Pacey turned his head from staring across the lake and grinned. “And maybe a few trees, huh? I think UNSA has got its work cut out for a while with the proposals for cooling down Venus and oxygenating Mars. Luna’s way down the list. Even if it weren’t, I’m not sure that anybody has come up with any good ideas for what they could do about it. But who knows? One day, maybe.”
The Russian sighed. “Perhaps we had such knowledge in the palm of our hand. We threw it away. Do you realize that we have witnessed what could be the greatest crime in human history? And perhaps the world will never know.”
Pacey nodded, waited for a second to assume a more businesslike manner, and asked, “So? . . . What’s the news?”
Sobroskin drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his head. “You were right about the coded signals from Gistar when you suspected that they were in response to an independent transmitting facility established by us,” he replied.
Pacey nodded without showing surprise. He knew that already from what Caldwell and Lyn Garland had revealed in Washington, but he couldn’t say so. “Have you found out how Verikoff and Sverenssen fit in?” he asked.
“I think so,” Sobroskin said. “They seem to be part of a global operation of some sort that was committed to shutting down communications of any kind between this planet and Thurien. They used the same methods. Verikoff is a member of a powerful faction that strongly opposed the Soviet attempt to open another channel. Their reasons were the same as the UN’s. As it turned out, they were taken by surprise before they could organize an effective block, and some transmissions were sent. Like Sverenssen, Verikoff was instrumental in causing additional messages to
be sent secretly, designed to frustrate the exercise. At least we think so. . . . We can’t prove it.”
Pacey nodded again. He knew that too. “Do you know what they said?” he inquired out of curiosity, although he had read Caldwell’s transcripts from Thurien.
“No, but I can guess. These people knew in advance that the relay to Gistar would deactivate. That says to me that they must have been responsible. Presumably they arranged it months ago with an independent launching organization, or maybe a part of UNSA that they knew they could trust. . . I don’t know. But my guess is that their strategy was to delay the proceedings via both channels until the relay was put out of action permanently.”
Pacey stared across the lake to an enclosed area of water on the far side in which crowds of children were swimming and playing in the sun. The sounds of shouting and laughter drifted across intermittently on the breeze. Apart from the confirmation of Verikoff’s involvement, he hadn’t learned anything new so far. “What do you make of it?” he asked without turning his head.
After a long, heavy silence, Sobroskin replied, “Russia had a tradition of tyranny through to the early years of this century. Ever since it threw off the yoke of Mongol subjugation in the fifteenth century, it was obsessed with preserving its security to the point that the security of other nations became a threat that could not be tolerated. It expanded its borders by conquest and held on to its acquired territories by oppression, intimidation, and terror. But the new lands in turn had borders, and there was no end to the process. Communism changed nothing. It was merely a banner of convenience for rallying gullible idealists and rationalizing sacrifice. Apart from a few brief months in 1917, Russia was no more Communist than the Church of the Middle Ages was Christian.”
He paused to fold his handkerchief and return it to his pocket. Pacey waited without speaking for him to continue. “We thought that all that began to change in the early decades of this century with the end of the threat of thermonuclear war and a more enlightened view of internationalism. And superficially it did. Many like myself dedicated themselves to creating a new climate of understanding and common progress with the West as it emerged from its own style of tyranny.” Sobroskin sighed and shook his head sadly. “But the Thurien affair has revealed that the