Part 15 (1/2)

All rivalries and differences among the varied Terran interests on t.i.tan disappeared. The obvious rallying point for them to regroup was thes.h.i.+rasagi, orbiting above the cloud canopy. The Asterians had penetrated t.i.tan's general surface network, and obviously nothing at Genoa Base could be considered secure, since they had invaded the Earthnet by seizing the link beam transmitted from there.

Thes.h.i.+rasagi, however, had its own independent link back to j.a.panese satellites in Earth orbit, and the mission controllers in Osaka had had the presence of mind to isolate their end as soon as the eastern Asian sector of the Earthnet had begun misbehaving. This should have stopped the alien influence from being propagated back out to t.i.tan via thes.h.i.+rasagi 'sbeam. Moreover, thes.h.i.+rasagi had been engaging in conventional communications only with Genoa Base, without any high-capacity data connection. Hence, there was good reason to hope that thes.h.i.+rasagi 's system was ”clean.”

A final point was that the chief of the j.a.panese mission, Yak.u.mo, was a full-fledged mission director, appointed to his post by a national government. The existing organization on t.i.tan, by contrast, operated under the divided command of a temporary administrative head a.s.signed by NASO and a military contingent under separate orders, both of which depended on guidance from Earth that could disappear at any moment.

All factors pointed to the same conclusion. All agreed to consolidate under Yak.u.mo's direction as emergency head of the entire Terran presence on t.i.tan. A conference was called shortly afterward aboard thes.h.i.+rasagi to a.s.sess the situation and review whatever options anyone had to offer for doing something about it.

31.

It had been a long time since Zambendorf had seen real stars.

He and his team were a.s.signed two places at the conference aboard thes.h.i.+rasagi. He took Abaquaan with him. A NASO surface shuttle carried them up from Genoa Base along with deputations from the various other groups that had remained on t.i.tan after theOrion 's departure. Mackeson and a half dozen of his officers represented NASO, while Weinerbaum and three colleagues went on behalf ofthe professional scientists. Dave Crookes and John Webster were elected as spokesmen for the mix of engineers, technicians, and others from the various private laboratories and corporations. Colonel Short attended as senior officer of the military force, along with the commanders of the British and French detachments subordinate to him.

n.o.body in charge, of course, thought to include the Taloids, whose home the war was being fought over and whose habitat was at that moment being seized. Zambendorf suggested it but was told it was impracticable because Taloids couldn't be accommodated inside thes.h.i.+rasagi. When he pointed out that they could partic.i.p.ate remotely via a communications link into Camelot-a device he had used himself more than once-the answer came back that there would be no point, since it was all technical and the Taloids wouldn't understand what was going on.

Like theOrion, thes.h.i.+rasagi used pulsed inertial fusion propulsion reacting on magnetic fields generated in an open-frame thrust chamber. The rest of the vessel forward of the radiation s.h.i.+eld consisted of a number of modules interconnected by tubular and lattice beams, none of which contained a single area of regular living s.p.a.ce large enough to house the gathering comfortably. Therefore, the conference took place in a hastily adapted cargo hold that had been freed up by the transfer of supplies and materiel down to the base the j.a.panese were building at Padua City.

Yak.u.mo, tall and broad-shouldered, sporting a droopy Pancho Villa-style mustache and wearing the indigo blue of the j.a.panese s.p.a.ce Arm, sat in the center of a panel of his officers and staff on a slightly raised dais. The delegates from the surface installation filled the rest of the s.p.a.ce, using an a.s.sortment of tables and chairs. A mild spin superimposed on thes.h.i.+rasagi 's freefall trajectory separated ”up” from ”down” and afforded a modic.u.m of dignity appropriate to the occasion.

Yak.u.mo opened with a short welcoming speech and introductions, followed by a reminder-as if any were needed-of what had brought them all together. Then Harold Mackeson a.s.sumed the task of summarizing to the a.s.sembly the events that had brought about the current situation, as well as anyone could reconstruct them. He did this partly to give the audience the benefit of his nonspecialist vantage point, partly in acknowledgment of his own overall technical responsibility, and partly to spare Weinerbaum the embarra.s.sment of having the proceedings turned into a private confessional.

Yak.u.mo listened expressionlessly until the Englishman was through. Then, when Mackeson finally set aside his notes and looked up, Yak.u.mo slapped the tabletop in front of him in a slow, soundless motion and laid it all to rest with the simple rejoinder ”So.” It was his way of endorsing Mackeson's unspoken decision that recriminations and blame could wait until later. They were all in enough trouble as things were without letting strife among themselves add to the burden.

Yak.u.mo repeated the main point that had emerged from it all. ”The original belief was that these aliens were merely cooperating in delaying theOrion launch in order to frustrate the military operation. It is now clear that we were deceived and that their true aims were much more all along. Dr. Weinerbaum?”

”So it would appear,” Weinerbaum agreed miserably.

A woman sitting beside Yak.u.mo elaborated. ”Instead, they've injected a self-propagating code into the Earthnet to bring downall systems.”

”With what objective?” Colonel Short asked.

The scientist made a face and showed her palms. ”It can only be to reduce Earth to a primitive condition comparable to that of the prenetwork era. It will make Earth incapable of projecting any influence beyond its own vicinity, let alone as far away as t.i.tan.”

Yak.u.mo leaned back and surveyed the room. ”It seems that Earth has become the victim of the strangest form of attack ever,” he concluded. ”An alien software virus that infects the planetary electronic organism in the same way a molecular virus invades the corporal chemical organism . . .” He paused for a moment to let the suggestion register, then asked, ”For what purpose?” He looked around invitingly.

There were no responses. ”Dr. Weinerbaum?”

Weinerbaum just shook his head.

”Apparently n.o.body knows,” the woman scientist observed.Another of the j.a.panese spoke up. ”Well, obviously to be left on their own and in full control here.

The aliens want control of t.i.tan's capabilities themselves.”

”Well, maybe, but they won't be left quite on their own, will they?” Harold Mackeson reminded everybody. ”We'restill here. Where does everybody up in this s.h.i.+p and down on the surface figure in these aliens' plans?”

”We don't,” somebody answered simply.

”Any more than the Taloids,” another voice added.

”We are currently evaluating the logistics of getting everybody back to Earth,” the chief engineering officer of thes.h.i.+rasagi said. ”It should be possible by a comfortable margin, and we can recompute a return course without help from Osaka.”

”And then what?” Colonel Short asked.

The engineering chief looked taken by surprise. ”I'm not sure I understand the question. I said I'm confident that we can get you all back to Earth, Colonel.”

Short nodded. ”I know you did. And I said, 'Then what?' ” He glanced around briefly, then explained. ”Okay, so we go home. And, like somebody just said, we leave them in monopoly control of everything out here at t.i.tan.” He shrugged as if the rest were too obvious. ”How long until they come after us? And with what? There's enough down there for them to turn this whole moon into a production line for weapons we probably can't even imagine. h.e.l.l, isn't that what the whole thing was supposed to be in the first place, before it got all screwed up? And like somebody else just said, they've already put us back in the Stone Age to the point where Earth couldn't defend itself against an attack of school buses. So, like I said, after we're all back home and they've had time to get their act together and come after us . . . then what?”

It was the first time most of those present had fully realized what it all added up to.

People looked at each other with strained faces, muttering and shaking their heads. As the initial reactions subsided, Yak.u.mo's gaze scanned the room, finally singling out Zambendorf and Abaquaan.

”We have two gentlemen here of very different talents from most of the people present,” he said.

Zambendorf blinked and stared back in surprise-privately he had been amazed even to have been invited up there at all. Yak.u.mo went on. ”You seem to possess a remarkable instinct for understanding alien minds and how to get through to them, Herr Zambendorf.” The room fell silent with curiosity.

”I have had some success,” Zambendorf replied. Normally he would have capitalized on the moment somehow and seized the opportunity to buff up his image a little, but this just wasn't the time.

”At the time of the landings from theOrion, I believe it was you who first established meaningful communication with the Taloids,” Yak.u.mo said.

”I . . . played a lucky hunch or two,” Zambendorf suggested.

”But it was before the experts managed to achieve anything,” Yak.u.mo went on. ”Do I take it that their hunches were not so lucky?”

”Er, everyone has their off days, I suppose.”

”Well, a lot of people seem to have been having some serious off days lately,” Yak.u.mo said. In the front row facing him, Weinerbaum looked ill. Yak.u.mo briefly raised some papers he had picked up from the table. ”But it was yourself again, Herr Zambendorf, who not only deduced the existence of these latest aliens while being denied access to all the pertinent information but saw through their true designs before the experts so much as suspected them.”

”Um, yes. Yes, I guess we-my colleagues all contributed . . . I guess we did,” Zambendorf agreed slowly.

”So, another lucky hunch? Extraordinary.”

The silence seemed to drag. ”Perhaps alien natures aren't so different from human nature when you get to the bottom of it. And understanding human nature is my business,” Zambendorf offered.

”Exactly.”Zambendorf became aware of Yak.u.mo's eyes fixed on him pointedly. He glanced quickly from side to side, unsure if he might have missed something. ”I'm sorry,” he said, looking back at the mission chief. ”What more do you want me to say?”

”Say?” Yak.u.mo repeated. ”I don't want you tosay anything. Twice now, when it comes to dealing with aliens, you have shown an amazing ability to come up with the right answers when the experts have got it wrong. And this time the experts have screwed up royally. What I'm waiting for, Herr Zambendorf, is to know what you're going todo. ”

But all that Zambendorf could do-just at that moment, anyway-was stare back, gla.s.sy-eyed.

For once in his life he found himself truly baffled.