She let the sentence trail away and left it at that.
Pacey sat down on the edge of a haif-ifiled packing case and stared at her incredulously. A few seconds went by before he found his voice. “You actually saw all this?” he asked at last.
“Yes. . . I can’t give you all of it word for word, but that was what it said.” She hesitated. “I know it’s crazy, if that helps. . . .”
“Does Sverenssen know you saw this report?”
“I don’t see how he could. I put everything back exactly the way it was. I guess I could have got you more of it, but I didn’t know how long he’d be away. As it turned out, he was gone quite a while.”
“That’s okay. You did the right thing not risking it.” Pacey stared down at the floor for a while, feeling totally bewildered. Then he looked up again and asked, “How about you? Has he been acting strange now that we’re leaving? Anything . . . ominous, maybe?”
“You mean sinister warnings to keep my mouth shut about the computer?”
“Mmm . . . yes, maybe.” Pacey looked at her curiously.
She shook her head and smiled faintly. “Quite the opposite as a matter of fact. He’s been very gentlemanly and said what a shame it is. He even hinted that we could get together again sometime back on Earth-he could fix me up with a job that pays real money, all kinds of interesting people to meet. . . stuff like that.”
A smarter move, Pacey thought to himself. High hopes and
treachery had never gone together. “Do you believe him?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Pacey nodded in approval. “You are growing up fast.” He looked around the office and massaged his forehead wearily. “I’m going to have to do some thinking now. I’m glad you told me about it. But you’ve got your coat on, which says you probably have to get back to work. Let’s not start upsetting Malliusk again.”
“He’s off today,” Janet said. “But you’re right-I do have to get back.” She stood up and moved toward the door, then turned back as she was about to open it. “I hope it was okay. I know you said to keep this away from the delegation offices, but it seemed important. And with everybody leaving. .
“Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. I’ll see you again later.”
Janet departed, leaving the door open in response to Pacey’s wave request. Pacey sat for a while and began turning what she had told him over again in his mind, but was interrupted by the UNSA privates coming in to sort out the~ boxes ready for moving. He decided to go and think about it over a coffee in the common room.
The only people in the common room when Pacey entered a few minutes later were Sverenssen, Daldanier, and two of the other delegates, who were all together at the bar. They acknowledged his arrival with a few not overfriendly nods of their heads and continued talking among themselves. Pacey collected a coffee from the dispenser on one side of the room and sat down at a table in the far corner, wishing inwardly that he had picked somewhere else. As he studied them surreptitiously over his cup, he listed in his mind the unanswered questions that he had collected concerning the tall, immaculately groomed Swede who was standing in the center of the vassals gathered around him at the bar.
Perhaps Pacey’s fears about the Shapleron had been misplaced. Could what Janet had overheard have been connected with the communications from Gistar ceasing so abruptly? It had happened suspiciously soon afterward. If so, how could Sverenssen and at least one other member of the delegation have known about it? And how were Sverenssen and Daldanier connected with Verikoff, whom Pacey knew from CIA reports to be a Soviet expert in
space communications? If there were some conspiracy between Moscow and an inner clique of the UN, why had Sobroskin cooperated with Pacey? Perhaps that had been part of some even more elaborate ruse. He had been wrong to trust the Russian, he admitted to himself bitterly. He should have used Janet and kept Sobroskin and Malliusk out of it.