The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [75]
“Has it?” The Real Woman’s tone was guarded, but Lisa had the impression that she would really have appreciated an honest answer to that question, even if she couldn’t afford to believe it.
“Your friends didn’t even take the time to do a thorough search of Lisa’s files before they started panicking, did they?” Leland went on. “They could have snatched her last night, but they didn’t. The plan’s all fucked up, isn’t it? What you did today was worse than improvisation—it was pure desperation. A gut reaction conditioned by fear. The fear was justified, by the way—the whole thing’s fallen apart. Someone like you can’t afford to stay with people like that, no matter what kind of prize is at stake—if there is a prize. Apart from Miss Filisetti, nobody really believes that there is. Dr. Goldfarb doesn’t. The people who matter at the Ministry of Defence don’t. Lisa doesn’t—and Lisa’s in a far better position to judge than Stella Filisetti, who’s only been screwing Miller for a matter of months. Given Miller’s age, he probably figured he had to work extra hard to get her interested and spun her a line about dark secrets. Maybe he was too modest. After all, it’s not as if Filisetti’s a real radfem—or even a Real Woman—is it?”
The woman’s eyes weren’t looking into Leland’s anymore. When she had first turned away—when Leland referred to “a gut reaction conditioned by fear”—she had fixed her gaze on the wall, but now she was looking directly at Lisa, and not because the frayed anaglypta was simply too horrible to contemplate for long. Her manner was doubtful, as if she were trying to decide whether the stories she’d been told about Lisa could possibly be true. Leland obviously took due note of her uncertainty.
“Lisa’s no traitor,” he said, his deep voice sounding surprisingly soft. “Grimmy Smith didn’t entertain the slander for a moment—he had her seconded to the MOD inquiry. He didn’t know, of course, which cause she was being accused of being a traitor to, but he knew it wasn’t true. Even Lisa didn’t know, when your colleague took time out to spray the word on her wall, what kind of betrayal she was being accused of—but now that we do know, we all can see that it’s absurd. She’s done far more for the feminist cause than Stella Filisetti ever did. She’s a police scientist, and she’s never been tempted to join half-baked rival organizations like yours, but that doesn’t mean she’s not sympathetic to-the same ideals. Think about it. If your support hadn’t been preempted and you met them both without any preconceptions, who would you be more likely to trust—Friemann or Filisetti?”
Lisa felt a sinking sensation as she realized that it wasn’t going to work. It might have worked, given that the Real Woman had probably heard Arachne West’s account of Lisa as well as Stella Filisetti’s, but that wasn’t the only consideration. The Real Woman had deduced that Lisa hadn’t bothered to correct Leland’s misapprehension about the reason for the Real Woman’s presence in the garage. She had taken that as evidence that Lisa was playing her own game, and that she was untrustworthy from every point of view.
“You didn’t get it, did you?” the Real Woman said to Lisa. “He didn’t give it to you.”
“What didn’t we get?” Leland asked. “Who didn’t give it to us?”
“Chan,” the captive said. “He’s still got the backup.”
Lisa steeled herself against an anticipated stare, but Leland was too good an interrogator to be thrown.
“We don’t need it,” Leland said. “The important thing is that you don’t have it and can’t get it—and that’s why the sensible thing for you to do is to give up everything