"Amazing!" one of the ladies in the enthusiastic throng crowding around Massey at the end of the dining hall in the Ramelsons' mansion exclaimed. "Truly amazing! Are you sure you're not deceiving us just a little when you insist that you don't possess genuine psychic powers, Mr. Massey?"
Massey, resplendent, his full beard flowing above tuxedo and black tie, shook his head firmly. "I did all the deceiving earlier. I'm here purely to entertain. I don't pretend to be anything I'm not."
"Could I have an autograph, possibly?" a buxom woman, festooned with jewels and wearing a lilac evening dress, asked. "Here on this menu card would be fine."
"Certainly." Massey took the card and seemed about to open it when another voice caused him to turn away.
"I'm not sure I believe it," a tall, distinguished-looking man with thinning hair and a clipped mustache declared. "You're genuine all right, Massey, but you haven't realized it yourself yet. It's happened before, you know—plenty of reliable, authenticated stories."
In an apparently absentminded way, Massey handed what looked like the same menu card back to the woman in the lilac dress. It was always a safe bet that someone would want a menu card autographed at an occasion like that, and Massey made a point of beginning such evenings with a few prepared cards concealed about his person. "I would be most surprised," he told the distinguished-looking man sincerely.
"I simply must know how you did that thing with the envelope," an attractive girl somewhere in her twenties said. "Can't you give us just a hint, even? I mean . . . it was so impossible."
"Oh, you should know better than to ask things like that," Massey said reproachfully.
"But you never touched it."
"Didn't I?"
"Well, no. We all know what we saw."
"No—you just know what you think you saw."
"Is Karl Zambendorf genuine?" a tubby man with a ruddy face asked. He was swaying slightly and looked a little the worse for drink.
"How could I know?" Massey replied. "But I do know that I can duplicate everything he's done so far."
"But that doesn't prove anything, does it," the tubby man said. "You're all the same, you fellows
. . . If Zambendorf walked across the Chesapeake Bay from here to Washington, you'd just say, `Oh yes—that's the old walking-on-the-water trick.' Just because you can imitate something, it doesn't mean it had to be done the same way first time, does it?"
"When he walks across the bay, Ill give you my comment," Massey promised.
"Er, Mr. Massey, you did say you'd autograph my menu card," the woman in the lilac evening dress reminded him hesitantly.
"That's right. I did."
"I still have it here, and—"
"No, you misunderstood me. I have."
"I don't think I quite—"
"Look inside it."
"What? Oh, but . . . Oh, my God, look at this! How did that get in here?"
At that moment Burton Ramelson appeared behind Massey, smiling and holding a brandy glass. He was small in stature, almost bald, and even his exquisitely cut dinner jacket failed to hide completely the sparseness of his frame; but his sharp eyes and tight, determined jaw instilled enough instant respect to open a small circle in the guests before him. "A splendid exhibition!" he declared. "My compliments, Mr. Massey, and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I add—my thanks for turning our evening into a sparkling occasion." Murmurs and applause endorsed his words. He turned his head to address the guests. "I know you would all like to talk to Mr. Massey forever, but after his exertions I think we owe him the courtesy of a few minutes' rest in relative peace and quiet. I promise I'll do my best to persuade him to rejoin you later." Turning once more toward Massey, he said, "Perhaps you'd care to join a few friends and myself for a brandy in the library."
As they proceeded out of the dining room and across a hall of paneled walls, gilt-framed portraits, and heavy drapes, Ramelson chatted about the house and its grounds, which had been built for a railroad magnate in the 1920s and acquired by Ramelson's father toward the end of the twentieth century. The Ramelson family, Massey had learned from Conlon, commanded hundreds of millions spread among its many members, heirs, foundations, and trusts in such a way as to avoid excessively conspicuous concentrations of assets. Most of their wealth had come from the energy hoax and coal boom following the anti-nuclear propaganda campaign and political sabotage of high-technology innovation in the seventies and eighties, which while achieving its immediate objective of maximizing the returns on existing capital investments, had contributed to the formulation of U.S. policies appropriate to the nineteenth century while the developing nations were thrusting vigorously forward into the twenty-first. The subsequent decline in competitiveness of American industries and their increasing dependence on selling to their own domestic market to maintain solvency was partly the result of it.
The group waiting in the library comprised a half dozen or so people, and Ramelson introduced the ones whom Massey had not met already. They included Robert Fairley, a nephew of Ramelson, who sat on the board of a New York merchant bank affiliated to GSEC; Sylvia Fenton, in charge of corporate media relations; Gregory Buhl, GSEC's chief executive; and Caspar Lang, Buhl's second-in-command.
Ramelson filled a glass at an open cabinet near the fireplace, added a dash of soda, and passed the glass to Massey. He proffered a cigar box; Massey declined. "I'm so glad you were able to come," Ramelson said. "You possess some extraordinary skills. I particularly admire the insight into human thinking that your profession must cultivate. That's a rare, and very valuable, talent." After the briefest of hesitations he added, "I do hope you find it adequately rewarded in this world of ours."
"It was a good act," Buhl said, clapping Massey on the shoulder. "I've always been about as cynical as a man can get, but I don't mind saying it straight—you came close to converting me."
Massey grinned faintly and sipped his drink. "I don't I believe that, but it's nice to hear you say it all the same." Somebody laughed; everyone smiled.
"But it's only your hobby, isn't that right?" Robert Fairley said. "Most of the time you're a professor of human behavior or something . . ."
"Cognitive psychology," Massey supplied. "I study what kinds of things people believe, and why they believe them. Deception and delusion play a big part in it. So, you see, the hobby is really an extension of my job, but in disguise."
"It sounds a fascinating field to be associated with," Sylvia Fenton commented.
"Burton's right—it's valuable," Buhl said. "Not enough people know how to begin telling sense from nonsense. Most of our managers don't know where to start . . . nobody to show 'em how. Financial mechanics are all you get from the business schools these days."
"An interesting point," Ramelson said. He went through the motions, of thinking to himself for a few seconds. "Have you, er . . . have you ever wondered what your knowledge might be worth to you outside of the academic community, Mr. Massey?" Massey made no immediate response, and after a pause Ramelson went on, "I'm sure I don't have to spell out at great length what it might mean to have the resources of an organization like GSEC at your disposal. And as we all know, such an organization is able, if it so chooses, to reward the services that it considers particularly valuable with . . . well, shall we say, extreme generosity."
The rest of the company had fallen quiet. Massey walked slowly away toward the center of the room, stopped to sip some more of his drink, and then turned back to face them. "Let's come right to the point," he suggested. "You want to buy me off of the Mars mission."
Ramelson seemed to have been half expecting the sudden directness, and remained affable. "If you wish to put it that way," he agreed. "We all have our price—it's a worn and tired phrase, but I believe it nevertheless. So what's yours, Massey? Name it—research facilities and equipment? Staff? Effectively unlimited funding? Publicity? . . . Someone like you doesn't need the details elaborated. But everything is negotiable."
Massey frowned at the glass in his hand, and, perplexed, exhaled a long breath, then answered obliquely. "I don't understand all this. I know that you know Zambendorf is a fake. Okay, so the stunt on Mars could be good for business—but I can't see what makes it so essential. The logical thing would be to drop Zambendorf now since it looks like more trouble than it's worth. But that's not what's happening. What do people in your positions care whether he keeps his image clean or not? So what's the real story?"
"You just said it," Buhl replied, shrugging and following Ramelson's candid lead. "It's good for business. The more the idea of colonies is popularized, the sooner they'll become financially viable and potentially profitable. Yes, we like making money. Who doesn't?"
The answer sounded more like a rationalization than a reason and left Massey feeling dissatisfied. But his instincts told him that any attempt at delving deeper would be futile. "I've nothing against trying to popularize the colonies," he said. "But if you're going to do it, why can't you do it through rational education and reason? Why resort to spreading miseducation and unreason?"
"Because it works," Sylvia Fenton said simply. "It's the only thing that has ever worked. We have to be realistic, not idealistic. We didn't make people the way they are. What benefit has rational education ever had, except on a small minority of any population, anytime in history? Nobody wants to hear it."
"Some people do," Massey replied. "There are a lot of people on this planet who used to starve by the millions, and while their children withered away and died like flies, they prayed to cows that wandered the streets. Now they're building their own fusion plants and launching moonships. I'd say they got quite a bit out of it."
"But that kind of thing takes centuries to trickle down," Fairley pointed out. "We don't have centuries. No popular mass movement was ever started in a laboratory or a lecture theater. Thinking things through takes too much time for most people. Sylvia made a valid point—look at anybody from Jesus Christ to Karl Marx who got results fast, and see how they did it."
"And what were the results worth?" Massey asked. "Generations of people wasting their lives away buying crutches because they'd been brainwashed into thinking they were cripples."
Buhl studied his glass for a moment, then looked up. "That's a noble sentiment, Mr. Massey, but who's to blame for people being conditionable in the first place?"
"A society that fails to teach them to think for themselves, trust in their own judgment, and rely on their own abilities," Massey said.
"But that's not what most people want," Sylvia Fenton insisted. "They want to believe that something smarter and stronger than they are knows all the answers and will take care of them—a God, the government, a cult leader, or some magic power . . . anything. If they're going to change, they'll change in their own time. All you can do until then is take the world as you find it and make the most of your opportunities."
"Opportunities for what?" Massey said. "To persuade ordinary people that wanting a better living is really a trivial distraction from the higher things that really matter, and fob them off with superstitions that tell them they'll get theirs later, in some hereafter, some other dimension, or whatever—if they'll only believe, and work harder. Is that what I'm supposed to do?"
"Why do you owe them anything else?" Buhl asked. He shrugged. "The ones who can make it will make it anyway. Are the rest worth the effort?"
"From the way a lot of them end up, no," Massey agreed frankly. "But the potential they start out with is something else. The most squandered resource on this planet is the potential of human minds—especially the minds of young people. Yes, I believe the effort to realize some of that potential is worth it."
The conversation continued for a while longer, but the positions remained essentially unaltered. Each side had heard the other's viewpoint before, and neither was about to be converted. Eventually Mrs. Ramelson appeared with a request from the guests for a further, impromptu, performance, and after a few closing pleasantries Massey left with her to return to the dining room.
Silence descended for a while after their departure. At last Ramelson commented genially, "Well, at least we know where we stand: If we fly our flag on the good ship Zambendorf, Massey will be out to torpedo it. I can't say I'm entirely surprised, but we all agreed it had to be tried. . . ." He looked across at the saturnine figure of Caspar Lang, the deputy chief executive of GSEC, who had said little since Massey's arrival and was brooding in one of the leather armchairs opposite the door. Lang raised his ruggedly chiseled, crew-cut head and returned a hard-eyed inquiring look as he caught the motion. "So if we're sending our ship into hostile waters, we'd better make sure it has a strong escort squadron," Ramelson went on. He closed his eyes and brought a hand to his brow. "You could find yourself with a tough job on your hands at the end of your voyage, my powers tell me, Casper. . . . We'd better make sure you take plenty of ammunition along."
"Don't give me any of that crap, you little tramp!"
"Who the hell do you think you are to call me a tramp? You—you of all people!"
"Just stop screaming for two seconds and listen to yourself for chrissakes! What sort of a woman screams like that? What do you—"
"Me? Me? I am not screaming!"
"Goddamit!"
The exchange ended with a shout and the crash of breaking china as Joe Fellburg flipped a switch to cut off the sound. He sat back and cocked an inquiring eye at Zambendorf. "What do you think?" he asked.
Zambendorf nodded and looked impressed as he ran his eye once more over the compact assembly of electronics and optical gadgetry that Fellburg had set up on a small table in an upper room in Zambendorf's villa. The equipment had "fallen off" a CIA truck and found its way to Fellburg via a devious route that involved one of his former military-intelligence buddies and a communications technician with a gambling problem. It contained a miniature infrared laser whose needle-fine beam was at that moment trained on the windowpane of a house almost a mile away. Soundwaves in the room caused the window glass of the distant house to vibrate; the vibrations of the glass were impressed upon the reflected laser light; and a demodulator system extracted the audio frequencies from the returned signal and fed them to a loudspeaker which reproduced the original sound. The device had all kinds of uses.
"It's astonishing," Zambendorf said. "Do you know, Joe, this world will never cease to amaze me. There are silly people everywhere running around in circles looking for miracles, and all the time they're blind to the miracles right under their noses." He motioned with a hand. "I could never produce something like that in a hundred years."
Fellburg shrugged and tipped his chair back to rest a heel on the window sill. "I was talking to Drew about this the other day. He had an idea that maybe the moisture variations that cause skin resistance to change might alter the way the beam's reflected off a person. If they do, then maybe you could detect it with this thing."
Zambendorf looked at him for a few seconds. "What are you getting at—you mean it could monitor skin resistance changes remotely?"
"I don't know, but maybe . . . kinda like a remote-acting polygraph. It might be possible to pick out the stress reaction of, say, one person in a group from across the street or wherever. It could have all kinds of potential."
Zambendorf was looking intrigued. "It certainly could . . . When do you think you'll know something definite?"
"Oh, give me, say, a couple of weeks to fool around with it some more. I oughta be—"
The call tone from the comnet terminal across the room interrupted him. Zambendorf sauntered across to take the call. It was Thelma, speaking from downstairs. "I've got Caspar Lang from GSEC on the line. He wants to talk to you," she told him.
"Put him through, Thelma." Zambendorf turned and sent Fellburg a satisfied grin. "Do you think it's what I think it is?" he asked.
Fellburg raised his eyebrows. "I'd guess so. Anyhow, we'll soon find out."
The flap inside NASO a few weeks previously had told Zambendorf and his team all they wanted to know about why Gerold Massey was being sent to Mars and NASO's determination to send him. It was strange, therefore, that after the dust had settled, Burton Ramelson should invite Massey to the banquet at his home in Delaware. The only reason Zambendorf or any of the others could think of for this was that GSEC had decided upon a last-ditch bid to buy Massey off although it seemed as obvious as anything could be that any such attempt would be a waste of time and effort. Zambendorf had guessed that, predictably and true to form, the GSEC executives would plod unwaveringly along their predetermined course nevertheless, and he had laid a bet with Otto Abaquaan that Lang would call within two days of the banquet to inform Zambendorf of the meeting with Massey that Zambendorf wasn't supposed to know about already.
"Caspar, good evening," Zambendorf greeted as the screen came to life. "What time is it back East for goodness' sake—don't you people ever sleep? And what can I do for you?"
"HelIo, Karl," Lang acknowledged. As always he remained serious and came straight to the point. "Look, there's been a further development concerning Massey that you ought to know about."
Zambendorf looked pained. "Oh dear, Caspar, sometimes I really do think you don't believe in me. Do you I imagine that I don't know already?"
Lang's face twitched in momentary irritation. "Karl, please, this is business. Let's be serious about it."
"But I'm being perfectly serious; You and your colleagues tried to buy Massey off the mission with offers of plenty of funding for his research and all that kind of thing, and he wasn't interested. Is that about it, or did you have something else to add?" The guesses were the kind that Zambendorf felt comfortable with. For just an instant Lang seemed genuinely taken aback. "But my impressions can be vague at times," Zambendorf went on, smiling. "So yes, please, Caspar, do go ahead and tell I me what happened."
As Lang summarized the conversation with Massey, Zambendorf's eyes narrowed, and he listened more intently. He remained quiet, absorbed in his own thoughts for several minutes after Lang had cleared down. Fellburg said nothing and occupied himself with jotting down notes concerning the bugging device, eventually looking up and cocking an eyebrow when he sensed that Zambendorf was ready to say something.
"Joe, are we that important on this mission . . . I mean as far as GSEC is concerned?" Zambendorf asked.
Fellburg frowned down over his hand while he stroked his mouth with the side of a finger. "Well, I guess it's still the way we talked about before—if lots of people get hyped up on space, it has to be good for business."
"Yes, but isn't the main purpose of the mission to accumulate data for the future design of colonies?" Zambendorf asked.
Fellburg nodded. "Yeah . . . I guess so."
"And nobody could argue that our being there is vital to that purpose, could they . . . or even really that important?"
"Nope . . . I guess not."
Zambendorf nodded, frowned to himself, and paced away to face the far wall. Silence fell again for a while. Then Zambendorf wheeled back. "It doesn't add up, Joe. Why would people like Burton Ramelson and Gregory Buhl involve themselves personally in something like this? It should have been left to the regular GSEC management minions. And if NASO wouldn't back down and the regular management couldn't handle it, then the whole idea should have been dropped. In fact that's probably what NASO expected. But it didn't work out that way. What do you make of it?"
Fellburg stared hard at the table, but in the end shook his head with a heavy sigh. "Got me beat," he conceded.
"It's this mission," Zambendorf said, moving slowly back toward the window. "There's something very strange about the whole situation . . . You know, I'm beginning to suspect there's a lot more behind it than anybody's been talking about. In fact, it's more than just a suspicion, Joe—it's a dead certainty."
Fellburg pursed his lips while he considered the proposition. "Any ideas?" he asked at last.
Zambendorf frowned. "Not at this stage. But if something's being hushed up and it concerns the purpose of the mission, it has to be something pretty big. Just think what a bonanza it could be for us if we called it before the public or anyone else knew anything." Zambendorf's eyes gleamed as he pictured it. "My nose tells me there's something to be found out that we could turn to our advantage somehow. I want to get the whole team working on it right away."