He directed the last question to Massey. Massey nodded firmly and leaned forward to prop his elbows on the edge of the table. “Right. Bill Summers is up to speed now and needs more to keep him occupied. He’d be ideal.”
Edwards had definitely overplayed his hand, Clifford decided. Acknowledging a matter of scientific but academic interest was one thing; suddenly playing down all the things that had previously been considered more important was another.
“How will Corrigan feel about that?” Clifford asked, keeping his tone deliberately nonchalant.
“You needn’t worry about him,” Edwards said reassuringly. “I can guarantee he’ll stay out of the way and not interfere.”
Edwards had taken the bait. He had just told Clifford that the whole subject had already been discussed and agreed at the highest levels within ACRE, and no doubt beyond as well—hardly fitting for a topic of mere academic interest, one would have thought. The whole setup, then, was a device to keep Clifford working on the theory, to keep the ideas flowing. But at the same time he was not being informed openly that those ideas were attracting a lot of serious attention already. The action had started, but he was being left out of it.
“Sounds like a good deal, Brad,” Massey commented. “I’d have thought you’d be jumping at it by now.”
Either Massey hadn’t seen through all the persiflage, or he was playing back the party line exceptionally well. Clifford decided to give Edwards one last chance to come clean. He held the professor’s eye and said in a soft, curious voice: “That’s all very nice to hear. But theories aren’t much use without some kind of evidence to back them up. If Washington is sufficiently interested to go ahead and you’re as interested as you’ve indicated, why can’t we simply organize some tests of some of the predictions? They don’t have to be all that elaborate or time-consuming. There are places around with the equipment for setting up suitable experiments. If some of the simpler things could be proved—or disproved, as the case may be—right now, it could save a lot of wasted time in the long run.”
Clifford watched the reactions of the other two closely as he posed this suggestion. For a split second a hint of guilt flashed across Edwards’s eyes before he brought it under control. At the same time, Massey turned toward the professor and shrugged. “Sounds a good idea to me,” he commented.
In that split second Clifford learned two things. First, Massey was not in on the conspiracy. His remark had been genuine, and in any case his taking up of Clifford’s point in that way would have been inconsistent with his situation had he known that such experiments were already in progress. He would not, knowingly, have made Edwards’s position more difficult. Second, there was no question of Edwards’s failure to mention the experiments being accidental, since Clifford had just provided an unmistakable cue for him to put right the omission. Clifford was being squeezed out.
Edwards then supplied all the confirmation Clifford needed. “Mmm . . . You have a point, Dr. Clifford. I agree, once we know that the theoretical arguments are on completely solid ground, yes, perhaps something along those lines might be in order. But for the time being, certainly until Washington is involved officially and has had a chance to comment, I feel that such measures would be . . . er . . . somewhat premature.”
Massey turned his gaze from Edwards to Clifford and performed his inevitable about-face as surely as if Edwards had been working the levers.
“It’s a bit early yet, Brad, see?” he said. “Maybe later on when Washington has gotten into the act. What d’you say, huh?”
In the end Clifford agreed. Nothing he could have said without involving Aub would have changed the politics, and at least Edwards had given him unrestricted access to the facilities that he needed to do the things he wanted to do. Also, he would be relieved of doing the things that he didn’t want to do. As Massey had said, it was not really so bad a deal. Clifford was not particularly interested in the politics anyway—just curious. He could sense the sticky glue of officialdom beginning to congeal and felt better off staying clear of it . . . up to a point. Every man, after all, had his pride.