they’re going to become supermen—have you asked them if they think so too?”
“I don’t have to,” Zambendorf said. “They’ve already shown what they think—by
how they choose to spend their own time and their own money. They’re free-acting
individuals in a free society. Why do you insist on making their well-being your
business?”
“When I have to live surrounded by mass-produced morons, it is my business,”
Massey retorted. “We’ve got scientists emigrating in droves. Japanese power
plants are driving half of what’s left of our industries. This ship wouldn’t be
here if it weren’t for the Europeans … I mean, Christ!—don’t you care what
you’re doing?”
“Why single me out?” Zambendorf demanded, straightening up and sounding angry
suddenly. “Do you think I made people the way they are? I merely accept them as
I find them, and if they have failed to develop the sense that would serve them
better, or if society has failed to educate them in the use of it, why am I
supposed to be the one to blame? Why don’t you complain at our so-called
educators, or the media mind-puppeteers, or the political dummies who read
opinion polls like horoscopes instead of doing something to influence them?
Protecting fools from their own stupidity will not make them wiser, Massey. It
merely spares them any need even to be aware of the fact that they’re fools,
which is hardly the best way to begin curing anything. When I find I am unable
to make a living, that is when people will have learned something. In the
meantime, don’t expect apologies from me.”
“Ah . . . you’re admitting you’re a fake at last, are you?” Massey inquired,
looking mildly amused.
Zambendorf calmed down at once and sniffed disdainfully. “Don’t be absurd. I
admit no such thing.”
“So why did GSEC send you here? I wonder,” Massey said, ignoring the denial.
“Because I know, and I know you know, that Ramelson and the other GSEC people
who matter aren’t interested in any paranormal claptrap. So their real purpose
can’t have anything to do with your supposed powers, can it?” He waited for a
few seconds but Zambendorf made no reply; either Zambendorf wasn’t certain of
the real answer himself, or he wasn’t saying anything. “Want to know what I
think?” Massey asked.
“Very well, since you are obviously determined to tell me anyway.”
Massey moved a pace forward and made an openhanded gesture. “Under our system of
nominal democracy, He Who Would Shape Public Opinion doesn’t need to be King.
Society can be controlled indirectly through manipulation of the mass vote. So
most people are conditioned practically from birth to have their opinions on
anything dispensed to them in the same way they get their deodorants and
prescription drugs —secondhand from TV role-models and celebrity images that
have been carefully engineered to be easy to relate to.”
“Hmph . . .” Zambendorf snorted and paced away across the steel floorplates to
halt in front of a ladder leading up to a catwalk overhead. What Massey was
saying was uncomfortably close to his own reading between the lines of some of
the things Caspar Lang had been saying since the Orion’s departure from Earth.
Massey went on, “That’s what I figure you are—a general-purpose bludgeon to mold
a large sector of public thinking, and therefore to help shape official U.S.
policies in a direction calculated to best serve GSEC’s interests.”
“I see. Very interesting,” Zambendorf commented.
“Think about it,” Massey urged. “They knew from the Dauphin pictures that there
was an alien civilization here, but nobody knew what kind of civilization. GSEC
has a tough competitive situation globally; the West is still stalemated after
grappling with the Cold War for decades. . . . Just think what the chance of
exclusive access to advanced alien technology must have meant—and very probably
still does! In other words, the response of the U.S. and major European
governments to what happens here at Titan could turn out to be some of the most
important legislation ever passed in history . . . and we’re well on our way to
seeing it being decided by a kookocracy.”
“You’re being neurotic,” Zambendorf said impatiently. “Every generation has been