crowd and departed at full gallop amid jeers, catcalls, and a barrage of rocks
and assorted other missiles.
Meanwhile, high above the craggy ridge rising behind the cliff, the flyer came
out of the top of the cloudbank and streaked for the safety of the distant
mountains.
37
A TENSE ATMOSPHERE HUNG OVER THE EMERGENCY MEETING THAT had been called in the
Directors’ Conference Room on the top floor of the NASO Building in Washington,
D.C. Samuel Dulaney, the NASO president, was sitting in the center on one side
of the long, polished-mahogany table, with Walter Conlon and Warren Taylor from
the North American Division on one side of him, and two European representatives
on the other; facing them were Burton Ramelson and Gregory Buhl from GSEC,
Robert Fairley—Ramelson’s nephew from the GSEC affiliate New York Merchant Bank,
and two of the consultants who had been involved in negotiating the funding for
the Orion mission. Phillip Berness, the U.S. secretary of state and Julius
Gorsche from his department were sitting clustered around one end of the table
with Kevin Whaley, the presidential aide, and an advisor on international
relations from the European Parliament.
Walter Conlon held up the sheet of paper that constituted one of his most
damning pieces of evidence, copies of which he had already circulated, and
stabbed at it with a finger of his other hand. It was a reproduction of a
document that had been faked on instructions from Caspar Lang for Thelma’s
benefit; but Gerold Massey hadn’t known it was a fake when he prepared an urgent
communication for transmission from the Orion, and neither did Conlon. “It says
right here in black and white, item five—’Antiaircraft missile, short-range,
actively guided, infantry-launched. Model ILAAM-27 /F, Mark 4, “Banshee.”
Quantity: 24 . . .’ And items six and seven call for twelve dummy warheads,
normally used for training, and twelve live ones.” Conlon lowered the paper and
sent a challenging look round the table. “What could be clearer than that? Those
weapons were shipped down to the Paduans at a time when it was known full well
that Earthpeople were at large in a purloined surface lander, and likely to show
up in the very area where those weapons would be deployed. The implications
don’t have to be spelled out. This amounts to nothing less than attempted
murder.”
Buhl looked along the table at Berness. “Something like this couldn’t have been
agreed without Dan Leaherney knowing about it,” he insisted. “What in God’s name
could have possessed him? I can’t afford to see GSEC’s name linked to this kind
of thing if it ever becomes public knowledge.” In other words, the mission was
technically under political direction, and the corporation men were already
preparing themselves fireproof boxes to jump into.
Berness shook his head. “I can’t explain it, Greg. It goes beyond all the
guidelines. I don’t know what in hell’s been going on out there.”
“You, er . . . you still haven’t told us how you come to have this document in
your possession,” Robert Fairley said, hoping to ease the strain by
sidetracking.
“How I got it doesn’t make any difference,” Conlon replied tightly. “It’s a
reproduction of part of a loading manifest for one of the shuttles sent down to
Padua base from the Orion. Why we should be shipping weapons down there to
enable the Taloids to kill each other more effectively is a big enough question
in itself, but the only purpose of the particular ones I’ve just indicated can
be to kill people—our people.”
Dulaney, the NASO chief, gnawed at his knuckle for a few seconds longer,
straightened up in his chair, then pushed himself back, looked up at the others,
and shook his head decisively. “I thought we were just giving token support to
the ruler of a small country that’s having insurgency problems.” He shook his
head again and pointed at the sheet of paper still in Conlon’s hand. “But
that?—That’s enough to start a war! I mean, what in hell are our people there
playing at? I can’t let NASO even be suspected of condoning anything like that.
Our involvement covers getting the Orion to Saturn and back, and the scientific