vibrations are a better measure of its eon-long Galactic Year. They may have much to tell us when we
begin to decipher their messages.
How those scientist-statesmen Franklin and Jefferson would have welcomed such a project! They
would have grasped its scope, if not its technology — for they were interested in every branch of
knowledge between heaven and Earth.
The problems they faced, five hundred years ago, will never rise again. The age of conflict between
nations is over. But we have other challenges, which may the tax us to the utmost. Let us be thankful that the universe can always provide great goals beyond ourselves, and enterprises to which we can pledge our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Duncan Makenzie closed the beautifully designed souvenir book — as masterpiece of the printer's art,
such as had not been seen for centuries and might never be seen again. Only five hundred copies had
been produced — one for every year. He would carry his back in triumph to Titan, where for the rest of his life it would be among his most cherished possessions.
Many people had complimented him on his speech, enshrined forever in these pages — and, much
more accessibly, in library memories and information banks throughout the Solar System. Yet he had felt embarrassed to receive these plaudits, for in his heart he knew he could never have conceived that
address; he was little more than a medium, passing on a message from the dead. The words were his, but all the thoughts were Karl's.
How astonished, he told himself wryly, all his friends on Titan must have been, when they watched
the ceremony! Perhaps it had been slightly inappropriate to use such a forum as this for what might be considered self-serving propaganda — even special pleading on behalf of his own world. But Duncan
had a clear conscience, and as yet there had been no criticism on this score. Even those who were baffled by his thesis had been grateful for the excitement he had injected into all the routine formalities.
And even if his speech was only a seven-day wonder to the general public, it would not be forgotten.
He had planted a seed; one day it would grow — on barren Mnemosyne.
Meanwhile, there was a slight practical problem, though it was not yet urgent. This splendid volume,
with its thick vellum, and its tooled leather binding, weighed about five kilograms.
The Makenzies hated waste and extravagance. It would be pleasant to have the book on the voyage
home, but excess baggage to Titan was a hundred solars a kilo...
It would have to go back by slow boat, on one of the empty tankers — UNACCOMPANIED FREIGHT —
MAY BE STOWED IN VACUUM...
42
The Mirror of The Sea
Dr. Yehudi ben Mohammed did not look as if he belonged in a modern hospital, surrounded by
flickering life-function displays, Comsole readouts, whispering voices from hidden speakers, and all the aseptic technology of life and death. In his spotless white robes, with the double circlet of gold cord around his headdress, he should have been holding court in a desert tent, or scanning the horizon from the back of his camel for the first glimpse of an oasis.
Duncan remembered how one of the younger doctors had commented, during his first visit:
"Sometimes I think El Hadj believes he's a reincarnation of Saladin and Lawrence of Arabia." Although Duncan did not understand the full flavor of the references, this was obviously said more in affectionate jest that in criticism. Did the surgeon, he wondered, wear those robes in the operating theater? The
would not be inappropriate there; and certainly they did not interfere with the feline grace of his
movements.
"I'm glad," said Dr. Yehudi, toying with the jeweled dagger on his elaborately inlaid desk — the two touches of antiquity in an otherwise late-twenty-third-century environment — "that you've finally made up your mind. The — ah — delay had caused certain problems, but we've overcome them. We now have
four perfectly viable embryos, land the first will be transplanted within a week. The others will be kept as backups, in case of a rejection — though that is now very rare.
And what will happen to the unwanted three? Duncan asked himself, and shied away from the answer.
One human being had been created who would never otherwise have existed. That was the positive side;
better to forget the three ghosts who for a brief while had hovered on the borders of reality. Yet it was hard to be coldly logical in matters like this. As he stared across the intricate arabesques, Duncan
wondered at the psychology of the calm and elegant figure whose skillful hands had controlled so many
destinies. In their own small way, on their own little world, the Makenzies had played at God; but this was something beyond his understanding.
Of course, one could always take refuge in the cold mathematics of reproduction. Old Mother Nature