Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [63]
“I can’t see the TV cameras I asked for,” Matthew said, his brow still furrowed by uncertainty.
“We couldn’t fit them in,” Milyukov told him, blandly. “Oddly enough, Professor Delgado had made a similar request, so they would have been included in the cargo had the necessity not arisen of accommodating you and Inspector Solari. We had to make some difficult decisions as to what to hold over. Dr. Gwyer and Dr. Gherardesca were extremely insistent that materials for the boat they and Delgado were building had to be given priority. Your cameras will be included in the next consignment, I can assure you.”
“That might be too late,” Matthew objected. “If this boat that they’re building is going downriver to investigate the so-called grasslands I’ll be on board.”
“That’s your decision, of course,” Milyukov said. “Or theirs, of course.” His voice was silky, but he was making no effort whatsoever to conceal his hostility. Matthew knew that he was being punished, but he resented the childishness of Milyukov’s petty obstructions. He was distracted from his ire by Nita Brownell, who gave him the bag containing the last of the personal possessions that had been frozen down with him. His beltphone and notepad had already been returned to him, having been carefully checked out and upgraded by the crew’s engineers. The bag contained less utilitarian items of the kind that were precious precisely because they were superfluous. He had pictures of Alice and Michelle stored in his notepad, ready for display in any of a dozen different forms, but the solid images he had in the private pack were fragile, unique, and talismanic.
He could have clipped the bag to his belt, but he preferred to keep hold of it. It gave him something to do with his hands.
“We’ll need the cameras downriver,” Matthew told the captain. “Getting pictures through the canopy is a straightforward power problem, so they won’t be subject to the same restrictions as the flying eyes. If there are humanoids living there, however primitive their circumstances, it’ll be the most significant discovery ever made off Earth. Everybody will want to know about it. You have to let me have the cameras.”
“Perhaps we can arrange another drop before you go,” Milyukov said, making it perfectly obvious that his pretended cooperativeness was only pretended. “In the event of an emergency, of course, we could even deliver them directly to the grasslands—our targeting really is very good. Perhaps we should find our wild geese before we attempt to take pictures of them.”
He doesn’t want me broadcasting, Matthew realized. He doesn’t want anyone broadcasting other than himself, but now that I’ve seen Shen I’m public enemy number two in his eyes—and he’s seen my old tapes. I bet he stalled Bernal’s requests too. But that’s proof of his own desperation. If his authority were secure, he wouldn’t be so fearful.
“Good luck,” the captain said—but he was looking at Vince Solari, and it was to the policeman that he extended his hand.
“Thanks,” Solari said, shaking it.
Matthew deliberately turned away, returning his attention to the narrow space into which he was being invited to climb. “What if I turn out to be claustrophobic?” he said to the doctor.
Nita Brownell peered through the airlock into the narrow crevice that was his allotted berth. “If your adrenaline level shoots up your IT will put you to sleep,” she informed him, unsympathetically. “You’ll be able to