Part 7 (1/2)

'Bound to very soon. So.' Harmock lifted a stem finger. 'No interviews, Dolne, and that goes for all your staff. You're to maintain a media silence for as long as I say. This situation will have to be handled with extreme care.' He lifted a bushy eyebrow. 'I hope I make myself clear.'

'Perfecly clear, Mr Harmock.' He was referring, of course, to the election, now made inevitable. 'I shall contact Mr Rabley's party immediately and order the shutdown of his autocam.'

Harmock nodded. 'Good. You see, no party should have an advantage - I mean, no party should be permitted to broadcast from the front itself. Most unfair, and potentially dangerous. Get Rabley on a shuttle and back here quick as you can.' He made a big show of consulting his watch. 'Now look, Dolne, I'm going to have to go. I have to prepare my broadcast to the network.' His delivery sank for a moment into sententious smoothness. 'The citizens will need my a.s.surance on this -' pause '- the most difficult day in all all our lives.' He reached forward and clicked off the link. our lives.' He reached forward and clicked off the link.

Dolne shut off his own screen and immediately leapt to his feet. 'h.e.l.l, h.e.l.l, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n,' he said, and paced back and forth over his thick-pile carpet.

The unventilated stuffiness increased his tensions. In a reflex movement he poured himself a double measure of Scotch from the minibar and knocked it back in a couple of gulps. A hundred questions a.s.sailed his mind. How was he going to break the news to his staff? Which way would the electorate turn? What would be Jafrid's reaction? He had no plan for this eventuality, no scheme, no matter how rough-hewn, to effect escape. And there was the most dread consideration of all, the prospect of which made him tremble all over. What if the war turned real? Real orders, real fighting, real weapons. Real deaths. The red walls, irrelevant mere minutes before, took on a ghastly new significance, and he squirmed at the suggestion of blood.

He got himself another drink. 'I would never,' he said out loud, 'have believed this possible.' The liquid caught a twinkling rainbow pattern in its depths - the distorted refractions of the stones of Jafrid's dagger. Dolne felt a pang of real regret. 'Oh, my dear friend. What are we to do?'

There was a knock at the door. Dolne snarled and waved his drink dismissively, which the environment computer of his quarters unfortunately took to mean he was allowing access. The door swished open to reveal one of the junior staff, Hammerschmidt. He gave a perfunctory salute and held out a sheaf of papers. 'Morning, sir. Welcome back. Er, would you sign this, please?' He seemed edgy and distracted, and kept looking both ways down the corridor.

Dolne s.n.a.t.c.hed the papers from him. They were out-dated was.h.i.+ng-up rosters. 'What do I want with these?'

Hammerschmidt lowered his voice and looked cautiously about again.

'Inside, sir.'

Dolne flipped through the papers. Concealed within was a greetings card, adorned with a floral design and the legend 'Sorry To Be Losing You'. The post had signed their names inside. He noticed the signature of Viddeas, bold and underlined importantly, straight away. 'Who's this for?'

'Pollis,' whispered Hammerschmidt. At Dolne's blank look he added, 'From com-maintenance, sir. Going back to homeworld at the end of the week.'

He gestured vaguely down the corridor. 'He's about here somewhere, sir, so if you could sign it quickly and give it back, because he might stroll along and catch us.'

Dolne thought. It was all Hammerschmidt ever did, he decided. Walk along corridors clutching a concealed leaving card, jangling a bag of change for the present. It was ordinary, unproductive, inefficient, symptomatic of the entire operation. It had never bothered him before. Now, he did something he had never done in all his admirals.h.i.+p. He shouted 'Get out!' and threw the card at him, and slammed the door shut.

He collapsed against it, panting, and ran a hand through his dishevelled, sweat-streaked hair. Was it getting hard to breathe? Or had Harmock's news been too much for him?

He brushed away a fly from his brow (insect life from Metralubit had a way of evading the quarantine regulations, although lack of sustenance meant crawlies never lasted long) and set about putting his thoughts in some kind of order.

It didn't work, so he cried instead.

Harmock's face, distorted by the ripples of the watery screen, creased with worry. 'Oh, Dolne, it...' 'Oh, Dolne, it...' He put a hand to his brow. He put a hand to his brow. 'Phibbs. They're about to 'Phibbs. They're about to publish.' publish.'

The Darkness chittered its excitement. Excellent news. Disruption. The unexpected. Another rift to exploit.

It was now time to connect with the second remote host.

Viddeas was having trouble. He'd put through a call to the patrol escorting Rabley, and ordered them to return to the post immediately. Their reply, though audible, was submerged by a sussurating wash of squeaks and hisses over an odd droning sound. Viddeas tightened his grip on the earpiece and called, 'Division G, are you there? Codie, do you copy?' He could hear the voice of the patrol leader fading out under the wave. 'd.a.m.n it.' He waved across the room, lifted one side of his headset, and bellowed, 'Teer, clean out my channel, it's awash with enemy interference.'

The communications officer stared stupidly back. 'No, Sir.

'What do you mean, no? Do it!'

'I meant there are no enemy bales running at present,' said Teer. He gestured haplessly at his screen, which indeed showed a clear field.

Viddeas ripped the headset off and raised it for all the room to hear.

Everyone turned around to face him, and he glowered to make them feel it was all their fault, which it probably was. 'What do you suppose this is, then? Another Another fault, perhaps?' fault, perhaps?'

'We have been getting electrical distortion quite a lot lately, sir,' pointed out Cadinot.

Viddeas sighed and dropped the headset on to his desk. His collar was unbearably restrictive in this heat, but he would not loosen it. That would be going against regulations. And he looked better with a stiff, upturned collar anyway. He reached out a finger and cut off the howling. The silence that followed was embarra.s.sed and unnerving, the team going about their business with a dutiful quietness accusatory in itself.

His personal com bleeped. Glad of the distraction, he took it from his belt and pressed the accept b.u.t.ton, blowing a trickle of sweat from his nose as he said, 'Viddeas here.'

'Sir, it's Vann from the detention block,' said a voice in the casual tone that was the curse of the place. There was a lot of shouting going on behind him. 'Our ”prisoner” is demanding to speak to the Admiral.'

'Surely it's my right!' came the shouting voice, which Viddeas recognized as belonging to their artist.

He bristled. 'Vann, tell the prisoner he has no rights. Tell him also that no matter how much this resembles a garden party it is actually supposed to be a war. And tell him to get back in his cell before he is sedated again.'

'I know what I saw!' the artist shouted. 'You can't -'

Viddeas switched off his com and hooked it back on his belt. 'I just did,' he said, quietly enough to suggest he was making a joke to himself and loudly enough to make sure everyone else heard him. The team laughed in their dutiful way.

There was little time to enjoy this moment, however, as Viddeas had become aware that someone was standing behind his chair expectantly.

He swivelled round impressively, careful not to overshoot. An overswivel robbed the swiveller of dignity. 'What now?'

Another adjunct was standing before him, a sheet of torn paper in his hand.

'Sir, it's the photocopier again.'

Viddeas thumped the arm of his chair. 'Bleisch doubles up on photocopier maintenance. Wait for him to get back up from the pipes. I mean, it's not important, is it?'

The adjunct shuffled. 'It's the invites to Pollis's leaving do, sir. For Friday. If we don't get them to the enemy by tomorrow they might arrange to do something else, which would be a shame, as Pollis got along quite well with some of them in his patrol days.'

Viddeas stood up, s.n.a.t.c.hed the sheet from his hand, and stalked off in the direction of the copying annexe. 'All right, I'll take a look at it.' He sounded irritated. In fact he was glad of the very mundanity of the problem after the trials of the last few days. 'It can't be that difficult to fix.' He called over his shoulder as he left, 'Cadinot, maintain that call to division G. We need them back here right away!'