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the southern American continent were Spanish speaking, I believe."
"That's correct," Jyt said.
"The city of La Paz was the capital of the country they called Bolivia.
Moreover, it was close to a
Lake called Titicaca, which was at the highest altitude of any lake anywhere.
Come to that, I'm fairly sure it still is but I'd need to check."
"The High Lake," Sherven read from the screen.
"Yes. You see, it ties in," Chown said.
Casselo brought something up on his phone and consulted it for a moment.
"Let's have a look, then,"
he said, entering a code. A map of the region came up on another of the wall
screens. He entered more commands, and La Paz and Lake Titicaca appeared,
annotated in red.
"So where's the Gulf?" Yorim asked, looking over it. The most conspicuous
inlets that might have qualified were all on the eastern seaboard, whereas the
places Chown had indicated were over on the opposite side of the continent.
"There's only that coastal indent about halfway up," Chowm admitted. "It would
be around the border between the countries of Chile and Peru. That could have
been it, maybe. I've never come across it as being called a gulf. But that's
something that needs to be looked into, obviously."
The meeting finally broke up on a note of optimism. While groups were still
continuing to debate some of the issues, Sherven steered Kyal over to one
side. "You know, you really are more of a generalist, just like your father,"
he said. "I like your ways of thinking and working. How would you feel about
the idea of taking charge of this whole question? It's going to need a
somebody at the middle of it who can talk to all the specialists and
coordinate their inputs. You seem to have a flair for it. I can see this
Providence issue becoming central to a lot of what we have going on at
present."
It sounded attractive. Kyal was already intrigued by the Providence riddle in
any case. "Do you mean in parallel with the Triagon work?" he asked.
"I'd say that's pretty well completed," Sherven replied. "As far as the
essentials go, anyway. Others can work out the details. I was thinking we
could set you up here for a while, aboard
Explorer 6
." His eyes had a faint, mischievous light.
"I could almost answer that now," Kyal said. "Do I take it you'd be talking
about including Yorim
Zeestran too?"
"Oh, I'm sure that could be accommodated," Sherven assured him. "Perhaps we
can discuss it over lunch. Are you joining us? We've got a table reserved in
the Patagonia."
Kyal smiled apologetically. "If you don't mind, Director, I'll duck out this
time. I, ah, have some personal matters that have been waiting long enough.
Yorim can stand in for me, if that's acceptable. You can take my answer as
affirmative."
Sherven didn't argue. "Very well, then. We'll see you back here later, I
trust? Now that we seem to have made some headway, I'd like to get someone
along from the news service to put a public bulletin out about it. Would you
mind saying a few words?"
"I'd be happy too, of course."
"And you're sure about the offer I just mentioned? If so, I might mention that
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as well. Would that be in order?"
Kyal had heard that while Sherven sometimes took a while to make his mind up
about things, once he did, he could move amazingly quickly. Lorili's transfer
up to
Explorer 6
seemed to be an instance. He could see no reason to change his mind. "If Yorim
feels the same way, then by all means go ahead," he replied.
Sherven turned to someone else who wanted his attention, and Kyal took the
opportunity to detach himself. He went through to the outer office where
Emitte was usually stationed, but it was empty. Taking advantage of the
privacy, he took out his phone and called Lorili.
"You made it!" she exclaimed, looking delighted.
"Yes. And I'm free at last. Sorry I couldn't call sooner, when we arrived.
They rushed us straight through to the meeting."
"I guessed it was something like that. How did it go?"
"Just fine. Meet me for lunch and I'll tell you all about it."
"The general cafeteria would be good," Lorili said. "You know where it is?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]