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drakh. With real colored water. And right in the middle they put in this great
clottin' tree. Called a rubiginosa, or somethin'. Probably sayin' it wrong. Big
mother fig. But the kind you can't eat."
"Who's idea was it?" Kyes asked dry, noncommittal.
"Dunno. Designer, I think. What was her name? Uh& Ztivo, or somethin' like
that. But, boy did she charge an arm and two, three legs. The tree alone's
gotta be fifteen, twenty meters tall. Dug it up from someplace on Earth. But
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they was scared it'ud shrivel up and blow away if they brought here direct,
like. So they seasoned it. On three four different planets. Spent a big bundle of
credits on it.
"Musta worked. It's goin' crazy in there! Picked up another two meters, I
heard, in the last two-three months. Why, that clottin' tree's the pride and joy
of Prime World, I tell you. Ask anybody."
As the gravcar slowed, Kyes saw a crowd of beggars push forward. A wedge of
club-wielding cops beat them back. Certainly, he thought. Ask anybody. Go
right ahead.
The AM2 secretary's report was a dry buzz against glass. On the table before
him was a one-third-meter stack of readouts, the result of many months
labor. He was reading syllable by maddening syllable from a précis not
much slimmer. His name was Lagguth. But from the glares he was getting
from the members of the privy council, it was likely to be changed to
something far worse.
Kyes and the others had gathered eagerly around the table. This could
possibly be the most important listening session of their lives. So no one
objected a whit when Lagguth's aides hauled in the mass of papers. Nor did
anyone raise a brow when the preamble went a full hour.
They were in the second hour a second hour to a group of beings who
habitually required their subordinates to sum up all thinking in three
sentences or less. If they liked the three sentences, the subordinate could
continue. If not, firing was a not indistinct possibility. After the first hour, the
AM2 secretary had gone past firing. Executions were being weighed. Kyes had
several nasty varieties in mind himself.
But he had caught a different tone than the rest. There was real fear beneath
all that buzz. He caught it in the nervous shufflings and newly habitual tics in
Lagguth's mannerisms. Kyes stopped listening for the bottom line and started
paying attention to the words. They were meaningless. Deliberate
bureaucratic nonsense. That added up to stall. Kyes kept his observation to
himself. Instead, he began thinking how he might use it.
The Kraas broke first.
The fat one cleared her throat, sounding like distant thunder, loomed her
gross bulk forward, and thrust out a chin that was like a heavy-worlder's fist.
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"Yer a right bastard, mate," she said. "Makin' me piles bleed with all this
yetcheta yetch. Me sis's arse bones'r pokin' holes in the sitter. Get to it. Or get
summun else in to do the gig!"
Lagguth gleaped. But, it was a puzzled sort of a gleap. He knew he was in
trouble. Just what not for.
Lovett translated. "Get to the clotting point, man. What's the prog?"
Lagguth took a deep and lonely breath. Then he painted a bright smile on his
face. "I'm so sorry, gentle beings," he said. "The scientist in me& tsk& tsk&
How thoughtless. In the future I shall endeavor "
The skinny Kraa growled. It was a shrill sound and not nice. It had the
definite note of a committed carnivore.
"Thirteen months," Lagguth blurted. "And that's an outside estimate."
"So, you're telling us, that although your department has had no luck in
locating the AM2, you now have an estimate of when you will find it. Is that
right?" Lovett was a great one for summing up the obvious.
"Yes, Sr. Lovett," Lagguth said. "There can be no mistake. Within thirteen
months we shall have it." He patted the thick stack of documentation.
"That certainly sounds promising, if true," Malperin broke in. She stopped
Lagguth's instinctive defense of his work with a wave of her hand. Malperin
ruled an immense, cobbled-together conglomerate. She did not rule it well.
But she had more than enough steel in her to keep it as long as she liked.
"What is your opinion, Sr. Kyes?" she asked. Malperin dearly loved to shift
discussions along, keeping her own views hidden as long as possible. It was
Kyes's recent surmise that she actually had none and was waiting to see which
way the wind blew before she alighted.
"First, I would like to ask Sr. Lagguth a question," Kyes said. "A critical one, I
believe."
Lagguth motioned for him to please ask.
"How much AM2 do we have on hand right now?"
Lagguth sputtered, then began a long abstract discussion. Kyes cut him off
before he even reached the pass.
"Let me rephrase," Kyes said. "Given current usage, current rationing how
long will the AM2 last?"
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"Two years," Lagguth answered. "No more."
The answer jolted the room. Not because it was unexpected. But it was like
having a death sentence set, knowing exactly at what moment one would
cease to exist. Only Kyes was unaffected. This was a situation he was not
unused to.
"Then, if you're wrong about the thirteen months& " Malperin began.
"Then it's bleedin' over, mate, less'n a year from then," the skinny Kraa broke
in.
Lagguth could do no more than nod. Only Kyes knew why the man was so
frightened. It was because he was lying.
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