Michaelmas by Algis Budrys Read Free Book Online Page A

immediately began a normal series of new data integrations. I now have all the resulting correlations, and that's one of them."
    "Do you mean to say the Arabs are paying the Turks by cheque?"
    "I mean to say there's a limit to the number of gold pieces one can stuff into a mattress.
    Sooner or later someone has to put it somewhere safe, and when he does, of course, I find it."
    "Yes, yes," Michaelmas said. He had a very clear picture in his mind of suave, dark, blue-eyed gentlemen in white silk suits and French sunglasses passing canvas bags that rustled to somewhat rougher-looking people in drophead Bentleys by the light of the desert moon.
    Gentlemen who in turn paid for their petrol on a Shell card and booked air passage from El Fasher to Adana against per-sonal checks which would be covered by deposit of lira notes which had trickled through the weave of the money-bags. On balance, if you had a mind like Domino's and knew all credit card numbers, the flight times of all air-liners, and the vital statistics of all gentlemen known to engage in the buying and selling of other gentlemen and submachine-guns, in all portions of the world, there was no great trick to it. "I know you can take a joke," he said to Domino. "But sometimes I do wish you could understand a jest."
    "Life," said Domino, "is too short."
    "Yours?"
    "No."
    "Hmm." Michaelmas pondered for a moment. "Well, I don't think we need any expansionist revolutions in Turkey. The idea of armoured cavalry charging the gates of Vienna again is liable to be too charming to too many people. Break that up, next opportunity." Michaelmas looked at his watch."All right. Any more?"
    "US Always has learned that Senator Stever is getting twenty-five thousand dollars a year from that north-western lumber combine. USA's Washington office made a phone call reporting it to Hanrassy's national headquarters at Cape Girardeau."
    "In that simple-minded code of theirs? If they're planning to save the whole country from the rest of the world, you'd think they'd learn to respect cryptanalysis. Any informa-tion on what they're planning to do with this leverage?"
    "Nothing definite. But that brings to six the total of senior Senators definitely in their pockets, plus their ideological adherents. This is not a good time for USA to be gaining in power.
    Furthermore, although it's very early in the morn-ing in Missouri, Hanrassy's known to work through the night quite often. I won't be surprised if a Senatorial inquiry starts today on why Colonel Norwood wasn't im-mediately reinstated as head of the Trans-Martian flight. Even allowing for her intake of amphetamines, Hanrassy's annoyingly energetic."
    "Better she than someone with staying power. But I think we'd better take this committee chairman pawn away from her. Sam Lemoyne's still on the night side for the Times-Mirror. It'd be good if he got the idea to go buy a drink for that beachboy Stever beat up in his apartment last year." "I'll drop him a note," Domino said.
    It was nearly eight o'clock. "All right, unless there's a real emergency, go ahead and follow standard practice with anything else that's pending." With the passage of time, Domino was beginning to learn more and more about how Michaelmas's mind worked. He didn't like it, but he could follow it when instructed. That fact was the only thing that let Michaelmas contemplate the passage of time with less than panic.
    Michaelmas's house phone chimed. He listened and said : "Send her up." His crew director was here.
    She came in just ahead of the room-service waiter. Michael-mas attended to the amenities and they sat together on the balcony, sipping and talking. She and the crew were all on staff with his employer network. Her name was Clemen-tine Gervaise, and he had never met her because the bulk of her previous experience had been with national media, and because this was his first time with her network, which was up-and-coming and hadn't been able to afford him before.
    Gervaise