“Give me a day,” he said low, in almost a whisper.
Lanie turned her body to the console, her gaze glued to the globe. An aftershock rocked the land again no sooner than the first had stopped. She typed with one hand. A second later, blood-red letters five feet high hung suspended in the air before them:
“Oh my God,” Newcombe said. “Three and a half months. Crane, I … dammit, this is scary.”
“Yeah,” Crane said, standing, pacing. “And we’ve got zero credibility. They’ve threatened to arrest me if I even set foot in Tennessee or Missouri.”
“What do we do?” Lame asked.
“Cry wolf again,” Crane said. “Make enough of a pest of myself that if they don’t listen to me at least they’ll remember that I said it.” He paused. “It will re-establish me so they’ll listen next time.”
“Trouble is,” Burt Hill said, “everybody thinks you’re crazy, Doc. Nobody’s gonna listen to you.”
“You think I don’t know? Wait a minute.” Crane ran to Hill and hugged him. “You’ve just given me the idea of a lifetime.”
“I have?”
Crane punched up the Q fiber on his pad, hoping that Whetstone hadn’t deleted him from the preferred list. “Come on, Stoney,” he whispered. “Come on.”
“Am I going to be sorry I answered this call?” came Whetstone’s voice through Crane’s aural.
“You’re a good man.”
“I’m a laughingstock.”
“Maybe. But are you also a gambler?”
“Crane…”
“Meet me tomorrow … Can you?”
“I can do anything I want.”
“Then meet me. I can make you a hero.”
“Not tomorrow. Day after. But tell me something, Crane, why do I listen to you?”
Crane chortled. “Because you’re as crazy as I am.”
Li stood inside his globe, basking in election night victory. Numbers flickered all around him like electronic fireflies. They’d held the presidency easily and won the contested Congressional seats, though some of those races were closer than he’d wished. The bottom ledger line: Liang had retained complete power for another two years at least. He credited the last-minute attacks on Crane and Ishmael—the conspiracy theory—for his success.
“So are you satisfied?” Mr. Mui asked from outside the glowing world. Only the COO was allowed inside the sphere.
“Of course I’m satisfied,” Li said, surprised at the question.
“Then you found tonight’s results a success?”
“Why are you asking me these questions? We were victorious, were we not?”
“According to my figures,” Mui said, “we lost over three hundred seats in state houses around the country. Yo-Yu now has a major foothold.”
“Inconsequential. We retain the power.”
“The political power springs from beneath in this country … through local laws, local statutes. Yo-Yu has outright control of fifteen legislative houses, which means fifteen venues from which to attack our economic base and expand their own.”
“You’re making too much of this,” Li said.
“My reports will mirror my thoughts. Others will judge. Also, my polls show you made a major mistake with the Islamic issue.”
“How so?”
“In the local elections, Yo-Yu candidates took a soft wait-and-see line on the issue of an Islamic state as soon as we came out strongly against it. They favored negotiations over confrontations. Their success in state races is directly attributable to that factor.”
“I disagree.”
“You gave them fear,” Mui said, “but that simply tied them to the greater fear of the global Islamic movement, which people feel is too large to challenge.”
“I did what had to be done to win the election. All I need to do to remedy the situation is to sacrifice someone on the altar of Islam, put the blame on him, then become more compromising. By the time the next elections come around, this will no longer be an issue.”
“Who shall you sacrifice?”
“President Gideon has let the Vice President make most of the anti-NOI speeches. Perhaps it’s time for Mr. Gabler to step down.” Li smiled. “After all, we can’t have a racist as Vice President, now can we?”
“And who would you put in his place?” Li smiled again, thinking of the frames of Sumi Chan in her bath. With Sumi, control would never be a problem. “I’ve been thinking that it might be time for an Asian-American to step into the forefront of American politics,” he said. “I’ll study the issue in the next few days.”
“Do you have someone in mind?”
“Perhaps. Are you finished attacking me?”
“Sir,” Mui said respectfully. “It is my job to question your decisions, just as it was your job to question your predecessor’s decisions. I respectfully submit that you owe me an apology. Your attitude must also go in my reports, I’m sure you know.”
Li nodded. All they needed were knives to make the bloodletting more public. “I am sorry to have offended you. Is there anything else that will go into your report?”
“Yes,” Mui said, and Li could see the shine of his smiling teeth in the outer darkness. “I’m going to tell them that your deliberate falsification of earthquake prediction figures could potentially destroy the economic viability of this entire sector.”
“Oh, come now,” Li said. “You cannot really believe that clown Crane can predict earthquakes?”
“Why not?”
Li felt anger well up. “Because it’s impossible, that’s why!”
“Ah,” Mui said easily. “Your knowledge and certitude are obviously much more advanced than mine. I would say, wait and see, just like Yo-Yu. But you, Mr. Director, are willing to bet your life on the impossibility of Crane making predictions. Bravo.”
“You’re mocking me,” Li said.
“Yes, sir,” Mui replied. “I am doing just that.”
Chapter 11
THE WAGER
“You know,” Lanie said from the doorway to the living room of Crane’s chalet, cleaned and spiffed up for the occasion, “we’ve all got to drink rum because that’s what Crane has stocked.”
Newcombe smiled at her. Her eyes were glinting. She was pumped up, energized by her success in lobbying Kate Masters all day. When Kate had heard from Stoney that he was coming to the Foundation, she’d decided they should meet up there. But she’d come early, way early, and sought out Lanie immediately. Newcombe wasn’t thrilled. He didn’t like Kate Masters. Something about her showy clothes, her brashness, her mouth bothered him. And he hated the fact that she’d struck up a friendship with Lanie. The Vogelman Procedure was Kate’s fault … and it had been the first rupture in his renewed relationship with Lanie. She came closer to him now. “I’m glad you’ve decided to talk to me, Lanie,” he murmured.
“I had a couple drinks. Makes things easier. I don’t mean to avoid you really. I just don’t handle this kind of thing very well.”
He wanted to reach out and touch her hair, but wouldn’t allow himself to do it. “Maybe, if it bothers you so much, it means you’ve made a mistake.”
“No, Dan, really. Things are better this way.”
He closed the distance between them and seized her by the arms, the drink she held spilling on them both. “Things are not better and you know it.” He put his arms around her, but she stood stiffly in his loose embrace. “Dammit, Lanie,” he whispered, “come home. We’ll forget everything that’s happened and start over.”