“Wait,” Mackeson called over the radio. They stopped and looked back. “Trying to
communicate it all to the Taloids through just that box would be a hell of a
tedious business,” Mackeson said. He waved an arm to indicate an open extension
built onto the end of the administration building just ahead. “That annex is our
meeting room for Taloid talks, and communications equipment is installed there.
We’d get along a lot faster if we brought Arthur and his friends inside where we
can show them some pictures too.”
“That sounds good,” Zambendorf agreed. Abaquaan nodded, and they started walking
back again.
Mackeson switched his suit radio to another channel. “Mackeson to Captain Mason
at the gate. Bring the Taloids there inside, would you, and have them escorted
to the admin block annex. Also put a call through to the duty controller and
have the lights switched on in the annex and a couple of communications techs
suited up and sent out. It looks as if we’re going to have an impromptu
conference.”
Fifteen minutes later, Zambendorf was standing in the center of a mixed group of
Terrans and Taloids inside the annex, staring wide-eyed and speechless at the
scene being transmitted from a NASO reconnaissance drone hovering over Padua
city. It was a telescopic view of an evidently wild procession that stretched
from one end of the city to the other. Thousands of Taloids were involved,
festively dressed, singing, dancing, waving pennants, bearing banners, and
playing musical instruments. The ecstasy and rejoicing could be felt from the
pictures.
But most astonishing was the shape that seemed to be the centerpiece of the
whole celebration, which was being pulled along on a large, elaborately
decorated and draped, mobile platform by several dozen Taloids fanned out ahead
and hauling lines. As best Zambendorf could estimate from the size of the
Taloids moving alongside, it stood about ten feet high and seemed to be
fashioned from some metal that gave it a reddish hue. There could be no
mistaking what it represented: It was a wrench—an immense, painstakingly
rendered, replica of a standard toolbox wrench. And immediately behind the
platform bearing the Sacred Wrench, a huge banner was being carried on which
were written crudely but recognizably the mystic symbols U.S. GOVERNMENT.
“Good heavens! Did we do that?” Zambendorf said disbelievingly.
“Those are the guys that Arthur was so worried about?” Joe Fellburg asked in a
weak voice. “He doesn’t have any problems now. It’s all over down there.”
Abaquaan shook his head dazedly. “I’m not seeing this. Somebody tell me it isn’t
real.”
“Well, Caspar Lang told Karl way back that he wanted him to sell Moses in
Padua,” Drew West reminded everybody. He shrugged and tossed out his hands. “So
he got what he wanted—Moses went over real big. Is it our fault if Caspar
miscalculated the effects?”
“That sure was some act, Karl,” Vernon complimented. “You know, I don’t think
even Gerry could top that one.”
Clarissa looked at the screen again and wrinkled her nose. “And before anyone
tells the president, the answer’s positively no,” she told everybody. “There’s
no way I’m gonna try a repeat performance over Moscow—just no way!”
Thirg, Kleippur, and Groork exchanged awed looks. “Do I understand this news
correctly?” Kleippur said. “The Wearer is not to be imprisoned? Already word of
the injustices of the Great Ship’s king have reached the mightier kings of
Lumia, and they have sent orders by which he and his lieutenants have been
dismissed?”
Thirg nodded slowly. “Now, methinks, we see the Wearer’s plan unfolding in its
entirety,” he said. “Carthogia saved and free from further threat of
molestation; Eskenderom and Frennelech undone; Kroaxia pacified and reduced to
harmlessness within a single bright; . . . and now within the Lumian house
itself, the would-be architects of havoc exposed and vanquished. Indeed these
are powerful champions that good fortune hath appointed as our allies.”
“Carthogia shall be free to pursue its quest for knowledge, and its borders
shall be always open to true inquirers from all nations,” Kleippur declared.
“Thus shall the works of all be concerted, our resources directed to enterprises
of constructiveness, and one day robeings shall, through their own dilligence