"Oh." I typed:
WESTERN BIG FOUR BEGAN SHIPBOARD SUBSUMMIT TALKS AT 1607 EDT. EXPECT TO
HAVE BRIEF COMMUNIQUE SOON. ALL FOR NOW.
ROGER, the reply came: OVER AND OUT.
"Incurious bunch," Stew said. "Don't they have any questions?"
"I guess they prefer not to be confused by our meager facts. Makes
it easier for them to interview each other and bat out learned
think-pieces."
* * * * *
The Western Big Four ended their conference, or whatever it was, and
Gov called me to say I could release the communiqué. I tried to get
him to elaborate on it, or at least tell me off the record what they'd
really discussed, but he refused. Gov sounded tired and irritable.
I put the communiqué on the teletype to the other ship and told them
there was nothing else at the moment. Again there was a surprising
lack of curiosity from the free press. They asked a couple of routine
questions and I answered them and shut down the machine. I was
beginning to feel rebuked and useless.
"Do they have a bar on this boat?" I asked Joy, who was filing away a
copy of the uninformative communiqué in an impressive leather-bound
folder labeled in gold: MONOLITHIA-ULTRA.
"Well now," she said, "I'm glad you asked me that question. Yes, as a
matter of fact. And would you be after offering to buy me a drink?"
"I most delightedly would," I said. "Or two or three."
Relaxed now at the bar, with Joy on the stool beside me and a tall
drink on the mahogany, I had time to think.