“Of course! You think they’d let someone in my position ride for twenty-five years? Hell, nol”
“If that’s true of you, it may be true of someone else.”
“You mean someone I don’t know about was instructed to make sure I did cushion your landfall? I-”
“Nol To make sure the submarine wasn’t shot out of the waterl”
“Then why was he crazy enough to leave the site shut down, knowing that next time a service crew came by security forces would flock after them like-like crows?” Turpin produced a small phial from his pocket, shook out a white tablet, and gulped it down with a swig of now-coldcoffee. Sheklov seized the chance to thrust a fresh proposal’ home.
“Then look at it this way. Is it easy to shut down one of your sites?”
“Easy?” Turpin echoed with an incredulous laugh “Hell no. I could just about shut one down from memory, but I’d rather have a sg6ematic in front of me. You have to close nine of a series of twelve switches in a special order-that’s . eier you get through a sintered-ceramic door-ahsi ;he other three are dummies wired straight into Conti.Pf”ntal Defense HQl’
An other words,” Sheklov said leaning forward “whoever did this had access to confidential EG data. Suppose this had nothing to do with me. Suppose it was aimed at Energetics General. What about your rival corporations? Aren’t some of them resentful of EG’s exclusive contract for automatic defense systems?”
“Well . . .” The trank Turpin had swallowed was taking effect; he was able to consider the notion calmly.
“Come to that,” Sheklov pressed, “the Navy isn’t too happy about the situation, I’m told.”
“My God,” Turpin said slowly.
“You see my point? Suppose one of EG’s staff has been bribed to demonstrate that your systems are vulnerable to sabotagel”
Turpin sat stock-still for long seconds. Abruptly he jumped to his feet. “It’s thin! Christ, it’s thinl But you’re right-it could be a way to mis-direct the investigation. I’ll shoot for it. But it’s going to be hell anyhow. Because. . . . Well, you know the only way to break EG’s contract on this?”
Sheklov shook his head.
“To impeach the Board for treason. In which case I can confidently expect to be shot to death by an Army firing-
squad. And I couldn’t help but take you with me. They have very efficient interrogation drugs nowadays.”
He glanced at his watch, and concluded, “I must go. They said they’d have a veetol on the beach for me in ten minutes.”
The moment the door closed, Sheklov’s self-control failed and he began to shake. His mouth dried, his guts churned, and for a terrible few seconds he thought his bladder was going to let go. Just in time, he forced a deep breath into his lungs, and held it, and was able to deploy the resources due to his yoga training: the pranayana first, to cancel out the panic-reactions of his body, and then a series of mental exercises to drive unrealised possibilities back to their proper status in his awareness.
But the shock had reached deep :gown through his per
sonality, to layers that had already been badly bruised by
his encounter with Danty, and it was a lohg, process. It
was still not complete when he realized with a s”tart that
someone else was in the room: Lora. –
“I’m sorry,” she muttered from the doorway. “But I heard Dad go out, and I thought maybe I could sneak in here and get away from everybody. But if you don’t want to be disturbed-”
With an effort Sheklov put back his Holtzer mask, and smiled at her.
“Come in by all means. I can’t-well, I guess this isn’t the thing for a guest to say, but I can’t blame you for wanting to hide out for a bit.”
Gratefully she shut the door and came to sit in the chair her father had been using. She dropped into it like a limp doll, legs sprawled, and he realized with a shock that she was wearing nothing under her short black indoor robe. During lunch he hadn’t noticed; so much of her had been hidden under the table.