Distraction

“What can I tell you? We’re not PR experts. We’re only mere, lowly scientists.”

“You’ve got to give me something, Greta. You can’t expect to survive on sheer bureaucratic inertia. You have to make a public case.”

She thought about it seriously. “Knowledge is inherently pre-cious even if you can’t sell it,” Greta said. “Even if you can’t use it. Knowledge is an absolute good. The search for truth is vital. It’s cen-tral to civilization. You need knowledge even when your economy and government are absolutely shot to hell.”

Oscar thought it over. “ ‘Knowledge will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no knowledge.’ You know, there might be something to that. I like the sound of it. That’s very contemporary rhetoric.”

“The feds have to support us, because if they don’t, Huey will! Green Huey understands this place, he knows what we do here. Huey will get us by default.”

“I appreciate that point too,” Oscar said.

“At least we earn a living out of this mess,” Greta said. “You can always call it a job-creation effort. Maybe you could declare us all insane and say that labwork is our group therapy. Maybe you could declare the place a national park!”

“Now you’re really brainstorming,” Oscar said, pleased. “That’s very good.”

“What’s in this for you?” Greta said suddenly.

“That’s a fair question.” Oscar smiled wi

Greta stared. “Surely you don’t expect us to believe that you plan to save our bacon, just because you’re flirting with me. Not that I mind all the flirting. But if I’m supposed to vamp my way into saving a multimillion-dollar federal facility, the country’s in worse shape than I thought.”

Oscar smiled. “I can flirt and work at the same time. I’m learning a lot by this discussion, it’s very useful. For instance, the way you stroked your hair behind your left ear when you said, ‘Maybe you could declare us all insane and say that labwork is our group therapy.’ That was a very beautiful moment — a little spark of personal fire in the middle of a very dry policy discussion. That would have looked lovely on-camera.”

She stared at him. “Is that what you think about me? Is that how you look at me? It is, isn’t it? You’re actually being sincere.”

“Of course I am. I need to know you better. I want to under-stand you. I’m learning a lot. You see, I’m from your government, and I’m here to help you.”

“Well, I want to know you better. So you’re not leaving this lab before I get some blood samples. And I’d like to do some PET-scans and reaction tests.”

“See, we do have real commonalities.”

“Except I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“I can tell you right now where my loyalties lie,” Oscar said. “I’m a patriot.”

She looked at him nonplussed.

“I wasn’t born in America. In point of fact, I wasn’t even born. But I work for our government because I believe in America. I hap-pen to believe that this is a unique society. We have a unique role in the world.”

Oscar whacked the lab table with an open hand. “We invented the future! We built it! And if they could design or market it a little better than we could, then we just invented something else more amazing yet. If it took imagination, we always had that. If it took enterprise, we always had it. If it took daring and even ruthlessness, we had it — we not only built the atomic bomb, we used it! We’re not some crowd of pious, sniveling, red-green Europeans trying to make the world safe for boutiques! We’re not some swarm of Confucian social engineers who would love to watch the masses chop cotton for the next two mille

“And yet we’re broke,” Greta said.

“Why should I care if you clowns don’t make any money? I’m from the government! We print the money. Let’s get something straight right now. You people face a stark choice here. You can sit on your hands like prima do

4

Oscar was physically safe from assault inside the Col-laboratory’s Hot Zone. But harassment by random maniacs had made his life politically impossible. Rumor flashed over the local community as swiftly as fire in a spacecraft. People were avoiding him; he was trouble; he was under a curse. Under these difficult circumstances, Oscar thought it wisest to tactfully absent himself. He de-vised a scheme to cover his retreat.

Oscar took the Bambakias tour bus into the Col-laboratory’s vehicle repair shed. He had the bus repainted as a Hazardous Materials emergency response vehicle. This had been Fontenot’s suggestion, for the wily ex-fed was a master of disguise. Fontenot pointed out that very few people, even roadblockers, would knowingly interfere with the ominous bulk of a vivid yellow Haz-Mat bus. The local Collaboratory cops were delighted to see Oscar leaving their jurisdiction, so they were only too eager to supply the necessary biohazard paint and decals.

Oscar departed before dawn in the repainted cam-paign bus, easing through an airlock gate without an-nouncement or fanfare. He was fleeing practically alone. He took only an absolutely necessary skeleton retinue: Jimmy de Paulo, his driver; Do

Moira was the first in his krewe to quit. Moira was a media spokesperson by trade; she was sadly visual and verbal. Moira had never quite understood the transcendent pleasures of building hotels by hand. Moira was also deeply repelled by the hermetic world of the Collaboratory, a world whose peculiar inhabitants found her interests irrelevant. Moira had decided to resign and go home to Boston.

Oscar made no real effort to persuade Moira to stay on with his krewe. He’d thought the matter over carefully, and he couldn’t accept the risk of keeping her around. Moira had grown fatally bored. He knew he could no longer trust her. Bored people were just too vul-nerable.

Oscar’s trip had been designed to achieve his political goals, while simultaneously throwing off pursuit and assault by armed luna-tics. He would circuit, disguised and una

Oscar’s first pla

Oscar had arranged a quiet rendezvous there with Dr. Greta Pen-ninger.

After this beach idyll, Oscar would forge on to Washington, where he was overdue for face-time with his fellow staffers on the Senate Science Committee. After making the necessary obeisances to the Hill rats, Oscar would take the tour bus north to Cambridge, and finally deliver it to the Massachusetts Federal Democrat party HQ. Bambakias would donate his campaign bus to the party. The Senator, always a stalwart party financial patron, would at last be free to write off his investment.