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30

Harold Mackeson listened with incredulity and mounting alarm as Weinerbaum, now totally deflated and suddenly weary under the shock of the news, filled in the story about the discovery of the aliens, the scientists' decision to keep the setup at ES3 a secret until they knew more, and the real reason why he had asked for an independent channel to Earth.

Zambendorf, Fellburg, and Abaquaan had also come to the communications room; nobody was questioning their right to a place on the team now. Weinerbaum's differences with Zambendorf had become as irrelevant as the pettiness among others that he himself had railed about only a short time before. Even so, he couldn't quite bring himself to acknowledge the fact openly—not yet, anyhow.

Naturally, Mackeson was furious at the deceit. But he was also a mature enough administrator to accept the fact that while authority could be delegated, responsibility never could be. Ultimately, whatever the faults and omissions of others, accountability for everything that happened at Genoa Base outside the direct military command chain devolved on him. Therefore, he suppressed his acrimony as more fitting to another time, conserving his energy for the demands of the moment. Not that there were too many choices to consider. In fact, there was only one immediate course of action that he could see with any point to it.

"Let's get out there to ES3 and find out what these jokers want," he told the others.

* * *

The NASO flyer came down in the cleared area in front of Experimental Station 3 less than thirty minutes later. Two British marine commandos in military EV suits attached a heated, flexible tunnel to the mating flange of the access lock; Weinerbaum, Mackeson, and two other NASO officers, along with Zambendorf, Fellburg, and Abaquaan, who were still with them, walked through into the entry chamber of the two connected huts that formed the central hub of the station.

The interior looked like the control room of a submarine, with consoles, cabinets, shelves, and workstations filling every inch of usable space, as became normal in every human habitat on Titan. It was the riot of improvisation that researchers delighted in: panels hacked out of unfinished aluminum, open racks of circuit cards festooned with hand-soldered wiring, bundles of cable twisting all over the floor—the whole giving the impression of resulting more from some gleeful technophile's experiment in expressiveness than from any purposeful design.

A panel above a worktop in one corner contained a screen and controls connected to the interface setup, which was quiescent at that moment. Weinerbaum summarized how the translation arrangement with the aliens worked and the vital role the Taloids from Padua played. There were eighteen of them in their special quarters at ES3 now, working in turns, usually several at a time, and able to take time off between shifts. Between them they handled communication for twelve Asterians, although all twelve hardly ever needed to talk at the same time. There was also a thirteenth set of code groupings that represented, as far as the scientists had been able to make out, not an alien as such but a form of artificial intelligence that had accompanied them, possibly as a technical "assistant." But whatever its precise function, it seemed preoccupied with internal processes and had not yet communicated externally with the Terrans.

The rest of the room contained display and processing equipment connected to links from various other places on Titan that the scientists had been investigating. Weinerbaum called it the "monitoring center." The intention was to build the various activities scattered about the surface into some kind of bigger picture.

Mackeson had no questions when Weinerbaum had finished and replied simply with a brief nod in the direction of the interface setup. "Let's get on with it, then," he said tightly.

"Er, yes . . . of course." Weinerbaum led them over to the panel in the corner and eased himself into the operator's chair. Mackeson and Zambendorf squeezed themselves into the space behind, while the others found the best vantage points they could nearby. The regular ES3 staff watched curiously from farther back, while others bunched in the entrance to the connector from the other hut.

Weinerbaum operated switches, then called something to the back of the room. A voice recited several numbers in response. Weinerbaum pressed some buttons, entered a code into a touchpad, and waited. The screen remained blank, but a scratchy voice, like something from an ancient needle-and-groove recording, said, "Yes, Weinerbaum?"

"Cyril?"

"This Ford. Cyril busy." "Ford" was the name the Terrans had given to one of Cyril's companions, who seemed to have been with some kind of Asterian manufacturing corporation.

"We wish to talk, please," Weinerbaum said curtly.

"I busy also."

Behind Weinerbaum, Mackeson and Zambendorf exchanged wondering shakes of their heads at the spectacle of one of their company talking intelligibly with an alien entity from another star.

"You lied to us," Weinerbaum said. "You broke our agreement. All of Earth is being disrupted. We wish to talk now."

"Said busy. Go away."

From where he was standing, Zambendorf could see the color rising at the back of Weinerbaum's neck. "We can still sever the link," Weinerbaum said.

"No big deal. Smart replicating software-bomb now Earth-resident. Link no longer needed."

Weinerbaum's knuckles whitened against the armrest of his chair. "Ford, I—"

"Ford gone. This is Watson." The interface rendered all Asterian responses in the same voice. "Watson" had been with what sounded like a computing research organization.

"Whoever," Weinerbaum said tightly. "You are still Titan-resident. We activated the codes. We can deactivate them."

"Now protected," the voice scoffed. "Maximum-security deny-access measures. No chance."

"We can physically isolate the hardware that contains you," Weinerbaum persisted. "If necessary, destroy it."

"Which hardware? Safety copies distributed in nodes all over Titan. Untraceable. So will you destroy all of it? How? All your weapons stranded on Earth. Permanently. Ho-ho." An awkward silence came over the lab. Weinerbaum didn't know where to go from there. Nobody else had anything to suggest.

Then the voice said, "Okay. Cyril here now. So talk if want. Only way peace from simian pests."

The screen that had so far been blank became active suddenly and presented an upper-body image of the strangest creature those new to ES3 had ever seen. It had two arms, hinging more from the front of the shoulders than laterally, each with four fingers that seemed to have more segments than the human three. The head was an elongated inverted cone, pallid blue, widening at the top to accommodate two enormous circular eyes that moved independently, and rounding into a flattish dome like the top of a carrot, with a Mohicanlike plume of green and orange. The mouth was protrusive and rigid-looking and seemed not very mobile or expressive; the ears were high-set and diminutive. But strangest of all were the structures of complex folds growing up from each shoulder and apparently attached to the sides of the head, though sufficiently loosely not to impair head movement. They were brightly colored and in constant agitation, suggesting, if anything, some exotic variety of sea anemone waving in underwater currents.

Zambendorf and the others could only stare, awed. Weinerbaum said without looking back, "Of course, this isn't a picture of anything physically real—we're interacting with electronic representations. More recently we've been getting these visual depictions in addition to the original speech-only output. It's obviously a synthesis, but it probably does reflect fairly authentically how the Asterians looked. The form suggests descent from an ancestral stock somewhat akin to our bird family. The epaulet structures seem to be the primary means of visual expression, though how to read them is still a mystery."

The epaulets on one side stiffened and moved suddenly in unison for a moment, and the voice spoke again. "You make child deal and I am blamed one? No. You stupid. What kind of business-Earthman gives away? Earth run by simpletons. Lucky has lasted this long time."

Weinerbaum murmured to the others, "What we would consider common courtesy does not seem to be part of their innate disposition, I'm afraid. That has been one of the main obstacles to establishing a satisfactory rapport." He looked back at the screen and said, "Listen, Cyril, I—"

"No. You listen," the alien interrupted. "Terrans have served purpose. Important Asterian business waits doing. I do you big compliment talking here. You see too late. Walk into problems. Too bad. Want to know Asterians' want-things-list before go away? No nose-skin off us now. Okay. Is so." The screen showed a part of Titan's machinescape outside, which could have been anywhere.

"All Titan machine life is ours. Asterians. Origins from our civilization. Comes to Titan by our space science before humans are existed. All totally is Asterian property."

"What about the Taloids?" Weinerbaum interjected. "Titan is their heritage. Have they no rights to property?"

The image on the screen made a gesture and ruffled one of its shoulder adornments. "Taloids just freak machines. No claims. No plans Taloid recycle-scrap. Asterians will control. Change as see fit to suit, redirect everything to our purposes, not human or Taloid purposes. Was aim of get-link Earth human stupids give away free. Since Asterians reactivate, learn awareness of here Titan NASO Terrans, GSEC Terrans, military Terrans, all with different friend Terrans back at Earth Washington Europe, all too messed up that not even Terrans understand. Now as extra add Japanese Shirasagi ship arrive with other plans, while Earth army preparing Orion ship come take Titan control away from everybody. All an insane mess up. No thanks. Asterians have need nothing complications such. Things have to do more important."

The watchers crowding around behind Weinerbaum waited tensely. "What things?" he prompted after a few seconds.

But Cyril evidently felt that he had already been more obliging than necessary. "Talk enough," the image said. "Things have to do." And it vanished.

"Ford?" Weinerbaum tried. "Watson? . . . Anyone?" But all attempts to restore communication were unsuccessful.

The first reaction of Weinerbaum and the scientists was to call the aliens' bluff and try to deactivate them by isolating and shutting down the hardware concentrations in which they were located, as Weinerbaum had threatened. But it turned out that Watson had not been bluffing. Cutting off the local centers didn't stop the characteristic activity patterns that had been detected elsewhere. It appeared that the Asterians had indeed mapped alternative host systems and created interconnecting pathways, possibly all over Titan. After three hours of testing, checking, and contacting workers at other sites, an exhausted Weinerbaum conceded defeat. "It seems that we're already too late—they have effectively distributed themselves through the whole system. The speed it's happening at is frightening. They've probably gained control over a significant portion of Titan's capacity already."

"Then the question now is, What do they intend using it for?" Zambendorf replied.

* * *

All rivalries and differences among the varied Terran interests on Titan disappeared. The obvious rallying point for them to regroup was the Shirasagi, orbiting above the cloud canopy. The Asterians had penetrated Titan's general surface network, and obviously nothing at Genoa Base could be considered secure, since they had invaded the Earthnet by seizing the link beam transmitted from there.

The Shirasagi, however, had its own independent link back to Japanese satellites in Earth orbit, and the mission controllers in Osaka had had the presence of mind to isolate their end as soon as the eastern Asian sector of the Earthnet had begun misbehaving. This should have stopped the alien influence from being propagated back out to Titan via the Shirasagi's beam. Moreover, the Shirasagi had been engaging in conventional communications only with Genoa Base, without any high-capacity data connection. Hence, there was good reason to hope that the Shirasagi's system was "clean."

A final point was that the chief of the Japanese mission, Yakumo, was a full-fledged mission director, appointed to his post by a national government. The existing organization on Titan, by contrast, operated under the divided command of a temporary administrative head assigned by NASO and a military contingent under separate orders, both of which depended on guidance from Earth that could disappear at any moment.

All factors pointed to the same conclusion. All agreed to consolidate under Yakumo's direction as emergency head of the entire Terran presence on Titan. A conference was called shortly afterward aboard the Shirasagi to assess the situation and review whatever options anyone had to offer for doing something about it.

 

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