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