stacked the transport requisition reports. She had expected to find them sitting there still. The reports had apparently not been moved, but Bat was halfway along the room. Gobel was at his side, peering into some sort of viewfinder.
"I have the records you requested." Magrit tried to sense the atmosphere as she advanced into the room. She failed. Bat was as impassive as ever, and Gobel's turtle face did not seem built to show human expression. He took his eye at last from the viewfinder and turned to face her.
"Thank you." And now Gobel was suddenly giving off an emotion that Magrit Knudsen could read. Annoyance. He took the folder she proffered and placed it under his arm. "With your permission, Administrator Knudsen, I will take this with me for review and return it to you tomorrow." He walked past Magrit, heading for the door.
"But the review of the supplementary list—"
"—is in my hands." Gobel turned back to Battachariya. "Eight o'clock?"
"Choose the time for your convenience. I will certainly be here."
"Then eight o'clock." Gobel was gone, without a word to Magrit.
"What have you been saying to him?" She turned to Bat. "When I left, he was just unsympathetic, but now he's mad at you."
"That is untrue." Bat was easing the viewfinder back into its case. His moonlike, swarthy face wore a rare look of gratification. "He is not angry with me, not in the slightest. It was your return that provoked his animosity."
"All I did was bring him the memos he asked for."
"True. It was not what you brought that caused annoyance. It was the simple fact of your return." Battachariya had moved to a pile of listings, and he removed one. "Since the inspector-general has left for the moment, may I bring another matter to your attention?"
Bat's sideways mental leaps always lost Magrit. Today he seemed more obscure than usual. She stared blankly at the listing that he handed her. It reported on a Sweeper survey of parts of the Belt. The search had been completed two years ago, but the results had only recently been forwarded to Bat from the Ceres data banks.
"Is this something Gobel asked you about?"
"Not at all. The inspector-general knows nothing of it. I was reviewing this survey before his arrival interrupted my work. Now I wish to draw your attention to this item."
His pudgy finger jabbed at a dozen lines of written description halfway down the page. "Read that. Carefully."
Magrit read. One of the Sweepers, the machines responsible for continuous surveillance of potential hazards to navigation as far out as Uranus, had located and examined a man-made object. It was a piece of a deep-space ore freighter, the Pelagic , which had been converted for passenger transport near the end of the war. The vessel had been attacked and disintegrated. The Sweeper had found one small fragment, which happened to include an intact flight recorder. A querying of the recorder showed that the Pelagic was a Belt vessel carrying a total of ten passengers and crew at the time of the ship's destruction. The nature of the damage and the weapon that inflicted it were described.
Magrit read it through twice. "So a Sweeper found a bit of space debris left over from the war. What about it? There must be millions of them."
"There are indeed. The Sweeper recorded the approximate position and velocity for future tracking, but it did not recover the fragment from orbit, nor did it destroy it. I would like your permission for recovery to be initiated at once, and the flight recorder sent here."
"What will it cost?"
"That estimate is not yet available. But it will be significant, since the position is poorly known." It was wrong for a supervisor to lose her temper visibly with someone who worked for her. Except sometimes. Except like now, when nobody else was here.
"Bat, I don't know why I bother. Where's your goddamned sense? You have the inspector-general breathing down your neck and aching to find something he can stick you with. He hasn't seen one
"I have the records you requested." Magrit tried to sense the atmosphere as she advanced into the room. She failed. Bat was as impassive as ever, and Gobel's turtle face did not seem built to show human expression. He took his eye at last from the viewfinder and turned to face her.
"Thank you." And now Gobel was suddenly giving off an emotion that Magrit Knudsen could read. Annoyance. He took the folder she proffered and placed it under his arm. "With your permission, Administrator Knudsen, I will take this with me for review and return it to you tomorrow." He walked past Magrit, heading for the door.
"But the review of the supplementary list—"
"—is in my hands." Gobel turned back to Battachariya. "Eight o'clock?"
"Choose the time for your convenience. I will certainly be here."
"Then eight o'clock." Gobel was gone, without a word to Magrit.
"What have you been saying to him?" She turned to Bat. "When I left, he was just unsympathetic, but now he's mad at you."
"That is untrue." Bat was easing the viewfinder back into its case. His moonlike, swarthy face wore a rare look of gratification. "He is not angry with me, not in the slightest. It was your return that provoked his animosity."
"All I did was bring him the memos he asked for."
"True. It was not what you brought that caused annoyance. It was the simple fact of your return." Battachariya had moved to a pile of listings, and he removed one. "Since the inspector-general has left for the moment, may I bring another matter to your attention?"
Bat's sideways mental leaps always lost Magrit. Today he seemed more obscure than usual. She stared blankly at the listing that he handed her. It reported on a Sweeper survey of parts of the Belt. The search had been completed two years ago, but the results had only recently been forwarded to Bat from the Ceres data banks.
"Is this something Gobel asked you about?"
"Not at all. The inspector-general knows nothing of it. I was reviewing this survey before his arrival interrupted my work. Now I wish to draw your attention to this item."
His pudgy finger jabbed at a dozen lines of written description halfway down the page. "Read that. Carefully."
Magrit read. One of the Sweepers, the machines responsible for continuous surveillance of potential hazards to navigation as far out as Uranus, had located and examined a man-made object. It was a piece of a deep-space ore freighter, the Pelagic , which had been converted for passenger transport near the end of the war. The vessel had been attacked and disintegrated. The Sweeper had found one small fragment, which happened to include an intact flight recorder. A querying of the recorder showed that the Pelagic was a Belt vessel carrying a total of ten passengers and crew at the time of the ship's destruction. The nature of the damage and the weapon that inflicted it were described.
Magrit read it through twice. "So a Sweeper found a bit of space debris left over from the war. What about it? There must be millions of them."
"There are indeed. The Sweeper recorded the approximate position and velocity for future tracking, but it did not recover the fragment from orbit, nor did it destroy it. I would like your permission for recovery to be initiated at once, and the flight recorder sent here."
"What will it cost?"
"That estimate is not yet available. But it will be significant, since the position is poorly known." It was wrong for a supervisor to lose her temper visibly with someone who worked for her. Except sometimes. Except like now, when nobody else was here.
"Bat, I don't know why I bother. Where's your goddamned sense? You have the inspector-general breathing down your neck and aching to find something he can stick you with. He hasn't seen one
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