UNLIKE POPULAR IMAGES OF THE HIGH-RANKING CORPORATION EXECUTIVE, Caspar Lang was not consumed with a passion to accumulate wealth, and he harbored no particular lust for power over other men. GSEC’s rewards for his services, and the authority that he commanded within the corporate hierarchy—second only to that of Gregory Buhl—left him with no reason to feel financially vulnerable, psychologically or emotionally insecure, or especially apprehensive about his future. This general situation resulted in his being relatively unbribable by competing organizations, incorruptible by opposing ideologies, and fully motivated to the preservation of personal interests that coincided with those of the corporation, whose policy was to insure that he remained feeling that way. In short, the quality that the corporation valued above all else in its senior management, and did its best to foster in every possible way, was loyalty. Since Zambendorf was deliberately attempting to prevent the corporation’s achieving the goals toward which it had elected to direct itself, Zambendorf was now the corporation’s self-declared enemy, which automatically meant Lang’s enemy too. Personal feelings didn’t enter the equation—not that Lang’s feelings toward Zambendorf had ever been more than lukewarm; Lang’s duty was to stop Zambendorf by any means available to him within the bounds of acceptable cost—and with the ramifications of the situation as they were, the limit of cost acceptability was high by any standard.
“As best we can reconstruct it, the whole thing was a circus act involving low passes by the lander, parachuting Taloids, tricks with optical images and acoustics, and lots of fireworks,” Lang said to Massey across the table in the conference cabin of Leaherney’s suite in the Orion. Opposite Massey, Leaherney stared grimly at his knuckles, clasped in front of him, while across from Lang, Charles Giraud was listening with lips pursed and steepled fingers propping the bridge of his nose. Lang went on, “The Paduan army has disintegrated and is on its way back to Padua. The officers that James Bond talked to said they were going home to meet this messiah and begin building the New Era. We figure that means Zambendorf’s planning a repeat performance in Padua city itself.”
Massey rubbed his nose and frowned down at the table. He still wasn’t sure why he had been summoned. “Well, my feelings on the whole business of supplying weapons to the Paduans and fomenting trouble between them and the Genoese were plain enough before this happened. I can’t pretend to be sympathetic now that your plan’s fallen through. In fact, as far as Zambendorf’s concerned, this one time I have to say good luck to him.”
“Whatever personal opinions you might hold concerning the objectives set for this mission and the policies of its directing institutions on Earth are irrelevant to the purpose of this meeting,” Leaherney said. His voice was uncharacteristically sharp. Massey shrugged but said nothing. Leaherney glanced at Lang and nodded for him to continue.
“We have no way of locating where they’re hiding the lander down there,” Lang said. “It could be anywhere in an area of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. So we have to assume that the next time we see Zambendorf will be when he decides to make his appearance at Padua and wheel in this messiah he’s manufactured. We won’t get an opportunity to confront him again until then.”
“What we’d like is your professional opinion as one of the mission’s senior psychologists on Zambendorf’s probable reaction to the course of action that we have in mind,” Giraud said.
There would have been no point in Massey’s feigning disinterest. He raised his head and thrust out his chin inquiringly, but remained silent. Lang waited for a moment, and then resumed in a strange, curiously ominous voice, “As I’m sure we all know, modem infantry-launched homing missiles for use against armor and low-flying aircraft are pretty devastating weapons. They carry smart electronics for target identification and tracking, and are designed to be very simple to use—without requiring specially trained personnel. The Taloids could learn to fire them very quickly.” Lang tossed out his hands in a brief motion and let his meaning hang for just a second. “If, ah...if anything like that just happened to have been included in the weapons that we shipped down to Henry, it could be real bad news for anyone who tried a slow-speed, low-level run over the city in a surface lander, couldn’t it?”
Massey’s eyes were blazing even before Lang had finished, and his beard quivered with indignation. “What are you saying? That would be murder! You can’t—“
Lang held up a hand protectively. “Hey, take it easy, Gerry. Just...take it easy. I was talking hypothetically. But suppose that Zambendorf believed that the Paduans really did have weapons like that...You see my point—he’s got his own people down there with him, plus the crew of the shuttle they hijacked...What would he do? Would he back off and forget this whole damnfool thing about going for Padua, or would he risk it, and to hell with the others down there? Or would he do something else? What do you think?”
A short silence went by. “Are you asking me to make a prediction?” Massey asked guardedly.
Lang shook his head. “No—only an opinion. As Charles said, we’re interested in what you think in your professional capacity as one of the mission’s psychologists. We’ve some important decisions to make and not much time to make them in. We just want to be sure that we don’t overlook anything that might be relevant.”
Massey stared down at the table again, now very thoughtful. If his opinion was being sought and respected, perhaps he had judged the situation too hastily. “Why should Zambendorf believe anything like that?” he asked, looking up.
“We call the lander via the comnet and tell him,” Lang replied simply.
“They wouldn’t reply,” Massey objected. “You’d be able to pinpoint their location.”
“Not necessarily,” Giraud said. “They could route their transmission through a surface relay dropped anywhere on Titan—or maybe several of them. We could locate the relays if we wanted, but it wouldn’t help us get a fix on the lander.”
Massey nodded distantly as his mind raced to absorb the implications of what was being said. Surely there was some way he could turn this situation to advantage, he told himself. Lang and the others would have deduced a long time ago NASO’s real purpose in sending him with the mission, which would give them no reason for supposing that he and Zambendorf should since have discovered any common interests. All of their plans would be based on the assumption—now false—that he and Zambendorf would have nothing to communicate. The possibilities were intriguing.
After another long silence, Lang said, “Obviously the thought could cross his mind that we might be bluffing—in fact with a guy like Zambendorf, it’s probably the first thing he’d think of. But on the other hand, the international political and commercial implications of the situation are big—very big, as Zambendorf is only too well aware. Who’s to say what we might do when the chips are down? Would he risk it with all those other people down there? You’re supposed to think the same way he does—that’s why NASO sent you here, right? Okay—I want to know what you think.”
Would Zambendorf risk it? Not if he were uncertain whether or not the warning was a bluff, Massey was sure. But now of course, with the seemingly impossible alliance between Zambendorf and Massey having so recently come about, and over an issue that the mission’s directors were apparently incapable of comprehending, Zambendorf would not be left in any uncertainty on the matter. Therefore any conclusions based upon his presumed ignorance of the true state of affairs concerning the Taloid weapons would be invalidated. If Lang was basing his strategy on a bluff, Massey had an opportunity to undermine its entire foundation.
Massey looked up and ran his eyes slowly over the three faces waiting across the table for his reply. “Maybe Zambendorf is a rogue and a scoundrel in some ways, and maybe his concept of ethics doesn’t exactly measure up to society’s ideal, but basically his values are just and humane. If he has any real doubts, he won’t gamble.”
“You’re sure?” Leaherney asked, sounding uneasy.
“No, it’s just my opinion. That is what you asked for, and it’s all I can offer.”
“But you are reasonably confident,” Giraud persisted.
Massey frowned and bunched his lips for a moment, then exhaled suddenly and nodded. “Reasonably,” he conceded, quite truthfully.
Leaherney looked from Giraud to Lang, then back again, and finally at Massey. “Then if no one has anything more to add, we need detain you no longer. Thanks for your time.”
“Thank you,” Massey said, just a trifle stiffly. He remained expressionless as he rose to leave, but inwardly he was smiling broadly.
After Massey left, Leaherney emitted a long sigh, slumped back in his chair, and took a cigar from the box in the center of the table. He rolled the cigar beneath his nose and eyed Lang curiously while he savored the aroma of the tobacco. “Okay, Caspar,” he said. “And now would you mind telling us exactly what that whole stunt was supposed to mean?”
“Sorry about the melodramatics, but I didn’t want to tell you the latest until after we’d talked to Massey,” Lang replied. “Your reactions needed to be genuine.” He paused for a second to survey the other two briefly, and then informed them, “Our military-intelligence people are pretty certain that, improbable as it may seem, Massey and Zambendorf are now working together.”
A puzzled frown crossed Giraud’s face. “But if that’s so and we send Zambendorf a warning, Massey will tell him it’s just a bluff.”
“As he’s supposed to,” Lang agreed.
Giraud’s expression became even more perplexed. “So...what good will it do?” he asked.
“It will conflict with other information that will reach Zambendorf through the other two channels that we’ve identified,” Lang replied. “That NASO captain—Campbell—has been leaking classified information to Thelma like a sieve ever since we left Earth, and a number of the scientists are sympathetic to Zambendorf’s humanitarian ideals concerning the Taloids. I intend to plant information that will find its way to Zambendorf from both those sources, indicating that the bluff story we fed Massey was intended simply to put us on record as having tried to warn Zambendorf off—thereby exonerating us from any blame for his actions—and that really the Paduans do have smart missiles.”
“Zambendorf won’t know what to believe,” Leaherney said. He stopped to think for a second and shook his head bemusedly. “In fact I’m not even sure I know myself.”
“And I agree completely with Massey’s prediction that Zambendorf won’t gamble if he’s in any doubt as to the true situation,” Lang said. He smiled humoriessly, braced his hands on the edge of the table in preparation to rise, and looked at Giraud. “The next thing we have to do is arrange a descent to Padua for another meeting with Henry. No doubt he’ll be pretty mad when James Bond tells him what happened to his invasion, but if all goes well and Zambendorf backs down, I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble persuading Henry that the whole thing was just a temporary setback. A week from now we’ll all be back on track.”