we’ve got between us in our little outfit.”
It had taken little imagination to see that supplying Terran weapons to the
inherently belligerent Paduans would completely destabilize the situation
between Padua and its neighboring states, and before very much longer the more
distant ones too. Other Taloid nations would seek similar weapons to secure
themselves against the threat of Paduan aggression—as indeed Genoa desired to do
already—and then others would feel threatened as those that hadn’t reequipped
their forces found themselves being intimidated by the ones that had. Eventually
all the Taloid states would be forced to follow suit, and in the process they
would be progressively reduced to a condition of vassal-dependency on Earth,
which would thus be able to negotiate separately with each on terms of its own
choosing. It was an old, familiar pattern, which earlier centuries on Earth had
seen repeated many times over.
Massey had composed a message summarizing the main points and had it transmitted
to Conlon via his private NASO channel. Eight hours later a reply stated that
Conlon had confronted some of the senior NASO officials with the allegations,
but their version of the facts, as advised from GSEC’s political liaison office
in Washington, was very different. It said, in effect, that Padua was a peaceful
nation whose leaders aspired toward Western democratic ideals, and that the
limited aid being given by the mission had been requested by the Paduan
authorities to combat incursions upon their territory from Genoa—an illegally
imposed rebel regime—and to relieve Paduan religious minorities who were being
persecuted within the Genoese borders. The decision to grant the request was
seen as a goodwill gesture that would help establish cordial and cooperative
future relationships. The situation back on Earth was still confused,
apparently, and would take a long time to resolve itself, especially in view of
the long turnaround of communications to Saturn. Zambendorf had not been
prepared to wait. “We’re not going to get any sense out of them for days,” he
had told Massey. “You’d better stay on the line here and keep in touch as things
develop. I’m going down to Titan to talk to Arthur.”
“What do you think you’re going to do, even if you manage to find some way of
getting down there?” Massey had asked.
“I have no idea, Gerry, but there’s no way I’m going to sit up here with this
kind of thing going on.”
Zambendorf’s thoughts were interrupted by Clarissa Eidstadt’s summons over the
intercom from the forward compartment. “Karl, can you get up here a minute?
We’ve got problems.”
Price turned away from the port and watched uneasily as Zambendorf stood up,
stepped carefully round the team’s recently completed second transmogrifier box,
and moved forward to the open doorway at the front of the cabin. Clarissa
glanced back at him from the captain’s seat, while in the copilot’s position
Otto Abaquaan was flipping switches frantically in front of an array of data
displays and readouts that were obviously unfamiliar to him. “It’s no good,”
Abaquaan said, shaking his head. “I can’t get the midrange to scale, and the
monitor recall has aborted. This isn’t making any sense.”
“What’s wrong?” Zambendorf asked.
“We’re losing it,” Clarissa said. There was a problem in fixing the flyer’s
position from the electronic navigation grid transmitted from the satellites
that the Orion had deployed shortly after arriving at Titan. Clarissa had warned
that it might happen without an experienced copilot-navigator to calibrate the
on-board reference system to the shifting satellite pattern as the flyer
descended. “We know we’re somewhere near where we need to go down through the
muck, but we don’t have a fine-tuned fix.”
“No go?” Zambendorf asked, looking at Abaquaan.
Abaquaan spread his hands. “Sorry, Karl. I thought I had it down okay when we
went through the routine up on the ship, but I guess it needs more practice.”
“It was worth a try,” Clarissa murmured.
“It’s not your fault there wasn’t more time, Otto,” Zambendorf said and turned
to Clarissa. “How serious is it? Can you take care of it?”
“Sure, but not while I’m flying this thing too. The easiest thing to do would be
to put down someplace and reinitiate the full sequence on the ground, without