Pa'an

Jaeger Kunstler put down Elexi’s report on the Ultradata AI Recovery Program. Thamuz – Ambassador from Hell. How appropriate! He wondered what he would have done if it were real, if Lucifer’s domain was rising to take over the world. More accurately, suppose the world was sinking to the level of Hell. Would it make any real difference in his life? In anyone’s life? Hell, being a relative term, could only be appreciated if you had at least passing experience with Heaven, he thought. Damned little chance of that, no pun intended.

Kaiser was prancing about on the marble tiled floor of his office, trying to play with a stuffed dog toy. The irresistible little dog watched him while he played, hoping for a little attention. Kaiser brought over one of his toys, put it on Jag’s lap and pawed him gently. It meant, “please play with me.” Jag smiled, petted the dog and got down on one knee to play tug o’ war with the furry 14 pound creature. He was growling at Kaiser and Kaiser was growling at him when Elexi barged in.

She stood in the doorway with a sheaf of letters, checks to be signed and accounting reports. She smiled at the sight of distant, gruff Jag on the floor with a small white dog.

Jag was embarrassed. He was trained to have no attachments to people, places or things. They were weaknesses. Yet this innocent little dog, originally just another indulgence, had become a strong attachment. He was unwilling to think about it, but it had something to say about the real nature of Heaven and Hell. He put those thoughts away.

“Good to see you relaxing with your doggie. He’s a sweet dog. But here’s your mail, with the important stuff on top and the junk on the bottom. Let me know if you really want to see all the junk. I can probably take care of it. Oh, and here is your expense check and the expense report.”

She put the pile on Jag’s desk and stepped backward to the door. Jag, whose knee was painful from the hard tiles, got up a bit slower than he would have liked.

“That is good. If you are done, and you want to get out for a while, would you mind taking Kaiser out with you? I think he’s bored watching me work. I won’t have anything for you until about 3 o’clock.”

“Pleasure, Boss. Oops, sorry, Mr. Kunstler.”

Jag cracked a lopsided grin, “Boss is good. Have a nice lunch.”

Kaiser looked at Jag, looked at Elexi, wagged his tail furiously at idea of “out” and stood on his hind legs waving his two front paws at her. Then he trotted to the office door. It was a winning routine and little dog knew it.

As they left, Jag sighed. He was very deep in the assignment now. Uncomfortably deep, but since when was his comfort any kind of consideration to the Order? He felt like he was losing his ability to float. First Kaiser, then Aura, and now, what was bothering him? His father, Hans Zimmer, a name he hardly knew? A man he never met? A radiation-burned corpse?

He set his jaw and got down to work. The first pile of paper he picked up was his expense report. He didn’t even have to file one – he could arrange an unaudited allowance. But some teutonic synapse caused him to pass in the slips for Elexi to tote up and send to Accounting. Thoroughness and attention to detail was part of his training.

A business card fell out of the pile. He could see the Congressional seal on the card, even upside down on the floor. He bent to pick it up and held it for a full minute. Then he reached for the phone and called Senator Saxton Hornsby.

*****

Badly jet-lagged from the round trip across the Pond, the good Senator Hornsby was experiencing that sense of timeless unreality that comes from having one’s diurnal rhythm scattered across five time zones. So, when he went to his first meeting with Haverford Decker, Assistant Director of Homeland Security, whose fiefdom included an advisory role on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he found himself wondering if he had got to the Pentagon too early. But no, his watch had the correct time and it was Decker who was holding him up. Then an aide came out and told him Decker was tied up in a meeting with the President’s Chief of Staff and would be delayed. Could he say what it was about? Sax mentioned that he wanted to discuss security policy on the fissionables disposal contracts. The aide scribbled a note on a big yellow legal pad and left.

Half an hour later another aide came out and said that Decker was completely pre-empted that afternoon and could not meet with him. Sax dressed the man down and reminded him that he was dealing with a United States Senator and a member of the NRC to boot, and that if Decker did not get his rosy red ass into the meeting room there would be hell to pay. The aide ran out and Decker, red-faced and owl-eyed, ran in.

“Sax, I just can’t talk to you right now. I can’t. Look at me. Do you have any idea the pressure I’m under?” Then he ran out again, leaving the good Senator standing on one leg with his mouth open.

Stonewalled. DC style.

Sax called his office and got Maxine, ever efficient, on the line. “Maxine, see if you can find out if Mr. Muffin was down at the Pentagon today.” The President’s Chief of Staff was always eating or unwrapping a muffin of some sort. Perhaps he lived on them exclusively. Everyone knew him as Mr. Muffin, but never called him that to his face. In two minutes Maxine called back, “No Senator, the Chief’s been in the White House all day.”

Definitely stonewalled. What was going on here?

He put in a call to Manuel Pellorini, Assistant Secretary of Defense. After threatening and cajoling his way through half an army of underlings, he finally got Pellorini on the line.

“Manny, I’ve got an urgent need to discuss some radionuclide disposal policy with you. Can you see me ASAP?”

“No sense in doing that, Senator, we’ve got everything under control here.”

“Do you mind if we discuss it face to face? I’m talking official Council business.”

“How official? Do you have a letter from the Council chair?”

“No. Are you sure you want me to get one?”

Pellorini sighed, a big sigh. “No, I guess not. Let’s meet for coffee tomorrow morning, nice and informal.”

“See you eightish, Council Chambers Ring C. You bring the coffee, Manny.”

“Sure, Sax. See you then.”

By the time his driver got him back to his office at the Russell Building, there was a memo from the NRC Chairman on his desk:

“Senator Hornsby, as Chairman of the NRC, and in accordance with our rules, I’m asking you to avoid meeting with defense department officials on any matter touching on Nuclear Disarmament policy until the Council has established our official position.

Desist!”

Wow! Sax did not see a letter like this every day. Never, in fact.

He went over to the mirror over the washtub in his office lavatory and watched himself do a slow burn. Ayup, they got his Yankee dander up.