“I’m sure so, too, sir. They have dossiers on every tap. I think it was the Freethinker connection that attracted their attention. Mistakenly so, in his case, but right on target in certain facts.”
“And why in hell, Agent Magdallen, didn’t you advise me of those facts before I sent that kid in there to investigate Gide?”
“I’d no way to do that without blowing my cover, which I was under orders not to do. Unfortunately—someone was aware of the Gide situation. Someone disposed of the guards and sat outside waiting there for the door to open, for Gide to be in view. If he hadn’t been, they’d have gone in after him. They didn’t snatch your tap. I don’t think they wanted to. They didn’t want him.”
“Why not?”
“Perhaps because they didn’t want you to invoke the police powers you have. They didn’t want Project law to activate, and it wouldn’t, so long as Procyon got back to us. I don’t know, sir. I only conclude that because they didn’ttake him. They didn’t want that train of events to take place.”
“Meanwhile the Project tap has been hacked from down on the world. The alarm system hasn’t been functioning for months. Years.”
“The Ila could indeed have passed critical information. Or orders, to persons on this station. Yes.”
The Ila herself could have been behind the attack on Procyon. He weighed the notion. Weighed it twice, and it came up far short. “The Ila doesn’t botch her moves. Whoever did this missed killing the ambassador. Possibly the agents panicked. Possibly the result was what they wanted. But if at any moment she’d wanted to kill Procyon, she could have done it outright. Ask her current tap—who can’t be asked anything.”
“You say she doesn’t make mistakes. Possibly her hands up here did. But as you say, sir, the result fell short of murder. Maybe the result was exactly what someone wanted. Not to kill either of them.”
“Only to penetrate the containment? To strand the man here? To create disturbance between our office and the governor?”
Magdallen shrugged.
“You think the Movement wants Gide stranded here?” Brazis asked him. “For what bloody reason? Gide is Treaty Board, almost certainly. And survives, now, as a permanent resident of this station? What possible advantage to the Movement?”
“I can say Ididn’t attack Gide. Did you, sir?”
“No.”
“Because?”
“Because it would be stupid.”
“Exactly,” Magdallen said. “Exactly. Why would the Movement want Gide here? Cui bono?To whom the advantage—in this attack that doesn’t kill Mr. Gide?”
Not to the governor. Not to the Ila. Not to the Project or to Apex. “To his own authority.” He didn’t like being led. But he followed the logic. Some Earth faction. It made uncomfortably thorough sense.
“To strand Mr. Gide here. To set him up here, an establishment without the trouble of negotiation against the provisions of the Treaty—negotiations that might take decades, provoke problems, and still be refused.”
It made disturbing sense. Negotiations would be refused. A Treaty Board officer, stranded here, alive, was still a Treaty Board officer. They might not have told Gide what they were going to do. Gide might have been sandbagged by his own authority.
“Earth does have agents here,” Magdallen said, which was an of-course. Then: “Highly placed agents.”
“Specifically?”
“Dortland,sir, to be precise.”
Dortland. Reaux’s security director, in command of all the special agents and all the Earther police on the station.
“Are you entirely sure of that?”
“Apex is sure of that.”
“What agency is he?”
“That, we’re not sure. But by the direction things are taking, someone who wants the Treaty Board to have an office here.”
“Damned little use if Dortland already is a Treaty Board officer.”
“If he can preserve his clandestine nature, that would be useful. And he may not be of Mr. Gide’s intellectual level. But I’m relatively certain Apex’s suspicions are correct. It’s suspected in certain underworld quarters that Dortland is slinking for some agency or another, that he’s just too well networked to be the usual governor’s security appointee. He’s suspected of having his fingers on the pulse of Blunt—having contact with persons who, if picked up for any reason, don’t stay arrested. Persons that don’t form part of the ordinary criminal element, persons that make the criminal element very nervous. I personally wonder,” Magdallen said, “if he’s been not chasing the same thing Gide is chasing.”
“And then attacks Gide, establishing him here?”
“There are rival agencies,” Magdallen said.
“None that would wanta Treaty Board office here, none except the Treaty Board itself.”
“There is that point.”
“And the governor?” Brazis dreaded to learn. He had come to likeSetha Reaux, in a limited way. “Is he in on this notion?”
“Certainly due to be watched by this organization, which holds a power quite outside the authority that appoints governors—an organization that doesn’t accept policy directives from the Earth Authority. Possibly they’re ambitious to expand their office. Gide will run an aboveboard operation. And Dortland will remain in the shadows as a countercheck on Gide, never informing him that he was the one to strand him here.”
That theory was worth examining. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered about Reaux’s staff. “His secretary, Ernst Albers?”
“Loyal, as far as I know, but Albers moves outside my circle. There’s another point, however. Reaux’s daughter. Her friends have friends on Blunt. Her situation is worrisome. She’s run away to Blunt. She’s certainly vulnerable. Therefore, so is the governor, who may be asked directly for favors.”
“I doubt Reaux is part of this. He predates this mess.”
“I happen to concur, sir, for what it’s worth. But Earth may know about the contact you have with him and take a dim view of it, to Reaux’s great detriment.”
Damn. Damn.Warn Reaux about Dortland? Or not? Ask Magdallen’s opinion on the matter? Or not?
“You do have heightened security, sir,” Magdallen informed him. “Also from Apex. Word’s come down, through channels not unrelated to my presence here, that your personal security should take every precaution against your untimely demise. Don’t leave the offices unguarded. Don’t meet personally with Reaux. Apex had rather Reaux than, for instance, the governor’s opposition. Lyle Nazrani, the financier, isn’t personally eligible for the office, not being Earthborn, but he’s certainly apt to be a prime source of information for this new Treaty Board installation, much of it aimed at Governor Reaux. Most significantly, Apex had rather have you over the PO, rather than wasting your time with the civil politics of the Council at this point. They wish you would resign the Council chairmanship forthwith in favor of your proxy and concentrate entirely on the PO. They assure you of their protection should you do so.”
For a moment it was not Magdallen speaking. It was a set of voices he knew, and little liked. An old argument, that he should remove himself farther from politics and controversy. But Magdallen managed to raise it not offensively, but as a matter of logic.
The Chairman General would love to have him out of the political arena.
But this time, in such grave circumstances, he found himself actually listening to the proposal and considering the step that would set his proxy in the station administrative post for good and all. His hitherto placid PO domain had several major crosscurrents he hadn’t been able to monitor—one of which, the condition of the alarm system, might well have predated his administration. That had to be fixed. That was going to take some serious attention in the process.
But protection? Damnedif he liked Apex meddling with his security. He had to accept the security arrangements that both watched the Project and protected him,but he didn’t want them triggered from Apex without warning, and he certainly didn’t like clandestine operations that came tramping through here, provoking reactions—knowledge that a stranger was on the tap system could itself have triggered the Ila to act.