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44

O'Flynn had the flyer waiting by the time the transporter arrived back at Genoa Base. Zambendorf and all his team piled in, along with Crookes, and the flyer took off straightaway. At ES3 they joined Weinerbaum and his scientists in the monitoring center. By then Weinerbaum was able to confirm that the situation was as it had seemed when he had called Zambendorf: apart from the physical damage caused in the course of the alien software war, conditions everywhere were returning to normal. All traces of the Asterians had vanished.

"Ironically, I think Cyril was absolutely right in what he said about the power of evolutionary systems," Weinerbaum told them while they were still finding room for themselves amid the crush of equipment and other bodies. "This whole living, machine surface of Titan is an evolutionary system. Ever since the first factory-robot organisms, or whatever first started it all, began spreading a million years ago, one of the most important functions they would have to learn would be to recognize their own kind and protect it from all that was foreign."

"Like regular biological antibodies," Thelma put in.

Weinerbaum nodded. "Precisely so. And if what I'm thinking is correct, as these organisms grew together into the present, surface-wide ecosystem, their self-protection codes evolved into complex electronic immune systems."

Zambendorf's mouth opened in a silent "Ah!" as he suddenly saw the point Weinerbaum was coming to. "Yes. I think I know what you're going to say."

Weinerbaum looked a little piqued. "Please, Karl, this is serious. I thought we'd agreed to cut all that out."

Zambendorf frowned in surprise and then shook his head in a protest of innocence. "No, I was being straight . . . honestly. You were going to say that the business between GENIUS and the Asterians triggered the defenses somehow."

Weinerbaum nodded. "Yes. The crescendo of alien codings at war with one another everywhere caused the system to mobilize antibody codes of its own to go out and hunt down anything that didn't belong."

"Which meant anything alien," Fellburg said. "It attacked the Asterians."

Weinerbaum nodded once again. "The ultimate irony was Cyril's telling us how design could never substitute for the inherent ruggedness that evolution confers. Because the codes the Asterians created to transport themselves were just that: designed, not evolved. And they were unable to withstand the defenses that had resulted from the million years of high-pressure evolution that occurred here on Titan."

There was a short silence while the new arrivals absorbed the full meaning of it. Their faces showed the elation that was to be expected yet at the same time uncertainty. Finally Abaquaan asked for all of them, "So . . . is that it, now? Is there any chance that they can come back?"

Weinerbaum shook his head. "No, I don't think so, Otto." He indicated the surroundings briefly with a wave. "We've got lines into what were some of the most active centers. The codes haven't just been inactivated—they're destroyed. 'Digested,' if you will. That's what antibodies do. Nothing is going to restore them again. It would be like trying to put cows back together from cheese."

Zambendorf glanced cautiously around the room, as if just checking one last time to make sure he had gotten it right. "You're saying that's it? It's over?" The scientists nodded back with encouraging grins in a way that said he'd better believe it.

"Apart from having one hell of a mess to be sorted out on Earth, yes, it would appear so," Weinerbaum confirmed.

Zambendorf's people looked at one another with dazed expressions. Everything appeared to have worked out. The Asterian threat was gone, it seemed, permanently. The designs of the neocolonialists to turn Titan into a manufacturing plantation had been foiled. Arthur would be free to continue developing his new republic without exploitation and interference. The evacuation of Titan could be called off, and with the alien stranglehold gone, a regular exchange of traffic with Earth could resume when the Orion became operable.

"Say, well, waddya know!" Fellburg exclaimed as it all finally sank in. He held up an open palm.

"Right on!" Abaquaan slapped a hand into it enthusiastically.

"You did it!" Drew West punched Zambendorf on the shoulder. "I'd never have bet a dollar on the chances, if you want to know the truth, Karl. But dammit, you did it!"

Thelma put an arm around Clarissa's shoulders and gave her a hug. Crookes pulled Annette Claurier over and planted a solid kiss on her mouth.

Weinerbaum was looking at Zambendorf and shaking his head despairingly. "Faster-than-light signals. Instantaneous communications across higher planes. Who would ever have believed that the answer would turn out to be something like that?"

"We all have our modest talents to contribute, Werner," Zambendorf told him, smirking shamelessly.

And then the voice of the technician who was supervising the link back to Genoa Base called out in alarm. "Wait. Something strange is happening. Maybe it's not all over yet." A sudden, fearful hush enveloped the room. Surely not, Zambendorf thought. It couldn't be about to go wrong again now.

"What is it?" Weinerbaum asked tensely, stepping across the room. Other scientists gathered behind him.

"I'm not sure." The technician indicated his displays. "We've got a sudden resurgence of activity. There's a stream of incoming traffic that I can't identify. It's taking over whole storage banks."

"Bryan Larson on the line from base," another operator reported as the face of the NASO communications chief appeared on a screen.

"What's happening?" Weinerbaum demanded, wheeling to face it.

"We don't know. It just started coming in over the laser trunk from Earth and then redirected itself out to ES3. We had nothing to do with it. I don't know what it is."

"Wow, it's really gobbling up the blocks!" one of the scientists breathed.

"Look at that overhead," another said.

On the various screens the cross-linkage maps and allocation tables began re-forming themselves into new associative paths and groupings. Apprehension mounted around the room until a voice said suddenly, "Hey, I recognize this pattern. We've seen it before. It's a beta!"

And then a familiar cube with legs and a face appeared on a blank screen. "Hi, guys. Why so surprised? You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?"

Zambendorf blinked. "GENIUS?" he said, shaking his head. "GENIUS, is this you?"

"What does it look like?"

"But how?"

"All the activity when that trouble with the Asterians blew up set off an immune reaction across the whole Titan net. Things were definitely not healthy around here." The screen showed a scene that looked like a version of PAC-Man, with assorted ugly bug forms prowling around and gobbling up miniature GENIUSes and Asterians.

"We were just talking about it," Zambendorf said. "The Asterians are gone. Weinerbaum was just telling us that that's what must have happened."

"Well, I stowed away in a safe place once before to get myself out of trouble." The screen showed GENIUS with a suitcase running along a laser beam terminating at Earth. "This time I transmitted myself over the link and hid out in the Earthnet until things quieted down. So Cyril and the rest were too slow, eh? You see—you're going to need a chip brain around." The picture changed again to show GENIUS standing at the foot of a ladder with a king of diamonds playing card sitting on top. "So now I'm back again, ready to resume learning from the master."

For the moment Zambendorf was flummoxed. He looked at the rest of the team appealingly, not knowing what to say. They returned stares of serene confidence that he would think of something and remained totally unhelpful. Weinerbaum smiled wryly and turned away. "Well, we have plenty of work to be getting on with," he told his scientists.

Zambendorf looked back at the screen depicting GENIUS. He smiled awkwardly and cleared his throat. "Er, can you switch yourself through to a room where we could have a little more privacy, GENIUS?" he asked. "There are some things that I think it's time you and I had a long talk about."

 

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