Between the Strokes of Night

On one wall was a personal sleep chart, of exactly the same type that he used himself. She was averaging a little less than six hours a night, plus a brief lunchtime nap every other day. He moved to the bookcase. The predictable works were there: Dement and Oswald and Colquhoun, on sleep; the Fisher-Koral text on mammalian hibernation; Williams’ case histories of healthy insomniacs. The crash course he had received on PSS-One had skimmed through them all, though the library up there was not designed for storage of paper copies like these. The old monograph by Bremer was new to him. Unpublished work on the brain-stem experiments? That seemed unlikely — Moruzzi had picked the bones clean there, back in the 1940s. But what about that red file next to it, “Revised Analysis”? He reached out to take it from the case, then hesitated. It wouldn’t do to get off on the wrong foot with Judith Niles — this meeting was an important one. Better wait and ask her permission.

He rubbed at his eyes and turned from the bookcase to look at the pictures on the wall opposite the window. He had been well briefed, but the more he could learn by personal observation, the less impossible this job would be. Plenty of photographs there, taken with Presidents and Prime Ministers and businessmen. In pride of place was a picture of a gray-haired man with a big chin and rimless glasses. On its lower border, hand-written, were the words: Roger Morton Niles, 1941-2008. Judith’s father? Almost certainly, but there was something curiously impersonal about the addition of dates to a father’s picture. There was a definite family resemblance, mainly in the steady eyes and high cheekbones. He compared the picture of Roger Morton Niles with a nearby photograph of Judith Niles shaking hands with an aged Indian woman. Strange. The biographical written descriptions didn’t match at all with the person who had swept through the office on her way to her staff meeting and given him the briefest and most abstracted of greetings. Still less did it match the woman pictured here. Based on her position and accomplishments he had expected someone in her forties or fifties, a real Iron Maiden. But Judith Niles couldn’t be more than middle thirties. Nice looking, too. She was a fraction too thin in the face, with very serious eyes and forehead; but she made up for that with well-defined, curving cheek bones, a clear complexion, and a beautiful mouth. And there was something in her expression… or was it his imagination? Didn’t she have that look -

“Mr. Gibbs?” The voice from behind made him grunt and spin around. A secretary had appeared at the open doorway while he was daydreaming his way through the wall photographs.

Thank Heaven that minds were still unreadable. How ludicrous his current train of thought would seem to an observer — here he was, flown in for a confidential and highly crucial meeting with the Director of the Institute, and inside two minutes he was evaluating her as a sex object.

He turned around with a little smile on his face. The secretary was staring at him, her eyebrows raised. “Sorry if I startled you, Mr. Gibbs, but the staff meeting is over and the Director can see you now. She suggests that you might prefer to talk over lunch, rather than meeting here. That way you’ll have more time.”

He hesitated. “My business with the Director — “

“Is private? Yes, she says that she understands the need for privacy. There is a quiet room off the main dining room; it will be just you and the Director.” “Fine. Lead the way.” He began to rehearse his arguments as she preceded him along a dingy, off-white corridor.

The dining room was hardly private — he could see a hundred ways it could be bugged. But it did offer at least superficial isolation from other ears. He would have to take the risk. If anyone recorded them, it would almost certainly be for Judith Niles’ own benefit, and would go no farther. He blinked his eyes as he entered. The overhead light, like every light he had seen in the Institute, was overpoweringly bright. If darkness were the ally of sleep, Judith Niles apparently would not tolerate its presence.

She was waiting for him at the long table, quietly marking entries on an output listing. As he sat down she at once folded the sheet and spoke without any pause for conventional introduction.

“I took the liberty of ordering for both of us. There is a limited choice, and I thought we could use the time.” She leaned back and smiled. “I have my own agenda, but since you came to see us I think you are entitled to the first shot.”

“Shot?” He pulled his chair closer to the table. “You’re misreading our motives. But I’ll be pleased to talk first. And let me get something out of the way that may save us later embarrassment. My cousin, Wolfgang, works for you here at the Institute.”

“I wondered at the coincidence of name.”