Authors: Timothy Zahn
“But it’s not like that,” Sommer objected.
“It’s not like
any
thing.” Porath spread his hands helplessly. “I’m sorry, Dr. Sommer, but it just isn’t. We’re breaking virgin legal ground here, and there just aren’t any obvious precedents.”
“And I’ll just bet the judge is just smacking his lips over it,” Sands growled. “His big chance to write trail-blazing law. Well, you called it, Adrian—the judicial branch has just officially gotten into the act.”
Sommer grimaced. “Yeah. Swell.”
Everly cleared his throat. “That reminds me. We’ve finished identifying all the assorted Spook Central infiltrators now. Any particular way you’d like to have them bounced?”
“Quick and clean and final,” Sands told him. “No publicity, unless they want to squawk about it to the media themselves. And you might have them tell their respective bosses not to bother trying again.”
Everly cocked an eyebrow. “That could easily be construed as a challenge,” he warned.
“So let them try,” Sands said grimly. “The sooner they find out we have no intention of becoming U.S. Government property, the better.”
“Maybe we ought to try talking to whoever’s in charge before we start waving red flags,” Sommer suggested cautiously. Sands had a bad tendency to lose her sense of proportion when she latched onto something like this. “We really don’t have the energy to waste on a full-scale intelligence war. We’ve got at least a hundred American cities and foreign capitals clamoring for Soulminder facilities, and if Frank’s people have to spend all their time guarding our backs here, we may never get another adequately secure building built. Anywhere.”
“And what are you going to say to them?” Sands scoffed. “Pretty please let us alone?”
“Depends on what they want,” Everly told her. “If they’re after Soulminder itself and aren’t going to stop at anything less, then you’re right, talking won’t do any good. But if all they really want is to make sure a Presidential soul transfer will be secure, then we might be able to convince them that we’ve got things under control.”
“I think it’s worth a try, anyway,” Sommer said. “Frank, can you get me the name and number of the man to talk to?”
“No problem.”
“Good,” Sommer said. “And I’ll want to talk some more with you about this later. There are some thoughts and scenarios I want to get your reaction to.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready.”
“Then let’s get back to Ingersoll,” Sommer said, glancing around the table. “If the judge—”
He broke off as he saw a new and oddly intense look on Porath’s face. “Murray?”
Slowly, Porath’s distant gaze came back to focus. “I was just thinking … no. No, it’s crazy.”
“Everything about this is crazy,” Sands said. “Come on, Porath, out with it.”
Porath’s fingers probed through his beard. “I was just thinking that—well, presumably the government wouldn’t try to influence the judge himself. But on the other hand, they might be able to get the
type
of judge they want assigned to the case.”
“And what type of judge might they want?” Sands persisted.
“A type who could be expected to rule against us,” Everly said quietly.
All eyes turned to him. “Then it’s
not
just a crazy idea,” Porath murmured.
Everly shook his head. “If Marsh wins Ingersoll’s body, you can probably say goodbye to ninety percent of our prospective clientele. No point in spending that much money when the courts won’t guarantee you’ll get a return on your investment. We’d either have to attract private funding somehow—and I don’t know offhand what we could offer them—or else find another source of money.”
Sands swore. “And there would be the United States government with a bag of cash in each hand.”
“Something like that.” Porath exhaled thoughtfully between his teeth. “It may be just fever-dreaming, but it would be stupid to take chances. I’ll get in touch with one of the judicial watchdog committees, see if I can get a list of voting records and find judges we definitely
don’t
want.”
“We’ll need to do more than that,” Sommer said, his stomach knotting. Of all the ironies about this whole mess … “We need to get this in front of the public—put your famous floodlit-microscope theory to work, Frank. If we’re lucky maybe we can scare off the trial-fixers before they get going.”
“May I ask how you intend to do that?” Sands asked. “Without looking like
we’re
trying to fix the trial, that is?”
“I really don’t know.” Sommer hesitated. “Frank, would you happen to know if Tommy Lee Harper is still in town?”
“He is,” Everly said without hesitation. “He’s been making a tour of Capitol Hill, trying to drum up opposition to a couple of bills that are under consideration.”
“Why do you want to know?” Sands asked, a trace of suspicion in her voice.
Sommer got to his feet. It had been an exceedingly long three days, and the worst part was probably still to come. “Because,” he told her, “I’m going to ask him for his help.”
“I must say, Dr. Sommer,” Harper said, coolly polite as he waved Sommer to a chair and closed the hotel room’s door behind him, “that you were probably the last person I expected to call me this evening.”
“Proves that miracles still happen,” Sommer said, sinking into the chair and glancing around. It was one of the best suites in one of the most expensive hotels in Washington.
Harper must have caught the once-over. “You’ll excuse the luxury, I trust,” his tone a bit defensive. “The
Focus
people made all the accommodation arrangements for us, and since I’m taping another interview with the network tomorrow they went ahead and booked me for the entire week. I would have preferred something less ostentatious, myself.”
“Ah.” To anyone else it would probably have sounded like a rather feeble excuse. To Sommer, who’d had abundant dealings of his own with network guest liaisons, it sounded only too typical. “Yes, I’ve run into that mindset myself on occasion.”
“I expect you have.” Settling into a chair across from a coffee table patterned with stone mosaic, Harper gave Sommer a measuring look. “So. On the phone you said something about a truce. I don’t know what you could possibly have in mind, but I’m willing to listen.”
“I appreciate that, sir,” Sommer said. “I suppose
truce
is really the wrong word, but I couldn’t come up with the right one. I presume you’ve been following the Ingersoll flap?”
Harper’s lip twisted. “Oh, yes. A man trapped helplessly in your machine. A pity it couldn’t have happened a day earlier—I could have used that at the debate. The perfect example of just what’s wrong with the whole Soulminder concept.”
“It’s not our fault Ingersoll’s soul hasn’t been restored to his body,” Sommer said, fighting down a rush of anger. “It’s Tyler Marsh and his card-house of legal technicalities that’s got him stuck, not us.”
Harper sighed, and some of the tension faded from his face. “I know that, Doctor.” For a moment he studied Sommer’s face. “In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I believe you, personally, are a decent person. That you really
believe
Soulminder can be made into a force for good. But don’t you see? This is exactly the sort of twisting of good intentions that always comes about when you set up shop in a fallen world.”
“So we shouldn’t ever try to make anything new?” Sommer countered. “Never even
try
to create something good in the midst of all the ugliness?”
“Of course we should,” Harper said. “And sometimes we succeed, despite ourselves. But a machine like Soulminder raises the stakes too high. We’re not dealing with the potential for abuse that’s inherent in the automobile, say, or even in the mass killing frenzies modern warfare makes possible. We’re dealing with the human soul, Doctor—the
human soul
. Can’t you see the terrible atrocities that could come out of your line of research?”
Sommer closed his eyes briefly. “
It’s not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons
,” he quoted quietly, “
but out of bad archangels
.”
“You and C.S. Lewis make my point for me,” Harper nodded. “Soulminder is an archangel, Doctor, so far as earthly creations go. I’m very much afraid that it’ll be beyond your ability to keep it from becoming a demon.”
“You may be right,” Sommer agreed quietly. “All the more reason for you to help me protect it.”
He gave Harper a rundown of Soulminder’s tenuous legal standing in the Ingersoll case, along with Porath’s fears that a victory by Marsh might inevitably drive Soulminder under the protective wing of the Federal government. Harper sat silently until he’d finished, his face an unreadable mask. “An interesting bind you find yourselves in,” he commented. “So what exactly do you want from me?”
“Nothing more than that you publicize the Ingersoll case,” Sommer said, the knot of tension in his stomach easing fractionally. To be talking joint strategy with Soulminder’s most vocal enemy … “I need you to keep it in the public spotlight, to make sure that the basic unfairness of what’s happening doesn’t get lost amid the flurry of learned discourses on law and public policy that are bound to flood the media when this gets a foothold. Above all”—he hesitated—“I need the kind of pressure from you and your followers that’ll make sure the lawyers and judge don’t try to drag things out.”
Harper snorted. “Lest the influx of customers and their money into Soulminder drop off?”
“That’s part of it, yes,” Sommer said without embarrassment. “But it’s as much for Ingersoll’s sake as it is for ours. A trial like this, even at its speediest, could take months … but we’ve never kept anyone in a Soulminder trap for more than five weeks at a stretch. Certainly not an old man whose heart’s going to need proper exercise if it’s ever going to heal. Time is on Marsh’s side, and I doubt he would mind losing the verdict if Ingersoll subsequently died when we tried to return him to his body.”
For a long minute Harper gazed past Sommer, at the lights of the city stretching to the horizon. Then, slowly, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dr. Sommer,” he said, “but I can’t help you.”
The knot in Sommer’s stomach retightened. “Why not?” he asked, fighting to keep his tone polite. “You see the evil in what Marsh is doing—”
“But you ask me to support one evil to keep another from happening,” Harper interrupted him. “I can’t do that.”
“Then you lose everything,” Sommer snapped. “You think this could kill Soulminder? Is that it? Because it won’t. Even if the government doesn’t take us over—even if you
shot
Jessica and me tomorrow—Soulminder wouldn’t die. You can’t destroy a known technology, Mr. Harper. Not ours, not anyone’s. Somebody,
somewhere
, will eventually reinvent it.”
He stopped, embarrassed by his outburst. But oddly enough, Harper didn’t seem angry. “I know all that, Dr. Sommer,” he said quietly. “I know that I’m losing—
Focus
’s choice of guests on our debate was a graphic illustration of just how solidly the liberal media is on your side, and they’re not the least of the forces arrayed against me. But ultimately, it isn’t my job to
win
against you, anyway. That decision is God’s, and His alone, and I wouldn’t think of dictating to Him just how He should shape the future of this world.
My
job is simply to take the stand I think right, no matter how unpopular or hopeless or even ridiculous the cause looks, and to have the courage to act on my beliefs. No matter what the consequences turn out to be.”
Sommer swallowed, a wave of quiet shame coloring his frustration. “I see I’ve been guilty of believing the popular image of TV evangelists,” he conceded, the words coming out with some difficulty. “I apologize.”
Harper smiled lopsidedly. “I’ve gotten used to it, I’m afraid,” he said. “In my experience, there are very few people—in
any
profession or ethnic group—who actually fit the caricatures others build up around them. Unfortunately, many people live their entire lives without realizing that, and those that find out differently are usually unwilling to admit their error.” He stood up. “I respect you for that, Doctor, and for other things. In a way I’m almost sorry I can’t help you.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Sommer said, getting to his feet. Harper beside him, he walked to the door … and there he paused. “One last thing, Reverend Harper. Do you truly believe I’m the Antichrist?”
“You, yourself? No, not really. But you may well be his unwitting forerunner. The Bible speaks of a mark on the foreheads of the Beast’s followers … and the equipment with which you make your soul-traces
does
include a band that wraps around the forehead.”
Sommer stared at him, a cold chill running up his back. For a moment he’d almost forgotten that this was a man who saw the world far differently than he himself did. “I see,” he said carefully. “I’ll do my best to make sure Soulminder doesn’t come to that end.”
A grim smile touched Harper’s lips. “So,” he said, “will I.”
Sands was back in the lab when he returned, poring over a pile of folders in a little pool of light from her desk lamp. “How’d it go?” she asked, straightening up tiredly and running a hand through her hair.
“He isn’t going to help us,” Sommer told her, dropping into his own desk chair.
“Didn’t think he would,” she grunted. “It would ruin his image forever among the rabid faithful if he did.”
“I almost wish it were that simple,” Sommer shook his head. “No, I don’t. It may be people like him who’ll help keep us honest.” He nodded toward the papers before her. “What are you working on, the local facility requests?”
“What else?” she growled. “I’m starting to feel like a millionairess sorting through marriage proposals. You wouldn’t believe the tax breaks and incentives some of these cities are throwing at us. You’d think we were a major league franchise or something.”
“It’s nice to be wanted,” Sommer murmured. “Just remember that we don’t have enough security monitors to set up more than three or four offices at a time.”
“I’m not likely to forget,” she countered sourly. “If it weren’t for that one small bottleneck I’d have stamped every one of these things
approved
and been done with it. Speaking of security, Everly left you the name and number of the man he says is probably in charge of the Secret Service’s worm squad.”