some great airship, cruising not much faster than a cloud with its cargo of freight or passengers. This was one experience Titan could not provide. He determined to enjoy it as soon as the opportunity arose.
And there was a city — quite a big one, at least a hundred thousand people. The shuttle was now so
low that he could make out blocks of buildings, roads, parks, and a stadium blazing with light,
presumably the scene of some sporting event. The city fell astern, and a few minutes later everything was lost in a gray mist, lit by occasional flashes of lightning, not very impressive by the standards of Titan.
Inside the cabin, Duncan could hear nothing of the storm through which they were now flying, but the
vibration of the engines had taken on a new note and he could sense that the ship was dropping rapidly.
Nevertheless, he was taken completely by surprise when there was a sudden surge of weight, the slightest of jolts — and there on the screen was a sea of wet concrete, a confusion of lights, and half a dozen buses and service vehicles scurrying around in the driving rain.
After thirty years, Duncan Makenzie had returned to the world where he was born, but which he had
never seen...
Part Three
Terra
17
Washington, D.C.
"Sorry about the weather," said George Washington. "We used to have local climate control, but gave it up after an Independence Day parade was blocked by snow."
Duncan laughed dutifully, though he was not quite sure if he was supposed to believe this.
"I don't mind," he said. "It's all new to me. I've never seen rain before."
That was not the literal truth, but it was near enough. He had often driven through ammonia gales and
could still remember the poisonous cascades streaming down the windows only a few centimeters before
his eyes. But this was harmless — no, beneficent — water, the source of life both on Earth and on Titan.
If he opened the door now he would merely get wet; he would not die horribly. But the instincts of a
lifetime were hard to overcome, and he knew that it would require a real effort of will to leave the
protection of the limousine.
And it was a genuine limousine — another first for Duncan. Never before had he traveled in such
sybaritic comfort, with a communications console on one side and a well-stocked bar on the other.
Washington saw his admiring gaze and commented: "Impressive, isn't it? They don't make them any
more. This was President Bernstein's favorite car."
Duncan was not too good on American presidents — after all, there had been by now ninety-five of
them — but he had an approximate idea of Bernstein's date. He performed a quick calculation, didn't
believe the result, and repeated it.
"That means — it's more than a hundred and fifty years old!"
"And it's probably good for another hundred and fifty. Of course, the upholstery — real leather,
notice — is replaced every twenty years or so. If these seats could talk, they could tell some secrets. As a matter of fact, they often did — by you have my personal assurance that it's now been thoroughly
debugged."
"Debugged? Oh, I know what you mean. Anyway, I don’t have any secrets."
"Then we'll soon provide you with some; that's our chief local industry."
As the beautiful old car cruised in almost perfect silence under the guidance of its automatic controls, Duncan tried to see something of the terrain through which he was passing. The spaceport was fifty
kilometers from the city — no one had yet invented a noiseless rocket — and the four-lane highway bore a surprising amount of traffic. Duncan could count at least twenty vehicles of various types, and even though they were all moving in the same direction, the spectacle was somewhat alarming.
"I hope all those other cars are on automatic," he said anxiously.
Washington looked a little shocked. "Of course," he said. "It's been a criminal offense for — oh — at least a hundred years to drive manually on a public highway. Though we still have occasional
psychopaths who kill themselves and other people."
That was an interesting admission; Earth had not solved all its problems. One of the greatest dangers
to the Technological Society was the unpredictable madman who tried to express his frustrations —
consciously or otherwise — by sabotage. There had been hideous instances of this in the past. The
destruction of the Gondwana reactor in the early twenty-first century was perhaps the best-known
example. Since Titan was even more vulnerable than Earth in this respect, Duncan would have liked to
discuss the matter further; but to do so within an hour of his arrival would hardly be tactful.
He was quite sure that if he did commit such a faux pas, his host would neatly divert the conversation without causing him the slightest embarrassment. During the short time they had been acquainted,
Duncan had decided that George Washington was a very polished diplomat, with the self-assurance that
comes only with a family tree whose roots are several hundred years deep. Yet it would have been hard