"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 Jevlenese had the means and the motive, and the answer fits 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."

Chapter Twenty-Three

"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 deamed 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."