The Siege of Eternity

But those labors had been productive. From the Doc's sketches they had identified four separate power generators of different types-though without a clue as to how any of them worked-plus the gadget that transported people across galactic distances faster than light-plus several dozen other bits of equipment which did God knew what, and God knew how.

Pat glanced at their Bureau guard, alertly nursing a cup of coffee two tables away, and wondered if she would try to stop Rosaleen's chatter if she knew what the woman was saying in this very public place. But of course there wasn't any real hope of secrecy anymore, anyway. Once the UN mission came back with whatever samples of Scarecrow technology they could carry the whole world would be looking on and it would all be common property. . . .

But not if she and this lawyer could prevent it. "Come on," she said, signaling for the check. "Let's get back to work."

As soon as she was at her desk she turned on the screen and instituted a search for all the morning's transmissions from Rosaleen Artzybachova's terminal. Most of what she found was gibberish-the damn woman had encoded all the traffic to Camp Smolley-but among the remaining messages there were the twenty or thirty of the Doc's admirably precise sketches that could be salvaged.

What the sketches might represent, Pat could not say, but they certainly looked potentially valuable. When the lawyer arrived she had a display of them ready for him. He glanced at it, then frowned and said, "Turn off that machine, please. Let's just talk for a bit."

His name was T. Lawrence Hecksher, and he didn't look like Pat's idea of a mob mouthpiece. Hecksher didn't look like a hotshot, jury-befuddling lawyer from some video serial, either. What he looked like more than anything else was somebody's grandfather-white, muttonchop whiskers, twinkly sky-blue eyes under feather white eyebrows, apple red cheeks. He would have made a fine department-store Santa Claus, Pat thought, if his talents hadn't been more in demand for helping tax evaders and mob assassins stay out jail.

He acted grandfatherly, too. When he had settled himself across from the desk the first thing he said was, "If you have recording systems going, my dear, please turn them off." He had no recorders of his own, either. As Pat began to describe what she hoped he could do for her he made notes. With a pen. On paper.

"Why can't we use the screens?" Pat asked suspiciously.

He waggled his head at her. "Records we don't have can't be subpoenaed. I don't want to have anything on the record that can be construed as any sort of admission, or anything that represents privileged information we aren't supposed to have. That's why I didn't want to look at your screen. Don't forget, this is not a small matter. In order to protect your interests we will need to prevail against some of the best lawyers in the world. All over the world."

Pat gave him a dismayed look, but he smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. I have dealt with government attorneys for many years. I'll eat them alive. And I'll get all the information we need in disclosures, but I'll do it legally. Now. The first thing I'm going to want from you is documents. ..."