CRADLE OF SATURN BY JAMES P. HOGAN

He didn’t know. But the effort of thinking about it gradually brought the realization that even if a mental switch were to flip and reveal that going to Kronia was a decision he had already unconsciously taken, suffering defeat here first wasn’t necessary as a pretext for a motive. If going there was what he wanted, then that was good enough. In other words, there was no reason why he shouldn’t win the battle here first, and still go anyway—and with Earth committed to full cooperation, the prospective future out at Kronia would be immeasurably more promising.

He liked that way of looking at things, he decided. Thereafter, his demeanor brightened considerably. His optimism regarding the forthcoming Washington conference climbed again, and the atmosphere in the offices of Protonix returned to its normal level of productive geniality.

20

The Kronian hearings had been in progress for two days, staged in the conference theater of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s new building on New York Avenue. The active participants fell into three broad categories: the Kronian delegation and Terran scientists from various places and disciplines who supported their position; specialized committees representing the prevalent scientific opinions on Earth in such areas as Solar System astronomy, recent geology, Ice Age chronology, climatology, cultural mythology, and the other subjects under debate; and an assortment of political advisors and delegates concerned with the policies that would come out of it all—potentially international in scope, although it seemed agreed that the lead set by the United States would be generally followed. The move to have two of Hu’s scientists from JPL added to the astronomy committee had been contested on the grounds that it would produce internal divisiveness. The committee chairman—Herbert Voler—had concurred and upheld the previously agreed arrangement.

These groups occupied three sections in the front part of the auditorium. The dais facing the room had been furnished with a panel table to accommodate the group concerned with the current topic, and a podium for a principal speaker. Some seats and tables in the center at the front were reserved for the current AAAS president, Irwin Schatz, a physics Nobel Laureate, who was nominally hosting and chairing the event, along with several officials from major scientific agencies and their administrative assistants. The rows across the middle were taken up by journalists, science correspondents, and reporters. The remainder of the hall was by invitation only for anyone with the right connections who had managed to get a pass. Since the event had as much to do with world policymaking and public opinion as with science, there were lots of cameras and microphones around.

Although the work that Keene and Jerry Allender had been involved in was not scheduled for discussion until the third day, they had been present from the beginning. Keene recognized a number of familiar faces from his dealings over the years and was able to catch up on events with some of them in the chat room between formal sessions. Also, he noticed Leo Cavan putting in an intermittent presence, usually in a seat to the side of the hall or standing near one of the doors.

So far, the floor had largely been ceded to the Kronians to recapitulate the work that had led them to their conclusions. Practically all of the material they cited had been available before, but—apart from the more sensational items that the media had been popularizing since Athena appeared—fragmented among specialized journals and for the most part obscure. Gallian had wanted it all consolidated for the record, and there were really no grounds on which that could be denied. They went over the parallels between ancient accounts of terrestrial disruptions and violent celestial events, and the implied connection with cataclysms written into the geological and biological records. They pointed to the evidence for major disturbances to both the Moon and Mars in recent times as showing that the upheavals on Earth had been caused by some external agency, and hence the cherished notion of a stable and orderly Solar System was in error. Finally, they recounted the reasons for supposing that agency to have been an earlier Athena-like object ejected from Jupiter, which had since evolved into the planet Venus.