James P Hogan. Inherit The Stars. Giant Series #1

won, only a handful would have been able to get away in the end; I

suppose they’d have been the ruling clique and its minions. Christ!

No wonder they needed good propaganda; they-”

Hunt stopped in midsentence and looked at Maddson with a curious

expression. “Just a minute-there’s something else in all this that

doesn’t add up.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “They had

already developed interplanetary travel-how else did they get to

our Moon?”

“We wondered that,” Maddson said. “The only thing we could think of

was that maybe they’d already figured on making for Earth

eventually-that had to be the obvious choice. Maybe they were

capable of sending a scouting group to stake the place out, but

didn’t have full-scale mass-transportation capacity yet. Probably

they weren’t too far away from their goal when they blew it.

Perhaps if they’d pooled their marbles at that point instead of

starting a crazy war over it, things might have been different.”

“Sounds plausible,” Hunt agreed. “So Charlie could have been part

of a reconnaissance mission sent on ahead, only the opposition had

the same idea and they bumped into each other. Then they started

blowing holes in our Moon. Disgraceful.”

A short silence ensued.

“There’s another thing I don’t get, either,” Hunt said, rubbing his

chin.

“What’s that?”

“Well, the opposition-the Lambians. Everybody in Navcomms is going

around saying that the war that clobbered Minerva was fought

between colonists from Earth-that must be Charlie’s lot, the

Cerians-and an alien race that belonged to Minerva-the Gan

ymeans, who, from what you said, would be the Lambians. We said a

moment ago that this idea of the Cerians being from Earth doesn’t

make sense, because if they had originated there, they wouldn’t be

trying to develop space ifight. We can’t be one hundred percent

certain of that because something unusual could have happened, such

as the colony being cut off for a few thousand years for some

reason. But you can’t say that about the Lambians; they couldn’t

have been neck-and-neck rivals trying to develop space flight.”

“They already had it, for sure,” Maddson completed for him. “We

sure as hell found them on Ganymede.”

“Quite. And that ship was no beginner’s first attempt, either. You

know, I’m beginning to think that whoever the Lambians were, they

weren’t Ganymeans.”

“I think you’re right,” Maddson confirmed. “The Ganymeans were a

totally different biological species. Wouldn’t you expect that if

they were the opposition in Lambia, somehow it would show up in the

Lunarian writings? But it doesn’t. Everything we’ve examined

suggests that the Cerians and the Lambians were simply different

nations of the same race. For example, we’ve found extracts from

what appear to be Cerian newspapers, which included political

cartoons showing Lambian figures; the figures are drawn as human

forms. That wouldn’t be so if the Lambians looked anything like the

Ganymeans must have looked.”

“So it appears the Ganymeans had nothing to do with the war,” Hunt

concluded.

“Right.”

“So where do they fit in?”

Maddson showed his empty palms. “That’s the funny thing. They don’t

seem to fit anywhere-at least, we haven’t even found anything that

looks like a reference to them.”

“Maybe they’re just a big red herring, then. I mean, we’ve only

supposed that they came from Minerva; nothing actually demonstrates

that they did. Perhaps they never had anything to do with the place

at all.”

“Could well be. But I can’t help feeling that. . .”

The chime on Maddson’s desk display console interrupted the

discussion. He excused himself and touched a button to accept the

call.

“Hi, Don,” said the face of Hunt’s assistant, upstairs in Group

L’s offices. “Is Vic there?” He sounded excited. Maddson swiveled

the unit around to point in Hunt’s direction.

“It’s for you,” he said needlessly.

“Vic,” said the face without preamble. “I’ve just had a look at the

reports of the latest tests that came in from Jupiter Four two

hours ago. That ship under the ice and the big guys inside it-

they’ve completed the dating tests.” He drew a deep breath. “It

looks like maybe we can forget the Ganymeans in all this Charlie

business. Vic, if all the figures are right, that ship has been

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