Free The Medusa Encounter by Paul Preuss Page B

for?”
“I forgot to mention that I’ve become a fairly experienced space traveler in the last year.”
     
“You mean that trip to Venus?”
     
“I’ve been to the moon, too. And Mars. I guess it’s been a while since I phoned home.”
    Edward put down his fork and glared at his son. “So. You’re a multilingual . . . investigator . . . who knows computers and doesn’t get spacesick. Maybe you should be a . . . a consumer advocate or something.”
    Emerald’s thin black eyebrows shot up and her delicate mouth curved into a happy smile. “What an excellent suggestion, dear! I’m sure Dexter and Arista would be delighted to have someone of Blake’s talent and abilities on their staff.”
“At Voxpop?” Redfield looked at his wife, angrily. He hadn’t intended to be taken seriously. “Doing what?”
    Dexter and Arista Plowman, although born to wealth, were a brother and sister team of professional reformers, the sort of ascetics whose roles in previous centuries had been played by such as Ralph Nader and Savonarola. What money the Plowmans had once had, and whatever came their way, they invested in their Vox Populi Institute.
Emerald said, “If Dexter Plowman or his charming sister . . .”
     
“Peculiar sister,” Edward growled. Away from his clubs and boardrooms, Edward’s confusion frequently expressed itself as temper.
     
“. . . wish to employ Blake, they will certainly use his best talents.”
     
“And he gets nothing in return. No way to get rich.”
     
Blake said, “Dad . . .” He cut himself short. We’re already rich was a reminder his father didn’t need to hear.
     
“Let’s think about this for a day or two,” said Edward.
    Blake could see the wheels turning in his father’s head. The Plowmans were Currently Fashionable Persons in Manhattan, somewhat of the rank of crusading district attorneys, people whose good opinions Edward Redfield had courted and to whom he would be honored to loan the services of a son. No money in it, but . . . his prodigal son Blake, reformed, and now a well-known public servant . . . Edward allowed himself a thin smile.
    Late that night Blake tiptoed into his father’s den, feeling his way by the faint light reflected through the windows from the hazy sky outside. Years ago, as a child, he had learned the combination to his father’s desk, and he used it now to open the upper drawer in which was secreted Edward’s whisper-quiet, gascooled, micro-super computer.
    It was a machine Blake had always regarded with awe and a tinge of jealousy, since his father used only a vanishingly small fraction of its power in his business dealings and did not appreciate what his money had bought. Blake hunched over it and went quietly to work; his project would test the machine’s mettle.
What was really going on at that “safe house” on the Hudson? Four hours later: for all Blake’s skill, his search had so far gained him little but negative knowledge.
    The steel king’s mansion was where it was supposed to be, all right; nowadays it was called Granite Lodge, a good, gray, innocuous name, and was supposedly used as a place where North American Park Service employees and their families could vacation, where dignitaries could retreat, where managers could confer, and so on—the usual sort of cover one might expect for so opulent a safe house.
    Except that this cover seemed airtight. Blake could discover no links whatever between the Park Service and the Space Board, much less the commander’s investigative branch. On the other hand, there were plenty of documented instances of use by vacationing employees, conferring managers, and retreating dignitaries.
    In state files Blake found floor plans and other documents describing the house and grounds, all accurate as far as his personal knowledge went, and the Park Service’s budget for the place with lists of the staff and their salaries and so on—and it all seemed aggressively innocent.
    With sour amusement