Fire with Fire(43)

Nolan glanced up from under his hand. “What? No, no idea; frankly, I didn’t notice.”

And indeed, maybe Nolan hadn’t noticed—but then again, maybe he had. It was as if the measurements of Caine’s memory had been designed to surreptitiously assess where his earlier, lunar memory loss began and ended, with an a priori presumption of about one hundred hours. So, had Nolan expected a one-hundred-hour memory loss from the outset? If so, had Nolan instructed his Taiwanese contacts to do more than just ship Caine back to the US after they had swapped him out of their cryocell and into an American model, fourteen years ago? Had they taken “therapeutic” steps to ensure this greater memory loss?

Downing stopped: steady, old boy. Look very carefully at where these inquiries are taking you: toward the notion that Nolan not only took premeditated steps to deny Caine information about what happened during his last one hundred hours on Luna, but that he kept me in the dark about doing so. But what would possibly—?

Nolan’s voice severed that troubling line of thought: “While we’re on the topic of Caine’s cold sleep, I’ve been wondering if his memory loss might have been caused by the kind of cryo-suspension the Taiwanese used. Or maybe it was the rapid shift between their system and ours.”

Downing managed not to flinch: so has Nolan started reading my mind, now? “That shift—is that why they held Caine for about a month after cold-sleeping him on Luna?”

Nolan nodded. “The pharmacology of the pre-toxification approach is radically different from ours. They had to purge their chemicals out of him before ours could go in. It took about two weeks between partial rethaw and full resleep.”

“Ah.” Nolan’s comments about Taiwan’s controversial pre-toxification cryotechnology were accurate, and Caine might very well have spent two weeks having his fluids exchanged. Or Caine might just as easily have spent two weeks in a drugged stupor, inhabiting a twilit land where the mental fogs induced by serotonin derivatives were intermittently pierced by lightning strokes of electro-convulsive “therapy” sessions.

Nolan leaned forward, his smile a little wider but less relaxed. Downing knew what that signified; the admiral wanted to get off the topic of Caine’s memory loss: “Any other concerns regarding Mr. Riordan?”

Downing folded his hands. “Riordan has every reason to hate us—and to distrust us. I’m uncomfortable with our decision to let him present his own findings at the Parthenon Dialogs. He could decide that an international summit is exactly the right forum in which to expose IRIS, its manipulation of foreign governments, and his displeasure with it.”

Nolan smiled. “We anticipated this risk from the first day we reanimated Riordan. Face it, Richard: the part of him that is a polymath is impossible to predict. They never do just one thing, or follow just one path, for very long. It’s not in their nature. Unless they become authors. Or troublemakers. Or both.”

“You mean like Caine.”

“You said it, not me.”

“So how do we make sure he stays in line?”

“By appealing to the part of him that is the Boy Scout, the straight arrow. By reminding him what’s at stake and then bringing him inside—all the way inside.”

“Nolan, if we do that—”

“If we don’t, he’ll only resent us more. And it’s the least we can do. Besides, as a purely cultural operative, he’d be invaluable. Once the publicity surrounding Caine dies down, he’ll have a dim, but permanent, halo of historical fame, which will get him through just about any door, into any party, onto any invite list.”

Downing shrugged: there was no arguing that point. Riordan had a future—if he wanted it—on the lecture and book-signing circuit. He’d be sought after, but not a star, and his deeds would be much better known than his face: all advantageous for the kind of operative Nolan was envisioning. He frowned. “Very well—and he probably won’t want to make a scandal out of himself along with us. He’s got the pluck to do it, but is prudent enough to know it’s simply not the best move for him, or for the planet.”

Nolan smiled broadly. “You named him pretty well.”

“Pardon?”

“Odysseus—the code name you hung on Riordan. Odysseus was no coward, but he always looked before he leaped.”

“Yes, I suppose, but that has nothing to do with how Riordan got his code name. It came from a play on words—on names, actually.”

And suddenly, Downing was reliving the moment now one year past. . . .

Caine was recovering from drowning himself during the circuitry training exercise: Richard brought him a towel and sat down.