In the heart of the Orion's Command Globe overlooking the Central Control Deck—the ship's control and operational nerve center—Don Connel, the senior reporter on the GCN news team assigned to accompany the mission, watched on his monitor the view being transmitted live into Earth's communications net from camera 1. The camera panned slowly across the activity at the crew stations, the colors and formats of the data displays changing and flashing to report condition changes and status updates, and the computers silently marching regiments of bits through their registers, and then came to rest on the image of Earth being presented on the main display screen above the floor. Connel nodded to acknowledge his "ready" cue from the director on the far side of the raised tier of consoles from which General Vantz and a trio of senior officers were monitoring the final-phase countdown operations, and turned to face camera 2. A moment later its light came on to indicate that he was on the air again.
"Well, you've just been looking at the view of Earth that we're getting here on the Orion, and seeing what you look like from ten thousand miles up, right at this moment," he resumed. "You know, even I have to admit it's a real problem finding the right words to tell you folks just what it feels like to be up here at a moment like this. Personally I'm still having trouble convincing myself that the image you just saw is real this time—really out there. I'm not looking at something being relayed from a remote space operation that involves other people thousands of miles away, or a recording slipped into a space-fiction movie. If the walls and structures around me here were made of glass and I could look out right through them, I'd be able to see, first-hand with my own eyes, exactly what's on the screen here. You know, it makes those walls and structures seem very flimsy all of a sudden, and the Orion very tiny compared to everything else around, which from where I'm seeing it is enough to swallow up even the whole of Earth itself. Well, you can take it from me—I sure hope those NASO engineers and all the other people who designed and built this ship are as good as everyone tells me they are."
From a position just below Vantz's console, a flight engineer motioned to attract Connel's attention and raised five fingers and a thumb, signaling that the countdown was entering its final sixty seconds. Connel's face became serious, and he injected a note of rising tension into his voice. "The countdown is into the last minute now. Back in the tail of this huge ship, the field generators that Captain Matthews talked about are up to power, and those immense accelerators are ready to fire. Here are the final moments now on the Control Deck of the Orion as this historic voyage to Mars begins." Connel waited for camera 2's light to go out as transmission switched back to camera 1, then sat back in his seat to follow the proceedings.
"Master Sequencer is Go; Backup Sequencer is Go," the Chief Engineer reported from beside Vantz. "Checkpoint zero-minus-two, positive function. Ground Control acknowledgment checks positive, and GC override veto standing down."
"PSX status?" Vantz queried.
"GCV disconnects one through five confirmed," another voice answered. "PSX integration reads positive function. SSX confirms."
"Tracking two seconds into exit window," another called out.
"Main fields: six-eight, green; seven-seven, green; nine-five on synch."
"Alignment good."
"Focus fields good."
"Injectors primed. Ten-ten, all beams."
"Checkpoint zero-minus-one—holding now."
Stillness descended for a second as General Vantz cast a final eye over the information displays in front of him. He nodded and spoke into his console mike. "Fire for exit phase one."
"Phase one fire sequence activated. Zero-zero at GPZ plus seven point-three seconds."
Connel felt his seat nudge him gently in the back. The Orion was moving out of freefall; the journey that would shrink the globe on the screen to a pinpoint and replace it with another world had begun. From the gestures and grins being exchanged among the crew, everything seemed to be going well. Connel relaxed back in his seat and finished his coffee while a sequence of views went out showing Earth, scenes from around the Control Deck, and shots being picked up from the service vessels standing ten miles off in space. He checked the schedule to confirm the next item, which was timed to relieve tenseness after the launch by providing a contrast of subject and mood, then got up and moved down to a space over to one side, where Zambendorf was talking to a production assistant while he waited. With them were Dr. Periera, who Connel privately considered to be crazy, and Zambendorf's middle-aged, equally zany publicity matron, who had bullied Herman Thoring into allocating Zambendorf some valuable air-time at a moment when the world would be watching. In front of them, a couple of technicians were repositioning camera 2.
"All set?" Connel inquired as he joined them. "There are some commercials starting just about now. We'll be going on immediately after."
"Fine," Zambendorf said.
Connel gestured at the sheet of paper in Zambendorf's hand. "Are those questions okay? Are there any you want me to miss?"
"No, these are fine. Were they otherwise, I would have saved you the trouble of typing them by telling you beforehand." Connel wasn't sure whether Zambendorf's expression meant he was joking or not. Connel was skeptical toward claims of paranormal abilities, although he usually had a tough time defending his views with his friends. He grinned and then made a face, leaving Zambendorf free to interpret the response either way. "You are not convinced?" Zambendorf asked, watching him keenly and sounding surprised.
Conrtel shrugged in an easygoing way. "Well . . .I guess I can't help remembering that the Orion is driven by fusion power, not ESP power. I figure that has to say something."
"True," Zambendorf agreed. "And the first ocean vessels were driven by wind power."
"Twenty seconds," a technician advised. The others moved back while Connel and Zambendorf took up their positions; the camera light came on, and they were live.
"Don Connel talking to you again, this time on my way to Mars. Well, before all the excitement of liftout, we talked to General Vantz and a couple of his officers, and to some of the scientists we have with us. Now I'd like to say hello to somebody else also with the mission, who's standing next to me right now—Hello, Karl Zambendorf."
"Hello, Don."
"Karl, this is a first-time experience for you too, I believe. Is that right?"
"Well, in my material body, anyway . . . yes."
"You're supposed to be able to make some uncanny predictions about future events. What about Mars? Do you have anything you'd like to say in advance about the mission, any major happenings in store for us on the Red Planet, big surprises, anything like that?"
"Mars?"
Connel looked surprised. "Well, yes—sure. Is there anything you'd like to predict about events following our arrival there?"
"Mmm . . . If you don't mind, Don, I'd prefer not to make any comment in response to that question . . . for reasons which will become apparent in due course."
"Hey, that sounds kind of sinister. What are you trying to tell us, Karl?"
"Oh, nothing to be alarmed about. Let's just say that I would not wish to lay myself open to charges of indiscretion by the authorities. As I say, the reason will soon become clear. There really is no need for alarm—caution, maybe, but not alarm."
"Now, I wonder what that could mean. I guess we'll just have to wait and see, huh? I hope all you people back there are taking notes of this. Karl, another thing I wanted to ask you concerns all the scientists and other specialists that we've got with us on the ship. Do they worry you at all?"
"Certainly not. Why should they? Aren't we all scientists in some way or another?"
"Well, maybe, but it is a fact that a lot of people from the more, shall we say, orthodox branches of science tend to express skepticism toward your particular branch of—of exploration. Being shut up in a spaceship with so many unbelievers doesn't bother you?"
"Facts are not changed by the intensity of human beliefs or the number of people who hold them," Zambendorf replied. He was about to say something more when the production assistant off-camera nodded to someone behind a door situated to one side, and beckoned. Moments later, Gerold Massey appeared. Zambendorf jerked his head round sharply and gave Connel a puzzled look. Massey and Zambendorf had so far tended to avoid a direct confrontation, confining their acknowledgment of each other's presence to stiff nods exchanged in passing or from a distance.
Connel had set up the surprise on direct instructions from Patrick Whittaker at GCN headquarters. "Karl, people are always trying to spring things on you, aren't they," he said amiably. "I have taken the liberty of asking one of those skeptics to join us because I'm told he has a challenge that he'd like to put to you himself. I'm sure the viewers would all like to hear it too." Before Zambendorf could answer, the assistant ushered Massey forward, and Connel brought him on-camera with a gesture. "Folks, I'd like to introduce Gerry Massey. Now, Gerry is one of the psychologists with us here on the Orion, but in addition to that he's also a pretty good stage conjuror, I'm told. Is that right, Gerry?"
"It is an area of interest of mine," Massey replied as he moved forward to join them.
"And you're not a believer in the existence of forces or powers beyond those that are familiar to orthodox science," Connel said. "In particular, you claim you can reproduce any effect by ordinary stage magic, which Karl attributes to paranormal abilities. Is that so, Gerry?"
Massey took a long breath. To say all the things he'd have liked to say would have taken hours. "That is correct. For a long time now I have been attempting to persuade Herr Zambendorf to agree to demonstrate his alleged powers under conditions which I am able to specify and control. That, after all, is no more than would be expected in any other branch of science. But he has persistently evaded giving a direct answer. My suggestion is quite simply that the voyage ahead of us, and the period we will be spending on Mars, offer an ideal opportunity and ample time for this to be settled once and for all. I have a schedule of some initial tests with me right now, but I'm open to further suggestions."
Connel turned and looked at Zambendorf questioningly. Although he maintained his outward calm, inside Zambendorf was thinking frantically. He should have guessed Massey would do something like this, should have watched him more closely. The team had been too busy, with too little time. "Oh, we've heard this kind of thing before," he replied without hesitation. "Just because a stage magician can duplicate an effect, it doesn't prove at all that what's being imitated was achieved in the same way. After all, I'm sure Mr. Massey can produce a rabbit from a hat very convincingly, but he could hardly argue on that basis that all rabbits must therefore come from hats, could he?"
"I never claimed it proved anything," Massey answered. "But if a simple explanation can account for the facts, then there's no need for a more complicated one, or indeed any logical justification for accepting one."
"The simplest explanation for the planets and the stars would be that they revolve above the Earth," Zambendorf pointed out. "But nevertheless we all accept a more complicated one." With luck Massey would allow himself to be diverted into the realms of philosophical logic, totally confusing ninety percent of the viewers, who would then dismiss him as a hair-splitting academic waffler.
"Yes—because it explains more facts," Massey replied. "But all that's irrelevant, for now. You said that the presence of competent scientists is of no concern to you. Very well, then what I'm proposing will demonstrate the fact admirably. You said facts aren't altered by beliefs. I agree with you. So let's find out what the facts are."
Clearly Massey was not about to be shaken off. Half the world was watching and waiting for Zambendorf's answer. If he committed himself, Massey would never let him off the hook. "Well, Karl," Connel said after a few seconds of dragging silence. "What do you say? Will you accept Gerry Massey's challenge?"
Zambendorf looked around him desperately. Across the Orion's Control Deck, many of the officers and crew members were watching curiously. If those damn GSEC people had done their jobs, Massey wouldn't have been able to get near him. It was infuriating. Massey had folded his arms and was waiting impassively. Zambendorf hesitated. Then, as their eyes met, he saw the triumph already lighting up Massey's face. That did it.
Zambendorf turned away for a moment, braced his shoulders and breathed heavily a few times, and then looked up to the ceiling as if summoning strength from above. When he turned back again, his face seemed to have darkened with anger, and his eyes burned with patriarchal indignation. Connel looked suddenly apprehensive. Even Massey seemed taken by surprise. "At a time like this? . . . At such a moment of historic events about to unfold? . . . You would have me play games? What childishness is this?" Zambendorf thundered. Dramatic, sure, but it was an all-or-nothing situation. "We, the human race, are about to go forth and meet the destiny for which fate has been shaping us for millions of years, and instead of rising to fulfillment, your minds are distracted by trivia." Connel and Massey looked at each other nonplussed. Zambendorf whirled round upon Massey and pointed a finger accusingly. "I challenge you! Do you see any hint of where this journey will lead us, or what it will reveal? Indeed, do you see anything at all? Or are you like the rest of the blind who believe only in the part of the universe that lies within groping distance of their fingers?"
A bluff to throw him on the defensive, Massey decided. He had to hold the initiative. "Theatricals," he retorted. "Just theatricals. You're not saying anything. Are you supposed to be predicting something? If so, what? Let's have something specific for once, now—not after the event and with hindsight, after we arrive at Mars."
"Mars?" Zambendorf sounded pitying. "You believe we're going to Mars? You live your life in blindness. It is no wonder you cannot believe."
"Of course we're going to Mars," Massey said impatiently.
"Pah, fool!" Zambendorf exploded.
Suddenly Massey was less certain of himself. He could feel the situation starting to slip. It was all wrong. Zambendorf couldn't be turning it around. Massey had had all the aces, surely. Connel was gaping incredulously. "What are you saying, Karl," he demanded. "Are you saying we're not going to Mars? So where do you think we are going? . . . Why? . . . What are you telling us?" Most of the viewers had already forgotten Massey had ever issued a challenge. They wanted to know if Zambendorf had seen something.
Zambendorf was back in his natural element—the showman in control of the show. He extended his arms wide and appealed upward toward the roof. Beside him, Massey and Connel seemed to fade away on a hundred million screens. He brought his fists down to the sides of his head, held the pose for several seconds, and then looked at Connel with a strange, distant light in his eyes. "I have not the names that astronomers use, but I see us traveling over a great distance to a place that is not Mars . . . much farther from Earth than Mars."
"Where?" Connel gasped. "What's it like?"
"A child of the haloed giant who shepherds a flock of seventeen," Zambendorf pronounced in ringing tones. "I know not where I am . . . but it is cold and dark below the unbroken clouds of red and brown that float upon air that is not air. There are mountains made of ice, and vast wildernesses. And . . ." His voice trailed away. His jaw dropped, and his eyes opened wider.
"What?" Connel whispered, awed.
"Living beings! . . . They are not human, but neither are they from any part of Earth. They have minds! I am feeling out to them even now, and . . ."
"Get him off," General Vantz snapped on the far side of the Control Deck.
"Kill it! Get him off!" the Communications Director ordered. An engineer flipped a switch on his console. Voices were jabbering excitedly on every side.
"I don't care! Tell them anything," Herman Thoring yelled over an auxiliary channel to the Production Director in the GCN studio back in New York. "Say we've got a technical hitch. No, I don't know what it's about either, but we've got all hell loose up here."
Back in Globe II, Vernon Price was staring dumbstruck at the cabin wallscreen, which had just switched back to a view of Earth. "Well?" Malcom Wade challenged smugly as he puffed his pipe on the bunk opposite. "So he's a fake, is he? How do you explain that, then, eh?"
In his home in a Washington suburb, Walter Conlon pounded the table by his chair furiously with a fist. "He can't get away with it! He can't! Massey had him, for chrissakes—he had him cold!"
"Warren Taylor is on the line for you," his wife, Martha, said.
Conlon got up and stamped over to the comnet terminal across the room. The face of the NASO, North American Division Director was purple with anger. "What happened?" he demanded. "I thought you were supposed to have an expert up there who could handle that turkey."
In the study of his mansion in Delaware, Burton Ramelson was staring at a screen showing the stunned face of Gretory Buhl, who had just been put through from GSEC's head office. "My God!" Ramelson exclaimed incredulously. "Do you think we might have been wrong about this whole thing? Could there really be something to Zambendorf after all?"
In the Mission Director's executive offices in Globe I of the Orion, Caspar Lang was shaking his head at a grim-faced Daniel Leaherney. "Of course it's not genuine," Lang insisted. "We underestimated Zambendorf and his people. We took them for simple tricksters, but they're obviously far more sophisticated. It was a clever piece of espionage—nothing more, and nothing less."
"We'll have to tell the mission," Leaherney said. "It doesn't matter how Zambendorf did it—the result's still the same. We'll have to tell everyone on the ship the real story now."
"But we would have had to tell them before much longer anyway," Lang reminded him. "At least we're on our way, which is the main thing. It's a pity that the Soviets will find out now, instead of later when the Orion fails to show up at Mars, I know; but you have to agree, Dan, that with the number of people who've been involved, security has been a hell of a lot better than we dared hope."
Leaherney frowned for a while, but eventually nodded with a heavy sigh. "I guess you're right. Okay, put a clamp on all unofficial communications to Earth, effective immediately, and announce that I'll be addressing all personnel within a few hours. And get that psychic over here right away, would you. I reckon it's about time he and I had a little talk."
In Moscow an official from the Soviet Foreign Ministry, who was aware that the Americans had been conducting top-secret research into paranormal phenomena for many years, protested to the U. S. and European ambassadors that if the Orion was being sent to make first contact with an alien intelligence, none of Earth's major powers could be excluded. He demanded that the ship be recalled. The allegation was denied, and in their reply the representatives of the Western states suggested that perhaps the Soviet government was allowing itself to be unduly influenced by rumor and overreacting to sensationalism and unscientific speculation.
That same day aboard the Orion, Daniel Leaherney broadcast to the ship's occupants to inform them that, as had been generally concluded already, the ship's destination was indeed Saturn's moon, Titan. Pictures were replayed of the last views transmitted from the European probes that had landed on Titan two years previously, which showed strange machines approaching, and then nothing—the landers having presumably been destroyed. Nothing had been seen of whoever or whatever had built the machines. The orbiter that had launched the landers was still over Titan, but little more had been learned of the surface because of the moon's thick, brownish red clouds of nitrogen compounds and hydrocarbons.
The departments of the U.S. and European governments responsible for initiating the mission had never intended forcing anyone to face such unknowns against their will. Since the first reaction of many people to such a prospect would naturally be fear and nervousness, the original plan had been to announce the true story when the Orion was a few weeks out from Earth, which would have given everyone more than a month to discuss the situation and reflect upon its implications. Arrangements had been made for a NASO transporter from Mars to rendezvous with the Orion to take off anyone choosing not to stay on after that time. Expectations had been that after due consideration the majority of personnel would elect to continue the voyage and place their services at the disposal of the mission, and Leaherney expressed the hope that this would still be the case. The secrecy had been regrettable but necessary to ". . . safeguard the interests and security of the North American democracies and their European allies," he said.
Seven weeks later only a few faint souls dropped out when the NASO transporter rendezvoused with the mission ship. The Orion then accelerated away once more, its course now set for the outer regions of the Solar System.