“OH, NO QUESTION OF IT, I’M SURE,” PENELOPE RAMELSON said over the breakfast table. “Burton would be happy to talk to him.” She turned her head to look across at her husband. “When do you think would be a convenient time, dear?” Penelope’s cousin, Valerie, who was from Massachusetts and staying for a long weekend, smiled expectantly.
Burton Ramelson realized that he had been allowing his mind to wander back to the storm of protest that the announcement the major Western powers had made of their intention to claim Titan unilaterally had provoked inside the UN. “Er...what?” he said, blinking as he dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “I do beg your pardon—I don’t think I can be quite awake yet.”
Penelope sighed. “Valerie was talking about Jeremy,” she said, referring to the elder of Valerie’s two sons. “Now that he and Gillian will be starting a family, he feels he needs a job to...well, you know—it’s psychological more than anything, I suppose—to feel he’s doing something to provide for them...something through his own efforts, as it were.”
“I was hoping that perhaps GSEC might have something suitable that it could offer him,” Valerie said, coming more directly to the point.
Ramelson frowned as he sipped the coffee that he was taking with the ladies before joining Buhl and some others for a business breakfast later. “Hmm, I see...So what would you consider ‘suitable’? What can he do? I mean, it is true that he and Gillian have been spending all their time gallivanting around the Far East and the Riviera practically since they got married...and he didn’t do much more than sail his sloop before that, did he?”
“Oh, don’t be such a crusty old gripe, Burton, even if it is first thing in the morning,” Penelope chided. “They’re young, and they’re making the best of it. What’s wrong with that? You’re always telling us how short you are of capable managers these days. Well, Jeremy has always struck me as very talented and highly capable. I’d have thought there’d be plenty of room to fit him in somewhere like that...After all, it wouldn’t have to be a terribly responsible position to begin with, or anything like that.”
“I could use a couple of good engineering project managers and program directors,” Ramelson said, not quite able to keep a sharp edge out of his voice. “Could Jeremy handle a structural dynamicist ten years older than him and with twenty years’ experience? What does he know about Doppler radar or orbital mechanics? Those are the people I need.”
“Now you’re being pompous. All I—“
“Oh, I didn’t want to suggest anything like that,” Valerie interrupted hastily. “But maybe something less demanding—possibly more in the administrative area, but not too humdrum...” She treated Ramelson to a smile of sweet, wide-eyed reasonableness. “Something with some life and glamor to it would suit his temperament—marketing, maybe, or advertising...Isn’t there a place like that where he could do some good? There must be, surely, Burton.”
Ramelson finished his coffee and made a face to himself behind the cup. He and Penelope would be able to talk about it much more freely on their own later, without his being rushed into committing to anything prematurely. And besides that, with the meeting probably waiting for him already, he didn’t want to go into all the whys and wherefores. “I’ll talk to Greg Buhl about it today,” he promised. He put down his cup and sat back with an air of finality that said the matter was finished for the time being. Penelope glanced at Valerie and nodded almost imperceptibly. “So what do you two have planned for today?” Ramelson asked. “Anything wild and exciting?”
“We thought we’d take the shuttle up to New York and go shopping,” Penelope said. “I called Jenny and Paul, and they invited us to dinner with them.”
“Uh-huh. Sounds like a late night back,” Ramelson said.
“Probably.”
“Why not stay over and get a flight back tomorrow?”
“We could, I suppose...Yes, why not? I’ll give you a call and let you know if that’s what we decide to do.”
Ramelson looked at Valeric. “You seem to be enjoying your stay. Glad to see it.” He glanced at his watch, folded his napkin and placed it in front of him, and stood up. “Well, the others will be waiting for me, so I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me, ladies. Have a pleasant trip to New York, and do give my regards to Jenny and Paul.”
“Of course,” Penelope said as Ramelson turned to leave. “Oh, and you will remember to talk to Greg about Jeremy, won’t you?”
“I’ll remember,” Ramelson sighed.
He had forgotten less than thirty seconds later as he crossed the hall outside the breakfast room, and his mind returned to the Titan situation. The rest of the world, especially the Soviets, had been outraged when the true purpose of the Orion mission was finally admitted after the months of speculations, accusations, and denials that had followed Zambendorf’s revelation at the mission’s departure. But that event was no longer viewed so widely as the major catastrophe that it had seemed at the time, since at least it had half prepared the world for the true story when it finally emerged—as it had to eventually—and had thus partly defused what would otherwise have been a bombshell of immense proportions. The reactions had been expected, of course, but apart from making a lot of noise and threats, what could the Soviets do. True, they could have started a war, the Western leaders had conceded among themselves; but the Pentagon’s strategic analysts had concluded that they wouldn’t—for the same reason that nobody had dared risk anything serious since 1945...or at least, very probably they wouldn’t; better than 92.4 percent probably, the computers had calculated.
On the other hand, depending on exactly what Titan turned up, exclusive access to advanced alien technology might provide the means for solving all of the West’s problems once and for all—with the Soviets militarily, and with the rest of the world commercially. So the West had taken the gamble, and so far it seemed to have paid off. About the only casualty that Ramelson had seen so far was Caspar Lang, who in his last videogram from Titan had still seemed to be smarting from the thought of a major security breach’s having taken place right under his nose. But better to have a realistic measure of Zambendorf now, rather than later when things start getting serious, Ramelson thought to himself as he trotted briskly down the four shallow steps outside the entrance to the library. And Caspar would get over things in time.
Inside, Gregory Buhl and two other GSEC executives, along with Julius Gorsche of the State Department and Kevin Whaley, a presidential aide, were waiting to begin the meeting. The first item was a summary presented by Gorsche of Daniel Leaherney’s latest report from the Orion. The dialogue with the Taloids had continued to progress since the Terran landing at the city of “Genoa,” Gorsche said. First impressions of the Taloid culture had suggested it was a collection of autonomously interacting, sometimes warring, sometimes loosely allied, social-political entities vaguely reminiscent of the Italian principalities and city-states of the Middle Ages, which the names that the Terrans had given them reflected. No further violent incidents of the kind necessitated against the “Paduans” had occurred, and that affair did not appear to have jeopardized the further development of constructive relationships with the Genoese. A permanent base had been established outside Genoa, and Terrans moved about openly inside the city itself; although apprehension and a tendency toward avoidance were still observable among some of the inhabitants, the Terrans were succeeding generally in gaining acceptance.
“At least our main concern has proved baseless,” Ramelson said when Gorsche had finished. “We haven’t found ourselves confronting an advanced alien race with an ability to threaten the mission or Earth itself.” He looked over at Buhl. “So where does that leave us, Greg? There’s a whole world of unconventional but highly sophisticated technology out there. Is it a potential resource that we could use? Does it look as if we might be able to get enough of it working for us somehow to justify the effort? If so, how much might we stand to benefit?”
“One thing at a time, Burton,” Buhl muttered, taking a moment to glance over his notes. “The scientists there are pretty well wiped out. They’re working round the clock, but the sheer volume of what they’re starting to uncover is staggering enough, never mind the complexity of it. The various specialists will be reporting separately in due course, but I’m trying to get a preliminary summary put together for sometime in the next few days. Okay?”
“Fine,” Ramelson said.
Buhl went on, “The answer to the main question is yes—there are technologies and processes up and running on Titan that could be centuries ahead of anything comparable on Earth, and some of the things there are completely new conceptually. We’ve already identified bulk nuclear transformation of elements; total fusion-based materials processing; molecular electronics; self-improving learning systems; intelligent, optronic, holoprocessing brains...and there’s no doubt all kinds of other things yet that we’ve never even dreamed of.” He threw up a hand. “The best guess seems to be that it all began as some kind of alien, self-replicating industrial scheme that screwed up, possibly millions of years ago. But whether that turns out to be the correct explanation or not, there’s little doubt that the entire system was conceived and originated as a high-intensity extraction, processing, and manufacturing facility dedicated to the mass-production of industrial materials and products, and despite what’s happened to it since, it still operates to fulfill that primary underlying purpose.”
“In other words, if you could unscramble the glitches and get things working on a more organized basis, you could supply just about all of Earth’s needs for centuries from a setup like that,” Richard Snell, one of the GSEC executives, said.
Whaley looked intrigued. “You mean it could give us a decent competitive edge again...and maybe a respectable strategic margin?”
Snell smiled humorlessly. “That could qualify as the understatement of the year, Kev.” He shrugged. “Anyone who gets to control the Titan operation doesn’t have any competitors, or any strategic opposition. Those problems all go away—permanently.”
A short silence ensued while the full meaning sank in. Then Whaley asked, “What about the Taloids? Is there likely to be a problem over...’ownership rights,’ or anything like that? I mean, is all this capacity something that they need too, or is it all pretty valueless as far as they’re concerned?”
“Hopefully we’ll be able to work out a basis for joint development,” Buhl replied. “Their experience and knowledge of the environment would constitute a valuable asset in any case, which makes a cooperative approach the most desirable goal to aim at.”
Frederick Methers, the other man from GSEC, commented, “Despite their physical form, the Taloids’ own culture is actually pretty primitive. They don’t have the conceptual abilities to utilize more than a tiny fraction of the potential they’re surrounded by. But with us giving direction and them providing the working skills, it should be possible to get the act together and run it for mutual benefit.”
Whaley looked at him curiously for a second or two. “I can see our angle,” he said. “What’s in it for the Taloids?”
Methers spread his hands. “What every backward race wants when it meets a more advanced culture—access to greater wealth and power, security, knowledge...whatever.”
“That’s true of the Taloids too?” Whaley sounded surprised.
“I wouldn’t mind betting on it, anyhow,” Methers said.
Gorsche nodded. “Genoa is also a fairly small state that’s constantly being attacked by larger enemies, and Padua is one of them. I’d have thought there’s a good chance that the Genoese would be extremely appreciative of any help we might give them for defending themselves. And that incident with the Paduans will have provided a very convenient demonstration of the kinds of things we could offer.”
Ramelson looked from side to side. All the faces were watching him expectantly, waiting for his endorsement of the policy being proposed. He sat back and drummed his fingertips absently on the arms of his chair while he thought over what had been said. At last he nodded. “It’s certainly worth exploring further, anyway. Do I take it that the other people you’ve put this to are in agreement also?”
Gorsche nodded. “It’s more or less Dan Leaherney’s own recommendations, and the president has approved,” he said.
Ramelson looked satisfied and turned to Buhl. “Then let’s get a confidential policy memorandum off to Caspar, confirming our position,” he said. “The sooner he knows where he stands, the sooner we’ll start seeing some results.”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss next,” Buhl said, reaching for some papers in his briefcase. “In fact I’ve got a draft here for you to look at. Maybe we can go through it while we’re all here together.”
On the other side of Washington, D.C., Walter Conlon and Patrick Whittaker were having breakfast at a Howard Johnson’s. “I imagine Gerry Massey must be pretty pissed,” Whittaker said. “After the job that he and Vernon did all through the voyage out...I mean, they’ve collected enough proof to debunk just about everything that Zambendorf has said and done since the mission left.”
“That’s right,” Conlon agreed over a plate of scrambled eggs and hashbrowns, but without sounding especially perturbed.
Whittaker looked puzzled. “But hasn’t it all been a waste of time?”
“Why?”
“Well...who cares anymore?” Whittaker shrugged. “Compared to what’s happened on Titan now, all that’s trivial, isn’t it? Anyone who tried to make a big thing now out of whether or not Zambendorf had pulled a few tricks would just be making an ass of himself, and Massey’s smart enough to know it. I assumed that was why Massey and Vernon haven’t been announcing any great revelations.”
Conlon shook his head. “They probably watched Zambendorf just to help pass the time during the voyage,” he said. “Massey’s also smart enough to have figured out that I wouldn’t have sent him all that way just to expose a stage psychic...not after he learned where the mission was really bound for and why, anyway.”
Whittaker frowned. “You mean his job never was to blow Zambendorf out of the water?”
“Not unless he wanted to, anyhow,” Conlon said, without looking up from his meal. “No—GSEC and the rest had their cover story, so I had to have mine. Massey figured that out a long time ago. Before the mission left I arranged with one of the ship’s senior communications officers for Massey to have access to a private channel direct into my section of NASO at Washington, free from any restrictions or censoring...purely as a precaution. Massey wasn’t told about it until they were well into the voyage.”
“So what’s he really there for?” Whittaker asked, intrigued.
“I don’t know,” Conlon said. Whittaker looked totally bemused. Conlon explained, “I’m not absolutely certain why GSEC sent Zambendorf there, but it wasn’t to entertain at parties in the officers’ mess. I suspect they intend to use his ability to influence public opinion as an aid to pushing the government in a direction that suits their interests.”
Whittaker looked horrified. “You’re joking, Walt.”
“Uh-uh.” Conlon shook his head. “His antics could become a significant factor in the formulation of major international policy.”
“But what, specifically?” Whittaker asked. “What exactly do they intend doing with him?”
“They couldn’t have had any definite plans until they found out what exactly the situation was on Titan,” Conlon said. “But they’ve learned a lot by now that they didn’t know then. I’ve got a feeling that someone should be passing more specific orders to Zambendorf very soon now. And when Zambendorf finds out what he’s really there for, that’s when Massey will know what his job is.”