“Lost him? What do you mean, lost him? How can we . . . ?”
“He—” Somebody interrupted Urkin from one side. He looked away and muttered something. More voices sounded indistinctly in the background. “Lan, look, I’m sorry but we’re right in the middle of something right now. Why don’t you give him a call, and I’ll talk to you about it later—say, thirty minutes to an hour. Can we do that?”
“Why, sure, Les. . . . Shall I call you back?”
“Sure. . . . Or we could grab a sandwich. I still haven’t had lunch.”
“Okay. Want me to come into town?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. My treat.”
“See you then, Les.”
Keene got the number from the directory in his pocket phone and called Salio right there via the office unit he was using. Salio was at once awkward, as if he had been expecting the call and not looking forward to it. There was no point in beating around the bush. “I’m just down from orbit and talked to Les,” Keene said. “He tells me there’s some kind of trouble.”
“There isn’t going to be any appearance on Coast-to-Coast, Dr. Keene,” Salio said heavily.
“Why not? What’s happened? Are you saying you were dropped?”
Salio shook his head. “It was me. I canceled out. . . . I got a letter from the university in England raising questions about my legitimacy to conduct what they termed `serious scientific investigation,’ and hinting not very subtly that the invitation for the two-year sabbatical might be subject to reconsideration.” He looked embarrassed. “It’s more than just a job. Jean’s got her heart set on going there, and it would be so valuable for the children. . . . I know it’s important to you, but . . .” Salio shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dr. Keene. I don’t think I can help you. I’m sure you won’t have too much trouble finding someone else.”
Vicki looked up from studying a plot of field intensity contours when Keene came back out into the main computing lab. “This is astounding, Lan. If we’d had probes out there too, our scientists would have known about this too, months ago.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh. And Judith says that Karen is probably going to be leaving us. It seems the current boyfriend is from Dallas and can get a job for her, so she’ll be moving there. Just when she was beginning to fit in and get the hang of things, too. It’s a pity. She’s been doing a good job. I guess we have to start going through the replacement routine again.”
“Um. How long have we got?”
“About two months, apparently, so it could be worse. . . .” Vicki saw that Keene was only half listening. “Lan, what is it, Lan?”
“I’ll tell you later. Look, can you get a ride back with Judith? I’ve changed my plans. I have to dash into town to see Les.”
* * *
“It’s not just with Salio,” Urkin said tiredly across the table of the booth. They had walked a block from the headquarters building to a coffee and sandwich shop that a lot of the downtown Amspace staff used. “There’s a campaign being orchestrated from somewhere to kill our side of the story. And it’s not just your neighborhood eco club saving bugs or weeds. Look how high they went to persuade Salio to back off—and were able to get attention.”
Keene had a pretty good idea where from. He nodded grimly. “Okay. So what else have we got?”
Urkin tossed up a hand while he stirred his coffee. “Two talk-show appearances mysteriously canceled at the last minute in the last few days. You remember that guy Herrenberg that I told you about—the astronomer from Hawaii that we were putting on last Saturday night?”
“The one Charlie Hu organized. Yes, sure.”
“We’d flown him into LA. He was actually waiting in the green room when the interview was scratched.”
Keene was incredulous. “You’re kidding!”
“Herrenberg was just as much in the dark too. He was just told that there had been a schedule change, and he was paid off. Obviously, somebody got leaned on by somebody somewhere with a lot of weight. I couldn’t get anything out of them that made any sense when I called, although the producer’s assistant let something slip about one of the science agencies in Washington. . . . Oh yes, and you know the book that we were waiting for to appear this month?”