by Hogan, James
incredible amounts of detail. Fenyig selected several sheets from the set and
passed them to Kleippur, who leaned forward to pore over them while his aides
peered down from beside him with equally mystified expressions on their faces.
The pictures seemed to be of patterns of shapes distributed in rows and groups
about an irregular network of lines. After watching in silence for a while,
Dornvald stretched out an arm and traced a finger lightly along one of the lines
on the sheet that Kleippur was holding. "Do you not recognize the Avenue of
Emperors in our own city of Menassim?" he inquired casually. "And here ... is
that not your own residence, in which we are at this very moment gathered?"
Lyokanor gasped aloud suddenly. "It is Menassim! See, here is the course of the
river, and the bridges. And there the palace . . . with the Courts of Justice
behind. Every street and house is here!"
"What manner of artist drew this?" Pellimiades asked in an awed voice. He looked
across at Thirg. "Is this an example of the mapmaker's trade that I have not
come across before?"
"Not of any art or trade of mine," Thirg said. "Indeed I have never set eyes on
Menassim before this bright."
Kleippur looked up slowly. "Where did these come from?"
Dornvald's expression became serious. "Has there been other news of late,
Kleippur?" he asked. "Reports of strange happenings in the sky, perhaps?"
Kleippur returned a strange, puzzled look. "Yes . . ."
"Reports of flying creatures descending, as was supposed to have happened twelve
twelve-brights ago?"
"Yes," Kleippur said again, and frowned. "How do you know about them? Have you
seen one too? What do they have to do with . . ." His voice trailed away as the
connection suddenly became clear. He looked down at the picture of Menassim
again, then disbelievingly back up at Dornvald.
Dornvald nodded gravely. He drew another picture from the stack but kept it
facedown on the table. "The creatures exist, Kleippur. We encountered them in
the Wilderness of the Meracasine. They are from another world that lies beyond
the sky. They carry Skybeings whom they serve, that are stranger still—of the
form of robeings, but not robeings . . . nor even machines. The Skybeings have
mastered arts unknown to us by which they are able to preserve images and
likenesses." Dornvald gestured at the picture in Kleippur's hand. "That is not
an artist's or a mapmaker's creation. It is a preservation of a likeness of the
city as was actually seen through the eyes of a creature that crossed the sky
high above Carthogia. And the likenesses can be viewed in an instant from afar,
even though the eyes that see them might be flying over distant lands, or even
beyond the oceans."
Kleippur was staring at Dornvald dazedly. He shook his head as if to clear it
and raised a hand to massage the shading vanes above his eyes. "Other worlds? .
. . Creatures that serve beings who are not machines? . . . What talk is this?
If it were not you telling me this, Dornvald, one of my most trusted officers .
. ."
"It is as Dornvald says," Thirg confirmed. "I too was present. We flew in one of
the creatures—all of us—to the hills that lie east of Carthogia's border."
"It's true," Fenyig said. Geynor nodded but remained silent. Still staring
disbelievingly, Kleippur brought his gaze back to Dornvald.
Dornvald flipped over the picture that he had been keeping as final proof.
Kleippur and his two aides stared down at it speechlessly. It showed Dornvald,
Thirg, Geynor, and several other robeings standing with a group of ungainly,
tubby-looking, domeheaded figures in front of what looked like a huge,
smooth-skinned beast of some kind with stiff, tapered limbs. Fenyig passed more
pictures. One showed Thirg and a Domehead with their arms draped jovially around
each other's shoulders and the Domehead making a curious gesture in the air with
an extended thumb; another showed a Domehead perched precariously on Thirg's
steed, and Rex watching suspiciously in the background.
"We were being pursued by Kroaxian Royal Guards," Dornvald said. "The Skybeings
destroyed them. They talked to us through signs and brought us here. They are
friends, and wish to come here to Menassim to meet its ruler. That is the
message that they asked us to convey. They will be watching from the sky for
signs laid out on the ground as your answer."
As Thirg looked again at the pictures of the Skybeings and the strange animals
and other life forms that served them, he thought back to the Carthogian
projectile-hurling weapon and the devices constructed by the Carthogian
builders. All were examples of the simple beginnings of new arts that mimicked
the processes of Life itself. Was it possible that the weapons of the Skybeings
and the vehicles that the Skybeings were carried in could be products of the
same arts taken to a far more advanced stage of perfection?
Products?
Could the Skybeings have created the weapons and the dragons? But the weapons
and the dragons were machines. The first machine must have been constructed by
something that was not a machine. So could the Skybeings be the Lifemaker? No,
surely not. Surely the thought was preposterous.
And then Thirg remembered that the idea of turning wheels with vaporized methane
had once seemed preposterous too.
19
"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
<
br /> 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