gifted with some abnormal abilities.” He eyed Massey for a moment as if the rest
should have been too obvious to require spelling out. “Well, I think Zambendorf
is part of a classified Western research program to match the Soviets in
harnessing paranormal phenomena … or maybe even to counter the Soviets. That
could be why they’re sending Zambendorf to Mars.” Massey stared at him
glassy-eyed, but before he could say anything, Wade added triumphantly, “And
that would explain why the military is here—to secure the project from possible
interference from the Soviets at Solis Lacus. Have you heard about that yet?”
Massey nodded. “We were told they’re coming with us to do some training under
extraterrestrial conditions . . . that the Pentagon bought some places on the
ship at the last moment or something.”
Wade shook his head. “Cover story. Do you know how many there are of them? There
were three shuttle-loads disembarking when I came aboard—U.S. Special Forces, a
British commando unit, French paratroopers. That’s not a few seats bought at the
last minute. That was scheduled a long time ago . . . And they’re docked at the
stem, which means they’re unloading heavy equipment.” He produced a lighter and
watched Massey over his pipe while he puffed it into life. “In fact it wouldn’t
surprise me if the idea was to provoke a confrontation with the Soviets at Lacus
in order to take their base out. Maybe our people are onto things that you and I
haven’t even dreamed about.”
Massey slumped back and looked away numbly. Surely nobody at the Pentagon or
wherever was taking the nonsense about the Soviets that seriously . . . But then
again, large sectors of the government and private bureaucracies were dominated
by political and economic ideologists incapable of distinguishing sound
scientific reasoning from pseudo-scientific twaddle, yet commanding authority
out of all proportion to their competence. If they listened to kooks like Wade,
they could end up believing anything. Surely the insane rivalry that had
paralyzed meaningful progress over much of Earth for generations wasn’t about to
be exported to another world over something as ridiculous as the “paranormal.”
Massey stared again at the blue-green image of Earth with its stirred curdling
of clouds. Somehow the human race had to get it into its collective head that it
couldn’t rely on magical forces or omnipotent guardians to protect it from its
own stupidity. Man would have to trust in his own intelligence, reason, and
ability to look after himself. The decision was in his own hands. If he chose to
eradicate himself, the rest of Earth’s biosphere—far more resilient than popular
mythology acknowledged—would hardly notice the difference, and then not for very
long. And as for the rest of the cosmos, stretching away for billions of
light-years behind Earth’s rim, the event of man’s extinction would be no more
newsworthy than the demise of a community of microbes caused by the drying up of
a puddle somewhere in Outer Mongolia.
9
“AH, LET ME SEE NOW . . . WHEN I WAS A BOY OF ABOUT SIXTEEN, it must have been.
‘Pat,’ me father says to himself. ‘With them Americans walking around on the
Moon itself and flying them hotels up in the sky, that’s the place you should be
for your sons to grow up in.’ So we ups and moves the whole family to Brooklyn
where me uncle Seamus and all was already living, and that’s where the rest of
them still are today.” Sgt. Michael O’Flynn of the NASO Surface Vehicle
Maintenance Unit reversed his feet, which were propped up on the littered metal
desk in his cubbyhole at the rear of a cavernous cargo bay, and raised his paper
cup for another sip of the brandy that Zambendorf had produced from a hip flask.
He had a solid, stocky body that seemed as broad as it was long beneath the
stained NASO fatigues, and his face was fiery pink and beefy, with clear blue
eyes half-hidden beneath wiry, unruly eyebrows, and a shock of rebellious hair
in which yellow and red struggled for dominance, each managing to get the better
of the other in different places. O’Flynn spoke through pearly white teeth