Part 21 (1/2)
Thus one could easily catch the mood of the entire metro area from the top of a building like Natch's. Right now the epicenter of pedestrian traffic was clearly downtown, where the Winter Basebal League was holding a three-game extravaganza. Natch and Frejohr silently watched the stadium gobble up s.p.a.ce from neighboring office buildings that were compressing for the night.
”Len Borda kil ed Margaret, didn't he?” said Natch abruptly.
Frejohr pursed his lips, expressing some emotion that Natch didn't recognize. Reticence?
”You're just guessing,” said the speaker. ”Unless you know something I don't.”
”I know Borda's scared of MultiReal. I know he'l go to any lengths to get core access to it. And I think-I think he-” I think he ordered a special ops team to dress in black robes and a.s.sault me in an al eyway. ”I think he wouldn't hesitate to kil someone of Margaret's stature to get his hands on it.”
Frejohr closed his eyes and nodded. His white hair glared vibrantly in the moonlight.
”That's obvious.”
”Quel -the Islander who used to work for Margaret-he said something strange just before the Council carted him away,” continued Natch. ”He said that Borda kil ed Margaret's father.”
”That's obvious too,” said the speaker.
Natch felt as if a cold and many-legged insect had just wriggled up his spine. Could the high executive be so contemptuous of the Surinas that he would kil both Marcus and Margaret? Was even Len Borda ruthless enough to cut off the line of humanity's greatest benefactors in cold blood?
”How do you know?” the entrepreneur croaked, clenching the railing almost hard enough to crack it. ”If the Congress has evidence that Marcus Surina was murdered, why haven't you brought it forward?”
”It's the evidence we don't have,” replied Frejohr. ”A shuttle explodes in a distant region of Furtoid. Ruptured fuel tank, the whole executive board of TeleCo dies instantly. No surviving witnesses. No Council officers around for kilometers.
No distress cal s, no explanation for what Marcus Surina was doing out there in the first place. That's pretty convenient, isn't it?” The speaker winced as if probing the vestigial traces of an old pain in his gut. Natch had seen Vigal's hol ow stare of loss whenever someone mentioned Marcus's death, and Vigal had never even met the man. Khann Frejohr had been involved in politics long enough to have worked with Marcus personal y.
”Look, Natch,” continued the speaker, ”this is how the Defense and Wel ness Council does things. It didn't start with Len Borda. This is part of the organizational culture going al the way back to Tul Jabbor. Someone opposes the Council; the Council tolerates it just long enough to avoid suspicionthen that someone ends up in a tragic and fatal accident.' It happened to Marcus Surina. It happened to Margaret Surina. Some of us even think it happened to Henry Osterman.”
Natch said nothing for a moment. He tracked a group of whiterobed officers on the street below as they made a tight circuit around the block. ”So what's to stop Len Borda from getting away with it this time too?”
Frejohr retreated into the shadows and slid his hands into the pockets of his bronze robe.
”I don't think he'l get away with anything,” he said, ”because I don't think Borda's responsible.”
”So if the Council didn't kil her, then-”
”I said Borda isn't responsible. I didn't say anything about the Council.”
Natch let out a long, ragged breath. The image of the slight lieutenant executive with the impenetrable stare knifed through his con sciousness. Fool, he had told Quel . Don't you realize I'm the only one standing between you and Borda?
”Magan Kai Lee,” whispered the entrepreneur.
”There's a major rift in the Defense and Wel ness Council right now,” said Frejohr, his voice laced with bitter satisfaction. ”Borda's old. The rumor is that he was planning to hand control of the Council over to Magan before this whole MultiReal crisis. .h.i.t.”
”Hand control over? How can he do that? The high executive is appointed by the Prime Committee.”
”And the Committee is in Borda's pocket. It's a rubber stamp; they'l appoint whomever he tel s them to appoint. But that's al irrelevant. Now that Borda's decided to stay for a while longer, we hear a lot of officers muttering about speeding his retirement.” Frejohr let out a hoa.r.s.e chuckle. ”There's a euphemism for you, huh? Speeding his retirement. The top officers in the organization are choosing sides. Rey Gonerev is stirring up the ranks. There's talk of a coup.”
”A coup?” Natch stepped back from the railing, away from the eyes of the Council officers. Such a thing belonged in the realm of the neverpossible. A rebel ion against the high executive of the Defense and Wel ness Council? Just as easy to rebel against time or the rotation of the Earth. ”So what makes you think Margaret's death has anything to do with it?”
”Imagine this,” continued the speaker. ”Magan Kai Lee orders Margaret Surina dead and arranges it to look like Borda's doing. Then he persuades the Prime Committee to throw the high executive out of office and instal him in Borda's place. Or maybe he arranges to frame you-which gives him leverage to seize MultiReal. He arms his troops with the program, and then he makes his move against Borda. With Borda gone, the Committee appoints him high executive.”
Lieutenant Executive Lee had never seemed like the type to work for his own self-aggrandizement. Natch had pegged him in the slot of the Organizational Creature and had based his a.s.sumptions accordingly. But what if he was wrong about Magan? A whole new set of sickening possibilities was coming to light. What if Magan had purposeful y not seized control of MultiReal to prevent Borda from getting his hands on it? Was that why he had arranged to give it to Jara?
The frightening thing was that it didn't real y matter in the end. Whether Magan Kai Lee or Len Borda ultimately held control of MultiReal was irrelevant.
Either outcome spel ed certain doom for Natch's aspirations, and probably the world's civil liberties too.
”Now you see why I wanted to meet,” said Natch. ”The situation's getting out of control.
You have to stop this before it's too late.”
Frejohr shrugged. He was inexplicably vacating the conversation and moving on to the next item on his itinerary. ”And how would you suggest I do that?”
”Get the Prime Committee to intervene. Get them to start their own investigation into the murder of Margaret Surina.” Natch could feel his legs growing restless and started to pace back and forth across the narrow patch of balcony. Finding that too constrictive, he reached out to the tenement and upped his al otted balcony s.p.a.ce, causing an additional length of metal walkway to slide out from the building.
”This isn't just about Margaret,” Natch went on. ”It's not just about me. It's about government intrusion into private business. It's about the Council bul ying and threatening other government agencies. It's about Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee turning MultiReal into a weapon.”
Frejohr was too smooth to al ow Natch's badgering to upset his equanimity. ”I wasn't sure the Congress should get involved when I arrived here,” he said cool y. ”And now I'm even less sure. Have you ever heard the saying Nothing's less persuasive than a government committee? If you work on this alone, you've got a chance, Natch. The public's on your side-or at least they wil be once they stop blaming you for Margaret's death. If the Congress of LPRACGs gets involved, the whole thing's going to turn into a partisan battle. Governmentalists versus libertarians. The minute that happens, you're going to lose half the public's support, and the Council wil clamp down on you even more.”
Natch's nostrils flared. His left hand was twitching too violently to keep it a secret from the speaker much longer. ”What's your strategy then?”
”We wait. We let the Defense and Wel ness Council weaken itself with internal politics.”
Frejohr rubbed his eyes, clearly exhausted. With al the infoquakes and the chaos going on, his week must have been even more stressful than Natch's. ”And while the Council tears itself apart, there's a groundswel of support from the gra.s.s roots that's only going to get stronger. We're starting to see serious movement in the pol numbers. We've got a shot at turning the Prime Committee libertarian in next year's elections-and if that happens, the whole equation wil change.”
Natch grimaced. This was not the man the libertarian public relations machine claimed he was. Khann Frejohr might once have been a revolutionary, but now he had succ.u.mbed to the Melbourne mind-set, where al things revolve around the next set of elections. There simply was no time for dithering.
Natch thought of the Council officers on the street below, the Patel Brothers in the Council's pocket, Jara dancing to the Council's strings with core access to MultiReal. He needed to take command of this conversation, and he needed to do it quickly, or Frejohr would be back in his office drafting obscure legislation within the hour.
”You want to sit around and wait for al of Len Borda's enemies to get their act together?”
he said. ”You want to wait for elections? Fine, go ahead. Go on inside and show me these great pol numbers on the viewscreen. If you can.”
Frejohr blanched. ”What do you mean, if I can?”
”Go ahead and try it.”
The entrepreneur reached out with his mind to the Possibilities interface. It lay there in the fiefcorp data stores like an extension of his own anatomy.
Natch switched on the program and felt its hum in his bones as he tried to recal the specific instructions Horvil had given him.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.