"What?" But his anger was turning to bluster, and Sheklov knew it.
"You heard. Stop and think for a moment. Who would be in a position to know that something was going to happen off-shore at a reserved area? Do you imagine you're unique?"
Slowly Turpin sank back into his chair. "I-I don't follow you."
"That's obvious." Sheklov loaded his tone with sarcasm. "I'll spell it out, then. You claim your cover has never been penetrated, right?"
"Of course! You think they'd let someone in my position ride for twenty-five years? Hell, nol"
"If that's true of you, it may be true of someone else."
"You mean someone I don't know about was instructed to make sure I did cushion your landfall? I-"
"Nol To make sure the submarine wasn't shot out of the waterl"
"Then why was he crazy enough to leave the site shut down, knowing that next time a service crew came by security forces would flock after them like-like crows?" Turpin produced a small phial from his pocket, shook out a white tablet, and gulped it down with a swig of now-coldcoffee. Sheklov seized the chance to thrust a fresh proposal' home.
"Then look at it this way. Is it easy to shut down one of your sites?"
"Easy?" Turpin echoed with an incredulous laugh "Hell no. I could just about shut one down from memory, but I'd rather have a sg6ematic in front of me. You have to close nine of a series of twelve switches in a special order-that's . eier you get through a sintered-ceramic door-ahsi ;he other three are dummies wired straight into Conti.Pf"ntal Defense HQl'
An other words," Sheklov said leaning forward "whoever did this had access to confidential EG data. Suppose this had nothing to do with me. Suppose it was aimed at Energetics General. What about your rival corporations? Aren't some of them resentful of EG's exclusive contract for automatic defense systems?"
"Well . . ." The trank Turpin had swallowed was taking effect; he was able to consider the notion calmly.
"Come to that," Sheklov pressed, "the Navy isn't too happy about the situation, I'm told."
"My God," Turpin said slowly.
"You see my point? Suppose one of EG's staff has been bribed to demonstrate that your systems are vulnerable to sabotagel"
Turpin sat stock-still for long seconds. Abruptly he jumped to his feet. "It's thin! Christ, it's thinl But you're right-it could be a way to mis-direct the investigation. I'll shoot for it. But it's going to be hell anyhow. Because. . . . Well, you know the only way to break EG's contract on this?"
Sheklov shook his head.
"To impeach the Board for treason. In which case I can confidently expect to be shot to death by an Army firing-
squad. And I couldn't help but take you with me. They have very efficient interrogation drugs nowadays."
He glanced at his watch, and concluded, "I must go. They said they'd have a veetol on the beach for me in ten minutes."
The moment the door closed, Sheklov's self-control failed and he began to shake. His mouth dried, his guts churned, and for a terrible few seconds he thought his bladder was going to let go. Just in time, he forced a deep breath into his lungs, and held it, and was able to deploy the resources due to his yoga training: the pranayana first, to cancel out the panic-reactions of his body, and then a series of mental exercises to drive unrealised possibilities back to their proper status in his awareness.
But the shock had reached deep :gown through his per
sonality, to layers that had already been badly bruised by
his encounter with Danty, and it was a lohg, process. It
was still not complete when he realized with a s"tart that
someone else was in the room: Lora. -
"I'm sorry," she muttered from the doorway. "But I heard Dad go out, and I thought maybe I could sneak in here and get away from everybody. But if you don't want to be disturbed-"
With an effort Sheklov put back his Holtzer mask, and smiled at her.
"Come in by all means. I can't-well, I guess this isn't the thing for a guest to say, but I can't blame you for wanting to hide out for a bit."
Gratefully she shut the door and came to sit in the chair her father had been using. She dropped into it like a limp doll, legs sprawled, and he realized with a shock that she was wearing nothing under her short black indoor robe. During lunch he hadn't noticed; so much of her had been hidden under the table.
Obviously, though, it hadn't occurred to her that exposing her crotch was either immodest or discourteous. He considered, very briefly, reverting to the full Holtzer pattern and commenting in shocked terms, then decided he should risk not doing so to secure an opening for some inquiries about Danty.
While he was casting around for the correct turn of phrase to lead into the subject, however, she saved him
the trouble. "Don, what do you think of Danty?" she de-' manded suddenly.
"Ali . . ." Careful! "As a matter of fact, I found h' quite an interesting young man. I was astonished when he claimed to be a reb, because he's not at all what you'd: imagine. I got the idea he was putting people on."
"You mean like needling Rev. Powell?"
"Oh, that-yes! I've seen Powell on TV now and then,; of course, but last night was the first time I'd met him.° And I was not impressed." Good; that came out in th~ proper tone of stufy disapproval.
"Exactly right for Peter," Lora muttered. "Christ, they make a lovely pair .... Say, Don-1 Oh, never mind."
"What?"
She made a vague gesture, staring disconsolately at herdelicately-fingered harms., "Oh . . . oh, I was just going to ask if you'd like tG sleep with me for the rest of your stay,. So I could get ~~of Peter's company. I think you're nic
You sm';e a lot, as though you mean it, and somewhere• und-ineath there's something-well-something real about you. If you see what I mean. So I just thought . . ."
Another gesture like the former.
Startled, Sheklov said after a pause, "Well, I'm flattered -I guess. But . . . well, your parents, for one thing . . ." The words tailed away.
Flattered isn't it. I'm flabbergasted!
"Oh, them!" Lora said. "Think they give a fart what Ido? They never have done. That's why I do all these crazy= things. They call it `tolerance,' or `freedom from inhibitions,' or some shit like that. What it means really is, theyhave an excuse for not bothering about their kids. .
Still, I guess it might foul up your business deal with Dad,;
hm?" -
"Well-uh-it might," Sheklov said. "And in any case. you won't have to share with Peter much longer. I expect.` to leave in a day or two. And if you'll forgive my saying. so, I had the impression you're involved with Danty." -
"Oh, I'm such a reeky fool!" Her eyes were staring into: infinity. "I got so mad this morning, over at his place: About something that doesn't matter at all. I mean, I've= done much worse things to people-do them all the time. I think sometimes I'll go crazy, right out of my skull crazy.: Maybe cut my throat in a fit of the blues."
She sounded as though she meant it. Sheklov's spine crawled.
"Well, surely you haven't done anything you can't put right by apologising," Sheklov ventured. "I certainly hope you didn't. Like I said, I found Danty kind of interesting, and I hoped I might see him again, talk some more."
"Really?" She sat up sharply and her eyes lost their glazed look.
"Why not? You know, I must admit I don't like this attitude you find down here, about young people-as though they had to be sort of quarantined. Hell, I'm not so old myself, I'm thirty-five, and back home I have friends from-"
But she wasn't listening. "You mean if I went looking for him I could-well, I could say you wanted me to, not just have to crawl to him and eat dirt?" She jumped to her feet.
"If that would help, sure you can." --Aod Sheklov thought: I'm going to be a long time figuring oudthe mores herel
"Oh, Donl" Lora exclaimed, clasping her hands. "I love youl"
She rushed forward, jumped on his lap, and thrust her tongue into his mouth.
. xv
The melodramatic-yet in a sense very real-self-directed? threat he had uttered to Sheklov had had a curious stabilising effect on Turpin's mind. It couldn't just be the tram-l' quilliser; during his twenty-five-year balancing act, he had', faced all kinds of crises from the risk of divorce to full-',, scale investigations of Energetics General by a House', committee, and he had relied on drugs time and again to tide him over. He knew, what they could and couldn't do.
This state of mind? was unique -a sensation as though all shaft of ice had been thrust clear from his crown to the,°base of his spine.
A.nrl, cue chill seemed to pervade every nook and cranny o¢ !us being. Ordinarily, while a veetol was hovering on its jets waiting for clearance into a traffic-lane, he was a trifle. scared-particularly when, as now, there was deep water underneath.
Today, though, the notion of having a thousand feet of nothing between him and disaster didn't trouble him in the; least. It was almost enjoyable. He had discovered a sort of pride in his own resilience. He knew better than to surrender to it-pride could be as dangerous as panic-but Sheklov had convinced him that exposure was far from unavoidable after all. (Damn the man! his subconscious added silently. Sabotage by the Navy, or another company, should have occurred to me, not to him!)
The situation was bad. It didn't have to be irremediable. It had better not be.
He had left Russia too soon to learn the same yoga: techniques as Sheklov-they had not been adopted untit long after his injection into the States-but trial and error' had taught him what he needed to think of in order to` calm his mind. He concentrated now on the crucial factors; recalling his own earlier recognition of the value of hav= ing confidence in one's achievements. Sheklov had told., him, more than once since his arrival, that he was still regarded as the most valuable agent ever planted on thin continent-and wasn't there truth in that compliment? His "
position as a senior vice-president of EG was virtually impregnable. Energetics General, in most people's minds, was synonymous with the sacred concept of continental defence, and he was looked up to by everyone he came in contact with---even by Prexy's backers, despite their being Navy.
Prexy himself as well, of course-but he didn't count for a fart in a bath-tub.
He slacked the buckles of his seat-harness a little as his confidence grew and grew. Yes, he could believe that Sheklov had been sent to him because his cover was perfect. And they did still set store by him Back There. They must. For the good and sufficient reason that he was the one who had coped. He was the one who had remained afloat when so many others had sunk-been tried and executed, or in a few cases that rankled in his memory killed by a mob, during the bad period of the late seventies when a single month might see as many-as two drnsand lynchings of political suspects, drug-users, and young'=en with long flair or beards.
He was in an almost benevolent mood when the reserved area hove in sight and the pilot called, "Mr. Turpin! We're going in for a landing now-please tighten your harness."
He was delighted to see how steady his hands were as he gripped the straps.
From the nearby superway it would have been impossible to tell that anything out of the ordinary was occurring in the reserved area. Stands of trees forced with paragibberellins and a rise in the ground concealed the immensely powerful four-enginered helicopters that had brought the service crew. Turpin caught only a brief glimpse of them as his pilot-properly conscious of not having a high enough clearance to enter a reserved area-set down a couple of minutes' walk away. He noticed that their sides were branded with the white figures "33," and tried to recollect more about the members of this team than simply their names.
Hurrying towards them, he saw that around the nearest 'copter several men in the quasi-military uniforms of fatigues and technical harness (which, he recalled not without pride, he had been instrumental in having adopted to emphasise the dedicated role these men played in Con-
tinental Defense) were milling like ants. With one foot on the ground, the other on the ledge of the 'copter's door, a blond man in his middle thirties was shooting questions by turns at each of his engineers. Turpin knew him instantly, although he had only met him once or twice, and months ago. That was the crew-boss, Gunnar Sandstrom, about whom security had been so dubious when his appointment came up. Because of the behaviour of the Scandinavian governments, of course, who refused to hand over traitors and deserters.
He had just started to call and wave to attract Sandstrom's attention when the howl of another aircraft battered their ears, rising in the blink of an eye from a drone to an intolerable roar. The shadow of it flickered over Turpin a fraction of a second before the noise hit; reflexively he glanced up at -;.he bright sky, and was blinded -in his haste to leave, home, he had forgotten his dark glasses. But he c^ ~ght a glimpse of its white paint-job, nonetheless, ? ua cursed silently. He had hoped to be here before a•:y of the senior security people showed, to plant his . picions about inter-corporation sabotage.
oo late now, though. Somebody very top indeed had arrived. That was no ordinary veetol, but a Mach 3 type, capable of crossing the continent in barely more than an hour.
Its pilot-if it was piloted, and not automatically controlled-set it down with meticulous accuracy in the middle of the cluster of choppers. Almost before the power had been cut its door was thrown open and a heavy-set man with black hair, wearing a bright blue windbreaker and orange pants, jumped to the ground. Sandstrom, naturally, broke off his conversation with his engineers and went running to meet him.
