Forge of Heaven

Gide was stark pale, except a fever-blush around his right ear and along his jaw. His eyes stared, white-edged with fury. “This is sabotage. This is intentional sabotage from the Outsider Authority, and your sole solution is to turn me over to them?”

“On security grounds, I by no means want to send you down there. But you came here to investigate activity that—listen to me, please—activity that the Outsider Chairman absolutely does not support. He’s not in sympathy with whoever did this. I believe he would take a hands-off attitude towards information you might contain, under these circumstances. I think you might find him honorable in that regard—potentially an ally in your investigation.”

“Ally!”

Reaux kept firm hold of both his nerves and his patience. “A working relationship with the Outsider authority, sir, is an asset—in this place of all places. This is not the introduction to the Chairman you’d have chosen, I’m sure, but, yes, I believe you’d find him a valuable ally.”

“Don’t lecture me.”

“I’m trying to assure you—”

“They’re the people who did this!”

“Listen to me, please. What willhappen once that tap clarifies, is contact with its system, and it doesn’t make thorough sense that Chairman Brazis would infect an Earth official with a tap that gives full access to their own highly restricted system. A common tap would be no use to anyone who wanted to eavesdrop. Do you follow my reasoning, sir?” He was far from sure Gide was reasoning with any clarity, at the moment; but he was suddenly reasoning clearly, himself. A moment before, he had held a niggling suspicion of Brazis—but once he followed the logic of the thing, he had far more suspicion of agencies that Brazis might be as interested as Gide in stamping out, agencies they hadn’tknown accessed this kind of technology, agencies that Gide himself had declared existed on Concord. “After all, sir, what did you come here looking for? Illegalnanoceles. I think you’re right. And I think Brazis will be as upset as we are.”

Gide stared at him, disheveled, distraught, but the slack mouth clamped shut. The eyes registered a rational, if agitated, thought process.

“Brazis could do this, I suspect he could, but I assure you he wouldn’t,” Reaux pursued his logic. “Someone that we know would, we didn’t think had the technology, but you did think so, and that’s where our mistake was, and where you were right. Unhappily…whoever did it is now in touch with you. And will be in touch with you, increasingly so, unless the Outsiders can clean this thing out of your system.”

“I can leavethis forsaken station.”

God, didn’t he wish. “That might be safest for you, all told, if you can find a place where you know the agencies responsible for this aren’t.But the hell of it is, you can’t necessarily knowthey’re not operating wherever you go, and you can’t go all the way back to Earth, which would be the only safe place. As soon as this nanism organizes itself, until you assume some sort of control over it, which, again, sir, Brazis’s people could teach you, I’d suggest at least confining your more sensitive communications to writing. I’d suggest it, in fact, from now on, and you should insist those who talk to you do the same.”

“Damn you!” Gide cried. But it was a less furious protest, more a moan against a very unenviable fate. “Get me released from this place. Never mind hospitals. Just get me released. They’re not doing anything helpful.”

“You’re not likely contagious, that’s true. Taps never have been. But there’s another reason for keeping you in isolation. Until we know who aimed a missile at you—the station can’t know what they’ll do next. And if we send you out to a residency, it’s very difficult to keep you safe from something worse.”

“What could be worse than this?”

“Kidnapping. Kidnapping,sir, considering you’re from governmental levels. The ones responsible for this attack would ask you a lot of questions, if they got their hands on you, and I don’t mean legitimate authorities. No, sir.” As Gide moved to protest the idea, Reaux held up a cautioning hand. “No! Panic is not useful here. Look at the positives. You aren’t dead. You’re not likely to die of this. The tap contact will develop over time. A tap is also two-way. You can use it as well as they can. And if you stay safe, you’re a threat to them.”

“The hell with that!”

“Hell it may be.” Reaux drew a deep breath. This man had threatened him. Now—now, it seemed, it was perfectly possible for him to dictate where this man lived, what he did, with whom he ever had contact. A major threat to his life and livelihood had just become wholly dependent on his decisions. He watched Gide wince and clutch his ears as the fever progressed, and he managed, despite the satisfactions present, a touch of real compassion for the man. “I’m putting you under general security. Another warning. I’ve reason to suspect my personal head of security is taking orders from your ship, and I wouldn’t entirely trust your safety to anyone he picked—if your ship should realize what a security risk it is to them, to have you here alive, and compromised.”

“Dortland?” Gide said.

“He is Treaty Board, too, is he?”

“He’s not Treaty Board. He’s Homeworld Security.”

“And you relied on him. So did I. A mistake.”

“Dammit.” Gide sat with knees tucked up under the sheets, hands clamped over his ears, the picture of a man on the verge of panic.

“Before this thing takes hold, before they can decipher what you say—let me suggest Dortland’s probably told your ship everything. And if you are Treaty Board—”

“I am!”

“I doubt under these circumstances you’re going to get any official support from your ship in setting up an office here. So I offer you mine. Expert counsel, in how to live with this tap. Medical care, should you need it. Meaningful protection that won’t draw any resources from Dortland’s office. And, of course, a home here, considering a return to Earth is nota possibility for you. If you can get your relatives out here—they’ll find a very comfortable life, as comfortable as mine. Your official function on Concord has become beside the point. I’ve every reason to suspect that Dortland himself engineered the attack on you, if you want the honest truth. The missile was black market, from Orb, and who better to smuggle something so outrageous onto this station? I suspect he did it precisely at the behest of your office—I take it without your knowledge. Your own ship carried the orders andmaybe the missile itself, all to set you up here and get you past my authority without an argument—I take it by the look on your face that none of this was with your personal knowledge. But I’m increasingly sure he was responsible, and remains responsible, and possibly intended to infiltrate your office when you set it up. But somehow—someone else got to you. One of the police, perhaps. An on-scene medic. Someone at the hospital itself. Someonewho dealt with you, injected you with something that makes you a threat to Dortland, and to that ship, since certainly this kind of technology is very far from anything they’d handle. At this point, your office here is not in question. Your life is. Worse, your sanity. That’s a very nasty mod.”

Gide, disheveled, distraught, looked up at him—not a weak-minded man, Reaux decided. A tough, dangerous man who’d thought a system governor couldn’t stand up to his office, who’d been convinced when he arrived here that the system governor might have been part of the problem.

Wrong, Reaux said to himself, with a coldness of soul that surprised him. Quite, quite wrong. He’d headed into this negotiation with Gide with his hands empty. Now he found they weren’t. And Mr. Gide had just learned that fact.

“I do care, Mr. Gide, humanly speaking. And I will help you, personally, with all my resources and good offices. Think about my suggestion you remove to an Outsider facility. It’s made with your best interest in mind.”