used to adapting to new situations quickly without having to ask questions.
“We’ve had a call from Arthur and Galileo,” he said. “It’s bad news—real bad
news.”
Massey gasped disbelievingly. “Arthur—the Taloid? But how? Where did you—”
“Oh, we also have a private communication line that you don’t know about,”
Zambendorf told him. He looked back at Abaquaan. “What’s happened, Otto?”
“Those fundamentalist fanatics out in the hills—the ones that Arthur’s soldiers
are always having trouble with,” Abaquaan said.
“The Druids. Yes, what about them?”
“They wiped out a whole Genoese patrol and then massacred a larger force that
was sent after them,” Abaquaan said. “Putting it mildly, Arthur’s pretty upset.”
Zambendorf looked puzzled. “That’s terrible, Otto, and of course I sympathize .
– . but why is it such serious news? How does it affect us?”
“Because of how they did it,” Abaquaan replied. “They did it with Terran
weapons. Someone has started shipping Terran weapons down to Henry and the
Paduans, and the Paduans are passing them on to the Druids to stir up trouble in
Genoa. Arthur says he’s had enough of promises and words. He wants something he
can defend himself with. If we can’t deliver, he’ll take the deal that Giraud’s
bunch has been pushing.”
27
THE FEATURELESS RED-BROWN BALL OF TITAN GREW LARGER AND flattened out into what
looked like a solid desert surface from the twelve-man flyer Hornet skimming
above the aerosol layer, where it had leveled out after its descent from orbit.
Zambendorf, clad in a helmetless EV suit, was sitting in the rear cabin,
brooding silently to himself over the latest events, while opposite him Vernon
Price gazed spellbound through one of the side ports at the rainbow-banded orb
of Saturn beyond Titan’s rim, seemingly floating half-submerged in the immense
plane of its ring system viewed almost edge-on.
Sgt. Michael O’Flynn had reacted with a singular display of imperturbability and
composure when Zambendorf asked for his advice on the best way to go about
stealing a vehicle to get down to the surface. “Now, they’re not exactly the
kind of thing you’d expect people to just walk away from and leave lying around
for anyone to help themselves to,” O’Flynn had said. “And besides, even if you
did get your hands on one, there’s nothing you could do with it. A surface
lander needs a minimum crew of four, all highly trained, and it couldn’t take
off without a preflight preparation routine by a regular ground team.”
“I’m not talking about a full-blown orbital shuttle, for God’s sake,” Zambendorf
had replied. “But what about a medium-haul personnel flyer—one of the small
ones? Couldn’t you pull one of those out of service and list it as being
withdrawn for maintenance or something?”
“But those are just surface flyers. They don’t make descents from orbit.”
“They could here, at a pinch,” Zambendorf had insisted. “With Titan’s low
gravity you could use one as a miniature lander … if you were to ignore
certain sections of NASO flight regulations and allowed the International Space
Transportation Regulatory Commission’s safety margins for wing loading and
thermal stress to slip a little.”
“Hmm . . . you seem to know what you’re talking about, I see. Now, where would
somebody like you have found out about things like that, I’m sitting here asking
meself.”
“Never mind. The question is, can you do it, Mike?”
“Well, maybe I can, and then again, maybe I can’t … But supposing for the
moment that I could, it would have to be for the hardware only, you understand.
I’m not in the headhunting business. You’d have to find your own pilot.”
“I think I can take care of that.”
O’Flynn had sounded surprised. “Oh, who . . . and with what qualifications?”
“Former combat maneuver instructor with the Air Force Suborbital Bomb Wing; two
years specializing in high-altitude attack and evasion tactics. Is that good
enough?”
“Begorrah, you’re kidding! Someone on your team?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see now … it would have to be Joe, the big black fella. Is that who it
is?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zambendorf replied, his eyes twinkling. “Anyway, you
wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You’d be surprised at some of the talent