Someone — some kreweman of Senator Dougal’s, presumably — had seen fit to decorate the Director’s federal offices in high Texas drag. There were wall-mounted rifles, steer heads, lariats, cowhide seats, a host of shiny commemorative plaques.
Felzian’s secretary announced him. Oscar hung his hat on a tow-ering antler rack inside the door. Felzian was sitting behind his inlaid oak-and-cedar desk, looking as unhappy as politeness would allow. The Director wore bifocal glasses. The metal-and-glass prosthetic gave Felzian a touchingly twentieth-century look. Felzian was a short, slen-der man in his sixties. He might have been bald and fat in a crueler century.
Oscar shook the Director’s hand and took a brindled leather chair. “Good to see you again, Dr. Felzian. I appreciate your taking the time to meet me today.”
Felzian was wearily patient. “I’m sure that’s quite all right.”
“On behalf of Senator and Mrs. Alcott Bambakias, I want to present you with this laboratory specimen. You see, Mrs. Bambakias takes a lively personal interest in animal welfare issues. So she had this specimen thoroughly examined in Boston, and she discovered that he has an excellent bill of health. Mrs. Bambakias congratulates the Col-laboratory on its sound animal rights practices. She also grew very fond of the animal personally, so although she’s returning him to you now, she’s also sending along this personal contribution to help assure his future welfare.”
Felzian examined the document Oscar proffered. “Is that really a signed, paper bank check?”
“Mrs. Bambakias likes a traditional, personal touch,” Oscar said. “She’s very sentimental about her friend Stickley here.” He smiled, and produced a camera. “I hope you don’t mind if I take a few fare-well photos now, for her family scrapbook.”
Felzian sighed. “Mr. Valparaiso, I know you didn’t come here to dump a stray animal in my lap. Nobody ever returns our animals. Never. Basically, they’re party favors. So if your Senator is returning a specimen to us, that can only mean he plans to do us real harm.”
Oscar was surprised to hear Felzian speaking so grimly. Given that this was the Director’s office, he’d naturally assumed that they were being taped. And bugged. Maybe Felzian had just given up on discretion. He accepted surveillance as a chronic disease — like smog, like asthma. “Not at all, sir! Senator Bambakias is deeply impressed by this facility. He strongly supports the federal research effort. He plans to make science policy a mainstay of his legislative agenda.”
“Then I can’t understand what you’re up to.” Felzian reached into a desk drawer and removed a sheaf of printout. “Look at these resignations. These are veteran scientists! Their morale has been crushed, they’re leaving us.”
“That would be Moulin, Lambert, Dulac, and Dayan?”
“They’re four of my very best people!”
“Yes, I agree that they’re very bright and determined. Unfortu-nately, they’re also Dougal loyalists.”
“So that’s it. So they’re very much in your way?”
“Yes, certainly. But you know, they’re not suffering by this. They’re moving out well ahead of the curve. They’ve all been snapped up by offers from private industry.”
Felzian leafed delicately through his papers. “How on earth do you arrange things like this? You’ve scattered them all over the coun-try. It’s amazing.”
“Thank you. It’s a difficult project, but with modern techniques, it’s doable. Let’s just take Dr. Moulin, for instance. Her husband’s from Vermont, and her son’s in school there. Her specialty is endocri-nology. So, we input the relevant parameters, and the optimal result was a small genetics firm in Nashua. The firm wasn’t eager to take her on a placement-service cold-call, but I had the Senator’s office call them, and talk about their domestic competition in Louisiana. The company was very willing to see reason then. And so was Dr. Moulin, once we queried her on those eccentricities in her lab’s expense ac-counts.”
“So you deliberately targeted her for elimination.”
“It’s attrition. It’s distraction. It looks perfectly natural. Those four are influential people, they’re local opinion leaders. They’re smart enough to create real trouble for us — if they had a mind to try it. But since they are, in fact, very smart people, we don’t have to beat them over the head with the obvious. We just point out the reality of their situation, and we offer them a golden parachute. Then they see sense. And they leave.”
“This is truly monstrous. You’re ripping the heart and soul out of my facility, and nobody will know — nobody will even see it.”
“No, sir, it’s not monstrous. It’s very humane. It’s good poli-tics. ”
“I can understand that you have the ability to do this. I don’t understand why you think you have the right.”
“Dr. Felzian … it’s not a question of rights. I’m a professional political operative. That’s my job. Nobody ever elected people like me. We’re not mentioned in the Constitution. We’re not accountable to the public. But nobody can get elected without a campaign profes-sional. I admit it: we’re an odd class of people. I agree with you, it’s very peculiar that we somehow have so much power. But I didn’t invent that situation. It’s a modern fact of life.”
“I see.”
“I’m doing what this situation requires, that’s all. I’m a Federal Democrat from the Reform Party Bloc, and this place needs serious reform. This lab requires a new broom. It’s full of cobwebs, like, let me think… well, like that casino yacht in Lake Charles that was purchased out of the irrigation funds.”
“I had nothing to do with that matter.”
“I know you didn’t, not personally. But you turned a blind eye to it, because Senator Dougal went to Congress every session, and he brought you back your bacon. I respect the effort that it takes to run this facility. But Senator Dougal was chair of the Senate Science Committee for sixteen years. You never dared to cross him. You’re probably lucky you didn’t — he’d have crushed you. But the guy didn’t steal just a little bit — he ended up stealing truckloads, and the country just can’t afford that anymore.”
Felzian leaned back in his chair. Oscar could see that he was beyond mere horror now — he was finding a peculiar gratification in all this. “Why are you telling me these things?”
“Because I know you’re a decent man, Mr. Director. I know that this lab has been your life’s work. You’ve been involved in some contretemps, but they were meant to protect your position, to protect this facility, under very trying conditions. I respect the efforts you’ve undertaken. I have no personal malice against you. But the fact of the matter is that you’re no longer politically expedient. The time has come for you to do the decent thing.”
“And what would that be, exactly?”
“Well, I have useful contacts in the University of Texas system. Let’s say, a post in the Galveston Health Science Center. That’s a nice town, Galveston — there’s not a lot left to the island since the seas have risen, but they’ve rebuilt their famous Seawall and there’s some lovely old housing there. I could show you some very nice brochures.”
Felzian laughed. “You can’t outplace every last one of us.”
“No, but I don’t have to. I only have to remove key opinion leaders, and the opposition will collapse. And if I can win your coop-eration, we can get this all over with in short order. With dignity, maintaining all the proprieties. That’s in the best interests of the sci-ence community.”
Felzian crossed his arms triumphantly. “You’re sweet-talking me like this because you don’t really have anything on me.”
“Why should I resort to threats? You’re a reasonable man.”
“You’ve got nothing! And I’m supposed to collaborate with you, resign my Directorship, and quietly fall on my sword? You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
“But I’m telling you the truth.”