the car. They’re all perfect normal-acting components —with a plus.”

“All right. I’ve been thinking. You could trip them, couldn’t you? You tested that elevator part.”

“Right,” Domino said slowly. “I could. Use the building systems to give 'em an overload jolt of current. That would fry 'em as surely as their own triggers could.”

Michaelmas steepled his fingertips. “Well, that’s all right, then. How’s this for a sequence: At the appropriate time, Pavel gets a call to come down to the lobby. You let his door open. He goes out in the hall, and the tampered elevator won’t open its doors; you can do that through the normal systems. So he has to take another. Make sure it’s a clean one. Meanwhile, you’re tidying up behind him. As soon as he clears each problem area, you blow each of the gimmicks in it. By the time he’s down to ground level, the building will be safe for him. A little disarranged, but safe. A priority repair order to the garage systems ties up his car, should he get it into his head to go for a spin. Et cetera. Good scenario?”

Domino made a peculiar noise. “Oh, my, yes. Can do. When do you want it?”

“When appropriate. UNAC will surely call him to come down when Norwood is almost there. Initiate it then.”

“All right.”

“And Konstantinos Cikoumas. Let him get a call from a UNAC funtionary right away, inviting him to join the greeters at the airport gate.”

“No problem.”

“Excellent. He has plenty of gates and things to pass through as he approaches the debarking ramp, right? Heat locks, friskers, and so forth.”

“It’s a hot country. And it’s an ultramodern airport, yes.”

“Make sure he has no difficulty arriving at the last gate exactly on time, will you?”

“No problem. He’s already left his apartment; I’m monitoring his cab’s dispatch link. And I can help or hinder with the traffic signals.”

“There, now,” Michaelmas said with a sigh. “Remember, he’s coming through the last gate as Norwood arrives.”

“Absolutely,” Domino made the noise again; this time, he seemed to manage it a little better.

Michaelmas ignored it. He cook a deep breath and settled back in his seat. “Pillar to post,” he muttered. “Pillar to post.”

The plane flared out past the outer marker, and Michaelmas folded his hands loosely in his lap. In a few moments it was down, tyres thumping as the thin air marginally failed to provide a sufficient cushion. There were the usual roarings and soft cabin chimes, and surging apparent alterations in the direction his body wanted to go. There was a sharp change in the smell of the cabin as the air-conditioning sucked in the on-shore breeze, chilled it, and the relative humidity rose thirty percent in an instant.

“Frank Daugerd is airborne from the Lake of the Ozarks,” Domino said. “His pilot has filed an ETA of 07:35, their time. That’s thirty-three minutes from now.”

“And then… let’s see…” Michaelmas rubbed his nose; his sinuses were stuffed. He grimaced and counted it up in his head : the touchdown on the Mississippi, floats pluming the water, and the drift down to the landing. The waiting USA staffer with the golf cart, and the silent, gliding run from the landing up the winding crushed-shell drive to the east portico; the doors opening, and Daugerd disappearing inside, haunched and busy, still wearing his fishing vest and hat, probably holding his hand over the bowl of his pipe; the conversation with Hanrassy, the bending over the table, the walking around the holograms, the snap decision and then the thoughtful review of the decision, the frowning, the looking closer, and then, for good and all, the nod of confirmation, the farewell handshake with Hanrassy, the departure from the room, and Hanrassy reaching for her telephone. “Ten minutes? Fifteen? Between the time he lands at her dock and the time she reacts to a confirmation?”

“Yes,” Domino said. “That’s how I count it. Adding it all up, fifty minutes from now, all she’ll have left to do is call Gately and have him call Norwood the direct question, Norwood gives the direct answer, Gately’s back on the phone to Hanrassy, and Bob’s your uncle. One hour from now, total, it’s all over.”

“Ah, if men had the self-denial of Suleiman the Wise,” Michaelmas said, “to flask the clamorous djinns that men unseal.”

“What’s that from?”

“From me. I just made it up. These things come to my mind. Isn’t it bloody awful?” He winced; his voice seemed to echo through the back of his neck and rebound from the inner surfaces of his eardrums. The price of wit.