Free Michaelmas by Algis Budrys Page B

the same voice he had used to speak of darkness.
    Three more steps and he was in at the side of the auditorium. It was a medical lecture hall during the normal day, and a place where the patients could come to watch entertainment in the evening. Nevertheless, it made a very nice two-hundred-seat facility for a press conference, and the steep balcony was ideal for cameras, with the necessary power outlets and sound system outputs placed appropri-ately. To either side of the moderately thrust stage, lenti-cular reflectors were set at a variety of angles, so that an over-the-shoulder shot could be shifted into a tele close-up of anyone in the main floor audience.
    The brown plush seats were filling quickly. There was the usual assortment of skin colours, sexes, and modes of dress. They were much more reserved now, these permitted few, than the hustling mob at the airport.
    Michaelmas stopped at Douglas Campion. He held out his hand. "I'd like to express my sympathies. And wish you good luck at this opportunity." It seemed a sentiment the man would respond to.
    The eyes moved. "Yeah. Thanks."

    "Are you planning an obituary feature?"
    "Can't now." They were looking over his shoulder at the curtain. "Got to stay with the main story. That's what he'd want."
    "Of course." He moved on. The pale tan fabric panels of the acoustic draperies made an attractive wall decor. They gave back almost none of the sound of feet shuffling, seats tilting, and cleared throats.
    And out there in Tokyo and Sydney they were putting down their preprandial Suntory, switching off the cassettes, punching up the channels. In Peking they were standing in the big square and watching the huge projection from the government building; in Moscow they were jammed up against the sets in the little apartments; in Los Angeles they were elbowing each other for a better line of sight in the saloons — here and there they were shouting at each other and striking out passionately. In Chicago and New York, presumably they slept; in Washington, presumably they could not.
    Michaelmas slipped towards his seat, nodding and waving to acquaintances. He found his name badge pinned to the fabric, looked at it, and put it in his pocket. He glanced up at the balcony; Clementine put her finger to her ear, cocked her thumb, and dropped it. He pulled the earplug out of its recess in Domino's terminal and inserted it. A staff an-nouncer on Clementine's network was doing a lead-in built on the man-in-the-street clips Domino had edited for them in Michaelmas's name, splicing in reaction shots of Michael-mas's face from stock. Then he apparently went to a voice-over of the whole-shot of the auditorium from a pool camera; he did a meticulous job of garnishing what the world was seeing as a room full of people staring at a closed curtain.
    There was a faint pop and Clementine's voice on the crew channel replaced the network feed.
    "We're going to a tight three-quarter right of your head, Laurent," she said. "I like the light best that way, with a little tilt-up, please, of the chin. Coming up on mark."
    He raised a hand to acknowledge and adopted an expres-sion learned from observing youthful statesmen.
    "Mark."
    "Must cut," Domino's Voice said suddenly. "Meet you Berne."
    Michaelmas involuntarily stared down at the comm unit, then remembered where he was and restored his expression.
    "—ere we go!" Clementine's voice was back in.
    The curtains were opening. Getulio Frontiere was stand-ing there at a lighted podium. A table with three empty forward-facing chairs was sited behind him, under the proscenium arch.
    Frontiere introduced himself and said:
    "Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the Astronautics Commission of the United Nations of the World, and as guests with you here of Dr. Nils Hannes Limberg, we bid you welcome." As always, the smile dawning on the Borgia face might have convinced anyone that everything was easily explained and had always been under control.
    "I would now like