The Two Worlds (27 page)

Danchekker's expression said that there couldn't be any other way around. "What do you mean?" he demanded.

"Instead of telling me what speeded the Lunarians up, try asking what slowed Earth down."

Danchekker stared darkly down at his plate for a few seconds, then raised his head and showed his teeth. "The upheavals caused by the Moon's capture," he pronounced.

Heller looked at him in open disbelief. "And regressed them to a point that needed tens of thousands of years to recover from? No way! A few centuries at the most, maybe, but not
that
much. I couldn't buy it. Neither could Showm. Neither could Calazar."

"I see." Danchekker looked a bit taken aback. He attacked his bacon in silence for a while and then said, "And what alternative explanation, if any, are you offering, might I ask?"

"Something you haven't mentioned so far," Heller answered. "The Lunarians developed rational, scientific thinking early on, and relied on it totally from the beginnings of their civilization. By contrast Earth went off into thousands of years of believing that magic, mysticism, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy would solve its problems. It only started to change comparatively recently, and even today there's still a lot of that around. We got visar to estimate the effects, and it eclipses all the other factors put together.
That's
what caused the difference!"

Danchekker thought about it for a while, then replied a trifle grudgingly, "Very well." He thrust his chin out defensively. "But I fail to see the need for any melodramatic suggestion that it poses a different question. It's as valid to argue that the early adoption of rational methods accelerated one race as it is to say that its absence retarded the other. What
point
are you making?"

"I've been thinking a lot about it since I talked to Calazar and Showm, and asking what the reason was. Vic says everything has to have a reason, even if it takes some digging to find it. So what would the reason be for a whole planet clinging obstinately to a lot of nonsense and superstitions for thousands of years when even a little bit of observation and common sense should have shown it doesn't work?"

"I think perhaps you underestimate the complexities of scientific method," Danchekker told her. "It takes centuries . . . scores of generations to evolve the techniques necessary to distinguish reliably between facts and fallacies, and truth and myth. Certainly it couldn't happen overnight. What else did you expect?"

"So why didn't that stop the Lunarians?"

"I have no idea. Have you?"

"That was the question I was leading up to." Heller leaned forward to look at him intently across the table. "What do you think of this for a suggestion: The reason that belief in myths and magic became so deeply rooted in Earth's cultures and persisted for so long could be that, in the earliest stage of our first civilizations, it
did
work?"

Danchekker gagged over the mouthful of food that had been about to swallow and colored visibly. "
What?
That's preposterous! Are you suggesting that the laws of physics that dictate the running of the Universe could have changed in the last few thousand years?"

"No, I'm not. All I'm—"

"I've never heard such an absurd suggestion. This whole matter is already complicated enough without introducing attempts to explain it by astrology, ESP, or whatever other inanities you have in mind." Danchekker looked about him impatiently and sighed. "Really, it would take far too long to explain why if you are unable to distinguish between science and the banalities dispensed in adolescent magazines. Just take my word that you are wasting your time . . . mine too, I might add."

Heller maintained her calm with some effort. "I am
not
suggesting anything of the kind." An edge of strain had crept into her voice. "Kindly listen for two minutes." Danchekker said nothing and eyed her dubiously across the table as he continued eating. She went on, "Think about this scenario. The Jevlenese have never forgotten that they're Lambians, and we're Cerians. They still see Earth as a rival and always have. Now put them in the situation where they've been taken to Thurien and are making the most of the opportunity to absorb all that Ganymean technology, and the rivals on Earth have been slowed down by the Moon showing up. They've gained control of the surveillance operation, and probably by this time they can do their own instant moving of ships and whatever around the Galaxy because they've got their own independent computer, jevex, on their own independent planet. Also they're
human
in form—physically indistinguishable from their rivals." Heller sat back and looked at Danchekker expectantly, as if waiting for him to fill in the rest himself. He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth and gaped at her incredulously.

"They could have
made
magic and miracles work," Heller went on after a few seconds. "They could have put their own, shall we say, `agents' into our culture way back in its ancient history and deliberately instilled systems of beliefs that we still haven't entirely recovered from—beliefs that were guaranteed to make sure that the rival would take a long, long time to rediscover the sciences and develop the technologies that would make it an opponent worth worrying about again. Meanwhile the Jevlenese have bought themselves a lot of time to become established on their own system of worlds, expand jevex, milk off more Ganymean know-how, and whatever else they've been up to." She sat back, spread her hands, and looked at Danchekker expectantly. "What do you think?"

Danchekker stared at her for what seemed a long time. "Impossible," he declared at last.

Heller's patience finally snapped. "Why? What's wrong with that theory?" she demanded. "The facts are that something slowed Earth's development down. This accounts for it, and nothing that you came up with does. The Jevelenese had the means and the motive, and the answer fit the evidence. What more do you want? I thought science was supposed to be open-minded at least."

"Too farfetched," Danchekker retorted. He became openly sarcastic. "Another principle of science, which you appear to have overlooked, is that one endeavors to test one's hypotheses by experiment. I have no idea how you intend testing this far-flung notion of yours, but for suggestions I recommend that you might try consulting the illustrators of
Superman
comics or the authors of the articles one finds in those housewives' journals found on sale in supermarkets." With that he returned his attention fully to his meal.

"Well if that's your attitude, enjoy your lunch." Heller rose indignantly to her feet. "I heard that Vic had a hell of a time getting you to accept that the Lunarians existed at all. I can see why!" She turned and marched out of the room.

Karen Heller was still fuming thirty minutes later as she stood by one of the buildings on the edge of the apron watching a UNSA crew installing a more permanent generator facility. Danchekker came out of the door of the mess hall some distance away, saw her, then walked slowly off in the opposite direction, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped at the perimeter fence and stood for a long time staring out across the marshes, turning his head every now and then to glance back at where Heller was standing. Eventually he turned and paced thoughtfully back to the door of the mess hall. When he was almost there he stopped, looked across at her again, hesitated for a few seconds, then changed direction and came over to her.

"I, er—I apologize," he said. "I think you may have something. Certainly your conclusions warrant further investigation. We should contact the others and tell them about it as soon as possible."

"
She what?!
"

Hunt caught Caldwell's arm and drew him to a halt halfway along the corridor leading toward Caldwell's office at the top of the Navcomms Headquarters Building.

"He told her to give him a call next time she was in New York to see her mother," Caldwell said. "So I told her to take some vacation and go see her mother." He lifted Hunt's fingers from the sleeve of his jacket and resumed walking.

Hunt stood rooted to the spot for a second, then came to life once more and caught up in a few hurried paces. "What in hell? . . . You can't do that! She happens to be very special to me."

"She also happens to be my assistant."

"But . . . what's she supposed to do when she sees him—read poetry? Gregg, you can't do that. You've got to get her out of it."

"You're sounding like a maiden aunt," Caldwell said. "I didn't do anything. She set it up herself, and I didn't see any reason not to use the chance. It might turn up something useful."

"Her job description never said anything about playing Mata Hari. It's a blatant and inexcusable exploitation of personnel beyond the limits of their contractual obligations to the Division."

"Nonsense. It's a career-development opportunity. Her job description stresses initiative and creativity, and that's what it is."

"What kind of career? That guy's only got one track in his head. Look, it may come as kind of a surprise, but I don't go for the idea of her being another boy-scout badge for him to stitch on his shirt. Maybe I'm being old-fashioned, but I didn't think that that was what working for UNSA was all about."

"Stop overreacting. Nobody said a word about anything like that. It could be a chance to fill in some of the details we're missing. The opportunity came out of the blue, and she grabbed it."

"I've heard enough details already from Karen. Okay, we know the rules, and Lyn knows the rules, but he doesn't know the rules. What do you think he's going to do—sit down and fill out a questionnaire?"

"Lyn can handle it."

"You can't let her do it."

"I can't stop her. She's on vacation, seeing her mother."

"Then I want to take some special leave, starting right now. I've got personal emergency matters to attend to in New York."

"Denied. You've got too much to do here that's more important."

They fell silent as they passed through the outer office and into Caldwell's inner sanctum. Caldwell's secretary looked up from dictating a memo to an audiotranscriber and nodded a greeting.

"Gregg, this is going too far," Hunt began again when they got inside. "There's—"

"There's more to it than you think," Caldwell told him. "I've heard enough from Norman Pacey and the CIA to know that the opportunity was worth seizing when it presented itself. Lyn knew it too." He draped his jacket on a hanger by the door, walked around the other side of his desk, and dumped the briefcase that he had been carrying down on top of it. "There's a hell of a lot about Sverenssen that we never dreamed of, and a lot more we don't know that we'd like to. So stop being neurotic, sit down and listen for five minutes, and I'll give you a summary."

Hunt emitted a long sigh of capitulation, threw out his hands in resignation, and slumped down into one of the chairs. "We're going to need a lot more than five minutes, Gregg," he said as Caldwell sat down facing him. "You wait till you hear about the things we found out yesterday from the Thuriens."

Four and a half thousand miles from Houston, Norman Pacey was sitting on a bench by the side of the Serpentine lake in London's Hyde Park. Strollers in open-necked shirts and summery dresses making the best of the first warm days of the year added a dash of color to the surrounding greenery topped by distant frontages of dignified and imposing buildings that had not changed appreciably in fifty years. That was all they had ever wanted, he thought to himself as he took in the sights and sounds around him. All that people the world over had ever wanted was to live their lives, pay their way, and be left alone. So how had the few with different aspirations always been able to command the power to impose themselves and their systems? Which was the greater evil—one fanatic with a cause, or a hundred men free enough not to care about causes? But caring about freedom enough to defend it made it a cause and its defenders fanatics. For ten thousand years mankind had wrestled with the problem and not found an answer.

A shadow fell across the ground, and Mikolai Sobroskin sat down on the bench next to him. He was wearing a heavy suit and necktie despite the fine weather, and his head was glistening with beads of perspiration in the sunlight. "A refreshing contrast to Giordano Bruno," he commented. "What an improvement it would be if the
maria
were really seas."

Pacey turned his head from staring across the lake and grinned. "And maybe a few trees, huh? I think UNSA has got its work cut out for a while with the proposals for cooling down Venus and oxygenating Mars. Luna's way down the list. Even if it weren't, I'm not sure that anybody has come up with any good ideas for what they could do about it. But who knows? One day, maybe."

The Russian sighed. "Perhaps we had such knowledge in the palm of our hand. We threw it away. Do you realize that we have witnessed what could be the greatest crime in human history? And perhaps the world will never know."

Pacey nodded, waiting for a second to assume a more businesslike manner, and asked, "So? . . . What's the news?"

Sobroskin drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his head. "You were right about the coded signals from Gistar when you suspected that they were in response to an independent transmitting facility established by us," he replied.

Pacey nodded without showing surprise. He knew that already from what Caldwell and Lyn Garland had revealed in Washington, but he couldn't say so. "Have you found out how Verikoff and Sverenssen fit in?" he asked.

"I think so," Sobroskin said. "They seem to be part of a global operation of some sort that was committed to shutting down communications of any kind between this planet and Thurien. They used the same methods. Verikoff is a member of a powerful faction that strongly opposed the Soviet attempt to open another channel. Their reasons were the same as the UN's. As it turned out, they were taken by surprise before they could organize an effective block, and some transmissions were sent. Like Sverenssen, Verikoff was instrumental in causing additional messages to be sent secretly, designed to frustrate the exercise. At least we think so. . . . We can't prove it."