whose ability to read minds, foretell the future, influence distant events, and
divine information inaccessible to the human senses had been proved, the public
was assured, by repeated tests to be beyond the power of science to explain.
“Karl, I don’t like it,” Otto Abaquaan said from behind him. Zam-bendorf pursed
his lips and whistled silently to himself while he waited for Abaquaan to
continue. The exchange had become a ritual over the years they had worked
together. Abaquaan would voice all the reasons why they shouldn’t get involved
and couldn’t afford the risks, and Zam-bendorf would explain all the reasons why
they didn’t have any choice. Abaquaan would then reconsider, and eventually,
grudgingly, he would concede. Having disposed of the academic issues, they would
then proceed somehow to resolve the crisis. It happened that way about once a
week. Abaquaan went on, “We’d be out of our minds to get mixed up in it. The
whole situation would involve too much of the wrong kind of exposure. We don’t
need risks like that.”
Zambendorf turned away from the window and thrust out his chin. “It was reported
as if it were our idea in the first place, and it received a lot of news
coverage,” he said. “We can’t afford to be seen to back down now. On top of
that, it would destroy our credibility not only with a lot of the public, but
with GSEC . . . and GSEC can do us a lot of good, Otto. So the situation didn’t
work out as we expected. What’s new? We’re stuck with it, but we can handle it.”
Otto Abaquaan, a handsomely lean and swarthy Armenian with black hair, a droopy
mustache, and deep brown, liquid eyes, rubbed his nose with a knuckle while he
considered the statement, then shook his head and sighed. “Why the hell did you
have to get us into it, Karl? You said the GSEC Board would never take any
notice of a turkey like Hendridge. That was why the rest of us agreed to go
along with the crazy idea—because there would be all kinds of good publicity
opportunities when GSEC turned it down . . . you said.” He threw out his hands
and sent an exasperated look up to the ceiling. “But now what have we got? Mars!
… as if we didn’t have better things to do than go fooling around on Mars for
six months. Is there really no way we can get ourselves out of this?”
Zambendorf shrugged unconcernedly and showed his empty palms. “Certainly—we can
call the whole thing off and admit to the world that we never really expected
anybody to take us seriously . . . because that’s how they’ll see it. And as for
better things to do, well, maybe we could spend the time in better ways and
then, maybe not. Who knows? When was the last time a psychic operated from Mars?
The situation might turn out to have opportunities we never thought of.”
“Very philosophical,” Abaquaan commented, with less than wild enthusiasm. It was
all very well for Zambendorf to talk about grandiose schemes and opportunities;
it would be Abaquaan and the rest of the team who did the legwork.
“‘Philosophical,’ my dear Otto, is the state of mind one reverts to when unable
to change anything anyway. And that’s the situation we are in. In short, we
don’t have a choice.”
GSEC, General Space Enterprises Corporation, and NASO—the European-American
military and civilian North Atlantic Space Organization that had grown from a
merger of many of the former interests of NASA, ESA, and NATO—were funding
expansion of one of the pilot bases on Mars to test ideas on the organization of
extraterrestrial communities as a prelude to the construction of full-scale
colonies. A GSEC director by the name of Baines Hendridge—a long-standing true
believer in ESP and the “paranormal,” and a recent convert to the Zambendorf
cult—had proposed sending Zambendorf with the mission in order to perform the
first-ever tests of clairvoyance and psychic communication over interplanetary
distances, and to conduct ESP experiments in conditions free from terrestrial
“interference.” Zambendorf, confident that the GSEC Board would never go along
with the idea, had reacted with a show of enthusiasm, partly because anything