“He knows about it all, then?” Kieran said.
“Yes, we kept him informed,” Dennis confirmed. “As we’ve said, we’re good friends. There was no reason not to.”
“So he’d be pretty upset to learn that the whole thing might be over.”
“Devastated,” Jean said again.
Kieran gave them a moment to reconsider what he had said earlier. “Then why don’t we give him a chance to help save it?” he suggested.
Dennis and Jean exchanged looks that were puzzled but at the same time interested. “I’m not sure I follow,” Dennis said.
“Pierre is in Lowell now, yes?” Kieran said. “I want us to call him, and for you to introduce me so I can ask him a few more questions about this work of his. Then, if it’s what it sounds like it could be, I’d like to offer that we try a sample out for him . . . but leave that part to me.” Kieran rose to his feet, as if what he was proposing were as natural and everyday as calling a friend to set up lunch. “Let’s go through to the Jug and call him from there. It’ll be more private.”
* * *
The face staring back from the screen in the Juggernaut’s center compartment was in its thirties, boyish but stubble-chinned, with intense dark eyes and a mop of black hair that hung in a curlicue over the forehead. Kieran’s first impressions of Pierre were that he was of the reflective sort, not overly given to words, serious in disposition, probably a romantic at heart—all of them good signs. Also, Pierre evidently had faith in Dennis and Jean’s judgment, showing equanimity over their telling Kieran as much as they had about his work—but being understandably curious.
Kieran posed the questions that he had listed, mainly concerning the coding system used and how it would be sent. The answers turned out to be surprisingly simple: the molecular receivers would respond to a pulse modulation impressed on a low-intensity, radio-frequency field surrounding the body. For remote direction to produce medical pharmaceuticals internally, the present intention was to send a signal to a body transducer worn by the patient, maybe on a belt, carried in a pocket, or worn as a bracelet or pendant. “But it wouldn’t have to be in contact?” Kieran checked. That was correct. A field from any equivalent transmitter would do, as long as the local field strength was sufficient. It sounded promising. Now Kieran came to the crucial part. He mustered the look of one about to divulge sensitive secrets.
“You’ve been pretty direct, Pierre. Thanks,” he acknowledged. “Now let me tell you why I’m interested. I’m not with the expedition just as your replacement. There’s a political aspect to what’s going on that Hamil couldn’t really talk about before Walter got here.” Which was perfectly true: neither Hamil nor anyone else had known about it. “Some people have shown up from one of the big construction conglomerates. They’re claiming first rights to the area, and if they succeed, they’ll obliterate everything. There’ll be nothing to show for the expedition, nothing on record. It will all be lost.”
Pierre looked aghast. “No!” he protested. “Such a thing would be criminal! It could never happen!”
“Tell Juanita,” Kieran replied. “Ask her what the oil industry did to dozens of unexcavated Olmec sites in Mexico a hundred years back.”
For the first time, Pierre seemed to lose some of his composure, shifting his gaze agitatedly from one to another of the three images confronting him. “They must be stopped!” he said.
“That’s what I’m here to find an angle on, if I can,” Kieran told him.
Pierre studied him, seeming to go back in his mind over what had been said. “Are you saying there’s something I can do? My work here can help somehow?”
“Maybe—if you don’t mind bending a rule or two,” Kieran said cheerfully. He made it sound like conspiring to do no more than keeping secret a birthday surprise. “And then again, it might even contribute something back. As I said before, you might think of it as helping the firm out by staging a small, unofficial field trial. . . .”