Charles Sheffield - Starfire

Celine came back to the present and inspected the silent chauffeur. “No, but it could be done. Why not add a rolfe to the car? That would be smart enough.” Nick nodded, but Celine doubted if beer was the issue. A rolfe kept a complete log of when and where it went. So did the AVC. Unlike a human driver, they could not be paid to “forget” a midnight trip or a destination.

“Is he listening?” she asked.

Lopez shook his head. “He doesn’t speak English. And in any case, you don’t need to worry. He’s my man. We can talk. Just how bad is the problem?”

Ten years ago Celine would have been shocked by the question. Now she wondered if it was possible to keep anything secret, ever, in Washington. She stared north, to where a dense black thundercloud hovered over the bay. Already it was raining there. “How much do you know, Nick?”

“Rumors only. Word that shit will hit the fan sooner than we thought.”

“That’s all?”

“All I know. Of course, I can make guesses. When you ask for a meeting and become annoyed when my staff can’t find me, it’s a marker. When you tell me you’ll fly down to New Rio for that meeting, that’s another marker.”

“You said you were willing to come to Washington.”

“I did and I was. But I also said that I couldn’t make the trip for three days. When you ignore that and fly here, it means you have something that can’t wait so long. That’s when I begin to worry.”

“Join the club.”

They had reached the WPF building, a tall pyramid of white limestone and glass standing out against the dark sky. Celine wondered how they would get inside without getting soaked. Rain lashed the avenue in front of them, and the building was at least fifty meters from the road. To the north, jagged spears of lightning flashed down in concert, a multilegged angular monster stalking across the bay. The storm would intensify before it blew away to the east.

Well, this year it seemed to be always raining. And there were worse places than a limousine for a private conversation. It could be bugged, but the only person likely to listen to the record was Nick Lopez himself. A bigger worry was whether the other plane, leaving Norfolk at almost the same time as Celine had left Washington, would be able to fly in and land. She ought to have checked that before she left Suborbital One.

Nick was waiting patiently. As he had implied, this was her move. “I didn’t know you when you were a Senator,” she began.

“Not quite true.” His voice and relaxed manner took away any suggestion of criticism or correction. “I was a Senator when you captured the Eye of God and brought her to Washington. I also stood in line and shook your hand as one of the survivors of the first Mars expedition.”

First and only expedition, Celine thought. Earth has other priorities at the moment. But you have to keep the faith. We’ll survive the particle storm, and someday we’ll go back to Mars.

She said, “Happy days. You know, when I was on the Mars expedition, we used to tell each other that it was really important to build a permanent base there, so that if something happened to Earth, the human species wouldn’t become extinct. It never occurred to any of us that something might be so widespread that it could wipe out life on both planets.”

“Me neither. While you were on the Mars expedition, I didn’t give a second’s thought to issues like that. If all politics is local, then I was all politics.”

“I didn’t work with you when you were in the Senate. I’ve talked to people who know you, though, and I’ve checked your reputation.”

“Ah. Now it’s coming. The old scuttlebutt.” Lopez reached forward to pull out the service module in front of the seat, and waved his hand at the array of choices. “Something for you?”

Celine declined with a shake of her head. “Nick, I’m not talking about what you do with your private time. If you screw, who you screw, when you screw, that’s none of my business.”

“Madam President, you disappoint me.”

Was he deliberately trying to distract? Even after years in politics, Celine still had doubts about her own ability to read a situation. She said, “I’m talking about your professional reputation.”

Nick nodded. He said nothing more, but sat watching her with an intent expression. He had taken a bottle of Calvados and poured an ounce or two into a snifter. Now instead of drinking the apple brandy he held the balloon glass under his nose. The thunderclouds were directly overhead; there was a darkness like nightfall, and continuous thunder rolled around the limousine. Reflected lightning flickered pale on Nick’s face.

“What I heard wasn’t all good,” Celine said. “You made enemies when you were in the Senate. I found people who said you couldn’t be trusted with anything, large or small. I met people who said you always looked out for yourself, first and last. I found someone who would have stuck a knife in you if they could have got away with it.”

“If you’d looked harder, you’d have found more than one.” Still Lopez only sniffed at the brandy. “And yet you flew here?”

Celine nodded. She was oddly reluctant to get to the point. “You told me once that you learned a lot from President Steinmetz.”

“A great deal. I sometimes think I was frightened of Saul Steinmetz. No insult, Madam President, but he was the master of us all.”

“I agree completely. He told me something many years ago, when he first suggested that I ought to enter politics. You’ve got the fame already, he said, and that’s half the battle. Leader of the survivors of the Mars expedition, no one has to ask who you are. You ought to take advantage of it. President Eisenhower had it, Saul said, and damn little else except a famous bald head, and he rode it all the way to victory and a two-term presidency. You can probably win the election already, but if you’re to stay the course you need something more. You have to be able to work with your enemies as well as your friends. You have to be able to work with anyone.”

“Ah.” The dark heart of the storm hovered overhead, lightning-free. Nick Lopez had become a dark bulk with an invisible face. Celine could see him slowly nodding. Rain rattled on the roof and half obliterated his words.

“That’s the authentic Steinmetz. He said the same to me when I took over the World Protection Federation. For some reason he thought I was prejudiced against foreigners.”

“And you’re not?”

She saw his teeth flash in the gloom. “Only Koreans. I hate those fuckers — but don’t quote me. Madam President, are you saying we have to work together? If so, I thought we already were.”

“I won’t quote you. I’m going to quote President Steinmetz instead. He said that Nick Lopez pretends to be straightforward and simple, but he has the most complex mind in the U.S. Senate. He never works with a single agenda.”

“That used to be true, but my Senate years were a long time ago. I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I’m getting old, Celine. At my age people worry about their monuments, how they’ll be remembered.”

“Nick, if you don’t mind my saying so, that is one hundred percent pure bullshit.”

He laughed so hard that the car shook. Then he was silent for a long time. The rain was ending, and when at last he spoke his quiet words were hardly audible against the background grumble of departing thunder. “I have no children of my own, Celine. That makes my personal survival very important to me, because I’m the last of the line. I hate the idea of leaving this old world, and I take precautions to minimize my own chances of dying. But I also love the planet, and even when I’m gone I don’t want anything bad to happen to it. If I’m still around when the particle storm has passed, I hope Earth won’t have changed too much. I want it to be a place I will recognize and can enjoy. Things and people I know, familiar sights and sounds and smells, not some alien landscape. If that’s multiple-agenda, then I’m multiple-agenda.”