As a weapon, Ingrid Dekker had turned in the hands of Her wielders, and bit to the bone. Dekker was no longer the faceless Belter exile, he was the pilot who’d pulled a spectacular success with the Hellburner, he was a kid with a human grievance and a mother held prisoner by causes and politicians, and the demonstration organizer who had shoved Ingrid Dekker away from the reporters was under heavy condemnation and refusing questions.
Demas was right: it didn’t hurt that Dekker had the face of a vid star and sincerity that came through the body language. The crew hadn’t played badly either the rumored split in the UDG Fleet ranks, Ben Pollard with his UDC insignia on his flightsuit, Kady and Aboujib in flash and high tech, all of them profoundly concerned and angry at a human issue…. While on the evening and morning news around the world, Alyce Salazar was doing damage control, covering her partisans, claiming that the Fleet had manipulated the media (truth) and mat, quote, the important issues were being ignored in a rush to sympathy for a lying scoundrel who’d conned her daughter…
Dekker might be seeing it—he’d ordered open media access for appearances’ sake while reporters were here, if no other reason; and had no argument from Porey. The vid was going out over all the station, their local authority doing no screening whatsoever.
“J-G,” Demas said, “honestly, 7 didn’t know until they ordered me to take charge of Security, right when the test started. They did query Saito, early on, for an assessment of Dekker’s personnel record, his cultural makeup—“
“They. Did the captain know?”
‘’I don’t know what there is to know. My guess is, Mazian sent Porey in here to figure the odds. If it was good enough, go, shove the best team in the ship and make the run; and if it turned out to be Dekker, meet the political chaff head-on, no hiding it, aim him straight for the cameras and damn all Salazar could do.”
“Pardon me, Nav, but the hell the timing was random! High noon in Europe, in Bonn? Mazian’s there. He knows the schedule. He knew it would draw instant fire!”
“I don’t think he planned the scene with Dekker’s mother.”
“I don’t put it past him.”
“I think you give him too much credit. Some things just drop into your lap. But Mazian did want the protests— according to Saito. He wanted to solidify the issue, Saito says, so that it has substance, and men shoot that substance
to bell. Make the peacers take a specific position and prove them wrong.”
“Dekker’s mother.”
“Dekker’s mother is a side issue. An opportunity I’m sure they’ll take advantage of. Not mentioning Salazar. The EC wants Salazar stopped, in such a way it won’t break Mars out of the union… and we have the Kent business with MarsCorp’s fingerprints all over it.”
“And daren’t use it, dammit, we daren’t even arrest Kent and Booten, we don’t know—“
A stray thought crossed his mind.
“What?” Demas asked in his silence. “Don’t know what?”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at the vid, where another instant opinion poll was playing. A radical shift in the numbers in the last 5 hours, plus or minus 3 points of accuracy. People believed the things they’d seen. 45% believed Paul Dekker was innocent and 46% now believed there was a significant threat of the war reaching Earth.
He said to Demas, apropos of nothing previous, “I want a statement prepared, a public relations version of Dekker’s rile. In case. I don’t like unanticipateds, Nav.”
“You’ve got it. But the Company will black-hole it. Salazar is too sensitive an issue. And far too powerful. She’s using the issues, she’s not the grieving mother, she’s a politician. Kent…has got to be a professional. And if we’ve got him, there’ll be others—inside the Earth Company offices, for all we know.”
“All the same,” he said.
He offered Demas a thin smile, and Demas took himself and his securitied briefcase back to the carrier, to Saito, to whatever lines of communication they were using to reach the captain with or without Mazian’s knowledge.