He finished writing, set down the pen, and considered the paper for a moment. Then he turned to the comm panel next to the desk and punched in a number manually. The screen lit up, and Donald could see Justen Devray on the screen. “Get in here,” Kresh said, and cut the connection before Devray had a chance to speak.
Kresh picked up the piece of paper and got up from behind the desk. He began pacing the room, going back and forth, back and forth, at a rather deliberate pace, his full attention on the paper. He went back to the desk and picked up the pen again. He scratched something out, and wrote something else Ill.
The door annunciator chimed, and Kresh pushed a button on his desk.
The door opened, and Justen Devray came in.
“Well, Justen,” Kresh said. “It would appear I have a job for my Rangers. ” He handed Devray the paper. “Contact Cinta Melloy and coordinate with the 888. Pull these people in, Justen. All of them. Now. And I want you and Melloy here as well. With you it’s an order-but you can extend my invitation to Cinta. I have a feeling she’ll accept.”
Devray looked at the list and shook his head. “Maybe Melloy will want to come,” he said. “But some of these people aren’t going to like it,” he said.
“Just get them,” Kresh said. “I want them all here, in this office, and I want them here in two hours.”
Devray nodded, and then, after a moment, remembered to salute. “Yes, sir,” he said. And with that he turned and left, Kresh using the door button to let him out.
Kresh watched Devray leave, waited a minute, and then followed after, using the ID scanner plate by the door to make it open. Kresh stopped and examined something in the door frame on his way out. Whatever he found seemed to please him, and he went on his way. The room sensed that there were no humans about, and faded the lights down.
Leaving Donald alone in the dark. In more ways than one. He wanted to follow, to stay with his master-but no. Alone. Let him work it out alone. The Governor could always summon Donald if he needed him.
“I have to go, Gubber,” Tonya said.
“You could protest it!” Gubber said. “Claim diplomatic immunity. Refuse to go. It was bad enough the way Caliban just vanished and ended up in jail. I barely knew him, and it scared me half to death. If it happened to you, I couldn’t bear it. Don’t go. Don’t let them get you. Stay.”
“That could only make things worse,” Tonya said, her tone far less calm than her words. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you. But I promise you it will be over after tonight. I don’t know why Kresh wants me, but he does. I don’t know if I’m a suspect, or a witness, or if he just wants to chat about terraforming. He wants me, and I have to go.”
“But why?”
Tonya took a step or two toward the door, then turned and looked back. Logically, she knew it was going to be all right. Nothing was going to happen. But she had no such confidence on the emotional level. Fear was loose in the world. “I have to go,” she said, “because we live on this world, you and I. We live here, and Alvar Kresh might be the only man who can save it. If I fight this, with all the legal ways I might, that can’t be good for him.
“And as of today’s announcement, what is bad for Alvar Kresh is good for Simcor Beddle.”
Kresh tried to relax. He took a quick shower, changed into fresh clothes, had a quick bite to eat-and tried to settle himself down. He found the Residence library and selected a booktape to read, more or less at random. He sat there, with the words scrolling past his eyes, not taking in more than one word in ten of the story.
Calmly. Slowly. He started the tape over a half-dozen times before he gave up. He could not concentrate on anything else but the case. Because now, all of a sudden, he had a case.
He had more than that. He had the answer. He was as certain of that as he had been of anything in his life. But for all of that, it would still be easy-very, very easy-for him to make a mistake. Kresh set the tape aside, and thought it through again, and again.
Justen Devray came in the library almost precisely two hours after Kresh had sent him off.
“They’re all here,” he said. “Waiting for you. ”
“Good,” said Kresh. “Good. Then’s let go see them.”
Justen led Kresh up the stairs to the Governor’s office-to his office-and ushered him inside. Kresh took a deep breath and faced a roomful of people who had to be thinking they were all suspects in Grieg’s murder. In the Governor’s murder, he told himself. And you’re the Governor now. Kresh glanced to the wall niches, and was relieved to see Donald there. Nice to know there was someone here who was utterly, unquestionably, on Kresh’s side.
