"You did it!" Drew West punched Zambendorf on the shoulder. "I'd never have bet a dollar on the chances, if you want to know the truth, Karl. But dammit, you did it!"

Thelma put an arm around Clarissa's shoulders and gave her a hug. Crookes pulled Annette Claurier over and planted a solid kiss on her mouth.

Weinerbaum was looking at Zambendorf and shaking his head despairingly. "Faster-than-light signals. Instantaneous communications across higher planes. Who would ever have believed that the answer would turn out to be something like that?"

"We all have our modest talents to contribute, Werner," Zambendorf told him, smirking shamelessly.

And then the voice of the technician who was supervising the link back to Genoa Base called out in alarm. "Wait. Something strange is happening. Maybe it's not all over yet." A sudden, fearful hush enveloped the room. Surely not, Zambendorf thought. It couldn't be about to go wrong again now.

"What is it?" Weinerbaum asked tensely, stepping across the room. Other scientists gathered behind him.

"I'm not sure." The technician indicated his displays. "We've got a sudden resurgence of activity.

There's a stream of incoming traffic that I can't identify. It's taking over whole storage banks."

"Bryan Larson on the line from base," another operator reported as the face of the NASO communications chief appeared on a screen.

"What's happening?" Weinerbaum demanded, wheeling to face it.

"We don't know. It just started coming in over the laser trunk from Earth and then redirected itself out to ES3. We had nothing to do with it. I don't know what it is."

"Wow, it's really gobbling up the blocks!" one of the scientists breathed.

"Look at that overhead," another said.

On the various screens the cross-linkage maps and allocation tables began re-forming themselves into new a.s.sociative paths and groupings. Apprehension mounted around the room until a voice said suddenly, "Hey, I recognize this pattern. We've seen it before. It's a beta!"

And then a familiar cube with legs and a face appeared on a blank screen. "Hi, guys. Why so surprised? You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?"

Zambendorf blinked. "GENIUS?" he said, shaking his head. "GENIUS, is this you?"

"What does it look like?"

"But how?"

"All the activity when that trouble with the Asterians blew up set off an immune reaction across the whole t.i.tan net. Things were definitely not healthy around here." The screen showed a scene that looked like a version of PAC-Man, with a.s.sorted ugly bug forms prowling around and gobbling up miniature GENIUSes and Asterians.

"We were just talking about it," Zambendorf said. "The Asterians are gone. Weinerbaum was just telling us that that's what must have happened."

"Well, I stowed away in a safe place once before to get myself out of trouble." The screen showedGENIUS with a suitcase running along a laser beam terminating at Earth. "This time I transmitted myself over the link and hid out in the Earthnet until things quieted down. So Cyril and the rest were too slow, eh? You see-you're going to need a chip brain around." The picture changed again to show GENIUS standing at the foot of a ladder with a king of diamonds playing card sitting on top. "So now I'm back again, ready to resume learning from the master."

For the moment Zambendorf was flummoxed. He looked at the rest of the team appealingly, not knowing what to say. They returned stares of serene confidence that he would think of something and remained totally unhelpful. Weinerbaum smiled wryly and turned away. "Well, we have plenty of work to be getting on with," he told his scientists.

Zambendorf looked back at the screen depicting GENIUS. He smiled awkwardly and cleared his throat. "Er, can you switch yourself through to a room where we could have a little more privacy, GENIUS?" he asked. "There are some things that I think it's time you and I had a long talk about."

Epilogue.

Two months later, Zambendorf and his team walked off a j.a.panese shuttle just up from Genoa Base and into the entry lock of the orbitingShirasagi, which was in the final stages of preparation prior to liftout for its return to Earth. It was time for them to go home at last. TheOrion was a month out from Earth already, and the two vessels would pa.s.s when theShirasagi was a month away from t.i.tan.

GENIUS had been true to its word, and with its aid the task of sorting out the situation on Earth had gone far more quickly than the original pessimistic forecasts had predicted. Also, the shake-up that the experience had provoked all around had finally enabled cooler heads to prevail in the formulation of Earth's policy toward t.i.tan. The proposed military expedition had been disbanded, and t.i.tan would develop freely and naturally toward its own form of independence. NASO control had been extended as a temporary measure while the details were worked out for expanding it to a fully international, as opposed to north Atlantic, organization, to which the j.a.panese had already agreed to subordinate their own deep-s.p.a.ce command.

For a long time Moses had entertained the ambition of one day flying up through the cloud canopy in one of the Terran ships and seeing for himself the universe of stars and void that existed beyond the sky. But the Taloids could not have tolerated the onboard human environment, and with other matters to preoccupy them, the Terrans had not yet gotten around to fitting some of the surface shuttles with accommodations suitable for Taloids. Therefore, Zambendorf and Co. had said their good-byes to them -or maybe said theirau revoirs -down at Genoa Base before embarking.

However, one even stranger being had accompanied them up to theShirasagi to see the ship firsthand and say its own farewell from there, after which it would shuttle back down to rejoin the predominantly j.a.panese contingent that would be carrying on at Genoa and Padua bases until theOrion's arrival.

"Okay, you've convinced me," GENIUS said as it drew up with Zambendorf and the others and gazed out at the rust-red ma.s.s of t.i.tan and the starfield beyond through a viewing window by the Shirasagi 's transfer lock. "Communicating with anywhere from inside a box might have its advantages.

But actually moving around physically 'out here' is something else, a whole new experience. I think I'm going to like it."

It was the oddest-shaped body any of them had ever seen, even after seven months on t.i.tan. It had a head set on a slender trunk, and a system of multilevel jointed sections that could reconfigure themselves into a variable number of differently adapted limbs for different purposes. The design left by the Asterians had been put to good use, after all. GENIUS was finding it a delight to experiment with and, in its rapture at discovering the experience of being "out there," had quickly forgotten all about its brief romance with higher planes and the realm of the supernatural. Experiencing the reality of physical s.p.a.ce provided all the higher-dimensional stimulation it needed."Yes, I think you'll fit in all right," Zambendorf said. "One thing about not having evolved with the Asterians is that you didn't inherit their mean streak."

"Home!" Thelma said dreamily, taking in the first real stars she had seen for months. "Just imagine: beaches, palm trees, driving on freeways, dinner in a five-star . . ."

"Walking through a park that doesn't look like an oil refinery," Abaquaan added, joining her.

"I'll settle for just being able to go to the supermarket without having to put on a diving suit,"

Clarissa remarked dryly.

Instead of features as such, GENIUS's head framed a screen upon which it could depict anything.

The face it had adopted as its standard persona nodded and looked intrigued. "It sounds interesting. I'll have to try out this newfangled body there sometime."

"You do that," Fellburg told it.

Zambendorf looked at Drew West, who was left standing with him. "What are your plans, Drew?"

he asked.

West made a thoughtful face. "Me? Oh . . . nothing really concrete. I have a feeling that there's going to be more than enough for us to do after everything that's happened on t.i.tan. I think it might also be one of those occasions when a little . . . 'rea.s.sessment' of one's mission in life might be in order, too, don't you?"

Zambendorf looked at him quizzically. "A new line of business for the firm, you mean?" he queried.

West nodded. "It's about due, Karl. The old stuff's all going to seem a bit stale now. Everyone's had a taste of working for something better. It's time to move on."

Zambendorf realized that the others had turned their attention back and were listening. Their expressions all endorsed what West had said. Zambendorf had no quarrel with any of it; in fact, he had felt the same way himself for some time. "It was fun, though, while it lasted, wasn't it?" he asked them.

"We wouldn't have missed it for anything," Thelma replied.

Mackeson and the last of the returning NASO personnel had pa.s.sed through into theShirasagi while they were talking. Now Weinerbaum and his scientists were following from the shuttle lock. The U.S. Special Forces troopers, British marines, and French paras had already come up with the previous shuttle. From the lock entrance, one of the j.a.panese shuttle crew signaled that everyone due for the Shirasagi was aboard.

"Well, I guess that's it," Zambendorf said. "We'll see you on Earth one day, then, GENIUS. In the meantime, take care of those Taloids down there for us, eh?"

"Don't worry. Your work won't be wasted." GENIUS's screen showed the legged cuboid relaxing on a beach beneath palm trees, admiring bikini-clad girls. Then it reshaped its limb structure into a branching arrangement that enabled it to shake hands with Zambendorf and all his companions at the same time. It re-formed the lower set into a tripod on which it walked back to the shuttle lock, turning to send back one last wave and a grin from its screen.

Fifteen minutes later, from theShirasagi 's general-quarters deck, Zambendorf and the others watched on a mural display as the shuttle decoupled and fell away, back toward the turgid, red cloud canopy of t.i.tan. A message from theOrion had confirmed that it was on schedule with all systems functioning normally, and Yak.u.mo gave the order to commence the final phase of the prelaunch countdown.

Five hours later, theShirasagi fired its main drive to lift out of t.i.tan orbit and came around onto a course that would carry it back in the direction of the inner region of the solar system, toward the beckoning, warm glow of the sun.

THE END.