at once. Eskenderom frowned, reluctant to make an issue of his captain’s
condition. Horazzorgio saw the King’s gaze travel from his eye to his arm. “If I
can return alone from the Meracasine, on foot and wounded, then surely I can
survive it accompanied, mounted, and recovered. Neither will Skerilliane’s
mission be jeopardized, for my personal interests in this matter will more than
make up spiritually for what has been lost physically.”
Eskenderom looked at him for a moment, and then at Skerilliane. “You shall be
the judge, for yours is the casing that will be at risk, not mine. Would you
have confidence in Horazzorgio as your companion? Speak truly, spy. This is not
a time to permit fear of personal insult to affect judgment and prudence.”
“The spy should be never seen and never heard,” Skerilliane answered. “Of what
importance is the appearance of he who exists not? Indeed, such business is more
often hampered than assisted by a penchant for deeds of recklessness and daring,
which Horazzorgio has ample reason to avoid. I have every confidence in the
prospect of our association.”
The King looked at them for a moment longer, then nodded. “So be it.” He stood
up from the throne and descended the steps before it, then stopped as an
afterthought struck him, and looked back at the High Priest. “I suppose you’d
better pray for their success,” he said, and with that turned and strode away.
23
IT WAS LIKE BEING IN A TOMB, CASPAR LANG THOUGHT TO HIMSELF, or an ice cave
inside a glacier that was too deep for light to penetrate.
With more room available on Giraud’s diplomatic delegation now that Zambendorf
and his team had been restricted to the ship, and with activities in and around
Genoa becoming more organized, Lang had taken the opportunity to come down to
the surface and involve himself more directly in the proceedings. He had seen
the incredible tangles of cluttered machinery and derelict structures that
surrounded the base and stretched away beyond the searchlight beams playing from
the sentry posts around the perimeter; the ghostly shapes of the city’s
peculiar, cultivated houses and larger buildings of ice along the route to
Arthur’s residence—which had been named Camelot, of course; and the strange,
clothed, bipedal robots and other machines that gathered to watch from the
shadows at the fringes of the vehicles’ headlamp beams. Now he was sitting
awkwardly in a large ice chamber inside Camelot, which even had a sizeable
table, although not a round one. Looking like gigantic upright insects in the
weak circle of light from the two low-power lamps that the NASO engineers had
installed, Arthur and several other Taloids were sitting opposite, while to the
sides Giraud, Seltzman, and the remaining Terrans looked just as eerie and
grotesque in their jointed, smooth-surfaced, machinelike garb. Most of the
furnishings were of odd, Taloid pseudovegetable shapes, and the walls,
indistinct and shadowy in the background, were covered by thick woven-wire
hangings and weird designs worked in plastic and metal. The talks had been going
on for some hours.
“Tell them they’ve got it wrong, Konrad,” Giraud’s voice said in Lang’s helmet,
coming through on local frequency. “We are not planning to exploit their people
or set the value of their labor too cheaply. Anyone who desires economic
prosperity has to work for it, just as we had to work for it back on Earth.
There aren’t any free rides.”
Seltzman nipped a switch to direct his words into another audio channel, which
was wire-connected through to the electronics box on the table in front of him.
“Sorry,” he said. “You still misunderstand. Earthmen do not wish to exploit
Taloid labor. Titan must work for prosperity, just as Earth had to work for
prosperity.”
A couple of seconds went by while the control microprocessor inside the box
conferred with a larger computer located in the communications center at Genoa
Base One. Then the display on the screen in front of Seltzman changed to read:
NO MATCH FOR “EXPLOIT TALOID LABOR.” EQUIVALENT PHRASE?
Seltzman thought for a second. “Benefit from Taloid work that is not paid for,”
he said.
“PROSPERITY = WEALTH in this context?” the machine inquired.