Karl Zambendorf had been born in the north Austrian city of Werfen in 1967 as Karl Zammerschnigg, the third of a family of three brothers and two sisters whose father was a hard-working bookkeeper and whose mother, a teacher. At a comparatively early age he had made the disturbing discovery that his parents, though honest, intelligent, industrious, and exemplary in the various other virtues that were supposed to earn just reward, would never be as wealthy as he thought they deserved, nor would their labors earn any public recognition or acclaim. He gradually came to perceive this anomaly as simply a part of the larger conspiracy of systematic self-deception practiced by society in general, which while dutifully praising knowledge and learning, lavished riches and fame not on its thinkers, creators, and producers, but on those who helped it to defend its prejudices and sustain its fantasies. Knowledge, if the truth were admitted—which was rarely the case—was in fact the enemy; it threatened to explode the myths upon which the prejudices and the fantasies were based.
He left home at the age of nineteen and teamed up with a Russian defector who was causing a small stir in Europe by claiming to have been a subject of top-secret Soviet military experiments in psychic perception. Over the following few years, which proved educational as well as profitable, young Zammerschnig came to recognize fully his own innate talents, and in the process discovered an irresistible way to thumb his nose at the whole system of stylized rules and artificial standards by which the drab, the dreary, the gullible, and the conforming would have had him be like them. The Russian, however, was not attuned to exploiting the opportunities afforded by commercialized Western mass-media culture. So Zammerschnigg changed his name and embarked on his own career with the aid of an influential West German magazine publisher. Within five years Karl Zambendorf had become a celebrity.
His road to worldwide fame and fortune opened up in Hamburg when he was introduced to Dr.—of what, was obscure—Osmond Periera from Arizona, a researcher of the paranormal and a convinced UFOlogist who had written a number of best-sellers claiming among other things that the roughly circular North Polar Sea was in fact a gigantic crater caused by the crash of an antimatter-powered alien spacecraft; that the area had once been a continent harboring an advanced human culture ("Polantis," not Atlantis—the legend had been distorted); and that a polar shift and the climatic upheavals caused by the impact were at the root of all kinds of ancient myths and legends. Ridicule from the scientific community had merely reinforced Periera's lifelong ambition to go down in history as the Sigmund Freud of parapsychology; and after his "discovery" of Zambendorf, he displayed the fervor and ecstasy of a wandering ascetic who had at last found his guru. Whatever else his peculiarities, Periera's books had made money, which meant he possessed the connections necessary to boost Zambendorf to even higher orbits; accordingly, Zambendorf accepted an invitation to accompany Periera back to the U.S.A.
The U.S. scientific community remained largely aloof and disinterested, and the "experts" that Periera produced to vindicate his claims turned out to be from its more credulous fringes. Zambendorf proceeded to divine information from tamper-proof sealed envelopes, influence delicate electrical measuring instruments by pure mind power, alter the decay rates of radioisotopes, read thoughts, prophesy events, and perform many other wondrous feats which America's professional dream merchants built into a world sensation. Zambendorf's confidence grew with every new guffaw as "experts" tumbled in their tumbril-loads.
He owed his success in no small degree to the loyalty of the odd collection of individuals who had attached themselves to him over the years. He especially depended on them for information-gathering, and a characteristic shared by all the members of his team, despite their various differences, was an instinct for information likely to be of value in Zambendorf's business and an ability to acquire it, legally, ethically, and honestly . . . or otherwise. Anticipating future information needs was one of the team's never-ending activities.
The atmosphere by the pool outside Zambendorf's villa overlooking the Pacific from the hills above Malibu was businesslike despite the setting as he, Abaquaan, and Thelma discussed the latest status update forwarded from GSEC, which among other things listed the people nominated so far to accompany the Mars mission. "We'll need background histories and profiles on as many of those names as we can get," Zambendorf said, propped on a sun-lounge by a table of iced drinks and fruits. Thelma, wearing a beach-wrap over a bikini, sat taking notes beneath a sunshade at another table littered with some of the books on Mars, the history of planetary exploration, and NASO that she had been immersing herself in for days. "Make a separate list of the scientists. Clarissa has some useful contacts at most of the professional institutions—she can take care of those."
"Okay . . . Okay . . . That's okay . . . And Clarissa to take care of the scientists. I'll talk to her about it when she gets back tomorrow," Thelma murmured, checking off the items on her pad. "What about the Europeans?"
"Umm . . ." Zambendorf thought for a few seconds. "You'd better leave them to Otto and me." He turned his head to look inquiringly at Abaquaan, who was sitting sideways on another lounge and sipping from a can of beer while he listened. Abaquaan nodded curtly in reply, seemingly preoccupied with something else. "Yes, we'll make some calls to Europe," Zambendorf confirmed. "But get Drew to talk to his newspaper friends about those political people who might be going. We shouldn't ignore sources like that." He looked at Abaquaan again. "Does that cover the main points, Otto?"
"Except Massey," Abaquaan replied.
"Ah, yes," Zambendorf agreed breezily."A fine mess you've got us into, Otto." Abaquaan rolled his eyes upward in a silent plea for patience and ignored the gibe. He had first expressed concern when the name Gerold J. Massey, nominated by NASO as an "Observational Psychologist," appeared on the schedule. It implied that somebody at NASO had decided things had gone too far and was wheeling up the siege howitzers. Zambendorf went on, "However, you've got us into similar fixes before, and we have always pulled through. The first thing we need to do is make sure he's really there for the reasons you think he is."
Abaquaan threw up his hands. "To make sure? . . . Karl, we know why Massey's there all right! One, he's a stage conjuror. Two, he's a debunker who takes contracts against psi-operators. Three, he's worked for NASO before—remember the headhunters from Long Beach who thought they could sell NASO that psychometric testing crap? Four, Vernon Price is on the list too, and he works as Massey's partner—I mean, hell, Karl, how much more do you want? He's going there to plant a bomb with your name written across it in big letters."
"It sounds highly probable. But let's not make the mistake of overreacting to speculation as if it were fact. In addition you have to admit: Five, the main purpose of the mission, has to do with psychological research. Six, he is a psychologist. And seven, NASO has commissioned him to conduct purely scientific studies before. So the nomination could be perfectly legitimate."
Abaquaan got up and paced over to the poolside to stand staring down at the water. "What difference does it make?" he asked, turning back after a short pause. "If you're there and he's there, he's not gonna miss out on the opportunity anyhow. Whether NASO is officially sending him as a nut-watcher or unofficially as something else is beside the point—if he can make trouble, he'll make trouble."
"True, but how much will he be in a position to make?" Zambendorf replied, waving his cigar. "Will he be acting individually, or will he be actively aided by people inside NASO and the resources at their disposal? If it's just him and Price, we could probably afford to take our chances; but if it's them plus NASO, we'd be well advised to use as much help from GSEC as we can get. You see my point—we have to know what to prepare for."
Abaquaan crushed the can he was holding and tossed it into a wastebasket. Thelma leaned back in her chair and looked across at Zambendorf. "True," she agreed. "But how are we supposed to find that out? NASO's hardly likely to make a public statement about it."
Zambendorf didn't reply at once, but drew on his cigar and gazed distantly across the pool. After a while, Abaquaan mused, half to himself, "Do the NASO people just want to send a psychologist, or are they determined to send Massey? If we knew the answer to that, it would tell us
something. . . . In fact it would tell us a hell of a lot."
Another short silence ensued. Then Thelma said, "Suppose somebody came up with some good reasons why Massey should be dropped from the mission and replaced by someone else. . . ."
"What reasons?" Abaquaan asked.
Thelma shrugged. "1 don't know offhand, but that's a technicality. Since we couldn't afford to be seen originating a demand like that, it would have to come from GSEC—they've got enough lawyers and corporate politicians to think of something."
"Even if they did, can you see NASO dropping Massey if that is what he's there for?" Abaquaan sounded dubious.
"No, but that's the whole point," Thelma replied. "The way they react might tell us what we want to know."
Abaquaan looked at Thelma curiously, seemed about to object for a moment, and then turned his head away again to consider the idea further. A mischievous twinkle had crept into Zambendorf's eyes as he lay back and savored the thought. "Yes, why not, indeed?" he murmured. "Instead of being passive, we can lob a little bomb of our own right into the middle of them, maybe . . . As Thelma says, it probably won't blow Massey overboard, but it might singe his beard a bit. So we have to get the message across to GSEC somehow." Zambendorf took off his sunglasses and began wiping them while he thought about ways of achieving that.
Thelma stretched out a leg and studied her toes. "One way might be through Osmond," she suggested after a few seconds. "We could tell him, oh . . . that in a first-time situation like this, it would be advisable to keep disruptive influences and other unknowns to a minimum until Karl's gained more experience in the extraterrestrial environment . . . something like that?"
"And he'd persuade Hendridge, who'd take it to the GSEC Board," Abaquaan completed. He sounded dubious. Zambendorf looked at him, and then over at Thelma. They all shook their heads. None of them liked it. If the team wanted its relationship with GSEC to be a partnership and not a dependency, it needed to dissociate from Hendridge, not shelter behind him.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, it's obvious!" Zambendorf sat up and leaned across to stub his cigar butt in the ashtray on the table. "We talk to Caspar Lang and tell him that we both have a problem with Massey, and why. We've already agreed that Lang's under no delusions concerning the true situation anyway. And if he's going to Mars as GSEC's senior representative on the mission, then the sooner he and we can start talking frankly and get to know each other, the better."
Two weeks passed before Walter Conlon received an internal notification through NASO that GSEC had expressed concern over Massey's nomination for the Meridiani Sinus mission. Specifically, GSEC was calling attention to Massey's record as a skeptic and debunker of claims concerning paranormal phenomena, and to the fact that Karl Zambendorf was accompanying the mission to test abilities of precisely that nature. Although Massey's capacity was described as that of psychologist, appointing someone with his known predispositions, GSEC suggested, would be inviting the risk of his allowing personal interests to take precedence over official duties, with detrimental consequences to the job he was being sent to do. In view of these observations, therefore, would NASO like to reconsider its choice?
Conlon dashed off a terse reply stating that Massey's function was to assess and report objectively the behavior, attitudes, emotional stresses, and other psychological effects observed among the experimental community. If Zambendorf was going, then Zambendorf would constitute a valid part of the test environment, thus warranting objective reporting as much as anything else. Objective reporting demanded qualified observers, and Massey's unique background fitted him ideally to the total situation. No, NASO would not like to reconsider its choice.
A few days after that, Warren Taylor, the director of the North American Division of NASO, told Conlon that he wanted the decision reversed, making little effort to hide the fact that words had been exchanged among the higher levels of NASO and GSEC management. Conlon could hardly defy a direct instruction from his superior, and accepted the directive with a disinclination to further argument that his colleagues inside NASO found surprising.
That same afternoon, Conlon gave Allan Brady a draft of a press bulletin for immediate release, stating that Massey was to be dropped from the Mars mission and spelling out the reasons why: The proposed inclusion of a competent stage magician was considered threatening to a psychic superman being sponsored by a multibillion dollar corporation. Brady balked; Conlon demanded to sign the release note himself, and Brady retreated to seek higher counsel. Eventually the decision came back down the line that clearance was denied. At that point Conlon went back to Taylor to protest the unconstitutional and illegal suppression of information not relating to national security, and threatened to resign with full public disclosure.
And, suddenly, the heat was off. The order to drop Massey was rescinded, Conlon tore up his press bulletin, and everybody stopped talking about the law, the Constitution, and threats of resignation.
Not long afterward, Massey received an invitation to give a private performance ". . . for the further entertainment of our guests . . ." at a banquet to be held in the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Burton Ramelson in Delaware. All expenses would be paid, naturally, and the fee was left open, effectively giving Massey a blank check. It just so happened that the Ramelson family were controlling stockholders in a diversity of mutually enriching industrial enterprises, which, among other things, included General Space Enterprises Corporation and the majority of its bondholding banks.