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Life again. You said it happened to you after you left the base area with
Charlie, didn t you, Lan?
No response.
Alicia nodded. Yes, that s it exactly! Being part of a living world. All of a
sudden you realize how sterile Kronia was. I mean, of course we couldn t have
done without it. It preserved knowledge and technology when everything else
was lost. And I m sure that when we expand out of the Solar System, that s
where it will be from. But for all the other things, human things, we have to
rebuild the center of the new civilization here. Kronia will be an outpost.
Don t you think so?
She directed her last words at Keene and Cavan. They had come to the
intersection with the path and halted. But Keene was looking at Cavan, as if
not hearing her. Cavan was taking in the night scene of the base with its
geometric shapes and lights, as if leaving Keene to come to his own
conclusions in his own time-but somehow giving the impression of having an
intimation of what they might be.
That was why you did it, wasn t it, Leo, Keene said finally. Cavan turned on
a look of feigned innocence that would have been an offense to Keene s
intelligence if they hadn t known each other for years. Why you wanted me on
the Earth mission. It was political. You guessed something like that would
happen. You tried recruiting me that time when you and Alicia came to Dione,
but I said
I wasn t interested in politics. So you set me up with Vorse and Foy. You
wanted me to know more about what Kronia meant and where it was heading.
You d have stayed on Titan, content to let your work on the AG program
justify your existence, Cavan agreed, dropping the pretense.
That whole line of Vorse s about my being needed to supervise Agni s MHD
system was part of it. It wasn t necessary. Shayle could have done it.
Vicki was looking from one to the other, puzzled. Leo had some ulterior
agenda for sending you to Earth? Why?
I think I can see it now. . . . Alicia said. Leo never discussed it with
me.
Not the kind of thing one talks about when the person concerned isn t there,
Cavan remarked.
See what? Vicki asked again. She had never pretended to harbor any political
instinct.
Look at what Lan did in those last days back on Earth, Cavan said to her.
If you d had a good idea that Valcroix s people were going to pull off
something like they did, wouldn t that be exactly the kind of person you d
want to have here? I m sorry if it was using you, Lan, and that it put you in
personal danger. But as you can see now, a lot more was at stake. He shrugged
in a way that said life had to be that way sometimes. Anyway, as you yourself
said a moment ago, I did give you the opportunity to volunteer.
Keene just shook his head, for the moment too taken aback by the enormity of
the whole picture that was opening up to respond.
Are you saying you knew what the Pragmatists were planning? Alicia asked
Cavan.
He shook his head. Not specifically. If I had known, and could prove it, I d
have taken the evidence straight to Urzin. But I d been around those kinds of
people long enough to be pretty sure
they d try something. They don t concede power easily. The Kronians can work
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miracles in some areas, but they ve got their weak spots too. We saw some of
them when they came to Earth. No security-minded government would ever have
let the SA become compromised in the way it was. I
tried getting it across to people like Urzin and Foy, but they just didn t
have the experience.
Now Keene was more confused than offended. But that s not the way it was,
Leo, he objected.
The reason I said I didn t want to get mixed up in political things back then
was because I didn t think Valcroix had a chance. And you agreed!
Cavan gave one of the devious smiles that always marked finally getting to the
bottom of something he had been involved in. I agreed he could never have
succeeded at Kronia, he confirmed. But I never said anything about their
making a bid for control on Earth. The warning signals were there: the SA
being packed with disgruntled Terrans; the way Harvey Mitchell was pulled from
the Trojan mission after I got him assigned to it. They d always had their
sights set on
Earth. The whole business about calling for a say in running the Directorates
was to create an appearance of legality having failed. It was the obvious
target-undefended and too far away for any timely intervention. Cavan sighed
and shrugged apologetically, this time at Vicki. Of course, I
didn t know exactly what would be called for. So I arranged to have someone
there who I knew from personal previous experience would keep his head in a
crisis, know how to improvise when one thing after another went wrong, and who
doesn t know how to give up. And look what he did here. How many more people
do you know who could have pulled it off?
Vicki was staring at him fixedly. When Mitch was pulled . . . she said
slowly. Robin was your substitute, wasn t he? You d already set him up as
your insider in the SA. He told us the whole story.
Cavan nodded candidly in a way that said there was no point in hiding anything
now. I know it caused you and Landen a lot of grief, he said. But we were
up against professionals who knew all about infiltration and undercover
techniques, and hampered by the naivete of people who were too trusting and
knew nothing. I needed someone in the SA to keep tabs on what was going on. We
didn t dare let you or Landen know. It was imperative for everyone to act
naturally. Especially
Robin. They had dossiers going way back on everyone they recruited.
I didn t even know, Alicia informed them.
What, exactly, did you expect Robin to do? Keene asked.
There was no way to be specific, Cavan answered. But he s from the same
kind of mold as yourself. The main thing was for him to just be there.
Whatever developed, he would come up with something.
For a moment Keene felt the beginnings of indignation. But then he remembered
that what they were talking about here was something that was bigger than
individuals, that he had been ready to put before himself when Jon Foy opened
his eyes on that day long ago in the tower room at
Foundation to the things that Kronia stood for. And in any case, would he have
preferred staying back there, immersed in his own world, while Earth was lost
and the whole future course of human events set on a path of repeating its
same sorry saga all over again?
No. It wasn t in his nature. His inability to strike a compromise between what
was right and what wasn t, and the accompanying compulsion to hurl himself
totally into doing what needed to be done, regardless of the odds, had caused
him to give up a career to spend half his life fighting the establishments of
a degenerate science in the world that was gone, and to bring a dozen people
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