Minisec, it was still somewhat cryptic: PRIORITY AAA SECURITY AAA
NO RECORD OF ANY SHIPMENT TITANrrB REGISTERED BUREAU OF RESOURCES LAST
TWO
YEARS. POSSIBLE INFRINGEMENT FINANCE REGULATIONS IF PRIVATE SALE FOR
CONVERTIBLE SO LARS NOT APPROVED BY BANK OF TITAN. PERSISTENT RUMOR
MAJOR
DISCOVERY ON OUTER MOON. ASKING HELMER TO INVESTIGATE. WILL REPORT
SOONEST.
COLIN.
Duncan read the message several times without any immediate reaction. Then, slowly, the pieces of the puzzle began to drift around into new configurations, and a pattern started to emerge. It was one that Duncan did not like at all.
Naturally, Colin would have gone to Armand Helmer, Controller of Resources; the export of minerals came under his jurisdiction. Moreover, Armand was a geologist-in fact, he had made one small titanite find himself, of which he was inordinately proud.
Was it conceivable that Armand himself might be involved? The thought flashed through Dancan’s mind, but he dismissed it instantly. He had known
Armand all his life and despite their many political and personal differences, he did not for a moment believe that the Controller would get involved in any illegality-especially one that concerned his own Bureau.
And for what purpose? Merely to accumulate a few thousand so lars in some terrestrial bank? Armand was now too old, and too gravity-conditioned, ever to return to Earth, and he was not the kind of man who would break the law for so trivial a purpose as importing Terran luxuries. Especially as such chicanery was always discovered, sooner or later; smugglers could never resist displaying their treasures. And then there would be another acquisition for the impecunious Titan Museum, while the criminal would be barred from all the best places for at least a month.
No, Armand could be excluded; but what of his son? The more Duncan, considered this possibility, the more likely it seemed. He had no proof whatsoever-OnlY an allaY of facts all pointing in one direction.
Consider: Karl had always been daring and adventurous, willing to run risks for what he believed sufficiently good reasons. As a boy, he had taken a positive delight in circumventing regulations-except, of course, those basic safety rules that no sane resident of Titan would ever challenge.
If titanite had been discovered on one of the other satellites, Karl would be in an excellent position to take advantage of it. In the last three years, he had been on half a dozen Titan-Terran surveys. To Duncan’s certain knowledge, he was one of the few men who had been to Enceladus,
Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Hyperion, Iapetus, Phoebe, Chronus, Prometheus. And now he was on remote Mnemosyne….
Already Duncan could draw up a seductively plausible scenario. Karl might even have made the find himself. Certainly he would have seen all the specimens coming aboard the survey ship, and his well known charm would have done the rest. Indeed, the actual discoverer might never have known what he had found. Few people had seen raw titanite, and it was not easy to identify until it had been polished.
Then it would have been a simple matter of sending a small package to
Earth, pprhaps on one of the resupply ships which did not even call at
Titan. (What would be the legal situation then? That could be tricky. Titan had jurisdiction over the other permanent satellities, but its claim to the obvious temporary ones like Phoebe & Co. was still in dispute. It was possible that no laws had been broken at all …. )
But this was sheer speculation. He had not the slightest hard evidence.
Why, indeed, had he thought of Karl at all in this context?
He reread the message, still glowing on the
Comsole monitor: MAJOR DISCOVERY ON OUTER
MOON. ASKING HELMER… That was what had triggered this line of ‘thought. Guilt by association, perhaps the juxtaposition might be pure coincidence.
But the Makenzies could read each other’s minds, and’ Duncan knew that
the phraseology was deliberate. There was no need for Colin to have mentioned Helmer; he was sending out an early warning signal.
It was ridiculous to pile speculation upon speculation, but Duncan could not resist the next step. Assuming that Karl was involved-why?
Karl might take risks, might even get involved in petty illegalities, but it would be for some good purpose. If-and it was still an enormous “if”-he was trying to accumulate funds on Earth, he must have a long-range objective in mind. The most obvious was the establishment of a power base-precisely as Duncan was doing.
He must also have an agent here, someone he could trust implicitly. That would not be difficult; Karl had met hundreds of Terrans “Oh, my God,” Duncan breathed. “That explains everything….”
He wondered if he should cancel his trip to Zanzibar; no, that took priority over all else, except the speech he had come a billion kilometers to deliver. In any case, he did not see what more he could do here in
Washington until he had further news from home.
He was still operating on pure guesswork, without one atom of proof. But there was a cold, dead feeling in the general region of his heart; and suddenly, for no good reason at all, Duncan thought of that solitary iceberg, gliding southward on the hidden current toward its irrevocable destiny.
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOHAMMED
El Hadj’s deputy, Dr. Todd, was one of those medical men who seem, not always justifiably, to radiate an aura of confidence. This despite his relative youth and informality; for reasons which Duncan never
discovered, all his colleagues used his nickname, Sweeney. ““I’m sorry you won’t meet El Hadj this time,” he said apologetically. “He had to rush to Hawaii, for an emergency operation.”
“I’m surprised that’s necessary, in this age.”
“Normally, it’s not. But Hawaii’s almost exactly on the other side of the world-which means you have to work through two com sats in series. During tele surgery that extra time delay can be critical.”
So even on Earth, thought Duncan, the slowness of radio waves can be a problem. A half-second lag would not matter in conversation; but between a surgeon’s hand and eye, it might be fatal.
“Until twenty years ago,” Dr. Todd explained, “this was a famous marine biology lab. So it had most of the facilities we need-including isolation.”
“Why is that necessary?” asked Duncan. He had wondered why the clinic was in such an inconveniently out-of-the-way spot.
“There’s a good deal of emotional interest in our work, and we have to control visitors. Despite air transportation, you can still do that much easier on an island than anywhere else. And above all, we have to protect our Mothers. They may not be very intelligent, but they’re sensitive, and don’t like being stared at.”
“I’ve not seen any yet.”
“Do you really want to?”
That was a difficult question to answer, for Dun can felt his emotions tugging in opposite directions.
Thirty-one years ago, he must have been born in a place not unlike this, though probably not as sT)ec tacularly beautiful. If he had gone full term-and in those days, he assumed, all clones did so-some un known woman had carried him in her body for at least eight months after implantation. Was she still alive? Did any record of her name still exist, or was she merely a number in a computer file? Perhaps not even that, for the identity of a foster mother was not of the slightest biological importance. A purely mechanical womb could have served as well, but there had never been any real need to perfect so complex a
device. In a world where reproduction was strictly limited, there would always be plenty of volunteers; the only problem was selecting them.