She had served as news director for Selene for a while but, at her husband’s prodding, semi-retired to a consultant’s position. Doug Stavenger wanted no dynasties in Selene’s political or social structure and Edith agreed with him, almost completely. She clung to her consultant’s position, even though she barely ever tried to interfere with the operation of the news media in Selene.
But now she had a reason to get involved, and she waited with growing impatience for the head of the news department to finish the scene he was personally directing.
The young model took off her fishbowl helmet and collapsed the transparent inflatable fabric in her hands. Then she unsealed her soft-suit, peeled it off her arms and wriggled it past her hips. She’d be kind of sexy, Elgin thought, if she weren’t wearing those coveralls.
At last the scene was finished, the crew clicked off their handheld cameras, and the news director turned and headed for the door.
“Edie!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know you’d come up here.”
“We’ve got to talk, Andy.”
The news director’s name was Achmed Mohammed Wajir, and although he traced his family roots back to the Congo, he had been born in Syria and raised all over the Middle East. His childhood had been the gypsy existence of a diplomat’s son: never in one city for more than two years at a time. His father sent him to Princeton for an education in the classics, but young Achmed had fallen in love with journalism instead. He went to New York and climbed through the rough-and-tumble world of the news media until a terrorist bomb shattered his legs. He came to Selene where he could accept nanotherapies that rebuilt his legs, but he could never return to Earth while he carried nanomachines inside him. Wajir soon decided he didn’t care. The Moon’s one-sixth g made his recovery easier, and at Selene the competition in the news business was even gentler than the gravity.
As they pushed through the studio’s double doors and out into the corridor, Wajir began, “If it’s about this Starlight accident—”
“Accident?” Elgin snapped. “It’s a tragedy. Seven innocent people killed, one of them a baby.”
“We played the story, Edie. Gave it full coverage.”
“For a day.”
Wajir had once been slim as a long-distance runner, but years behind a desk—or a restaurant table—had thickened his middle. Still, he was several centimeters taller than Elgin and now he drew himself up to his full height.
“Edie,” he said, “we’re in the news business, and Starlight is old news. Unless you want to do some sob-sister mush. But even there, there’s no relatives left to cry on camera for you. No funeral. The bodies have drifted to god knows where by now.”
Edith’s normal cheerful smile was long gone. She was dead serious as they walked along the corridor past glass-walled editing and recording studios.
“It’s not just this one terrible tragedy, Andy,” she said. “There’s a war going on and we’re not covering it. There’s hardly a word about it anywhere in the media.”
“What do you expect? Nobody’s interested in a war between two corporations.”
“Nobody’s interested because we’re not giving them the news they need to get interested!”
They had reached Wajir’s office. He opened the door and gestured her inside. “No sense us fighting out in the hallway where everybody can hear us,” he said.
Edith walked in and took one of the big upholstered chairs in front of his wide, expansive desk of bioengineered teak. Instead of going to his swivel chair, Wajir perched on the edge of his desk, close enough to Edith to loom over her.
“We’ve been over this before, Edie. The news nets Earthside aren’t interested in the war. It’s all the way to hell out in the Asteroid Belt and it’s being fought by mercenaries and you know who the hell cares? Nobody. Nobody on Earth gives a damn about it.”
“But we should make them care about it,” she insisted.
“How?” he cried. “What do we have to do to get them interested? Tell me and I’ll do it.”
Edith started to snap out a reply, but bit it back. She looked up at Wajir, who was leaning over her, his ebony face twisted into a frown. He’s been a friend for a long time, she told herself. Don’t turn him into an enemy.