On Earth, Kurt Zeigler had been a military liaison official with Eurospace and an inside contact there of General Valcroix, for whom he had supplied much valuable information—an impressive position for his relative youth of thirty-four years. He had been one of the few close associates who had escaped from Algeria with Valcroix while the general's own aide remained behind, valiantly leading a force to hold off troops who were trying to prevent the seized orbital lifter from leaving the pad. Zeigler had always been ambitious for power, which, simply put, meant being in a position where others did what you wanted. If it didn't come naturally with birth or wealth, the road to acquiring, he had found, was to become a trusted tool of those who possessed it, camouflaging one's own needs behind an appearance of serving theirs. And as his career up to its untimely termination had shown, he had proved remarkably adept at following this principle. That was why he was here, still enjoying the confidence of those who had arranged his ticket out, while the general's aide, if alive at all—a high statistical improbability—staggered and groped to exist from one lightless day to the next beneath the cloud and smoke canopy covering the cauldron that Earth had become.
He crossed the underground pedestrian precinct in the center of Foundation, Titan's first settlement after the establishment of Kropotkin on Dione, situated a quarter of the way around the moon from Essen. As Titan consolidated to become the center of the Kronian culture, Foundation had been made the seat of the governing congress. Before Athena, the intention had been to move the administration to Mondel-Waltz City on the far side of Titan, named after two of the principal founders, which had been designed and built to accommodate it. But the new capital—fortunately housing no more than an initial skeleton population at the time—had been wiped out by a major impact, and the Kronian Congress would be occupying its old quarters now for as far ahead in time as it was possible to see.
Zeigler arrived at the steps leading up to the Terrarama, a museum and exhibition dedicated to preserving scenes and relics of Earth, and went inside. The entry hall was darkened and contained rows of rectangular holo-tanks showing images of New York City, San Francisco, London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, and other metropolises that were no more. Their glows highlighted the faces of school groups, parents standing with their awed children, and individuals silently immersed in thoughts of their own. The next hall contained scenes of landscapes and life, from cabins in the Canadian Rockies and a desert oasis, to crowded Australian beaches and a waterfall panorama in the upper reaches of the Amazon. Again, everything was in the form of electronic imagery; the pitifully few samples of physical remains actually salvaged from Earth were carefully preserved elsewhere. A major objective of the return missions that had been planned and then postponed had been a Noah's Ark program to bring a variety of Terran animal and plant life back to Kronia.
Zeigler entered a side gallery devoted to selections of local life-styles, costume, and color, and spotted Kelm's tall, blond-haired figure at the far end, contemplating one of the displays. As he drew nearer, he saw that it was a scene of the Miami ocean-front hotel strip and highway—a visitor could call from a practically limitless library of stored images. There was no one else around. Zeigler approached behind Kelm's shoulder and shared the view of glass-paneled buildings and streaming automobiles in silence for a while.
"Everywhere, it was the same," he commented finally. "If you lived south, something needed doing north. If you lived north, you had to be south. Everyone always in a rush to be somewhere else."
The young Kronian turned his head. He looked officer material even out of uniform: trim and athletically muscular, shaped by Security Arm training, features handsome but with a haughty set, artificially tanned. He didn't smile. "The same, everywhere? So many cars?"
"Every city in the world. Millions every day."
"Where did they find enough pilots?"
"Pilots?"
"Whatever the word should be: professionals with the skills to execute such maneuvers. Earth didn't have processors that advanced. . . . I'm not sure that we have anything in Kronia today that could do it. Where did they get all the pilots to take people where they wanted to go?"
It took Zeigler a moment to realize what Kelm meant. "It wasn't a specialized profession," he said. "Everyone drove their own."
Kelm's brow creased. "You mean ordinary people? Even students? The elderly?"
"Everyone."
"I'm amazed. It doesn't seem possible that it could work."
Zeigler shrugged. "Humans are amazing creatures. I guess you've never known big open spaces. Did you ever visit Earth?"
"Never. I was born out here—on Dione."
Zeigler nodded and looked at the image for a few seconds longer. Somehow a part of him still didn't want to accept that it could all be gone, never to be returned to. Then he shook the thought away. There was nothing to be gained from such feelings. They had no bearing on the future that faced him now. "The reason I contacted you is that I think we might be able to help you," he said.
"We?" Kelm repeated guardedly.
"The group that I represent."
"Terrans?"
"They're going to be a powerful force here one day, Kelm. Make no mistake about that. Kronia will need what we know, to become what it must."
"What makes you think I need help with anything?" Kelm asked.
Zeigler moved a pace closer to stand alongside him, facing the display. Having eyes and ears out and about, keeping in touch with rumor and who was saying what, were part of the things he made it his business to cultivate. "Why the Security Arm?" he asked, answering obliquely.
"Everyone contributes something. It's where my skills are." Kelm's tone was that of someone stating the obvious.
"And are you satisfied with your lot there, Kelm? The future it holds? The rewards it will bring?"
Kelm shrugged. "It's what I do. One can't always choose."
Zeigler glanced around. His voice fell to a more confidential note. "Perhaps you have more choices than you think. Your natural skills are military. But Kronia has little use for them and doesn't acknowledge your true worth. We would value them highly. Eventually, the controlling power here will be decided by strength. It has always been that way. Your talents make you a natural ally of the strong. Use them where they will be most appreciated and rewarded the most."
"You really believe you can change things? You who are so few?"
"It isn't how many we are that matters. It is what we know and can do." Zeigler made an open-handed gesture. "Why should your aptitudes be valued any less than those of people who, at the bottom of it all, are just technicians? Nobody has to accept second-class existence as some kind of obligation, Kelm—just because some idealists in the early days stacked the deck in a way that suited them. Eventually things have to change." He nodded to indicate the traffic on the Miami boulevard. "You said it yourself. Without order and discipline, that would be chaos. Unmanageable. But it worked because people imposed rules. The greater human society is no different in the long run. You could be way ahead of the game, Kelm. The ones who help us now will be the ones who will command later. Why be a ranker in a police force whose days are numbered, when you could be a general in the army that will one day rule?"
As he spoke, Zeigler watched Kelm more closely than he let show. While maintaining an outwardly dubious expression—a plus-point testifying to good judgment and control—Kelm's eyes had been flickering over Zeigler searchingly, as if probing for validity indicators. His shoulders had been turned toward Zeigler, as if unconsciously screening off the outside world. He was interested. That was as much as could reasonably be wished for the present. Kelm's mouth turned downward briefly at the corners—but that was controlled consciously and didn't mean anything.
"I don't know. It's something I'd need to think about," Kelm said. "If I decide I want to know more, should I contact you the same way?"
Zeigler had hoped to finish on a more positive note. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I believe you were stationed at the training base on Rhea, before it was destroyed. Is that correct?"
"Yes. I was there." Kelm nodded.
"Then you are familiar with the layout and the locations of the various facilities," Zeigler said.
"There isn't very much left. From what I hear, anything that can be salvaged is being stripped out and brought to Titan. The only things left will be what's buried under the rubble."
"All the same, that is precisely the kind of information that some people are very interested in," Zeigler said. Kelm looked puzzled but didn't pursue the matter. Zeigler nodded at him meaningfully. "And they could be very generous when it comes to rewarding whoever can bring it to them. Think it over very carefully," he urged.