functioning. If the alien engineers were capable of efficient and purposeful
design at all— and some of the designs seemed astonishingly advanced—how could
they have let things get into such a state? It made no sense.
As the drones were sent lower to obtain telescopic close-ups both in infrared
and at normal wavelengths using flares and searchlights, the scientists
monitoring the views back in the Orion had waited breathlessly for their first
glimpse of an alien. But they never found any. There were thousands of
ingeniously conceived, freely mobile machines, to be sure, some of them
displaying extraordinary degrees of versatility and behavioral adaptability,
with all manner of types apparently specialized for just about every task
imaginable . . . but never once was there a trace of the aliens whose needs all
the activity was presumably intended to serve. Some of the scientists had
speculated that the aliens were too tiny to show up on the pictures. But if so,
why would they make machines that were so much larger? It didn’t add up. Maybe
the aliens lived below the surface and never came out, leaving the machines to
manage everything on the surface. Maybe they just stayed in their vegetable
houses all the time. Maybe . . . but nobody found such suggestions very
satisfying.
And then, as the scientists continued to study replays from all over Titan, they
began noticing something remarkable about a particular “species” of erect,
bipedal, vaguely humanoid robot that seemed to be represented everywhere to a
greater or lesser extent: Everything they seemed to do was unremarkably
familiar. Their patterns of coming and going in and out of the houses and about
the towns, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups, stopping occasionally upon
meeting others, were the same as could be seen in communities anywhere; they
tended plantations of odd-looking growths that in some ways resembled their
peculiar organic houses; they wore what looked like clothes; they herded flocks
of mechanical “animals,” and—more amazing still—were frequently seen to ride
them; they gathered in crowds, and there was an instance of two groups of them
fighting each other; and once or twice when the drones went too low, their
reactions showed every characteristic of fear, and occasionally, panic. In
short, as far as could be ascertained from pictures, they acted exactly as
people did.
Which explained, of course, why nobody was having any luck in finding aliens—at
least, not the flesh-and-blood or whatever-and-what-ever kinds of “conventional”
aliens that planetary biologists had speculated about for years.
Titan was inhabited by machines. It possessed an electromechanical biosphere
which included, apparently, a dominant species of culturally developed,
intelligent, and presumably self-aware robot. The scientists christened them the
Taloids, after Talos, the bronze man created by Hephaestus, the blacksmith son
of Hera and Zeus. But clearly Titan could never have evolved such a system from
nothing. So how had the machines come to be there? They had to be products of an
alien civilization that had either brought them to Titan or sent them there.
When? What for? Why Titan? Where were the aliens? Nobody had any answers. As
always, Titan had thrown up a new batch of mysteries as soon as the earlier ones
were resolved. Evidently it would be far from running low on its supply of them
for a while to come.
“Not only aliens; not only intelligent aliens; but intelligent, alien
machines—plus undreamed-of technology in virtually unlimited abundance, and a
whole new, geologically active world!” Gerold Massey turned back from facing a
wall of cable-runs and switchboxes in the generator bay inside the Orion’s
Service Module and spread his hands emphatically. “Probably the most staggering
discoveries within a century, and quite possibly within the entire history of
science. Now, that’s worth some time and effort . . . But Mars never happened.
There isn’t any place now for psychic paranonsense, surely.”
Zambendorf, leaning with arms folded against a stator housing, sent back a
scornful look. “You’re being presumptuous, Massey. And besides, you’re talking
about how I make my living, which I happen to find stimulating, entertaining,
and amply rewarding. I would say that’s worth a considerable amount of time and
effort.”
“And how about all the people who waste their minds and their lives thinking
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