Astor-Smath watched her go, noticed the high, boyish buttocks. Later tonight, they would indeed work something out. Astor-Smath was quite familiar with this kind of subtly needy girl-child. In his experience, they were invariably uncertain about their identity, wearing their sexuality in a fashion at once conspicuous and unsure, believing that they were still poised on the brink of discovering themselves like a confused chrysalis-in-waiting. But in actuality they were ingenuous rabbits, awaiting the power and surety of a predator’s jaws. That is the meaning, the definition, that they were truly waiting for. And he, Astor-Smath, who had defined so many such lives in just that way, gladly anticipated giving Eimi the gift of self-knowledge that came to all prey animals eventually: that they lived to become the fodder of predators.
Astor-Smath tried to reimmerse himself in the spreadsheet he had been studying, but could not. Knowing who would soon come through the door, he found it difficult to concentrate. He wasn’t sure whether it was the importance or the enigma of the relationship which unsettled him more, but he couldn’t feign his usual sang froid, not even to himself. He rose, went to the antique mahogany credenza to reclaim the package he had put by a week ago, in the anticipation of his visitor’s next appearance.
When he turned around, the tall man was there, a briefcase hanging in his grasp. He had not made a sound and he was already five meters into Astor-Smath’s cavernous, marble-floored office. Beneath the man’s ubiquitous rimless sunglasses, his mouth was slightly bent. A hint of a smile. Perhaps.
Astor-Smath came around his desk, one hand extended, one hand cradling the package, trying to find a smile that was broad and ingratiating yet not obsequious. “My friend, if you had let me know you were coming—”
“Circumstances made that impossible, Mr. Astor-Smath.” The visitor looked down, first at Astor-Smath’s extended hand, then at the proffered package. “What is that?” he asked, his sunglasses reflecting the plain brown wrapper.
“A gift.” Astor-Smath pushed it toward the man, detected—as he always did—a faintly musky and yet medicinal smell about him.
The man did not look down at the package he now cradled under one arm. “What kind of gift?”
“Olives. Of course.”
The man finally smiled. It signaled pleasure, but Astor-Smath found it oddly devoid of gratitude. Putting down his briefcase, the man had extracted a plain ceramic jar from the bag. “Greek, black?”
“Spanish, green.”
“Ahh. Just as good.” He put the ceramic jar back in the bag. “And I come with something for you, as well.”
“Oh? And what would that be?” Astor-Smath managed to keep his voice calm, his eyes half-lidded, his libido in check. Despite the desertion of his clones, was the uprising now quelled, the occupation secure? Enough so that Earth’s new masters would start announcing governorships?
But the tall man’s response disabused him of that brief fantasy. “I have with me a recording of a most interesting conversation.”
“Oh? Show it to me.”
“I shall.”
The tall man aimed his palmcomp at the five-meter screen of Astor-Smath’s commplex, pressed a stud. The sudden, grainy picture revealed an Arat Kur speaking with a human. Astor-Smath was unable to distinguish one Arat Kur from another, but he recognized the human immediately: Caine Riordan. Who, nodding, continued an apparently ongoing conversation. “And so you plan to attack Indonesia. May I ask why?”
The Arat Kur’s claws rose, signaling imminent elucidation. “Is it not obvious? It is at a great enough remove from your major powers that they will not feel so directly threatened and thus might listen long enough to hear our terms for withdrawal. For I assure you, Caine Riordan, that we do not wish to remain on your planet.”
Riordan seemed blandly skeptical. “There are many places more remote from the great powers of my world than Indonesia. Why there?”
“Can you not guess?”
“The mass driver.”
“It was a surety that you would see this. Many nations have labored long and spent dearly to build this extraordinary device. And they will not wish us to harm it. Similarly, they will avoid harming it themselves.”
“So it is a hostage.”
“In a manner of speaking. We have no wish to take living hostages.”
“Just a monetarily valuable one.”
“True. Although we were surprised that it was built in so vulnerable a location. We would have expected it to be sited in a region under direct control of a nation which financed it. From our perspective, it is not merely unprotected. It is a veritable gift for us and for the megacorporations who we shall appoint as our partners and indigenous overseers.”
For a sliver of a second, Caine’s eyes widened by a millimeter, and then the disinterested gaze was back.
The tall man stopped the video. “This is a most troubling recording, Mr. Astor-Smath.”
“And why is that?”
“It is completely unacceptable that Darzhee Kut, or any Arat Kur of his rank and caste, could become aware that CoDevCo’s assistance was secured far in advance of the invasion.”
“Then speak to the Arat Kur. That is their tape, their debriefing.”
“I have spoken to the Arat Kur. In fact, Darzhee Kut was not informed of CoDevCo’s longstanding collaboration at all. He, and a startling number of his peers, simply deduced it from the fragmentary facts that were not purged from the documents provided to those Arat Kur who had second-tier clearance ratings.”
Astor-Smath walked back to his desk, waved dismissively before picking up his glass of water and sipping at it. “You may say what you mean. We both know I was the intelligence conduit for that part of our operations.”
“Yes. I also took the liberty of examining the internal memos you sent apprising your superiors of our evolving arrangements. Again, you showed a profoundly cavalier attitude toward the secrecy protocols we agreed upon.”
Astor-Smath didn’t like the direction the discussion was taking. “And how did you access those records? Another of your Reifications, perhaps?”
“As I have taken pains to explain several times now, Reification is not the sorcery you seem to think it is. I cannot defy the laws of physics, cannot summon things to me at my merest whim. I can no more telelocate a memo or image to myself than you can.”
“Then how did you get access to this information, and to this tape?”
“By simply speaking to one of your superiors at CoDevCo. Who was quite happy to assist. You have been very sloppy, Mr. Astor-Smath. It is going to require a great deal of work to clean up the mess you have made.”
Enough was enough. “What do you mean?” He waved at Riordan’s face where it was frozen on the screen. “This one comment, uttered on a video our adversaries will never see, is hardly a mess.”
“It is, and in more ways than you might guess, Mr. Astor-Smath. But either way, you shared an extremely sensitive detail, one which violated the strict reporting and secrecy protocols which we established at the outset of our relationship. Likewise, I repeatedly warned you of the inelegance of the Reifications you have instructed me to perform. The numerous improbable attacks on Riordan, the inexplicable mechanical failures, the suspicious heart attacks that killed Corcoran and Tarasenko. They were all too direct.”
Astor-Smath spread his hands in a contentious appeal. “No one can affix blame for any of those deeds to you or to me. Your concerns are groundless.”
The other man’s jaw worked in stiff, controlled frustration. “Your ears function, but you cannot hear. Yours were the impatient, grasping, idiotically direct stratagems of a child who can only think one move ahead. Consequently, it invited the scrutiny of those adversaries who were the most prudent and suspicious, who posed the greatest threat to our joint operations. And to my continued anonymity. Which may not be compromised.”