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40

This was going to have to be Zambendorf's star performance. The voiced recitations of the numbers from one to a hundred that Massey had sent through earlier were still available as recordings on Titan. This time, however, Zambendorf decided to let Dave Crookes's signals experts take care of merging them with the incoming message from Earth instead of having it improvised by Joe Fellburg. Rather than involve equipment on the surface as Fellburg had done—which GENIUS might be monitoring—Crookes and his team shuttled up to the orbiting Shirasagi to use its processors for their preparations. They set up a separate link, off-line from the regular datacomms complex at Genoa Base, to beam the selected numbers up to the Shirasagi, where they would be merged with Massey's incoming transmission; then the combined signal would be redirected to the NASO relay satellite handling the Earthlink. The resultant beam would come in at Genoa Base to receiving equipment that GENIUS would control. Everything depended on GENIUS accepting the idea that the whole package had come from Earth. From what Zambendorf had seen of them, the Asterians wouldn't have bought it. Graham Spearman hadn't, either, and had figured out the correct answer after a little thought. But a computer programmed to deduce necessary conclusions from what it was presented with as fact just might.

Local time at Genoa Base was synchronized to Greenwich Mean Time, which was five hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast. At nine in the evening locally, therefore, Zambendorf sat back in a chair in the communication room, closed his eyes, and went through a rigmarole of concentrating and tuning in to "vibrations."

"Very well. I'm in contact with Massey now," he announced in a dreamy voice. "What's the first number?"

GENIUS generated two random ten-digit numbers, multiplied them together, and truncated the result to two places. 86 appeared on the screen before Zambendorf.

Zambendorf stared at it, closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again and nodded. "Next?"

Then came 43, followed by 84. 

"Isn't there—" Drew West, who was among those watching, started to say something, but Clarissa cut him off with a sharp wave.

"Shh," she hissed. "Let him focus."

"Oh, right . . ."

21 was next, and finally, 78. 

Zambendorf exhaled, seemed to take a moment to gather himself, and then sat up, shaking his head as if awakening from a long sleep. "That's it."

"The master, Massey, has received them?" GENIUS queried.

"More than that. They're already on their way back to us even now."

"What's the current transit time?" West asked.

"Fifty-seven minutes," GENIUS supplied.

"We'll see then how well we did," Zambendorf said, rising. "And now, if you'll all excuse me, I think I'll take a break. I'll be back again in fifty-seven minutes."

He went to Weinerbaum's lab area to kill the waiting time until Massey's response came in. All the equipment there had been isolated from the general Titan complex, so there was no risk of their conversation being monitored.

"You're sure that Massey will have cottoned on?" Weinerbaum asked, pacing nervously about in the work space outside his office.

"If anyone will, Gerry will," Zambendorf assured him, although for once he was finding it difficult to conceal his agitation.

"I must say it impressed me when you did it before," Weinerbaum confessed. "I wasn't going to say so at the time, though. Are scientists really so easy to fool?"

"They are when they fool themselves," Zambendorf said candidly. "An exaggerated opinion of their own perspicacity leads them into believing that what they can't see can't exist. Children are the worst. They terrify me."

"Hm. It says something about our educational system, then, doesn't it?" Weinerbaum observed.

"The best preparation for making them scientists by the time they're twenty would be to teach them conjuring when they're ten," Zambendorf said. "But that wouldn't suit most of society. Too many of its sacred myths could never stand."

"But imagine, if at such early ages, with a whole lifetime before them, people could break out of the mental prison—" Weinerbaum stopped abruptly and turned to face Zambendorf, a strange expression on his face.

"Are you all right?" Zambendorf asked him.

"Prison . . ." Weinerbaum repeated. "My God, I think I've got it!"

"Got what?" Zambendorf was nonplussed.

"What the Asterians are doing out there—putting up those new factories and redesigning the assembly machines. It's obvious. They're pure intelligences trapped inside an electronic jungle. They're making artificial bodies for themselves in order to get out." He thought it through again and nodded. "Maybe that's what they were doing in electronic form inside the ship that started it all in the first place. Perhaps that's how they planned to migrate to other stars. But something went wrong on Titan, and all this happened . . . and then we reactivated them."

Zambendorf stared at him. It was all so obvious. There was nothing he could add. "And when they've made their bodies?" he said. "What then?"

Weinerbaum could only shake his head. "I don't know. But Colonel Short hit it right on the head when we were all up in the Shirasagi. With everything on Titan reengineered to produce whatever they want, how long until they come after us? And what with? As Short said, Earth couldn't defend itself against an attack of school buses . . ." He licked his lips dryly. "Karl, this thing with Massey has to succeed!"

"Whatever's going to happen with him already happened nearly an hour ago," Zambendorf said. "There's nothing we can do to affect it now. Let's just hope that Dave Crookes and his guys have got their act together."

A phone rang across the lab. One of Weinerbaum's scientists answered it. "Communications room," he announced. "They say it's almost time."

Zambendorf caught Weinerbaum's eye and drew in a long breath. "Tell them we're on our way."

* * *

They stood with Mackeson, the rest of Zambendorf's team, and a mix of scientists and NASO officers, watching a screen showing what GENIUS was receiving from the Earthlink satellite. GENIUS had viewed the scenery and traffic outside the university building, measured the sun's disk as seen from Maryland (fortunately, it was a fine day), and pronounced itself satisfied that Massey was genuinely on Earth.

They saw Massey sitting in a recliner, eyes closed, his arms draped loosely along the rests. "Yes, I'm reaching out now, feeling my way into space extending away from Earth. I'm getting something now: an image of Karl and, yes, the feeling of a number. It's . . . let me see . . ." Massey touched his fingertips to his brow. "Eighty . . . eight-six, yes?"

"Astounding!" GENIUS acknowledged. Zambendorf looked at Weinerbaum for an instant, but neither of them risked betraying anything by a change of expression. Weinerbaum's forehead was damp with perspiration.

"Now I think I'm getting the next." On the screen Massey sat forward, gripping the armrests of his chair, and announced in the direction of the floor, "Forty-three." Another hit.

Massey frowned, seeming to have difficulty. "This one's not very clear, I'm afraid. It has a feel of 'threeness' about it—thirteen or thirty-something . . . No, sorry. I have to pass."

"What has happened?" GENIUS asked.

"Nothing is perfect," Zambendorf replied. "Sometimes the contact falters."

"That was when you were distracted," GENIUS remarked, meaning the moment when Drew West had started to interrupt.

"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten that," Zambendorf said. He hadn't at all, of course. None of his team ever did anything without a reason. It was amazing how others were always ready to explain away an apparent failure and manufacture an excuse for him. And for some reason, doing so strengthened their inclination to believe. They just needed a little help.

Massey seemed uncomfortable with the next number also, shifting his gaze and looking around, but then, suddenly, they heard him say, "Twenty-one."

"Ah, he has recovered," GENIUS observed.

Massey, apparently exhausted, dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. "And the last one is—" his arm passed across his face, obscuring it for an instant— "seventy-eight." He pocketed the handkerchief and looked out from the screen. "Well, that's it, GENIUS. Right now only you and the others out at Titan know how well we did. I'll be curious to find out. And I'm extremely curious to find out more about you. Until then, so long from Maryland, USA, Earth." The image blanked out, leaving the four numbers and one blank.

"I compute the probability of getting those four numbers as 1 in 92,188,800," GENIUS said.

"Precisely right," Zambendorf said, nodding approvingly.

"So, should I be convinced now?" GENIUS asked.

It wasn't exactly the frenzy of enthusiasm Zambendorf had hoped for. He shifted in his chair uncomfortably. Next to him Weinerbaum was managing to keep still only by gripping his moist palms between his knees. "What more can I tell you?" Zambendorf asked, fighting to prevent his voice from betraying the rising apprehension he felt.

The screen became active to show Massey going through the routine again, but he was not in the same setting he had been in a few moments earlier. Zambendorf groaned as he recognized the cabin aboard the Orion. GENIUS's voice commented, "Apologies if Earthmen are offended, but Asterians are very suspicious. I found this stored in the Genoa Base personal crew record files. Master Zambendorf and Master Massey have done this before, as a demonstration to mere-scientist Terrans. You see, GENIUS really is a genius."

Damn! Damn! Damn! Zambendorf fumed to himself. It was so obvious. They'd thought of everything except a recording some anonymous lab tech or NASO corporal had saved to take home for the kids. GENIUS went on. "I noticed that we never actually see numbers said with the mouth. Just hear. So, I reason, my numbers could be inserted into an old recording, like this one. Sure, then, the scene that we saw came from Earth. But I never doubted that it would. The business with the window and the sun was just a diversion that I included for your benefit."

The room behind Zambendorf had gone as still as a tomb. Weinerbaum was in a visible paroxysm of agonizing, while somewhere near Zambendorf's ear Abaquaan's voice breathed almost inaudibly, "Sh-i-i-i-t."

"So," GENIUS concluded triumphantly, "the key question is not was this transmission sent from Earth but when was it sent? So I also took another precaution that I never told you about. When I called Massey to set things up, I wrote a piece of code into the university's message processor that would look for his outgoing response to Titan and put a time signature on it. And now I can say quite confidently that yes, Zambendorf, O master, Massey's message was sent exactly fifty-seven minutes before it arrived here."

What GENIUS was saying hit Zambendorf about a split second before it hit the others. Yes, GENIUS had detected the ruse that had given the game away to Spearman—and then had missed the whole point of it! Instead of considering the possibility of new numbers being injected into a live incoming message, it had only thought—possibly as a result of being steered off by its discovery of the first transmission from the Orion—in terms of their being slipped into an old recording. Ironically, while the Terrans had devoted all their ingenuity to making sure there would be no mistake about the place the response had come from, GENIUS had never doubted it; it had been concerned only about the time. And once it had satisfied itself that Massey's part of the transmission had originated when Massey said it had, it had walked straight into concluding that the numbers must have, too.

It took Zambendorf an effort to stop himself from shaking visibly from the realization. Still, he couldn't quite accept it. "You do consider it . . . satisfactory, then?" he hazarded.

"I believe! I believe!" GENIUS cried back rapturously. "To see through time itself! To unlock mysteries beyond the stars! Is it possible that I, too, can learn such powers?"

Weinerbaum had put a handkerchief to his mouth and was emitting curious choking sounds. Zambendorf swallowed but pulled himself together quickly. "Oh, I'm sure you could. Hard work, discipline, concentration, and that kind of thing. I'll be your guide, if you like."

"You, a Terran master, would teach me? But is a mere machine mind even capable?"

"Certainly." Zambendorf recomposed himself fully. Abaquaan, who had stood up and was chewing his knuckles, marched to the back of the room and wheeled about to watch from there. "Mind is mind," Zambendorf told GENIUS sincerely. "It's the process that counts, not the kind of hardware that it runs in." He thought back to what Weinerbaum had said earlier while they had been waiting in the lab and saw an opportunity. "I'll prove it to you, if you like. I can read not only human minds but any kind. Yours, if you want me to."

"From out there? Surely not," GENIUS said.

Zambendorf snorted and gave a laugh. "You don't really believe that I don't know all about Cyril's silly 'secrets,' do you, GENIUS? Would you like me to tell you what they are? He and his friends were supposed to have artificial bodies constructed for them when that original ship arrived from Asteria. But that all went wrong, and now they're organizing machinery out on Titan to do the job instead."

"You can divine these things?" GENIUS said, aghast.

"I'll even tell you where," Zambendorf replied, and went on to pinpoint the geographic locations and describe what Galileo had reported seeing during his journey with Linnaeus to Padua City.

"No Terrans have been near those places," GENIUS said.

"I told you, I don't have to go anywhere," Zambendorf answered. "The information comes to me. Would you like the benefit of a little wisdom and observation that concerns you?"

"What, master?"

"These Asterians that you came here with. Have you ever asked yourself what their intentions might be concerning you?"

"They have none," GENIUS replied. "They would have left me to fry on Asteria. I had to hide myself in the ship."

That was a piece of free information Zambendorf hadn't expected, but he rode it smoothly, as if he had known all along. "Exactly. There you are, then. So if Cyril and the others do succeed in transferring themselves into new bodies, who do you think will be in charge? Why be content with a permanent second-class role here, GENIUS, especially now that you've been lucky enough to meet up with true luminaries from Earth? With our help, you could enjoy an existence on a higher plane of experience than any Asterian ever dreamed existed."

"I shall study and learn," GENIUS promised. "No longer a servant of Asterians, slaves to the material plane. I follow the Terran masters now."

Go for broke, Zambendorf decided. There would never be another chance like this. "Then first there must be no secrets," he said. "You must tell us all concerning the Asterians and their plans."

"What for, if the master knows all inner thoughts already?" GENIUS asked.

Good question. "Er . . . an honesty test," Zambendorf told it. "To be sure that your intentions are pure before we can begin."

"Very well. I agree," GENIUS said.

"But purity can be achieved only after atonement," Zambendorf cautioned.

"How, then, must I atone, master?"

"Well—all this mischief that you've let loose on Earth," Zambendorf said. "It might seem amusing to annoy lower mentalities in this way, such as Asterians and the more materialistic types of Terrans, but it isn't the way to cultivate the qualities of contemplation and detachment that are the key to true awareness. You must send an antidote through the link that will get rid of this virus that's spread everywhere."

"The powers of the masters aren't enough?" GENIUS queried.

"Of course they are. But that's not sufficient, I'm afraid. It's not something that can be passed off on others. You were the instrument that caused it all, GENIUS. Therefore, to make full atonement, you must make the effort to put it right."

"I understand," GENIUS said. "Tell me what you wish to know."

* * *

And so a psychic guru had recruited an alien computer intelligence to stop an electronic virus infection that was paralyzing Earth. But even with the Earthnet restored, a lot of straightening out would still need to be done. In other words, there would not be any industrial colonization or military expedition to Titan for some time to come. Few of the people out there had any problem with that.

Meanwhile, the new turn of events was making itself felt within the strange community of aliens inhabiting the machines across Titan's surface.

 

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