Michaelmas by Algis Budrys Page A

called him that before." She touched Michaelmas's arm again. "I tease too much." She looked contrite, but her eyes were not totally solemn. "It is a forgiveable trait, isn't it so, if we are friends again?"
    "Yes, of course." He patted her hand. "In the main, I'm simply tired."
    "Ah, then I shall let you rest," she said lightly. But she folded her arms and watched him closely as she settled back into her corner.
    The way to do it, Michaelmas was thinking, would be to get pieces of other people's footage on stories Horse had also covered. A scan of the running figures in the mob, or the people advancing in front of the camera, would turn up many instances over the years of Watson identifiably taking positions ahead of other people who'd thought they were as close to the action as possible. If you didn't embarrass your sources by naming them, Domino could find a lot of usable stuff in a hurry.
    You could splice that together into quite a montage.
    Now, you'd open with a talking head shot of Watson tagging off: "And that's how it is right now in Venezuela," he'd be saying, and then you'd go to voice-over. Your opening line would be something like: "That was Melvin Watson. They called him Horse," and then go to your action montage. You'd rhythm it up with drop-ins of, say, Watson slugging the Albanian riot cop, Watson in soup-and-fish taking an award at a banquet, Watson with his sleeves rolled up as a guest teacher at Medill Journalism School, Watson's home movies of his wedding and his kids graduat-ing. You'd dynamite your way through that in no more than 120 seconds, including one short relevant quote from the J class that would leave you only 90 for the rest of it, going in with Michaelmas shots of Watson at Maracaibo.
    You'd close with a reprise of the opening, but you'd edit-on the tags from as many locations as would give you good effects to go out on: "And that's how it is right now in Venezuela . . ." and then a slight shift in the picture to older, grimier, leaner, younger, neck-tied, cleaner, open-shirted versions of that head and shoulders over the years ... "in Kinshasa ... on board the Kosmgorod station . . . in Athens ... in Joplin, Missouri ... in Dacca . . ." And then you'd cut, fast, to footage from the helicopter that had followed Watson into the mountains: blackened wounds on the face of the mountain and in the snow, wild sound of the wind moaning, and Michaelmas on voice-over saying "and that's how it is right now."
    The little hairs were rising on Michaelmas's forearms. It would play all right. It was a nice piece of work.
    "We are nearly there, Laurent. Will I see you again?"
    "Ah? What? Oh. Yes. I'm sure you have good direc-torial talent, and I know you have excellent qualities. There'll certainly be future opportunities."
    "Thank you. If you get a chance to review the footage, I think you will find it was good. Crisp, documentary, and with no betrayals that the event was essentially a farce."
    "How do you mean?" he asked quickly.
    "There are obvious things missing. As if UNAC and Limberg each had very different things they wanted made known, and they compromised on cutting all points of disagreement, leaving little.
    They were all very nice to each other on camera, yet I think it may have been different behind closed doors. And why did Sakal leave without so much as a public exchange of toasts with Limberg? But I was not talking business, Laurent. I was suggesting perhaps dinner."
    That, it seemed to him, was just a little bit much. What would they talk about? Would they discuss why, if Clemen-tine Gervaise had been able to see something, hadn't the great Laurent Michaelmas delved into it on camera? What might a man's motives be in such a case? All of that so she could wheedle him around into some damaging half-admission or other and then run tell her Kiki about it?
    He smiled and said: "That would be an excellent idea. But I expect to be leaving before dinner time, and I also have some things I must do