Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [73]
“If he had such faith in his instincts,” Damon said sourly, “why didn’t he do me the courtesy of explaining what he wanted me to do, and why?”
“He thought that telling you his plan would make it impossible to carry through. He seems to be of the opinion that you always do the opposite of anything he suggests, simply because it’s his suggestion.”
Damon could understand how Karol Kachellek might have formed that impression over the years, but he felt that it was an injustice nevertheless. The matters on which he had habitually defied Karol in his younger days had all been trivial; he was now an adult and this was not a trivial matter. “It’s crazy,” he said, referring to the message. “It’s completely crazy.”
“Yes it is,” said the dark-skinned man. “Denials are going out, of course—not just from our people but from Interpol and the doctors who attended the womb in which your embryo developed. Your progress from egg to adult has been mapped as scrupulously as that of any individual in the history of the world. The lie is astonishingly blatant—but that only makes it all the more peculiar. It’s attracting public attention and public discussion, I’m afraid. Together with Silas Arnett’s supposed confession, it’s getting coverage on the worst kinds of current affairs and talk shows. I suppose any man who lives a hundred and twenty years might expect to make a few enemies, but I can’t understand why anyone would want to attack you in this bizarre way. Can you?”
It occurred to Damon that some of the people he had ordered Madoc Tamlin to investigate might have resented the fact—and might possibly be anxious that the buying-power of Conrad Helier’s inheritance might pose as great a threat to their plan as Interpol or the friends and allies of Silas Arnett. All he said to Rajuder Singh, however, was: “No, I can’t.”
“It’ll be a nine-day wonder, of course,” Singh observed, “if it even lasts that long. Unfortunately, such slanders sometimes linger in the mind even after convincing rebuttals have been put forward. It really was the best course of action to remove you from harm’s way as quickly as possible. We’re truly sorry that you’ve been caught up in all this—it really has nothing to do with you.”
“What has it to do with?” Damon asked, his voice taut with frustration. “What are you people up to and who wants to stop you? Why is this such a bad time for all this to blow up?”
“I can’t tell you what we’re doing,” Singh said, with a note of apology in his voice that almost sounded sincere, “and we honestly don’t know why we’re being attacked in this fashion. All I can say is that we’re doing everything we can to calm the situation. It can only be a matter of time before Silas is found, and then. . . .”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Damon said, cutting short the string of platitudes. “Maybe he will be found and maybe he won’t, but finding him and catching the people who took him are two different things. This whole thing may look amateurish and stupid—just typical Eliminator nonsense taken to a new extreme—but it’s not. That tape of Silas could have been edited to look real but it was edited to look fake. All the artlessness in this seems to have much subtler thought behind it—and real power too. The kidnapping itself is a case in point—a confusing compound of the brutal and the clever. The same is true of my involvement: one day I’m getting sly messages pushed under my door, the next I’m being publicly denounced in an incredible fashion. In between times, the girl Silas was entertaining is spirited away—but not until after the police have questioned her, investigated her thoroughly, and decided that she’s not involved. To add even further to the sum of dissimulation, while Karol Kachellek