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“Sit down, will you? Want something hot to drink?”
“Like it, yes. Haven’t stopped moving since last night.”
“Tyler.” The Director punched the button. “Two coffees.” He rocked back and looked at Genley. “It seems to be a new situation down there. This ruler of the Cloud Towers is apparently well‑disposed to McGee. And this office isn’t disposed to risk disturbing that.”
Genley’s face was flushed. Perhaps it was the haste with which he had come. “She needs communications down there.”
“We’ll be considering that.”
“Maybe some backup. Four or five staff to go in there with her.”
“If feasible.”
“I have to state my opposition to sending McGee in there without any help. I have experienced staff. Maybe they wouldn’t be accepted down there. But someone else ought to be in there.”
“Do I hear overtones in that?”
“Are we on the record?”
“Not for the moment.”
“I’m not sure McGee’s stable enough to be in there alone. I’m not sure anyone is.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means there are times that my staff and I have to get together and remind ourselves where we came from. And I don’t think McGee has the toughness to stand up to them alone. Mentally. It gets to you. It will. You have to start out tough and stay that way. The Weirds–you’ve read my report on the Weirds…”
“Yes.”
“That’s how strange human beings can get, living next to Calibans. And I’m afraid McGee’s primed to slip right over into it. She’s wanted this too long, too badly. I’m afraid she’s the worst candidate in the world to be sitting where she is.”
The Director considered the man, the leather, the stone ornaments, the unruly hair and beard. Genley brought a smell with him, not an unwashed smell, but something of earth and dry muskiness. Woodsmoke. Something else he could not put a name to. “Going native, you mean.”
“I think she went, as far as she knew how, years ago. I mean, no kid of her own, a woman, after all–Finding that kid on the beach. You know how that could be.”
The Director looked at Genley narrowly, at the clothes, the man. “You mean to say some people might find things they wanted outside the wire, mightn’t they? Something–psychologically needful.”
For some reason the ruddiness of Genley’s scowling face deepened.
“I haven’t any reason,” the Director said, “to question McGee’s professional motives. I know you and McGee have had your problems. I’ll trust you to keep them to a minimum. Particularly under the circumstances. And I won’t remind you how this office would view any leak of information on the Cloud to Styxside–and vice versa.”
The red was quite decisive now. It was rage. “I’ll trust that warning will likewise be transmitted to McGee. I can tell you–this Elai is understood as trouble.”
“On Styxside.”
“On Styxside.”
“McGee reports Elai’s health as fragile. This woman doesn’t sound like a threat.”
Genley’s lips compacted, worked a moment. “She’s got a mean caliban.”
“What’s that mean?”
Genley thought about the answer. The Director watched him. “It’s a perception the natives have; I’ve mentioned this before in the reports–That the social position of humans relates to caliban dominance. Those that have the meanest and the toughest stand highest.”
“Where do you stand? Where are you without one? What’s it mean, if the calibans aren’t together to fight it out.”
“It affects attitude. That woman down on the Cloud has an exaggerated idea of herself, that Elai, inherited this caliban when she was young–that’s what they say.”
“So they expect she’ll move on them.”
“They reckon she’ll push. One way or the other.”
“Tell me, you’re not backing McGee’s assertions, are you, that we’re dealing with calibans as well as humans out there.”
“No.” That answer was firm. “Absolutely not. Except as the Cloud‑siders may do some kind of augury whereby they thinkthe calibans have an opinion. The old Romans, they used to plan their days by the behavior of geese. The flight of birds. Must have worked at least as well as calibans. They got by.”
“Different brain size, geese and calibans.”
“Biologists can argue that point. Look at the Weirds. There’s a good example of humans that talk to calibans. They crawl around underground, let the gray fishers feed them, don’t talk, don’t interact with the rest of humankind except to take orders and shove dirt around. You want the caliban vote, ask a Weird and see if you get any answer. Sir. McGee will learn that pretty quick if she wants to do some honest work out there.”
“I’m aware of your differences of opinion. Is it possible this is a difference of the cultures you’re observing?”
“I doubt it.”
“But you don’t draw conclusions.”
“Absolutely not. I’m simply waiting for data out of McGee. And in sixteen years, there’s been nothing new out of her but speculation. Maybe this will prove matters once for all. But for the record I want to caution the committee that this move is very serious–that with observers inside both cultures, we could embroil ourselves in local problems. Or worsen them. Or push these two cultures into conflict. It’s waiting to happen.”
“Because of a caliban. Because it’s as you say…mean.”
“It means this Elai has a higher status than her situation warrants. That she has a higher confidence than it warrants. She didn’t hesitate to snatch McGee in defiance of the Base. That’s worth thinking on.”
“It still sounds very much like McGee’s theories.”
“There’s a critical difference. McGee thinks the calibans decide. They don’t. It’s human ambition based on status. And this Elai has a lot of status. They might miscalculate–psychological strength for military strength. A lot of people could die over that mistake. I’m talking about McGee’s precious Cloudsiders. And the Styx. They’ve got too much going to waste it all in war.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be miscalculation. On those terms you cite.”
“We’ve got roads built; agriculture increased. Unification of the Towers. We could lose a hundred years in a war right now.”
“A hundred years down whose course?”
Genley gave him a puzzled look, and the look became a frown.
“Maybe,” the Director said, “the calibans won’t permit a war. Or maybe they fight them for their own reasons. And humans just go along with it.”
“That’s more radical than McGee’s hypothesis. Sir.”
“One just thinks–sitting here behind the wire. No matter. We play it cautiously. Since McGee has the chance she can use it.”
“Or maybe they can use McGee. That’s what Jin thinks about it. I’m sure of that.”
“Well,” the Director said, “we just let it go along for now. Frankly, I don’t see much else that we could do about it, do you?”
xxxii
204 CR, day 42
Message, E. McGee to Base
Couriered by Dain of the Flanahan line to the Wire
by order of Elai Eldest
Wish to report I am safe and well and have persuaded the new ruler of the Cloud Towers to have this couriered: to satisfy Security, my id number is 8097‑989 and the holo on your desk is a Terran rose, so you’ll know this is all my idea.
Ellai has been succeeded peacefully at her death by Elai her daughter and designated heir. Elai took advantage of her accession to power over the Cloud to have one of her riders escort me to the Towers. I have been treated with all courtesy and am presently comfortable and content in my situation. This is a rare opportunity with the Cloud Towers and presages an era in which I believe the Cloud may be as productive in research as the Styx has been in recent years. I am not eager to break my stay here at this stage in which I believe much good can be accomplished in stabilizing mission relations with the Cloud.
I will need some equipment and supplies. Elai has agreed to this, and will send to my hut in seven days to collect the supplies which I hope will be there.