then, she is only the secretary. I’m afraid we must have overestimated her
abilities.”
“And I’m damn sure I overestimated yours!” Lang seethed. “Never mind all those
excuses—just find him, understand? I want him found!”
A half hour later, Periera was confronting Thelma in the team’s quarters in
Globe II. “I’m sorry if we confused you, but it has now become imperative that
the situation be resolved as speedily as possible. We have to know where he is.
Now listen to me very carefully, Thelma, and concentrate hard on what I’m
saying. Now, do-you-know-where-Karl-is?”
Thelma stared back at him wide-eyed. “On Earth, I think.”
“Oh, come now, that’s quite absurd. Please try to be sensible. How could he have
gone back to Earth?”
“He teleports there,” Thelma’s face was deadly serious, and her eyes burned
earnestly. “Didn’t you know? He’s been working at it for months now.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Really.”
Periera looked at her uncertainly. “Really? You’re not joking?”
“Now, would I joke about something as serious as that—especially to you,
Osmond?”
So Periera reported back to Lang that he was pretty sure Zambendorf had mastered
teleportation and returned to Earth.
When Lang blew up, Periera decided it was because business executives were
unimaginative, inflexible, and didn’t understand science.
31
UNLIKE POPULAR IMAGES OF THE HIGH-RANKING CORPORATION EXECUTIVE, Caspar Lang was
not consumed with a passion to accumulate wealth, and he harbored no particular
lust for power over other men. GSEC’s rewards for his services, and the
authority that he commanded within the corporate hierarchy—second only to that
of Gregory Buhl— left him with no reason to feel financially vulnerable,
psychologically or emotionally insecure, or especially apprehensive about his
future. This general situation resulted in his being relatively unbribable by
competing organizations, incorruptible by opposing ideologies, and fully
motivated to the preservation of personal interests that coincided with those of
the corporation, whose policy was to insure that he remained feeling that way.
In short, the quality that the corporation valued above all else in its senior
management, and did its best to foster in every possible way, was loyalty. Since
Zambendorf was deliberately attempting to prevent the corporation’s achieving
the goals toward which it had elected to direct itself, Zambendorf was now the
corporation’s self-declared enemy, which automatically meant Lang’s enemy too.
Personal feelings didn’t enter the equation—not that Lang’s feelings toward
Zambendorf had ever been more than lukewarm; Lang’s duty was to stop Zambendorf
by any means available to him within the bounds of acceptable cost —and with the
ramifications of the situation as they were, the limit of cost acceptability was
high by any standard.
“As best we can reconstruct it, the whole thing was a circus act involving low
passes by the lander, parachuting Taloids, tricks with optical images and
acoustics, and lots of fireworks,” Lang said to Massey across the table in the
conference cabin of Leaherney’s suite in the Orion. Opposite Massey, Leaherney
stared grimly at his knuckles, clasped in front of him, while across from Lang,
Charles Giraud was listening with lips pursed and steepled fingers propping the
bridge of his nose. Lang went on, “The Paduan army has disintegrated and is on
its way back to Padua. The officers that James Bond talked to said they were
going home to meet this messiah and begin building the New Era. We figure that
means Zambendorf’s planning a repeat performance in Padua city itself.”
Massey rubbed his nose and frowned down at the table. He still wasn’t sure why
he had been summoned. “Well, my feelings on the whole business of supplying
weapons to the Paduans and fomenting trouble between them and the Genoese were
plain enough before this happened. I can’t pretend to be sympathetic now that
your plan’s fallen through. In fact, as far as Zambendorf’s concerned, this one
time I have to say good luck to him.”
“Whatever personal opinions you might hold concerning the objectives set for
this mission and the policies of its directing institutions on Earth are
irrelevant to the purpose of this meeting,” Leaherney said. His voice was
uncharacteristically sharp. Massey shrugged but said nothing. Leaherney glanced
at Lang and nodded for him to continue.
“We have no way of locating where they’re hiding the lander down there,” Lang