Rogue Powers
Page 39
Sir George almost lunged across the desk to bash Pete's face in, but Pete raised his hand, very gently, very slightly, and gestured for Sir George to sit down. There was something in Pete's tone and manner that forced the admiral to listen. Pete started to speak again, in a far more gentle voice. "By virtue of your unhappy life, you're the best qualified to understand the Z'ensam, admiral. Your until-recently undistinguished career, your rather advanced age, your fear of failure, your obvious search after oblivion in your heavy drinking. And think of what you've seen—the bioweapons, ships wrecked, an entire small world literally destroyed. You know what power, their land and ours, can do when it goes rogue. You know we can avoid destroying ourselves and each other only if we make a conscious decision not to destroy. Both humans and Z'ensam must control themselves, for so much that we both do can escape our control.
"You've seen all that. And you see grand victories through eyes that have seen a lifetime of defeat and humiliation.
"And you've seen death. You understand how final death is, far better than any sleek young career diplomat could.
"Perhaps most importantly, admiral, only someone who has chased oblivion so hard and so long through the bottle could understand the Z'ensam's fear of losing themselves in Division.
"All that tempers your great successes here, gives you a sense of proportion. But here's a frightening feet: Failure is impossible now, admiral, because you've already won. I'd bet my life you've dreamed for generations about what you could do, given half the chance. Now you have the chance. Grab at it with both hands.
"Admiral, it's time to climb out of the bottle fall time and take hold of the long hard work that your victories have won for you."
Thomas spluttered and felt himself ready to explode in anger, when the smell of the spilled liquor wafted its way to his nose. Suddenly he wanted, no, ne needed, a little something. A soother, just a drop that would calm him and help him avoid this argument—
And at that moment, in that instant, for the first time, he really caught himself. For the first time, he didn't wave off his problem, or ignore it—he admitted it. Everything this snide young fellow was saying was true. Damn him. He ought to chase the little sod out, slam the door and get some peace and quiet, so he could—
—So he could what? Sir George looked at the broken bottle on the floor and knew how he had intended to complete that thought.
Damn the fellow for being right! The truth hurt. But—if Gesseti actually thought he could maneuver Thomas into that super-ambassadorship. ... A post like that, with real work, a hundred lifetimes' work to keep him busy, keep him occupied, a ^job with endless challenges. . . . Thomas decided he didn't t want that drink after all. Oh, of course Gesseti's schemes were all pie in the sky, one-in-a-thousand shots of coming off, but Sir George knew he'd gain more in trying and failing than he ever would in not trying at all.
"Mr. Gesseti," he said at last. "You are a very rude person, and I look forward to working with you. I am forced to admit I see your point. I must further admit that the job sounds a lot better than collecting dust in a corner office until I keel over stone dead from boredom. You will have my most energetic—and sober—cooperation.
"But you are taking a grave chance, Mr. Gesseti. You and I both know that. You just got through saying I'm a drunken old fool, who might just have finished his streak of luck. Granted, you might have read me right—there might just still be enough marbles clattering around up-
0stairs for me to do the job. But you can't know that. No matter how much my background qualifies me, it also damns me as a likely flop. Why are you taking that risk with such important work?"
Pete grinned. Mission accomplished. The last of the war's tension went away, and he gladly said goodbye to the endless worrying and fear that had started when the Venera had vanished. Things were in six kinds of a mess around here, but that was the normal human condition. It was all going to be all right. " 'Why,' admiral? Because I have a real gut feeling you're the man for it. I really believe that. And there s another thing.
"When Reunion docked with Zeus Station and we were getting the first cease-fire worked out, I asked George Prigot why the hell he had trusted Mac with the rate of George's whole planet."
Pete stood up and got ready to go. The admiral rose from behind his desk. Pete offered his hand. The admiral took it, and asked "But what did Mr. Prigot say?"
Pete laughed out loud, shook the admiral's hand again, and opened the door to the corridor. "He said, if I might quote him, that 'You've got to have a little faith in people.' I wonder where he heard that?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE
As a second-generation novelist, I learned the great traditions of the publishing business at my father's knee. I watched as manuscript pages vanished, checks failed to materialize, and editors came and went faster than the seasons.
I saw editors extend to writers the same courtesy one might expect prison-camp guards to offer the inmates. I found that publishers had as great a willingness to provide information as the KGB. I saw decisions made and actions taken at a pace so leisurely that it could not be dignified with the term "glacial", for that word at least implies movement.
It is clear that Baen Books has no respect for tradition. This unknown writer has been treated with great kindness and patience; all my business dealing with Baen have been handled efficiently and promptly; and all schedules (except the ones that call for me to deliver manuscripts on time) have been kept. This is not only notable in publishing—it is almost scandalous: When my father heard that Baen refused to be bumbling, incompetent, and late, he muttered, "They'll never make it in this business." I am pleased to report that they are doing just fine.
There is another great publishing tradition that needs to be broken: the one that says fiction editors aren't credited.
Despite all the work a good editor puts into her writers' novels, her name is never seen inside the books she brings into creation. My editor deserves more credit than I can give her—for giving an unknown writer a chance, for being patient with an endless stream of letters that probably toted up to be longer than my books; for making exactly the right suggestions at exactly the right times; for the aforementioned promptness and courtesy; for decoding my typos; for generally giving me the pokes and the prods and the encouragement that make it possible to write. And, most importantly, for starting out as a business associate and ending up a friend.
So let me break that tradition here and now: This book, I am proud to say, was edited by Elizabeth Mitchell.
Thanks, Betsy.
RMA
August, 1985 Washington, D.C.
Here is an excerpt from Roger MacBride Allen's next novel, THURSDAY'S CHILD, coming in 1987 from Baen Books:
Dr. Jeffery Grossington, Associate Secretary for Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History and Man, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., was a man well suited to a position with such a long and ponderous title. He had the character traits a man engaged in the study of the long-dead past needed: slow, deliberate, careful thought processes; the patient willingness to sift through minute bits of evidence and fragile shards of bone for one tiny fragment of meaning; the capacity to build knowledge out of mystery; the imagination and vision to understand what the rare, tiny clues scrabbled out of the earth could tell of human ancestry. But of all his skills, virtues, and talents, Jeffery Grossington was certain that the greatest of them all was patience.
Students of other scientific disciplines might feel compelled to compete in a race against time, against constrained budgets, against colleagues who might be hot on the trail of the same discovery, but not Grossington. That sort of nonsense (he believed) didn't have any place in paleoanthropology (though many of his fellows would have disagreed). After all, the persons of interest to Grossington's studies had all died thousands or millions of years ago; their bones could wait a day or a year or a decade more before revealing their secrets. Rush made for errors; cautious deliberation and painstaking care w
ere the hallmarks of his work. There was simply no need for a good paleoanthropologist to scurry manually toward conclusions.
Indeed, he strongly disapproved of rush, or commotion, or any sort of urgency—and suspected that most hurry was not only unneeded, but quite often detrimental. Outright frantic activity infuriated him.
Fortunately, he was also slow to anger, or else when Barbara burst that morning into his office there would have been hell to pay.
She all but bounded into the room, grinning ear to ear, and charged straight toward his desk. He should have immediately given her a good tongue-lashing, but she had the element of surprise working for her. No one in the history of Grossington's tenure had ever dreamed of barging into his office like that. Dr. Grossington opened his mouth to offer an infuriated rebuke, out he never got the chance. Before he could react to the intrusion, Barbara compounded her offense by scooping up his coffee tray and placed it none too carefully on a sidetable, sweeping all the papers from the center of his desk, and vanishing back out into the hall, only to return a moment later carrying, of all things, an old-fashioned wooden hatbox.
Suddenly moving with great care and deliberation, she set the box down most gently on the exact center of his desk blotter, and stepped back to stand in front of his desk, like a student waiting for the teacher to examine her science project.
"Dr. Marchando, what the devil is the—" But Dr. Jeffery Grossington stopped himself in mid-outburst and took a good hard look at Barbara. She was flushed, excited, and her dark brown face was alight, exhilarated. Her eyes gleamed, her hair was dishevelled, her makeup was blurred and smeared, her clothes, which she normally kept up so carefully, were wrinkled, mussed-up, and looked as if they had been slept in for a day or two. All of which was totally out of character for thee prim, careful Dr. Marchando.
"Well, open it, Dr. Grossington," she said. "Aren't you going to open it?" she asked breathlessly. "I've been travelling all last night and the whole day before— bus, train, plane, taxi—to get it to you. Open it!"
He looked at her curiously, and his big, callused, well-manicured hands moved involuntarily toward the cord that held the lid of the box. He hesitated, much unnerved, and looked hard at the hatbox, as if he feared it might contain a bomb. Then he looked to Barbara. He had a nasty feeling things in his world were about to turn upside down. "Barbara, what's in here?"
She grinned, almost wild-eyed, and leaned over the desk, her whole face shining with enthusiasm. "The end, Jeffery. The end of so many searches. That's what in there. Maybe even the collapse of every existing theory of human evolution. Open it."
Grossington swallowed hard and undid the cord. He lifted the worn black-lacquer top off the octagonal box and set it aside. There was a layer of shredded bits of foam rubber hiding the contents proper, and Grossington removed the bits of padding carefully, one by one. Years of field work had made slow and careful work a matter of reflex action for him. He wanted to make sure there was no danger of his damaging whatever-it-was by moving too fast.
Gradually, as he dug it out from under the bits of padding, he could see what it was: a skull, a human skull, a fully intact cranium and mandible, all the teeth intact, every detail fully present and preserved.
And then he looked again, and saw more, and his eyes widened in shock: hominid, yes—but it was not human.
Grossington could feel his heart starting to pound, the sweat coming out on his forehead as he carefully, oh so carefully, removed the prize from the hatbox.
The prominent sagittal crest, the huge, fiat molars, the human-like canine teeth, the box-shaped dental arcade, the obvious positioning of the skull's balance point to allow for an erect, bipedal gait The prominent, exaggerated brow ridges—a dozen, a hundred things that spoke, even shouted, the impossible. This was an Australopithecine, a member of a hominid species that had died out a million years ago.
But this was no fossil! This was bone, not the mineralized shadow of bone; none of the once-living material of this skull had leached away to be replaced by other matter. What he held in his hands was the actual, true, once-living matter, browned and leached and stained and weakened by time, but still formerly living bone—and of recent vintage. Not so long ago, these bones had been as alive as Grossington himself.
Grossington stared at the grinning skull, mesmerized, for a long time. Finally he spoke. “When and where?” Dr. Marchando," he managed to say at last, very quietly. "How old is this, and where in heaven's name does it come from?"
"Sir, that skull—and the well-preserved complete skeleton found with it—were buried—deliberately, ritualistically buried—140 years ago. In Alabama, U.S.A."
Grossington sat there, stunned. "How? How could that possibly be?”
"I don't know, sir, I honestly don't know. But I have a very strong hunch—and some evidence—that our friend here has some living relatives still around, if we knew where to look." For the first time, the excitement went out of Barbara's voice, to be replaced by something else, something mixed of awe, and fear, and wonder. She reached out and touched the face of the musty skull. "After finding this, I no longer think we're the only hominid species currently living on this planet."
Write for a free catalog of all Baen Books—send three 22-cent stamps to: Baen Books, Dept. BA, 260 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10001.
BAEN BOOK CLUB ANNOUNCES THE ADVANCE PLAN
The Very Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy at Super Savings
BUILD A LIBRARY OF THE NEWEST AND
MOST EXCITING SCIENCE FICTION &
FANTASY PUBLISHED
Having trouble finding good science fiction and fantasy? Want to build up your library without tearing down your bank account? Sign up for Baen Book Club's Advance Plan and enjoy super savings on the world's finest selection of science fiction and fantasy.
NEW BOOKS, HIGH QUALITY, LOW PRICE
With the Advance Plan, you'll receive 6 to 8 new paperback books every two months—the very best from your favorite science fiction and fantasy writers—as they are published. All books are new, original publisher's editions, and you pay only half the cover price (paperback cover prices range from $2.95 to $3.95). There are no additional costs—no postage or handling fees.
SAVE EVEN MORE ON HARDCOVER EDITIONS
To increase your savings, you may choose to receive all hardcovers published by Baen Books, at the same half price deal. With this option, you receive all paperbacks and hardcovers. (Hardcovers are published six to eight times per year, at cover prices ranging from $14.95 to $18.95.)
Sign up today. Complete the coupon below and get ready for the biggest and brightest in science fiction and fantasy.
Yes, I wish to take advantage of the Baen Book Club Advance Plan. I understand that I will receive new science fiction and fantasy titles published in paperback by Baen Books every two months (6 to 8 new books). I will be charged only one-half the cover price for books shipped, with no additional postage or handling charges. Charges will be billed to my credit card account. I may opt to receive hardcover as well as paperback releases by checking the box below. I may cancel at any time.
If you wish to receive hardcover releases as well as paperback books, please check here: [ ]
Name (Please Print)
Address
City
State Zip Code
Signature
VISA/MasterCard Number Expiration Date
MAIL TO:
Baen Book Club
260 Fifth Avenue, Suite 3-S
New York, NY 10001
Please allow three to six weeks for your first order.
WE'RE LOOKING FOR
TROUBLE
Well, feedback, anyway. Baen Books endeavors to publish only the best in science fiction and fantasy—but we need you to tell us whether we're doing it right. Why not let us know? We'll award a Baen Books gift certificate worth $100 (plus a copy of our catalog) to the reader who best tells us what he or she likes about Baen Books—and where we could do better. We
reserve the right to quote any or all of you. Contest closes December 31, 1987. All letters should be addressed to Baen Books, 260 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10001.
At the same time, ask about the Baen Book Club-buy five books, get another five free! For information, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope. For a copy of our catalog, enclose one dollar as well.
Back Cover