"It could be," Karen Heller breathed, nodding her head slowly as she digested what he had said. "And maybe that explains why the Ganymeans haven’t exactly been rushing themselves to tell us about it until they’ve got a better feel for how we might react-especially with the accounts they’ve been getting of what we’re like. And it could make sense that if they are human, they got the job of running a surveillance program to keep an eye on Earth." She thought over what she had said and nodded again to herself, then frowned as something else occurred to her. She looked up at Danchekker. "But how could they have gotten there? Could they be from some independent family of evolution that already existed on Thurien before the Ganymeans got there. . . . something like that maybe?"
"Oh, that’s quite impossible," Danchekker said impatiently. Heller looked mildly taken aback and opened her mouth to object, but Hunt shot her a warning glance and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. If she got Danchekker into a lecture on evolution, they’d be listening all day. She signaled her acceptance with a slight raising of an eyebrow and let it go at that.
"I don’t think we have to search very far for the answer to that question," Danchekker informed them airily, drawing himself upright and tightening his hold on his lapels. "We know that the Ganymeans migrated to Thurien from Minerva approximately twenty-five million years ago. We also know that by then they had acquired numerous species of terrestrial life, including primates as advanced as any of the period. Indeed we discovered some of them ourselves in the craft on Ganymede, which we have every reason to believe was involved in that very migration." He paused for a moment as if doubting that the rest needed spelling out, then continued. "Evidently they took with them some representatives of early prehuman hominids, the descendants of which have since evolved and increased to become a human population enjoying full co-citizenship within the society of Thurien, as is evidenced by the fact that VISAR accommodates both them and Ganymeans equally." Danchekker dropped his hands to clasp them behind his back and thrust his chin out with evident satisfaction. "And that, Dr. Hunt, unless I am very much mistaken, would appear to be the simple and obvious missing factor that you were looking for," he concluded.
Chapter Eighteen
Norman Pacey held up his hand in a warning gesture and closed the door to cut off the room from the secretary giving directions to two UNSA privates who were loading boxes onto a cart in the outer office. Janet watched from a chair that she had cleared of a stack of papers and document holders waiting to be packed in preparation for the delegation’s departure from Bruno. "Now start again," he told her, turning away from the door.
"It was last night, maybe early this morning . . . I’m not sure what time." Janet fiddled awkwardly with a button on her lab coat. "Niels got a call from somebody-I think it was the U.S. European, Daldanier-about something they needed to discuss right away. He started saying something about somebody called Verikoff, it sounded like, but Niels stopped him and said he’d go and talk to him at his place. I pretended I was still asleep. He got dressed and slipped out. . . . kind of creepily, as if he were being careful not to wake me up."
"Okay," Pacey said with a nod. "Then what?"
"Well . . . I remembered he’d been looking at some papers earlier when I came in. He put them away in a holder, but I was sure he hadn’t locked it. So I decided to take a chance and see what they were about."
Pacey clenched his teeth in the effort not to let his feelings show. That was exactly the kind of thing he had told her not to do. But the outcome sounded interesting. "And," he prompted.
Janet’s face took on a mystified look. "There was a folder among the things inside. It was bright red around the edges and pink inside. What made me notice it was that it had your name on the front."
Pacey’s brow creased as he listened. What Janet had described sounded like a standard UN-format document wallet that was used for highly confidential memoranda. "Did you look inside it?"
Janet nodded. "It was weird. . . . the report criticized the way you’d been obstructing the meeting here and stated in a Conclusions section that the delegation would have made more progress if the U.S. had shown a more cooperative attitude. It didn’t sound like you at all, which was why I thought it was weird." Pacey was staring at her speechlessly. Before he could find words to reply, she shook her head as if feeling a need to disclaim responsibility for what she was going to say next. "And there was this part about you and-Karen Heller. It said that you two were . . ."
Janet hesitated, then raised a hand with her index and second fingers intertwined, ". . . like that, and that such-how was it put?-such ‘blatant and indiscreet conduct was not becoming to a mission of this nature, and possibly had some connection with the counterproductive contribution of the United States to the proceedings’." Janet sat back and shook her head again. "I knew the report simply wasn’t true. . . . And coming from him, well. . ."
She let the sentence trail away and left it at that.
Pacey sat down on the edge of a half-filled packing case and stared at her incredulously. A few seconds went by before he found his voice. "You actually saw all this?" he asked at last.
"Yes. . . . I can’t give you all of it word for word, but that was what it said." She hesitated. "I know it’s crazy, if that helps. . . ."
"Does Sverenssen know you saw this report?"
"I don’t see how he could. I put everything back exactly the way it was. I guess I could have got you more of it, but I didn’t know how long he’d be away. As it turned out, he was gone quite a while."
"That’s okay. You did the right thing not risking it." Pacey stared down at the floor for a while, feeling totally bewildered. Then he looked up again and asked, "How about you? Has he been acting strange now that we’re leaving? Anything . . . ominous, maybe?"
"You mean sinister warnings to keep my mouth shut about the computer?"
"Mmm . . . yes, maybe." Pacey looked at her curiously.
She shook her head and smiled faintly. "Quite the opposite as a matter of fact. He’s been very gentlemanly and said what a shame it is. He even hinted that we could get together again sometime back on Earth-he could fix me up with a job that pays real money, all kinds of interesting people to meet. . . stuff like that."
A smarter move, Pacey thought to himself. High hopes and treachery had never gone together. "Do you believe him?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"No."
Pacey nodded in approval. "You are growing up fast." He looked around the office and massaged his forehead wearily. "I’m going to have to do some thinking now. I’m glad you told me about it. But you’ve got your coat on, which says you probably have to get back to work. Let’s not start upsetting Malliusk again."
"He’s off today," Janet said. "But you’re right-I do have to get back." She stood up and moved toward the door, then turned back as she was about to open it. "I hope it was okay. I know you said to keep this away from the delegation offices, but it seemed important. And with everybody leaving. . ."
"Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. I’ll see you again later."
Janet departed, leaving the door open in response to Pacey’s wave request. Pacey sat for a while and began turning what she had told him over again in his mind, but was interrupted by the UNSA privates coming in to sort out the boxes ready for moving. He decided to go and think about it over a coffee in the common room.