“Negative, CW 0T9—you do not have authorization for—”
“Site One ATC, your commo is breaking up. Please say again.” He let the increasingly anxious ground controller get about half way through his denial for the runway landing request before speaking right over the top: “Site One ATC, I am no longer reading you. Please be advised: I am coming about bearing 235 true for approach to Runway One. Please signal ‘all clear’ by setting runway approach lights to strobe mode. CW 0T9 out.” The pilot snapped off the transmitter, banked the plane into a long, left-sweeping curve toward the towers, which now showed themselves as a cluster of girder frameworks. “Do you think they’ll buy it?”
Caine leaned forward to get a better look at what appeared to be a quarry at Site One’s extreme northern perimeter. “Can’t say that I care.”
* * *
Within five minutes of landing, Caine was being ushered into a room of uncompromising opulence. As he set his A-frame down next to the auto-closing door, he was careful not to scratch the wood-paneling. Is it ebony? No, apparently not. High overhead, descending from a vaulted ceiling reminiscent of Louis 14th enameled and gold-leafed grandeur, were two immense chandeliers. At the far end of the room was a dark wood desk large enough to pass as a small mesa. The man behind it—spare, trimly mustachioed, adjusting a data-link viewing monocle—waited: no motion suggested that he was prepared to close the distance to Caine, nor that he was even going to come around the end of his desk. So that’s the way it’s going to be—
Caine took his time walking the length of the salon, studying its various appointments. By the time he reached the desk, the man behind it seemed less composed. Maybe he wasn’t used to waiting for his guests to approach, or maybe he had hoped that this guest would be indefinitely detained by a prior engagement with a bullet.
“Welcome to Site One, Mr. Riordan.”
“Thank you, Mr.—?”
“Helger, Louis Helger. I am the Co-Administrative Manager of this joint facility.”
“A ‘joint facility’?” That was another—and worrisome—new terminological twist: in another half year, CoDevCo would probably push out the EU altogether.
Helger shrugged. “Very well: technically, Site One is a European union colony with a full partnership extended to the Colonial Development Combine. However, we consolidated administrative operations when I arrived eight months ago. Too much duplication of effort, other inefficiencies. That is all behind us.”
“I see. But which of the partners do you work for, Mr. Helger?”
“I am an EU employee, Mr. Riordan, but I also have a history of employment with CoDevCo.”
“Oh? What kind of history?”
“Not that it is any business of yours, but I retired as the Regional Manager for Nordic operations, after having served as an Associate Product Manager for the prior eight years.”
“Impressive.”
Helger’s shrug seemed less genuine than his small, satisfied smile. “It was thought that as we moved toward joint operations here on Delta Pavonis Three, it would be best to appoint a person who also had extensive experience with CoDevCo project management.”
“Well, that was clearly achieved. And the other half of your credentials are, I’m sure, equally impressive.”
Helger’s face went protectively blank. “What other credentials are you referring to?”
“Your prior experience as an EU administrator, of course.”
Helger’s face did not change. “Mr. Riordan, I regret that I do not have time for a casual chat—”
You mean you don’t want to admit that the first day you worked for the EU was the day you stepped onto the tarmac at the Dee Pee Three Downport.
“—so I must ask that we constrain our discussion to official matters. Firstly, I have now received your dossier—”
Obviously. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have let me set foot in your little fiefdom.
“—and I must say I am somewhat puzzled: who, exactly, do you represent?”
“Officially? No one.”
Helger was clearly not prepared for such a frank admission. “Then how did you get this rather sweeping writ of cooperation from the European union ?”
“That was a courtesy, provided at the request of Senator Tarasenko, head of the United States Congressional Committee on Strategic Space Initiatives.”
“So you are an official representative of the US government? And not the Commonwealth in toto?”
“Neither. I am not a representative of any one government, which is why the other Commonwealth nations—as well as the EU—were willing to accept me as a general observer.”