Flattery did not doubt him.
"One day all of Pandora will look like this."
Zentz brightened so much that Flattery forgave himself the lie.
He turned to Nevi. "You saw the trap sprung topside?"
Nevi nodded. "Looks like we burned about three hundred. Crews are out chasing down the wounded. So far, nobody big. As we suspected, their eagerness outstripped their readiness."
"We cannot make that same mistake," Flattery warned. "That is why you must bide your time with Crista Galli and the others. Her abduction must be turned to our advantage in every way possible. To take them now would be easy, and foolish. Remember, from now on she's only the bait, not the quarry."
A pair of white butterflies tumbled the air between them and Zentz backed away.
Flattery smiled. "They aren't dangerous," he said. "Beautiful, don't you think? We've released these topside. They drink the wihi nectar. They have already multiplied the wihi threefold in and around the Preserve. You know its value for defense — a natural booby trap. A problem, at times, with the livestock. The larvae of these beautiful creatures. well, another time. I have two specific demands of your mission."
Flattery strolled to a plot of young trees, carefully planted in rows, in various stages of bloom and fruit production. Nearby, several hives of bees kept audibly busy. Nevi did not care for the bees, this Flattery well knew. He enjoyed Nevi's mastery of the neutral expression. He picked each man a fruit.
"Golden Transparent," he said. "A very hardy apple Earth-side. Since I am developing a Garden of Eden of sorts I thought them most appropriate."
He indicated two carved stone benches under the largest of the trees and sat. Nevi was clearly impatient to be off on the chase, but Flattery could not let them go yet. Nor could he bear watching Zentz make a slobber of his magnificent fruit.
"There are objectives more important than their capture," he emphasized. "Ozette must be discredited. He was popular on Holovision, and his disappearance has already been aired, thanks to Beatriz Tatoosh. This only firms our resolve to expose him as a monster. He must be seen as a madman in the clutches of madmen, with the deathly ill Crista Galli as their slave. We will play on her beauty and her innocence, leave that to me and to Holovision. That is the first thing I require of your mission."
"And the second?" Nevi asked.
Such a question was uncharacteristic of Nevi — how much he must want to be on with it! Flattery wondered what this enthusiasm would add to Nevi's performance.
"Crista Galli will be a problem for them shortly," he said. "They'll want her off their hands. We want her to be seen asking for our help. She must want the Director to save her and the people must know this. It is our only way of guaranteeing absolute control after this little action topside — our only way short of all-out extermination of these pocket villages and little Zavatan monasteries that are the breeding grounds for these Shadows."
"Interesting," Nevi said. "This will require some care. Maybe it's a job for your propaganda people at Holovision. Have you found any drugs to be useful for her. persuasion?"
"Details of her drug program are in the briefing you will receive in the foil," Flattery said. He glanced at his timepiece. "I will say that if she has eaten, she could be catatonic any time. Instructions, precautions and drugs have been prepared and are stowed with your briefing materials. Her persuasion is completely up to you. The manner of persuasion, too, is up to you."
Nevi smiled one of his rare smiles. That was what Flattery liked about the man. if one could call such a creature a man. He rose to a challenge.
"The Tatoosh woman, does she launch today with the drive system and your OMCs?"
"Yes," Flattery said, "as planned. Why do you ask?"
"I don't trust her," he said, and shrugged. "She'll be up there with Current Control and we're going into the kelp. "
"She will be no trouble," Flattery said. "She's been very helpful to us. Besides, she's my problem, leave that to me."
Zentz had finished gnashing down his apple and was once again gawking about the Greens.
"Any of those Zavatans ever tunnel in here? They have hidey-holes all over the high reaches."
He still has his uses, Flattery reminded himself.
"My pets love exploring," Flattery answered, indicating Archangel. "Did you know that 90 percent of their brain tissue is dedicated to their sense of smell? No one has tunneled in yet, and whoever does will face Archangel. Then we booby-trap the tunnel for the rest."
Zentz nodded. "A good arrangement," he gurgled.
"You haven't tried your apple," Flattery said, nodding to the bright yellow fruit in Nevi's palm.
"I'm saving it," the assassin replied, "for Crista Galli."
Do you know how hard it is to think like a plant?
— Dwarf MacIntosh, Kelpmaster, Current Control (from Holovision Nightly News, 3 Jueles 493)
