The picture was conventional heroic art, but well done: She could recognize many of the faces, though her mind called them up with the wrinkles, bald patches and white-haired pates of old age. Tough, taciturn old men, most of them honorary granduncles, dying one by one as she grew toward adulthood.
It shocked her a little how old her own father looked today, as old as her childhood memories of the Founders; she hadn’t seen him in person for several months. His hair was mostly gray now, at sixty-two, though still thick—the Rolfe men didn’t lose theirs.
And when did he get those jowls? she thought. He’s putting on weight, too. All those years I changed and he seemed to go on just the same, and now it’s the other way ’round….
The Chairman’s desk bore little beyond a few pictures and a ceremonial pen and inkstand. It did have a number of hidden screens; two of them had risen, one facing her and one her father. The Commission bought only the best, and the image in them was crystal clear, almost three-dimensional—the face of a man precisely twenty-five years older than her father. John Rolfe VI, Chairman Emeritus and Founding Father; despite the snowy whiteness of his hair and the deep lines on his face, he looked scarcely older than his son. There was less harassed care and more amusement in the steady leaf-green eyes as well, and his belt measurement was the same as it had been when he left VMI. He would be looking at their paired images in a screen in his own sanctum, up north in Rolfe Manor, leaning back in the leather-cushioned chair.
“It is a bit shocking,” the older man said, with an elegant gesture of one hand. “Thanks to Agent Rolfe’s quick action, largely recouped. But still shocking. I fear we’ve grown a trifle complacent—not to mention divorced from the realities of FirstSide.”
Another hand entered the pickup screen. It was slim and female; it handed him a cigarette in an ivory holder, and a glass frosty with ice. The old man took a deep draw and a sip of the bourbon and water.
“Thank you, my dear,” he murmured, turning his head for an instant.
“We’ve had smuggling before, sir,” Charles Rolfe replied.
The title of respect was ungrudging, despite his obvious irritation. While he lived, the Old Man was master of the nation he had founded, whatever the formal titles might say. More than law, it was custom, and “custom” was a word that carried a great deal of weight in the Commonwealth.
“But scarcely on this scale,” said the man who had been soldier, adventurer, and king in all but name. “That was mostly a case of the occasional overshipment of precious stones or gold, and before we had Nostradamus to keep an exact running tally all the way through.”
Charles Rolfe sighed. “As nearly as Gate Security can tell,” he said, “it’s barely smuggling, technically. None of the goods were on the prohibited list. They went through as bales of general cargo from various Families, through affiliated firms rather than directly—Nostradamus has the shipment records, of course—but they weren’t going to ring any alarms. The Boscos seem to be involved, and they’re Colletta collaterals, of course, but… finding out how it all got bulked into an embarrassing mass rather than being dispersed will be tricky politically. We’ve always paid more attention to keeping track of incoming freight, anyway.”
“And we’ve always had a shortage of qualified personnel for Gate Security,” John Rolfe said.
“Sirs,” Adrienne said, dragging the conversation back to her concerns. “We’ve got to update that prohibited list. Immediately, and that just for starters. Yes, none of the species represented in the Los Angeles warehouse were extinct on FirstSide—not completely extinct. But those goods in those quantities were absolutely bound to cause dangerous publicity. Someone brought them through, moved them through commercial channels on FirstSide, and then sold them—or delivered them, anyhow—in a single mass.”
Her father shrugged angrily. “Yes, yes, no doubt it was careless—and we should discreetly try to find out here in the Commonwealth who was responsible, and see that they get a reprimand if it was one of the Families, or a trip to the mines otherwise. However—”
The man in the screen raised the cigarette. “I think Agent Rolfe had something else to add.”
“Yes, sir,” Adrienne said gratefully. “Once attention was drawn to the goods, the results could have been catastrophic. DNA scans are now extremely cheap, fast and accurate, and routine. With illegal animal products, they use them even where they’ve got no particular reason; if it’s so easy, why not? When animals are down to a few hundred well-studied individuals, DNA from an unrelated population… we might as well hang out a ‘From Another Universe! ’ sign. Once or twice we can tolerate. People disregard information that upsets their preconceptions. But if we rub their faces in facts they can’t dodge, somebody is going to start connecting the dots.”
“Individuals have stumbled on evidence of the Gate before,” the Chairman snapped.
“Yes, sir. But it’s also getting more suspicious when people disappear over on FirstSide, too. The crime rate’s down there, and they tightened up on security a lot during the war, with identity cards and biometric scanners all over the place.
“Sirs,” she went on earnestly, glancing from her father to her grandfather and back, “we have to tighten up too. We’ve got to put anything illegal—or just rare and unusual—on FirstSide on the prohibited list, and we’ve got to be more careful about bringing the American authorities down on us.”
“We’re not in the business of enforcing United States laws,” her father said.
John Rolfe’s upraised hand cut short her reply. He spoke instead: “We are when it’s to our advantage, Charles,” he said mildly. “The agent has a point. You and I can discuss it later. Now, back to the matter at hand: investigating the investigation on FirstSide. I agree that it has potential, albeit also risks.”
“I don’t like it,” Charles said slowly.
“Neither do I, very much,” his father said. “Is there anyone other than Agent Rolfe in a position to do the legwork? Or can you get the Commission to act quickly and decisively here in the Commonwealth, so that we need not move on FirstSide?”
“Not easily,” Charles said, rubbing the fingertips of his right hand over his forehead. “Not without definite proof the Collettas are up to something. Not only would creating a stink be a godsend to the Imperialist faction, but I’d have to step on the corns of a lot of influential Settler business interests, restrict their trans-Gate exports and capacity to earn FirstSide dollars—and the Commission’s monopolies are unpopular enough as it is. That would bring in the Families they’re affiliated with—you know they can’t afford to ignore their clients’ complaints. Not if they don’t want them looking for new patrons.” There was a hint of frustrated anger in his voice.
His father grinned, not unsympathetically. “Well, I did set this place up with a more decentralized power structure than I might have if I’d had perfect precognition,” he said. “Though efficiency isn’t everything… but I think that does reinforce Adrienne’s point.”
Adrienne kept her face expressionless. She wouldn’t have let the Commonwealth’s government drift into the sort of sloppy, amorphous neofeudalism that had evolved here over the past couple of generations, but it suited the Old Man fine most of the time.