Part 19 (2/2)
Robby poked his head around the corner at the crowd of murmuring drudges in the auditorium. ”Looking pretty grim out there, eh, Frizzy?” he said.
The channeler's young sidekick Frizitz Quo hung on his elbow like a purse. ”I thought you said grim was your specialty, boss,” he replied.
”It is!” grinned Robby, walking over to hook his other elbow with Jara's. ”Give me a grim and uncooperative audience, Mistress Jara. I'l give you grim and uncooperative customers!”
Jara smiled weakly. With everything happening in the fiefcorp-not to mention the world-how could Robby and Friz stil maintain the same smooth facade? Sure, their channeling firm had other horses in its stable. But Robby had to know that an opportunity like MultiReal only came along once in a lifetime.
”Everybody ready?” said the channeler.
Merri and Serr Vigal walked up, their faces shel acked with bio/logical y generated calm.
”Sure,” said Merri.
Jara looked at the apprentice's jacket pocket and saw nothing but fabric. ”Aren't you going to wear your Objectivv pin?”
Merri shook her head. ”I've been suspended from the creed, remember?”
The a.n.a.lyst felt the blood draining from her face. No, in fact, she had total y forgotten.
She took a surrept.i.tious peek around Robby's hair to the giant black-and-white swirl embossed on the stage just a few meters away. ”I'm so sorry, Merri,” she said, sotto voce. ”Should we-do you want to-”
Merri cut her off with a brusque wave of the hand. ”I'l be fine,” she said.
”Time to go!” bel owed Robby, and before Jara could recover her composure, they were onstage.
As she stepped into the spotlight, Jara realized that she should have held this press conference at the Surina Enterprise Facility after al . Objectivv auditoriums were notoriously free of adornment, and this one was no exception. A stage, a podium, a few thousand seats: that was al . No subtle SeeNaRee effects, no soporific Jamm music in the background. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, that would have suited Jara just fine. But there was a cloud of anger wafting through the crowd of three thousand drudges that didn't bode wel for the presentation. Not even Robby's minions stationed around the auditorium were able to dispel the haze of distrust in the air.
Robby Robby took center stage, while Jara, Vigal, Merri, and Frizitz lined up dutiful y behind him. Robby's previous expression of levity had been replaced by a look so solemn it approached the funereal.
”Towards Perfection to you al ,” said Robby to the crowd. ”It's good to see so many of you here under such trying circ.u.mstances. We're stil a little disorganized after the last infoquake-but heck, I guess it's been that way for everyone.
We're going to do the best we can to give you some answers and just hope things aren't too rough around the edges.
”And now, without further ado, I'd like to turn the stage over to someone many of you have worked with before. I present Jara of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp.”
The smattering of light applause hit Jara like birdshot. She took a deep breath, stepped into the spot Robby had just vacated, and clasped her hands together on the podium in what she hoped was the stance of an honest businesswoman.
She looked at the crowd: women, men, frowns, grimaces, scowls.
”Towards Perfection,” said Jara. ”I stand before you today as a representative of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp, and I'm asking for your trust.”
Light muttering, uncomfortable s.h.i.+fts from the audience. Someone t.i.ttered.
Jara felt her stomach lurch. It had sounded like a great beginning when she practiced it this morning at Beril a's estate. Jara immediately realized what was wrong: she had written a statement tailored for Natch to deliver. She scrol ed madly up and down the little speech floating before her eyes, looking for something confident she could say in her own voice, and came up empty.
Five seconds pa.s.sed. Ten. A ConfidentialWhisper from Robby: ”Mistress Jara ... ?”
Fl.u.s.tered, Jara segued into the more prosaic statement she had been holding for a backup.
The Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp was deeply saddened by the news of Margaret Surina's death. Natch had heard the dreadful tidings directly from the Council's chief solicitor, but the fiefcorp didn't have any more information about the circ.u.mstances than anyone else. Margaret's contributions to science and humanity were incalculable. Doubtless she would be remembered as the greatest of the Surinas.
Jara paused, wis.h.i.+ng she could cal an end to the whole thing right there. ”Any questions?” she said.
A florid Sen Sivv Sor stepped to the front of the crowd, and the crowd held its breath.
Jara wondered what kind of wrangling and infighting and backroom deal-swapping the drudges used to determine their pecking order. She couldn't imagine any valuation system that would put carrion crows like Sen Sivv Sor and John Ridglee at the top. And yet, somehow, they always were.
Sor fixed Jara with a deadly stare. The red birthmark on his forehead glowered at her like an accusation. ”Did Natch arrange to have Margaret Surina murdered?” he said, his voice a serrated blade.
Jara was prepared for the question, but not the vehemence of the questioner. ”No, of course not,” she replied. ”Natch and Margaret always had a perfectly friendly and professional relations.h.i.+p. I can't imagine why Natch would have wanted to hurt her.”
”Then where is he?” cried the drudge. ”My sources tel me the Defense and Wel ness Council arrested him.”
”I'm sorry, but your sources have been misinformed. Natch was in London for a fiefcorp meeting yesterday. Since then, he's been taking inventory of our databases to make sure nothing was damaged in the infoquake. As far as I know, the Council hasn't named Natch as a suspect in any investigation.”
Sor nodded, clearly not satisfied with Jara's answers but unwil ing to press his first-questioner status any further. He bowed and stepped out of the way. Behind him, the line of angry questioners snaked far up into the audience. One down, thought Jara.
”What do you know about this Islander the Council dragged out of the Revelation Spire?”
asked the next questioner, a man with a simian brow and low-dragging knuckles to match.
”The Islander Quel is a member of our fiefcorp and one of the princ.i.p.al engineers of MultiReal,” said Jara. ”He's been in Margaret's employ for years now, since-since the beginning.” She reached inside her memory for a number to back her up and was surprised to discover that she had none.
Everything's happening much too fast, the a.n.a.lyst thought. Has anyone even had a chance to ask Quel how long he's been on the project? Long enough to gain Margaret's trust, of course-but how long is that? Two years? Ten? Twenty?
”Obviously we're not pleased with the way the Council treated him in Andra Pradesh,” she continued. ”It's pretty clear there's some misunderstanding going on, and we hope to have it resolved shortly.”
”The rumor on the Data Sea,” said the next drudge, ”is that this Islander murdered Margaret and tried to take MultiReal for himself.”
Jara had put together a perfectly innocuous laugh this morning in Minds.p.a.ce, and now she let it loose on the crowd. ”That's ridiculous,” she said. She gave Robby a sidelong rol ing of the eyes, which Robby returned on cue. ”Quel 's been a trusted member of Margaret's staff for years. He knows most of the Surina security force by name.”
The laugh failed to appease the audience. In fact, it only seemed to inflame them further.
Drudges began to step up in rapid succession and shoot questions at her, one after another like machine gun fire.
”If this Islander is so trustworthy, why did the Council arrest him?”
”Wasn't he just covering for you so you could execute a hostile takeover of the company?”
”Natch was already implicated in the murders of his hivemates during initiation. Why wouldn't he do it again?”
”Why did the Meme Cooperative suspend everyone's business license at the fiefcorp but yours?”
”How do we know you didn't have anything to do with Margaret's death?”
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