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III
The Computer That Discovered
The Supernatural

22

It was one of those rare times when Zambendorf seemed close to losing his self-control. His face glowed pink, his eyes blazed, and his beard bristled as he stood in Weinerbaum's office at Genoa Base, holding out the piece of paper that had brought him marching in a few minutes earlier. "It's due here in just over a week!" he stormed. "What are they trying to achieve by this? It will negate everything my people have been doing for the last five months. What kind of a way is that to treat the investment?"

Actually, Zambendorf was fully in control; his bluster was calculated for effect. The paper was a NASO message form with a directive that had come in from GSEC a couple of hours earlier, ordering Zambendorf and his team to be moved up to the Shirasagi upon its arrival at Titan and to remain there until it returned to Earth. It gave as a reason the concern that the GSEC board felt for their safety in view of the "deteriorating local situation."

"You and I both know that this is rubbish, Werner," Zambendorf fumed. "The media back there have been exaggerating the dangers for months. GSEC knows it, too—God, they're behind most of it. And we both know why, don't we? It's a pretext to turn Titan into an industrial colony. I messed up their plans last time, and they want me out of the way. Which means they haven't given up. They're going to try it again."

Privately, Zambendorf didn't hold out much hope for a lot of sympathy from Weinerbaum's direction. But this latest development portended ominous decisions ahead regarding the Taloids, and Zambendorf was willing to sound out any possibility.

Weinerbaum, standing by the end of the hinge-down plastic shelf that was the best the cubbyhole could offer for a desk, raised his brows in a feigned show of puzzlement. "Well, naturally I understand your feelings." He shrugged and showed his palms. "But surely you don't imagine that I can concern myself in a matter that rests purely between yourself and your principals. As you say, it's their investment. If they choose not to run with it longer, then that's their prerogative, I suppose." His expression stopped a shade short of mocking. "Maybe they just weren't getting the results they expected."

Behind his veneer of studied coolness Weinerbaum seemed to be enjoying the situation. His disdain toward Zambendorf had not slackened over the months, but lately he had been less hostile and more tolerant in expressing it. It could have been, of course, that after almost five months on Titan the simple fact of sharing the quality of being human had come to outweigh everything else. But Zambendorf had detected a general lightening in Weinerbaum's whole outlook and manner, a shine in his eye and a springiness in his step, betraying an inner excitement that perhaps made the irritation of having Zambendorf around no longer important. Natural curiosity made Zambendorf want to know why.

Apart from giving Weinerbaum an opportunity to exercise his snobbishness, this line wasn't going to accomplish anything, Zambendorf decided. He raised a hand to acknowledge that Weinerbaum didn't owe him anything, then sighed and made a pretense of laboring for a few seconds to calm himself down.

"Look," he said finally, speaking now in a more restrained voice heavy with candor. "I know that as far as you're concerned, we're at opposite poles when it comes to honesty and intellectual integrity. But really, the differences between us are a lot more superficial than you think."

"Oh, really? Do tell me why." Weinerbaum folded his arms and propped himself back against the shelf, at the same time nodding his head to indicate a fold-down seat on the bulkhead wall by the door—more because two big men could not have remained standing in the confined space without taking on an aspect of the absurd than from expectations of learning anything. Zambendorf sat down.

"Because at the bottom of it all we both share a conviction that reason and rationality afford the only worthwhile basis for systems of human belief," Zambendorf said. "But we come from different directions in expressing it. Your way, science, is direct and overt: demonstrable, repeatable experiments leading to falsifiable predictions which can be tested."

"How interesting. Do go on." Weinerbaum's tone seemed to ask why that had never occurred to him before.

Zambendorf refused to be fazed. "But some people—maybe most of them—will cling to wishful thinking in the face of every adverse fact, impervious to any appeal to reason. Try to argue with them and you'll be arguing until the end of time." Zambendorf made a brief throwing-away motion. "So I simply allow their own credulousness to draw them on into greater contradictions until it requires an acceptance of the fantastic that cannot be sustained. And then, maybe, they learn something."

"Aha!" Weinerbaum pounced. "So you're admitting at last that it's all a load of hokum, are you?"

Zambendorf steered him off with a wave. "Oh, the situation that we're really talking about is too important to get involved in any of that. Whatever differences we may have are eclipsed by the common concern that we have for Arthur and the future of his regime here in Genoa. My interest, whether you believe it or not, is to preserve the ideals of freedom and individualism that it stands for. Yours is to prevent the reinstating of Henry, which would be a first step toward seeing your scientific work subordinated to the setting up of a manufacturing colony."

Weinerbaum's expression had lost some of its disdain while Zambendorf was speaking. He looked across now intently, as if the whole subject had suddenly taken on a new perspective in his mind. Zambendorf went on. "So in this we're really on the same side. We both want the same outcome. But how can I contribute to making it happen if I'm confined to the Shirasagi and then sent back to Earth?"

There was a pause while Weinerbaum continued staring thoughtfully. Finally he conceded, "Very well, supposing I take your point. What do you think I would be in a position to do about it?"

Zambendorf went through the motions of considering the question, as if he hadn't had the answer clear in his head before he had entered the room. "NASO is still the controlling authority here," he said finally. "It might carry some weight if you were to appeal this decision of GSEC's to them."

"Oh? And on what grounds might I do that?" Weinerbaum asked.

Zambendorf shrugged. Might as well go for broke, he thought. "Well, you could always say that the work of myself and the team is an essential aid to the scientific enterprise," he suggested.

Weinerbaum balked visibly. But to Zambendorf's inner surprise, he didn't promptly end the discussion right there. "I'll give the matter some consideration," he replied instead—coolly and with a manifest lack of enthusiasm, but the door had not been slammed.

The conversation left Zambendorf with the impression that more was going on than was obvious to the eye. The result was to make him more curious than ever.

* * *

The situation grew stranger the following day, when Weinerbaum held a closed conference with his inner group of senior scientists, then went to Harold Mackeson, the NASO base commander, and lodged a protest of exactly the kind Zambendorf had facetiously suggested. Consternation followed.

Clarissa Eidstadt seized the opportunity to book a slot in the outgoing communications beam to Earth and get an item headed titan scientists plead zambendorf case through to her publicity agency for general release.

Mackeson referred back to NASO headquarters in Washington for guidance and received a positive response. Since taking full charge of the Titan operation, NASO's directors had enjoyed greater freedom of action and a boost in prestige. They knew the true situation on Titan and recognized GSEC's maneuverings for what they were. Zambendorf's joining of forces with Massey to thwart GSEC's previous scheme had marked him in NASO's eyes as being on "their" side then, however bizarre the alliance looked on the face of it. If GSEC considered it in its interest now to have Zambendorf out of the way, then, whatever GSEC's reasons, NASO was agin' it. Accordingly, NASO put out a statement saying that Zambendorf's help to Arthur's regime had been invaluable, and it was vital that this be continued for the benefit of other Taloid nations.

Colonel Short, the local military commander, on the other hand, whose loyalty was to others in Washington with political links to the GSEC-led consortium, echoed the GSEC line by saying that he could no longer be responsible for the safety of unnecessarily involved civilians.

Zambendorf, for his part, was happy to leave those kinds of politics to the politicians, self-styled and professional. He was more intrigued by the reason behind Weinerbaum's action, which had been so totally out of character. Certainly Zambendorf was under no illusion that Weinerbaum had been motivated by any great sentiments of charity. And another part of it all that struck Zambendorf as significant was the way the scientists who were closest to Zambendorf's group—such as Dave Crookes, the communications specialist, and Graham Spearman, the biologist—had been excluded from the discussions that had preceded Weinerbaum's approach to Mackeson. It had the feel about it that they were considered security risk, too free in their talking and too familiar with the wrong people to be trusted.

Trusted with what? Zambendorf asked himself. It all added up to a conviction in his mind that something big was going on that Weinerbaum was covering up and that he didn't want GSEC poking its nose into. Precipitating the fuss over Zambendorf had been his way of diverting their attention.

It simply wasn't in Zambendorf's nature to pass up something like that. His whole life had been a pursuit of perfecting the art of finding out what he wasn't supposed to know. And besides, things had been getting too tame on Titan for too long. It was time, he decided, to mobilize the team.

 

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