THE POLICY DIRECTIVE FROM EARTH STATED IN EFFECT THAT the Genoese were asking for a welfare aid program to be initiated and sustained from a distance of nearly a billion miles away, which would bankrupt the Western world even if it were acceptable on principle. The suggestion was completely impractical as well as being unthinkable ideologically. Giraud and Lang returned to their negotiations and spent several more long, arduous sessions explaining to Arthur and his colleagues that the Taloids would have to start thinking from the outset in terms of paying their way and earning the benefits they hoped to get.
Kleippur’s understanding was that if the robeings cooperated, followed Lumian orders, and worked hard at taming the forests to produce the kinds of things that were evidently valued highly on Lumia, eventually they would acquire understanding. But, naturally, the benefits to the robeings could not be expected to materialize instantly—the Lumians had taken a long time to reach their current state of knowledge from a level comparable to Robia’s. To Kleippur, the promise of salvation in the hereafter in return for patience, obedience, diligence, and sacrifice in the herenow sounded suspiciously familiar. Little further progress was made, and Kleippur began to feel that the Lumians were growing impatient.
Then Lyokanor, the chief of Carthogian intelligence, reported that Skerilliane the Kroaxian spy, had reentered Carthogia in the company of a one-armed robeing tentatively identified as Horazzorgio, previously presumed killed in the Meracasine. Curious as to Kroaxian intentions, Kleippur ordered the pair to be watched but left unmolested. Unfortunately, the small group of soldiers shadowing them from the border lost contact when it was attacked by Waskorians. Later, Skerilliane was seen in the outskirts of Menassim not far from the Lumian dragon-camp, and again a short while afterward with a party of Lumians out in the forest. Before the Carthogians could do anything to prevent it, the two Kroaxians were seen being brought back to the camp by Lumian vehicles and admitted inside. The breakdown in surveillance over the spies at such a critical moment was galling, but nothing could be done about it. In an effort to keep himself aware as much as possible of what was taking place, Kleippur informed the Wearer of what had happened, at the same time describing the differences between Kroaxia and Carthogia, and explaining the recent history of the two states.
Zambendorf wondered why nothing was being said officially about the contact that had been made with the two Taloids—dubbed James Bond and Lord Nelson by the Terrans, the team discovered—who had appeared from Genoa’s enemy state, Padua. Then Joe Fellburg learned from Dave Crookes that their aid was being enlisted at Genoa Base to program the transmogrifier to respond to the Paduan version of Taloid speech as well as Genoese. A junior clerk on Giraud’s staff confided to Abaquaan that plans were being made to suspend the discussions in Genoa, and that the political deputation was to descend to another part of the surface. The clerk didn’t know the exact location of the proposed landing site, but Thelma found out from her dashing NASO captain that Bond and Nelson were to be flown secretly to somewhere near another Taloid city just under three hundred miles across the desert from Genoa, and sent to alert their rulers to the Terran presence. Arthur and Leonardo, who seemed to be the Genoese mapmaking and geographic expert, confirmed via Zambendorf’s private line to Camelot that the city was Padua. Presumably, therefore, whatever had transpired between Giraud & Co. and the two Paduans had proved sufficiently interesting for Giraud to break off his negotiations with Arthur and begin again elsewhere.
Giraud and the diplomats made three visits to Padua, landing each time at a remote spot to which the Paduan leaders traveled overland, presumably to keep the fact of the meetings secret from the general Paduan populace. At the same time no public announcement of these developments was made aboard the Orion; the bulletins and news updates continued to focus on the activities of the scientific teams in and around Genoa, who were left to carry on their work with no indication being given that the political leadership had, at least temporarily, pulled out.
Zambendorf honored his promise to keep Arthur fully informed despite the further misgivings that the news he reported was bound to arouse among the Genoese. He wondered if he did it in a subconscious attempt to compensate for his inability to do anything else. Zambendorf was discovering that it was important to him to be able to show the Taloids something that might reassure them that their hopes and expectations of him were not misplaced. For the first time in his life he felt concerned that the powers which others attributed to him didn’t exist; and what was so ironic was that, for the first time, those powers should be neither supernatural nor superhuman. Though he continued to display confidence and staunch optimism in the presence of the team, inwardly he had never felt so helpless and frustrated.
Then he received a summons to meet with Leaherney, Giraud, and Caspar Lang in Globe I. His cooperation in treating the subject as confidential would be appreciated, the message said—evidently Lang was learning at last that ordering Zambendorf to do anything wasn’t the best way to get results. Accordingly, Zambendorf reciprocated by keeping the matter to himself.
“We’ve decided to fill you in on some developments that happened only recently,” Daniel Leaherney said, stirring his coffee while seated in the private lounge adjoining the executive offices. “The fact is we found the Genoese to be obstinate and uncooperative, and suspended negotiations with them some time ago. We’re exploring an alternative relationship with the Paduans, which is showing more promise.”
“Hmm. I see...” Zambendorf grunted noncommittally on the opposite side of the table, not seeing at all. He sipped from his own cup and looked up at Leaherney’s solid, heavy-jowled face topped by steely gray, straight-combed hair. Since liftout from Earth orbit Leaherney had tended to avoid Zambendorf, leaving it to his subordinates, usually Caspar Lang, to handle communications; his sudden call for a face-to-face meeting, especially over a subject considered too sensitive to be made public knowledge, could only mean that he needed Zambendorf for something. None of the possibilities that had occurred to Zambendorf as to what that something might be had left him feeling particularly convinced, and his responses so far had been guarded but curious.
“The Paduan outlook is more practical and takes better account of immediate realities,” Leaherney said in answer to the unvoiced question written across Zambendorf’s face. “The problem with the Genoese is that they insist on clinging to a totally unrealistic ideology which not only impedes their own chances of making any meaningful progress in the long term, but also is incompatible with our own policies and interests.”
In other words the Paduans might be persuaded to accept the deal that he had told Arthur to reject, Zambendorf thought to himself. He already knew from his conversations with Arthur and Galileo that the Terran goal was to recruit Taloid assistance in bringing portions of Titan’s phenomenal industrial potential under directed control, and turning the moon into an organized mass-production facility capable of supplying Earth’s needs on a scale that would dwarf the existing capacity of all its nations put together. Needless to say, whoever controlled such an operation would be worth billions and might well come to command incontestable political power on a truly global scale for the first time in history. But Zambendorf still couldn’t see where he fitted into it all. He shifted his eyes to Giraud, who had been the spokesman in the recent talks with the Paduans, as he had been earlier with Arthur and the Genoese.
Giraud, fair-skinned, with a high, rounded forehead, wide blue-gray eyes, and hair that was receding in the center and thinning on top, glanced at Leaherney for a moment, then said, “Paduan society seems to be dominated by religious dogma and beliefs to a far greater degree than the Genoese. At least, that’s the way it looks right now.”
“By mystical notions of some kind, anyway,” Zambendorf suggested. He had formed a similar impression of the Paduans from his conversations with Galileo. “Any interpretations we make at this stage are bound to contain a strong subjective element.”
“Well, whatever,” Giraud said. “But using the analogy for now, power within the Paduan state seems to be divided between the clergy and a secular nobility. Our contact has been with the leading figure of the latter group—the king, if you will. We’ve named him Henry. He’d give a lot to be able to ditch the priests and run the state his own way.”
Zambendorf nodded slowly to himself as the first of the pieces fit together. Henry no doubt commanded large segments of the Taloid labor force that the Terrans wanted access to. “But the priests aren’t going to go away so easily,” Zambendorf guessed.
Giraud nodded. “They have a strong traditional hold over the population and can mobilize widespread support by playing on insecurities, fears, superstitions—all the usual things. They’re not a force to be trifled with.”
“So what’s the plan—to help Henry rid himself of the priests in return for plenty of Taloids to work the plantations?” Zambendorf asked, stopping just short of injecting an open sneer into his voice. Giraud hesitated. Zambendorf shifted his gaze back to Leaherney.
Leaherney ran the tip of his tongue along his upper lip and frowned for a moment. “Shall we say, to assist in bringing about the replacement of the existing form of priesthood by an alternative system that Henry would have greater control over,” he replied. “It would probably be a mistake to demolish the clergy completely. After all, it does have considerable merit as an established instrument of social control.”
“Er, I think Dan means as a temporary mechanism to preserve social order during the transition period to a more modern form of state,” Giraud interjected hastily.
“Of course,” Leaherney said.
Now Zambendorf was beginning to see where somebody like himself would fit in. “Does Henry have anyone in particular in mind to head up this new, tame priesthood that he wants to install?” he inquired.
Giraud nodded. “But not anyone we’ve met. We haven’t talked to any of the priests—only to Henry and some of his guys.”
“Hmm...It wouldn’t be the present High Priest, Bishop, Magician, or whatever’s equivalent,” Zambendorf said. “If someone like that stands to get demoted in a big way, the last thing Henry would want is to leave him with any power to do something about the grudge. Henry’s best bet would be to get rid of him completely and replace him with someone from the lower ranks—someone who’d feel insecure after a big promotion and would always be Henry’s man. But Henry sounds enough of a Machiavelli to know about things like that.”
“That’s Henry’s problem,” Giraud said. “All we know is that he’s got someone lined up. We call him Rasputin.”
Zambendorf leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers below his chin, and moved his eyes slowly from one to another of the three faces around him. “And of course, this Rasputin would have to pull off some pretty spectacular stunts to stand a chance of discrediting the present chief miracle-worker and taking over the job, wouldn’t he,” he said, making his voice casual. “He’d have to be convincing enough not only to impress the average Taloid-in-the-street, but also to convert enough of the priests over to his side too. Now, I wonder who’d be a good person to ask if you wanted to help someone work a few of the kinds of miracles that might do all that.”
Caspar Lang, who had been listening silently for some time, fidgeted in his chair and looked impatient. He was tiring of Zambendorf’s roundabout way of talking, a method Zambendorf employed to give himself time to think. Now Zambendorf was going to launch into more of it by asking why he should be interested and what was in it for him. Then Giraud would get into his negotiating stride and start to spell out all the angles and benefits. Lang could see it coming. He didn’t want to hear it all.
“Look,” he said, raising his face toward Zambendorf. “You’re a good deceptionist and a top con artist—maybe the best in the business...” He lifted a hand to forestall any objection that Zambendorf might have been about to make. “Let’s not go off into any of that stuff about whether you’re genuine or not. What we’re talking about now is serious, okay...” Lang paused for a second, then continued. “Ever since you first appeared in Europe, you’ve been moving in one direction—upward, toward becoming the biggest of the big-time operators ever—bigger sensations, bigger crowds, bigger fame, bigger money. That’s always been the ambition.” Lang spread his hands briefly. “You’re smart enough to have figured out for yourself that this whole business at Titan could mean—if it’s handled properly—the end of the Soviet empire and a return of Western industry and commerce to a position of undisputed worldwide leadership, which means a lot of people would stand to get very rich. What’s in it for you, Zambendorf, is that you can reserve yourself a place in the club—a very special club. Whatever you were aiming at before in life doesn’t matter anymore. This is it—the bonanza; the real big time.”
“And how about the rest of the Taloids?” Zambendorf asked. “What happens to them in all this?”
Giraud frowned and looked surprised. “Their situation would be no different from what it’s always been...”
“Exploited by their own leaders,” Zambendorf supplied. “Serfs in a feudal order that gives them no opportunity for development. Kept in ignorance deliberately and fed superstition because education would be incompatible with unquestioning obedience and the domination by fear upon which the system depends. Is that what you wish to perpetuate?”
“What kind of talk is this?” Leaherney asked, sounding irritable suddenly. “Hell, they’re only machines after all. You’re making them sound almost human.”
Zambendorf stared down at his cup for a long time. That was the whole point—the Taloids were human. He didn’t quite know how, but he could sense it every time he talked with them. The phrases that appeared on the transmogrifier screen might have been crude and semicoherent, but that was a reflection of a restricted communications medium, not of the beings at whom the communications were directed. The clumsy strings of words did not, and could not, convey the richness and depth of qualities, meanings, feelings, and perceptions which Zambendorf somehow knew formed the Taloid world as seen through Taloid eyes any more than they could the human world as seen through human eyes. Both worlds were illusions created from the raw material of photons, pressure waves, and other forms of primary sensory stimuli, which were processed into abstract symbols and assembled via two forms of nervous system, one biochemical, the other holotronic, into consciously experienced interactions of people, places, and things. As external realities, the people, the places, and the things existed only as bare frameworks onto which minds projected covering, form, warmth, color, and other attributes which the minds themselves created; thus each mind manufactured its own illusory world upon a minimum of shared reality to conform to its own set of culturally defined expectations, and in such a way as to appear satisfyingly real in total to its creator. Zambendorf, the illusionist, could understand it all clearly. But, he could see just as clearly, he would never be able to convey what he understood to the three men sitting with him in the executive lounge of the Orion. “Suppose I decide I don’t want to get involved with it,” he said at last, looking up at them. “Then what?”
“Is that a decision?” Leaherney asked him.
“No. I’m just curious.”
Lang answered. “We’d manage anyhow, either with your cooperation or without it. But from your point of view it wouldn’t be too smart. The people who sent you all this way at considerable expense would be pretty upset about it. And they do have a lot of influence with the media...” Lang shook his head slowly and clicked his tongue. “You could find it’s the end of the road for you, old buddy. And that’d be a shame, wouldn’t it?”