the hallway inside the front door. “And remember, don’t go getting in the way or
making a nuisance of yourself,” she said as Morayak put on his coat. “You are a
very lucky and privileged young robeing to be invited to the residence of
Kleippur. Don’t let your father down, now.”
“I won’t,” Morayak promised.
“I’m sure you have no cause to worry,” Thirg said.
Thirg and Morayak left the house and climbed up beside Lofbayel, and Kersenia
stood in the doorway to see them off as the cart turned onto the roadway in the
direction of the city. It was good, Thirg thought to himself, to see the family
living free and without fear, with Lofbayel pursuing his studies openly and able
to teach at last in the way he had always wanted. He wondered if what he was
seeing could be an omen of things to come on a larger scale for the whole
robeing race. For the Lumians seemed to respect freedom and knowledge, and to
share generally the values that Thirg felt Kleippur and his vision for Carthogia
symbolized. Could the Lumians be offering a new future of opportunity for all
robeings, just as Carthogia offered a new future of opportunity for Thirg, and
for Lofbayel and his family? Would the old ways of the whole world of Robia now
fade into the past and be forgotten, just as Kroaxia was already fading into
their personal pasts and being forgotten?
So possibly the priests and the Scribings had been right after all in a way,
Thirg thought to himself. If the Lumians were indeed the Lifemaker, then perhaps
the Lifemaker did offer salvation from the toil and drudgery of worldly life …
not in some hereafter world, however, but in this one—simply by taking the toil
and the drudgery out of it. That would seem the eminently sensible and simple
way of accomplishing such an objective, after all. Why would a
Lifemaker—especially one as intelligent and all-powerful as the priests were
always depicting—choose to do things the difficult way?
But Thirg had learned from long and bitter experience not to let his hopes run
too high about anything. There was always too much that could go wrong, and
usually it found a way of managing to. He wondered if lifemaking Skybeings had
the same problem.
“What he’s doing is not compatible with the policy objectives that have been
confirmed from Earth,” Daniel Leaherney said to Caspar Lang, on the Orion, “Also
I’ve been getting complaints that his style is interfering with the ability of
the personnel who are properly empowered to handle our relationships with the
aliens to discharge their duties in an effective manner. Can I leave it to you
to straighten the situation out?”
“What you mean is that Giraud’s developing an inferiority complex because the
Taloids take more notice of Zambendorf than they do of him, Seltzman doesn’t
feel he’s getting all the glory he should be getting, and someone stuffy among
the scientific chiefs—probably Weinerbaum—is getting jealous and thinks his
dignity’s being threatened,” Lang said. He was getting just a little bit tired
of having to stay up in the ship all the time, taking care of everyone else’s
problems.
Leaherney exhaled a long breath and snapped, “Look, that psychic is getting in
everyone’s hair and taking over the show down there as if this whole mission had
been put together for no other reason than to boost his act. Your corporation
sent him here, Caspar, and it’s your responsibility to keep him under control.
So read it any way you like, but I want something done about it.”
An hour later Lang, feeling even more incensed after Leaherney’s
uncharacteristic outburst, was looking grim-faced across his desk at Osmond
Periera. “Where’s the schedule of the experiments you were supposed to be
carrying out with Zambendorf?” he demanded.
Periera looked flummoxed. “What? Why, er . . . I thought that was just part of
the Mars cover story. I thought—”
“The corporation isn’t paying you to think; it’s paying you to know,” Lang
fumed. “Have you any idea how much it’s cost to bring you people this distance?
My understanding was that you are here to investigate a serious scientific