The Long War

investment. One of several, in fact.’
    Fuming, she didn’t reply.
    Abrahams said now, ‘You’ve certainly fulfilled the promise I saw in you.’
    ‘What promise? When?’
    ‘When they gave you command of the snazzy new Benjamin Franklin – despite a rather patchy official career record up to that point. Now, please don’t be offended when I tell you that I had a hidden hand in that. I can tell you now that one of the selection panel disliked your outspokenness over your family’s atheism, another even today has an antiquated view about women in senior positions . . .’
    ‘I can’t believe you had any influence over Admiral Davidson.’
    ‘Not at all. But he needed support from the panel. Well. All I can say is that, even in the depths of the Pentagon, levers can be pulled. Would you like another drink?’
    ‘So I’ve been manipulated.’
    ‘As for your handling of the trolls – did you know that you are actually featured in the long call now? “The woman who let trolls fly”. . .’
    ‘Manipulated,’ she repeated. ‘My whole life, my whole career, it sounds like. How am I supposed to feel about that? Grateful?’
    ‘Oh, not manipulated. Just – moved into the right position. It is up to you to take the opportunity offered, or not. After all, even within the parameters of your military mission, as a twain Captain you have had a great deal of autonomy. Your decisions are your own; your character is your own. You are who you are. Black, and I, and indeed Admiral Davidson, believe in giving the brightest and the best full freedom to operate. Anything else would be a betrayal.
    ‘Of course you are watched . We are all watched, in this technology-soaked age. What of that? But as to perceived “manipulation” – we, all of us, all of mankind, face enormous challenges, an unknown and unknowable future. Isn’t it better that we of good heart should work together, than not? Look, Captain Kauffman, all of this need make no difference to how you approach your work, when you go back to the ship after our conversation is over. Indeed, I would not expect it to.’
    ‘I can’t quit, can I?’
    ‘Would you, if you could?’
    She left that hanging. ‘And are you going to tell me who you are?’
    He seemed to think that over. ‘The question has no real meaning, my dear. Now – shall we order?’
    When the limo returned her, dropping her a short distance from the Benjamin Franklin , she saw the reassuring outline of Carl, standing by the access ramp. As she approached he actually saluted – quite professionally, too. She was careful to acknowledge.
    It was late, and there was no alarm in evidence, so after a brief diversion to the bridge she made for her cabin. The cat was curled up beside the bunk. She was actually purring in her sleep – if indeed she was sleeping at all.
    George Abrahams – not that Maggie remotely imagined that was his authentic identity. Douglas Black . Levers being pulled. No, strings being jerked, and Maggie Kauffman was the puppet. Well, there was little to do but accept it. That, she thought, or find a way to leverage her new ‘partnerships’ to her own advantage.
    She got into bed without disturbing the cat.

59
    L OBSANG LOVED TO talk – and indeed, to listen too, if you could keep up with him. In the weeks they spent crossing stepwise copies of the Pacific Ocean together, en route to New Zealand, Nelson came to understand fully that Lobsang was in a position to know everything that was worth knowing. He tried to imagine how the periodic synching of Lobsang’s various iterations must feel – as if, metaphorically, they all met up in some big hall somewhere, all talking at once, communicating their disparate experiences with frantic urgency.
    As a result the twain ride to a stepwise New Zealand passed pleasantly enough for Nelson. He even found he was able to put aside the idea that Lobsang, and the shadowy entities behind him, saw him as a ‘valuable long-term investment’ – along with many others, he supposed, a shadowy community of tentative allies, whose very names, he imagined, he might never learn.
    Still, like all journeys, this one came to an end, sixteen days after their departure from Wyoming.
    Nelson had visited Datum New Zealand many times. In this remote world, some seven hundred thousand steps West of the Datum, the Land of the Long White Cloud was evidently sparsely inhabited if at all, and its green mountains, its crystal skies, were