“I’d like you to talk with Dex Trumball and some of his Foundation people. We should be setting up a video program to show your fossil and explain what you’re doing here.”
“Fine by me,” said Carleton.
Jamie eyed the anthropologist for a silent moment, framing his thoughts. Then he asked, “How would you feel about staying here for another year or so? Without going home.”
Carleton broke into a dazzling smile. “I wouldn’t leave here under any circumstances. The only way they’ll get me back to Earth is in a coffin.”
Manhattan: Worldwide News Network
Orlando Ventura sat at the foot of the small conference table, but he knew all the others depended on him for the crucial decisions. Well, almost all the others: the “consultant” from the New Morality depended on no one except his own inner certainties—reinforced by orders from Atlanta.
Ventura was a compact type, prone to paunchiness, but he kept his figure reasonably trim with daily workout sessions and ruthless, no-mercy games of tennis on the rooftop courts of the Worldwide News building. He had touched up his long, wavy hair with subtle dabs of gray at his temples; it made him look more mature, he thought, more serious and reliable.
“So what’s our approach on this Martian fossil?” asked the bureau chief, sitting at the head of the table. The chief was rake thin, all nerves and twitches, totally bald except for a ridiculous fringe of darkish hair that he kept long enough to tickle his collar.
Everyone turned to Ventura, but before he could reply the New Morality consultant said softly, “Alleged fossil. No one has proved its age or even proved that it came from a Martian creature. It might be simply a strangely shaped piece of rock.”
“It makes for more audience interest if we call it a fossil,” said Ventura, strongly enough to be firm, not so intense as to sound confrontive.
Ventura thought of the consultant, who sat at the bureau chief’s right hand, as a censor. No one in the network hierarchy would admit it, but they didn’t want the New Morality causing trouble for them. The rival network Global News had nearly gone bankrupt when the New Morality arranged an international boycott of their broadcasts—and the products that they advertised.
The consultant’s name was Shelby Ivers. He was a minister from the New Morality’s headquarters in Atlanta. He looked like a chubby, pink-faced, well-scrubbed young man with short dark hair combed forward to hide a receding hairline. Instead of the usual ministerial garb of funereal black he wore a cheerful checkered sports jacket and a tie of royal blue. Beneath his white shirt, Ventura was certain, a silver crucifix hung around his neck, its size determined by the man’s estimation of the cleanliness of his soul.
“The scientists themselves haven’t agreed that it’s a fossil,” sniffed the consultant, frowning down the table toward Ventura.
Lena Pickering, a sharp-eyed blond producer, said with her usual annoying nasality, “The scientists never really agree on anything, do they?”
Score one for Lena, Ventura thought, knowing that she was ambitious and wanted a spot on his staff.
“Look,” said the bureau chief, squirming in his chair, “everybody’s calling it a fossil. We’d look pretty dumb if we just called it a rock, wouldn’t we?”
“Call it an alleged fossil, then,” insisted the consultant.
“A probable fossil?” suggested Ventura’s director, sitting halfway down the table.
“A possible fossil,” said the woman across the table from him.
“A fossil,” Ventura insisted.
“But—”
“We can put in a disclaimer at the beginning of the show,” Ventura said, raising his voice enough to cut off all the others. “Say that the scientists believe it’s a fossil and until proven otherwise that’s what we’re going to call it.”
Everyone fell silent as the consultant drummed his fingers on the conference tabletop for a few moments. At last he shrugged. “I’ll write the disclaimer for you,” he said.
“Fine,” said Ventura.
“All right,” the bureau chief said, trying to smile, “that’s settled. Now, I’ve got an idea for you to consider. How about having a cohost on this show with you, Lannie?”
Ventura winced at the nickname, but shuddered inwardly at the thought of sharing the spotlight. “A cohost?” he asked, in a deathly sort voice. “On my show?”
“Edie Elgin. She was a media star back during the First Mars Expedition,” the bureau chief said.
“She’s retired. Lives on the Moon now,” said Ventura’s top researcher, a meek-looking younger guy whose bland exterior hid a Invent ambition.
“She was shacked up with one of the scientists who went to Mars,” Ventura said thinly.
“Right. James Waterman. He’s chief scientist of the whole Mars program now.”
The consultant spoke up. “She’d be prejudiced in his favor then, wouldn’t she?”
Nodding in the consultant’s direction, Ventura said, “There is that.”
“Or maybe she’s pissed at him for dumping her,” said one of the women.
“She dumped him, more likely. She’s married to Douglas Stavenger now.”
“The man whose body is filled with nanomachines?” the consultant blurted, frowning with distaste. “She’ll be even more biased. We can’t have that kind of imbalance.”
The bureau chief steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “Maybe not, then,” he muttered. “It was just a suggestion.”
Ventura shot a silent glance of thanks toward the consultant, thinking that he owed the guy one. He also realized for the first time that the bureau chief was out to get him.
“So who’s going to be on your panel, Lannie?” the chief asked, as if he’d never suggested a cohost.
“We’ll need a scientist, of course.”
“More than one,” said Ventura’s own producer, sitting on his left.
Lena Pickering said with a grin, “You put on two scientists, they’ll start arguing with one another.”
“You put on three and you’ll get six different opinions,” muttered one of the men halfway down the table.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” said the bureau chief. “Controversy builds audience interest.”
Ventura shook his head. “When scientists start arguing they go into their own specialized language. It’s all incomprehensible gobbledygook. The audience can’t follow them.”
“It’s a real turnoff, chief.”
The bureau chief scratched at his bald pate. “Okay, okay. One scientist, then. Who else?”
“A Believer,” said the consultant. “We’ve got to have a Believer on the panel.”
“You volunteering?” Ventura asked. He meant it to sound like an invitation, but despite his intentions it came out more like a challenge.
The consultant stared at him for a moment. “Me? Heavens, no! I’m not a public persona.”
No, Ventura replied silently. You never show your face to the public. You do your work behind their backs.
“How about Penny Quinn?” one of the women suggested. “She’s always interesting.”
“She’s off the wall.”
“Is she a Believer?”
“I’m pretty sure she is. And she’s a woman. You don’t want this panel to be all male.”
“Why not?”
“Neanderthal!”
The consultant folded his hands on the tabletop and said earnestly, “We must have a Believer. If we have a scientist, then we must have a Believer, in the interests of fairness and balance.”
Where do you get this “we” stuff, Ventura asked silently. But he owed the guy a favor, so he said nothing.
Half a dozen names were suggested, all of them shot down by one or another of the people around the table.