Code Of The Lifemaker

by Hogan, James

  "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.

  Epilogue

  GEROLD MASSEY STRETCHED HIMSELF BACK IN AN ARMCHAIR IN one comer 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