against the background darkness.
“I don’t see Tango Baker Two anywhere,” Abaquaan said, turning in his seat to
scan the immense, squat, stubby-winged forms of the surface landers, parked amid
floodlit clutters of service gantries, maintenance platforms, cargo hoists, and
access ramps on the far side of the fence. “Andy and the boys must have gone
back up to the ship already.”
“Well, at least they should have come out of it all with their noses clean,”
Zambendorf answered.
“Let’s hope so.”
After snatching Moses from the cliff at Padua, Zambendorf had decided to fly
directly to Camelot, Arthur’s residence, to deliver Moses safely into the
Genoese care and reunite him with his brother, Galileo, before the team gave
itself up to the Terran authorities at Genoa Base. The Genoese had insisted,
however, on making the occasion one for all kinds of elaborate farewell
formalities which had involved seemingly half the Taloids in the country, and
the team had remained there, resting and eating in the flyer, for fully
twenty-four hours. To minimize the risk of the proceedings’ being distastefully
interrupted, the team had maintained a strict communications blackout, omitting
even to contact Massey and Thelma, since a genuine ignorance of the team’s
whereabouts would be less likely to compromise their position in the face of
questioning by Leaherney’s people. Finally, to round everything off in style,
Arthur had proposed a grand procession across the city to carry the team to the
Terran base; not wishing to risk unwittingly giving any offense, Zambendorf had
accepted the offer, leaving the flyer parked in Arthur’s rear courtyard to be
collected later by its rightful owners.
It had been a good try, Zambendorf thought to himself, and even if in the final
part of it all they hadn’t succeeded in rendering Padua completely harmless, at
least the nation of Genoa had been kept intact for the time being. He could only
hope that the team’s gesture would attract enough attention to cause the
mission’s directors to have second thoughts about the whole question of
Terran-Taloid relationships, and hopefully would stimulate a more enlightened
outlook among the policymakers on Earth. And if it turned out that he had soured
his backers and promoters sufficiently to permanently impair his career, then
that was just too bad. He had stood by the principles that mattered on his own
scale of values and had achieved something that he believed worthwhile. He had
done as much as anyone could have, and the future could take its course. He had
no regrets.
“See how brightly the violet halos shine around the Lumian flying-ships,”
Kleippur said from beside the Wearer. “Dost thou still see them as magic beasts
sent from heaven, Groork?”
Groork shook his head. “Nor the Lumians as angels. What more dismal a prospect
could be imagined than that all the universe’s knowledge could be contained in
one ancient book? Nothing new to discover? Nothing more to be learned? Never
again the excitement of exploring the unknown? How pathetic is the future that
some would wish upon themselves!”
“Your future, at least, promises to be a busy one,” Thirg said. “The answers to
the questions that I hear you asking now will not spin themselves into skeins of
words as effortlessly as before, however, I fear.”
“Maybe so, but thou shalt see that my energies are undiminished, and the
mystic’s passion is not quenched but merely redirected,” Groork replied
confidently.
“The application of this industriousness to the studies into which thou hast
declared intent to launch thyself will show interesting results indeed, if my
prognostications serve me well,” Kleippur commented.
“I do not doubt it,” Thirg said, sighing. He still hadn’t recovered fully from
the astonishment with which he had learned of Groork’s escapades in the
Meracasine and at Pergassos, and his even greater amazement at observing his
brother transformed into a staunch advocate of the methods of impartial
questioning and objective inquiry. Now that Groork had flown through the sky,
his latest passion was to view firsthand the other worlds that Thirg had told
him about, and he had been pestering the Wearer for an opportunity to go on one
of the voyages that the Lumian flying-ships made to the Great Ship beyond the