Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330) (35 page)

“Nothing I can really—”

“Wait a minute!” she interrupted,
sitting bolt upright. “I just remembered!”

Keith pulled a stick of cherry
licorice from the pocket of his tunic, unwrapped it and took a
bite.

“Did you see the broadcast of the
debate, Keith?  I mean, did you
hear
it?  Did you really listen?”

“Yeah, I watched on HV. So?” 
Clamping his stick of licorice between his teeth, he removed
another from his pocket and offered it to Rayna, but she shook her
head and pursued her own line of thought.

“Althea Milgrom said the reason she
wanted President Aragon to contact the colonies again was that it
looked like there might be...‘some irregularity’ is the way she put
it, I think...some irregularity in the communications between Earth
and the colonies!”

Rayna awaited a response but Keith
simply continued to eat his licorice.

“Well?” she said. “Don’t you
see?”

Keith hiked his shoulders. “See
what?  So Milgrom thinks she found some problem in the
communications. She’ll never figure out what’s going
on.”

Rayna stared at him. He sounded as if
he didn’t
want
Milgrom to figure it out!  What was
happening to him?  His expression offered no clue. His face
was a mask—a frighteningly distant, noncommittal mask.

“But if we contact her, tell her what
we know about Tauber—”

“No!” Keith shouted, springing from
the sofa. “We can’t do that!”

“Why not, for heaven’s sake? 
Althea Milgrom’s the one person who may be able to help, to put a
stop to all this. She has the resources of the entire CDN to call
on.”

Blue veins throbbed at Keith’s
temples, standing out in sharp relief against the surface of his
skin. He scowled and sank back onto the sofa. “You don’t
understand, Ray. Tauber has connections that go much higher and
much deeper than we ever thought. If we contact Milgrom, he’ll get
suspicious. I don’t want to risk messing up the relationship I’ve
got with him.”

Rayna looked at him hard. “And what
kind of relationship is that?”

Keith hesitated, averting his eyes
when he finally spoke. “Tauber trusts me. He tells me things he
doesn’t tell anyone else.”

“But—”

“Please, Ray, listen to me. Just leave
things alone for a while. Let me try for more
information.”

“But what good does information do us
if we don’t act on it?  We have to tell someone sometime or
else we’ll just be observers along for the ride. And I don’t like
where this ride is going.”

 
Keith laughed bitterly. “Boy,
when you recover, you really recover, don’t you?  Less than
three hours out of the hospital, and here you are, the general
sounding the call of battle!  Maybe you ought to be the one
talking to Tauber. You could exchange ideas on how to control
people and make them say ‘yes’ to whatever you
want.” 

Rayna felt the blood drain from her
face. “Just leave things alone for a while!” Keith
insisted.

He was upset, Rayna told herself. He
had to be upset. This simply wasn’t like him.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she
said, “but please understand, I can’t just sit around and watch my
friends get fired because of who their relatives are or because of
their political beliefs. I can’t stand by while the Earth-Firsters
drive us to war, or listen quietly while they brand anyone who
disagrees with them as a ‘dirty Astie.’”  She gazed hopefully
at Keith. “I thought we both felt that way.”

Keith started to speak, then changed
his mind and tore off another hunk of cherry licorice. “Sorry,” he
said after a while, his eyes glazed and distant, “but I just can’t
go to Milgrom.”  He hesitated before continuing. “Tauber
doesn’t completely trust anybody. I’m on his good side for now, but
that’s no guarantee things’ll stay that way. He’s a very dangerous
man.”  Keith’s eyes probed hers. “I think he’s going to have
Wraggon killed.”  Briefly, he described what he’d learned in
his last meeting with Tauber—up to and including Rensselaer’s
involvement in the plot.

“Good God!  This thing keeps
getting bigger and bigger. But that’s all the more reason to
contact Althea Milgrom. At this point, we need some outside
help.”

Keith leaned forward and shook his
head emphatically. “No!”

“Keith, I....”

“I said no!” 

Rayna looked at him steadily. “You’re
shouting,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

He shifted his rear on the sofa. “I
can’t contact Althea Milgrom,” he said in simple, carefully
measured syllables. “I won’t!  And I don’t think you should,
either. Tauber knows how close we are.”

Rayna wanted to go to him then, to
embrace him, to remind him just
how
close they were, but
something in his manner stopped her. A coldness crept through her
as she continued to watch him and consider her next
move.

“As it happens, Keith, I have a
perfectly logical pretext for seeing Mrs. Milgrom again. She
insisted that I come to CDN headquarters after I got out of the
hospital. She wanted to give me a special tour of the facilities.
You could tell Tauber that, couldn’t you?” 

“I could,” Keith agreed
reluctantly.

“And he’d believe
you?” 

“Maybe. But I don’t want you to do
it.”

Rayna closed her eyes briefly. “Maybe
we’d better talk about something else.”

Keith nodded, and Rayna took a deep
breath, sucking in  the air as if a new supply of oxygen might
somehow clear away the growing tension between them.

“I’m looking forward to the next few
days,” she told him. “I think maybe I’ll read over some of Alec
Zorne’s papers and my grandfather’s old journal entries. Who
knows?”  She forced a laugh. “Maybe his powers were
genetic!”

The corners of Keith’s mouth turned up
tentatively but unconvincingly. “Yeah,” he said, “maybe.”  He
stood, obviously preparing to leave. “Well, I think I’ll let you
get some rest. I’ll call tomorrow.”

Rayna followed him to the door. His
goodbye kiss was polite but distant—a testament of ritual, not
affection. Fragments of memory and bits of emotional flotsam merged
in a cloud of murky, half-formed thoughts, and Rayna’s brain ached
as she struggled to produce some appropriate comment. In the end,
she could only watch in doleful silence as Keith left the
apartment.

Closing the door behind him, she
inhaled again and shoved her hands into the pockets of her
loose-fitting jumpdress, her fingers exploring the odds and ends
that she’d transferred from her bed stand before leaving the
hospital. All at once, a fingertip brushed the edge of a calling
card—Althea Milgrom’s calling card.

Rayna shivered and walked to the patio
door, passing her hand through the invisible beam that signaled the
door to close.

Must be getting late
,
she thought. She looked at her watch:  Quarter
to five.
Guess I should eat something
.
She didn’t feel much like eating, but they’d warned
her about that. Side effect of the medication, they’d said. Ought
to wear off by tomorrow. Right. If that’s the only thing affecting
my appetite
.
She grunted and reluctantly
ordered something from the Tans-Mat Food Service. Hungry or not,
she knew she had to eat. What I really need, though, is a good
night’s sleep.

She was picking at a light supper when
her CompuNews alarm went off. The sound made her lose what little
interest in food she still had. For a while, she sat, unmoving, as
if mesmerized by the electronic tone. Finally, she realized she
would have to take the computer off alert status if she didn’t want
such alarms disturbing her throughout the night.

Once at the terminal, though, her
curiosity overcame her revulsion at the thought of more bad news,
and she keyed in a display of the latest bulletin—one about another
escalation of trouble in the Middle East. She shook her head in
resignation and took the system off alert. She could always check
the news briefs later, she thought—when she felt up to it. But as
she began to walk away, the heading on another item caught her
eye:

MERCHANTER LAWSUITS TIE UP COURT
TIME

A SERIES OF LAWSUITS FILED ON
BEHALF OF MEMBERS AND EX-MEMBERS OF THE UNITED EARTH MERCHANT FLEET
IS TYING UP MORE AND MORE COURT TIME, BOTH IN INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES
AND IN THE WORLD COURT, OFFICIAL RECORDS REVEAL.

“WE JUST WANT TO ESTABLISH A
SYSTEM OF LEGALLY RECOGNIZED RIGHTS FOR MERCHANTERS,
”
SAID FORMER MERCHANT FLEET LT. HENRY TAUBER,
PLAINTIFF IN THE FIRST OF THESE LAWSUITS. TAUBER’S ATTORNEY, KEITH
G. DANIELS OF LOS ANGELES, HAS FILED SIMILAR ACTIONS IN FIVE OTHER
INDIVIDUAL AND CLASS-ACTION CASES. MORE THAN 100 SIMILAR CASES HAVE
BEEN FILED WORLDWIDE.

SOME OFFICIALS FEAR THAT THESE
CASES MAY INCREASE BAD FEELINGS BETWEEN EARTH AND THE COLONIES IN
THE ASTEROID BELT, SINCE SEVERAL COLONIES HAVE BEEN NAMED AS
DEFENDANTS. TAUBER, HOWEVER, DISMISSED THE CONCERN AS
“
JUST ANOTHER ASTIE EXCUSE FOR TAKING ADVANTAGE OF
MERCHANTERS.
”

Rayna blinked in disbelief. The words
floated before her. She read the bulletin three more times and
then, still shaken, put it on audio and listened as a
computer-simulated voice repeated the story. There it was: 
Henry Tauber and Keith Daniels—allies in a lawsuit. And in what
else? she wondered, nervously jamming her hands into her
pockets.

Once again, she felt the edge of
Althea Milgrom’s calling card. Hand still buried inside the pocket,
she rotated the card between thumb and middle finger, her mind
racing. What was Keith up to?  Why hadn’t he told her about
this?  How dare he play fast and loose with her trust! 
How dare he pervert his legal skills in the service of a
madman!  She shook with a churning blend of fury and
despair.

  
Maybe he just filed those
lawsuits to increase his credibility with Tauber....  Of
course. That’s it. It’s just part of this undercover game of his.
But if that’s so, why didn’t he tell me about it?  And why is
he so set against my getting in touch with Althea Milgrom? 
She pulled the card from her pocket and examined it. Should she
call?  It must all be part of Keith’s plan. We’re in this
together, Keith and I.  He wouldn’t just.... 

She clamped her teeth together. It was
no good. Maybe Keith
was
just trying to
ingratiate himself more with Tauber. She hoped so. She couldn’t
bear the thought that he was really part of Tauber’s scheme. She
held the calling card out before her, staring at it, challenging
it, begging it to tell her what to do. She wanted desperately to
believe in Keith, but could she afford to take a chance when the
fate of the entire Earth, not to mention the Asteroid Belt
colonies, might depend on what she did? 

With trembling hand, she slid the
calling card into the “read” slot of her communicator. It wasn’t
until she heard the device’s familiar hum that she began to
consider what she was going to say when the head of the CDN
answered. As it happened, she needn’t have worried, because it
wasn’t Milgrom’s image that appeared on the screen.

“Althea Milgrom’s office,” announced a
man with doughy-looking skin, a hawk-like nose and a face that
seemed at once young and old. “Special Assistant Derek Marsden
speaking.”

“My name is Rayna—”

 ”
Oh, Miss Kingman!” Marsden
interrupted, breaking into a genuinely warm smile. “Of
course!  Mrs. Milgrom isn’t here just now. You can try again
tomorrow morning, if you wish. I know she was hoping you’d call.
This is her 24-hour number. She only gives it to special
people.”

“That’s very flattering.”

“I’ve been instructed to arrange a
tour for you at a time when Althea can be here. She wants to show
you around personally.”

“As I said, Mr. Marsden, “that’s very
flattering, but—”

“Nothing to do with flattery, Miss
Kingman. This is gratitude. We’re all grateful. Althea’s a terrific
woman, and every one of us at CDN headquarters wants to shake your
hand!”

Rayna tried not to let her anxiety
show. Now that she’d decided to talk to Milgrom, she felt an acute
urgency about doing just that. She wasn’t interested in compliments
or small talk. “The thing is, I need to talk with her very
soon.”

Marsden appeared to punch a series of
keys and examine a terminal screen adjacent to the communicator
camera.

“Hmmmm,” he said. “How about day after
tomorrow?  Three in the afternoon?”

Rayna frowned. “Is that the best you
can do?  I was hoping to see her tomorrow.”

Marsden checked the schedule
again.

  “
I’m sorry, but Althea’s tied
up all day tomorrow. Three the next afternoon is the soonest we can
manage.”

   “
Then I guess that will
have to do, Mr. Marsden. Thank you.”

“We’ll look forward to seeing you
then, Miss Kingman.”  He smiled and cut the
connection.