TITAN, SECOND IN SIZE AMONG THE MOONS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM only to Jupiter’s Ganymede and then by just the barest of margins, had been a constant source of enigmas for astronomers and planetary physicists virtually since its discovery by Christiaan Huyghens in 1655. One of the first questions to be asked was whether it possessed an atmosphere, thus making it unique among the planetary satellites. When that was at last resolved affirmatively in the early 1940s, other questions arose: What did the atmosphere consist of, and what were its physical conditions at various depths? For more than thirty years attempts at measuring the body’s optical, infrared, and radio spectra yielded inconsistent and sometimes contradictory results. Then the close flyby of the American Voyager I probe in 1980 resolved some of the basic issues:
Titan’s atmosphere was mostly nitrogen, with significant proportions of argon, methane, and hydrogen, plus trace amounts of numerous hydrocarbons and nitrogenous compounds. Surface pressure was around 1.5 times that of Earth’s atmosphere, which at the estimated temperature of minus 179 degrees Celsius and with Titan’s surface gravity of 0.14 suggested about ten times as much gas per unit area as on Earth. As had been suspected by many theorists, the dense, reddish clouds blanketing the surface turned out to be an aerosol suspension at an altitude of two hundred kilometers, consisting of molecular fragments formed by ultraviolet dissociation of the gases in the upper atmosphere. According to most models, the aerosol particles would gradually recombine into heavier polymers and precipitate out of the atmosphere to form surface deposits of considerable depth, but this hadn’t been verified since the clouds were everywhere opaque. Because of the cloud blanket and Titan’s remoteness from the Sun, daylight on the surface would be about as bright, it was estimated, as a moonlit night on Earth.
The returned data were consistent with surface conditions close to the triple-point of the solid, liquid, and gaseous phases of methane, which raised the intriguing possibility that methane could well exist as a gas in the lower atmosphere and a liquid on the surface, thus playing a role similar to that of water on Earth. Conceivably, therefore, the surface of Titan could consist of methane oceans and water-ice continents covered by nitrogenous-hydrocarbon soil, above which methane rain precipitated from methane clouds formed below the aerosol blanket. It was even possible that the release of radioactive heat in the interior might maintain reservoirs of water that could escape to the surface as “ice lava,” and perhaps provide a fluid substrate for mountain-building and other tectonic processes. But with the diversion of funding from planetary exploration programs to feed the ongoing insanity of the arms race, little more was learned until the arrival of the European probe at Saturn, less than three years before the Orion.
Radar mapping by the Dauphin orbiter had indeed revealed the existence of vast oceans, islands, continents, and mountains below Titan’s all-obscuring clouds, and details of the natural geography had been published widely. However, as the Orion’s occupants had learned only after leaving Earth, the orbiter had also sent back radar images of highly reflective objects suggestive of artificial metallic constructions, which in many places covered huge areas too densely to be resolved individually. All mention of that had been censored from the published information, along with any reference to the machines glimpsed by the Dauphin’s short-lived surface landers and the advanced culture that had originated them. At least, the inferred sizes of the constructions and the areas which they covered on some parts of the surface had seemed indicative of an advanced culture. But in almost three years the orbiter’s instruments had failed to observe any activity in space around Titan, or even to detect any sign of aircraft in the lower atmosphere; and except for intermittent transmissions emanating from a few sources pinpointed on the surface, the radio spectrum had been strangely silent.
No more was learned until the Orion went into orbit above Titan and began sending reconnaissance drones down through the aerosol layer and the lower-altitude methane clouds to scan the surface. The views sent back had been at first perplexing, then bewildering, and finally staggering as the mission’s scientists gradually unraveled what they implied. The views had shown what appeared to be alien towns consisting of unusual buildings that resembled enormous, intricately shaped hollow plants more than anything fabricated according to recognizable methods, which was difficult to explain since there were also plenty of examples of immense and elaborate engineering constructions. If the aliens had the technology to build factories, why didn’t they build cities to live in? Perhaps because of their notions of values and aesthetics, somebody had suggested.
Then had come the first indications that maybe the aliens weren’t so professional at managing their technology after all. View after view showed chaotic situations where entire industrial complexes seemed to have overflowed their boundaries, spilling plant and machinery out across the surrounding country with outgrowths from different centers invading each other’s territories and mixing themselves up in hopeless confusion. In some areas the mess of working and broken-down machinery, all buried amid piles of scrap and assorted parts, stretched for miles, yet much of it managed, somehow, to continue functioning. If the alien engineers were capable of efficient and purposeful design at all—and some of the designs seemed astonishingly advanced—how could they have let things get into such a state? It made no sense.
As the drones were sent lower to obtain telescopic close-ups both in infrared and at normal wavelengths using flares and searchlights, the scientists monitoring the views back in the Orion had waited breathlessly for their first glimpse of an alien. But they never found any. There were thousands of ingeniously conceived, freely mobile machines, to be sure, some of them displaying extraordinary degrees of versatility and behavioral adaptability, with all manner of types apparently specialized for just about every task imaginable...but never once was there a trace of the aliens whose needs all the activity was presumably intended to serve. Some of the scientists had speculated that the aliens were too tiny to show up on the pictures. But if so, why would they make machines that were so much larger? It didn’t add up. Maybe the aliens lived below the surface and never came out, leaving the machines to manage everything on the surface. Maybe they just stayed in their vegetable houses all the time. Maybe...but nobody found such suggestions very satisfying.
And then, as the scientists continued to study replays from all over Titan, they began noticing something remarkable about a particular “species” of erect, bipedal, vaguely humanoid robot that seemed to be represented everywhere to a greater or lesser extent: Everything they seemed to do was unremarkably familiar. Their patterns of coming and going in and out of the houses and about the towns, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups, stopping occasionally upon meeting others, were the same as could be seen in communities anywhere; they tended plantations of odd-looking growths that in some ways resembled their peculiar organic houses; they wore what looked like clothes; they herded flocks of mechanical “animals,” and—more amazing still—were frequently seen to ride them; they gathered in crowds, and there was an instance of two groups of them fighting each other; and once or twice when the drones went too low, their reactions showed every characteristic of fear, and occasionally, panic. In short, as far as could be ascertained from pictures, they acted exactly as people did.
Which explained, of course, why nobody was having any luck in finding aliens—at least, not the flesh-and-blood or whatever-and-what-ever kinds of “conventional” aliens that planetary biologists had speculated about for years.
Titan was inhabited by machines. It possessed an electromechanical biosphere which included, apparently, a dominant species of culturally developed, intelligent, and presumably self-aware robot. The scientists christened them the Taloids, after Talos, the bronze man created by Hephaestus, the blacksmith son of Hera and Zeus. But clearly Titan could never have evolved such a system from nothing. So how had the machines come to be there? They had to be products of an alien civilization that had either brought them to Titan or sent them there. When? What for? Why Titan? Where were the aliens? Nobody had any answers. As always, Titan had thrown up a new batch of mysteries as soon as the earlier ones were resolved. Evidently it would be far from running low on its supply of them for a while to come.
“Not only aliens; not only intelligent aliens; but intelligent, alien machines—plus undreamed-of technology in virtually unlimited abundance, and a whole new, geologically active world!” Gerold Massey turned back from facing a wall of cable-runs and switchboxes in the generator bay inside the Orion’s Service Module and spread his hands emphatically. “Probably the most staggering discoveries within a century, and quite possibly within the entire history of science. Now, that’s worth some time and effort...But Mars never happened. There isn’t any place now for psychic paranonsense, surely.”
Zambendorf, leaning with arms folded against a stator housing, sent back a scornful look. “You’re being presumptuous, Massey. And besides, you’re talking about how I make my living, which I happen to find stimulating, entertaining, and amply rewarding. I would say that’s worth a considerable amount of time and effort.”
“And how about all the people who waste their minds and their lives thinking they’re going to become supermen—have you asked them if they think so too?”
“I don’t have to,” Zambendorf said. “They’ve already shown what they think—by how they choose to spend their own time and their own money. They’re free-acting individuals in a free society. Why do you insist on making their well-being your business?”
“When I have to live surrounded by mass-produced morons, it is my business,” Massey retorted. “We’ve got scientists emigrating in droves. Japanese power plants are driving half of what’s left of our industries. This ship wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the Europeans...I mean, Christ! -- don’t you care what you’re doing?”
“Why single me out?” Zambendorf demanded, straightening up and sounding angry suddenly. “Do you think I made people the way they are? I merely accept them as I find them, and if they have failed to develop the sense that would serve them better, or if society has failed to educate them in the use of it, why am I supposed to be the one to blame? Why don’t you complain at our so-called educators, or the media mind-puppeteers, or the political dummies who read opinion polls like horoscopes instead of doing something to influence them? Protecting fools from their own stupidity will not make them wiser, Massey. It merely spares them any need even to be aware of the fact that they’re fools, which is hardly the best way to begin curing anything. When I find I am unable to make a living, that is when people will have learned something. In the meantime, don’t expect apologies from me.”
“Ah...you’re admitting you’re a fake at last, are you?” Massey inquired, looking mildly amused.
Zambendorf calmed down at once and sniffed disdainfully. “Don’t be absurd. I admit no such thing.”
“So why did GSEC send you here? I wonder,” Massey said, ignoring the denial. “Because I know, and I know you know, that Ramelson and the other GSEC people who matter aren’t interested in any paranormal claptrap. So their real purpose can’t have anything to do with your supposed powers, can it?” He waited for a few seconds but Zambendorf made no reply; either Zambendorf wasn’t certain of the real answer himself, or he wasn’t saying anything. “Want to know what I think?” Massey asked.
“Very well, since you are obviously determined to tell me anyway.”
Massey moved a pace forward and made an openhanded gesture. “Under our system of nominal democracy, He Who Would Shape Public Opinion doesn’t need to be King. Society can be controlled indirectly through manipulation of the mass vote. So most people are conditioned practically from birth to have their opinions on anything dispensed to them in the same way they get their deodorants and prescription drugs—secondhand from TV role-models and celebrity images that have been carefully engineered to be easy to relate to.”
“Hmph...” Zambendorf snorted and paced away across the steel floorplates to halt in front of a ladder leading up to a catwalk overhead. What Massey was saying was uncomfortably close to his own reading between the lines of some of the things Caspar Lang had been saying since the Orion’s departure from Earth.
Massey went on, “That’s what I figure you are—a general-purpose bludgeon to mold a large sector of public thinking, and therefore to help shape official U.S. policies in a direction calculated to best serve GSEC’s interests.”
“I see. Very interesting,” Zambendorf commented.
“Think about it,” Massey urged. “They knew from the Dauphin pictures that there was an alien civilization here, but nobody knew what kind of civilization. GSEC has a tough competitive situation globally; the West is still stalemated after grappling with the Cold War for decades...Just think what the chance of exclusive access to advanced alien technology must have meant—and very probably still does! In other words, the response of the U.S. and major European governments to what happens here at Titan could turn out to be some of the most important legislation ever passed in history...and we’re well on our way to seeing it being decided by a kookocracy.”
“You’re being neurotic,” Zambendorf said impatiently. “Every generation has been convinced that it’s seeing the beginning of the end. Tablets dug up in Iraq from 3,000 B.C. say the same thing.”
“It’s not just me,” Massey answered. “A lot of people at NASO feel the same way. Why else do you think they sent me along? They knew enough to arrive at the same conclusions.”
Zambendorf turned back again and made a discarding motion. “Ideologists, all of you. All of the world’s troubles have been caused by noble and righteous ideas of how other people ought to live. I look after my own interests, and I allow the world to look after its in whatever way it chooses. That’s my only ideology, and it serves me well.”
Massey looked at him dubiously for a moment. “Really?” he said. “I wonder.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Zambendorf asked.
“Whose interests are you serving here—your own, or GSEC’s?”
“Is there any reason why the two shouldn’t coincide? In a good business relationship, both parties benefit.”
“When they’re allowed to enter into it of their own free choice, sure. But you weren’t even told what the deal was.”
“How do you know what I was or wasn’t told?” Zambendorf asked.
Massey snorted. “It was pretty obvious from the reactions to that stunt you pulled just after liftout what you were and weren’t supposed to know. They’ve been keeping you on a pretty tight rein since, I bet. How does it feel to be simply another owned asset on the corporate balance sheet, for use when expedient? So whose interests do you think will count first?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zambendorf maintained stiffly.
But Massey had a point, nevertheless, he conceded inwardly. With nothing to gain from alienating GSEC needlessly, and being a strong believer in keeping open the doors of opportunity whenever possible, Zambendorf had generally behaved himself through most of the voyage and avoided further spectaculars. Now that the voyage had ended, perhaps it was time he began reasserting himself, he decided.
“That’s not possible—not in the immediate future, anyway,” Caspar Lang said across his desk in the executive offices in Globe I. “The personnel schedules have already been worked out. Besides, you wouldn’t have any defined function at this stage.”
“I want a trip down to the surface,” Zambendorf said again, firmly. “Parties have started going down, and I want a slot on one of the shuttles. I didn’t come eight hundred million miles to take snapshots through a porthole from up here.”
“Small scientific teams are being sent down to remote areas to investigate surface conditions and collect samples,” Lang replied. “That’s all. You wouldn’t fit into something like that.”
“There’s a larger expedition being organized to go down sometime in the next few days, to attempt a first contact with the Taloids once a suitable site has been selected,” Zambendorf replied evenly.
Lang looked shaken. “How do you know about that?”
Zambendorf spread his hands and made a face in a way that said Lang should know better than to ask. “It doesn’t matter...But the opportunity would be ideal. It would be good publicity for me, and therefore also for GSEC.”
Lang emitted a long breath and shook his head. “It’s not my prerogative to decide,” he said. Inwardly he was still seething at Zambendorf’s discovering and revealing the mission’s true destination before it left Earth, which Lang felt reflected on him personally.
“Come on, don’t give me that, Caspar,” Zambendorf said. “Even if that were true, you could go talk to Leaherney. So fix something. I don’t care how...but just fix it.”
Lang shook his head again. “I’m sorry, but there’s no way at present. Maybe later...I’ll keep it in mind.”
Zambendorf looked at him for a few seconds longer, and then hoisted himself to his feet with a sigh. “Well, I’m not going to get into an argument over it,” he said. “Since it’s a publicity matter, I’ll leave it with my publicity manager to handle. She’ll probably be giving you a call later.” With that, he turned for the door.
Lang groaned beneath his breath. “It won’t make any difference,” he called after Zambendorf. “I’ve already told you the answer, and it’s final—there’s no way you’re going down there, and nothing that Clarissa Eidstadt says will change it.”