by Hogan, James
Zambendorf somehow knew formed the Taloid world as seen through Taloid eyes any
more than they could the human world as seen through human eyes. Both worlds
were illusions created from the raw material of photons, pressure waves, and
other forms of primary sensory stimuli, which were processed into abstract
symbols and assembled via two forms of nervous system, one biochemical, the
other holotronic, into consciously experienced interactions of people, places,
and things. As external realities, the people, the places, and the things
existed only as bare frameworks onto which minds projected covering, form,
warmth, color, and other attributes which the minds themselves created; thus
each mind manufactured its own illusory world upon a minimum of shared reality
to conform to its own set of culturally defined expectations, and in such a way
as to appear satisfyingly real in total to its creator. Zambendorf, the
illusionist, could understand it all clearly. But, he could see just as clearly,
he would never be able to convey what he understood to the three men sitting
with him in the executive lounge of the Orion. "Suppose I decide I don't want to
get involved with it," he said at last, looking up at them. "Then what?"
"Is that a decision?" Leaherney asked him.
"No. I'm just curious."
Lang answered. "We'd manage anyhow, either with your cooperation or without it.
But from your point of view it wouldn't be too smart. The people who sent you
all this way at considerable expense would be pretty upset about it. And they do
have a lot of influence with the media . . ." Lang shook his head slowly and
clicked his tongue. "You could find it's the end of the road for you, old buddy.
And that'd be a shame, wouldn't it?"
25
GOYDEROOCH, HEADROBEING OF THE VILLAGE OF XERXEON, STOOD with Casquedin, the
village prayer and beseecher, in front of a huddle of elders and watched
apprehensively as the column of royal cavalry filed slowly into the square. The
soldiers and their mounts were covered with dust and looked as if they had
ridden from Pergassos without stopping, which indicated that their mission was
urgent. The colors carried by the pennant-bearer were those of the captain,
Horazzorgio, who had passed through Xerxeon over five brights previously in
pursuit ofDornvald the outlaw, Bringer-of-Sky-Dragons. Horazzorgio was missing
an arm and had one eye covered, Goyderooch saw as the lead riders crossed the
square and drew up before him. His synchronizing oscillator missed a pulse.
Perhaps Dornvald's small band had been the bait to lure the King's soldiers into
ambush by a larger force out in the Meracasine. If so, had Horazzorgio
interpreted Goyderooch's readiness to indicate the direction taken by the
outlaws as proof of the village's complicity in the plot and returned now to
deliver his retribution? The fear that Goyderooch sensed from behind told him
that the thoughts were not his alone.
"May the Lifemaker protect the King," Horazzorgio pronounced.
"Let it be so," the villagers returned dutifully.
"We are truly honored to welcome the King's Guards to our humble village,"
Goyderooch said, extending his arms palms-upward. "Whatever services it is
within our power to render shall be thine. Thou hast but to name thy need and
utter thy request."
Horazzorgio cast his eye over them with contempt. "Yes," he said menacingly.
"You would do well to remember me with respect, farmers. With great pleasure
would I repay the debt that I owe the village of Xerxeon."
"A twelvefold curse upon Dornvald, the betrayer!" Goyderooch exclaimed,
trembling. "Truly were we deceived by his cunning. Oh, had we but known of the
fate that awaited thee! Believest thou not that we would have warned thee?"
"Pah! Enough sniveling," Horazzorgio snorted. "Do you dream for one moment that
Dornvald's rabble of tinplate riveters would be match for a King's troop? These
afflictions that you see were not the work of any mere robeing."
"Then what manner of—"
"The sky demons that appeared over Xerxeon," Horazzorgio said. "They are
congregating in Carthogia, whither they come to aid Kleippur, servant of the
Dark Master." Eskenderom, the Kroaxian King, did not want it made known to his
people that he was treating with the luminous liquid creatures who had come from
beyond the sky. It was important that the mystic whom Eskenderom intended to
install as High Priest in place of Frennelech—and whom the soldiers had been
sent to Xerxeon to find and take back to Pergassos—should be accepted
unquestioningly as being possessed of genuinely wondrous powers.
"Thou hast not come hither to wreak thy vengeance upon helpless villagers?"
Goyderooch inquired cautiously.
"We are here by the direct bidding of the King," Horazzorgio told him. " 'Tis
well for you that I heed first my loyalty to His Majesty, and second my private
inclinations. There is one, a holy man from Pergassos, who was also at this
place five brights since—the brother of Thirg, Asker-of-Questions."
"Thou speakest of Groork, the hearer, who came hither to commune with the Great
Wilderness and prepare himself spiritually for the time of great works which is
written as his destiny to perform for the greater glory of the Lifemaker,"
Casquedin said from beside Goyderooch.
"The same," Horazzorgio said. "His destiny has arrived, it appears. We are to
conduct him back to Kroaxia, to the palace of Eskenderom, where omens have been
witnessed of great things that shall come to pass."
Goyderooch dispatched Casquedin with the news to the house of Meerkulla,
Tamer-of-Endcase-Drillers, on the edge of the village, where Groork was lodging.
Casquedin returned alone a few minutes later. "Meerkulla asks forgiveness, but
says that the hearer is locked in his cell and attending to his sacred
devotions," he reported. "To intrude would constitute sinfulness of the gravest
kind."
"But this is the King's command!" Goyderooch blustered. "Return at once to
Meerkulla and tell him that—"
Horazzorgio raised a hand wearily. "Our need for haste is not so pressing as
that, Headrobeing, for we have ridden without respite from Pergassos. We shall
not depart until we have rested awhile and partaken of refreshment and charge.
So prepare a repast of your finest lube and filter stations, and leave the
hearer to complete his meditations."
In the room that he had been given for his own use at the rear of Meerkulla's
house, Groork was frantically bundling his belongings into the frame-backed sack
that he used when traveling. Horazzorgio could have come for only two reasons:
Either Eskenderom had not forgotten his scheme for removing Frennelech, the High
Priest, and establishing a new priesthood under Groork, or Horazzorgio wished to
settle a personal score over Groork's having warned Thirg when the writ had been
issued for the latter's arrest. Either way Groork wasn't interested in staying
around to talk about it, and had received a sudden revelation that the
Lifemaker's plans required him to be the chosen instrument of other designs
destined to unfold at another place to which the greater powers would in d
ue
course guide him.
After checking the room a last time to make sure he hadn't missed anything, he
pushed open the window, poked his head out, and looked first one way, then the
other. No one was in sight. He heaved his pack over the ledge, picked up his
staff, and climbed outside. One of Meerkulla's steeds was tethered at the rear
of the house, grazing on slow charge from a domesticated forest transformer and
not yet unsaddled. Groork looked at it thoughtfully as he lifted his pack onto
his back, and then glanced from side to side and back over his shoulder. Had the
animal been left as a temptation to test his honesty at a time of stress, or was
it a gift from the Lifemaker to ensure Groork's preservation for greater things?
And then, as he stood waiting for inspiration, he heard in his head the first
whisperings of a message from the voices that had begun speaking from the sky of
late.
In a control room inside the Orion, a computer display changed to read:
ORBITER FOUR MAPPING RADAR—COARSE SCAN 23-B37 COMPLETE ON SECTOR 19H. COMMENCING
HIGH RESOLUTION SCAN. SUBSECTORS 19-22 THROUGH 19-38. MODE 7. FRAME 5. SWEEP
PARAMETERS: 03, 12, 08, 23, 00, 00, 42.
Groork turned his face upward and gazed rapturously at the heavens as the
meaning of the voices became plain in his mind. "Thy work in Kroaxia is ended,
Groork," they sang. "Take thee forth from this place now, for thy path lies
across the Wilderness and unto the lands of Carthogia."
"Am I, then, to find the Waskorians and join them in their struggle to preserve
the true faith in the face of the barbarism wrought upon Carthogia by Kleippur,
who serves the Dark Master?" Groork asked himself. "Indeed the ways of the
Lifemaker are truly wise and all-seeing, for in that way also shall I find again
my lost brother and return his soul yet to the way of righteousness." He looked
again at Meerkulla's mount. "Could a mere robeing such as I presume to argue
with the will of Him who sends thee as His gift to carry me across the
Meracasine?" He unplugged the animal's cord and swung himself up onto the
creature's back. "The Lifemaker gave, and the Lifemaker has taken away," he told
the back of Meerkulla's house as he began moving off. Then he stopped and stared
uncomfortably for a few seconds at the dwelling of the one who had given him
shelter and hospitality. Slowly and deliberately he raised his arm and made the
motions in the air which would confer blessings upon Meerkulla, his family, his
descendants, his crops, and his animals for many twelve-brights to come. "There,
my friend, now thou hast more than just compensation," Groork murmured. Feeling
better, he turned his mount about again and slipped quietly out of the village.
26
"YOU CAN'T DO IT," MASSEY SAID, SHAKING HIS HEAD AS HE turned restlessly on his
feet between the bunks in his cabin in Globe II. He sounded as near to angry as
Zambendorf had ever heard him. "The Taloids aren't some race of natural
inferiors put there to do all the work for free. It's taken us centuries to get
over the consequences of trying to treat groups of our own kind that way back on
Earth. Those days are over now. We can't go back to them. It would be a
catastrophe."
"Any forms of life that have evolved intelligence and begun lifting themselves
above the animal level possess something in common that makes accidental
differences in biological hardware trivial by comparison," Vernon Price said
earnestly from the edge of one of the lower bunks. "The word human has a broader
definition now. It describes a whole evolutionary phase, not just one species
that happens to have entered it."
They had the cabin to themselves as Graham Spearman was busy in one of the labs,
and Malcom Wade, its fourth occupant, was busy running elaborate statistical
analyses and cross-correlations on reams of worthless data that he and Periera
had been avidly collecting from faked ESP tests. Zambendorf, who was sitting on
a fold-out chair in the narrow space by the door, looked from Massey to Price
and back again in bewilderment. Somehow they had gotten the idea into their
heads that he had not only allowed himself to be brought into the plot to turn
the Taloids into serfs, but that he had done so with enthusiasm, and they were
very distressed about it. So was Zambendorf—to find himself accused of being a
willing accomplice in the very thing that had been causing him so much concern.
"Okay, I know how you feel about a lot of today's people," Massey said, tossing
out his hands. "They've grown up in the twenty-first century, surrounded by
better opportunities for learning and education than anybody else in history,
and if they're too dumb to take advantage of what they've got, it's not your
problem. They had their choice. I might not share your view, but I can see your
point." He waved a hand in front of his face. "But keeping the Taloids in a
state of deliberately imposed backwardness is different. They never had any
opportunity to know better. They don't have the same choice. That's all I'm
saying."
Zambendorf blinked up at him and shook his head. "But—" he began.
"You must see that it's the beginning of the same line that's been used to keep
wealthy minorities in power and the people in their place all down through the
ages," Vernon Price said. "Real knowledge is strictly for the elites; the masses
are fobbed off with superstition, nonsense, and hopes for a better tomorrow. New
technologies and anything that might lead toward genuine mass education and
prosperity are to be opposed. I know how you've made your living up until now,
but as Gerry says, at least those suckers had a choice and should have known
better. But with the Taloids it would be pure exploitation. You can't do it."
"FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!" Zambendorf exploded suddenly. The cabin became instantly
quiet. He gave a satisfied nod. "Thank you. Look, doesn't it occur to either of
you that I just mightn't have the faintest idea what in hell you're talking
about?"
"Oh, come on, don't give us that," Massey said impatiently. "It's the real
reason you were sent all the way to Titan. Who do you think you're trying to
fool now? It's obvious."
"What is the real reason I was sent all the way to Titan?" Zambendorf asked,
more baffled than ever but genuinely curious.
"Because a big-name cult leader like you can influence a lot of public
thinking," Price said. "You're GSEC's lever into the congressional policymaking
machine." Zambendorf shook his head and looked back at Massey.
Massey frowned down at him but seemed less sure of himself, "That's why our
society tolerates so many zany cults and crackpot religions, isn't it," he said.
"Why?" Zambendorf asked.
"A politician can net a lot of votes for a small amount of effort by saying nice
things about a guru who's got ten thousand disciples so brainwashed that they'll
do anything he tells them," Massey said. "Or at least, if he's smart he doesn't
say anything that might get them upset about him. So the guys who run the cults
continue to get away with murder, and nobody bothers them very much. The
business they're really in is
selling blocks of controlled votes and molded
public opinion in return for political favors and protection." He gave
Zambendorf a long, penetrating look, as if to say that none of this should need
spelling out, and then moved around the end of the bunks to pour himself coffee
from the pot by the sink.
Vernon Price completed what Massey had been saying. "To a lot of very
influential people, the political and economic implications of Titan's being up
for grabs must add up to a crucial situation, which they knew long before the
mission left Earth . . ." He spread his hands briefly. "And we all know that
such people can make very attractive offers when it suits them."
"You think that I knew what the mission's purpose was all along?" Zambendorf
said.
"You certainly seemed to know about Titan long before most of us did," Massey
said. He stared down over the rim of his cup. "What was the deal—unlimited media
hype and complete suppression of all competent reporting to make you the
superstar of the century?" His voice conveyed disappointment rather than
contempt. "Or was it the other way round—threats . . . everything over for you
if you refused to go along with them? But that was a long time ago now, from a
much narrower perspective—before we left Earth and before anyone knew what we
all know now. All I'm asking you to do is see the big picture and think about
the real implications."
Zambendorf brought his hand up to his face and stared down at the floor in
silence for a while. Then at last he emitted a long, weary sigh and looked up
between his fingers. "Look," he said. "I've got a feeling I'm wasting my breath
saying this, but I didn't know any more about where this ship was going than you
did, until after we embarked in orbit. What I did find out, I found out myself
by my own methods. When I agreed to come on this mission, I thought we were
going to Mars. I accepted the usual kind of publicity deal, sure, but as far as
I was concerned it was to do with the kind of stunt GSEC had been talking about
sponsoring on Mars—not anything serious. I didn't know anything about any
aliens, or any of the things you've been talking about." He stood up and moved
past Massey to help himself to coffee.
Massey glanced questioningly back at Price while Zambendorf was filling his cup.
