Frank Herbert - High-Opp

“Dan.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I’ve complicated your life like this.” Her voice had a little catch in it.

Damn it! She was so absolutely defenseless. He slipped out of bed, was half way across to her before he realized he was nude. In the darkness, what’s the difference? he thought. He knelt beside her bed, reached out, stroked her forehead. “Don’t be sorry, Grace.”

No, don’t be sorry, Grace. Just listen to this one befuddled male trying to make it up to you for the cruelty of other men.

She caught his hand, pressed it against her cheek.

“No man is ever sorry when a woman loves him,” he said. “Especially…” he paused. The lie came quite easily, easier than he had expected. “…when he’s in love with that woman.”

Her arms were about his neck, pulling him to her. He found her lips, tasted the salt tears and the gladness. She disengaged one hand, pulled back the blankets, urged him in beside her.

It was like nothing he had ever before experienced. Such a free giving, a happiness. No demanding or taking. Afterward, he went to sleep with his head on her arm, her hand stroking his hair, her voice whispering, “My darling… my darling… my darling…”

Just before he fell asleep the thought came creeping up out of his unconscious. “You knew love would be like this.” He pushed the thought away.

O’Brien paced his office, pausing occasionally to glare fiercely at Quilliam London, who sat in his accustomed chair at the end of the table, leaning forward to rest his arms upon the wood surface. On a chair beside London were an LP infirmary bag, a dark wig, rubber cheek distenders—his disguise.

The Bu-Psych chief had a feline look as he paced. “And she still refuses to come to you?”

“That’s right. Three days now.” London’s voice sounded tired.

“Doesn’t she realize nothing is more important than getting safely past this crisis?” O’Brien paused in his restless pacing, turned toward London. “What about the Sep organization?”

“I still get some reports,” said London. “The man is a whirlwind. He has a second sight for picking lieutenants who will know exactly what to do.” He drew in a deep breath, exhaled in a sigh. “Grace is the big flaw.”

“We didn’t plan on this.” O’Brien resumed his pacing. “Better alert Navvy to do the job if necessary.”

“I’ve already told him.”

“What’s his reaction?”

“He wants to know if we’re certain Grace loves Movius. And he’s tired of this hiding and slinking about. He’s as tired of it as I am.”

“You’ve done it before,” said O’Brien. Back and forth, pacing.

“But I was younger. Walking like a young man comes hard for me.” He tipped his craggy brows down. “Well, is he in love with her?”

O’Brien stopped. “Of course he is. The hypno-examination only confirmed what I already knew. He’s in love with her, but he can’t admit it to himself because he’s consumed by his drive for revenge. There’s a mother image underneath which fits Grace too closely. We should have thought of that.”

“He’s still useful to us,” said London. “The organization he has accomplished is phenomenal.”

“He’s useful as long as he’s dominated by hate,” said O’Brien. “This is no time for love. If we recognized how he feels about Grace we’d have to get rid of him. He’d turn soft, cautious.” O’Brien turned his back on London. “Do you think she’s really pregnant?”

He could not see London shrug, but he sensed it.

“If she’s not, why would Movius say such a thing?” asked O’Brien.

London stared at O’Brien’s back. “To see your reaction.”

O’Brien whirled. “That man is dangerous!”

“I see he got a reaction,” said London.

“Of course he got a reaction!”

“I’m more certain than ever that it’s not true.”

“Why?”

“We’ve made a dangerous error. We’ve underestimated our man. He was feeling for a reaction, hoping to panic us into an ill-considered move.”

“Such as?”

“My call to Grace immediately after you called me.”

O’Brien sank into his chair. “If Grace told me what you wanted, he has put two and two together.”

“One and one together,” said London. “Us.”

“Tell Navvy to get rid of him.”

London shook his head. “No! He’s still useful. If we can coalesce the uprising behind Movius we can still control it until we’re ready to dispose of him.”

“And what about Grace?”

London’s shoulders sagged. “That’s the chance we took.” His voice sank almost to a whisper. “Anyone is expendable.” The hunter’s eyes looked up at the chart of civilizations. “That’s what counts, preserving the knowledge of that for the next civilization, showing the new ones how to ride over a crisis.”

“We may have to lure Grace away from him when the time comes,” said O’Brien.

London unbent, rising out of his chair like some tall insect. “I will take care of that. I still know how to handle Grace.”

CR-14 was on the fifty-ninth floor of the Bu-Trans Building. The office looked out over the high-walled rear parking are where the big vans were kept, row on row of them far down below, angled precisely between white lines. By eleven o’clock most of the vans would be out working. It was early yet, though, and few had been dispatched. Movius stood at the window, looking down, waiting for Rafe Newton to appear. The cold-eyed receptionist had said Newton would be in shortly. It was a good thing. Another day of this waiting and he’d have discarded caution, started some action. But that was what they wanted him to do, obviously.

Three days they’d kept him waiting.

“Mr. Newton is out of town,” the receptionist had said the first day, and the next day, and the next.

And Gerard: “Be patient. They’re worried. They want time to see if you’re going to make the first move. They’ll be tracing back on you, too.”

Three blasted days of cooling his heels. Grace was feeling the tension of it as badly as he was. And Old Quilliam calling her every day like that, demanding to see her. Nothing to do but sit in the apartment and read, worry about him.

Movius glanced at his watch, turned around. It was a large room—CR-14—perhaps forty feet wide and sixty long. The left wall was taken up by doorless offices separated by low, frosted glass partitions. Along the opposite wall was a row of maps on movable stands. One map had been pulled into the room. It was dotted with colored pins. Almost precisely in the center of the room was a long dark wood table, chairs around it at odd angles as though a conference had just ended. They’d been that way for three days now while people wandered in and out of the room, not speaking, not appearing to notice Movius.

Three men and a woman entered. The woman was the only familiar one, a large, squarish figure with face to match. She reminded Movius of someone. He’d been trying to remember who and had meant to ask Gerard who she was. The man were all of a type—muscular with looks so average they would be difficult to separate or remember. They had dangerous eyes which searched but seemed never to find. The woman and one man went into one of the cubbyhole offices. The other two men pulled out a map and stood looking at it, talking in low voices. They ignored Movius.

A medium height, red-haired man walked into the room. He had a wolfish, narrow-jawed look, evasive eyes which flitted across Movius without seeming to notice him.

Red hair, thought Movius. That will be Newton. He examined the man as Newton went to the two men by the map. So this was the man who had ordered Gerard’s first investigator thrown down a light well. Movius touched the gun at his lapel.