afflictions that you see.”
“How knowest thou it is this Thirg whom we should seek?” Ezimbial asked. “Does
he carry some special qualification of eminence among Kleippur’s inquirers that
sets him apart as the object of our quest?”
“None less than that of being the Enlightener’s brother,” the Renamer replied.
“The Enlightener has a brother in Carthogia!” Ezimbial’s eyes widened. “Indeed
Kleippur’s realm is the Promised Land of the Scribings, and artisans have been
congregating thither from the corners of the world to build the Temple that was
prophesied.”
Just to be sure, the Renamer activated the enchanted plant and said into it, “Is
it our quest to seek Thirg, Asker-of-Questions, who was born brother to the holy
Enlightener?”
The plant replied, “Unclear hiss-buzz what-mean ‘brother.’ Want-say alternative
hoo-whoo-bonk-bonk. Else obtain new word.”
The Renamer couldn’t bring an alternative to mind immediately, and instructed,
“Obtain new word.”
“EQUIVALENT ENGLISH WORD-FORM BEING REQUESTED,” the screen advised Abaquaan.
“Oh hell, can’t we wrap this up?” Andy Schwartz said. “I’ve gotta get the ship
up to flight readiness. There’s a lot to do.”
“Give them a few more minutes,” Vernon said. “How often do you get a chance to
talk to people like these?”
Abaquaan eyed Vernon through his faceplate, nodded with a sigh, and instructed
the transmogrifier, “Okay.”
“Pray describe,” the plant invited the Renamer.
“Male child bom of common parenthood,” the Renamer said after a few seconds’
thought. “The relationship thereof to either another male child, or to a female
child.”
The screen presented:
FUNCTION SUBJECT ADDITIONAL DATA
Personal relationship Male child, same parents To another male/female
child
Abaquaan told the machine simply, “Brother.”
Back at the ship, the others had just arrived below the stair-head platform
outside the midships lock. “I’ve got a hunch that Caspar still doesn’t realize
we’ve got the flyer too,” Zambendorf was saying. “Certainly there’s no question
that the lander would have been a sitting duck over Padua, but the flyer’s a lot
smaller and more maneuverable. When the lander’s picked people on radar up
flying back to Genoa, everyone will be off their guard and not expecting us to
show up anywhere else. I think there’s an excellent chance we’d be able to pull
off a quick dash in and out at rooftop level in the flyer.”
“I go along with Karl,” Drew West said as he began climbing up to the platform.
“We sent Moses in there. Trying to get him out again is the least we can do.
It’s worth a try.”
“Sure, but it’s not the sentiment I’m arguing with, it’s the practicality.”
Clarissa answered. “It’s all right to talk about excellent chances, but you’ve
never tried dodging those missiles, and I have. I’m telling you it’s not a piece
of cake.”
“We don’t know what’s happening in Padua—if anything is, or when, or even where
Moses is,” Joe Fellburg pointed out. “Exactly what would we be supposed to do—at
what place, and at what time?”
“I don’t know either, but we can find out,” Zambendorf said. “There has to have
been a lot of talking going on between Leaherney’s people and Henry. There might
be records of the dialogues stored in the files where Dave Crookes or somebody
could get at them. Maybe we’d pick up some clues that way. Or possibly we could
find out who the transmogrifier operators are at Padua. They might have heard
something. I don’t know—All I’m saying is that we should give it a try rather
than just quit.”
“Mmm, maybe …” Fellburg murmured. He didn’t sound wildly enthusiastic. He’d
had some experience with smart missiles too.
At that moment there was a click on the circuit as somebody switched through to
a medium-range channel, and Vernon’s voice came through excitedly from back at
the Taloid camp. “Hey, Karl, everybody, don’t go away—listen to this. We’ve just
learned something from Nelson that maybe changes everything. He assumed we
already knew about it because these guys think we know everything. Anyway … it
seems that Moses is Galileo’s brother!”
Fifteen minutes later, back inside the ship, Zambendorf called Thelma in the
Orion and asked her to beam the call back down to the surface to connect to the