Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

The face of a serious young man looked intently from the communications screen. "Serious charges were leveled at the Colonial Government today in a statement from the Federated Sunstone Co-operative-"

'"That's one of Ingermann's gangs," Leslie Coombes said to Grego.

Grego nodded.

"-that the cloak of secrecy dropped over the Beta excavations form part of a conspiracy between the Colonial Governor's office and the Navy to strip Zarathustra of much of its native wealth, in the form of a huge sunstone deposit which has been uncovered on Northern Beta Continent. Spokesmen for the Co-operative stated that a decision is yet to be made as to filing legal actions on behalf of the citizens of Zarathustra, but insisted that the Co-op will 'look after its own interests' and not stand for any more-to use the words of its president-'neo-fascist invasions of Zarathustran surface territory by Terran Federation Marines.'

"Governor Rainsford's office could not be reached for commentary, but a news conference is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and insiders suspect that this topic will be the dominant one.

"This has been Dawson Foley, with today's update on that story, returning you now to All-Planet News Central."

Grego chuckled. "I bet Ben Rainsford is cleaning his pistol right now."

"If he heard this 'cast, he is," Coombes acknowledged.

"Turn over to the ZNS," Grego said. "Planetwide Publications is going to interview this public relations guy the Marines sent down to Beta to keep the press shooed away from the entire operation."

"... and now here to introduce today's guest is analyst Franklin Young. Frank.

. ."

"Thank you, Ed," said a young man-extraordinarily young to be a news analyst, Victor Grego thought.

Franklin Young rearranged his gangly frame in the chair as he checked which pickup was on. "Our guest today is Major Max Telemann, TFMC, who is the Public Information Officer for the North Beta excavations."

Telemann had a youthful exuberance about him, with an open and affable face that smiled easily. He was perfectly at ease, relaxed and jovial, and, one suspected, extremely competent in his job-which was to act in the best interests of the Terran Federation Marine Corps.

"Now, then, Major," Young said,"what exactly is it that has been found on Northern Beta?"

Telemann laughed amiably. "We don't know yet." He paused for the remark to soak in. "We think it's an old wrecked space ship-one which has been there a long, long time."

Young snorted. "How can that be, Major? We've only been on Zarathustra for a bit over a quarter-century. If there's a hypership buried on Beta for-as you put it-'a long, long time,' then it would have been the first to land on Zarathustra, and Zarathustra would not have been discovered so recently as 629

A.E. Could you elaborate on that?"

"Gladly, Mr. Young, gladly," Telemann said. "You must understand that there is still an enormous amount of analytical data to be accumulated and interpreted, but the main points of the matter are these: it might be an early hypership of some old merchant design-one of which we are at the moment not familiar-or it might be some ancient sub-hyperspeed probe that coasted this far and then crashed here."

Young leaned forward eagerly, sensing an advantage. "Crashed? Crashed, did you say?"

"It could have happened," Telemann said with a nonplussed look. "Those old ion-drive vessels, for example, were known to travel enormous distances on very little thrust-and with no crew; only automatic programming." The interviewer pressed a stud in the console next to his chair and a tape replay flashed into life on the huge screen behind the center of the set. It showed an aerial view of the Beta site. It was a bit fuzzy, indicating that it had been taken from a very high altitude and then enhanced.

"Our own overflights of the area," Young said, "show this object to be in one piece and in reasonably good condition. If this 'vessel,' as you call it, had crashed, there would be a huge pile of scrap there, instead of what we see in this tape. How do you explain that, Major?"

Telemann shrugged. "It could have been programmed to make an automatic landing on the first planet encountered that was of a specific type."

This kid has done his homework, Telemann thought. He's getting ready to go in for the kill.

"Your replies seem quite vague, Major," Young said. "Does this represent the best information you have on this-ah-situation?"

Telemann leaned back in his chair, using body language to delude Mr. Young into believing that he held the advantage. "It's not so much a matter of information, Mr. Young," the Major said. "The question is more one of accurately interpreting the information we have. For example, one idea that has been advanced is that this vessel might be the lost portion of the Fogleberg Expedition."

"The Fogleberg Expedition?" Young said hesitantly.

"Heavens, yes," Telemann said. "I thought everyone knew about the Fogleberg

Expedition! One of the vessels was lost. No trace has ever been found. Let me think, now-what year was that?"

"Why-uh-yes. Of course I 'm familiar with it," Young said.

"It's one of the possibilities we're looking into," Telemann said. Now that I've dragged you onto unfamiliar ground, maybe you'll shut up on that line of questioning, Telemann thought.

"But why, Major," Young asked, "why the heavy security procedures and the exclusion of the press from the site?"

"Exclusion?" Telemann said, slightly aghast. "Goodness, no. We're not excluding anyone. For the moment, though,'precautions must be taken. We're conducting a scientific excavation. We can't have a lot of non-essential people trampling around the place, muddying up the ar-cheological evidence.

Haven't you been getting our information sheets? We put out a fact sheet and an update broadcast every day."

Young was growing impatient-a certain way to lose control of the interview.

"Malarkey," he said. "It's censorship. That's what it is."

Telemann looked hurt. "But, Mr. Young," he said, "we 're freely sharing information with the news media. Less than that would be a form of censorship; and we don't practice censorship. I can't tell you anything we don't know, however, much as you might wish me to be able to-or much as I might wish to be able to."

"You 're still not allowing the press free access," grumped Young.

Telemann spread his hands innocently. "Now, surely you must know there's ample precedent in cases like this. You're aware, I'm sure, Mr. Young, that there was a recent archeological dig on Thor. It was of a very delicate and important nature, and required a good deal of interpretation before non-scientists could be allowed in-leaving footprints all about. That took five years to open up to the press." He paused a moment, waiting for Young to start a reply, so he could step on it. "But, in the meantime, all the news people were kept informed with information and screen 'casts of the progress."

"Is that the reason for all the Marines?" Young asked. "Marines who have orders to shoot?"

Telemann chuckled good-naturedly. "How do you know they have orders to shoot?"

he asked. "We know," Young said.

"Have your reporters been crowding too close to the patrol limits?" Telemann asked amiably.

Young made a sour face. "Let's get serious, Major," he said. "If this is as simple as you say, why all the Marines, with or without orders to shoot?"

Telemann composed himself into a grave and wise figure, dropped his voice about two tones and looked soulfully past Franklin Young, directly into the lighted pickup. "Under the Federation Constitution, the Navy and the Marine Corps are charged with the protection of the public and Federation citizens.

Likewise, it is our responsibility to police the safety of friendly sapient races. Whatever is on North Beta, we have the legal obligation to make certain there is no danger about it-" He shrugged. "-such as contamination, radiation leakage; that is, nothing that might threaten the safety of any person.