The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [53]
“So the people in the outer system probably wouldn’t give a damn about any of us,” I said, to make sure I was keeping up with the news, “except for the fact that the Earthbound do have an ax to grind — for which reason, the outer system folk might want to throw a monkey wrench in the works. You only give a damn about Adam Zimmerman, so you don’t care whether either the two ships takes Christine and me off your hands, although you’ll be very pissed off indeed if Zimmerman elects to go too.”
Davida paused before answering, perhaps needing to consult her friendly neighborhood data bank as to what a monkey wrench was or what being pissed off involved. Then, speaking rather grudgingly but with all apparent honesty, she said: “There are a great many people in the outer system who regard Adam Zimmerman as a hero and a bold pioneer. The delegates aboard Child of Fortune may regard him as a kindred spirit, at least potentially. If he were to ally himself with one or more of their most cherished causes, they might have reason to be delighted. Lowenthal must know that too.” I realized then that she wasn’t just trying to keep me informed — she was talking to me like this because she was trying to work through a few uncertainties of her own.
I thought about that for a moment, then said: “You don’t have a clue which way he’s going to jump, do you? Neither does anyone else.”
“Adam Zimmerman is, admittedly, something of a mystery to us…as he is to anyone born in this era.”
“But perhaps not to me,” I pointed out, grasping the opportunity to restate my own case for further involvement in the scheme of which I had unwittingly become a part, “or even to Christine Caine. Is that why Lowenthal took the trouble to talk to me? He must think — rightly — that I might be better placed to get through to Zimmerman than you, or him, or his rivals from Titan. So why hasn’t anyone working for the other side contacted me yet?”
“Are you certain that they haven’t?”
I figured that I’d have been told if there were any more messages waiting, so I couldn’t see what she was getting at for a moment. Then I did.
“But Gray’s Earthbound, like Lowenthal,” I said, when I had twigged. “Why would he be playing for the other side?” Thinking back, I realized that he hadn’t actually said that the “association of academic interests” he supposedly represented was Earthbound.
“Gray’s as thoroughly Earthbound as anyone in his attitudes,” Davida agreed. “But he has some very influential friends on the frontier. I know of no reason why you shouldn’t take his offer of employment at face value — but I doubt that the representatives of the World Government would be prepared to trust Mortimer Gray to act in what they see as Earth’s best interests. He saved Emily Marchant’s life in the Coral Sea Disaster, and she’s used him as a propaganda tool before.”
I hadn’t a clue who Emily Marchant was, but I figured that I could look her up. I certainly intended to investigate Michael Lowenthal. The plot of which I was a part seemed to be thickening around me, and I didn’t know whether to be glad or annoyed. Christine Caine, I supposed, would reckon it one more blessing to count or one more irony to chuckle at, but I was as different from her as I was from Adam Zimmerman. If my assistance proved to be a tradeable asset, that might be to my advantage — but if my interference were to be reckoned a possible nuisance by Michael Lowenthal or anyone else, that might place me in peril. Having already served a sentence of a thousand years plus for misdemeanors I couldn’t even remember, I figured that I could do without any disadvantages or prejudices hovering over the inception of my second slice of life.
I had to educate myself quickly, but it wasn’t going to be easy to work out what I needed to know,