Part 14 (1/2)
”Want and expect the best of you, Mr. Kingsley.” A flicker of the eyelids. Someone had told him of the slip, but the President saw no way to correct easily, so just glided on. ”You've been doin' great.”
Benjamin had to admit as the conversation went on that Kingsley was adroit, slick, even amusing. Though British, he easily rode over the issue of nationality, getting the President and the Pentagon to promote him as controller of Earth's response to the Eater's approach. Benjamin stood undetected by Kingsley's staff, who were all watching the President as though hypnotized. Well, the man did have a presence, a quality Benjamin knew he would never acquire. That was why, in a way, he chose a slight pause in the talk to walk straight onstage, taking a spot next to Kingsley.
”Mr. President-” and he was into a quick introduction, as though this had all been planned. ”Sir, I'm Benjamin Knowlton, head of Astronomy Division. This is a world problem, and you can't let it seem as if you're ignoring the rest of the planet.”
A curious glance to the side. ”Well, I never intended-”
”No doubt, sir, but that is how it's playing out here. I'm more in touch with the international astronomical community than anyone else here, even Kingsley. I know how this is playing among those we must rely upon for full-sky coverage of the Eater, continuous contact, and the use of many dozens of telescopes on Earth and off.”
His pulse thumped, he could not quite get enough breath, but he held his place. One of Kingsley's aides gestured from off camera, someone whispered, ”Get security,” but Benjamin knew-or hoped he did-that Kingsley would not permit the appearance of disorder here. Pure luck walking in on this, and he had to go with it.
”I haven't heard anything from State about such trouble.”
”This isn't about diplomats, it's about keeping ourselves in an alliance with others. I had trouble with a German satellite manager just this morning, demanding that we forward data and images that they don't have. I receive similar demands every day, and the voices are getting more strident.”
”I'd think, this being science, that you all would share.” The President appeared genuinely puzzled.
”That's how it should work. But this b.u.t.toned-up security posture is a mistake. You can't keep this under wraps-particularly if it's wrapped in the U.S. flag.”
This line seemed to tell. The President blinked and said with calculated shrewdness, ”You have a bargain in mind?”
”Just an idea. How to work it out I leave”-he could not resist-”to Mr. Kingsley. I believe we should have shared control of the Mauna Kea facility and the world network of astronomers. Full disclosure at dedicated Mesh sites. Nothing held back.”
”Nothing?” Plainly the President had never heard of the idea from any of his staff.
”For the moment, nothing.”
”I hear it's not telling us much about what it plans,” the President said.
”Precisely why it should be safe to reveal it,” Kingsley came in smoothly. ”I endorse Dr. Knowlton's proposal.”
The President blinked again. ”I'll have to think about this. How come that Arno fellow didn't say anything about it?”
”He thought it best if I-we-proposed it directly,” Benjamin said, looking straight into the camera in the way he had gathered conveyed sincerity. Very useful, especially when lying.
”Well, I appreciate your views.” The President looked ready to sign off, in fact raised eyebrows toward someone off camera, but then said, ”Say, you really think they'd do that? The other astronomers? Cut us off from their data and so on?”
”I do, sir,” Benjamin said, and in another second the President's image dwindled away, like water down a drain.
3.
Channing heard about the fracas on the way back from lunch. She had wondered why Benjamin did not join her, but she was grateful for the chance to just sit by herself, eat quickly, and leave. The others in the Semiotics Group knew enough to leave her alone, so she got to simply lie down on a convenient bed in the infirmary to snag an hour's delicious nap. When she woke up, he was there.
”I hear you made a name for yourself today,” she murmured sleepily.
He grinned, obviously on a high. ”Ah, but what name's that?”
”'b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' I overheard that. Also 'maniac' and 'amateur.'”
”You've been listening to U Agency types.”
”Not entirely, but yes-they talk more than astronomers.”
”Kingsley was frosty after we went off the air. I was amazed that he recovered fast enough not to appear provoked, to just stand there while I went on.”
”His job-and yours-depends on Was.h.i.+ngton's confidence in him.”
”Sure, but then to endorse my idea-that was amazing.”
”We talked about these issues only last night.”
”Sure, but that was dinner conversation.”
”Kingsley wasn't saying anything like that to the President, then?”
”Not at all. I'm afraid he'll try to get even now.”
”Kingsley? Not his style.”
”He's not a saint. Look, in your NASA days, you'd have done the same.”
”I don't get even, I get odder.” She liked the small smile he gave her at the joke, an old one but serviceable enough to break the tension she felt in him.
”Come on. Arno called me in, and I'd like you there.”
”Sure, I'm all slept out,” though she wasn't.
The virtue of scientists lay princ.i.p.ally in their curiosity. It could overcome hastily imposed U Agency management structures with ease. Fresh data trumped or bypa.s.sed the arteriosclerotic pyramids of power and information flow the Agency had erected, all quite automatically, following its standard crisis-management directives. Kingsley understood quite well the habits of mind that advanced, cla.s.sified research followed, though he had given few hints about how he had acquired the knowledge.
Standard security regulation used strict separation of functions, at times keeping the right hand from even knowing there was a left hand. The Manhattan Project had been the historically honored example of this approach, dividing each element of the A-bomb problem from the other, with transmission only on a Need to Know basis.
Historians of science now believed that bomb production had been delayed about a year by this method. Under a more open strategy, the United States could have used bombs against Berlin, perhaps destroying the German regime from the air rather than on the ground. This might have kept the U.S.S.R. out of Europe altogether, vastly altering the Cold War that followed. Bureaucracy mattered. It irked scientists, but it shaped history.
Astronomy defeated even this outdated compartmenting method. The entire science depended upon telescopes that could peer at vastly different wavelengths, spread over a spectrum from the low radio to gamma rays, a factor in wavelength of a million billion. Seldom could an astronomical object be understood without seeing it throughout much of this huge range.
As well, the habits of mind that astronomers brought to the Eater would not stop at a wavelength barrier. To understand the steadily deepening radio maps, for example, demanded spectra in the optical or X-ray ranges. Astronomy was integrative and could not be atomized. This fact-as much as Benjamin's walking into ”a presidential conversation that took me days to organize!”-brought Arno to a rare fit of anger.
The first part of the meeting was predictable, and Channing found herself nodding off. She reprimanded herself, whispering to a concerned Kingsley that it was like dozing at a bullfight, but in fact Arno could do nothing but bl.u.s.ter about Benjamin's intervention. The President was considering his proposal, and that was that. No amount of U Agency tweaking could put the horse back in the barn. Still, Benjamin had been doing more-sending needed information to groups outside the Center.
”I hold you responsible for these leaks, Knowlton,” Arno finished his military-style dressing-down, smacking a palm onto the desk he sat upon.