The Siege of Eternity

The man from State made a note, and then looked up. "One other thing. Your agent in Ukraine has caused us a bit of trouble by-"

"I know what our agent in Ukraine did," Pell said irritably. "Can't we just apologize?"

"We already have, of course. They may want more."

"More what?"

The man from State looked ill at ease. "Well, they've suggested informally that we return him and the woman to Kiev for possible trial. . . ."

Hilda caught her breath, but before she could speak, Pell answered for her. "Not a chance."

"Well," said the man from State, "we may want to keep that option open, you know. There's all this trouble from the little countries in the UN. They're even talking about conducting hearings in the General Assembly."

"Since when do we give a damn what they do in the UN?" Hilda demanded, but the deputy director shook his head.

"Since we want them to support an exclusively American flight to Starlab," he said. "He's right. Let's keep our options open."

Turning her own agent over to some hanging judge in Kiev was not an option Brigadier Hilda Morrisey intended to keep open. If Dannerman had screwed up, he would get his lumps. But those lumps would be delivered by Hilda herself, not by some damn Ukrainian.

What she needed to do was to talk to him herself before anyone else did. Which meant she would have to arrange to see him first. She needed to find out when and where he would be arriving, and the place to do that was in her office. When she got there she found Lieutenant Colonel Makalanos waiting, and Merla Tepp sitting at a desk in the anteroom. "About those people from Kiev-" Hilda began, and Tepp nodded.

"Yes, ma'am. I checked. They'll be arriving in New York in two hours," she said. "I assumed you would want to interview Agent Dannerman, so I've booked you a place on the courier flight at 1400 hours."

"Hmm," Hilda said, eyeing her. Apart from her difficulties with the extraterrestrials, the woman wasn't bad at her job. Which reminded her to ask the question that had been on her mind. "Did you report what happened last night?"

"Yes, ma'am. As required by regulations. I-ah-I mentioned that the reason you and I were there was that we were looking into the question of electronic security leaks."

Was that a little presumptuous? But it wasn't a bad way to handle the present problem, so Hilda just said, "Fine. Get me a car to the courier plane, and send Colonel Makalanos in."

A doctor showed up uninvited to check her over again, and she allowed him to do it while she talked to the colonel. "Dopey's all right," he reassured her, pulling a sheaf of papers out of his bag. "When that message from space came in I didn't know if you'd want Dopey to know about it. So I told the people at Smolley to keep it under their hats until they got further orders from you."

Well. She hadn't lost her touch at picking good staff. She didn't comment, only asked, "What have you got there?"

"More of the Doc's drawings. According to Dopey, he's now given us pictures of everything on Starlab."

She nodded. "Give them to Tepp, tell her to make one copy for me and pass the others on to the deputy director. I'll look them over on the plane."

And she rose to shake his hand as he got up to leave. Priam Makalanos had a nice, firm grip, and a nice male aroma. What's more, he was damn good at his job. As she turned to collect her messages she reflected what a pity it was that he wasn't eligible for anything more personal.

A Father's Rights

Everyone is familiar with the high-handed actions of the Americans in the case of Commander J. P. Lin of the People's Republic of China and his solicitude for the welfare of his unborn child or children. The Delegate of the Mongolian People's Republic should support the demand of the People's Republic for the custody of this infant or infants, as well as the PRC's rights, and our own, to share in whatever benefits these space persons may bring.

-Steppes Times, Ulaanbaatar, MPR.

But the first message on her screen was a note from the Maryland police, and it took her mind off Makalanos.

They had interrogated the survivor of the two who had attacked her. Apparently they had been told that she had been carrying big bucks, in cash, of all things. Why? Because she was planning to run off with somebody. Who had told them this crock of crap? The vindictive wife of the man she was supposed to be planning to run off with. But the only description they had of this woman was that she was kind of elderly and pleasant-faced, and how many thousand women like that were there in the District?

Hilda scowled at the screen. Was it remotely possible, she wondered, that maybe Wilbur's ex-wife had suddenly taken an interest in who her former husband was seeing, and decided to do something about it?

No. Not possible at all. The whole thing was nonsense. There was no ex-wife, only somebody who had wanted to get Hilda herself attacked or maimed. Very possibly somebody she had put away, sometime in the long course of her work for the Bureau.