CAPTAIN MASON OF THE U.S. SPECIAL FORCES ACKNOWLEDGED THE call on the monitor panel inside the guardroom of the main perimeter gatehouse at Genoa Base One.
“Taloid riders and vehicles approaching the gate, sir,” the voice of Pfc. Caronetti reported from the searchlight post on the upper level. “Some of the passengers appear to be Terrans.” At the same moment the screen in front of Mason came to life to show the view being picked up by a rooftop camera. A procession of walking wagons and mounted Taloids was approaching along the broad avenue between steel lattices, girderwork frames, and pipe-draped processing tanks that led from the city. The pace was slow and easy, giving no cause for alarm.
“I wonder what the hell this is,” Mason muttered over his shoulder to Petrakoff, the guard sergeant.
“Five’11 get you ten it’s Zambendorf and his people showing up at last,” Petrakoff said.
Mason stared at the screen for a few seconds longer, and then nodded. “Yeah...you’re probably right, Jan. You’d better alert the Base Commander. Call three more of the guys out front and get them helmeted up on standby. I’m going outside to join Pierce and Macnally and find out what’s happening.”
In the first of the open carriages behind the advance guard of Genoese cavalry, Zambendorf was sitting between Abaquaan and Arthur, facing Galileo and Moses, who had their backs to the raised platform supporting the seats of the two Taloid coachmen. The rest of the team was in the second carriage with Leonardo, the Genoese mapmaker, and Lancelot, Arthur’s knight who had brought Galileo out of Padua. Various aides and officials from Arthur’s court followed in the train behind, which included Leonardo’s family, Lord Nelson, and a representative contingent of Druids.
The advance guard emerged into the clear area in front of the main gate through the perimeter fence of Genoa Base, and moments later a searchlight beam swung round to illuminate the procession in brilliant white and transform the surrounding structures into ghostly skeletons of steel standing out vividly against the background darkness.
“I don’t see Tango Baker Two anywhere,” Abaquaan said, turning in his seat to scan the immense, squat, stubby-winged forms of the surface landers, parked amid floodlit clutters of service gantries, maintenance platforms, cargo hoists, and access ramps on the far side of the fence. “Andy and the boys must have gone back up to the ship already.”
“Well, at least they should have come out of it all with their noses clean,” Zambendorf answered.
“Let’s hope so.”
After snatching Moses from the cliff at Padua, Zambendorf had decided to fly directly to Camelot, Arthur’s residence, to deliver Moses safely into the Genoese care and reunite him with his brother, Galileo, before the team gave itself up to the Terran authorities at Genoa Base. The Genoese had insisted, however, on making the occasion one for all kinds of elaborate farewell formalities which had involved seemingly half the Taloids in the country, and the team had remained there, resting and eating in the flyer, for fully twenty-four hours. To minimize the risk of the proceedings’ being distastefully interrupted, the team had maintained a strict communications blackout, omitting even to contact Massey and Thelma, since a genuine ignorance of the team’s whereabouts would be less likely to compromise their position in the face of questioning by Leaherney’s people. Finally, to round everything off in style, Arthur had proposed a grand procession across the city to carry the team to the Terran base; not wishing to risk unwittingly giving any offense, Zambendorf had accepted the offer, leaving the flyer parked in Arthur’s rear courtyard to be collected later by its rightful owners.
It had been a good try, Zambendorf thought to himself, and even if in the final part of it all they hadn’t succeeded in rendering Padua completely harmless, at least the nation of Genoa had been kept intact for the time being. He could only hope that the team’s gesture would attract enough attention to cause the mission’s directors to have second thoughts about the whole question of Terran-Taloid relationships, and hopefully would stimulate a more enlightened outlook among the policymakers on Earth. And if it turned out that he had soured his backers and promoters sufficiently to permanently impair his career, then that was just too bad. He had stood by the principles that mattered on his own scale of values and had achieved something that he believed worthwhile. He had done as much as anyone could have, and the future could take its course. He had no regrets.
“See how brightly the violet halos shine around the Lumian flying-ships,” Kleippur said from beside the Wearer. “Dost thou still see them as magic beasts sent from heaven, Groork?”
Groork shook his head. “Nor the Lumians as angels. What more dismal a prospect could be imagined than that all the universe’s knowledge could be contained in one ancient book? Nothing new to discover? Nothing more to be learned? Never again the excitement of exploring the unknown? How pathetic is the future that some would wish upon themselves!”
“Your future, at least, promises to be a busy one,” Thirg said. “The answers to the questions that I hear you asking now will not spin themselves into skeins of words as effortlessly as before, however, I fear.”
“Maybe so, but thou shalt see that my energies are undiminished, and the mystic’s passion is not quenched but merely redirected,” Groork replied confidently.
“The application of this industriousness to the studies into which thou hast declared intent to launch thyself will show interesting results indeed, if my prognostications serve me well,” Kleippur commented.
“I do not doubt it,” Thirg said, sighing. He still hadn’t recovered fully from the astonishment with which he had learned of Groork’s escapades in the Meracasine and at Pergassos, and his even greater amazement at observing his brother transformed into a staunch advocate of the methods of impartial questioning and objective inquiry. Now that Groork had flown through the sky, his latest passion was to view firsthand the other worlds that Thirg had told him about, and he had been pestering the Wearer for an opportunity to go on one of the voyages that the Lumian flying-ships made to the Great Ship beyond the sky.
As for Carthogia, while the threat from the Kroaxians had been temporarily extinguished, the longer-term future was far less certain. The issuing to Eskenderom of weapons sufficiently potent to have deterred the Wearer from honoring his pledge to Groork seemed to confirm that the Lumian king was firmly committed to promoting rivalry among the Robian nations in order to obtain their dependency and ultimately their complete subjugation. It was unlikely, therefore, that Kleippur would see his realm free to determine its own destiny; the Lumian conditions for supplying the weapons that Carthogia needed would doubtless entail sacrifice of its independence just as surely as would conquest by a reconstituted Kroaxian army at some later date.
On the other hand, it seemed that despite their arts and their skills, the Lumians were as divided among themselves as the royal houses and the clergy of Kroaxia and Serethgin. There were other, more powerful kings in Lumia than the king who ruled the Great Ship, the Wearer had said, and the Lumian system of government constrained the actions of its kings, making them very much subject to the approval of their citizens. The Wearer’s many friends who held positions of high office in the trades guilds of Lumian town criers and heralds would spread the news far and wide of the Wearer’s willingness to anger the Great Ship’s king and face imprisonment in protest against Robia’s treatment. That the Wearer and his followers had chosen to defy the Great Ship’s king and were willing to face imprisonment upon their return was evidence that integrity and high moral principle were not unknown among Lumians, and that was grounds enough for hope. Kleippur, therefore, characteristically coming to the conclusion that all was not necessarily lost, had refused to allow his capacity for action to be weakened by an unduly pessimistic outlook and braced himself to face the future with fortitude and the resolve to make the best he could of such opportunities for bettering his situation as might present themselves. And a better example than that to model his own attitude on, he wouldn’t find anywhere, Thirg had decided.
Three figures in Terran military suits walked forward from the gate as the procession drew up. “Well, I suppose this is it, Otto,” Zambendorf said. “Thank Arthur and his people again for their hospitality and tell them it might be a while, but I’m sure we’ll be back to see them again sometime.” Abaquaan relayed the message via the transmogrifier, and Arthur responded in like vein. Clarissa, Vernon, West, and Fellburg came forward from the second carriage, and after a final round of handshakes and salutations, Zambendorf turned to face the three soldiers waiting patiently behind him. “Thank you for the courtesy, er...Captain, isn’t it? Well, everyone’s accounted for. We’re all yours.”
“Captain Mason, Special Forces,” a voice replied. The figure wearing a captain’s insignia peered at the nametag on Zambendorf’s suit and at the tags of the two others nearest him. “You are Zambendorf and his people, I take it.”
“Of course we are. Who else did you expect to come wandering in from the surface of Titan?”
“It’s good to see you back. A lot of people were getting worried.” Behind Mason, several soldiers left the guardhouse to open the gate, and another group of figures was approaching from the base administration building.
“Well, aren’t you supposed to arrest us or something?” Zambendorf said.
“No,” Mason answered. “I guess you’re maybe gonna have to answer a few questions about stealing that lander, but you probably had your reasons...I don’t know. Anyhow, we don’t have any orders that say anything about arresting anybody. The Base Commander should be on his way here now. He’ll know a lot more than I do.”
Zambendorf blinked with surprise at the mildness of the reception. “This is amazing,” he murmured, more to the others with him than to Mason. “I’d have thought Leaherney would have been more upset about what happened to Henry’s army. In a way I feel quite disappointed.”
“Maybe we didn’t achieve as much as we thought,” Abaquaan said uneasily.
“Even Caspar Lang wasn’t bothered? I figured he’d be apopleptic,” Clarissa said.
Mason looked puzzled behind his faceplate. “What does it have to do with them?” he asked. “They’re all out—finished. General Vantz is in charge of the mission now.”
“Out?” Zambendorf repeated incredulously. “Who? When? How?”
“Leaherney, Giraud, Lang,” Mason told them. “I guess a whole heap of crud finally hit the fan somewhere back home. A directive came through to the Orion about twelve, maybe fourteen hours ago, relieving them of command, effective immediately, and putting the mission under full NASO control. They upset the Taloids over at Padua somehow and got their asses kicked outta the base there—musta had something to do with that. Anyhow, here’s Mackeson, the base chief, now.”
The group from inside the base arrived and began to usher Zambendorf’s party through the gate. “Harold Mackeson, NASO—Genoa Base Commander,” the most prominent among them announced in an English accent. “Glad to see you’re all safe. Welcome back again. When it started looking as if you might have had an accident, O’Flynn finally owned up about the flyer. Do you know, he’d been faking the log all the time and nobody missed it—extraordinary! We’ve been calling you nonstop, but heard no reply. Is the flyer okay?”
“Yes, and not far from here,” Zambendorf said as they all began to walk toward the administration building. “I gather there have been some changes.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the ruckus: Giraud and Lang getting thrown out of Padua; the base there being abandoned; Leaherney’s whole team out on their ear...There’s been more going on than in all the time the Orion’s been in orbit.”
“What happened at Padua?” Zambendorf asked.
“Well, Henry’s gone, with his chief priest and just about all the others that Giraud and Company were dealing with,” Mackeson replied. “It seems the Paduan Taloids had some kind of revolution and got rid of the whole bunch. Vantz—he’s in charge now—has sent down an exploratory team, who have managed to make contact with the new leaders that seem to be emerging from it all.”
“What started this revolution, or whatever it was?” Abaquaan asked.
“I don’t know if you heard about it, but some kind of new, nonviolent religion broke out suddenly among the Druids, then became all the rage in Henry’s army and messed up his invasion plans...something to do with some Taloid messiah who appeared out of nowhere. Well, apparently this messiah and his religion finally found their way to Padua. Result—out with Henry, and out with our arms-dealers. To be honest with you, old boy, I can’t say I’m all that sorry to hear it either.”
Zambendorf stopped walking abruptly. Mackeson halted a split second later and looked back with a puzzled expression. “What was that again?” Zambendorf said. “What’s happened with the Paduans?”
“A new religion is sweeping the whole country,” Mackeson answered. “They say everybody’s equal, they won’t kill, they won’t fight wars, and they’ve told us where to shove our weapons.”
Zambendorf swallowed hard. The formula sounded very familiar. “If that’s true, then the Paduans aren’t very likely to try attacking Genoa again,” he said.
Mackeson snorted. “Oh, from what I’ve heard, you can put any thoughts like that completely out of your head, old chap. The Genoese are their brothers now. Everyone’s their brother. They aren’t going to be attacking anybody.”
Gasps of surprise were audible from the rest of Zambendorf’s party. “My God! Do you know what this means?...” Zambendorf looked back toward the gate, where the Taloids were standing and watching, their hands lifted in a final salute. He looked back at Mackeson, waved his arms excitedly, and pointed. “That’s Arthur and his advisors. The messiah’s there too, with his brother. They don’t know about any of this yet. We have to tell them!”
“What?” Mackeson sounded bemused. “That’ s absurd. How could a messiah cause all that fuss and not know about it? Be sensible old boy, please.”
“It would take too long to explain now,” Zambendorf said. “But we have to tell them. It’s important. Come on, Otto.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and marched back in the direction of the gate. Abaquaan started after him with the transmogrifier.
“Wait,” Mackeson called over the radio. They stopped and looked back. “Trying to communicate it all to the Taloids through just that box would be a hell of a tedious business,” Mackeson said. He waved an arm to indicate an open extension built onto the end of the administration building just ahead. “That annex is our meeting room for Taloid talks, and communications equipment is installed there. We’d get along a lot faster if we brought Arthur and his friends inside where we can show them some pictures too.”
“That sounds good,” Zambendorf agreed. Abaquaan nodded, and they started walking back again.
Mackeson switched his suit radio to another channel. “Mackeson to Captain Mason at the gate. Bring the Taloids there inside, would you, and have them escorted to the admin block annex. Also put a call through to the duty controller and have the lights switched on in the annex and a couple of communications techs suited up and sent out. It looks as if we’re going to have an impromptu conference.”
Fifteen minutes later, Zambendorf was standing in the center of a mixed group of Terrans and Taloids inside the annex, staring wide-eyed and speechless at the scene being transmitted from a NASO reconnaissance drone hovering over Padua city. It was a telescopic view of an evidently wild procession that stretched from one end of the city to the other. Thousands of Taloids were involved, festively dressed, singing, dancing, waving pennants, bearing banners, and playing musical instruments. The ecstasy and rejoicing could be felt from the pictures.
But most astonishing was the shape that seemed to be the centerpiece of the whole celebration, which was being pulled along on a large, elaborately decorated and draped, mobile platform by several dozen Taloids fanned out ahead and hauling lines. As best Zambendorf could estimate from the size of the Taloids moving alongside, it stood about ten feet high and seemed to be fashioned from some metal that gave it a reddish hue. There could be no mistaking what it represented: It was a wrench—an immense, painstakingly rendered, replica of a standard toolbox wrench. And immediately behind the platform bearing the Sacred Wrench, a huge banner was being carried on which were written crudely but recognizably the mystic symbols U.S. GOVERNMENT.
“Good heavens! Did we do that?” Zambendorf said disbelievingly.
“Those are the guys that Arthur was so worried about?” Joe Fellburg asked in a weak voice. “He doesn’t have any problems now. It’s all over down there.”
Abaquaan shook his head dazedly. “I’m not seeing this. Somebody tell me it isn’t real.”
“Well, Caspar Lang told Karl way back that he wanted him to sell Moses in Padua,” Drew West reminded everybody. He shrugged and tossed out his hands. “So he got what he wanted—Moses went over real big. Is it our fault if Caspar miscalculated the effects?”
“That sure was some act, Karl,” Vernon complimented. “You know, I don’t think even Gerry could top that one.”
Clarissa looked at the screen again and wrinkled her nose. “And before anyone tells the president, the answer’s positively no,” she told everybody. “There’s no way I’m gonna try a repeat performance over Moscow—just no way!”
Thirg, Kleippur, and Groork exchanged awed looks. “Do I understand this news correctly?” Kleippur said. “The Wearer is not to be imprisoned? Already word of the injustices of the Great Ship’s king have reached the mightier kings of Lumia, and they have sent orders by which he and his lieutenants have been dismissed?”
Thirg nodded slowly. “Now, methinks, we see the Wearer’s plan unfolding in its entirety,” he said. “Carthogia saved and free from further threat of molestation; Eskenderom and Frennelech undone; Kroaxia pacified and reduced to harmlessness within a single bright;...and now within the Lumian house itself, the would-be architects of havoc exposed and vanquished. Indeed these are powerful champions that good fortune hath appointed as our allies.”
“Carthogia shall be free to pursue its quest for knowledge, and its borders shall be always open to true inquirers from all nations,” Kleippur declared. “Thus shall the works of all be concerted, our resources directed to enterprises of constructiveness, and one day robeings shall, through their own dilligence and inventiveness, find Lumia and the other shining worlds beyond the sky.”
“And the nations like Kroaxia, whose collective understanding will require time yet before it is mature, have been provided with a harmless distraction which will predispose them meanwhile in thought and deed toward reasonableness and tolerance,” Groork said. “We must be careful to ensure that our acquiring of Lumian knowledge is paralleled by the cultivation of a comparable measure of such Lumian wisdom.”
“So it shall be,” Kleippur assured him.
Eventually the two groups repeated their farewells, this time amid a lighter, more exuberant mood than had prevailed previously. The Terrans entered the airlock at the rear of the annex, and Zambendorf turned in the outer door to send a last wave back to the Taloids before passing through into the administration building proper, where the first thing everybody did was get out of their EV suits in the lock antechamber. Then, feeling reborn, they moved out through the far door to return to the wonderful world of bright, airy corridors, people in shirt-sleeves and slacks, the smell of canteen food and the clatter of cutlery, the sounds of shoes on metal stairways, and piped music in the restrooms.
“Just think of it,” Abaquaan said to Zambendorf as they followed Mackeson and one of his officers to be officially checked into the base. “A hot bath, clean sheets, and as much uninterrupted sleep as you want. What more could anyone ask for? Who’d have ever thought we’d find a NASO base on Titan the last word in luxury? You know, Karl, I’ve got a feeling that the place at Malibu might never seem the same again.”
Zambendorf blinked. “Malibu? Why, I can’t even imagine it any more. In fact I can’t imagine anything beyond getting back up to the Orion. That’s the last word in luxury as far as I’m concerned, Otto, the Orion—pure, blissful, unashamed luxury.”
Meanwhile Thirg was looking out of the presidential carriage at the head of the stately cavalcade proceeding through the outskirts of Menassim along the picturesque and colorful Avenue of Independence. The crowds lining the way to watch the carriages and the soldiers pass seemed buoyant and joyful, as if they could somehow sense or read in the faces in the carriages the good tidings that would affect the whole land. Thirg had never seen the city looking quite so beautiful, with the fading light of bright’s-end softening the hues of the trees along the avenue and painting a delicate blue haze over the rolling forests outside the city and the mountains rising distantly behind. Ahead, he could see the tall, clean lines of the new buildings of the central city rising proudly above the intervening suburbs as if in anticipation of the new era about to be born.
A gentle breeze was blowing from the east, carrying the fragrant scents of distilled tar-sands and fumace-gas ventings, and a family of dome-backed concrete-pourers was laying out filter beds on the far bank of the bend where the river flanked the avenue, downstream from the ingot-soaking pits. From somewhere off in the distance he could hear the muted strains of a power hammer thudding contentedly while nearer to the road a flock of raucous coilspring winders was playing counterpoint with the warbling of a high-pressure relief valve, and on all sides the undergrowth chirped happily with piezoelectric whines and whistles. He had a true brother now, a home again, and a patron, and the soldiers and priests of Kroaxia would trouble him no more.
Yes indeed, Thirg, Asker-of-Questions-No-Longer-Forbidden, thought to himself as he gazed out at the scene in contentment, it was a beautiful world.
GEROLD MASSEY STRETCHED HIMSELF BACK IN AN ARMCHAIR IN one corner of the team’s lounge in Globe II, finished his scotch and soda, and set the glass down on a utility ledge built into the side of the communications console at which Drew West was sitting with the chair reversed to face the room. Thelma was with Fellburg and Clarissa on a couch folded down from the opposite wall; Zambendorf was sprawled in another armchair near Vernon, who was perched on a stool with his back to the shelf being used as a bar; and Abaquaan was leaning by the door. They had been back aboard the Orion for almost a week.
“I don’t think there can be much doubt that the Taloids’ future is assured now,” Massey said. “The rest of the Paduan alliance is falling apart. The Venetians threw their king out yesterday, and the last I heard the one in Milan had decided to climb down gracefully and sent Moses an invitation to visit the city. He’s probably hoping to salvage what he can by proposing some system of joint management.”
“So there’s no chance of Titan’s being turned into some kind of colony?” Vernon said.
Massey shook his head. “No way that I can see. Any possibility of that has been scuttled permanently. The Taloids will never accept second-class status now. They’re the chosen ones. Their God has spoken to them and told them they’re as good as anyone. Anybody who tries to tell them differently can go jump in a methlake. They’ll trade with you, sure—their kind of know how for your kind of know-how, but only as equal partners. If you’ve got any ideas of exploitation or screwing anyone on the deal, forget it.”
Zambendorf swirled his sherry round in his glass and watched it for a second, then looked up and nodded. “And the Western world is going to have to play it that way because if it doesn’t Asia will. And what’s more, it won’t be much longer before the Soviets arrive. Then everybody will be competing against everybody to give the Taloids a better deal.”
The Orion would be leaving Titan in ten days since many of the mission personnel—Massey and Vernon, for example—had pressing affairs to attend to back home. All remaining material and equipment would be shipped to the surface and used to expand Genoa Base One into a permanent installation, where a skeleton crew of scientific researchers, Taloidologists, and other specialists would remain behind under the command of Vantz’s deputy, Commander Craig, until the arrival of the Japanese ship in five month’s time. They would probably rotate to Earth at some later date with the Japanese, by which time the Orion would be returning with more people and equipment. With the completion of the Soviet vessel and the others that would come after it, a regular two-way traffic would eventually evolve.
Massey picked up his glass again and passed it to Vernon for a refill. “I don’t often say things like this, but I think we can all congratulate ourselves on a job that worked out pretty well,” he said, looking about the room. “I have to say that I’ll miss you all after we get back. It’s strange how things sometimes work out, isn’t it—I came aboard determined to run you out of business, and here I am coming out of it with a whole bunch of new friends.”
“Well, I’ll drink to a long continuation of it, Gerry,” Vernon said. “I’m amazed at how everything turned out too.”
Massey accepted his glass and cast an eye curiously round the cabin again at the others, who were being unusually quiet. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ll stay off your backs from now on,” he told them. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever see quite eye to eye on some things, but I have to admit I’ve been forced to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I was sure of. So it’s live and let live, huh?” Despite the gallant face that he was doing his best to maintain, there was an undertone of disappointment that he couldn’t quite conceal. He spread his hands and concluded, with a grin and a sigh, “I just thought you’d like to know.”
Nobody responded immediately. Zambendorf raised his head and looked from one to another of his colleagues. “You don’t seem exactly overenthralled,” he remarked. “We can speak freely in front of Gerry and Vernon now. Aren’t you looking forward to going home again? Think of the TV spectaculars we’ll be able to put together after this—with a much stronger science flavor than ever before which will appeal to younger people...maybe a world tour. We could establish an Institute of Astral Parapsychology, possibly, with Osmond as the founder—there’ll be other backers besides GSEC. We might even be able to straighten things out with Ramelson again. Who knows?”
The atmosphere remained wet-weekendish. “It’s a living, I guess,” Abaquaan agreed vapidly from the doorway. In his mind he was copiloting the flyer again, and comparing it to the prospect of hanging around hotel lobbies and theater foyers, collecting snippets of gossip about gullible, witless people who had nothing to offer him and who didn’t interest him. He had several ideas on improving the transmogrifier that he would have liked to discuss with Dave Crookes, who would be among the party staying behind. But besides all that, he realized that he cared what happened to Arthur’s Taloids; they were among the few people he’d met outside of Zambendorf’s team whom he had not simply dismissed as suckers. They valued their minds and were willing to rely on themselves without need of magical powers or supernatural revelations as substitutes for thinking. In Abaquaan’s book that made them worth the effort of seeing that the feeling was mutual.
Clarissa hadn’t had so much fun for years and was feeling a little nostalgic. As the base at Genoa was expanded and more Terran installations began to appear across the surface, there would be more demand for pilots than pilots available to meet them, she reflected ruefully. She could think of more attractive propositions than having to deal with jerks like Herman Thoring again, who thought the world stopped revolving for five minutes every time he went to the bathroom. Publicity management, she had decided, was the manufacture of make-believe news out of trivia when nothing newsworthy was to be said. On Titan she had cultivated too much of an appetite for the real thing to want any part of an imitation again. “How wonderful,” she said in a flat voice. “Maybe we could make some extra bucks by doing TV commercials for psychic-proof spoons.”
Drew West thought back to the world of booking fees and box-office takes, and then to the world of the Taloids, ice mountains, methane oceans, vegetable cities, and mechanical jungles. He had always had a penchant for enriching his life through frequent changes of scenery and atmosphere and spicing it with dashes of the unusual and the exciting whenever possible. That was what had drawn him out of the domain of more orthodox, humdrum, show-business affairs and resulted eventually in his gravitating into Zambendorf’s team, where he had remained for far longer than had been the case with any of his previous positions. But his restlessness for something new had been making itself felt again for some time before leaving Earth, and he had contemplated moving on even before the sudden prospect of the Orion mission to Mars had caused him to postpone any decision. What had happened on Titan would make the old life seem that much more uninspiring. Although he had no firm plans or prospects, in principle the decision was made. He raised his glass, took a long sip of his drink, and said nothing.
“I guess for me it’s been kinda like the old days,” Joe Fellburg said. “You know what I mean—I feel like I was back in the service out of retirement, except on reflection maybe I’d retired too early in the first place.” He frowned, as if not satisfied that the words conveyed what he had meant to say, then shook his head with a sigh and resigned himself to the fact that it didn’t make much difference anyway. “I dunno...Anyhow, we’ll get used to it again in the end, probably.” He had enjoyed having military people around him again and the feeling of being involved in something that mattered again instead of just playing games. It was his rapport with the team that had held him, not the business the team was in. Now that he saw that clearly, he was far from certain that he would be able to make the relationship work again.
Thelma looked from side to side uncertainly, and then across at Zambendorf, who was watching curiously. She spread her hands and shook her head. “Well, I’m gonna say what I think everyone’s feeling. Look, you know how it is with me—I’m a Ph.D. in physics and mathematics, but I’ve always protested a society that thinks more of performing adolescent Neanderthals than the people who design the amplifiers that they scream into. But with the Taloids I really feel we did something important for people who were worth it, and who genuinely appreciated it. And that was just a start. There’s so much more to be done down there, and I think we could contribute a lot to that too. But I guess none of us is exactly crazy about the idea of...” Thelma broke off and gave Zambendorf a puzzled look as she realized that his eyes were twinkling roguishly. Her expression changed to one of suspicion. “Karl, you’re up to something. What are you laughing at? You know something that you’re not letting on about, don’t you.”
Clarissa looked up at him. “What is it, Zambendorf?” she demanded. Zambendorf smirked back at her and remained silent. “Come on, you’re not handing out tablets on some mountaintop now. Give.”
“Well, thanks to my power to divine the future by supernatural—“ Zambendorf began, but Abaquaan cut him off.
“Never mind all that crap. What do you know that you haven’t told us?”
“I don’t exactly ‘know’ anything for sure yet, Otto, which is why I didn’t want to risk raising anyone’s hopes too soon,” Zambendorf replied. “But I had a pretty good idea of your attitudes—I feel the same way myself. So I took the liberty of presuming—“ The call tone sounded from the console behind West. “Ah, this might even be the news I’ve been waiting for,” Zambendorf said as West swiveled his chair round to accept.
“Is Karl Zambendorf there?” a NASO flight officer inquired from the screen a couple of seconds later. “This is Captain Matthews, calling on behalf of General Vantz.”
“Here, Captain,” Zambendorf said, putting down his drink and rising to face the screen.
“General Vantz would like to know if you and your people could be available in Globe I for an interview with him and Commander Craig immediately after the current shift—say at fifteen hundred hours. Would that be convenient for everyone?”
“Oh, I don’t think we have any prior engagements,” Zambendorf replied airily. “Yes, thank you, Captain Matthews—that would be most convenient.”
“I’ll put you down for then,” Matthews confirmed. “Fifteen hundred hours, in the executive office suite, Globe I.”
“Did Vantz say anything else?” Zambendorf asked curiously.
“Only that he didn’t think there would be much of a problem,” Matthews answered. “Commander Craig will need all the help he can get. I think you can take it there’ll be a slot for anyone who wants one.”
“Thank you, Captain. That tells me all I wanted to know. Thank you very much indeed!”
“Fine,” Matthews said. “We’ll see you later.” The screen blanked out.
Thelma blinked her eyes several times, shook her head, and whispered disbelievingly, “Did I really hear that? We’re going to stay here with Craig’s group at Genoa Base and wait for the Japanese? Is that what he said?”
“Well, if you want to, anyway,” Zambendorf said. “I mean, I didn’t want to assume anything. I just thought—“
“You didn’t want to assume!” Clarissa exclaimed accusingly. “Hey, what is it with this guy? How long have you known us, Karl? So what did you do—go talk to Vantz?”
“Yesterday,” Zambendorf said. “He wanted to discuss it with Craig before committing himself. That was why—“
“Hey, guys—it’s okay!” Fellburg shouted, swinging his head from side to side, looking up, and beaming. “It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” He burst into loud laughter and clapped Clarissa heartily on the back, causing her to slop her drink.
“Hey, Kong—lay off of that, willya!”
Drew West started laughing too, and so did Thelma. Massey caught Vernon’s eye, and his face split slowly into a broad grin. Suddenly the whole room was full of noisy, excited, laughing voices. Zambendorf stood up amid a barrage of backslapping and raised a hand to acknowledge the congratulations coming from every side. “Tonight we must throw a party for all our friends, especially the ones who will be staying on,” he said raising his voice above the commotion. “But before that, we can have a private celebration. It’s time to move this show along—to the Globe IV Recreation Deck and the bar, I say! The first round is mine.”
Everyone began moving toward the door, and at that moment Osmond Periera burst in with Malcom Wade close behind. They seemed excited about something. “I’ve been studying the transcripts of some of the conversations with the Taloids down in Padua,” Periera said, waving some papers. “All that business about the revolution and the new religion didn’t just happen, you know, Karl. There were some good reasons—amazing things going on in the sky at the time, all well authenticated. I don’t think we’re the only beings who are watching developments down on Titan. There are aliens here too—alien UFOs around Titan!”
Zambendorf brought a hand up to his face and frowned down at the floor over his knuckle. If he was going into a new line of business, there was no better time to start, he supposed. He drew in a long breath and looked up at Periera, hesitating for a moment as he searched for the right words. And then he saw Massey smiling ruefully and shaking his head behind Periera’s shoulder. Massey was right—there was no point. With even a million years to try and explain, there would have been no point.
Zambendorf sighed and draped an arm affectionately around Periera’s shoulder as he turned him around and began walking him back toward the door. “Really, Osmond, my friend?” he said. “It sounds fascinating. We’re just on our way to the bar. Why don’t you and Malcom join us. You can tell us all about the UFOs there. It will be far more comfortable, and I’m sure you’d agree that we all owe ourselves some time to rest and relax a little, eh?”
JAMES HOGAN WAS born in London in 1941 and educated at the Cardin I Vaughan Grammar School, Kensington. He studied general engineering at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Famborough, subsequently specializing in electronics and digital systems.
After spending a few years as a systems design engineer, he transferred into selling and later joined the computer industry as a salesman, working with ITT, Honeywell, and Digital Equipment Corporation. He also worked as a life insurance salesman for two years “...to have a break from the world of machines and to learn something more about people.”
In mid-1977 he moved from England to the United States to become a Senior Sales Training Consultant, concentrating on the applications of mini-computers in science and research for DEC.
At the end of 1979, Hogan opted to write full-time. He is now living in northern California.