Still, Davenant was pretty sure that they arranged for their own children to be picked for special training, and for their women to get the more privileged jobs. There was no secret police here, for the society was too rigid to require one. A close-knit brand of conspirators could maintain itself without much trouble.

  Now that he knew what to look for, Davenant could easily find the signs of their influence. There had been some radical changes quietly made in the past twenty-five years. The Sergeants were no longer undifferentiated mass, but had been divided into grades, of which the higher echelons got a respectable though strictly utilitarian education.

  The newer outposts had been organized under different lines from X and from each other. One was staffed entirely by Sergeants who had a regular family life, another by experimental mutant types, still another by Angels, and all under the very eye of the Church. A diversity of cultures was breeding which must in time clash with and destroy the Church’s petrified overlordship. The terraforming project itself was probably a Psychotech idea.

  So far, so good. Davenant had every sympathy with the notion of undermining Jovian society. But he wasn’t at all sure about the ultimate aims of its new, hidden masters.

  Some three Earth days later, the Engineers went out into the field. They didn’t bother unloading their ship, but jetted her directly to the camp site, a feat of piloting which must have made some eyes bulge.

  A party of Angels and Sergeants, with a few Cinc bosses and their Hounds, arrived by motor sled to find camp already being established. It was a whirl of movement and action, with a score of swift sleek robot machines erecting shelters and workshops, guided only by men at the main control boards.

  “Y’re gonna drill here?” Garson asked timidly.

  Lyell nodded. “I think this is a promising site for one of the H-Li burners. We’ll take cores down to a depth of fifty kilometers and find out for certain.”

  “Fifty!” Garson gulped. “Won’t a shaft that deep—y’ll have to make it pretty wide, too—won’t it cave in?”

  “Not in this gravity and with this type of rock,” said Lyell. “Anyway, it’ll only be wide at the bottom, otherwise just broad enough to lower parts which our robots can assemble down there. It’ll take longer to warm the surface with the fires burned that deep, but be far more economical in the long run. Also, right now we still have to find out just how much native heat there is at the satellite center and how available it is.”

  A self-operating ’dozer walked around a selected area, scooping away rubble with casual giant shrugs. A slim steel skeleton rose above it, and Davenant and Kruse hooked in the boring rig and a minimal nuclear engine. They could have done it faster if their Jovian subordinates had been trained for such work.

  Falkenhorst set up his furnaces in one of the workshops and began turning out synthetic diamonds for drill bits. Yamagata’s laboratory worked overtime analyzing the sections brought up. Yuan pored over the results and announced that a biological approach to the atmosphere problem was not impossible.

  “Of course we can’t mutate from protoplasmic life,” he said. “Theoretically we could make animals, but they’d have to have heat producing cells to keep from freezing solid, and we want unicellular organisms that can multiply like mad. Rather than wait till the satellite is warm enough, I’m going to have the Abbey labs turn out some different things, which can live here as conditions are, getting rid of the poisons and releasing oxygen as natural metabolic functions. Liquid ammonia in place of water, for instance.”

  “Y’ mean y’all can make life?” Garson sounded shocked, and Davenant reflected what a good actor he was. The datum could hardly have been unknown to him, for synthetic virus antedated the Humanist Rebellion by more than a century and a half.

  “Sure.” Yuan peered at him from a stack of calculations. “Whole bacteria were assembled long ago. It was just a matter of reproducing and accelerating the chain of physiochemical reactions which led to the first life on Earth. Oparin had sketched that out as far back as 1930 or so. Nowadays we can tailor synthetic bacteria and protozoa to almost any requirements. The limiting factor is merely the extremes of temperature between which such complex reactions as make up life will go on.” He smiled. “Nothing more than microscopic organisms have been made yet, and I see no reason why humans should ever be produced synthetically even if it is possible. Nature has a much more interesting way of achieving that result.”

  The Cinc who was with them looked doubtful. “It soun’s blasphemous,” he muttered. “Only God—”

  “Oh, call it straight organic chemistry if you want to,” snapped Yuan. “Just don’t bother me now. I’ve got work to do.”

  The Cinc flushed darkly, and Davenant could almost read his thoughts—You damn slant-eyed—

  Garson stammered a question which deftly turned the talk into safer channels.

  “We’ll have to set up an iron mine near here,” declared Lyell. “You understand that our construction is only a portable testing rig, and that most of the terraforming materials will have to be manufactured on this world. According to your maps, there’s a deposit not far off…Let’s assemble some workers and go take a look.”

  The look involved driving shafts kilometers into a mountain. Blasting was of little value in the tenuous atmosphere, and Davenant used atomic energy to melt rocks loose, after which the diggers lumbered monstrously to clear away the rubbish.

  “How d’you control the reaction?” inquired Garson. “I never thought anybody’d ever make atomic burners that small.”

  “Damping fields,” said Davenant abstractedly. “Anti-radiation fields, too. It’s the same development of wave mechanics as has produced the molar potential barrier and the frictionless wheeldrive. In principle, these gadgets tap some of the reaction itself through field baffles. Lead shielding is obsolete except for special purposes.”

  “Oh.” Garson’s eyes rested on Davenant. Behind the faceplate, his countenance was a mask, “So y’ can damp, shut off a reaction from outside?”

  “Of course. How else could we burn, say, hydrogen and lithium instead of just blowing them up?”

  The team went on to another site. Lyell used the opportunity to go into space and check with instruments.

  “A big ship there in a low orbit, all right,” he said. “Must be the Starshine. She’s cold as charity, too. No one aboard.”

  “Emergency exit for our Psychotech friends.” guessed Kruse. “No point in leaving her there, rather than breaking her up for scrap unless she’s fully equipped. So when they came to Callisto, they must have had Ganymede in mind all the time.”

  Yamagata nodded. “These people never did anything at random. When the debacle came, they must have figured their best chance to get back in the saddle lay through Jupiter. Mars and Venus have too much contact with Earth for them to operate secretly.”

  “But the people who came out here—” began Davenant. “They knew they’d never live to see their plans mature. Why that tremendous sacrifice for a time long after they were dead?”

  “People are that way,” said Yuan.

  “What worries me is their ultimate plans,” said Falkenhorst. “Those here now must realize that they’ve little or no chance of persuading, the inner planets to reinstate them by using sweet reasonableness, or even some obscure socio-economic manipulation. And the Institute did advise war from time to time as the best solution. Like when they got the old U.N. to put down the Venusian nationalists by force. I have an uneasy notion they plan to make Jupiter a Prussian state, and then under the guise of Jovian conquest…with modern weapons, it wouldn’t be pretty, whether they won or lost.”

  Kruse said, “They always preached against war except as a last resort. The Venusian campaign was a small affair. I ought to know—my great-great-grandfather was a U.N. marine who fought there and settled down afterward.”

  “But attitudes change,” declared Lyell. “The psychodynamic technics are only methods for attaining given ends. They say nothing about the desirability of any aim. If the Institute people have acquired an old-fashioned power hunger, they’ll rationalize it to themselves, but they’ll be as dangerous as any would-be conqueror.” He shrugged. “Out of our province, though.”

  The initial survey took a little over three months. Then the expedition returned to X to make preliminary evaluations of data and plan the attack on Callisto. Terraforming Ganymede certainly looked possible. The question still was whether or not Jovian society was able to avail itself of the possibility. The answer to that involved further sociological study.

  “If the Psychotechs think it can be done, I’m inclined to agree with them and let it go at that,” said Kruse. “They know this moon better than we ever will.”

  Lyell shook his head. “In the first place, we have to keep up the pretense of not realizing the true situation,” he replied. “It could mean trouble if they found out that we do know. In the second place, the Abbey would want an independent opinion anyway. In the third place, how do you know they want the job done? Our trying and failing might be what they really have in mind. It could have a psychological impact, a disappointment and bitterness, which they could very well exploit.”

  Davenant felt again a chill of foreboding. He wasn’t fitted for this atmosphere of unsureness and hostility and dark cross-currents. A wave of homesickness for the clean bare slopes of Luna and the comradeship of the Abbey nearly overwhelmed him.

  He wondered what the Cinc spies sought of their suddenly blanked recorders. The natural interpretation would be that the Engineers had discovered the hidden instruments and had simply chosen this means to express indignation. But how natural was the Jovian mind?

  He returned to the library. There was little he could do at present except soak up as many facts as possible, for the Academy’s experts to take from him later. And the long, quiet chamber was the only place in X he really liked.

  Garson looked up from a projector as he came in. There was no one else present. “God with us,” he said shyly.

  Davenant nodded and sat down next to him. “What are you studying now?” he asked.

  “I’m s’posed to be educating myself in metallurgic theory, so I can work better with your team. ’Fraid it’s not my strong point.”

  Davenant looked at the projector. It had what seemed like an unnecessary number of controls. “Why those?” he asked, pointing.

  “Oh, that’s t’ save spools. One tape can hold a lot o’ diff’rent texts, same as one phone line can carry a lot of diff’rent messages. These buttons are t’ unscramble, an’ select the one I want.”

  “Hmmm—” Davenant hoped his excitement didn’t show. “That’s a novel idea. When did it come in?”

  “Oh, ’bout fifteen, twen’y years ago. Why?”

  “J-j-j—” Davenant swore at himself and brought his tongue under control. “I was just wondering.”

  But he knew now where the Psychotechs kept their secret records! Right here with all the others, safely scrambled in with a code modulation known only to the conspirators. Best place on Ganymede!

  The Angel sighed and looked at him steadily. “You know, don’t you?” he murmured—in Basic.

  “Know?—” For an instant, Davenant failed to understand what Garson meant. Then shock held him rigid.

  The Angel smiled. “Why bother, Hall? It sticks out ten kilometers. Ever since you started blanking those spy machines, and some of your questions, the way you react to key statements, almost the way you walk. You know who we are.”

  “You—I don’t get it. What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. This isn’t a very safe place to discuss such things. Just tell the others what I’ve said, and quote me to the effect that we don’t care. It was foreseen that a group of alert, intelligent outsiders, coming here especially to study this place, would most likely discover our secret. The probable reaction of your order has already been estimated and allowed for. I wanted you to see that religious ceremony and assassination, to realize more fully what a brutalized culture this is and how right that it should be taken over and changed.”

  The mask was off. There was no more hesitation, no more awkwardness in Garson. It was a mature and calmly assured man who spoke.

  “I know we’ve been party to some nasty affairs, like the last change of dictators. We’ll continue in that line for a while, because we must. Just remember that our ultimate aim is still what it always was—to establish sanity so firmly in all men that that sort of thing will be forgotten and impossible.”

  Davenant sat unmoving. Garson returned quietly to his book.

  It might have been minutes later, or nearly an hour, when the tramp of boots rang in the corridor outside. Davenant glanced up from the screen which he had been mechanically studying, and saw the door fly open. A dozen Hounds made their entry. Long, low-gee jumps ranged them around the wall, with guns pointing inward. A black-clad Cinc-three followed them.

  “Don’t move,” he said. “You’re arrested.”

  “What?” Davenant leaped erect. Three staring muzzles followed him. “What in Sol—”

  “Hands up!” snapped the Cinc. “Conspiracy ’gainst the Church’s a killin’ matter.”

  Davenant sucked in his breath and willed steadiness back to his shaking form. His mind leaped with an unnatural clarity.

  “You can’t arrest me,” he said. “I’m a Planetary Engineer. Our contract with your government, which has the force of a treaty, gives us immunity.”

  “Can’t I, though?”

  Davenant shrugged. A tiny germ of panic crawled deep in his skull, but his voice lifted coldly.

  “The Order protects its own. If you molest me in any fashion, they’ll hear of it at once on Luna. We have our methods of communication.”

  Sheer bluff, but he counted on the scientific illiteracy of the Cinc class, and the awe which his team’s work in the field had produced. “How would you like to have your brain burned out from space?” he went on. “What defense have you against robot bombs sent clear from Luna? If you don’t let me go back to my quarters you’ll soon find out that the Order is not helpless.”

  For a moment the Cinc hesitated. “Don’t do it!” screamed Garson. “There’s women an’ children here!”

  That worked. The Cinc detailed three Hounds to escort Davenant back to his suite.

  Four of the other Engineers were already there. Kruse showed up later, arrogantly demanding that the guards outside the door let him in. He had been set on by three Hounds down in the main power room, but he had also been involved in clan feuds on Venus as a youngster. From his tunic he extracted guns and passed them around.

  “What brought it on?” groaned Yuan. “What’s happened?”

  “I’ve got a hunch.” Davenant set up his testing rig and checked the room circuits again. “Yeah. Halleck’s idea, I’ll bet. He’s not stupid. See this pip? That’s a metallic mass in the adjoining suite which wasn’t there before. When we started wiping his tapes, he must have set up an old-fashioned groove-cutting mechanical recorder. He’s heard everything!”

  “And we thought we were safe, and didn’t bother to speak Basic most of the time,” mumbled Yuan. “He must be pretty damn sure of the situation. So now he’s setting out to arrest all the Psychotechs on Ganymede, and us along with them.”

  “What will happen to us?” wondered Falkenhorst. Sweat beaded his face, but the voice held an iron calm. “Will they dare take action against members of the Order?”

  “Probably,” said Lyell in a thin tone. “We’re safer for him dead—we know too much. He may call Hall’s bluff and execute us officially. More likely fake an accident.” He scowled. “What to do?”

  Kruse shrugged. His face was taut and pale, but he spoke with a sharp note of laughter.

  “We’ve got three guns,” he said. “We’re used to higher gravity than this. We can catch those sons of Hounds outside by surprise. Pick up whatever equipment here you think we’ll need. The only thing for us is to break out of here!”

  There was only a moment’s hesitation, as they weighed the meaning. Lyell nodded. “I hate to do it, but…Let’s go.”

  He, Kruse, and Yuan, the best shots, took the weapons. The rest loaded equipment on their backs. Kruse flattened himself against the door and opened it just enough to peer out, into the faces of three Hounds.

  “Boo,” he said. The nearest guard scowled and reached for his gun. Kruse snapped three shots.

  “Come on!” he yelled, and flung the door wide.

  The Engineers burst out into the corridor, stumbling over the bodies. Davenant stooped to pick up a gun for himself, and heard the whine of a bullet cleaving the air where he had stood. A corps of Hounds was trotting down toward them.

  “Out of here!” roared Lyell.

  They backed, laying down a curtain of fire. It seemed a miracle that there were no hits, but they were distant, moving targets. Davenant wasn’t afraid now. He hadn’t time to be. He burst around a corner, almost into the arms of another Jovian guard.

  His fist leaped of itself, the blow shocked home and he saw the man lurch back with his face red. Coldly, Davenant kicked him in the belly, and behind the ear as he went down.

  Run! His breath was raw in his throat as he fled with the others, down an endless labyrinth, always down, toward the garages. He didn’t see the action behind him as the three gunners turned to fire back. Once Falkenhorst staggered, grabbing at a shoulder which was suddenly wet. Davenant threw an arm around the man’s waist, and they struggled on together.

  Now—the garage entrance. In the confusion, it was unwatched. The Engineers went through, closing the massive door and dogging it behind them. A couple of mechanics ran up to protest. Kruse waved his gun.

  “Back, or you get it in the guts!” he snarled. There was a long row of sleek small rockets, ready and waiting. Lyell entered the nearest.