Timothy Zahn - Spinneret

"Yes, sir," she said between rigid lips.

"Good. You can tell Perez you delivered his message—and the next time he has something to say, he can write me a note. Dismissed."

Silently, Carmen got to her feet and left the room, resisting the urge to slam the door behind her. Of course an advisory council would use up time—but so did civil unrest. In the long run the good such councils did nearly always outweighed their costs; she'd seen the studies that proved it. Why wouldn't the colonel at least give the idea a fair hearing? Was he simply allergic to civilian politics, like so many other career officers she'd known? Or—

Or was it because she was a Hispanic?

"Excuse me, miss?"

She came to an abrupt halt and focused for the first time on the man who had stepped between her and the outer office door. "Yes, ah—?" she said, trying to figure out where she'd seen him before.

"I'm Dr. Peter Hafner," he identified himself. "Geologist. I saw you with Colonel Meredith the second night here, when I came to ask about the grounded flyers."

The memory clicked. "Yes, of course. You wanted to study Mt. Olympus."

"Right. Well, I've been trying to see the colonel about getting one of them—they're back in service, but I'm way down on the list."

Carmen shot a glance at Meredith's secretary, caught the other's look of strained patience. She'd once worked as a secretary herself … "Tell you what," she said to Hafner. "Let's go to the lounge and you can tell me why a car or plane won't do.

Maybe we can work out something."

"Well … " Hafner's eyes flicked behind her to Meredith's door. "Okay."

He didn't wait for them to reach the lounge, but launched into his spiel before they were even out the door. "Let me remind you first of all why an examination of Olympus is so important. For whatever mysterious reason, there appears to be little or no metal content anywhere in the first five hundred meters of Astra's crust, if the Rooshrike data can be trusted. A volcano like Olympus gives us a sampling of the deeper magma—and if that layer should turn out to be metal-rich, it would give us an indication of where the weak points are for drilling."

He paused for breath, enabling Carmen to get a word in. "Yes, I remember all this from the last time. You haven't said yet why you specifically need a flyer."

"A car doesn't have the room I'd need to carry a coring tube and driver—the tube breaks down into sections, but they're almost five meters long. I don't know if a Cessna can carry them, but even if it can I wouldn't be able to land as far up the volcano cone as I'd need to. I need VTOL, and that means a flyer."

They'd reached the lounge now, little more really than a widening of the hall with a few chairs and low tables. Three junior officers sat around one of the tables, deep in conversation; Carmen steered Hafner to the table farthest from them and sat down. The geologist took a seat opposite her, an expectant look on his face.

"First of all," she told him, "I'm not really in a position to do much about this. I'm technically a civilian, and don't fit anywhere into the chain of command."

He waved the disclaimer away. "You clearly have the colonel's ear, though. That's more important to me now than any silly ranking scheme."

First Perez, Carmen thought, and now him. What on Earth am I doing that makes me look so authoritative?

"Besides," Hafner continued, "civilians like you I can talk to. I sometimes think military procedure was set up specifically to confuse and intimidate those of us outside the secret club."

Somewhere in the back of Carmen's mind a light flashed on. "You're having trouble adjusting to Army rules?" she asked casually.

Hafner let his breath out in a whuff. "I've had less trouble with the L.A. city government. That's why I've been haunting Colonel Meredith's office, in fact—I can't seem to find the right way to go through channels."

"I know how you feel," she nodded. "It took me the better part of six months to figure my own way around." She paused. "As a matter of fact, that whole problem's been on my mind lately. What would you think of us organizing a sort of citizen's advisory council to act as—oh, complaint clearinghouse and general go-between with the military?"

"Sounds great," Hafner said. He cocked his head slightly. "Though … that 'us'

wasn't specifically you and me, was it?"

She laughed. "No, I'm not roping you in as cochair or anything. Actually, I'm afraid the colonel hasn't gone for the idea yet; he thinks it would take up valuable man-hours."

Hafner grunted. "If it simplified communication, it would pay for itself in the long run." He leaned back slightly, a knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "So. I gather you want me to make the same suggestion to him, using my scientific authority or whatever?"

"More or less." She found herself mildly impressed that he'd caught on so fast.

"You don't need to fake an independent brainstorm, though. All I want is for you to get as many of the other scientists and technical people as you can to support the idea. You're the real VIPs here, and the colonel knows it."

"And once you've got his permission to go ahead?"

She hesitated only a second. "When the colonel authorizes the council, I'll get you one of the flyers."

"It's a deal," Hafner said promptly, getting to his feet. "If you'll excuse me, then, I'll go find myself a soapbox and get busy." Whistling something ninetiessounding, he disappeared down the hall.

Carmen stayed where she was another minute before starting back toward her office. What Meredith would think of all this she couldn't guess, but with any sort of backing from the scientific community, he should find it impossible to refuse at least a trial run. And once set up, the council would be worthwhile—she knew it.

And then life on Astra might settle down a bit … and she would have to finagle a flyer for Hafner. But that was all right; she'd manage it.

Somehow.

"… and the elections will be exactly two weeks from today, terms to be six months each." Meredith glared over the top of the computer screen, and Carmen felt the room chill down a degree or two. "Will that be satisfactory?"

"Yes, sir," she said promptly. A longer preelection period would have been nice, but as long as the council was strictly advisory it didn't much matter whether or not the best people got on it. "Thank you for giving this a chance, sir. I know you won't be sorry."

Meredith leaned back in his chair and gave her a long, measuring look. "It's a pity you never actually joined the service, Olivero. You have the type of selfconfidence that makes for the kind of officer COs either love or can't wait to transfer."

Carmen swallowed and said nothing.

"But I like to think of myself as open-minded," Meredith continued. He reached forward and typed for a moment on his terminal. "So I'm going to give that optimism a real test. As of right now, you are in complete charge of this council: its organization, election, procedures—everything. Your file lists an impressive paralegal background, so this should be right up your alley. It'll all be done in your off-duty time, of course."

Carmen stiffened, but she knew she should have expected something like this.

She'd backed the colonel into a corner and he was getting his revenge. "I understand, sir," she said.

"Good. Now, since your organizational department conveniently keeps track of Astra's progress versus the original projected schedule, we know that—after two weeks—we're about five days behind, overall. If we ever drop to ten days behind, your council will be summarily disbanded—no arguments or appeals. If, on the other hand, we ever get ahead of schedule, you can come to me and we'll discuss whether to relieve you of the extra council duty or else cut back your official work load. Fair enough?"