He moved a step or two forward, and looked up at Kaelor’s body.

“I’ve just killed the closest thing to a friend I’ve ever had.”

13

JADELO GILDERN LIKED to tell himself that his job was to guess-and to guess correctly. The job of an intelligence chief was not to know everything. That was impossible. But a good intelligence chief was capable of seeing the whole puzzle when many of the pieces were lost, or hidden, or even disguised. A good intel chief could see the underlying pattern, take what he knew of the facts, what he knew of the personalities involved and figure out how they would interact. He could calculate what a person’s words and actions-or absence of words and actions-actually meant.

And as he sat in his office in the Ironhead Building, and thought over the situation, he was close to reaching an interesting conclusion. He was almost tempted to go the whole distance now. He knew it had to be the Settlers behind the Government Tower chaos, and it took no excess of brainpower to guess that they had been after Lentrall. And Gildern knew exactly what other steps he himself would have taken to suppress the information Lentrall had. Presumably the Settler leaders, Tonya Welton and Cinta Melloy, had as much sense as he did.

That much was all speculative, of course. However, one thing he did know to something like a certainty. He had already divined where Kresh had vanished to. Gildern had been able to use the Ironhead taps into the air traffic control system, and spot three long-range aircar flights, two starting at the governor’s private residence, and one terminating there. One, the first, had been untraceable in the storm. The return flight of the same vehicle had come in from precisely one hundred and eighty degrees away from the direction of Purgatory. That was exactly the sort of thing a robot would do if told to take evasive action. And then, a third flight, with a flight plan filed, showing a destination of First Circle, a small and far-off suburb of Hades. First Circle’s air traffic control had no record of the aircar arriving. Either it had crashed, or it had gone somewhere else. Gildern could guess where.

Three flights. One to carry Kresh, one to ferry back the aircar, and one to transport others to his side-perhaps his wife. But even without the return flight pointing in precisely the opposite direction, Gildern would have guessed Purgatory. One had to consider where the man would want to go at such a time. It was almost inevitable that he had gone off to consult the experts at the Terraforming Center on Purgatory. No, finding the man would be no problem. He would either be at the Center, or at the Winter Residence. He, Gildern, could get in an aircar and be face to face with the man in four hours’ time.

But would it be worth the trip? Had he worked out the rest of it properly?

There was, happily enough, a way to find out. Simcor Beddle had been good enough to inform Gildern what he was about to say in the speech he had decided to make. Gildern had felt a certain degree of surprise that Beddle was ready to take such daring steps. But he was not beneath using his master, when his master’s actions suited his purposes. Gildern was always prepared to manipulate Beddle in order to achieve some private agenda of his own.

But this time Beddle had needed no prodding, no buttering up, no encouragement. For once, Gildern had not had to feed an idea to Beddle, and then convince Beddle the idea was his. For once, Beddle was acting on his own.

If Beddle’s speech did not provoke a particular and immediate reaction from Alvar Kresh, then Gildern would know the governor was in trouble, and know it to such a high probability that it would be more accurate to call it a certainty. Gildern smiled. That would be most pleasant.

For then Gildern would be in a position to do the governor a little favor, while serving his own master at the same time.

And there were worse things in the universe than a planetary governor owing one a favor.

GAMBLE, SIMCOR BEDDLE told himself. A wise man knows when it is time to gamble, and now is the time. He drew himself up to his full height behind the lectern-aided not a little bit by the tall step discreetly hidden place behind it for that purpose-and looked squarely into the camera.

“I am here,” he said, “in order to make two announcements that I think you will find surprising. “ An excited murmur filled the room-or at least it seemed to do so. There was no one in the room, other than Beddle and the robots operating the cameras and the sound system, but there was no need for the world to know that. Nor was “here” any place in particular, other than the broadcast studio in the basement of the Ironhead Building. He had not said where he was, but he had certainly made it sound like an important place, an important event, and that was all that mattered.

He had help, of course. The robot operating the sound system knew his business, and knew just how to create a spurious murmur of surprise, the shifting of seats that were not there and even the subdued and subtle hum of imaginary datapads as nonexistent reporters took their notional notes.

All of it worked on the subconscious, but it worked all the same. Simcor Beddle knew how the media operated on Inferno. He was feeding his speech direct to the news nets, but hardly anyone would see the speech now, live. It would be edited down, with a snippet presented as if it were the whole thing.

People would see perhaps ninety seconds of his speech on one or the other of the news services, a short enough slice of time that they would not expect a description of where and why the speech was made. They would hear the background sounds under his voice, see the opulent red curtains behind his head, catch the implication in his words that he was speaking to some very important group at some very important event. Subtle stuff. Subtle enough that the viewers would not quite know why they thought it was important, but the impression would be placed in their minds all the same. Simcor Beddle, the leader of the Ironheads himself, had addressed some group one didn’t quite catch the name of, and there had dropped his bombshells on a waiting world. When one had sufficient control over fantasy, one had no need of reality.

Beddle looked alertly out over the audience that wasn’t there. “First, I would like to confirm the story that has been circulating since last night.” He paused dramatically. “There is indeed a government plan to drop a comet onto this planet, on the Utopia region to be precise. The impact will assist in the formation of a Polar Sea, which will, in turn, enhance Inferno’s planetary climate.” The sound effects robots brought up the appropriate murmur of astonishment and surprise. “The project is very much in its planning stages, and the government is not yet definitely committed to it. However, the government is making its preparations just the same, as well they should be. Time is short. The comet in question was discovered only recently, and preparations must be made in advance of the final decision to proceed if there is to be time to make it happen.”

Simcor paused once more, and looked directly into the camera. “This brings me to my second announcement. There are those among you who will find it even more startling than the first. I fully support the government plan. I have seen certain planning documents and results projections and risk assessments. There are, beyond question, serious dangers involved. Nor will the task be easy. There is a tremendous amount of work that must be done in a very short time. But I have also seen the estimates of the probable fate of our planet, what will happen here if we don’t seize this chance. Suffice it to say those projections are grim. Grim enough that I have concluded we must seize this chance, risks and all.” Simcor paused once again, and looked about the room with a meaningful expression. “While I support the comet-impact plan, I must take the government to task most severely for the manner in which it has concealed its plans from you, the people of Inferno. Surely no one can question that this project will affect every man and woman on this planet. The decision should not have been made in secret.”