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Swersa paused. "If there's anything else I can do, let me know."
"There will be, I'm certain," Nathaniel confirmed, trying his databloc. The
door opened, and he stood aside. With a quick smile, Swersa was gone. Once the
packs were inside, he closed the door and studied the sitting room-two desk
consoles, two sofas with matching upholstered armchairs, all arranged around a
low wooden table with a large spray of fresh flowers.
"Luxury accommodations." Sylvia looked at Nathaniel. "Status for a former
envoy?"
"More like luck and a friendly Ecolitan," he answered. "I doubt my status
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entitles us to this." Nathaniel hugged Sylvia. "I'm not in the mood . . ."
"I know," he whispered. "Hug me back and listen. Your turn is coming. That's
why we have to finish the study here and now. Can you get it through the
Imperial embassy and to the I.I.S. and the Defense Miniscry?"
Sylvia relaxed slightly and bent toward his ear, nibbling it slightly, but
scarcely sensually, before answering. "Until I try, I won't know, but I think
so. Do you think the Legate will let the report go?"
"He can't overrule an Ecolitan, but he also has to know what's in it. If he's
the typical political appointee, he'll only want to see the executive summary,
and that's just about all he's going to get, certainly not any of the
appendices, not until it's spread across the entire diplomatic community here,
and to die New Avalonian Ministry of Commerce, which has to get the first
copy. You and I are going to do one of the appendices. It will have a title
something like, 'The External Diseconomies of Artosan SpacioGraphics.' "
"Meaning that it will spell out everything?" He nodded. "That wont stop this .
. . war."
"No. But it will slow down the Empire, I hope, while we find a way to stop the
war."
"Us? Just us?"
"Us."
"That scares me," she whispered.
"If its any consolation . . . it scares the frig out of me. And I do love you,
you know." He gave her a last hug. "Now . . . let's get freshened up and then
get something to eat. Is that all right?"
"I am hungry." She lifted her field pack. "Let me put this in the bedroom.
Which one do you want?"
"Why?"
"I want the same one."
"But . . . ?"
"That was to keep you in line." She kept her face straight for a moment,
before smiling wickedly.
"I think you're doing just fine." He lifted his own pack. "You pick."
XXX
What about these tables?" asked the young man with the goatee, easing up
beside Nathaniels console, where the Ecolitan continued to struggle with the
wording of the executive summary. "Do you want frequency distribution or a
geometric mean?"
"Both," decided Nathaniel. "Label them Thirty A' and Thirty B.' "
"Stet, sir."
No sooner had the goateed staffer departed than Clerigg reappeared.
"Fascinating figures here. Quite a story." The Ecolitan nodded, waiting.
"I don't quite understand what you meant in this direction," confessed the
Legation economist, showing Whaler the table he held, and the note hastily
scrawled earlier by the Ecolitan. "Wasn't as clear as I could have been,
probably," said
Nathaniel. "Take the energy production figures, both liquid fuels and fusactor
output, converted to quads, and show total production and per annum rate of
growth. Then I'll need a separate chart that breaks out per capita liquid fuel
production, with two subcharts, one showing per capita production, and one
that takes per capita production of say, five years ago, and increases it by
the percentage of economic growth for the whole Artosan economy. On the same
chart, the second one, show the surplus. Now . . . these second charts go in a
separate appendix we're working on. You put the gross power charts in the
infrastructure appendix."
"You're saying that there's a considerable increase in liquid fuels sources,
far more than accounted for by population demand?"
"Something like that, but we'll let the figures speak for themselves."
Clerigg nodded. "Fascinating." Nathaniel hoped so.
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"You're generating some strange-looking figures, Ecolitan Whaler," offered the
third staffer, easing three hard-copy color graphs onto the flat area beside
the console. "Are these what you wanted?"
"Leave them. I'll let you know in a moment." He looked over at the second
console, where Sylvia was inputting text for the appendix. "Hows it going?"
"Slow."
"Me, too. The summary's got to have just the right flavor." She shook her
head.
They both looked up as the door to the long office opened. "This just
arrived," announced the fresh-faced receptionist, "by courier from the Frankan
Legation."
"Frankan?" Nathaniel pondered.
The parchment envelope with the Frankan Union seal in the upper left corner
bore two names, scripted regally in black ink: The Ecolitan Enigma 275
THE MOST HONORABLE NATHANIEL F. WHALER THE HONORABLE SYLVIA V. FERRO-MAINE
The sandy-haired Ecolitan walked over to where Sylvia struggled, watched as
she pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Here. You open it." He
watched as she studied the names. "What does the V stand for?"
"Vittoria."
"You never cold me."
"I don't recall that you asked." Then she smiled, reached out, and squeezed
his fingers before she opened the envelope, only to find a second inside.
Within the second envelope was a card, also neatly scripted.
THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUESTED AT THE SALISBURY CLUB, THE EIGHTH OF
NOVEMBER, AT 12:30 P.M., FOR A LUNCHEON.
The signature beneath was that of Gerard De Vyierion. "Who's De Vyierion?"
"He was the Frankan Legate to New Augusta."
"Then we should go." Sylvia looked at the screen and the lines of text.
"That's tomorrow, and I'll need a break from this."
"We'll be mostly done by then."
"You will. I won't."
"We will."
"Promise?" she asked. "I promise."
"Good. How anyone . . . could like being an economist." Nathaniel chose not to
point out that his being an economist had brought them together. Instead, he
murmured, "It's a living."
"So long as it keeps being aliving," she answered dryly They both laughed,
ignoring the puzzled looks around them.
XXXI
Ecolitans?" ventured the thin-faced woman at the Legations front console.
"Yes?" Nathaniel and Sylvia paused.
"Legate Spamgall suggests that if you are going out, today would be a good day
to see Gerry Adams Park. It's quite a spectacle, you know, with all the
speakers and posters. "Thank you," said Sylvia.
The two hurried down the steps of the Legation toward the waiting groundcar
and driver.
"It'll have to be after lunch," Nathaniel said. "We're cutting it close. I
know. It was my fault, but I wanted to get those last graphs right. As if
anyone will read them." He snorted. "The economics make it obvious, but if you
say it in plain language, it's suspect because it's too simple, and if you use
the proper terminology everyone's eyes glaze over."
"There's another problem," ventured Sylvia. "More wars have been caused by
economics than by any other factor, and almost no one recognizes that even
after five millennia of constant proof." She opened the-groundcar door and
slid across the seat. "The Salisbury Club," Nathaniel added as he closed the
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