Imperial Earth

The younger man, of course, disagreed completely. The debate had become more and more bitter — also more and more public, as it was inflamed by sensation-seeking hangers-on who wanted to see a good fight. After one abortive attempt at reconciliation, the partnership split up, and the two men had never spoken to each other again. A major problem at medical congresses for the last decade had been to ensure that they were not present simultaneously at any meeting.

That he been the end of Mortimer Keynes's active career. The famous clinic he had established was closed down, though he still kept his Harley Street office and did a little consultation. His ex-partner, who had a remarkable gift for acquiring public and private funds, promptly established a new base and continued his experiments.

As Duncan read on, with increasing curiosity and excitement, he realized that here was the man he needed. Whether he would take advantage of the high-speed cloning technique he could decide later; it was certainly interesting to know that the option existed, and that if he wished, he could return to Titan months in advance of his original schedule.

Now to locate Sir Mortimer's ex-colleague and successor. It was lucky that the search did not have to rely on the name alone, for it was one that occurred in some form or other half a million times in the Earth Directory. But he had only to consult the Classified Section — often referred to, for some mysterious reason lost in the depths of time, by the utterly meaningless phrase "Yellow Pages."

And so, on a small island off the east coast of Africa, Duncan discovered El Hadj Yehudi ben Mohammed.

* * * * *

He had scarcely made arrangements to fly to Zanzibar when a small bombshell arrived from Titan. It bore Colin's identification number, but he was unable to make sense of it until he realized that it was both in cipher and the Makenzie private code. Even after two processing trips through his Minisec, it was still somewhat cryptic:

PRIORITY AAA SECURITY AAA

NO RECORD OF ANY SHIPMENT TITANITE REGISTERED BUREAU OF RESOURCES LAST TWO YEARS. POSSIBLE INFRINGEMENT FINANCE REGULATIONS IF PRIVATE SALE FOR CONVERTIBLE SOLARS NOT APPROVED BY BANK OF TITAN. PERSISTENT RUMOR MAJOR DISCOVERY ON OUTER MOON, ASKING HELMER TO INVESTIGATE. WILL REPORT SOONEST. COLIN.

Duncan read the message several times without any immediate reaction. Then, slowly, the pieces of the puzzle began to drift around into new configurations, and a pattern started to emerge. It was one that Duncan did not like at all.

Naturally, Colin would have gone to Armand Helmer, Controller of the Resources; the export of minerals came under his jurisdiction. Moreover, Armand was a geologist — in fact, he had made one small titanite find himself, of which he was inordinately proud.

Was it conceivable that Armand himself might be involved? The thought flashed through Duncan's mind, but he dismissed it instantly. He had known Armand all his life, and despite their many political and personal differences, he did not for a moment believe that the Controller would get involved in any illegality — especially one that concerned his own Bureau. And for what purpose? Merely to accumulate a few thousand solars in some terrestrial bank? Armand was now too old, and too gravity-conditioned, ever to return to Earth, and he was not the kind of man who would break the law for so trivial a purpose as importing Terran luxuries. Especially as the chicanery was always discovered, sooner or later; smugglers could never resist displaying their treasures. And then there would be another acquisition for the impecunious Titan Museum, while the criminal would be barred from all the best places for at least a month.

No, Armand could be excluded; but what of his son? The more Duncan considered this possibility, the more likely it seemed. He had no proof whatsoever — only an array of facts all pointing in one direction.

Consider: Karl had always been daring and adventurous, willing to run risks for what he believed sufficiently good reasons. As a boy, he had taken positive delight in circumventing regulations — except, of course, those basic safety rules that no sane resident of Titan would ever challenge.

If titanite had be discovered on one of the other satellites, Karl would be in an excellent position to take advantage of it. In the last three years, he had been on half a dozen Titan-Terran surveys. To Duncan's certain knowledge, he was one of the few men who had been to Enceladus, Tethys, Rhea, Hyperion, Iapetus, Phoebe, Chronus, Promethius. And now he was on remote Mnemosyne...

Already Duncan could draw up a seductively plausible scenario. Karl might even have made the find himself. Certainly he would have seen all the specimens coming aboard the survey ship, and his well-known charm would have done the rest. Indeed, the actual discoverer might never have known what he had found. Few people had seen raw titanite, and it was not easy to identify until it had been polished.

Then it would have been a simple matter of sending a small package to Earth, perhaps on one of the resupply ships which did not even call at Titan. (What would be the legal situation then? That could be tricky. Titan had jurisdiction over the other permanentsatellites, but its claim to the obvious temporary ones like Phoebe & Co. was still in dispute. It was possible that no laws had been broken at all...)

But this was sheer speculation. He had not the slightest hard evidence. Why, indeed, had he thought of Karl at all in this context?

He reread the message, still glowing on the Comsole monitor: MAJOR DISCOVERY ON OUTER MOON. ASKING HELMER... Thatwas what had triggered this line of thought. Guilt by association, perhaps; the juxtaposition might be pure coincidence. But the Makenzies could read each other's minds, and Duncan knew that the phraseology was deliberate. There was no need for Colin to have mentioned Helmer; he was sending out an early warning signal.

It was ridiculous to pile speculation upon speculation, but Duncan could not resist the next step. Assuming that Karl was involved — why?

Karl might take risks, might even get involved in petty illegalities, but it would be for some good purpose. If — and it was still an enormous "if" — he was trying to accumulate funds on Earth, he must have a long-range objective in mind. The most obvious was the establishment of a power base — precisely as Duncan was doing.

He must also have an agent here, someone he could trust implicitly. That would not be difficult; Karl had met hundreds of Terrans—

"Oh, my God," Duncan breathed. " Thatexplains everything..."

He wondered if he should cancel his trip to Zanzibar; no, that took priority over all else, except the speech he had come a billion kilometers to deliver. In any case, he did not see what more he could do here in Washington until he had further news from home.

He was still operating on pure guesswork, without one atom of proof. But there was a cold, dead feeling in the general region of his heart; and suddenly, for no good reason at all, Duncan thought of that solitary iceberg, gliding southward on the hidden current toward its irrevocable destiny.

31

The Island of Dr. Mohammed

El Hadj's deputy, Dr. Todd, was one of those medical men who seem, not always justifiably, to radiate an aura of confidence. This despite his relative youth and informality; for reasons which Duncan never discovered, all his colleagues used his nickname, Sweeney.

"I'm sorry you won't meet El Hadj this time," he said apologetically. "He had to rush to Hawaii, for an emergency operation."

"I'm surprised that's necessary, in this age."

"Normally, it's not. But Hawaii's almost exactly on the other side of the world — which means you have to work through twocomsats in series. During telesurgery, that extra time delay can be critical."

So even on Earth, thought Duncan, the slowness of radio waves can be a problem. A half-second lag would not matter in conversation; but between a surgeon's hand and eye, it might be fatal.

"Until twenty years ago," Dr. Todd explained, "this was a famous marine biology lab. So it had most of the facilities we need — including isolation."

"Why is that necessary?" asked Duncan. He had wondered why the clinic was in such an inconveniently out-of-the-way spot.

"There's a good deal of emotional interest in our work, and we have to control our visitors. Despite air transportation, you can still do that much easier on an island than anywhere else. And above all, we have to protect our Mothers. They may not be very intelligent, but they're sensitive, and don't like being stared at."

"I've not seen any yet."

"Do you really want to?"

That was a difficult question to answer, for Duncan felt his emotions tugging in opposite directions. Thirty-one years ago, he must have been born in a place not unlike this, though probably not as spectacularly beautiful. If he had gone full term — and in those days, he assumed, all clones did so — some unknown woman had carried him in her body for at least eight months after implantation. Was she still alive? Did any record of her name still exist, or was she merely a number in a computer file? Perhaps not even that, for the identity of a foster mother was not of the slightest biological importance. A purely mechanical womb could have served as well, but there had never been any real need to perfect so complex a device. In a world where reproduction was strictly limited, there would always be plenty of volunteers; the only problem was selecting them.

Duncan had no memory whatsoever of his unknown foster mother or of the months he must have spent on Earth as a baby. Every attempt to penetrate the fog that lay at the very beginning of his childhood was a failure. He could not be certain if this was normal, or whether the earliest part of his life was hidden by deliberately induced amnesia. He suspected the latter, since he felt a distinct reluctance ever to investigate the subject in any detail.

When he formed the concept of "Mother" in his mind, he instantly saw Colin's wife, Sheela. Her face was his earliest memory, her affection her first love, later shared with Grandma Ellen. Colin had chosen carefully and had learned from Malcolm's mistakes.

Sheela had treated Duncan exactly like her own children, and he had never thought of Yuri and Glynn as anything except his older brother and sister. He could not remember when he had first realized that Colin was not their father, and that they bore no genetic relationship to him whatsoever. Somehow, it had never seemed to matter.

He appreciated, now, the unobtrusive skills that had gone into the creation of so well adjusted a ‘family’; it would not have been possible in an age of exclusive marriage and sexual possessiveness. Even today, it was no easy task. He hoped that he and Marissa would be equally successful, and that Clyde and Carline would accept little Malcolm as their brother, just as wholeheartedly as Yuri and Glynn had accepted him...

"I'm sorry," said Duncan. "I was daydreaming."

"Can't say I blame you; this place is too damned beautiful. I sometimes have to draw the curtains when I want to do any work."

That was easy to believe — yet beauty was not the first impression to strike Duncan when he landed on the island. Even now, his dominant feeling was one of awe, mixed with more than a trace of fear.

Starting a dozen meters away, and filling his field of vision right out to the sharp blue line of the horizon, was more water than he had ever imagined. It was true that he had seen Earth's oceans from space, but from that Olympian vantage point it had been impossible to envisage their true size. Ever the greatest of seas was diminished, when one could flash across it in ten minutes.

This world was indeed misnamed. It should have been called Ocean, not Earth. Duncan performed a rough mental calculation — one of the skills the Makenzies had carefully retained, despite the omnipresent computer. Radius six thousand — and his eye was about six meters above sea level — that made it simple — six root two, or near enough eight kilometers. Only eight! It was incredible; he could easily have believed that the horizon was a hundred kilometers away. His vision could not span even one percent of the distance to the other shore...

And what he could see now was on the two-dimensional skin of an alien universe, teeming with strange life forms seeking whom they might devour. To Duncan, that expanse of peaceful blue concealed a world much more hostile, and more terrifying, than Space. Even Titan, with its known dangers, seemed benign in comparison.

And yet there were children out there, splashing around in the shallows, and disappearing underwater for quite terrifying lengths of time. One of them, Duncan was certain, had been gone for well over a minute.

"Isn't that dangerous?" he asked anxiously, gesturing toward the lagoon.

"We don't let them get near the water until they're well trained. And if you mustdrown yourself, this is the place for it — with some of the best medical facilities in the world. We've had only one permanent death in the last fifteen years. Revival would have been possible even then, but after an hour underwater, brain damage is irreversible."

"But what about sharks and all the other big fish?"

"We've never had an attack inside the reef, and only one outside it. That's a small price to pay for admission to Fairyland. We're taking out the big trimaran tomorrow — why don't you come along?"

"I'll think about it," Duncan answered evasively.

"Oh — I suppose you've never been underwater before."

"I've never been onit — except in a swimming pool."

"Well, you've nothing to lose. Though we won't complete the tests for another forty-eight hours, I'm sure we'll be able to clone successfully from the genotypes you've given. So your immortality insurance is taken care of."

"Thank you very much," said Duncan dryly. "That makes all the difference."

He remembered Commander Innes' invitation to the Caribbean reefs, and his instant though unexpressed refusal. But those mere children were obviously enjoying themselves, and their confidence was a reproach to his manhood. The pride of the Makenzies was at stake; he looked glumly at that appalling mass of water, and realized that he would have to do something about it before he left the island.

He had never felt less enthusiastic about any project in his life.

* * * * *

The night was beautiful, blazing with more stars than any man could ever see from the surface of Titan, however long he lived. Though it was only nineteen hundred hours — too early for dinner, let alone sleep — the sun might never have existed, so total was the darkness away from the illumination of the main buildings, and of the little lights strung along the paths of crushed coral.

From somewhere in that darkness came the sound of music — a rhythmical throbbing of drums, played with more enthusiasm than skill. Rising above this steady beat were occasional bursts of song, and women's voices calling to one another. Those voices made Duncan suddenly lonely and homesick. He started to walk along the narrow path in the general direction of the revelry.

After wandering down several blind alleys — ending up once in a charming sunken garden, which he left with profuse apologies to the couple busily occupying it — he came to the clearing where the party was in progress. At its center, a large bonfire was lofting a column of smoke and flames toward the stars, and a score of figures was dancing around it, like the priestesses of some primitive religion.

They were not dancing with much grace or vigor; in fact, it would be more truthful to say that most of them were circulating in a dignified waddle. But despite their obvious advanced state of pregnancy, they were clearly enjoying themselves, and were being as active as was advisable in the circumstances.

It was a grotesque yet strangely moving spectacle, arousing in Duncan a mixture of pity and tenderness — even an impersonal and wholly unerotic love. The tenderness was that which all men feel in the imminent presence of birth and the wonder of their own existence; the pity had a different cause.

Ugliness and deformity were rare on Titan — and rarer still on Earth, since both could almost always be corrected. Almost — but not always. Here was proof of that.

Most of these women were extremely plain; some were ugly; a few were frankly hideous. And though Duncan noticed two or three who might even pass as beautiful, it needed only a glance to show that they were mentally subnormal. Had his long-dead "sister" Anitra survived into adult life, she would have been at home in this strange assembly.

If the dancers — and those others merely sitting around, banging away at drums and sawing on fiddles — had not been so obviously happy it would have been disturbing, perhaps even a sickening spectacle. It did not upset Duncan. Though he was startled, he was prepared for it.

He knew how the foster mothers were chosen. The first requirement, of course, was hat they should have no gynecological defects. That demand was easy to satisfy. It was not so simple to cope with the psychological factors, and it might have been a virtually impossible task in the days before the world's population was computer-profiled.

There would always be women who desperately yearned to bear children, but who for one reason or another could not fulfill their destiny. In earlier ages, most of them would have been doomed to spinsterly frustration; indeed, even in this world of 2276, many of them still were. There were more would-be mothers than the controlled birth rate could satisfy, but those who were especially disadvantaged could find some compensation here. The losers in the lottery of Fate could yet win a consolation prize, and know for a few months the happiness that would otherwise be denied them.

And so the World Computer had been programmed as an instrument of compassion. This act of humanity had done more than anything else to silence those who objected to cloning.

Of course, there were still problems. All these Mothers must know, however dimly, that soon after birth they would be separated forever from the child they were to bring into the world. That was not a sorrow that any man could understand; but women were stronger than men, and they would get over it — more often than not by taking part again in the creation of another life.

Duncan remained in the shadows, not wishing to be seen and certainly not wishing to get involved. Some of those incipient Mothers could crush him to a pulp if they grabbed him and whirled him into the dance. He had now noticed that a handful of men — presumably medical orderlies or staff from the clinic — were circulating light-heartedly with the Mothers and entering into the spirit of the festivities.

He could not help wondering if there had also been some deliberate psychological selection here. Several of the men looked very effeminate, and were treating their partners with what could only be called sisterly affection. They were obviously dear friends; and that was all they would ever be.

No one could have seen, in the darkness, Duncan's smile of amused recollection. He had just remembered — for the first time in years — a boy who had fallen in love with him in his late teens. It is hard to reject anyone who is devoted to you, but although Duncan had good-naturedly succumbed a few times to Nikki's blandishments, he had eventually managed to discourage his admirer, despite torrents of tears. Pity is not a good basis for any relationship, and Duncan could never feel quite happy with someone whose affections were exclusively polarized toward one sex. What a contrast to the aggressive normality of Karl, who did not give a damn whether he had more affairs with boys or girls, or vice versa. At least, until the Calindy episode...

These memories, so unexpectedly dredged up from the past, made Duncan aware of the complicated emotional crosscurrents that must be sweeping through this place. And he suddenly recalled that disturbing conversation — or, rather, monologue — with Sir Mortimer Keynes...

That he would follow in the steps of Colin, and of Malcolm before, was something that Duncan had always taken for granted, without any discussion. But now he realized, rather late in the day, that there was a price for everything, and that it should be considered very carefully before the contract was finally signed.

Cloning was neither good nor bad; only its purpose was important. And that purpose should not be one that was trivial or selfish.

32

Golden Reef

The vivid green band of palms and the brilliant white crescent of the perfect beach were now more than a kilometer away, on the far side of the barrier reef. Even through the dark glasses which he dared not remove for a moment, the scene was almost painfully bright; when he looked in the direction of the sun, and caught its sparkle off the ocean swell, Duncan was completely blinded. Though this was a trifling matter, it enhanced his feeling of separation from all his companions. True, most of them also wore dark glasses — but in their case it was a convenience, not a necessity. Despite his wholly terrestrial genes, it seemed that he had adapted irrevocably to the light of a world ten times farther from the sun.

Beneath the smoothly sliding flanks of the triple hull, the water was so clear that it added to Duncan's feeling of insecurity. The boat seemed to be hanging in midair, with no apparent means of support, over a dappled sea bed five or ten meters below. It seemed strange that this should worry him, when he had looked down on Earth from orbit, hundreds of kilometers above the atmosphere.

He was startled by a sudden, distant crash, altogether out of place on this idyllically peaceful morning. It came from somewhere out at sea, and Duncan spun around just in time to see a column of spray slowly falling back into the water. Surely no one would be allowed to set off submarine explosions in this area...

Now there was a jet of vapor, which rose slanting from the sea, hung for a moment in the bright sunlight, and gradually dispersed.

For a full minute, nothing else happened. And then—

Duncan was paralyzed with astonishment. With unbelievable slowness, but with the inevitability of some continent rising from the primordial depths, a vast gray shape was soaring out of the sea. There was a flash of white, as monstrous flukes slammed against the waves and created another cloud of spray. And still that incredible bulk continued to climb, as if defying gravity, a moment above the blue ledge of the horizon. Then, still in slow motion, as if reluctant to leave an alien element, it fell back into the ocean and vanished beneath a final geyser of spray. The booming crash seemed to come ages later.

Duncan had never imagined such a spectacle, but he had no need of any explanation. Moby Dickwas one of the thousands of Terran classics he knew only through repute, but now he understood how Herman Melville must have felt when, for the first time, he saw the sea furrowed by a glistening back as large as an overturned ship, and conceived in the image of the white whale a symbol of the forces that lie behind the universe.

He waited for many minutes, but the giant did not leap again, though from time to time there were brief spouts of vapor, becoming more and more distant until they vanished from sight.

"Why did it do that?" he asked Dr. Todd, his voice still hushed by the lingering aura of departed majesty.

"Nobody really knows. It may be pure joie de vivre. It may be to impress a lady friend. OR it may be merely to get rid of parasites — whales are badly infested with barnacles and lampreys."

How utterly incongruous, thought Duncan. It seemed almost an outrage that a god should be afflicted with lice.

Now the trimaran was slowing down, and the sheer strangeness and beauty of the underwater scene captured his attention so completely that Duncan forgot his remoteness from land. The fantastic shapes of the corals, and the colors of the fish that sported or sauntered among them, were a revelation. He had already been astounded by the variety of life on land; now he saw that it was far exceeded by the reckless profusion of the sea.

Something like an antique jet plane went flapping slowly past, with graceful undulations of its spotted wings. None of the other fish took any notice. To Duncan's surprise, there was no sign of the carnage he had expected to witness, in this realm where everything fed on everything else. In fact, it was hard to imagine a more peaceful scene; the few fish that had been chasing others were obviously doing so merely to protect their territory. The impression he had gathered from books and films had been almost wholly misleading. Co-operation, not competition, seemed to rule the reef.

The trimaran came to a halt, the anchor was thrown out — and was followed almost immediately by three rubber dinghies, four doctors, five nurses, and a mass of diving equipment. The scene appeared to Duncan to be one of utter confusion; actually, it was much better planned and disciplined than he realized. The swimmers promptly divided into groups of three, and each trio went off with one of the dinghies, heading in a purposeful manner toward spots that had obviously been chosen in advance.

"If it's so safe," remarked Duncan after the last splashing had died away, "why are they all carrying knives, and those vicious-looking little spears?"

The trimaran was now almost deserted, its only other occupants besides Duncan being the skipper — who had promptly fallen asleep in front of the wheel — the engineer, who had disappeared below deck, and Dr. Todd.

"Those aren't weapons. They're gardening tools."

"You must have rather ferocious weeds. I wouldn't care to meet them."

"Oh," said Dr. Todd, "some of them put up a good fight. Why don't you go and have a look? You'll be sorry if you miss the chance."

That was perfectly true, yet Duncan still hesitated. The water in which the trimaran was gently rocking was very shallow; indeed, it appeared no deeper than the swimming pool at the Centennial Hotel.

"I'll go in with you. You can stand on the diving ladder, until you get the hang of the face mask — and snorkel-breathing should be easy to anyone who's used to a spacesuit."

Duncan did not volunteer the information that he had never worn a genuine spacesuit; nevertheless, a Titan surface life-support system should be good training. And anyway, what could go wrong in a couple of meters of water? Why, there were places here where he could stand with his head above the surface. Sweeney Todd was right; he would never forgive himself if he turned down this opportunity of a lifetime.

Ten minutes later, he was splashing inexpertly but steadily along the surface. Although it had seemed astonishing — and even indecent — to put on clothing when one entered the water, Todd had insisted that he dress from head to foot in a light, one-piece overall of some closely knit fabric. It scarcely affected his movements, but he wished he could do without it.

"Some of these corals sting," the doctor had explained. "It could spoil your day if you backed into one — and you might have an allergic reaction."

"Anything else you can think of?"

"No, that's about it. Just watch me, and hang on to the rubber dinghy whenever you want a rest."

He was now rapidly gaining confidence and beginning to enjoy himself thoroughly. There was obviously no danger whatsoever while he drifted along behind the dinghy, never letting go of the rope dangling in the water. And Dr. Todd, he was reassured to observe, always kept within arm's length; he was being almost ridiculously overcautious. Even if a shark came shooting up out of the depths, Duncan believed he could be aboard the dinghy in two seconds flat — notwithstanding Earth's gravity.

Now that he had mastered the use of the snorkel tube, he kept his head under water all the time, and even essayed shallow dives which involved holding his breath for considerable periods. The panorama beneath was so fascinating that Duncan even occasionally forgot the need for air, and emerged sputtering foolishly.

The first signboard was at a depth of five meters and said, in fluorescent yellow letters: NO UNAUTHORIZED VISITORS BEYOND THIS POINT. The second warning was a flashing holographic display in midwater, which must have been very perplexing to the fish. It announced ominously: THIS REEF IS MONITORED. Duncan could see no trace of the projectors; they had been very cunningly concealed.

Todd was pointing ahead, to the line of divers working along the edge of the reef. So he had not been joking. They really were going through the unmistakable motions of gardeners digging up noxious weeds. And each one was surrounded by a small cloud of brilliantly colored fish, clearly benefitting from all this activity.

The coral formations seemed to be changing shape. Even to Duncan's untrained eye, they looked strange — even abnormal. He had grown accustomed to the branching antlers of the staghorns, the convoluted labyrinths that looked like giant brains, the delicate mushrooms sometimes meters in diameter. They were still here, but now subtly distorted.

Then he saw the first metallic glint — then another, and another. As he came closer, and the blue haze of distance no longer softened the details of the underwater world, Duncan realized why this reef was cherished and protected.

Everywhere he looked, it glittered and sparkled with gold.

* * * * *

Two hundred years earlier, it had been one of the greatest triumphs of biological engineering, bringing world fame to its creators. Ironically, success had come when it was no longer required; what had been intended to fulfill a vital need had turned out to be no more than a technological cul-de-sac.

It had been known for centuries that some marine organisms were able to extract, for the benefit of their own internal economies, elements present in seawater in unbelievably small proportions. If sponges and oysters and similar lowly creatures could perform such feats of chemical engineering with iodine or vanadium, the biologists of the 2100's had argued, why could they not be taught to do the same trick with more valuable elements?

And so, by heroic feats of gene-manipulation, several species of coral had been persuaded to become gold miners. The most successful were able to replace almost ten percent of their limestone skeletons with the precious metal. That success, however, was measured only in human terms. Since gold normally plays no part in biochemical reactions, the consequences to the corals were disastrous; the auriferous reefs were never healthy, and had to be carefully protected from predators and disease.

Only a few hundred tons of gold were extracted by this technique before large-scale transmutation made it uneconomic; the nuclear furnaces could manufacture gold as cheaply as any other metal. For a while, the more accessible reefs were maintained as tourist attractions, but souvenir hunters soon demolished them. Now only one was left, and Dr. Mohammed's staff was determined to preserve it.

So, at regular intervals, the doctors and nurses took time off from their usual duties, and enjoyed an arduous working holiday on the reef. They dumped carefully selected fertilizers and antibiotics to improve the health of the living corals, and waged war against its enemies — particularly the spectacular crown of thorns starfish and its similar relative the spiny sea urchin. Duncan floated, perfectly relaxed, in the tepid water, lazily flippering from time to time so that he remained in the shadow of the dinghy. Now he understood the purpose of those sinister knives and spikes; the adversaries they had to deal with were well protected indeed.

Only a couple of meters beneath him, one of the divers was jabbing at a colony of small black spheres, each at the center of a formidable array of needle-sharp spines. From time to time one of the spheres would be split open, and fish would dart in to grab the pieces of white meat that came floating out. It was a delicacy they could scarcely ever have enjoyed without human intervention; Duncan could not imagine that these spiky beasts had any natural enemies.

The diver — one of the nurses — noticed the two spectators hovering overhead, and beckoned Duncan to join her. He had become so fascinated that he now obeyed automatically, without a second's thought. Taking several deep breaths, and partly exhaling on the last one, he hauled himself slowly down the line anchoring the dinghy to its small grapnel.

The distance was greater than he had imagined —more like three meters than two, for he had forgotten the refractive effect of the water. Midway, his left ear gave a disconcerting ‘click,’ but Dr. Todd had warned him about this, and he did not check his descent. When he reached the anchor, and grabbed its shank, he felt a tremendous sense of achievement. He was a deep-sea diver — he had plumbed the fabulous depth of three meters! Well, at least two point five...

The glitter of gold was all around him. There was never more than a tiny speck, smaller than a grain of sand, at any one spot — but it was everywhere; the entire reef was impregnated with it. Duncan felt that he was floating beside the chef-d’oeuvre of some mad jeweler, determined to create a baroque masterpiece regardless of expense. Yet these pinnacles and plates and twisted spires were the work of mindless polyps, not — except indirectly — the products of human intelligence.

Reluctantly, he shot up to the surface for air. This was easy; he felt ashamed of his previous fears. Now he understood how visitors often reacted to Titan. Next time, when someone politely declined an invitation to take a pleasant jaunt outside, he would be a little more tolerant.

"What are those black things?" he asked Dr. Todd, who was still hovering watchfully above him.

"Long-spined sea urchin, Diademasomething-or-other. When you see so many, it's a sign of pollution or an unbalanced ecology. They don't really damage the reef — unlike Acanthaster— but they're ugly, and a nuisance. If you back into one, the needles may take a month to work their way out. Are you going down again?"

"Yes."

"Good. Don't overdo it. And watch out for those spines!"

Duncan hauled himself down the anchor line once more, and the diver waved him a greeting as he approached. Then she offered him her deadly-looking knife, and pointed toward a small group of sea urchins. Duncan nodded, took the tapering metal blade by the proffered handle, and started jabbing away inexpertly, being careful to avoid those ominous black needles.

Not until then did he realize, to his considerable surprise, that these lowly animals were aware of his presence, and were not relying merely on a static defense. The long spines were swinging toward him, orienting themselves in the direction of maximum danger. Presumably it was only a simple automatic reflex, but it made him pause for a moment. There was more here than met the eye — perhaps the first faint intimations of dawning consciousness.

His knife was no longer than the sea urchin's spines, and he jabbed vigorously again and again. The carapace was surprisingly tough, but presently it gave way, and the waiting fish raced in to grab at the creamy white flesh that was suddenly exposed.

And then, with growing discomfort, Duncan realized that his victim was not dying in silence. For some time he had been aware of faint sounds in the water around him — the hammering of the other divers on the reef, the occasional ‘clang’ of the anchor against the rocks. But his noise came from much closer at hand, and was most peculiar — even disturbing. It was a crackling, grinding sound; though the analogy was patently ridiculous, it could only be compared to the crunching of thousands of tiny teeth, clashing in rage and agony. Moreover, there was no doubt that it came from the eviscerated sea urchin.

That faint, inhuman death rattle was so unexpected that Duncan checked his onslaught and remained hovering motionless in the water. He had completely forgotten the necessity for air, and the conscious part of his mind had dismissed the mounting symptoms of suffocation as irrelevant — to be dealt with later. But finally he could ignore them no longer, and shot gasping to the surface.

With a profound sense of shock — even of shame — Duncan realized that he had just destroyed a living creature. He could never have imagined, before he left Titan, that such an experience would ever come his way.

One could hardly feel much guilt over the murder of a sea urchin. Nevertheless, for the first time in his life, Duncan Makenzie was a killer.

33

Sleuth

When Duncan returned to Washington, the second time bomb from Colin was ticking away in the Centennial Hotel. Once again, it was so cryptic that it would have been almost unintelligible, even to an outsider who had succeeded in decoding it.

CONFIRM YOUR OLD FRIEND HAS UNAUTHORIZED ACCOUNT 65842 GENEVA BRANCH FIRST BANK OF ARISTARCHUS. BALANCE SEVERAL TENS OF THOUSANDS SOLARS. THIS INFORMATION NOT TO BE DISCLOSED ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. PRESUME FROM SALE OF TITANITE. MAKING INQUIRIES MNEMOSYNE. MEANWHILE SUGGEST YOU KEEP ALERT. REGARDS, COLIN.

Duncan understood perfectly well why this information was "not be disclosed"; the Lunar banks guarded their secrets well, and heaven alone knew by what prodigies of persuasion or genteel blackmail Colin had managed to get hold of Karl's account number. Even so, he had been unable to obtain a figure for the balance — but it was obviously considerable. Ten thousand solars was far more than anyone would need for the purchase of a few Terran luxuries. And severaltimes that was more than the Makenzies held in their own, perfectly legal accounts. Such an amount of money was more than a cause for envy; it was disturbing, especially if it was intended for some clandestine use.

Duncan allowed himself a few moments of wistful daydreaming, imagining what he could do with twenty or thirty thousand solars. Then he put the seductive vision firmly aside and concentrated all his mind upon the problem. While Karl's involvement had been only a vague suspicion, he had been reluctant to waste time on a detailed analysis of how, when, and — above all — why. But now that speculation had congealed into certainty, he could no longer evade the issue.

What a pity that the obvious line of approach was out of the question! He could hardly call up the First Bank of Aristarchus and ask for a print-out of Account 65842. Not even the World Government could do that, unless fraud or crime had already been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even the most discreet inquiry would trigger an explosion; someone would certainly be fired, and Colin might be faced with most embarrassing questions.

The only realproblem in life, an ancient philosopher had once said, is what to do next. There was still no link with Calindy — or anyone else. Duncan did not relish playing a role in some sleazy, old-time spy or detective melodrama, and was not even sure how one got started on such an enterprise. Colin would have been much better at it; of the three Makenzies, he was the only one with any flair for subterfuge, indirection, and secrecy. He was probably enjoying himself — especially since he had never liked Karl, being one of the few people on Titan immune to his charms.

But Colin, though he was doing a remarkable job, was more than a billion kilometers away, at the end of an expensive three-hour time-lag. There was no one on Earth in whom Duncan could confide. This was a private Titanian matter, and might yet turn out to be a storm in a teacup. However, if it was serious, the fewer people who knew about it, the better.

Duncan considered, and dismissed, the idea of talking to Ambassador Farrell. He might have to enter the picture later, but not now. Duncan had not been too impressed with Bob Farrell's discretion — and, of course, he wasa Terran. Moreover, if the Embassy discovered that there was a large amount of masterless money floating around Earth, that would undoubtedly precipitate a tug-of-war. It was true that the rent on Wyoming Avenue had to be paid, but Titan's demands were even more urgent.

And yet perhaps there was one Terran he could trust — the man who had raised the matter in the first place, and who was equally interested in finding the answer. Duncan tapped out the name on his Comsole, wondering if it would accept that ridiculous apostrophe. (He had managed to misplace the dealer's card, which would have placed the call automatically.)

"Mr. Mandel'stahm?" he said, when the screen lit up. "Duncan Makenzie. I have some news for you. where can we meet for a private conversation?"

* * * * *

"Are you absolutelycertain," said Duncan anxiously, "that no one can overhear us?"

"You've been seeing too many historical films, Mr. Makenzie," Ivor Mandel'stahm replied. "This isn't the twentieth century, and it would take a singularly determined police state to bug every autojitney in Washington. I always do my confidential business cruising round and round the Mall. There's absolutely nothing to worry about."

"Very well. It's imperative that this doesn't go any further. I am fairly sure that I know the source of the titanite. What's more, I have a very good idea of the Terran agent — who has apparently already made some substantial sales."

"I've discovered that," said Mandel'stahm, a little glumly. "Do you know how substantial?"

"Several tens of thousands of solars."

To Duncan's surprise, Mandel'stahm brightened appreciably.

"Oh, is that all?" he exclaimed. "I'm quite relieved. And can you give me the name of the prime agent? I've been operating through a very close-mouthed intermediary."

Duncan hesitated. "I believe you implied that no Terran laws were being broken."

"Correct. There's no import duty on extraterrestrial gems. Everything at this end is perfectly legal — unless, of course, the titanite is stolen, and the Terran agent is an accomplice."

"I'm sure that isn't the case. You see — and it's not really as big a coincidence as you might think — the agent is a friend of mine."

A knowing smile creased Mandel'stahm's face.

"I appreciate your problem."

No, you don't, Duncan told himself. It was an excruciatingly complicated situation. He was quite sure now why Calindy had been avoiding him. Karl would have warned her that he was coming to Earth and would have advised her to keep out of his way. Yes, Karl must have been very worried, up there on little Mnemosyne, lest Duncan stumble upon his activities.

It was essential to keep completely out of the picture; Calindy must never guess that he knew. There was no way in which she could possibly link him with Mandel'stahm, with whom she was already dealing through her own exceedingly discreet intermediary.

Yet still Duncan hesitated, like a chess master over a crucial move. He was analyzing his own motives, and his own conscience, for his personal and official interests were now almost inextricably entangled.

He was anxious to find out what Karl was doing, and if necessary frustrate him. He wanted to make Calindy ashamed of her deceit, and possibly turn her embarrassment to his emotional advantage. (This was a rather forlorn hope; Calindy did not embarrass easily, if at all...) And he wanted to help Titan, and thereby the Makenzies. All these objectives were not likely to be compatible. Duncan began to wish that titanite had never been discovered. Yet, undoubtedly, there was a brilliant opportunity here, if only he had the wit to make his moves correctly.

Their autojitney was now gliding, at the breathless speed of some twenty klicks, between the Capitol and the Library of Congress. The sight reminded Duncan of his other responsibility; already it was the last week in June, yet his speech still consisted of no more than a few sheets of notes. Overpreparation was one of the Makenzie failings; the “all right on the night” attitude was wholly alien to their natures. But even allowing for this often valuable fault, of which he was well aware, Duncan was beginning to feel a mild sense of panic.

The problem was a very simple one, yet its diagnosis had not suggested a remedy. Try as he could, Duncan had still been unable to decide on a basic theme, or any message from Titan more inspiring than the usual zero-content official greetings.

Mandel'stahm was still waiting patiently when they passed the Rayburn Building — now encrusted with a vast banyan tree brought all the way from Angkor What; it was hoped that within the next fifty years, this would do the job of demolition at virtually no public expense. There were times when aesthetics took precedence over history, and it was generally agreed that — unlike the old Smithsonian — the Rayburn Building was not quitehideous enough to be worth preservation. (But what would that vegetable octopus do next, the professional alarmists had worried, when it had finished this task? Would the monster crawl across Independence Avenue and attack the hallowed dome?)

Now the jitney was cruising past the prone hundred meters of the Saturn V replica lying on what had once been the site of NASA Headquarters. They could not spend all day orbiting central Washington; very well, Duncan told himself with a sigh...

"I have your promise that my name won't come out, under any circumstances?"

"Yes."

"And there's no risk that — my friend — may get into trouble?"

"I can't guarantee that he won't lose any money. But there will be no legal problems — at any rate, under Terran jurisdiction."

"It's not a ‘he.’ I leave the details to you, but you might make some tactful inquiries about the vice-president of Enigma Associates, Catherine Linden Ellerman."

34

Star Day

Though he tried to convince himself that he had done the right thing — even the only thing — Duncan was still slightly ashamed. Deep in his heart, he felt that he had been guilty of betraying an old friendship. He was glad that some impulse had kept him from mentioning Karl, and with part of his mind he still hoped that the whole investigation would collapse.

Meanwhile, there was so much to be done, and so much to see, that for long periods of time Duncan could forget his twinges of conscience. It seemed ridiculous to have come all the way to Earth — and then to sit for hours of every day (in beautiful weather!) in a hotel room talking into a Comsole.

But every time Duncan thought he had completed one of the innumerable chores they had given him before he left home, there would be a back-up message reopening the subject, or adding fresh complications. His official duties were time-consuming enough; what made matters worse were all the private requests from relatives, friends, and even complete strangers, who assumed that he had nothing else to do except contact lost acquaintances, obtain photos of ancestral homes, hunt for rare books, research Terran genealogies, locate obscure works of art, act as agent for hopeful Titanian authors and artists, conjure up scholarships and free passages to Earth — and say "Thank you" for Star Day cards received ten years ago and never acknowledged.

Which reminded Duncan that he had not sent off his own cards for this quadrennial occasion. Since '76 was a leap year, Star Day was therefore looming up in the near future — to be precise, between June 30 and July 1. Duncan was glad of the extra day, but it also meant that there would shortly be three days in five where no business could be done. For July 1, being at the beginning of a new quarter, was of course a Sunday; and the Sunday before thatwas only June 28. It was bad enough, in an ordinary year, to have two Sundays at the end of every 91-day quarter, with only a Monday and Tuesday between them — but now to have anotherholiday as well made it even worse.

There was still time to mail cards to all his Terran friends — Ambassador Farrell, the Washingtons, Calindy, Bernie Patras, and half a dozen others. As for Titan, there was really no hurry. Even if they took six months to get there, the cards, with there beautiful gold-leaf Centennial stamps (five solars each, for heaven's sake, even by second-class space mail!), would still be appreciated.

Despite these problems, Duncan had found some opportunities to relax. He had been on personal teletours of London, Rome, and Athens, which was the next best thing to being there in the flesh. Seated in a tiny, darkened cubicle with 360 degrees of high-quality sound and vision, he could easily believe that he was actually walking through the streets of the ancient cities. He could ask questions of the invisible guide who was his alter ego, talk to any passers-by, change the route to look more closely at something that took his interest. Only the sense of smell and touch remained immobile — and even these could be tele-extended for anyone willing to foot the bill. Duncan could not afford such marginal luxury, and did not really miss it.

He also attended several concerts, two ballets, and one play — all arranged for the benefit of visitors in this Centennial year, and all unavoidable without the exercise of more diplomatic illness, or sheer bad manners, than Duncan felt able to muster. The music, though doubtless magnificent, bored him; his tastes were old-fashioned, and he enjoyed little written after the twenty-first century. The ballet was also a disappointment; to anyone who had spent all his life at a fifth of a gravity, the most remarkable of Terran grands jetйs was unimpressive — and also nerve-racking, for Duncan could never quite get over the fear that the dancers would injure themselves. He watched them with envy, but he had no wish to imitate them. It was enough that he could now walk and stand without conscious effort. This achievement was a matter of modest pride, for there had been a time when he would not have believed it possible.

But the play delighted him. He had heard vaguely of George Bernard Shaw, now undergoing one of his periodic revivals, and The Devil's Disciplewas perfect for the occasion. Though George Washington muttered from time to time in Duncan's ear such comments as "General Burgoyne wasn't the least like that," he felt that he at least understood the American Revolution in human terms. It was no longer a shadowy affair of two-dimensional puppets, five hundred years in the past, but a life-and-death struggle involving real people, whose hopes and fears and loves he could share.

Though love, with a capital L, was not a complication that Duncan would welcome during his stay on Earth. He could not imagine anyone ever replacing Marissa, and to have a really serious affair with a Terran would be the stuff of tragedy, since separation would be inevitable when he returned to Titan. He wanted no part of that; he had been through it once before, with Calindy.

Or so it had seemed at the time. Now he realized that the calf love of a sixteen-year-old boy, though it had once dominated all his waking hours, was indeed shallow and transient. Yet its aftereffects still lingered, shaping all his later passions and desires. Although he was annoyed and disappointed with Calindy, that was unchanged; her deliberate avoidance had, if anything, added fuel to his emotions and contributed to some notably fevered dreams.

Bernie Patras, of course, was happy to relieve his symptoms, and had arranged several enjoyable encounters. One cuddlesome and talented young lady, he swore, was his own girl friend, "who only does this with people she reallywants to meet." She did, indeed, show a genuine interest in Titan and its problems; but when Bernie, as an interested party, wanted to join in the festivities, Duncan selfishly threw him out.

That was shortly before Ivor Mandel'stahm — this time in the Penn-Mass autojitney — totally demolished his peace of mind. They had just left the Dupont Circle Interchange when he told Duncan: "I've some interesting news for you, but I don't know what it means. You may be able to explain it."

"I'll do my best."

"I think I can claim, without much exaggeration or conceit, that I can get to anyone on Earth in one jump. But sometimes discretion suggests doing it in two, and that's how I proceeded with Miss Ellerman. I've never had any dealings with her personally — or so I thought, until you advised me otherwise — but we have mutual friends. So I got one, whom I can trust without question, to give her a call... Tell me, have you tried to contact her recently?"

"Not for — oh, at least a week. I thought it better to keep out of the way." Duncan did not add, to this perfectly good excuse, the fact that he had felt ashamed to face Calindy.

"She answered my friend's call, but there's something very odd. She wouldn't switch on her viddy."

That certainly was peculiar; as a matter of common good manners, one neveroverrode the vision circuit unless there was a very good excuse indeed. Of course, this could sometimes cause acute embarrassment — a fact exploited to the utmost in countless comedies. But whatever the real reason, social protocol demanded some explanation. To say that the viddy was out of order was to invite total disbelief, even on those rare occasions when it was true.

"What was her excuse?" asked Duncan.

"A plausible one. She explained that she had a bad fall, and apologized for not showing her face."

"I hope she wasn't badly hurt."

"Apparently not, though she sounded rather unhappy. Anyway, my friend had a brief conversation with her and raised the subject of Titan — quite legitimately, and in a way that couldn't possibly arouse suspicion. He knew that she'd been there, and asked if she could put him in touch with any Titanians she happened to know on Earth. Actually, he said he had an export order in mind."

"Not a very good story. All business is handled through the Embassy Trade Division, and he could have contacted them."

"If I may say so, Mr. Makenzie, you still have a lot to learn. I can think of half a dozen reasons for notgoing to the Embassy — at least for the first approach. My friend knows that, and you can be sure that Miss Ellerman does."

"If you say so — I don't doubt that you're right. What was her reaction?"

"I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. She said that she didhave a good Titanian friend who might be able to help, that he'd just arrived for the celebrations, and he was in Washington..."

Duncan began to laugh; the anticlimax was so ridiculous...

"So your friend wasted his time. We're right back to where we started."

"Along thisline, yes. I thought you'd be amused. But there's rather more to come."

"Go on," said Duncan, his confidence in Mandel'stahm now somewhat diminished by this debacle.

"I tried several other lines of inquiry, but they all came to nothing. I even thought of calling Miss Ellerman myself and saying outright that I knew she was the principal behind the titanite negotiations — without accusing her of anything, of course."

"I'm glad you didn't."

"Oh, it would have been a perfectly reasonable thing to do — she wouldn't have been surprised if I found out sooner or later. But as it happened, I had a better idea — one I should have tried in the first place. I checked on her visitors for the last month."

"How," Duncan asked in astonishment, "could you do that?"

"It's the oldest trick in the world. Have you never seen one of those twentieth-century French detective films? No, I suppose not. I simply asked the concierge."

"The what?"

"You don't have them on Titan?"

"I don't even know what they are."

"Perhaps you're lucky. On Earth, they're an indispensable nuisance. Miss Ellerman, as I assume you know, lives in a very luxurious Deep Ten just south of Mount Rockefeller. In fact, she has the basement penthouse — a hankering I've never understood; the farther down I go, the more claustrophobic I get. Well, any large complex has a doorkeeper at the entrance to tell visitors who's in and who's out, take messages, accept deliveries — and authorize the right people to go to the right apartments. That'sthe concierge."

"And you were able to get at its memory bank?"

Mandel'stahm had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.

"It's surprising what can be done if you know the right people. Oh, don't misunderstand. There was nothing illegal; but I prefer to omit details."

"On Titan, we're very particular about invasion of privacy."

"So are we on Earth. Anyone who really wants to do so can easily by-pass the concierge. Which, in fact, suggests to me that Miss Ellerman does nothave a guilty conscience, or anything to hide. But tell me, Mr. Makenzie — didn't you know that she had a Titanian guest staying with her?"

Duncan stared at him open-mouthed, but quickly recovered himself. Of course —Karl might well have prevailed on some trusted friend to act as a courier. That must have been a good many months ago; there had been no passenger ship for six weeks before Sirius. Who could possibly...?

That could wait. There was another little matter to clear up first.

"You said staying with her? "

"Yes. That is, until only two days ago."

That explained everything — almost. No wonder Calindy had avoided him! In equal measure, Duncan felt jealousy, disappointment — and relief that his maneuverings had, after all, been justified by events.

"Who is this Titanian?" he asked glumly. "I wonder if I know him."

"That's what I'll be interested to hear. His name is Karl Helmer."

35

A Message From Titan

"That's utterly impossible," said Duncan, when he had recovered from the initial shock. "I left Helmer at Saturn — and I came here on the fastest ship in the Solar System."

Mandel'stahm gave an expressive shrug.

"Then perhaps someone else is using that name, for reasons best known to himself. Miss Ellerman's concierge is not very bright — they seldom are — and incidentally, we were lucky to get at it just before the end-of-month memory update. I got hold of the visual recognition coding, and here's the recording circuit."

He handed over the crude but perfectly adequate synthesis. Duncan could identify it as quickly as any robot pattern-detecting circuit.

Without question, it was Karl.

"So you know him," said Mandel'stahm.

"Very well," Duncan replied faintly. His mind was still in a whirl; even now, he could not fully believe the evidence of his eyes. It would take a long time for him to work out all the implications of this stunning development.

"You said he was no longer at Cal— Miss Ellerman's. Do you know where he is now?"

"No. I was hoping youmight have some ideas. But now that we know the name, I'll be able to trace him — though it may take some time."

And doubtless expense, thought Duncan.

"Tell me, Mr. Mandel'stahm, why are you taking all this trouble? Frankly, I don't see what you hope to get out of it."

"Don't you? Well, it's a good question. I certainly began this out of a pure and honest lust for titanite, and I hope that in due course my efforts will win their just reward. But now it's gone beyond that. The only thing more valuable than gems or works of art is entertainment. And this little caper, Mr. Makenzie, is more interesting than anything I've seen on the viddy for weeks."

Despite his gloomy preoccupations, Duncan could not help smiling. He had been cautious in his approach to Mandel'stahm, but now he was definitely beginning to feel genuine warmth toward the dealer. He was shrewd and perhaps even crafty, and Duncan did not doubt that he would drive a very hard bargain. But he was now quite convinced that George Washington was right: Ivor Mandel'stahm could be trusted implicitly, in all the things that really mattered.

"May I make a modest proposal?"

"Of course," Duncan answered.

"Can you think of any reason at all, now that we've reached this stage, why you should not call Miss Ellerman, say that you've just heard from Titan that your mutual friend Mr. Helmer is on Earth — and does she know where he is?"

Duncan thought it over; the suggestion was so blatantly obvious that, in his somewhat dazed state, he had completely overlooked it. Even now, he was not sure that he could give it an accurate evaluation.

But the affair was no longer a matter of impersonal tactics and policy, to be worked out like the closing move so some chess game. For his own self-respect and peace of mind, it was time for a confrontation with Calindy.

"You're right," he said. "There's no reason at all why I shouldn't call her. I'll do so, just as soon as I can get back to the hotel. Let's stop off at Union Station and take the express..."

When Duncan reached the hotel twenty minutes later (the "express" was somewhat misnamed) he had the second surprise of the day, though by now it was something of an anticlimax. The longest fax that Colin had ever sent him was waiting in the Comsole.

After the initial quick reading, Duncan's first reaction was, " Thistime, at least, I'm one jump ahead." But even that, he realized, was not quite true. When one allowed for the fact that Colin's message had left Titan two hours ago, it was virtually a photo-finish.

SECURITY AAA PRIORITY AAA

INQUIRIES MNEMOSYNE DISCLOSE KARL LEFT MID MARCH ON NONSKED EARTH FLIGHT AND ARRIVED APPROXIMATELY TWO WEEKS BEFORE YOU. ARMAND PROFESSES SURPRISE AND TOTAL IGNORANCE. MAY BE TELLING TRUTH. IMPERATIVE YOU LOCATE KARL FIND WHAT HE IS DOING AND IF NECESSARY WARN HIM OF CONSEQUENCES. PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION AS ANXIOUS TO AVOID PUBLICITY OR INTERPLANETARY COMPLICATIONS. YOU APPRECIATE THE SITUATION MAY BE TO OUR ADVANTAGE BUT DISCRETION ESSENTIAL. SUGGEST CALINDY MAY KNOW WHERE HE IS. COLIN AND MALCOLM.

Duncan reread the message more slowly, absorbing its nuances. It contained nothing that he did not know, or had not already guessed; however, he did not relish its uncompromising tone. Being signed by both Colin and Malcolm, it had the authority of a direct order — something rare indeed in Makenzie affairs. Though Duncan admitted that it made good sense, he could also detect an underlying note of satisfaction. For a moment he had an unflattering image of his older twins moving in like a pair of vultures, scenting a kill...

At the same time, he was wryly amused to see that Colin had drafted the Telex in a great hurry; it contained half a dozen superfluous words, most offensive to the economical maxims of the clan. Why, there were even ‘and's’ and ‘the's’...

Perhaps, after all, he was not suited for politics. He felt a growing disenchantment with these machinations. There were, despite genetics, subtle differences between the Makenzies, and it might well be that he was not as tough — or as ambitious — as his precursors.

In any event, his first step was obvious, especially as all his advisers had suggested it. The second move could be decided later.

It was no surprise when Calindy failed to appear on the screen of his Comsole, and he soon had proof that the social convention was justified. Unless there was some excellent reason, it was indeed bad manners to switch off one's viddy circuit. Duncan felt both frustrated and at a serious disadvantage, knowing that Calindy could see him but he could not see her. The voice alone did not convey all the shades of emotion. There was so many times when the expression of the eyes could contradict the spoken word.

"Why, what's the matter, Calindy?" said Duncan in feigned astonishment. He would feel genuine sympathy if she were indeed hurt; but he intended to reserve judgment.

Her voice was — could it be imagination on his part? —not quite under control. She appeared surprised to see him, perhaps disconcerted.

"I'm terribly sorry, Duncan — I'd rather not show my face at the moment. I fell and hurt my eye — it looks ghastly. But there's nothing to worry about — it will be all right in a few days."

I'm sorry to hear that. I won't bother you if you feel unwell."

He waited, hoping that Calindy could read the concern that he had carefully imprinted on his face.

"Oh, that's no problem. Otherwise it's business as usual — I've just cut out my weekly trip to the office, and now do everythingby Comsole."

"Well, that's a relief. Now I've got a piece of news for you. Karl is on Earth."

There was a long silence before Calindy replied. When she finally answered, Duncan realized, with amused mortification, that he was really not in her league. He could not hope to outwit her for very long.

"Duncan," she said, in a resigned tone of voice, "you reallydidn't know that he was staying with me?"

Duncan did his best to exhibit incredulity, shock, and umbrage — in that order.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he cried.

"Because he asked me not to. That put me in a difficult position, but what was I to do? He said you were no longer on good terms... and his business was highly confidential."

Duncan guessed that Calindy was telling the simple truth, if indeed the truth was simple. Some, but not all, of his pique evaporated.

"Well, I'm upset and disappointed. I should have thought you'd have trusted me. Anyway, there's no further need for — subterfuge— now that I know he's here. I've an urgent message for him — where can I locate him?"

There was another long pause; then Calindy answered: "I don't know where he is. He left suddenly, and never told me where he was going. He might even have returned to Titan."

"Without saying good-bye? Hardly! And there are no ships to Titan for a month."

"Then I suppose he's still on Earth, or no farther away than the Moon. I simply don't know."

Oddly enough, Duncan believed her. Her voice still had the right of truth, though he did not delude himself about her power to deceive him if she wished.

"In that case, I'll have to trace him in some other way. It's imperative that we meet."

"I wouldn't advise that, Duncan."

"Why ever not?"

"He's — very angry with you."

"I can't imagine the reason," retorted Duncan, swiftly imagining several. Calindy's voice sounded such a genuine note of alarm that he felt himself responding strongly to her concern.

However, it seemed that this avenue was closed, at least for the time being. He knew better than to argue with Calindy. With a mixture of emotions, he expressed hopes for her continued improvement, and broke the circuit. He hoped that she would interpret his attitude as one of both sorrow and anger, and feel correspondingly contrite.

A minute later, he was looking — with some relief — at a screen that was no longer empty, and could reveal the other party's reactions.

"Did youknow," he asked Ambassador Farrell, "that Karl Helmer is on Earth?"

His Excellency blinked.

"I certainly did not. He never contacted me — I'll see if the Chancery knows anything."

He punched a few buttons, and it was obvious that nothing happened. The ambassador glanced at Duncan with annoyance.

"I wish we could afford a new intercom system," he said accusingly. "They cost a very small fraction of the Titan Gross National Product."

Duncan thought it was wise to let this pass, and luckily on the second attempt the ambassador got through. He muttered a few inaudible questions, waited for a minute, then looked at Duncan and shook his head.

"No trace of him — not even a Terran forwarding address for any messages from home. Mostodd."

"Wouldn't you say — unprecedented?"

"Um — yes. I've never heard of anyone failing to contact the Embassy as soon as they reach Earth. Usually, of course, we know that they're coming, weeks in advance. There's no law compellingthem to get in touch — but it's a matter of courtesy. Not to mention convenience."

"That's what I thought. Well, if you hear anything of him, would you let me know?"

The ambassador stared back at him in silence for a moment, with the most emphatic of smiles on his face. Then he said: "What do Malcolm and Colin think he's doing? Plotting a coup d’йtat with smuggled guns?"

After a moment's shock, Duncan laughed at the joke.

"Not even Karl is thatcrazy. Frankly, I'm completely baffled by the whole thing — but I'm determined to locate him. Though there may be half a billion people on Earth, he's not exactly inconspicuous. Please keep in touch. Good-bye for the present."

Two down, thought Duncan, and one to go. It was back to Ivor Mandel'stahm, in his self-appointed, and by no means unsuccessful, role of private eye.

But Ivor's Comsole answered: "Please do not disturb. Kindly record any message."

Duncan was annoyed; he was bursting to pass on his news, but he was certainly not going to leave it stored in a Comsole. He would have to wait until Mandel'stahm called back.

Thattook two hours, and meanwhile it was not easy to concentrate on other work. When the dealer finally returned the call, he apologized profusely.

"I was trying a long shot," he explained. "I wondered if he'd bought anything in New York on a credit card. There weren't all that number of aitches, and the Central Billing computer zipped through them in an hour... Alas — he must be using cash. Not a federal crime, of course. But a nuisance to us honest investigators."

Duncan laughed.

"It was a good idea. I've done slightly better — at least I've eliminated some possibilities."

He gave Mandel'stahm a brief rйsumй of his discussion with Calindy and Ambassador Farrell, then added: "Where do we go from here?"

"I'm not sure. But don't worry — I'll think of something."

Duncan believed him. He now had an almost unreasoning confidence in the dealer's ingenuity, not to mention his influence and his knowledge of the ways of Earth. If anyonecould locate Karl — short of going to the police, or inserting a personal appeal in the World Times— it would be Mandel'stahm.

In fact, it took him only thirty-six hours.

36

The Eye of Allah

"I've found him," said Mandel'stahm. He looked tired but victorious.

"I knew you would," Duncan replied with unfeigned admiration. "Where is he?"

"Don't be so impatient — let me have my reasonably innocent fun. I've earned it."

"Well, whose concierge did you bamboozle this time?"

Mandel'stahm looked slightly pained.

"Nobody's. I first tried to find all I could about your friend Helmer, by the brilliant device of looking him up in the Interplanetary Who's Who. I assumed he'd be there, and he was — a hundred-line print-out. I looked youup at the same time, by the way... You rate one hundred fifty lines, if that's any satisfaction."

"I know," said Duncan, with what patience he could muster. "Go on."

"I wondered if it would list any Terran contacts or interests, and again I was in luck. He belongs to the Institution of Electronic Engineers, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Institute of Physics, and the Institute of Astronautics — as well as several Titanian professional organizations, of course. And I see he's written half a dozen scientific papers, and been joint author in others: the Ionosphere of Saturn, origins of ultra-long-wave electromagnetic radiation, and other thrilling esoterica... nothing of any use to us, though.

"The Royal astronomers are in London, of course — but the engineers and astronauts and physicists are all in New York, and I wondered if he'd contacted them. So I called on another of my useful friends — a scientist this time, and a most distinguished one, who could open any doors without questions being asked. I hoped that a visiting Titanian colleague was a rare enough phenomenon to attract attention... and indeed he was."

Mandel'stahm gave another of his pregnant pauses, so that Duncan could simmer for a while, then went on.

" Thisis what puzzles me. Apart from ignoring the Embassy, and telling Miss Ellerman to keep quiet, he's done absolutely nothingto cover his tracks. I don't think anyone with much to hide would behave that way..."

"It was really very simple. The Electronics people were happy to help. They told us he'd left North Atlan and could be contacted care of the Assistant Chief Engineer, Division C, World Communications Headquarters, Tehran. Not the sort of address you'd associate with gem smuggling and interplanetary skullduggery...

"So over to Tehran — just in time to miss him, but no matter. He'll be at the same location now for a couple of days, and in view of his background, at lastwe've got something that makes a little sense."

"World Com's Division C are the boys who keep Project CYCLOPS running. And even Ihave heard of that."

* * * * *

It had been conceived in the first bright dawn of the Space Age; the largest, most expensive, and potentially most promising scientific instrument ever devised. Though it could serve many purposes, one was paramount — the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

One of the oldest dreams of mankind, this remained no more than a dream until the rise of radio astronomy, in the second half of the twentieth century. Then, within the short span of two decades, the combined skills of the engineers and the scientists gave humanity the power to span the interstellar gulf — ifit was willing to pay the price.

The first puny radio telescopes, a few tens of meters in diameter, had listened hopefully for signals from the stars. No one had really expected success from these pioneering efforts, nor was it achieved. Making certain plausible assumptions about the distribution of intelligence in the Galaxy, it was easy to calculate that the detection of a radio-emitting civilization would require telescopes not decameters, but kilometers, in aperture.

There was only one practical method of achieving this result — at least, with structures confined to the surface of the Earth. To build a single giant bowl was out of the question, but the same result could be obtained from an array of hundreds of smaller ones. CYCLOPS was visualized as an antenna "farm" of hundred-meter dishes, uniformly spaced over a circle perhaps five kilometers across. The faint signals from each element in that army of antennas would be added together, and then cunningly processed by computers programmed to look for the unique signatures of intelligence against the background of cosmic noise.

The whole system would cost as much as the original Apollo Project. But unlike Apollo, it could proceed in installments, over a period of years or even decades. As soon as a relatively few antennas had been built, CYCLOPS could start operating. From the very beginning, it would be a tool of immense value to the radio astronomers. Over the years, more and more antennas could be installed, until eventually the whole array was filled in; and all the while, CYCLOPS would steadily increase in power and capability, able to probe deeper and deeper into the universe.

It was a noble vision, though there were some who feared its success as much as its possible failure. However, during the Time of Troubles that brought the twentieth century to its unlamented close, there was little hope of funding such a project. It could be considered only during a period of political and financial stability; and therefore CYCLOPS did not get under way until a hundred years after the initial design studies.

A child of the brief but brilliant Muslim Renaissance, it helped to absorb some of the immense wealth accumulated by the Arab countries during the Oil Age. The millions of tons of metal required came from the virtually limitless resources of the Red Sea brines, oozing up along the Great Rift Valley. Here, where the crust of the Earth was literally coming apart at the seams as the continental plates slowly separated, were metals and minerals to banish all fear of shortages for centuries to come.

Ideally, CYCLOPS should have been situated on the Equator, so that its questing radio mirrors could sweep the heavens from pole to pole. Other requirements were a good climate, freedom from earthquakes or other natural disasters — and, if possible, a ring of mountains to act as a shield against radio interference. Of course, no perfect site existed, and political, geographical, and engineering compromises had to be made. After decades of often acrimonious discussion, the desolate ‘Empty Quarter’ of Saudi Arabia was chosen; it was the first time that anyone had ever found a use for it.

Wide tracks were roughly graded through the wilderness so that ten-thousand ton hover-freighters could carry in components from the factories on the shore of the Red Sea. Later, these were supplemented by cargo airships. In the first phase of the project, sixty parabolic antennas were arranged in the form of a cross, its five-kilometer arms extending north-south, east-west. Some of the faithful objected to this symbol of an alien religion, but it was explained to them that this was only a temporary state of affairs. When the "Eye of Allah" was completed, the offending sign would be utterly lost in the total array of seven hundred huge dishes, spaced uniformly over a circle eighty square kilometers in extent.

By the end of the twenty-first century, however, only half of the planned seven hundred elements had been installed. Two hundred of them had filled in most of the central core of the array, and the rest formed a kind of picket fence, outlining the circumference of the giant instrument. This reduction in scale, while saving billions of solars, had degraded performance only slightly. CYCLOPS had fulfilled virtually all its design objectives, and during the course of the twenty-second century had wrought almost as great a revolution in astronomy as had the reflectors on Mount Wilson and Mount Palomar, two hundred years earlier. By the end of that century, however, it had run into trouble — through no fault of its builders, or of the army of engineers and scientists who served it.

CYCLOPS could not compete with the systems that had now been built on the far side of the Moon — almost perfectly shielded from terrestrial influence by three thousand kilometers of solid rock. For many decades, it had worked in conjunction with them, for two great telescopes at either end of an Earth-Moon baseline formed an interferometer that could probe details of planetary systems hundreds of light-years away. But now there were radio telescopes on Mars; the Lunar observatory could achieve far more with their co-operation than it could ever do with nearby Earth. A baseline two hundred million kilometers long allowed one to survey the surrounding stars with a precision never before imagined.

As happens sooner or later with all scientific instruments, technical developments had by-passed CYCLOPS. But by the mid-twenty-third century it was facing another problem, which might well prove fatal. The Empty Quarter was no longer a desert.

CYCLOPS had been built in a region which might see no rains for five years at a time. At Al Hadidah, there were meteorites that had lain untrusting in the sand since the days of the Prophet. All this had been changed by reforestation and climate control; for the first time since the Ice Ages, the deserts were in retreat. More rain now fell on the Empty Quarter in days than had once fallen in years.

The makers of CYCLOPS had never anticipated this. They had, reasonably enough, based all their designs on a hot, arid environment. Now the maintenance staff was engaged in a continual battle against corrosion, humidity in coaxial cables, fungus-induced breakdowns in high-tension circuits, and all the other ills that afflict electronic equipment if given the slightest chance. Some of the hundred-meter antennas had even rusted up solidly, so that they could no longer be moved and had to be taken out of service. For almost twenty years, the system had been working at slowly decreasing efficiency, while the engineers, administrators, and scientists carried out a triangular argument, no one party being able to convince either of the others. Was it worth investing billions of solars to refurbish the system — or would the money be better spent on the other side of the Moon? It was impossible to arrive at any clear-cut decision, for no one had ever been able to put a value on pure scientific research.

Whatever its present problems, CYCLOPS had been a spectacular success, helping reshape man's views on the universe not once, but many times. It had pushed back the frontiers of knowledge to the very microsecond after the Big Bang itself, and had trapped radio waves that had circumnavigated the entire span of creation. It had probed the surfaces of distant stars, detected their hidden planets, and discovered such strange entities as neutrino suns, antitachyons, gravitational lenses, spacequakes, and revealed the mind-wrenching realms of negative-probability "Ghost" states and inverted matter.

But there was one thing that it had not done. Despite scores of false alarms, it had never succeeded in detecting signals from intelligent beings somewhere else in the universe.

Either man was alone, or nobody else was using radio transmitters. The two explanations seemed equally improbable.

37

Meeting At CYCLOPS

He had known what to expect, or so he had believed, but the reality was still overwhelming. Duncan felt like a child in a forest of giant metal trees, extending in every direction to the limit of vision. Each of the identical ‘trees’ had a slightly tapering trunk fifty meters high, with a stairway spiraling round it up to the platform supporting the drive mechanism. Looming above this was the huge yet surprisingly delicate hundred-meter-wide bowl of the antenna itself, tilted toward the sky as it listened for signals from the deeps of space.

Antenna 005, as its number indicated, was near the center of the array, but it was impossible to tell this by visual inspection. Whichever way Duncan looked, the ranks and columns of steel towers dwindled into the distance until eventually they formed a solid wall of metal.

The whole vast array was a miracle of precision engineering, on a scale matched nowhere else on Earth. It was altogether appropriate that many key components had been manufactured in space; the foamed metals and crystal fibers which gave the parabolic reflectors strength with lightness could be produced only by the zero-gravity orbiting factories. In more ways than one, CYCLOPS was a child of space.

Duncan turned to the guide who had driven him through the labyrinth of access tunnels on the small, chemically powered scooter.

"I don't see anyone," he complained. "Are you surehe's here?"

"This is where we left him, an hour ago. He'll be in the pre-amplifier assembly, up there on the platform. You'll have to shout — no radios allowed here, of course."

Duncan could not help smiling at this further example of the CYCLOPS management's almost fanatical precautions against interference. He had even been asked to surrender his watch, lest its feeble electronic pulses be mistaken for signals from an alien civilization a few hundred light-years away. His guide was actually wearing a spring-driven timepiece — the first that Duncan had ever seen.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Duncan tilted his head toward the metal tower looming above him and shouted "Karl!" A fraction of a second later, the K echoed back from the next antenna, then reverberated feebly from the ones beyond. After that, the silence seemed more profound than before. Duncan did not feel like disturbing it again.

Nor was there any need. Fifty meters above, a figure had moved to the railing around the platform; and it brought with it the familiar glint of gold.

"Who's there?"

Who do you think? Duncan asked himself. Of course, it was hard to recognize a person from vertically overhead, and voices were distorted in this inhumanly scaled place.

"It's Duncan."

There was a pause that seemed to last for the better part of a minute, but could only have been a few seconds in actuality. Karl was obviously surprised, though by this time he must surely have guessed that Duncan knew of his presence on Earth. The he answered: "I'm in the middle of a job. Come up, if you want to."

That was hardly a welcome, but the voice did not seem hostile. The only emotion that Duncan could identify at this distance was a kind of tired resignation; and perhaps he was imagining even this.

Karl had vanished again, doubtless to continue whatever task he had come here to perform. Duncan looked very thoughtfully at the spiral stairway winding up the cylindrical trunk of the antenna tower. Fifty meters was a trifling distance — but not in terms of Earth's gravity. It was the equivalent of two hundred and fifty on Titan; he had never had to climb a quarter of a kilometer on his own world.

Karl, of course, would have had little difficulty, since he had spent his early years on Earth, and his muscles would have recovered much of their original strength. Duncan wondered if this was a deliberate challenge. That would be typical of Karl, and if so he had no choice in the matter.

As he stepped onto he first of the perforated metal stairs, his CYCLOPS guide remarked hopefully: "There's not much room up there on the platform. Unless you want me, I'll stay here."

Duncan could recognize a lazy man when he met one, but he was glad to accept the excuse. He did not wish any strangers to be present when he came face to face with Karl. The confrontation was one that he would have avoided if it had been at all possible, but this was not a job that could be delegated to anyone else — even if those instructions from Colin and Malcolm had allowed it.

The climb was easy enough, thought the safety rail was not as substantial as Duncan would have wished. Moreover, section had been badly rusted, and now that he was close enough to touch the metal he could see that the mounting was in even worse condition that he had been led to expect. Unless emergency repairs were carried out very soon, CYCLOPS would never see the dawn of the twenty-fourth century.

When Duncan had completed his first circuit, the guide called up to him: "I forgot to tell you — we're selecting a new target in about five minutes. You'll find it rather dramatic."

Duncan stared up at the huge bowl now completely blocking the sky above him. The thought of all those tons of metal swinging around just overhead was quite disturbing, and he was glad that he had been warned in time.

The other saw his action and interpreted it correctly.

"It won't bother you. Thisantenna's been frozen for at least ten years. The drive's seized up, and not worth repairing."

So that confirmed a suspicion of Duncan's, which he had dismissed as an optical illusion. The great parabola above him was indeed at a slight angle to the others; it was no longer an active part of the CYCLOPS array, but was now pointing blindly at the sky. The loss of one — or even a dozen — elements would cause only a slight degradation of the system, but it was typical of the general air of neglect.

One more circuit, and he would be at the platform. Duncan paused for breath. He had been climbing very slowly, but already his legs were beginning to ache with the wholly unaccustomed effort. There had been no further sound from Karl. What was he doing, in this fantastic place of old triumphs and lost dreams?

And how would he react to this unexpected, and doubtless unwelcome, confrontation, when they were face to face? A little belatedly, it occurred to Duncan that a small platform fifty meters above the ground, and in thisfrightful gravity, was not the best place to have an argument. He smiled at the mental image this conjured up; whatever their disagreement, violence was unthinkable.

Well, not quite unthinkable. He had just thought of it...

Overhead now was a narrow band of perforated metal flooring, barely wide enough for the rectangular slot through which the stairway emerged. With a heartfelt sigh of relief, pulling himself upward with rust-stained hands, Duncan climbed the last few steps and stood amid monstrous bearings, silent hydraulic motors, a maze of cables, much dismantled plumbing, and the delicate tracery of ribs supporting the now useless hundred-meter parabola.

There was still no sign of Karl, and Duncan began a cautious circumnavigation of the antenna mounting. The catwalk was about two meters wide, and the protective rail almost waist-high, so there was no real danger. Nevertheless, he kept well away from the edge and avoided looking at the fifty meter drop.

He had barely completed half a circuit when all hell broke loose. There was a sudden whirr of motors, the low booming of great machineries on the move — and even the occasional accompaniment of protesting shrieks from gears and bearings that did not wish to be disturbed.

On every side, the huge skyward-facing bowls were beginning to turn in unison, swinging around to the south. Only the one immediately overhead was motionless, like a blind eye no longer able to react to any stimulus. The din was quite astonishing, and continued for several minutes. Then it stopped as abruptly as it had started. CYCLOPS had located a new target for its scrutiny.

"Hello, Duncan," said Karl in the sudden silence. "Welcome to Earth."

He had emerged, while Duncan was distracted by the tumult, from a small cubicle on the underside of the parabola, and was now climbing down a somewhat precarious arrangement of hanging ladders. His descent looked particularly hazardous because he was using only one hand; the other was firmly clutching a large notebook, and Duncan did not relax until Karl was safely on the platform, a few meters away. He made no attempt to come closer, but stood looking at Duncan with a completely unfathomable expression, neither friendly nor hostile.

Then there was one of those embarrassing pauses when neither party wishes to speak first, and as it dragged on interminably Duncan became aware for the first time of an omnipresent faint hum from all around him. The CYCLOPS array was alive now, its hundreds of tracking mirrors working in precise synchronism. There was no perceptible movement of the great antennas, but they would now be creeping around at a fraction of a centimeter a second. The multiple facets of the CYCLOPS eye, having fixed their gaze upon the stars, were now turning at the precise rate needed to counter the rotation of the Earth.

How foolish, in his awesome shrine dedicated to the cosmos itself, for two grown men to behave like children, each trying to outface the other! Duncan had the dual advantage of surprise and a clear conscience; he would have nothing to lose by speaking first. He did not wish to take the initiative and perhaps antagonize Karl, so it was best to open with some innocuous triviality.

No, notthe weather — the amount of Terran conversation devoted to that was quite incredible! — but something equally neutral.

"That was the hardest work I've done since I got here. I can't believe that people reallyclimb mountains on this planet."

Karl examined this brilliant gambit for possible booby traps. The he shrugged his shoulders and replied: "Earth's tallest mountain is two hundredtimes as high as this. People climb it every year."

At least the ice was broken, and communication had been established. Duncan permitted himself a sigh of relief; at the same time, now that they were at close quarters, he was shocked by Karl's appearance. Some of that golden hair had turned to silver, and there was much less of it. In the year since they had last met, Karl seemed to have aged ten. There were crow's-feet wrinkles of anxiety around his eyes, and his brow was now permanently furrowed. He also seemed to have shrunkconsiderably, and Earth's gravity could not be wholly to blame, for Duncan was even more vulnerable to that. On Titan, he had always had to look up at Karl; now, as they stood face to face, their eyes were level.

But Karl avoided his gaze and moved restlessly back and forth, firmly clutching the notebook he was carrying. Presently he walked to the very edge of the platform and leaned with almost ostentation recklessness against the protective rail.

"Don't dothat!" protested Duncan. "It makes me nervous." That, he suspected, was the purpose of the exercise.

"Why should you care?"

The brusque answer saddened Duncan beyond measure. He could only reply: "If you really don't know, it's too late for me to explain."

"Well, I know this isn't a social visit. I suppose you've seen Calindy?"

"Yes. I've seen her."

"What are you trying to do?"

"I can't speak for Calindy. She doesn't even know that I'm here."

"What are the Makenziestrying to do? For the good of Titan, of course."

Duncan knew better than to argue. He did not even feel angry at the calculated provocation.

"All I'mtrying to do is to avoid a scandal — if it's not too late."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You know perfectly well. Who authorized your trip to Earth? Who's paying your expenses?"

Duncan had expected Karl to show some signs of guilt, but he was mistaken.

"I have friends here. And I don't recall that the Makenzies worried too much about regulations. How did Malcolm get the first Lunar orbital refueling contract?"

"That was a hundred years ago, when he was trying to get the Titan economy started. There's no excuse now for financial irregularities. Especially for purely personal ends."

This was, of course, a shot in the dark, but he appeared to have landed on some target. For the first time, Karl looked angry.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he snapped back. "One day Titan..."

CYCLOPS gently but firmly interrupted him. They had quite forgotten the slow tracking of the great antennas on every side, and were no longer even aware of the faint whirr of the hundreds of drive motors. Until a few seconds ago, the upper platform of 005 had been shielded by the inverted umbrella of the next bowl, but now its shadow was no longer falling upon them. The artificial eclipse was over, and they were blasted by the tropical sun.

Duncan closed his eyes until his dark glasses had adjusted to the glare. When he opened them again, he was standing in a world divided sharply into night and day. Everything on one side was clearly visible, while in the shadow only a few centimeters away he could see absolutely nothing. The contrast between light and darkness, exaggerated by his glasses, was so great that Duncan could almost imagine he was on the airless Moon.

It was also uncomfortably hot, especially for Titanians.

"If you don't mind," said Duncan, still determined to be polite, "we'll move around to the shadow side." It would be just like Karl to refuse, either out of sheer stubbornness or to demonstrate his superiority. He was not even wearing dark glasses, though he was holding the notebook to shield his eyes.

Rather to Duncan's surprise, Karl followed him meekly enough around the catwalk, into the welcome shade on the northern face of the tower. The utter banality of the interruption seemed to have put him off his stride.

"I was saying," continued Duncan, when they had settled down again, "that I'm merely trying to avoid any unpleasantness that will embarrass both Earth and Titan. There's nothing personal in this, and I wish that someone else were doing it — believe me."

Karl did not answer at once, but bent down and carefully placed his notebook on the most rust-free section of the catwalk he could find. The action reminded Duncan so vividly of old times that he was absurdly moved. Karl had never been able to express his emotions properly unless his hands were free, and that notebook was obviously a major hindrance.

"Listen carefully, Duncan," Karl began. "Whatever Calindy told you—"

"She told me nothing."

"She must have helped you find me."

"Not even that. She doesn't even know I'm here."

"I don't believe you."

Duncan shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. His strategy seemed to be working. By hinting that he knew much more than he did — which was indeed little enough — he hoped to undercut Karl's confidence and gain further admissions from him. But what he would do then, he still had no idea; he could only rely on Colin's maxim of the masterful administration of the unforeseen.

Karl had now begun to pace back and forth in such an agitated manner that, for the fist time, Duncan felt distinctly nervous. He remembered Calindy's warning; and once again, he reminded himself uneasily that this was not at all a good place for a confrontation with an adversary who might be slightly unbalanced.

Suddenly, Karl seemed to come to a decision. He stopped his uncertain weaving along the narrow catwalk and turned on his heel so abruptly that Duncan drew back involuntarily. Then he realized, with both surprise and relief, that Karl's hands were outstretched in a gesture of pleading, not of menace.

"Duncan," he began, in a voice that was now completely changed. " Youcan help me. What I'm trying to do—"

It was as if the sun had exploded. Duncan threw his hands before his eyes and clenched them tightly against the intolerable glare. He heard a cry from Karl, and a moment later the other bumped into him violently, rebounding at once.

The actinic detonation had lasted only a fraction of a second. Could it have been lightning? But if so, where was the thunder? It should have come almost instantaneously, for a flash as brilliant as this.

Duncan dared to open his eyes, and found he could see again, through a veil of pinkish mist. But Karl, it was obvious, could not see at all; he was blundering around blindly, with his hands cupped tightly over his eyes. And still the expected thunder never came...

If Duncan had not been half-paralyzed by shock, he might yet have acted in time. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, as in a dream. He could not believe that it was real.

He saw Karl's foot hit the precious notebook, so that it went spinning off into space, fluttering downward like some strange, white bird. Blinded though he was, Karl must have realized what he had done. Totally disoriented, he made one futile grab at the empty air, then crashed into the guardrail. Duncan tried to reach him, but it was too late.

Even then, it might not have mattered; but the years and the rust had done their work. As the treacherous metal parted, it seemed to Duncan that Karl cried out his name, in the last second of his life.

But of that he would never be sure.

38

The Listeners

"You're under no legal compulsion," Ambassador Farrell had explained. "If you wish, I could claim diplomatic immunity for you. But it would be unwise, and might lead to various — ah — difficulties. In any case, this inquiry is in the mutual interest of all concerned. Wewant to find out what's happened, just as much as they do."

"And who are they?"

"Even if I knew, I couldn't tell you. Let's say Terran Security."

"You still have that kind of nonsense here? I thought spies and secret agents went out a couple of hundred years ago."

"Bureaucracies are self-perpetuating — youshould know that. But civilization will always have its discontents, to use a phrase I came across somewhere. Though the police handle most matters, as they do on Titan, there are cases which require — special treatment. By the way, I've been asked to make it clear that anything you care to say will be privileged and won't be published without your consent. And if you wish, I will come along with you for moral support and guidance."

Even now, Duncan was not quite sure who the Ambassador was representing, but the offer was a reasonable one and he had accepted it. He could see no harm in such a private meeting; some kind of judicial inquiry was obviously needed, but the less publicity, the better.

He had half expected to be taken in a blacked-out car on a long, tortuous drive to some vast underground complex in the depths of Virginia or Maryland. It was a little disappointing to end up in a small room at the old State Department Building, talking to an Assistant Under Secretary with the improbable name of John Smith; later checking on Duncan's part disclosed that this actually was his name. However, it soon became clear that there was much more to this room than the plain desk and three comfortable chairs that met the eye.

Duncan's suspicions about the large mirror that covered most of one wall were quickly confirmed. His host — or interrogator, if one wanted to be melodramatic — saw the direction of his glance and gave him a candid smile.

"With your permission, Mr. Makenzie, we'd like to record this meeting. And there are several other participants watching; they may join in from time to time. If you don't mind, I'll refrain from introducing them."

Duncan nodded politely toward the mirror.

"I've no objection to recording," he said. "Do you mind if I also use my Minisec?"

There was a painful silence, broken only by an ambassadorial chuckle. Then Mr. Smith answered: "We would prefer to supply you with a transcript. I can promise that it will be quite accurate."

Duncan did not press the point. Presumably, it might cause embarrassment if some of the voices involved were recognized by outsiders. In any case, a transcript would be perfectly acceptable; he could trust his memory to spot errors or deletions.

"Well, that's fine," said Mr. Smith, obviously relieved. "Let's get started."

Simultaneously, something odd happened to the room. Its acoustics changed abruptly; it was as if it had suddenly become much larger. There was not the slightest visible alteration, but Duncan had the uncanny feeling of unseen presences all around him. He would never know if they were actually in Washington, or on the far side of the Earth, and it gave him an uncomfortable, naked sensation to be surrounded by invisible listeners — and watchers.

A moment later, a voice spoke quietly from the air immediately in front of him.

"Good morning, Mr. Makenzie. It's good of you to spare us your time, and please excuse our reticence. If you think this is some kind of twentieth-century spy melodrama, our apologies. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, these precautions are totally unnecessary. But we can never tell which occasion will be the hundredth."

It was a friendly, powerful voice, very deep and resonant, yet there was something slightly unnatural about it. A computer? Duncan asked himself. That was too easy an assumption; in any case, there was no way of distinguishing between computer vocalization and human speech — especially now that a realistic number of ‘ers’ ‘wells’, incomplete sentences, and downright grammatical errors could be incorporated to make the nonelectronic participants in a conversation feel at ease. He guessed that he was listening to a man talking through a speech-disguising circuit.

While Duncan was still trying to decide if any answer was necessary, another speaker took over. This time, the voice emerged about half a meter from his left ear.

"It's only fair to reassure you on one point, Mr. Makenzie. As far as we can ascertain, no Terran laws have been broken. We are not here to investigate a crime — only to solve a mystery, to explain a tragedy. If any Titanianregulations are involved, that is your problem — not ours. I hope you understand."

"Yes," Duncan replied. "I assumed that was the case, but I'm glad to have your confirmation."

This was indeed a relief, but he knew better than to relax. Perhaps this statement was exactly what it seemed to be — a friendly plea for co-operation. But it might also be a trap.

Now a woman's voice came from immediately behind him, and he had to resist the impulse to swing around and look at the speaker. Was this quite unnecessary shifting of sound focus a deliberate attempt to disorient him? How naпve did they take him to be?

"To save us all time, let me explain that we have a complete summary of Mr. Helmer's background." Andmine, thought Duncan. "Your government has been most helpful, but you may have information which is unknown to us, since you were one of his closest friends."

Duncan nodded, without bothering to speak. They would know all about that friendship, and its ending.

As if responding to some hidden signal, Mr. Smith opened his briefcase and carefully laid a small object on the table.

"You'll recognize this, of course," the female voice continued. "The Helmer family has asked that it be handed over to you for safe custody, with the other property of the deceased."

The sight of Karl's Minisec — virtually the same model as his own — was in itself such a shock that at first the remainder of the message failed to get through. Then Duncan reacted with a start and said: "Would you please repeat that?"

There was such a surprisingly long delay that he wondered if the speaker was on the Moon; during the course of the session, Duncan became almost certain of it. With all the other interrogators, there was a quick give-and-take, but with the lone woman there was always this invariable time-lag.

"The Helmers have asked that you be custodian of their son's effects, until disposition is settled."

It was a gesture of peace, across the grave of all their hopes, and Duncan felt his eyes stinging with unshed tears. He looked a the handful of microelectronics on the table and felt a deep reluctance to touch it. There were all of Karl's secrets. Would the Helmers have asked him to accept this if they had anything to hide? But there was a great deal, Duncan was certain, that Karl had concealed from his own family; there would be much in the Minisec that only he had ever known. True, it would be guarded by carefully chosen code words, some of them possibly linked with ERASE circuits to prevent unauthorized intrusion.

"Naturally," continued the voice from the Moon (if it wasfrom the Moon), "we are interested in what may be in this Minisec. In particular, we would like any list of contacts on Earth — addresses or personal numbers."

Yes, thought Duncan, I can understand that. I'm sure you must have been tempted to do some interrogation already, but are scared of possible ERASE circuits and want to explore other possibilities first...

He stared thoughtfully a that little box on the table, with its multitudinous studs and its now darkened read-out panel. There lay a device of a complexity beyond all the dreams of earlier ages — a virtual microsimulacrum of a human brain. Within it were billions of bits of information, stored in endless atomic arrays, awaiting to be recalled by the right signal — or obliterated by the wrong one. At the moment it was lifeless, inert, like a consciousness itself in the profoundest depths of sleep. No — not quite inert; the clock and calendar would still be operating, ticking off the seconds and minutes and days that now were no concern of Karl's.

Another voice broke in, this time from the right.

"We have asked Mr. Armand Helmer if his son left any code words with him, as is usual in such cases. You may be hearing more on the matter shortly. Meanwhile, no attempt will be made to obtain any read-outs. With your permission, we would like to retain the Minisec for the present."

Duncan was getting a little tired of having decisions made for him — and the Helmers had apparently stated that hewas to take possession of Karl's effects. But there was no point in objecting; and if he did, some legal formality would undoubtedly materialize out of the same thin air as these mysterious voices.

Mr. Smith was digging into his case again.

"Now there is a second matter — I'm sure you also recognize this."

"Yes. Karl usually carried a sketchbook. Is this the one he had with him when—"

"It is. Would you like to go through it, and see if there is anything that strikes you as unusual — noteworthy — of any possible value to this investigation? Even if it seems utterly trivial or irrelevant, please don't hesitate to speak."

What a technological gulf, thought Duncan, between these two objects! The Minisec was a triumph of the Neoelectronic Age; the sketchbook had existed virtually unchanged for at least a thousand years — and so had the pencil tucked into it. It was very true, as some philosopher of history had once said, that mankind never completely abandons any of its ancient tools. Yet Karl's sketchbooks had always been something of an affectation; he could make competent engineering drawings, but had never shown any genuine sign of artistic talent.

As Duncan slowly turned the leaves, he was acutely conscious of the hidden eyes all around him. Without the slightest doubt, every page here had been carefully recorded, using all the techniques that could bring out invisible marks and erasures. It was hard to believe that he could add much to in the investigations that had already been made.

Karl apparently used his sketchbooks to make notes of anything that interested him, to conduct a sort of dialogue with himself, and to express his emotions. There were cryptic words and numbers in small, precise handwriting, fragments of calculations and equations, mathematical sketches...

And there were spacescapes, obviously rough drawings of scenes on the outer moons, with the formalized circle-and-ellipse of Saturn hanging in the sky...

... circuit diagrams, with more calculations full of lambdas and omegas, and vector notations that Duncan could recognize, but could not understand... and then suddenly, bursting out of the pages of impersonal notes and rather inept sketches, something that breathed life, something that might have been the work of a real artist — a portrait of Calindy, drawn with obvious, loving care.

It should have been instantly recognizable; yet strangely enough, for a fraction of a second, Duncan stared at it blankly. This was not the Calindy he now knew, for the real woman was already obliterating the image from the past. Here was Calindy as they had both remembered her — the girl frozen forever in the bubble stereo, beyond the reach of Time.

Duncan looked at this picture for long minutes before turning the page. It was really excellent — quite unlike all the other sketches. But then, how many times had Karl drawn it, over and over again, during the intervening years?

No one spoke from the air around him or interrupted his thoughts. And presently he moved on.

... more calculations... patterns of hexagons, dwindling away into the distance — why, of course!

"That's the titanite lattice — but the number written against it means nothing to me. It looks like a Terran viddy coding."

"You are correct. It happens to be the number of a gem expert here in Washington. NotIvor Mandel'stahm, in case you're wondering. The person concerned assures us that Mr. Helmer never contacted him, and we believe him. It's probably a number he acquired somehow, jotted down, but never used."

... more calculations, now with lots of frequencies and phase angles. Doubtless communications stuff — part of Karl's regular work...

... geometrical doodles, many of them based on the hexagon motive...

...Calindy again — only an outline sketch this time, showing none of the living care of the earlier drawing...

... a honeycomb pattern of little circles, seen in plan and elevation. Only a few were drawn in detail, but it was obvious that there must be hundreds. The interpretation was equally obvious...

"The CYCLOPS array — yes, he's written in the number of elements and over-all dimensions."

"Why do you think he was so interested?"

"That's quite natural —it's the biggest and most famous radio telescope on Earth. He often discussed it with me."

"Did he ever speak of visiting it?"

"Very likely — but I don't remember. After all, this was some years ago."

The drawings on the next few pages, though very rough and diagrammatic, were clearly details of CYCLOPS — antenna feeds, tracking mechanisms, obscure bits of circuitry, interspersed with yet more calculations. One sketch had been started and never finished. Duncan looked at it sadly, then turned the page. As he had expected, the next sheet was blank.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," he said, closing the book, "but I get nothing at all from this. Kar— Mr. Helmer's field was communications science; he helped design the Titan-Inner Planets Link. This is all part of his work. His interest is completely understandable, and I see nothing unusual about it."

"Perhaps so, Mr. Makenzie. But you haven't finished."

Duncan looked in surprise at the empty air. Then Under Secretary Smith gestured toward the sketchbook.

"Never take anything for granted," he said mildly. "Start at the otherend."

Feeling slightly foolish, Duncan reopened the sketchbook, then flipped it over as he realized Karl had used it from both directions. (But he had been too badly shaken by those last drawings, and was not thinking too clearly...)

The inside back cover was blank, but the facing page bore the single enigmatic word ARGUS. It meant nothing to Duncan, though it did arouse some faint and unidentifiable association from history. He turned the page — and had one of the biggest shocks of his life.

As he stared incredulously at the drawing that occupied the entire area of the paper, he was suddenly transported back to Golden Reef. There could be no misinterpretation; yet as far as he knew, Karl had never shown the slightest interest in the minutiae of terrestrial zoology. The very idea that any Titanian might be fascinated by marine biology was faintly incongruous.

Yet here was a detailed study, with the perspective meticulously worked out around the faintly limned x-, y-, and z-axes of the spiny sea urchin. Diadema. Only a dozen of its thin, radiating needles were shown but it was clear that there were hundreds, occupying the entire sphere around it.

That was astonishing enough, but there was something even more remarkable. This drawing must have required hours of devoted labor. Karl had dedicated to an unprepossessing little invertebrate — which surely he could never have seen in his life! — all the love and skill he had applied to the portrait of Calindy.

* * * * *

In the bright sunshine outside the old State Department, Duncan and the Ambassador had to wait for five minutes before the next shuttle came gliding silently down Virginia Avenue. No one was within earshot, so Duncan said with quiet urgency: "Does ‘Argus’ mean anything to you?"

"As a matter of fact, yes — though I'm damned if I see how it can help. I still have the remnants of a classical education, and unless I'm very much mistaken, Argus was the name of Odysseus' old dog. It recognized him when he came home to Ithaca after his twenty years of wandering, then died."

Duncan brooded over this information for a few seconds, then shrugged his shoulders.

"You're right — that's no help at all. And I still want to know why these people I met — or didn'tmeet — are so interested in Karl. As they admitted at the start, there's no suggestion that he's done anything illegal, as far as Earth is concerned. And I suspect that he may have only bent some Titanian regulations, not broken them."

"Just a moment — just a moment!" said the Ambassador. "You've reminded me of something." His face went through some rather melodramatic contortions, then smoothed itself out. He glanced around conspiratorily, saw that there was no one within hearing and that the shuttle was still three minutes away by the countdown indicator.

"I think I may have it, and I'll be obliged if you don't attribute this to me. But just consider the following wild speculation...

"Every organism has defense mechanisms to protect itself. You've just encountered one — part of the security system of Earth. This particular group, whatever its responsibilities may be, probably consists of a fairly small number of important people. I expect I know most of them — in fact, one voice... never mind...

"You could call a watchdog committee. Such a committee has to have a name for itself — a secret name, naturally. In the course of my duties, I occasionally hear of such things, and carefully forget them..."

"Now, Argus was a watchdog. So what better name for such a group? Mind you, I'm stillnot asserting anything. But imagine the acute embarrassment of a secret organization that happens to find its name carefully spelled out in highly mysterious circumstances."

It was a very plausible theory, and Duncan was sure that the Ambassador would not have advanced it without excellent reasons. But it did not go even halfway.

"That's all very well, and I'm prepared to accept it. But what the devil has all this to do with a drawing of a sea urchin? I feel like I'm going slowly mad."

The shuttle was now gliding to a halt in front of them, and the Ambassador waved him into it.

"If it's any consolation, Duncan, be assured that you're in very good company. I'd sacrifice a fair share of my modest retirement benefits if I could eavesdrop now on Under Secretary Smith and his invisible friends."

39

Business And Desire

There was no way of telling, as Duncan stood at the window of Calindy's apartment, that he was not looking down at the busy traffic of 57 ^thStreet on a crisp winter night, when the first flakes of snow were drifting down, to melt at once as they struck the heated sidewalks. But this was summer, not winter; and even President Bernstein's limousine was not as old as the cars moving silently a hundred meters below. He was watching the past, perhaps a hologram from the late twentieth century. Yet though Duncan knew that he was actually far underground, there was nothing he could do to convince his senses of this fact.

He was alone with Calindy at last, though in circumstances of which he could never have dreamed only a few days ago. How ironic that, now the opportunity had come, he felt barely the faintest flicker of desire!

"What is that?" he asked suspiciously, as Calindy handed him a slim crystal goblet containing a few centimeters of blood-red liquid.

"If I told you, the name would mean nothing. And if I said what it cost, you'd be scared to drink it. Just taste it slowly; you'll never have another chance, and it will do you good."

It wasgood — smooth, slightly sweet, and, Duncan was quite certain, charged with several megatons of slumbering energy. He sipped it very slowly indeed, watching Calindy as she moved around the room.

He had not really known what to expect, yet her apartment had still been something of a surprise. It was almost stark in its simplicity, but large and beautifully proportioned, with dove-gray walls, a blue vaultedceiling like the sky itself, and a green carpet that gave the impression of a small sea of grass lapping against the walls. There were fewer than a dozen pieces of furniture: four deeply cushioned chairs, two divans, a closed writing desk, a glass cabinet full of delicate chinaware, a low table upon which were lying a small box and a splendid book on twenty-second-century primitives — and, of course, the ubiquitous Comsole, its screen now crawling with abstract art that was very far from primitive.

Even without the force of gravity to remind him, there was no danger that Duncan would forget he was on Earth. He doubted if a private home on any other planet could show a display like this; but hewould not like to live here. Everything was a little too perfect and displayed altogether too clearly the Terran obsession with the past. He suddenly remembered Ambassador Farrell's remark: " Wearen’t decadent, but our children will be." That would include Calindy's generation. Perhaps the Ambassador was right...

He took another sip, staring at Calindy in silence as she orbited the room. Clearly ill at ease, she moved a chair through an imperceptible fraction of an inch, and gave the picture an equally invisible adjustment. Then she came back to the divan and sat down beside him.

A little more purposefully now, she leaned across the low coffee table and picked up the box lying upon it..

"Have you seen one of these?" she asked, as she opened the lid.

Lying in a nest of velvet was something that looked like a large, silver egg, about twice the size of the real eggs that Duncan has encountered in the Centennial Hotel.

"What is it?" he asked. "A piece of sculpture?"

"Pick it up — but be careful not to drop it."

Despite this warning, that was very nearly what he did. The egg was not particularly heavy, but it seemed alive— even squirming in his hand, though it showed no sign of any visible movement. However, when he looked at it more carefully, he could see faint opalescent bands flowing over the surface and momentarily blurring the mirror finish. They looked very much like waves of heat, yet there was no sensation of warmth.

"Cup it in both hands," Calindy instructed him, "and close your eyes."

Duncan obeyed, despite an almost irresistible impulse to see what was really happening to the extraordinary object he held. He felt completely disoriented, because it seemed that the sense of touch — the most reliable of all man's messengers from the external universe — was betraying him.

For the very texture of the egg was constantly changing. It no longer felt like metal; unbelievably, it was furry. He might have been fondling some small woolly animal — a kitten, perhaps...

But only for seconds. The egg shivered, became hard and rough — it was made of sandpaper, coarse enough to grate the skin...

... the sandpaper became satin, so smooth and silky that he wanted to caress it. There was barely time to obey the impulse when...

... the egg was liquefying and becoming gelatinous. It seemed about to ooze through his fingers, and Duncan had to force himself not to drop it in disgust. Only the knowledge that this could not reallybe happening gave him strength to control the reflex...

... it was made of wood; there was no doubt of that, for he could even feel the grain...

... before it dissolved into myriads of separate bristles, each so sharp and distinct that he could feel them prickling his skin...

And there were sensations that he could not even name, some delightful, most neutral, but some so unpleasant that he could scarcely control his revulsion. At last, when within his cupped palms Duncan felt the unique, the incomparable touch of human skin, curiosity and amazement got the better of him. He opened his hands; the silver egg was completely unchanged, though now it felt as if it were carved from soap.

"What in heaven's name is it?" he cried.

"It's a tactoid. You haven't heard of them?"

"No."

"Fascinating, isn't it? It doest to the sense of touch what a kaleidoscope does to vision. No, don't ask me howit works — something to do with controlled electrical stimulation."

"What's it used for?"

"Must everything have a purpose? It's just a toy — a novelty. But I had a very good reason for showing it to you."

"Oh, I know. ‘The latest from Earth.’"

Calindy gave a wistful smile; she recognized that old catch phrase. It brought back vividly to both of them those days together on Titan, a lifetime ago.

"Duncan," she said, so quietly that he could barely hear the words, "do you think it was all my fault?"

They were now sitting two meters apart on the divan, and he had to twist his body to face her. The woman he saw now was no longer the self-assured executive and impresario he had met on the Titanic, but an unhappy and uncertain girl. He wondered how long the mood of contrition would last, but for the moment it was genuine enough.

"How can I answer that?" he replied. "I'm still completely in the dark. I don't know what Karl was doing on Earth, or why he came here."

This was only partially true; Karl's Minisec had begun to reveal its secrets. But Duncan was not yet prepared to discuss those with anybody, least of all with Calindy.

She looked at him with an air of faint surprise and answered: "Do you mean to say that he never told you — in fifteen years?"

"Told me what?" said Duncan.

"What happened on that last night aboard Mentor."

"No," replied Duncan, with painful slowness. "He never talked about it." After all these years, that betrayal was still a bitter memory. He knew now, of course, that it was absurd for two young adults like Karl and Calindy, obsessed by their own grief, to have given any thought to the feelings of the boy who adored them both. He could not blame them now; but in his heart he had never forgiven them.

"So you didn't know that we used a joy machine."

"Oh, no!"

"I'm afraid so. It wasn't myidea. Karl insisted, and I didn't know any better. But at least I had sense enough not to use it myself. Well, only at very low power..."

"They were illegal even in those days. How did one get aboard Mentor?"

"There were a lot of things on Mentorthat no one ever knew about."

"I'm sure of that. What happened?"

Calindy got to her feet again and began to pace nervously to and for. She avoided Duncan's eyes as she continued.

"I don't like to think about it. Even now, it frightens me, and I can understand why people get hopelessly addicted. I'm sure your fingers have never touched anything as — well, I suppose palpableis the only word — as that tactoid. The joy machine is just the same; it makes real life seem pale and thin — and Karl, remember, used it at full power. I told him not to, but he laughed. He was confident that he could handle it..."

Yes, thought Duncan, that would be just like Karl. Though he had never seen an emotion amplifier, one was kept under proper supervision at the Oasis Central Hospital. It was a very valuable psychiatric tool, but when the simple, portable versions quickly christened ‘joy machines’ had become available around the midcentury, they had spread like a plague over the inhabited worlds. No one would ever know how many immature young minds had been ruined by them. "Brain burning" had been a disease of the sixties, until the epidemic had run its course, leaving behind it hundred of emotional husks. Karl had been lucky to escape...

But, of course, he had not escaped. So this was the truth about his "breakdown," and the explanation of his changed personality. Duncan began to feel a cold anger toward Calindy. He did not believe her protestation of innocence; she must have known better, even then. But part of his anger was not based on moral judgments. He blamed Calindy because she was alive, while Karl lay frozen in the Aden morgue, like some splendid marble statue defaced by time and carelessly restored. There he must wait until the legal complications involved in the disposal of an extraterrestrial corpse were unraveled. This was another duty that had fallen on Duncan; he had done everything he believed necessary before saying farewell to the friend he had lost before his death.

"I think I see the picture," continued Duncan, so harshly that Calindy looked at him with sudden surprise. "But tell me the rest — what happened to then?"

"Karl used to send me long, crazy speeches — sealed, special delivery. He said he would never be able to love anyone else. I told him not to be foolish, but to forget about me as quickly as he could, since we'd never be able to meet again. What else could I have said? I didn't realize how absolutely useless that advice was — like telling a man to stop breathing. I was ashamed to ask, and only discovered years later what a joy machine does to the brain."

"You see, Duncan, he was telling the literal truth when he said he could never love anyone else. When they reinforce the pleasure circuits, joy machines create a permanent, almost unbreakable pattern of desires. The psychologists call it electroimprinting. I believe there are techniques to modify it now, but there weren't fifteen years ago, even on Earth. And certainly not on Titan."

"After a while, I stopped answering; there was nothing I could say. But I still heard from Karl several times a year. He swore that sooner or later, he would get to Earth and see me again. I didn't take him seriously."

Perhaps not, thought Duncan; but I am sure you weren't wholly displeased. It must have been flattering to have held in your hand the soul of someone as talented and beautiful as Karl — even if he had been enslaved accidentally, with the aid of a machine...

He saw very clearly now why all Karl's later liaisons and marriages had exploded violently. They had been doomed to failure from the start. Always, the image of Calindy would have stood, an unattainable ideal, between Karl and any happiness. How lonely he must have been! And how many misunderstandings might have been averted if the cause of his behavior had been realized in time.

Yet perhaps nothing could have been done, and in any case it was futile to dream about missed opportunities. Who was the old philosopher who had said: "The human race will never know happiness, as long as the words ‘If only...’ can still be spoken?"

"So it must have been a surprise, when he finally didturn up."

"No. He'd dropped several hints — I'd been half expecting him for a year. Then he called me from Port Van Allen, said he'd just arrived on a special flight, and would be seeing me as soon as he'd completed his gravity reconditioning."

"It was a Terran Survey supply ship, going back empty — and fast. Even so, it took him fifty days."

And it couldn't have been a very comfortable trip, Duncan added to himself — fifty days inside one of those space trucks, with minimal life-support systems. What a contrast to Sirius! He felt sorry for the officers who had innocently succumbed to Karl's persuasion, and hoped that the current Court of Inquiry would not damage their careers.

Calindy had recovered some of her poise. She stopped pacing around, and rejoined Duncan on the divan.

"I was not sure whether I really wanted to see him again, after all these years, but I knew how determined he was; it would have been useless trying to keep him away. So — I suppose you can say I took the line of least resistance."

She managed a wry smile, the continued: "It didn't work, of course, and I should have known it. The we saw a newscast that you'd just arrived on Earth."

"That must have been a shock to Karl. What did he say?"

"No much; but I could see that he was upset and very surprised."

"Surely he must have made somecomment."

"Only that if you contacted me, I was not to tell you that he was on Earth. That was the first time I suspected something was wrong, and started to worry about the titanite he'd asked me to sell."

"That's a trivial matter — forget about it. Let's say it was just one of the many tools Karl used to reach his objective. But I'd like to know this — when we met aboard Titanic, was he still with you?"

Another hesitation, which in itself supplied half the answer. Then Calindy replied, rather defiantly: "Of course he was. And he was very angry when I said I'd met you. We had a bad row over that. Not the first one." She sighed, slightly too dramatically. "By that time, Karl realized that it wouldn't work — that it was quite hopeless. I'd warned him many times, but he wouldn't believe me. He refused to face the fact that the Calindy he'd known fifteen years before, and whose image was burned in his brain, no longer existed..."

Duncan had never thought that he would see tears in Calindy's eyes. But was she weeping for Karl, he wondered — or for her own lost youth?

He tried to be cynical, but he did not succeed. He was sure that some part of her sorrow was perfectly genuine, and despite himself was deeply touched by it. And more than touched, for now, to his great surprise, he found that sympathy was not the only emotion Calindy was arousing in him. He had never realized before that shared grief could be an aphrodisiac.

This was a development that he did nothing to discourage, but he did not want to hurry matters. There was still much that he hoped to learn and that only Calindy could tell him.

"So he was always disappointed when we made love," she continued tearfully, "thought at first he tried to conceal it. I could tell — and it wasn't pleasant for me. It made me feel — inadequate. You see, by this time I'd learned a good deal about imprinting and knew exactly what the trouble was. Karl's case isn't unique..."

"So he got more and more frustrated — and also violent. Sometimes he frightened me. You know how strong he was — look at this."

With another theatrical gesture, she slipped open her dress, displaying the upper left arm — not to mention her entire left breast.

"He hit me here, so hard that I was badly bruised. You can still see the mark."

With the best will in the world, Duncan could discover no trace of a bruise on the milky-white skin, smooth as satin, that was exposed before his eyes. Nevertheless, the revelation did not leave him unmoved.

"So that's why you switched off the viddy," he said sympathetically, and edged closer.

"Then Ivor's friend called me, with that query about Titan. I thought it was an odd coincidence... you know, Duncan, that was an unkind trick to play on me."

She sounded more sad than angry; and she did not move away from him. Almost half of the sofa was now unoccupied.

"And then everything started to happen at once. Did you know that Terran Security sent two of its agents to interview me?"

"No, but I guessed it. What did you tell them?"

"Everything, of course. They were very kind and understanding."

"And also clumsy," said Duncan with deep bitterness.

"Oh, Duncan, thatwas an accident!You were an important guest — you hadto be protected. There would have been an interplanetary scandal if something had happened just before you were going to address Congress. But you should never have gone after Karl, in such a dangerous place."

"It wasn't dangerous — we were having a perfectly friendly discussion. How did I know that trigger-happy idiot was lurking in the next antenna?"

"What was he to do? He'd been ordered to protect you at all costs, and had been warned that Karl might be violent. It looked as if you were starting to fight — and that laser blast would only have blinded Karl for a few hours. It was all a terrible accident. No one was to blame."

Perhaps, thought Duncan; it would be a long, long time before he could view the whole sequence of events dispassionately. If there was blame, it was spread thinly, and across two worlds. Like most human tragedies, this one had been caused not by evil intentions, but by errors of judgment, misunderstandings...

If Malcolm and Colin had not insisted that he have a showdown with Karl, confronting him with the facts... if he had not wantedKarl to prove his innocence, and deliberately given him the opportunity to assert it, even to the extent — unconsciously, but he was aware of it now — of putting himself in his power... Perhaps Karl had been really dangerous; that was something else he would never know.

It seemed as if they had both been enmeshed in some complex web of fate from which there had never been any possibility of escape. And though the scale of that disaster was so much greater that the very comparison appeared ludicrous, Duncan was again reminded of the Titanic. She too had been doomed, as if the gods themselves conspired against her, by a whole series of apparently random and trivial chances. If the radioed warnings had not been buried under greetings and business messages... If that iceberg had not sliced so incredibly through all those watertight compartments... If the radio operator on the ship twenty kilometers away had not gone off duty when the first of all SOS signals was flashed into the Atlantic night... If there had been enough lifeboats... It was like the failure of a whole series of safety devices, one by one, against incalculable odds, until catastrophe was inevitable.

"Perhaps you are right," said Duncan, trying to console himself as much as Calindy. "I don't really blame anyone. Not even Karl."

"Poor Karl. He really loved me. To have come all the way to Earth..."

Duncan did not answer, though for a moment he was tempted. Surely Calindy did not believe that this was the only reason! Even a brain-burned man, imprinted by one of those diabolical joy machines, was driven by more than passion. And Karl's main objective had been so awesome that, even now, Duncan could scarcely believe the picture that was slowly emerging from his sketchbook and the guarded portions of his Minisec.

Karl had had a dream — or a nightmare — and Duncan was the only man alive who even partially understood it. How utterly baffled and bewildered the Argus Committee must be! That thought gave Duncan a heady sense of power, though there were times when he wished that the burden of knowledge had reached him in some other way, or had not come at all...

For power and happiness were incompatible. Karl had reached for both, and both had slipped through his fingers. How Duncan could profit by that lesson he did not yet know; but it would be with him for all the years to come.

But if happiness was perhaps unattainable, at least pleasure was not beyond his grasp, nor was it to be despised. For a few moments he could forget the affairs of state and turn his back upon an enigma far more profound than any of those that Calindy peddled to her clients.

It was strange how the wheel had gone full circle. Fifteen years ago, he and Karl had turned to each other in shared sorrow for the loss of Calindy. Now he and Calindy were mourning Karl.

And presently Duncan knew, though it could be only a faint shadow of that unassuageable hunger, something of the disappointment Karl must have experienced. How true it was that one could never quite recover the past...

It was almost as good as he had hoped, but one thing was lacking.

Calindy no longer tasted of honey.

40

Argus Panoptes

So they had the wrong Argus. If this were a time for humor, Duncan would have felt like laughing.

Colin had put him on the track, with one of his usual economical Telexes. It should not have been necessary to go all the way to Titan to check such an elementary point.

WHICH ARGUS DO YOU MEAN? Colin had asked. THERE WERE THREE.

A couple of minutes with the Comsole's ENCYCLOPEDIA section had confirmed this. As Ambassador Farrell had recalled, Argus was indeed Odysseus' faithful old watchdog, who had recognized his master when the wanderer had returned from exile. The name was certainly appropriate for a secret intelligence organization, though now that Duncan had started making inquiries, it turned out that the Argus Committee was not as secret as it might have wished. Bernie Patras (needless to say) had heard of it; so had George Washington, who admitted with some embarrassment: "Of course they've asked me questions. But there's nothing to worry about."

Ivor Mandel'stahm had been more forthcoming — even a little sarcastic.

"I'm used to secrecy in my business, and I could teach these people a thing or two. They wouldn't have lasted five minutes under Stalin — or even the old czars. But I suppose they're necessary. Society will always need some warning system to spot malcontents before they can cause real trouble. I only doubt if anysystem will really work, when it's needed."

The second Argus had been the builder of Jason's mythical — or perhaps not so mythical — ship, the Argo. Duncan had never heard of the Golden Fleece, and the legend fascinated him. Argo would be a good name for a spaceship, he thought; but even this association had nothing to do with Karl Helmer's notes.

He wondered how Karl had ever come across the third Argus; his inquisitive mind had wandered down many byways of fantasy as well as science. And now that he had the key, Duncan understood why the project that had clearly dominated Karl's later years could have only one name — that of the all-seeing, multiple-eyed god, Argus Panoptes, who could look in every direction simultaneously. Unlike poor Cyclops, who had only a single line of vision...

There had been a delay of almost thirty hours before the legal computer on Titan could probate Karl's will. Then Armand Helmer reported that, as Duncan had hoped, it contained a list of obvious code words — presumably the keys to the Minisec's private memories.

Armand had been perfectly willing to Telex the codes, and Duncan had stopped him just in time. Thanks to recent experience, the naпve young Makenzie who had arrived on Earth only a few weeks ago had now developed a mild paranoia. He hoped that it would not become obsessive, as sometimes seemed to be the case with Colin. Yet perhaps Colin was right...

Not until the Argus Committee had, with some reluctance, handed over Karl's Minisec did Duncan allow Armand to radio the codes from Titan. Now it would not matter even if they were intercepted. He alone could use them.

In all, there were a dozen combinations, with identical formats. Each began with the G/T or GO TO instruction, followed by the six binary digits 101000. That might be an arbitrary number, but it was more likely to have some mnemonic association. A common trick was to use one's day or year of birth; Karl had been born in ‘40, and Duncan was not surprised that the answer when he converted 101000 to base ten — though he was a little disappointed at so obvious a subterfuge.

Yet the code was secure enough, for the chances were astronomically remote that anyone, in a random search, would ever hit upon the alphabetical sequences that followed. Though they were easy to remember — at least for a Titanian — they were safe from accidental triggering. Each was a name spelled backward — another old trick, but one which never lost its effectiveness.

The list began with G/T 101000 SAMIM and continued with G/T 101000 SYHTET, G/T 101000 SUNAJ, G/T 101000 ENOID, G/T 101000 EBEOHP. Then Karl grew tired of moons, for the next, unsurprisingly, was G/T 101000 DNAMRA. That would certainly be a personal message — and so, of course, would be G/T 101000 YDNILAC...

The was no G/T 101000 NACNUD. Though it was unreasonable to have expected it, Duncan still felt a momentary flicker of regret.

A few more family names, but he scarcely noticed them, for his eyes had already caught the final entry: G/T 101000 SUGRA. The search was ended.

But it was not yet successful; there could be one last barrier. Most men had some secrets that they wished to preserve inviolate, even after death. It was still possible that unless these codes were used correctly, they might trigger an ERASE instruction.

Possible— but unlikely. Karl had clearly intended these memories to be released, or he would not have left the codes in his will, with no warning attached to them. Perhaps the wisest move would be to Telex Armand again, just in case Karl had left any further instructions that his distraught father had overlooked.

That would take hours, and it might still prove nothing. Duncan scanned the list again, looking for clues and finding none. The sequence 101000 might mean ERASE. He could speculate forever, and get nowhere.

There was no # or EXECUTE sign at the end of the sequences, but that proved nothing at all, for few people bothered to write down anything so obvious; nine times out of ten, it was omitted as understood. Yet one of the standard ways of canceling a secret ERASE order was to hit EXECUTE twice in quick succession. Another was to do so with a definite interval between the two keyings. Did Karl's omission have any significance, or was he merely following the usual convention?

The problem contained its own solution, though emotion rather than intelligence pointed the way to it. Duncan could see no flaw, so he explored every possibility that he could imagine. Then, feeling a faint trace of guilt, he tapped out G/T 101000 YNDILAC, pausing for a fraction of a second before he completed the sequence with #.

If he was wrong, Calindy would never know what she had lost. And though Karl's last message to her might have been erased, none of the other stored memories would be placed in hazard.

He fears were groundless. Duncan heard only the opening words — "Hello, Calindy, when you hear this, I shall be..." before he hit the STOP key and the Minisec became silent again. He was after bigger game. Perhaps one day, when he had the time — no, thatwas a temptation he would be strong enough to resist...

And so, in the secluded luxury of the Centennial Hotel, with a DO NOT DISTURB block on all visitors and incoming messages, Duncan keyed G/T 101000 SUGRA #. For two days he canceled his appointments, and had all meals sent up to his room. Occasionally, he made an outgoing call to check upon some technical point, but most of the time he was alone, communing with the dead.

Finally he was ready to meet the Argus Committee again, on his own terms. He understood everything — except, of course, the greatest mystery of all. How delighted Karl would have been if he had ever known about Golden Reef...

* * * * *

The room had not changed, and perhaps the invisible audience was the same. But there was now no trace of the slightly uncertain Duncan Makenzie who, only a few days ago, had wondered if he should opt for diplomatic immunity.

They had accepted, without any dispute, his explanation of the word "Argus," though he did not imagine they were much impressed by his suddenly acquired knowledge of classical mythology. He could tell from the brief questioning that there was a certain disappointment; perhaps the Committee would have to find some other justification for its existence. (Was there really an organized underground movement on Terra, or was it merely a joke? This was hardly the right time to ask, though Duncan was tempted.)

Yet, ironically, there was a small conspiracy, in this very room — a conspiracy mutually agreed upon. The Committee had guessed that he now appreciated the significance of the name Argus to Terran security — and he knew that itknew. Each side understood the other perfectly, and the next item of business was quickly adopted.

"So what's Mr. Helmer's Argus?" asked the woman whom Duncan had tentatively placed up on the Moon. "And can you account for his odd behavior?"

Duncan opened the stained notebook to display that astonishing full-page sketch which had so transfixed him as its first revelation. Even now that he knew its true scale, he could not think of it as anything except a drawing of a sea urchin. But Diademawas only thirty or forty centimeters across; Argus would be at least a thousand kilometers in diameter, if Karl's analysis was right. And of that, Duncan no longer had any doubt, though he could never give his full reasons.

"Karl Helmer had a vision," he began. "I'll try to pass it on as best I can, though this is not my field of knowledge. But I knew his psychology, and perhaps I can make you understand what he was trying to do."

You may be disappointed again, he told himself — you may dismiss the whole concept as a crazy scientist's delusion. But you'll be wrong; this could be infinitely more important that some trivial conspiracy threatening your tidy little world...

"Karl was a scientist, who always hoped to make some great discovery — but never did. Though he was highly imaginative, even his wildest flights were always soundly based on reality. And he was ambitious..."

" If it were so," murmured a quiet voice from the air beside him, " it was a grievous fault. And grievously hath Caesar answered it. Sorry — please continue."

The reference was unfamiliar to Duncan, and he showed his annoyance at the interruption by pausing for a few seconds.

"He was interested in everything — toomany things, perhaps — but his great passion was the still unsolved CETI problem — communications with extraterrestrial intelligence. We used to argue about it for hours when we were boys; I could never be quite sure when he was completely serious, but I am now."

"Why have we never detected radio signals from the advanced societies which must sure be out there in space? Karl had many theories, but in the end he settled on the simplest. It's not original, and I'm sure you've heard it before."

"We ourselves broadcast radio signals for only about a hundred years, roughly spanning the twentieth century. By the end of that time, we'd switched to cable and optical and satellite systems, concentration all their power where it was needed, and not spilling most of it wastefully to the stars. This may well be true of all civilizations with a technology comparable to ours. They only pollute the universe with indiscriminate radio noise for a century or two — a very brief fraction of their entire history."

"So even if there are millions of advanced societies in this Galaxy, there may be barely a handful just where we were three hundred years ago — still splashing out radio waves in all directions. And the laws of probability make it most unlikely that any of these early electronic cultures will be within detection range; the nearest may be thousands of light-years away."

"But before we abandon the search, we should explore all the possibilities — and there's one that had never been investigated, because until now there was little we could do about it. For three centuries, we've been studying radio waves in the centimeter and meter bands. But we have almost completely ignored the very long waves — tens and hundreds of kilometers in length."

"Now of course there were several good reasons for this neglect. In the first case, it's impossible to study these waves on Earth — they don't get through the ionosphere, and so never reach the surface. You have to go into space to observe them."

"But for the very longestwaves, it's no good merely going up to orbit, or to the other side of the Moon, where CYCLOPS was built. You have to go halfway out to the limits of the Solar System."

"For the Sun has an ionosphere, just like the Earth's — except that it's billions of times larger. It absorbs all waves more than ten or twenty kilometers in length. If we want to detect these, we have to go out to Saturn."

"Such waves have been observed, but only on a few occasions. About forty years ago, a Solar Survey mission picked them up; it wasn't looking for radio waves at all, but was measuring magnetic fields between Jupiter and Saturn. It observed pulsations that must have been due to a radio burst at around fifteen kilohertz, corresponding to a wavelength of twenty kilometers. At first it was thought that they came from Jupiter, which is still full of electromagnetic surprises, but that source was eventually ruled out, and the origin is still a mystery."

"There have been half a dozen observations since then, all of them by instruments that were measuring something else. No one's looked for these waves directly; you'll see why in a moment."

"The most impressive example was detected ten years ago, in ‘66, by a team doing a survey of Iapetus. They obtained quite a long recording, rather sharply tuned at nine kilohertz —that's thirty-three kilometers wavelength. I thought you might like to hear it..."

Duncan consulted a slip of paper and carefully tapped out a long sequence of numbers and letters on the Minisec. Into the anechoic stillness of that strange room, Karl spoke from the grave, in a brisk, businesslike voice.

"This is the complete recording, demodulated and speeded up sixty-four times, so that two hours is compressed into two minutes. Starting now."

Across twenty years of time, a childhood memory suddenly came back to Duncan. He recalled listening out into the Titanian night for that scream from the edge of space, wondering if it was indeed the voice of some monstrous beast, yet not really believing his own conjecture, even before Karl had demolished it. Now that fantasy returned, more powerful than ever.

This sound — or rather, infrasound, for the original modulation was far below the range of human hearing — was like the slow beating of a giant heart, or the tolling of a bell so huge that a cathedral could be placed inside it, rather than the reverse. Or perhaps the waves of the sea, rolling forever in unvarying rhythm against some desolate shore, on a world so old that though Time still existed, Change was dead...

The recording, as it always did, set Duncan's skin crawling and sent shivers down his spine. And it brought back yet another memory — the image of that mightiest of all Earth's creatures, leaping in power and glory into the sky above Golden Reef. Could there be beasts among the stars, to whom men would be as insignificant as the lice upon the whale?

It was a relief when the playback came to an end, and Karl's surprisingly unemotional voice commented: "Note the remarkably constant frequency — the original period is 132 seconds, not varying by more than point one percent. This implies a fairly high Q— say..."

"The rest is technical," said Duncan, switching off the recording. "I merely wanted you to hear what the Iapetus survey team brought home with them. And it's something that could neverhave been picked up inside the orbit of Saturn."

A voice he had not heard before — young, rather self-assured — came out of the air behind him.

"But this is all old material, familiar to everyone in the field. Sandemann and Koralski showed that those signals were almost certainly relaxation oscillations, probably in a plasma cloud near one of Saturn's Trojan points."

Duncan felt his faзade of instant expertise rapidly crumbling; he should have guessed that there would be someone in his audience who would know far more about his subject than he did — and possibly, for that matter, even than Karl.

"I'm not competent to discuss that," he replied. "I'm only reporting Dr. Helmer's opinions. He believed that there was a whole new science here, waiting to be opened up. After all, every time we have explored some new region of the spectrum, it's led to astonishing and totally unexpecteddiscoveries. Helmer was convinced that this would happen again.

"But to study these gigantic waves — up to a million times longer than those observed in classical radio astronomy — we must use correspondingly gigantic antenna systems. Both to collect them — because they're very weak — and to determine the directions from which they come.

" Thiswas Karl Helmer's Argus. His records and sketches contain quite detailed designs. I leave it to others to say how practical they are."

"Argus would look in all directions simultaneously, like the great missile-tracking radars of the twentieth century. It would be the three-dimensional equivalent of CYCLOPS — and several hundred times larger, because it would need to be at least a thousand kilometers in diameter. Preferably ten thousand, to get good resolving power at these ultralow frequencies."

"Yet it need contain much less material than CYCLOPS, because it would be built in Deep Space, under weightless conditions. Helmer chose as its location the satellite Mnemosyne, outermost of Saturn's moons, and it seems a very logical choice..."

"For Mnemosyne is twenty million kilometers from Saturn, well clear of the planet's own feeble ionosphere, and also far enough out for its tidal forces to be negligible. But most important of all, it has almost zero rotation. Only a modest amount of rocket power would cancel its spin entirely. Mnemosyne would then be the only body in the universe with norotation at all, and Helmer suggests that it might be an ideal laboratory for various cosmological experiments."

"Such as a test of Mach's principle," interrupted that confident young voice.

"Yes," agreed Duncan, now more than ever impressed by his unknown critic. "That was one possibility he mentioned. But back to Argus..."

"Mnemosyne would serve as the core or nucleus of the array. Thousands of elements — little more than stiff wires — would radiate from it, like — like the spines of a sea urchin. Thus it could comb the entire sky for signals. And incidentally, the temperature out around Mnemosyne is so low that cheap superconductors could be used, enormously increasing the efficiency of the system."

"I won't get involved in the details of switching and phasing that would allow Argus to swing its antenna spines electrically — without moving them physically— so that it could concentrate on any particular region of the sky. All this, and a great deal more, Helmer had worked out in his notes, using techniques evolved with CYCLOPS and other radio telescopes."

"You may wonder — as I did — how he ever hoped to get such a gigantic project started. He planned a simple demonstration, which he was certain would provide enough evidence to prove his theories."

"He was going to launch two equal, massive weights in exactly opposite directions, each towing a fine wire, several hundred kilometers long. When the wire had been completely deployed, the weights would be jettisoned — and he would have a dimple dipole antenna, perhaps a thousand kilometers long. He hoped that he could persuade the Solar Survey to do the experiment, which would be quite cheap, and would certainly produce someresults of value. The he was going to follow it up with more ambitious schemes, shooting wires out at right angles, and so on..."

"But I think I've said enough to let you judge for yourselves. There's much more I've not had time to transcribe. I hope you can be patient, at least until after the Centennial. For that, as you are well aware, is what I really came for — and I have work to do..."

* * * * *

"Thank you for your moral support, Bob," said Duncan, when he and His Excellency the Ambassador for Titan had emerged into the bright sunlight of Virginia Avenue.

"I never said a word. I was completely out of my depth. And I kept hoping that someone would put the question I'm still anxious to see answered."

"What's that?" Duncan asked suspiciously.

"How did Helmer think he could get away with it?"

"Oh, that," said Duncan, mildly disappointed; this aspect of the matter seemed so unimportant now. "I think I understand his strategy. Four years ago, when we turned down his project for a simple long-wave detecting system — because we couldn't afford it, and he wouldn't say what he was reallydriving at — he decided he'd have to go directly to Earth and convince the top scientists there. That meant acquiring funds, somehow. I'm sure he hoped that he'd be vindicated so quickly that we'd forget any minor infractions of the exchange laws. It was a gamble, of course, but he felt it so important that he was prepared to take risks."

"Hmm," said the Ambassador, obviously not too impressed. "I know that Helmer was a friend of yours, and I don't want to speak harshly of him. But wouldn't it be fair to call him a scientific genius — anda criminal psychopath?"

Rather to his surprise, Duncan found himself bristling at this description. Yet he had to admit it contained some truth. One of the attributes of the psychopath — a term still popular among laymen, despite three hundred years of professional attempts to eradicate it — was a moral blindness to any interests but his own. Of course, Karl could always produce a very convincing argument that hisinterests were for the best of all concerned. The Makenzies, Duncan realized with some embarrassment, were also skilled at this kind of exercise.

"If there were irrational elements in Karl's behavior, they were at least partly due to a breakdown he had fifteen years ago. But that never affected his scientific judgment; everyone I've spoken to agrees that Argus is sound."

"I don't doubt it — but why is it important?"

"I'd hoped," said Duncan mildly, "that I'd made that clear to our invisible friends."

And I believe I have, he told himself, to at least one of them. His most penetrating questioner was certainly one of Terra's top radio astronomers. Hewould understand, and only a few allies at that level were necessary. Duncan was certain that someday they would meet again, this time eye to eye, and with a pointed lack of reference to any prior encounter.

"As to why it's important, Bob, I'll tell you something that I didn't mention to the Committee, and which I'm sure Karl never considered, because he was too engrossed in his own affairs. Do you realize what a project like Argus would do to the Titan economy? It would bring us billions and make us the scientific hub of the Solar System. It might even go a long way to solve our financial problems, when the demand for hydrogen starts to drop in the ‘80s."

"I appreciate that," Farrell answered dryly, "especially as my taxes will go toward it. But let nothing interfere with the March of Science."

Duncan laughed sympathetically. He like Bob Farrell, and he had been extremely helpful. But he was less and less sure of the Ambassador's loyalties, and it might soon be time to find a replacement. Unfortunately, it would again have to be a Terran, because of this infernal gravity; but that was a problem Titan would always have to live with.

He could certainly never tell his own ambassador, still less the Argus Committee, why Karl's brainchild might be so vital to the human race. There were speculations in that Minisec — luckily, there was no hint of them in the sketchbook — which had best not be published for many years, until the project had proved itself.

Karl had been right so often in the past, seizing on truths beyond all bounds of logic and reason, that Duncan felt sure that this last awesome intuition was also correct. Or if it was not, the truth was even stranger; in any event, it was a truth that must be learned. Though the knowledge might be overwhelming, the price of ignorance could be — extinction.

Here on the streets of this beautiful city, steeped in sunlight and in history, it was hard to take Karl's final comments seriously, as he speculated about the origin of those mysterious waves. And surely even Karl did not reallybelieve all the thoughts he had spoken into the secret memory of his Minisec, during the long voyage to Earth...

But he was diabolically persuasive, and his arguments had an irresistible logic and momentum of their own. Even if he did not believe all his own conjectures, he might still be right.

"Item one," he had murmured to himself (it must have been hard to get privacy on that freighter, and Duncan could sometimes hear the noises of the ship, the movements of the other crew members), "these kilohertz waves have a limited range because of interstellar absorption. They would not normally be able to pass from one star to another, unless plasma clouds act as waveguides, channeling them over greater distances. So their origin mustbe close to the Solar System."

"My calculations all point to a source — or sources — at about a tenth of a light year from the Sun. Only a fortieth of the way to Alpha Centauri, but two hundred times the distance of Pluto... No man's land — the edge of the wilderness between the stars. But that's exactlywhere the comets are born, in a great, invisible shell surrounding the Solar System. There's enough material out there for a trillion of those strange objects, orbiting in a cosmic freezer."

"What's going on, in those huge clouds of hydrogen and helium and all the other elements? There's not much energy — but there may be enough. And where's the matter and energy — and Time — sooner or later there's organization."

" Call them Star Beasts. Would they be alive? No — that word doesn't apply. Let's just say — ‘Organized systems.’ They'd be hundreds or thousands of kilometers across, and they might live — I mean, maintain their individual identity — for millions of years."

" That'sa thought. The comets that we observe — are they the corpses of Star Beasts, sent sunward for cremation? Or executed criminals? I'm being ridiculously anthropomorphic — but what else can I be?"

"And are they intelligent? What does thatword mean? Are ants intelligent — are the cells of the human body intelligent? Do all the Star Beasts surrounding the Solar System make a single entity — and does It know about us? Or does It care?"

"Perhaps the Sun keeps them at bay, as in ancient times the campfire kept off the wolves and saber-toothed tigers. But we are already a long way from the Sun, and sooner or later we will meet them. The more we learn, the better."

"And there's one question I'm almost afraid to think about. Are they gods? OR ARE THEY EATERS OF GODS?

41

Independence Day

Extract from the Congressional Recordfor 2276 July 4. Address by the Honorable Duncan Makenzie, Special Assistant to the Chief Administrator, Republic of Titan.

Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress, Distinguished Guests — let me first express my deep gratitude to the Centennial Committee, whose generosity made possible my visit to Earth and to these United States. I bring greetings to all of you from Titan, largest of Saturn's many moons — and the most distant world yet occupied by mankind.

Five hundred years ago this land was also a frontier — not only geographically but politically. Your ancestors, less than twenty generations in the past, created the first democratic constitution that really worked — and that still works today, on worlds that they could not have imagined in their wildest dreams.

During these celebrations, many have spoken of the legacy that the founders of the Republic left us on that day, half a thousand years ago. But there have been four Centennials since then; I would like to look briefly at each of them, to see what lessons they have for us.

At the first, in 1876, the United States was still recovering from a disastrous Civil War. Yet it was also laying the foundation of the technological revolution that would soon transform the Earth. Perhaps it is no coincidence that in the very year of the first Centennial, this country brought forth the invention which really began the conquest of space.

For in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell made the first practical telephone. We take electronic communications so utterly for granted that we cannot imagine a society without them; we would be deaf and dumb if these extensions of our senses were suddenly removed. So let us remember that just four hundred years ago, the telephone began the abolition of space — at least upon thisplanet.

A century later, in 1976, that process had almost finished — and the conquest of interplanetary space was about to begin. By that time, the first men had already reached the Moon, using techniques which today seem unbelievably primitive. Although all historians now agree that the Apollo Project marked the United States's supreme achievement, and its greatest moment of triumph, it was inspired by political motives that seem ludicrous — indeed, incomprehensible — to our modern minds. And it is no reflection on those first engineers and astronauts that their brilliant pioneering effort was a technological dead end, and that serious space travel did not begin for several decades, with much more advanced vehicles and propulsion systems.

A century later, in 2076, all the tools needed to open up the planets were ready to hand. Long-duration life-support systems had been perfected; after the initial disasters, the fusion drive had been tamed. But humanity was exhausted by the effort of global rebuilding following the Time of Troubles, and in the aftermath of the Population Crash there was little enthusiasm for the colonization of new worlds.

Despite these problems, mankind set its feet irrevocably on the road to the stars. During the twenty-first century, the Lunar Base became self-supporting, the Mars Colony was established, and we had secured a bridgehead on Mercury. Venus and the Gas Giants defied us — as indeed they still do — but we had visited all the larger moons and asteroids of the Solar System.

By 2176, just a hundred years ago, a substantial fraction of the human race was no longer Earthborn. For the first time we had the assurance that whatever happened to the mother world, our cultural heritage would not be lost. It was secure until the death of the Sun — and perhaps beyond...

The century that lies behind us has been one of consolidation, rather than of fresh discovery. I am proud that my world has played a major role in this process, for without the easily accessible hydrogen of the Titanian atmosphere, travel between the planets would still be exorbitantly expensive.

Now the old question arises: Where do we go from here? The stars are as remote as ever; our first probes, after two centuries of travel, have yet to reach Proxima Centauri, the Sun's closest neighbor. Though our telescopes can now see to the limits of space, no man has yet to set foot on far Persephone, which we could have reached at any time during the last hundred years...

Is it true, as many have suggested, that the frontier has again closed? Men have believed that before, and always they have been wrong. We can laugh now at those early-twentieth-century pessimists who lamented that there were no more worlds to discover — at the very moment when Goddard and Korolev and von Braun were playing with their first primitive rockets. And earlier still, just before Columbus opened the way to thiscontinent, it must have seemed to the peoples of Europe that the future could hold nothing to match the splendors of the past.

I do not believe that we have come to the end of History, and that what lies ahead is only an elaboration and extension of our present powers, on planets already discovered. Yet it cannot be denied that this feeling is now widespread and makes itself apparent in many ways. There is an unhealthy preoccupation with the past, and an attempt to reconstruct or relive it. Not, I hasten to add, that this is alwaysbad — what we are doing now proves that it is not.

We should respect the past, but not worship it. While we look back upon the four Centennials that lie behind us, we should think also of those that will be celebrated in the years to come. What of 2376, 2476... 2 776, a full thousand years after the birth of the Republic? How will the people of those days remember us? Weremember the United States chiefly by Apollo; can we bequeath any comparable achievement to the ages ahead?

There are many problems still to be solved, on all the planets. Unhappiness, disease — even poverty — still exist. We are still far from Utopia, and we may never achieve it. But we know that all these problems canbe solved, with the tools that we already possess. No pioneering, no great discoveries, are necessary here. Now that the worst evils of the past have been eliminated, we can look elsewhere, with a clear conscience, for new tasks to challenge the mind and inspire the spirit.

Civilization needs long-range goals. Once, the Solar System provided them, but now we must look beyond. I am not speaking of mannedtravel to the stars, which may still lie centuries ahead. What I refer to is the quest for intelligence in the universe, which was begun with such high hopes more than three centuries ago — and has not yet succeeded.

You are all familiar with CYCLOPS, the largest radio telescope on Earth. That was built primarily to search for evidence of advanced civilizations. It transformed astronomy; but despite many false alarms, it never detected a single intelligent message from the stars. This failure has done much to turn men's minds inward from the greater universe, to concentrate their energies upon the tiny oasis of the Solar System...

Could it be that we are looking in the wrong place? The wrong place, that is, in the enormously wide spectrum of radiations that travel between the stars.

All our radio telescopes have searched the short waves — centimeters, or at most, meters — in length. But what of the long and ultralong waves — not only kilometers but even megametersfrom crest to crest? Radio waves of frequencies so low that they would sound like musical notes if our ears could detect them.

We know that such waves exist, but we have never been able to study them, here on Earth. They are blocked, far out in the fringes of the Solar System, by the gale of electrons that blows forever from the Sun. To know what the universe is saying with these vast, slow undulations, we must build radio telescopes of enormous size, beyond the limits of the Sun's own billion-kilometer-deep ionosphere — that is, at least as far out as the orbit of Saturn. For the first time, this is now possible. For the first time, there are real incentives for doing so...

We tend to judge the universe by our own physical size and our own time scale; it seems natural for us to work with waves that we could span with our arms, or even with our fingertips. But the cosmos is not built to these dimensions; nor, perhaps, are all the entities that dwell among the stars.

These giant radio waves are more commensurate with the scale of the Milky Way, and their slow vibrations are a better measure of its eon-long Galactic Year. They may have much to tell us when we begin to decipher their messages.

How those scientist-statesmen Franklin and Jefferson would have welcomed such a project! They would have grasped its scope, if not its technology — for they were interested in every branch of knowledge between heaven and Earth.

The problems they faced, five hundred years ago, will never rise again. The age of conflict between nations is over. But we have other challenges, which may the tax us to the utmost. Let us be thankful that the universe can always provide great goals beyond ourselves, and enterprises to which we can pledge our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Duncan Makenzie closed the beautifully designed souvenir book — as masterpiece of the printer's art, such as had not been seen for centuries and might never be seen again. Only five hundred copies had been produced — one for every year. He would carry his back in triumph to Titan, where for the rest of his life it would be among his most cherished possessions.

Many people had complimented him on his speech, enshrined forever in these pages — and, much more accessibly, in library memories and information banks throughout the Solar System. Yet he had felt embarrassed to receive these plaudits, for in his heart he knew he could never have conceived that address; he was little more than a medium, passing on a message from the dead. The words were his, but all the thoughts were Karl's.

How astonished, he told himself wryly, all his friends on Titan must have been, when they watched the ceremony! Perhaps it had been slightly inappropriate to use such a forum as this for what might be considered self-serving propaganda — even special pleading on behalf of his own world. But Duncan had a clear conscience, and as yet there had been no criticism on this score. Even those who were baffled by his thesis had been grateful for the excitement he had injected into all the routine formalities.

And even if his speech was only a seven-day wonder to the general public, it would not be forgotten. He had planted a seed; one day it would grow — on barren Mnemosyne.

Meanwhile, there was a slight practical problem, though it was not yet urgent. This splendid volume, with its thick vellum, and its tooled leather binding, weighed about five kilograms.

The Makenzies hated waste and extravagance. It would be pleasant to have the book on the voyage home, but excess baggage to Titan was a hundred solars a kilo...

It would have to go back by slow boat, on one of the empty tankers — UNACCOMPANIED FREIGHT — MAY BE STOWED IN VACUUM...

42

The Mirror of The Sea

Dr. Yehudi ben Mohammed did not look as if he belonged in a modern hospital, surrounded by flickering life-function displays, Comsole readouts, whispering voices from hidden speakers, and all the aseptic technology of life and death. In his spotless white robes, with the double circlet of gold cord around his headdress, he should have been holding court in a desert tent, or scanning the horizon from the back of his camel for the first glimpse of an oasis.

Duncan remembered how one of the younger doctors had commented, during his first visit: "Sometimes I think El Hadj believes he's a reincarnation of Saladin andLawrence of Arabia." Although Duncan did not understand the full flavor of the references, this was obviously said more in affectionate jest that in criticism. Did the surgeon, he wondered, wear those robes in the operating theater? The would not be inappropriate there; and certainly they did not interfere with the feline grace of his movements.

"I'm glad," said Dr. Yehudi, toying with the jeweled dagger on his elaborately inlaid desk — the two touches of antiquity in an otherwise late-twenty-third-century environment — "that you've finally made up your mind. The — ah — delay had caused certain problems, but we've overcome them. We now have four perfectly viable embryos, land the first will be transplanted within a week. The others will be kept as backups, in case of a rejection — though that is now very rare.

And what will happen to the unwanted three? Duncan asked himself, and shied away from the answer. One human being had been created who would never otherwise have existed. Thatwas the positive side; better to forget the three ghosts who for a brief while had hovered on the borders of reality. Yet it was hard to be coldly logical in matters like this. As he stared across the intricate arabesques, Duncan wondered at the psychology of the calm and elegant figure whose skillful hands had controlled so many destinies. In their own small way, on their own little world, the Makenzies had played at God; but thiswas something beyond his understanding.

Of course, one could always take refuge in the cold mathematics of reproduction. Old Mother Nature had not the slightest regard for human ethics or feelings. In the course of a lifetime, every man generated enough spermatozoa to populate the entire Solar System, many times over — and all but two or three of that potential multitude were doomed. Had anyone ever gone mad by visualizing each ejaculation as a hundred million murders? Quite possibly; no wonder that the adherents of some old religions had refused to look through the microscope...

There were moral obligations and uncertainties behind every act. In the long run, a man could only obey the promptings of that mysterious entity called Conscience and hope that the outcome would not be too disastrous. Not, of course, that one could ever know the finalresults of any actions.

Strange, thought Duncan, how he had resolved the doubts that had assailed him when he first came to the island. He had learned to take the broader view, and to place the hopes and aspirations of the Makenzies in a wider context. Above all, he had seen the dangers of overreaching ambition; but the lesson of Karl's fate was still ambiguous and would give him cause to wonder all his life.

With a mild sense of shock, Duncan realized that he had already signed the legal documents and was returning them to Dr. Yehudi. No matter; he had read them carefully and knew his responsibilities. "I, Duncan Makenzie, resident of the satellite Titan presently in orbit around the planet Saturn" (when did the lawyers think it was going to run away?) "do hereby accept guardianship of one cloned male child, identified by the chromosome chart herewith attached, and will to the best of my ability..." etc., etc., etc. Perhaps the world would have been a better place if the garden of normally conceived children had been forced to sign such a contract. This thought, however, was some hundred billion births too late.

The surgeon flowed upward to his full commanding two meters in a gesture of dismissal which, from anyone else, would have seemed slightly discourteous. But not here, for El Hadj had much on his mind. All the while they had been talking, his eyes had seldom strayed from the pulsing lines of life and death on the read-outs that covered almost one whole wall of his office.

In the main hall of the Administration Building, Duncan paused for a moment before the giant, slowly rotating DNA helix which dominated the entrance. As his gaze roamed along the spokes of the twisted ladder, contemplating its all-but-infinite possibilities, he could not help thinking again of the pentominoes that Grandma Ellen had set out before him years ago. There were only twelve of those shapes — yet it would take the lifetime of the universe to exhaust their possibilities. And here was no mere dozen, but billions upon billions of locations to be filled by the letters of the genetic code. The total number of combinations was notone to stagger the mind — because there was no way whatsoever in which the mind could grasp even the faintest conception of it. The number of electrons required to pack the entire cosmos solid from end to end was virtually zero in comparison.

"Duncan stepped out into the blazing sunlight, waited for his dark glasses to adjust themselves, and set of in search of Dr. Todd, guide and friend of his previous visit. He would not be leaving for another four hours, and there was one major item of business to be settled.

Luckily, as Sweeney Todd explained, there was no need to go out to the Reef.

"I can't imagine why you're interested in those ugly beasts. But you'll find some on a patch of dead coral at the end of that groin; not much else will live there. The water's only a meter deep — you won't even need flippers, just a strong pair of shoes. If you dostep on a stonefish, your screams will bring us in time to save your life — though you may wish we hadn't."

That was not very encouraging, but ten minutes later Duncan was cautiously walking out into the shallows, bent double as he peered through his borrowed face mask.

There was none of the beauty here that he had seen on the approach to Golden Reef. The water was crystal clear, but the sea bed was a submarine desert. It was mostly white sand, mingled with broken pieces of coral, like the bleached bones of tiny animals. A few small, drably colored fish were swimming around, and others stared at him with anxious, unfriendly eyes for little burrows in the sand. Once, a brilliantly blue creature like a flattened eel came darting at him and, to his great surprise, gave him a painful nip before he chased it away. It was every bit of three centimeters long, and Duncan, who had never heard of cleaning symbiosis, worried about poison for a few minutes. However, he felt no pangs of imminent dissolution, so pushed his way onward through the tepid water.

The concrete groin — part of the island's defense against the ceaseless erosion of the waves — stretched out for a hundred meters from the shore and then disappeared beneath the surface. Near its seaward end, Duncan came across a pile of jumbled rocks, perhaps hurled up by some storm. They must have been here for many years, for they were cemented together with barnacles and small, jagged oysters. Among their caves and crevices, Duncan found what he was seeking.

Each sea urchin appeared to have hollowed out its own cavity in the hard rock; Duncan could not imagine how the creatures had performed this remarkable feat of burrowing. Anchored securely in place, with only a bristling frieze of black spines exposed to the outer world, they were invulnerable to all enemies — except Man. But Duncan wished them no harm, and this time had not even brought a knife. He had seen enough of death, and his sole purpose now was to confirm — or refute — the impression that had haunted him ever since he had set eyes on that drawing in Karl's notebook.

Once again, the long black spines started to swing slowly toward his shadow. These primitive creatures, despite their apparent lack of sense organs, knew that he was there, and reacted to his presence. They were scanning their little universe, as Argus would search the stars...

Of course, there would be no actual physical movement of the Argus antennas — that was unnecessary, and would be impossible with such fragile, thousand-kilometer-long structures. Yet their electronic sweeping of the skies would have an uncanny parallel with Diadema's protective reaction. If some planet-sized monster, which used ultralong radio waves for vision, could observe the Argus system at work, what it ‘saw’ would be not unlike this humble reef dweller.

For a moment, Duncan had a curious fantasy. He imagined that he was such a monster, observing Argus in silhouette against the background radio glow of the Galaxy. There would hundreds of thin black lines, radiating out from a central point — most of them stationary, but some of them waving slowly back and forth, as if responding to a shadow from the stars.

Yet it was hard to realize that even if Argus was built, no human eye could ever see it in its entirety. The structure would be so huge that its slender rods and wires would be totally invisible from any distance. Perhaps, as Karl had suggested in his notes, there would be warning lights dotted all over the millions of square kilometers of the spherical surface and strung along the six principle axes. To an approaching spaceship, it would look like some glittering Star Day ornament.

Or — and this was more appropriate — a discarded toy from the nursery of the Gods.

* * * * *

Toward evening, while he was waiting for the shuttle back to the mainland, Duncan found a secluded corner of the coffee-shop-cum-bar which overlooked the lagoon. He sat there thoughtfully, sipping from time to time at a Terran drink he had discovered — something called a Tom Collins. It was a bad idea, acquiring vices which could not be exported to Titan; on the other hand, it could equally well be argued that it was foolish not to enjoy the unique pleasures of Earth, even if one had to relinquish them all too soon.

There was also endless enjoyment in watching the play of wind over the water protected by the barrier of the inner reef. Some stretches were absolutely flat, reflecting the blue of the unclouded sky as if in a flawless mirror. Yet other areas, apparently no different, were continually quivering so that not for a moment was the surface still; it was crossed and crisscrossed by innumerable tiny wavelets, no more than a centimeter in height. Presumably some relationship between the varying depth of the lagoon and the velocity of the wind was responsible for the phenomenon, quite unlike anything that Duncan had ever before seen. No matter what the explanation, it was enchantingly beautiful, for the countess reflections of the sun in the dancing water created sparkling patterns that seemed to move forever down the wind, yet remained always in the same spot.

Duncan had never been hypnotized, nor had he experienced more than a few of the nine states of consciousness between full awareness and profound sleep. The alcohol might have helped, but the scintillating sea was undoubtedly the main factor in producing his present mood. He was completely alert — indeed, his mind seemed to be working with unusual clarity — but he no longer felt bound by the laws of logic that had controlled all his life. It was almost as if he was in one of those dreams where the most fantastic things can happen, and are accepted as matter-of-fact, everyday occurrences.