Wingut and Longley looked at the image of Koven in the holocast projected between them in Professor Longley’s office.
“And that is the inventory of technology destroyed,” said Koven. “The temperature on the device was set at a high enough level to melt everything inside of the cave. As you can see, access to the cave has been blocked.” Koven panned the camera to view the former cave entrance, now simply a smoldering pile of rocks, a few of them glowing red from the heat in the cave.
“I did a composite analysis on the dead woman killed by the man inside of the cave. She is Professor Kushina Herer, associate professor in the Sociology Department. The weapon Dubitam used was set on medium low at the time of the attack. I will be sending Professor Herer’s body back via sub-light pod before the end of the rev. End of report.”
“Educator of the 500 Rev Cycle,” Longley said, making it sound more like a curse than a title.
“I need some agents to help him out,” said Wingut. “Not many, just a couple.”
“We’ve been over this, with Klept still at large we can’t spare the manpower.”
“Then give Earth 7 to Sociology and let me call Modi back home,” said Wingut emphatically.
“You know I’m not going to do that. All quarantine planets will remain under the guidance of the History Department as long as I am Department Head.” Professor Longley moved his coffee cup between him and Wingut.
“I know how it feels,” Longley said with a gentler tone to his voice. “When I sponsored missions, I couldn’t sleep some nights if my people were at risk. And I felt each death of one of my agents deep down inside of me. I felt responsible. I felt it was my fault. I know it hurts.”
“He’s not dead yet,” replied Wingut coldly, “and he’s not going to be if I can get him some help.”
“What about resources here? Are there any uni-based resources that would be helpful to him?”
“I don’t know,” replied Wingut.
“You should ask him.”
“I will,” replied Wingut.
“But there is one good thing about this whole episode,” replied Longley.
Wingut was too annoyed to give him the prompt for an answer.
“We have Trill now. A dead sociologist is the kind of evidence he can’t lie his way out of,” said Longley. “I’ll be talking to both him and Dean Midge torev. I will demand that Trill recall his people immediately. Withdraw by the end of the rev. Tomorrev at the latest.”
Not long after their meeting, Wingut sent a message to Koven. He offered any resources that could work from the university. But he didn’t offer what Koven Modi most needed: agents on site.