Solstice

by David Hewson

  The damage had been real and unmistakable. The most dramatic part had been in Asia, before the storm rose to its full height. Thanks to the odd team that had assembled at La Finca, the livid power of the syzygy had been leached by the time the zenith rose in earnest, somewhere past the Prime Meridian. It had been spiralling downward when it reached the East Coast of America with the break of dawn, and dwindled almost to the level of a bad solar storm when it reached California. There had been serious damage to telecom networks. The financial system had stayed in disarray for weeks. People saw their pride dented, found it hard to accept that the world wasn't as firm and certain and controllable as they had hoped.

  But there had been no more ball lightning after Vegas — this was truly Charley's creation, and, he guessed, she'd been saving it for America all along. The casualty toll ran to tens of thousands, but few were in nations where the native language was CNN, and Lieberman knew (in that old, cynical part of him that he tried to keep quiet these days) what this meant. It all lost some of its importance. Before long, some statistician was wheeling out the numbers from the last flood in Bangladesh, the last earthquake in China, and saying, Hey, in the great swing of things it doesn't add up to much at all. There weren't many dead in West Kensington or Gramercy Park, Nob Hill didn't catch fire, there was no earthquake in the seventeenth arrondissement. They'd even reopened part of Vegas and started to promise the new Strip would be so much better than the old one. What's the problem?

  He went up to the twenty-first floor using the old elevators at the front of the building, stepped out almost straight into the arms of a big man who looked as if he were made of rock. Grey suit, grey face, the earphone of a walkie-talkie shoved in his ear, a bulge in his jacket pocket. And peering into Lieberman's face with a curious look that could almost have passed for jealousy. 'Professor Lieberman?'

  'Yeah.' He felt out of place in his jeans and faded denim shirt. It had been cool outside, a touch of rain. That was nice. He'd walked through the rain all the way from his apartment, almost twenty-five minutes, and was conscious of looking a mite bedraggled. He didn't care. It felt good to be damp from that delicious rain.

  'Miss Wagner is waiting for you.'

  They went down the corridor, the plush red carpet giving way beneath their feet like the pelt of some dead animal, then walked into a suite. She sat on her own at a big table in the centre of the room, shuffling through some papers. When he came in she stood up, smiling wanly, and he knew right away what both of them were thinking.

  'You want me here?' the big man asked.

  'I can handle this, Dave,' she replied, in a voice that sounded somewhat strange. It had lost its harshness, the edge of anxiety he'd come to know.

  He watched the giant shape disappear out the door and said, 'You get your own bulldog with this job too?'

  'Dave's quite a guy. Saved my life. And a lot more besides. Took me a while to realize how much.'

  He felt uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him. 'Hey, I know. We don't look the same now that we're not postage-stamp pictures on some damn computer monitor.'

  She nodded. He was right. He looked stronger, fitter than she had expected. She extended a long-fingered hand. 'Straight to the point, Michael. I imagine I should have expected no less of you.'

  'I guess not.'

  'Do you want a drink?' she said, looking at the cabinet in the corner. Bright, smart eyes, watching him all the time. Women like this could be hard to be around after a while.

  'No thanks.'

  'I'm going to have a Scotch. It's after six and it's been a long day. Are you sure you won't join me?'

  He shook his head. 'Thanks, but no. I'm taking a break right now. I did some drinking on credit before. I got a couple of free years before I have to go back and do it all again.'

  'Ah.' An expression he recognized, and it typified this woman: quiet, polite, noncommittal, standing back, taking a good look before leaping in. Not the Lieberman style at all.

  She walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured herself a sizeable glass of Glenfiddich, then dropped a couple of ice cubes into it. 'You may need it.'

  'Really? No, I don't think so.' He joined her back at the table, trying to convince himself this wasn't some kind of contest. 'You summoned me.'

  'Did it sound like that?'

  'Yes. Exactly like that.'

  'I'm sorry. I was curious to see you. Didn't you have the same feelings?'

  'I've a lot on my mind, Helen. Finding work. Rebuilding some kind of career beyond freelance academic assignments. I learned my lesson there. That life is too damn dangerous for me.'

  'I gather Sara's fine.'

  'You checked?' They never really got out of your life. He should have known that.

  'Yes. I went to see her. Didn't she tell you?'

  'No.'

  'She seems to be making a good recovery. In a while she'll be back to normal.'

  ' "Normal",' he repeated. 'Now, there's a word.'

  'She also understands our position.'

  'I guess that's why she never mentioned your visit.' He tried to mask his disappointment, and knew he should have expected no more. When you got down to it, this was the CIA.

  'Michael…'

  'Let me guess. Now it's my turn too.'

  'It's important for us to make sure we have control over what is and isn't known about Sundog. A lot's in the public domain already.'

  'A lot?' he asked, wide-eyed. 'I have been looking, you know. It's all just crazy conspiracy theories. X-Files stuff. No one's close to what really happened.'

  'I know. We originated a lot of what you call "X-Files stuff". It suits us.'

  'Nice job. Nice business.'

  'No,' she said quietly. 'It's not nice. Some things aren't nice at all. But they are necessary. They have to be done. You thought that too, didn't you?'

  Lieberman shuffled in his chair. He guessed he knew this moment had to come. 'Meaning?'

  'Meaning thanks to you we don't have that thing in the sky any more. Whatever you did with those solar panels made sure of that. The government is several billion dollars the poorer. You mind telling me how?'

  He shifted on the chair and tried to smile. 'It's dangerous playing with fire, you know. Turn this mirror a few points too far, open up those delicate little panels, and' — he snapped his fingers — 'kaboom.'

  She let out a thin laugh. 'An expensive kaboom.'

  'I made it, Helen. It was mine to unmake. If you like, I can try and pay it back in instalments. Once I get a job.'

  She took a sip from the glass. 'You scared the life out of me. I wondered what the hell you were doing.'

  'Thinking. Remembering.'

  'Thank God someone was. They can build it again, you know. All those pieces in space don't mean a thing. It will be bigger, it will be better, and it won't have some secret little password you and Charley dreamed up all those years ago. Why the hell did she use that?'

  He could still remember Half Moon Bay. And how that old, old story popped into his head over a beer on a bright, burning day in Mallorca. 'Because it was appropriate. Deep down the old Charley was still there. I know you don't like that idea, but it's true.'

  No, he told himself, she doesn't like that idea at all. 'We were lucky, Michael, damn lucky.'

  Luck. An odd word under the circumstances. He wasn't sure he believed in the concept of luck at all any more. 'They will build it again someday, I know. We don't learn. It's our big failing. You know what makes me hate this most of all? There's a part of me says Charley was right. This is a big, screwed-up world, and we're the ones who are screwing it up. And maybe it won't end, ever. Maybe we just carry on with this agony for as long as we hold the keys to this place.'

  'That part of you is mistaken.'

  'Really? You know, it seems like years ago that I looked at you and pointed out that it was maybe some similar syzygy that wound up wiping out the dinosaurs. Do you ever get to wondering whether maybe we just replaced one set of dinosaur
s with another or something?'

  He looked at her glass. It was almost empty. 'You're in danger of drinking too much.'

  'I'm over twenty-one.' One more sip before she said what she had to say. 'I'm sorry we couldn't have got the medics there sooner, Michael. They had all sorts of problems to contend with.'

  'Yeah, I know.' Mo's dying face still came to him sometimes, but he couldn't blame anyone except Charley for that. He ranted and he raved on the dry, dead ground, screaming at the sky, staring into the golden nothingness as if he could pull something out of it that would make Mo Sinclair live again. But he'd known all along that this was futile, some dim, dark ceremony he had to endure. 'It wouldn't have made any difference. There was nothing any of us could do.'

  'She was a hell of a brave woman.'

  He didn't want to talk about this. There was nothing useful to say.

  'And the girl? Annie? I know you brought her back here.'

  'You do keep tabs, don't you?' he grumbled. 'She's in good hands. A nice local babysitter for the evening.'

  There was a noise from behind him. 'Wrong there,' said a big, booming voice.

  He turned and saw Tim Clarke standing, smiling, by the connecting door to the adjoining room. Behind, in what looked like an enormous suite, was a bunch of busy people mingling around PCs and fax machines.

  He looked at the President and said, 'Excuse me?'

  'Hell.' Clarke beamed, walked over, took Lieberman by the hand, pumping his arm up and down vigorously. 'Come here.' They walked over to the adjoining suite. In the corner of the next room, head bent to a PC, Annie was watching a small black kid play some kind of adventure game. 'She's just having some fun with Benny,' the President said. 'It's good for him. A kid doesn't get much fun in the White House, particularly an only child. And good for her too.'

  'Isn't that kidnapping or something?' Lieberman asked quietly. There was something here he didn't like. Clarke was looking him up and down. The man, in the flesh, seemed more intense, more human than he did on the box.

  'I thought it might make sense for you two to have a chat afterwards. On the way home.'

  'So why am I really here, Mr President?'

  'You don't like small talk, do you?'

  'Not in situations like this.'

  'Good. I can approve of that. Helen?'

  She closed the door on the adjoining office and picked nervously at her hair.

  'You ought to congratulate her,' Clarke said. 'You've got the next director of the CIA standing next to you. Fired the present incumbent today and I'm ashamed to say I enjoyed it. Time to ring some changes around here. Sundog told me that at least. Subject to approval, of course, not that it will be a problem — I'm popular in Washington right now for some strange reason. A woman running the CIA, a black man in the White House. This is turning out to be an interesting century, don't you think?'

  Lieberman's head was reeling. 'Hey, I'm a scientist. Don't expect me to understand this stuff. Helen here is the boss?'

  'Sure,' she said. 'And Barnside — the bulldog, as you saw fit to describe him — is going to be my deputy.'

  'Wow. Nice cop, tough cop act, huh? You've convinced me already.'

  'If you like.' She nodded. 'And you're wrong on one point. You do understand what's going on very well. Without you, we'd have been lost. You were fast, you were incisive, and you had a good broad spread of the issues and the subjects we had to face.'

  'Yeah. I'm a repository of half-baked information.'

  'More than that,' the President objected. 'You're straight too, Michael. And that matters. That we can use.'

  He wondered about that drink and then rejected the idea. 'I've been used enough for one lifetime, thanks. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I'd like to take Annie home now. It's getting late.'

  Clarke put a huge hand on his shoulder. 'Hell, she's helping Benny zap aliens. And boy, does that kid need help. A little while longer, huh?'

  'Right. So, Mr President, again: What do you really want?'

  'You. I don't care where you put your office, In Langley. Next to me. You can be attached to my staff or Helen's. We got in this mess because we're inventing stuff without even stopping to think where it leads, and you can make sure that doesn't happen again.'

  Helen put down the empty glass. It now looked like a prop in some play he was only just beginning to fathom. 'You said it yourself, Michael. How could Sundog have got that far without someone realizing the implications? Why didn't we see the syzygy issue earlier?'

  'Yeah. But that's me. I criticize everything.'

  'Fine,' Clarke said. 'Play the devil's advocate for us. Come to Washington. We'll fix up accommodation, schooling for Annie. The pay's good too.'

  'This is my city. I love it here.'

  'Sometimes you have to move on,' she said. 'I think this would be a good time. For both of you.'

  He wished she weren't looking at him like this. As if it mattered in more ways than one. She could turn on the vulnerability in a flash, and he didn't know whether to believe it or not.

  Clarke was not ready to let go. 'We need to learn. Science is great. Science is good for us. But all of a sudden it's just so big, and no one tries to get the whole picture. Why the hell didn't we build your solar satellite? I don't know. Maybe there were good reasons. Maybe not. But if we don't start learning along the way, one day all this clever stuff will bite us. Almost did this time. These things we invent right now are so huge we can't afford to screw up. We don't have anywhere else to go. Good or bad, this is the one planet we have.'

  'I think,' Lieberman said slowly, 'the Children would have agreed with you there.'

  'Sure. And why not? I don't mind saying it. In some ways they were right. Not in the solution they proposed, naturally. But the analysis, parts of that are just plain common sense. It's a delicate balance and we've been managing it badly.'

  'No, no, no.' Lieberman shook his head and wished he were out of the room. 'This isn't me.'

  Helen opened her briefcase, took out a pile of neatly stacked reports, and pushed them over the table. 'Sundog isn't the only case we have on our hands that is a little, shall I say, problematic. Read the files, Michael. Just do that for me. Then think about it. Talk to Annie. We have the President's plane leaving in the morning. You could be on it. Both of you.'

  He looked at the documents, saw the seal, the red classified warning. 'If I read these, I don't have a choice, now, do I?'

  'Yes,' Clarke said immediately. 'You can pull out and you'll never hear from us again.'

  He stared at the papers and tried to wash away his curiosity. 'Thanks.'

  'No,' Tim Clarke said, extending his arm. 'Thank you.'

  It was like shaking hands with a bear. Then the President got up, headed back for the adjoining suite, Helen following him.

  'Michael,' he said at the door.

  'Mr President?'

  'If you read that stuff, then just go home to bed and shrug it off, we really have got nothing to talk about. Understand me?'

  CHAPTER 59

  Decisions

  'He beat you, huh?'

  Annie's eyebrows popped up her wrinkling forehead. That look of indignation and outrage could have come straight from her mother. 'He didn't beat me,' she said, loudly enough to attract the attention of the three diners in the Fog City cafe, watching the clock pass through midnight, toying with their food. 'I let him win. There is a difference.'

  'Well, the kid does live at the White House. I guess you've got to cut him some slack.'

  She looked at him — fondly, he thought. They never spoke about what had happened, never even talked about the future. Maybe it was for fear of destroying this small piece of calm and sanity that sat in their lives like a fragile toy, ready to break if it got too much attention.

  And yet… time was ticking away between them already, and the toy never became any less fragile. Annie didn't worry, not on the surface anyway. He had come to understand that. Instead she replaced anxiety with some still,
mute form of acceptance. As if she were made for the world to mess around with as it liked.

  'I think they offered me a job,' he said, and marvelled at the way the contents of those damn files kept reeling through his head. Helen certainly knew how to get his attention. Annie shrugged as if she knew this already. Her mother again. Always seeing through things.

  Are you going to take it?'

  A little circumspection wouldn't go amiss in the Sinclair family genes, he thought. 'It's not a simple decision, Annie.'

  'No?'

  This was crazy. There was some central tenet inside his life, he guessed, that made him want to treat everyone he met as an adult. It was a matter of courtesy, and it was ridiculous too. Annie was a kid, and much as he hated the idea, kids didn't prosper in a democracy. You needed to teach them. You needed to show them the way.

  'Annie, we have to talk about this sometime. We've been running from what happened, and that was right then. But not now. We've got to think about the future. You're a kid. You need things I know nothing about. Like a school. A home. A family.'

  Her face lost years, became defenceless, impossibly young. Back to a child again, right away. And it was just the idea of thinking things through that did this. 'It'll be fine. In the end.'

  Annie flashed her eyes at him, Mo in there somewhere. 'And besides. I never really knew a family.'

  Except the Children, he nearly added for her. And no one would be putting them forward for the good parenting award.

  'I can go to school, can't I?'

  He sighed. 'That's not the point, Annie. It's a question of suitability. What kind of a parent would I make? And your mom still has her parents in Scotland. Maybe — ' 'Scotland!'

  Here comes the tears he thought. He could see the heads turning in the restaurant, out there at the periphery of his vision. But she wasn't crying. She was just pale and stone-faced. She got used to rejection after a while and he recognized the process. After a while it all became just a low, familiar pain, like a toothache.