Ring Around the Sky - Allyn Gibson [10]
Tev nodded slowly. “Yes, sir. The accident with the passenger transport.”
Gomez blinked rapidly. Suddenly the unelaborated mention during the mission briefing of a passenger transport accident in one of the Ring’s elevators made sense. Tev’s mother must have been a passenger aboard the shuttle that plunged into the elevator base.
“Tev,” said Eevraith as he rose from his sofa, “these reminiscences are all well and good, but haven’t we more pressing concerns?”
Tev turned and faced Eevraith. “I would think, Eevraith, that if matters were more pressing, your government would have approached the Federation Council long before they did. What was it, two months ago, that you asked for help? The war ended over a year ago. If that time wasn’t pressing, five minutes of reminiscence is hardly more so.”
Eevraith glared at Tev. “You were never so leisurely, Tev.”
Tev’s nostrils flared. “You were never so lacking in basic decorum, Eevraith. What was my father’s favorite dictum? ‘A polite politician is an oxymoron.’ ”
Eevraith’s face flushed red beneath his pelt.
“Gentlemen,” Gomez said as she stood and moved to break them apart, “our time is pressing.” Eevraith shook his head, muttered a curse beneath his breath, and sat back down on his couch. Tev simply glared at him. Gomez looked hard at Tev and put her hand on his left shoulder. “Tev?” His gaze turned from Eevraith and he locked eyes with Gomez. She saw something in those blurry eyes, something distant and haunted. These two, Tev and Eevraith, knew one another, Gomez realized, and more than just as colleagues and fellow engineers. What was their past relationship? Childhood friends? Fellow students? Something else entirely? Would the history between them impede the mission? Whatever their story, it obviously had a bad ending.
Grevesh looked to Tev and smiled, as if oblivious to everything else that had just transpired. “That dictum of your father’s—he said I was the exception that proved its inherent truth. He wondered if that might have been why I proved so popular with the people, that I was polite and solicitous of them.” The first minister inhaled deeply and sighed slowly.
“I would rather not discuss the past,” said Eevraith. “We have far more pressing concerns, such as the damaged space elevator.”
Grevesh nodded slowly. “I agree, Minister Eevraith.” He turned to Gomez. “Did you know that Eevraith is the galaxy’s greatest authority on the elevator?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Eevraith nodded, but his eyes remained fixed on Tev, and there was no mirth in them. “The first minister overstates my reputation. A study I did on the elevators from an engineering standpoint won me a doctorate. The first minister thought it an important enough work to bring me into his government as a transportation expert, and years later to appoint me transportation minister.”
“What’s your evaluation of the damage to the Ring and the elevator shaft, Minister?” asked Gomez.
Eevraith breathed deeply and relaxed into the couch. “The damage to the Ring does not concern me nearly half as much as the damage to the elevator. Rebuilding the Ring would be no different, except in matters of scale and curvature, to building a space station four hundred kilometers long.” He paused. “The elevator concerns me far more.”
“How so?” asked Gomez.
“The structural integrity of the elevator was severely compromised by the damage inflicted by the Jem’Hadar. Had the Ring above it remained intact, the elevator’s structure would have been supported from both ends, by the base and by the Ring, against gravity’s pull. But as the very segment of the Ring that supports the elevator from above was compromised by the impact of the Jem’Hadar ship, the elevator structure is not receiving the support from above that it requires,