“Matthew, as far as I can comp it out,” Prior began, “you just made a very serious charge against the direcof Holocosmic.”
“I don’t recall making any sort of charge against anyFlamen said hastily. “But if you have something important and urgent to say, why not.?”
He cast around in his mind for a chance of privacy. Everything said over the comweb in these offices, as in the offices of any firm contracted to the Holocosmic netwas monitored, analyzed and if necessary relayed to the directorate. Ah yes!
“Why not ride out to the Ginsberg with me and call on Celia?”
“Not this afternoon,” Prior said.
“Oh, come now! She’s your sister as well as my wife, remember.” A hamhanded attempt to get something discreditable on the record; it failed.
“I’m booked for exercises with my citidef group,” Prior said, ever the solid, responsible member of society. “Besides, you know that Dr. Mogshack disapproves of intrusions from his patients’ former environment, and I wouldn’t care to go against his judgment.”
“I regard contact between husband and wife as highly normalizing, even if he doesn’t.” The juiceless old stick, Flamen added to himself-but it wouldn’t do to utter the comment aloud, not when he had so narrowly scraped under the blade of Holocosmic’s guillotine by appealing to Mogshack’s reputation.
“That’s as may be,” Prior shrugged. “Nonetheless, the point I’m getting at is this.” He hesitated, with an air of calculation. “Matthew, to be blunt, I think you’re becoming a trifle paranoid about this trouble we’re having on the show. While I concede”-switch to reasonconcession-making tone-“it’s debatable whether Holocosmic can be said to have afforded us maximal coin our attempts to eliminate the interference fouling up our transmissions, it’s something else altogether to associate that with failures of our internal comweb here at the Etchmark.” Back to stern, fatherly manner, though he was only three years Flamen’s senior: the standard role of the knowledgeable worldly manager protecting the admirably idealistic star of the show from his own lack of cynicism.
“So I suggest,” he concluded, “you authorize me to call in an outside expert to substantiate these suspicions of yours. They’re far too grave to be allowed to pass unchallenged.”
Flamen stared at him incredulously. Outside expert? Had Prior taken leave of his senses? What “outside excould outfox Holocosmic’s own computers-what court could anyone persuade to believe in the fantastic notion of a major network sabotaging its own transmisOnly one explanation occurred to him for Prior’s extraordinary behavior, and before he had time to think it over the pressure of anger had driven him to blurt it out.
“What happened to put you on Holocosmic’s side all of a sudden? Did one of the brass take you out of bugrange and make you a proposition? No matter what kind of a minefield I’m driven into, I can’t jump clear! I have bugs keeping watch on my bugs!”
He was distantly aware that the look on Prior’s face had shifted from smugness to pure horror, but he plunged on anyway. “And if I could afford bugging to that standard, you’re the first person I’d sic ’em on! Not wanting to go visit your own sister when she’s in the hospital!”
He cut the circuit with a trembling hand before he said anything more damaging to his prospects. If that particular exchange ever came up in court, he reflected bitterly, he’d be hard put to it to argue that concern for Celia had motivated his temporary loss of control. The suggestion of calling on her this afternoon had been strictly a spur-of-the-moment improvisation so that he could talk to Prior out of eavesdropping range.
But it would have to be done now, of course. Scowling, he headed for the door.
Almost immediately, to his horror and dismay, he reajust how over-hasty his reaction to Prior had been, but he put off facing the consequences as long as he could.
“Have I ever watched a pythoness perform?” repeated Xavier Conroy, over the border up Canada way. This was a crummy run-down poverty-stricken sort of a colbut living far enough in the past not to mind that his reputation was a horse-drawn hearse for his career. “No, I never have. But the phenomenon is interesting, and well worth discussing. How do you view it?”