A gray-haired woman, president of an archaeological society in Vancouver, agreed. “It has taken centuries to establish reliable methods and standards for disentangling fact from fancy. I agree with Dr. Ledden. This kind of thing will probably sell some Sunday supplements, and we’re going to be hearing a lot about it in the news, but it has no place in science.”
“So you’re saying we should be good hosts and neighbors, but not get carried away by this,” the moderator checked sagely.
“Exactly.”
That line seemed to be the consensus of the others. The converse view—rather timidly put, Keene thought—came from a historian and author somewhere in England. “I hesitate to cast the dissenting vote here, but is it unthinkable that peoples of ancient times might have described events that they actually witnessed, and maybe have something important to tell us?”
“It’s scandalous that we should even be discussing this!” Ledden fumed. “Why are people who call themselves scientists concerning themselves with Biblical quotations? Are we going to be talking about walking on water and dead bodies coming back to life next? The Kronian phenomenon grew from a quasi-religious cult. This whole business is an attempt to give credibility to scriptures by means of concocted pseudoscience. Very possibly there’s fundamentalist money behind it. They’ve got to be supporting themselves out there somehow.”
Keene grew more perplexed as he listened. The Kronians had never made any appeal to scriptural beliefs. They used Biblical references purely as accounts of historical events, and then only where corroborated by other sources. The Englishman tried to make that point but was ineffective.
* * *
Barney’s TV crew showed up on time, but the interview, conducted on the grassy riverbank at the back of the hotel, was aimed too much at trying to provoke Keene into admissions of the dangers of nuclear devices in space. The journalist who arrived afterward had a more balanced approach, but they got deeper into technicalities than Keene had anticipated and ran out of time, arranging to continue over breakfast the next morning. Finally, Keene boarded the cab that had arrived to take him to the Engleton.
“So how was your day?” the cabbie asked over his shoulder as they pulled out from under the lobby canopy.
“Never a dull moment,” Keene told him with feeling. “How about you?”
“Aw, not so bad. You know how it is. Just a couple of years more of this to bring a bit more money in, and then it’s retirement. Just me and the wife now. We figure we’ll move to Colorado. Got some grandkids there. Mountains, scenery. Nice place to take it easy.”
“Sounds great,” Keene said from the back seat. Sometimes he had to remind himself that most people—probably the vast majority on the planet—didn’t think too much about Athena, or care—one way or the other.
10
The Kronian mission, along with the security and administrative staff attending them, were on the top two floors of the Engleton, which had restricted access from the general part of the hotel and was one of the regular accommodations for official visitors to the city. In all, there were twelve delegates and eight crew members, the numbers having been kept low to leave capacity for the Osiris to carry emigrants back on the return trip. Some of the crew, however, had been left to maintain a skeleton presence on the ship and would get their chance to come down to the surface later.
On arriving, Keene went straight up to the eighth floor as he had been directed and checked with the security people in room 809. A personable young man in a dark suit verified that he was expected and escorted him to one of the larger suites on the floor above, where two more security men in suits admitted them through the doors. From the hubbub of voices, the party was evidently already in progress. Keene recognized the white-haired figure of Gallian, the leader of the Kronian delegation, seated a short distance inside, talking to an Oriental couple who looked as if they had also just arrived—apparently he was greeting everyone personally. Gallian spotted Keene and waved him over, introducing the couple as a Japanese space-technology administrator and his wife. He apologized for the unusual way of receiving guests. “It’s the gravity, of course—and then two days of functions and presentations on top of it. Your people are working us hard already. But anyway, why am I making excuses? At my age one doesn’t need any excuses.” Keene grinned, told Gallian that he didn’t know how many times this had been said already but ” . . . welcome to Earth,” and shook hands heartily. The Japanese couple exchanged pleasantries and were then ushered on to meet others in the room by another Kronian, who Gallian said was Thorel, from the Osiris’s regular crew, and who must have stood at around seven feet.