The red camera light went out. “Thanks, Mr. Toddrel,” the set manager called from behind the lights. “That’s was good. That’s it. You’re done.”
Toddrel collected together the notes he had laid on the desk, got up, and headed for the door. Ibsan, his bodyguard, saw him through the glass wall of an adjacent monitor room and came out. “Mr. Toddrel. You’d better see this.” Ibsan nodded back over his shoulder.
“What is it?”
“Flash just coming in from Bolivia. That Hyadean mining center at Uyali. Half their military base down there blew up. It’s like it got nuked.”
“Jesus. . . .”
Toddrel followed Ibsan into the room, which was lined on one side with consoles and screens. Three of the operators were grouped in front of one showing a scene panning across the wreckage and carnage of whole blocks of peculiar Hyadean building-block architecture shattered and twisted into grotesque shapes, with a pall of smoke hanging over the background. Crews from emergency vehicles had started bringing out survivors, while more flyers and Terran-built helicopters descended into view from above. A voiceover was talking excitedly and breathlessly.
“About fifteen minutes ago,” one of the operators commented, seeing that Toddrel had joined them. “The whole back end of the place just went up. From the accounts, it sounds as if it was the armory. It was loaded. A shipment of Hyadean ammo and stuff just arrived from orbit. They’re counting the death toll in hundreds already.” Toddrel watched grimly for a few minutes, but there was nothing of further significance to be learned. He caught Ibsan’s eye and jerked his head curtly in the direction of the door as a sign for them to leave. They stopped by a door at the end of a corridor of offices.
“It had to be those new remote-detonatable munitions,” Ibsan murmured. “Somehow the wrong people got access to the codes. I don’t know what kind of a can of worms it opens up, but I figured you ought to know right away.”
Toddrel nodded, still thinking frantically. “You did right, Earl.”
He should never have agreed to letting Drisson look into it, he told himself. There were too many factions at large, too many conflicting interests. The opportunities for betrayal should have made the risks unthinkable. In normal circumstances he would never have condoned it. He had no idea who the perpetrators might have been. The Asians or one of their breakaway groups? Part of the guerrilla front? Some other lunatic sect? Drisson himself for some reason? Somebody Drisson was mixed up with, who had an agenda of their own? . . . But whatever, there was one person who was sure to be high on everybody’s suspect list.
Roger Achim, the program’s producer, came through from the set, accompanied by a couple of assistants. “Everything all right, Mr. Toddrel?”
“Yes, just fine,” Toddrel responded mechanically.
“Good, good.”
“Oh, one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Is there somewhere private that I could use? I have to make a confidential call urgently.”
“Sure. Susie, find Mr. Toddrel an empty office along there somewhere, would you?”
Minutes later, Toddrel was confronting the blue-purple features of Gazaghin, the Hyadean military commander in Washington. He had heard the news, and his mood was murderous.
“I just wanted to assure you personally that I had absolutely no knowledge of this appalling—”
Gazaghin interrupted. “Don’t waste the breath, Toddrel. I don’t believe for long time anything you say. It makes no difference now who does this, in any place. I warned you. Now it’s not your war now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is too much. We trust to let Terrans in charge. Look what happens. Now there is protest risings and angry questions all over Chryse. We have orders from our government to put the stop. We control now.”
“But it’s not within their jurisdiction to,” Toddrel objected. “You are still aliens within a sovereign territory. . . .”
Gazaghin slammed a hand down on the surface where he was speaking. “When Hyadean dead are hundreds, it is our jurisdiction!” he bellowed. “When illegal propaganda pictures are flooding our world, it’s our jurisdiction. Your President Ellis has just signed the order. This country’s armed forces are now under my command.”