'Nothing at all, dear daughter,' Thomas said. BM elders often referred to family youngsters as if they were their own children. 'That's what worries me most of all.'

Rho returned to the Ice Pit to supervise completion of the chamber for the heads; I stayed behind to prepare for the council meeting. Thomas put me up in Sandoval guest quarters reserved for family, spare but comfortable. I felt depressed, angry with myself for being so vulnerable.

I hated disappointing Thomas Sandoval-Rice.

And I took no satisfaction in the thought that perhaps he had stung me to get my blood moving, to spur me to action.

I wanted to avoid any circ.u.mstance where he would need to sting me again.

Thomas woke me up from an erratic sleep of one hour, post twelve hours of study. My head felt like a dented air can. 'Tune to general net lunar news,' he said. 'Scroll back the Past five minutes.'

I did as he told me and watched the LitVid image.

News of the quarter-hour. Synopsis: Earth questions jurisdiction of Moon in Sandoval BM buy-out of StarTime Preservation Society Contract and transfer of corpsicles.

Expansion 1: The United States Congressional Office of Triple Relations has issued an advisory affiance alert to the Lunar Council of Binding Multiples that Sandoval BM purchase of preservation contracts of four hundred and ten frozen heads of deceased twenty-first-century individuals may be invalid, under a late twentieth-century law regarding retention of archaeological artifacts within cultural and national boundaries. StarTime Preservation Society, a deceased-estate financed partnership group now dissolved on Earth, has already transferred 'members, chattels, and responsibilities' to Sandoval BM. Sandoval Chief Syndic 'Thomas Sandoval-Rice states that the heads are legally under control of his binding multiple, subject to ...

The report continued in that vein for eight thousand words of text and four minutes of recorded interviews. It concluded with a kicker, an interview with Puerto Rican Senator Pauline Grandville: 'If the moon can simply ignore the feelings and desires of its terrestrial forebears, then that could call into question the entire matrix of Earth-Moon relations.'

I transferred to Thomas's line. 'It's amazing,' I said.

'Not at all,' Thomas said. 'I've run a search of the Earth- Moon LitVids and terrestrial press. It's in your hopper now.'

'I've been reading all night, sir-'

Thomas glared at me. 'I wouldn't have expected any less. We don't have much time.'

'Sir, I'd be able to pinpoint my research if you'd let me know your strategy, your plan of battle.'

'I don't have one yet, Micko. And neither should you. These are just the opening rounds. Never fire your guns before you've chosen a target.'

'Did you know about this earlier? That California would tell Puerto Rico to do something like this?'

'I had a hint, nothing more. But my sources are quiet now. No more tattling from Earth, I'm afraid. We're on our own.'

I wanted to ask him why the sources were quiet, but I sensed I'd used up my ration of questions.

Never in my fife had I faced a problem with interplanetary implications. I finished a full eighteen hours of research, hardly more enlightened than when I had started, though I was full of facts: facts about Task-Felder, facts about the council president and her aide, yet more facts about I was depressed and angry. I sat head in hands for fully an hour, wondering why the world was picking on me. At least I had a partial answer to Thomas's criticisms - short of actual precognition, I didn't think anybody could have intuited such an outcome to Rho's venture.

I lifted my head to answer a private-line call, routed to the guest quarters.

'I have a live call direct from Port Yin for Mr Mickey Sandoval.'

'That's me,' I said The secretary connected and the face of Fiona Task-Felder, president of the council, clicked into vid. 'Mr Sandoval, may I speak to you for a few minutes?'

I was stunned. 'I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting ... a call. Not here.'

'I like to work direct, especially when my underlings screw up, as I trust Janis did.'

'Do you have a few minutes?'

'Please, Madam President ... I'd much rather hold this conversation with our chief syndic tied in - - .'

'I'd rather not, Mr Sandoval. just a few questions, and maybe we can patch all this up.'

Fiona Task-Felder could hardly have looked more different from her aide. She was grey-haired, in her late sixties, with a muscular build that showed hours of careful exercise. She wore stretch casuals beneath her short council collar and seal. She looked vigorous and friendly and motherly, and was a handsome woman, but in a natural way, quite the reverse of Granger's studied, artificial hardness.

I should have known better, but I said, 'All right. I'll try to answer as best I can ...'

'Why does your sister want these heads?' the president asked.

'We've already explained that.'

'Not to anybody's satisfaction but your own, perhaps. I've learned that your grandparents - pardon me, your great-grandparents - are among them. Is that your sole reason?, 'I don't think now's the time to discuss this, not without my sister being available, and certainly not without our director.'

'I'm trying hard to understand, Mr Sandoval. I think we should meet casually, without any interference from aides and syndics, and straighten this out quickly, before somebody else screws it up out of all proportion. Is that possible?'

'I think Rho could explain-'

'Fine, then bring her.'

'I'm sorry, but-'

She gave me a motherly expression of irritation, as if with a wayward son - or irritating lover. 'I'm giving you a rare opportunity. In the old lunar spirit of one-on-one, and cut the politics. I think we can work it out. If we work fast.'

I felt way out of my depth. I was being asked to step outside of formal procedures ... to make a decision immediately.

I knew the only way to play that game was to ignore her unexpressed rules.

'AU right,' I said.

'I have an appointment available on the third at ten hundred. Is that acceptable?'

That was three days away. I calculated quickly; I'd be back in the Ice Pit Station by then, and that meant I'd have to hire a special shuttle flight. 'I'll be there,' I said.

'I'm looking forward to it,' Task-Felder said, and left me alone in the guest room to think out my options.

I did not break the unexpressed rules of her game. I did not talk to Thomas Sandoval-Rice. Nor did I tell Rho what I was doing. Before leaving Port Yin for a return trip to the Ice Pit, I secretly booked a non-scheduled round-trip shuffle, spending a great deal of Sandoval money on one pa.s.senger; thankfully, because of my position at the station, I did not have to give details.

I doubted that Thomas or Rho would look for me during the time I was gone; six hours going, a few hours there, and six back. I could leave custom messages for whoever ;night call, including Rho or Thomas or - much less likely William.

To this day I experience a sick twist in my stomach when I ask myself why I did not follow through with my original thought, and tell Thomas about the president's call. I think perhaps it was youthful ego, wounded by Thomas's dressing-down; ego plus a strange gratification that the council president was going to see me personally, to put aside a block of her time to speak to someone not even an a.s.sistant syndic. Me. To speak to me.

I knew I was not doing what I should be doing, but like a mouse entranced by a snake, I ignored them all - a tendency of behaviour I have since learned I was not unique in possessing. A tendency common in some lunar citizens.

We habitually cry out, 'Cut the politics.' But the challenge and intrigue of politics seduces us every time.

I honestly thought I could beat out Fiona Task-Felder.

As our arbeiters executed the Nernst design, the repository for the heads resembled a flattened doughnut lying on its side, a wide circular pa.s.sageway with heads stored in seven tiers of cubicles around the outer perimeter. It would lie neatly in the bottom cup of the void, seven metres below the laboratory, out of range of whatever peculiar fluctuations might occur in the force disorder pumps during William's tests, and easily connected to the refrigerators. Lunar rock would insulate the outer torus; pipes and other fittings could be neatly dropped from the refrigerators above. A small elevator from the side of the bridge opposite the Cavity would give access.

It was a neat design, as we expected from Nernst BM. Our arbeiters performed flawlessly, although they were ten years out of date.

Not once did anyone mention problems with the council.

I started to feel c.o.c.ky; the plans I'd had of talking to Thomas about the visit with the president faded in and out with my mood. I could handle her; the threat was minimal. If I was sufficiently cagey, I could drop right in, leap right out, no ham although perhaps no benefits, either.

The day after I finished oversight and inspection on the chamber, and received a Nernst designer's inspection report, and after the last of Rho's heads had been installed in their cubicles, I stamped my approval for final payment to Nernst, called in the Cailetet consultants to look over the facilities, packed my travel bag, and was off.

There is a grey sameness to a lunar ocean's surface that induces a state of hypnosis, a mix of fascination at the lifeless expanse, never quite encompa.s.sed by memory, and incredible boredom. Parts of the Moon are beautiful in a rugged way, even to a citizen. Crater walls, rilled terrain, even the painted flats of ancient vents.

Life on the Moon is a process of turning inwards, towards interior living s.p.a.ces, towards an interior you. Lunar citizens are exceptional at introspection and decoration and indoor arts and crafts. Some of the finest craftsmen and artists in the solar system reside on the Moon; their work commands high prices throughout the Triple.

Two hours into the journey, I fell asleep and dreamed of Egypt again, endless dry deserts beyond the thin green belts of the Nile, deserts populated by mummies leading camels. Camels carrying trays of ice, making sounds like force disorder pumps ...

I awoke quickly and cursed William for that story, for its peculiar fascination. What was so strange about s.p.a.ce sucking heat from trays of water? That was the principle behind- our own heat exchangers on the surface above the Ice Pit. Still, I could not conceive of a Sky on Earth as black as the Moon's, as all-forgiving, all-absorbing.

The shuttle made a smooth landing minutes later at Port Yin, and I disembarked, part of me still believing I would go to Thomas's office first, an hour before my appointment.

I did not. I spent that hour shopping for a birthday present for a girl in Copernicus Station. A girl I was not particularly courting at the time; something to pa.s.s an hour. My mind was blank.

I walked and took the skids, using the time to prepare myself. I was not stupid enough to believe there was no danger; I even felt with one part of my mind that what I was doing was more likely to turn out badly than otherwise . But I skidded along towards the council president's offices regardless, and in my defence I must say that my self-a.s.surance still overcame my doubts. On the average, I felt more confident than ill-at-ease.

It was politics. My entire upbringing had ingrained in me the essential triviality of lunar politics. Council officers were merely secretaries to a bunch of congenial family businesses, dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's of rules of cooperation that probably would have been followed anyway, out of simple courtesy and for the sake of mutual benefit.

Most of our ancestors had been engineers and miners exported from the Earth; conservative and independent, suspicious of any authority, strongly convinced that large groups of people could live in comparative peace and prosperity without layers of government and bureaucracy.

My ancestors worked to squash the natural growth of such layers: 'Cut the politics' was their constant cry, followed by shaking heads and raised eyes. Political organization was evil, representative government an imposition. Why have a representative when you could interact personally? Keep it small, direct and uncomplicated, they believed, and freedom would necessarily follow.

They couldn't keep it small. The Moon had already grown to such a point that layers of government and representation were necessary. But as with s.e.xual att.i.tudes in some Earth cultures, necessity was no guarantee of responsibility and planning.

From the beginning, our prime families and founders including, I must say, Emilia and Robert - had screwed up the lunar const.i.tution, if the patched up collations of hearsay and station charters could even be called such.

When complex organization did come, it was haphazard, unenthusiastically organic, undisciplined. When the Split broke our economic supply lines with Earth, and when the first binding multiples came, the Moon was a reservoir of naively amenable suckers, but blessedly lucky - at first. The binding multiples weren't political organizations - they were business families, extensions of individuals, the Lunars said. Lunar citizens saw nothing wrong with family structures or even syndicates; they saw nothing wrong with the complex structures of the binding multiples, because somehow they did not qualify as government.

When the binding multiples had to set up offices to work with each other, and share legal codes written and unwritten to prevent friction, that was not government; it was pragmatism. And when the binding multiples formed a council, why, that was nothing more sinister than business folks getting together to talk and achieve individual consensus. (That oxymoron - individual consensus - was actually common then.) The Council of Binding Multiples was nothing more than a committee organized to reduce frictions between the business syndicates - at first. It was decorative and weak.

We were still innocent and did not know that the price of freedom - of individuality - is attention to politics, careful planning, careful organization; philosophy is no more a barrier against political disaster than it is against plague.

Think me naive; I was. We all were.

The offices of the council president were located in the council annex to Port Yin's western domicile district; in the suburbs, as it were, and away from the centre of BM activity, as befitted a political inst.i.tution. The offices were numerous but not sumptuous; the syndics of many small BMs could have displayed more opulence.

I entered the reception area, a cubicle barely four metres square, with a man behind a desk to supplement an automated appointments system.

'Good day,' the man said. He was perhaps fifty, grey-haired, blunt-nosed, with a pleasant but discriminating expression.

'Mickey Sandoval,' I said. 'I have an invitation from the president.'

'Indeed you do, Mr Sandoval. You're about three minutes early, but I believe the president is free now.' The automated appointments clerk produced a screenful of information. 'Yes, Mr Sandoval. Please go in.' He gestured towards a double door on his left, which opened to a long hallway. 'At the end. Ignore the mess, please; the administration is still moving in.'

Boxes of information cubes and other files lined the hallway in neat stacks. Several young women in Port Yin drabs - a style I did not find attractive - were moving files into an office along the hallway by electric cart. They smiled at me as I pa.s.sed. I returned their smiles.

I was full of confidence, walking into the attractive, the seductive and yet trivial inner sanctum. These were all doubtless Logologists. The council presidents could choose all staff members from their own BM if they so desired. There would never be any accusations of nepotism or favouritism in a political climate where such was the expected, the norm.

Fiona Task-Felder's office was at the end of the hall. Wide lunar oak doors opened automatically as I approached, and the president herself stepped forward to shake my hand.

'Thanks for shuttling in,' she said. 'Mr Sandoval-' 'Mickey, please,' I said.

'Fiona to you, as well. We're just getting settled here. Come sit; let's talk and see if some sort of accommodation can be reached between the council and Sandoval.'

Subtly, she had just informed me that Sandoval was on the outs, that we somehow stood apart from our fellow BMs. I did not bristle at the suggestion. I noted it, but a.s.sumed it was unintentional. Lunar politics was almost unfailingly polite, and this seemed too abrupt.

'Fruit juice? That's all we're serving here,' Fiona said with a smile. She was even more fit-looking in person, solid and square-shouldered, hair strong and stiff and cut short, eyes clear blue and surrounded by fine wrinkles, what my mother had once called 'time's dividends'. I took a gla.s.s of apple juice and sat at one end of the broad curved desk, where two screens and two keyboards waited.

'I understand the installation is already made, and that Cailetet is beginning its work now,' the president said.

I nodded.

'How far along?' she asked.

'Not very,' I said.

'Have you revived any heads?'

That set me aback; she knew as well as I, she had to know, that it was not our plan to revive any heads, that n.o.body had the means to do so. 'Of course not,' I said.

'If you had, you'd have violated council wishes,' she said.

From the very beginning, she had me off balance. I tried to recover. 'We've broken no rules.'

'Council has been informed by a number of BMs' syndics that they're concerned about your activities.'

'You mean, they think we might try to bring more corpsicles up from Earth?'

'Yes,' she said, nodding once, firmly. 'That will not be allowed, if I have anything to do with it. Now, please explain what you plan to do with these heads.'

I was aghast. 'Excuse me? That's-'

'It's not confidential at all, Mickey. You've agreed to come here to speak with me. A great many BMs are awaiting my report on what you say.'

'That isn't what I understood, Fiona. I tried to keep my voice calm. 'I'm not here testifying under oath, and I don't have to reveal family business plans to any council member, even the president.' I settled more firmly into my seat, trying to exude the confidence I had already scattered to the winds.

Her face hardened. 'It would be simple courtesy to your fellow BMs to explain what you intend to do, Mickey.'

I hoped to give her a tidbit sufficient to put her off. 'The heads are being preserved in the Ice Pit, in the void where my brother does his work.'

'Your brother-in-law, you mean.'