"All right, I finished it," said Mike Stearns, the moment he strode into Melissa Mailey's office. Triumphantly, he dropped the Economic History of Europe onto her desk. The tome landed with a resounding thump.
Mike stooped and peered at the legs of the desk. "Pretty well built. I thought it might collapse."
"Well, now that you've finished that one, I'm sure—"
"Not a chance, Melissa!" He held up his hands and crossed his two forefingers, as if warding off a vampire. "Besides, I don't need to. Birdie Newhouse—bless him—has shown us the way. In practice, by getting his hands dirty, just like I predicted."
Melissa frowned, almost fiercely. "Mike, be serious! You can't solve the tangled land tenure relations of seventeenth-century Germany by simply buying the land. Even if everyone was willing to sell, we couldn't possibly afford it. King Midas couldn't afford it."
Mike shook his head. "I'm not talking about that. Tactics come, tactics go. What matters is what Birdie did, not how he did it. Birdie and Mary Lee both. They got in there and mixed it up with the people on the ground, and took it from there. That's what we need—only organized. Something like a cross between the OSS of World War II days, Willie Ray's grangers, and—and—I dunno. Maybe the Peace Corps. Whatever. We'll figure it out as we go."
Melissa laced her fingers together and stared at him.
"You're nuts," she proclaimed, after a few seconds. "On the other hand, it is a charming idea. Like the poet said, in beauty there is truth. You'd need the right people to carry it out, though—and not somebody like Harry Lefferts."
Mike chuckled. "Can't you just see Harry as an agrarian organizer?" His voice took on a slightly thicker hillbilly accent. "`Let's all get together, boys. Or I'll shoot you dead.'"
Melissa grimaced. "That's not really funny, Mike."
"Sure it is. But I agree, Harry's not the right type. You got any suggestions?"
Melissa's eyes narrowed, as they did when she was chewing on a problem.
"Well . . . There's somebody I think we could at least raise the idea with. Deborah Trout."
It was Mike's turn to frown. "Len's wife? She's always struck me as pretty straitlaced."
"Well, not her personally. She's in her fifties now, anyway. A bit long in the tooth to be gallivanting around the German countryside. But she's got someone in her office that I think she'd be willing—delighted, actually—to part company with."
"Who?"
"Noelle Murphy."
Mike's frown was now as fierce as Melissa's had been earlier. "I thought she wanted to be a nun. I can't say I know her at all, but I always got the sense that she's as straitlaced as they come. I can't really see her . . . why are you grinning at me like that?"
"Because the idea's charming in its own right. Don't forgot that Noelle's a bastard, too—or do you really think that idiot Francis fathered her? Pat Murphy's bastard, at that."
Mike rolled his eyes. "Melissa, if there is any single person in Grantville who can be described as `not playing with a full deck' more than Pat Murphy . . ."
Melissa clucked her tongue reprovingly. She did that extraordinarily well. "Thou shalt not visit the sins of the mother on the daughter. The follies, neither. This much I can tell you, because she was a student of mine—Noelle's smart as a whip, and there's a lot more going on under the surface than it looks. As for the religious business, she's never actually decided to become a nun, so far as I know. And what difference does it make anyway? We're not asking her to play Mata Hari, are we?"
Mike rubbed his chin. "Well, no. But . . ."
Melissa rose from her desk. "Come on. Let's at least raise the idea with Deborah and see what she thinks."
Deborah Trout was enthusiastic. As Mike had darkly suspected.
"Noelle would be perfect! How soon can she clear her desk out?"
"What I thought," he muttered under his breath. Then, loudly enough to be heard:
"Oh, not any time soon. For the moment, she'll appear to be staying on the job. Undercover, you might call it."
"Oh." It was almost comical, the way Deborah's face fell.
On their way back, Mike grumbled to Melissa. "This is a screwy idea. The only reason Deborah likes it is so she can get rid of Noelle."
"You're right," agreed Melissa serenely. "But look at it this way, Mike. How would you characterize Deborah Trout?"
Naturally, she didn't wait for an answer. "I'd characterize her as follows: earnest, efficient, serious, dedicated, hard-working bureaucrat."
"Um. Yeah, okay."
"And she's ecstatic at the idea of getting rid of Noelle."
Mike started to brighten up. "Mind you," he cautioned, "there's a place and a need for levelheaded public officials."
"Oh, sure. But not where you'd be sending Noelle."
There was still a problem. "Uh, Melissa, I admit I don't know the girl—sorry, young woman—as well as you do. But I get the distinct impression that Noelle thinks of herself as, well—"
"An earnest, efficient, serious, dedicated, hard-working bureaucrat, with strong religious convictions that are leaning her toward joining a religious order. But don't forget she's also a bastard. Trust me on this one, Mike."
They walked on a little further. Melissa added:
"The next thing we need is a symbol of some kind."
Mike shook his head. "Stick to what you know, Melissa. No way you can gimmick a symbol that means anything. You just have to wait until something emerges on its own."
"From where?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? Maybe the meatpacking industry."
"Huh?"
"Bacon. To go with your scrambled eggs."