“Take seats anywhere,” Sindri instructed.
“Why?” demanded Grant.
“Entertainment and education, a blend that cannot be beat.”
Reluctantly they sat down in the chairs, the trolls seating themselves behind them. Sindri climbed to the stage, standing in the center of it. They saw he held a small remote-control box in his left hand, and his thumb pressed one of its buttons. He was instantly cast in a halo of light from one of the overhead fixtures.
Clasping his hands atop the silver knob of his cane, he cleared his throat and stentoriously announced,
“What you are about to see is a presentation made midway in the year 2000, for the oversight funding committee of Overprojects Excalibur and Majestic. Crafted by state-of-the art holographic artists, its sole aim was to impress visiting dignitaries so they would increase the operational budget of the Cydonia Compound. I’m not sure if they ever saw it.
“Certainly, I know it by heart. After you’ve sat through it, hopefully you will know my heart and find it within yours not to judge my actions too harshly.”
He bowed his head humbly for a moment. Kane wondered if he was waiting for a round of applause.
As Sindri left the stage, shimmering veils of multicolored light sprang up, expanding to encompass its entire length and breadth. The light shifted in color and shape. One moment the stage was empty, and in the next a man stepped forward. He was completely three-dimensional, and his sudden appearance surprised and confused Kane for a moment. His attention seemed narrowed to a point in the theater slightly to the left and behind Brigid.
The man was fairly young and prosperous, judging by the slight fleshiness around his chin. His dark hair was neatly combed, and his features bore an Asian cast. He wore a tailored one-piece bodysuit of a deep red. The words Cydonia One were worked in yellow thread upon the breast. He looked slightly familiar to Kane.
“I am Dr. Kuo Liang, the overseer of Project Sigma and now serving as a special scientific liaison between Overprojects Majestic and Excalibur.”
At the introduction, Kane recognized him. In the disastrous mission to the past, he and Brigid had briefly seen Kuo Liang in Lakesh’s company on New Year’s
Eve, 2000. But that had been only a version of this man, in an alternate temporal plane.
“I bid all of you the warmest of welcomes to Mars,” Kuo Liang continued. “At this time of year, I imagine you don’t find it all that different from Washington.”
He paused, smiling, waiting for an anticipated wave of appreciative laughter to die down.
“Oh, fucking fireblast,” Grant half groaned, scuffling his feet on the floor.
Sindri sat down beside him, whispering fiercely, “Hush! No talking while the feature is in progress. You’ll disturb the other patrons.”
The hologram of Kuo Liang nodded to the audience politely. “Yes, I am aware that some of you find our undertaking here frightfully costly, especially after the Soviets withdrew their support. I also know how difficult adjusting the budgets to keep this project hidden from congressional bean counters can be. However, the progress we have made here in the last decade makes the expenditure of every dime more than worth it. But enough of words. Pictures speak far louder. Ladies and gentlemen… I gi ve you… Mars !”
Kuo Liang vanished instantly, swallowed up in a blaze of light and a brassy musical fanfare, full of horns and heavy kettle drums. Sindri waved his cane in time to the music, as if he were conducting an orchestra.
The three-dimensional image of a rust red planet appeared on the stage, swelling to fill it, seeming to speed toward them. Even though they were sitting down, they had the impression of soaring over a vista of huge craters, mountain ranges, channels cutting through arid ground and dead sea bottoms.
A deep male voice, in rich mahogany tones, declaimed, “Mars, named after the Roman god of war, the fourth planet in orbit from the sun, smaller than Earth, only 4,212 miles in diameter. The oxides trapped in surface mineral deposits give the planet its red tint in the evening sky. Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars is uniqueit alone can change its axial direction in space by as much as twenty-four degrees.”