Imperial Earth

“I often wish we had a little more Terran compromise here. It would be nice to inject some into Cousin Armand.”

Armand Helmer, Controller of Resources, was not in fact a cousin of

Malcolm’s, but a nephew of his ex-wife, Ellen. However, in the closed little world of Titan everyone except recent immigrants was related to everybody else, and the designations “uncle,” 6daunt ….. nephew,” “cousin” were tossed around with cheerful inaccuracy.

“Cousin Armand,” said Colin with some satisfaction, “is going to be very upset when he learns that Duncan is on his way to Earth.”

“And what will he do about it?” Malcolm asked softly.

It was a good question, and for a moment both Makenzies brooded over the deepening rivalry between their family and the Helmers. In some ways, it was commonplace enough; both Armand and his son, Karl, were Terran-born, and had brought with them across a billion kilometers that maddening aura of superiority that was so often the hallmark of the mother world. Some immigrants eventually managed to eradicate it, though the process was difficult. Malcolm Makenzie had succeeded only after three planets and a hundred years, but the Helmers had never even tried. And although Karl had been only five years old when he left Earth, he seemed to have spent the subsequent thirty trying to become more Terran than the Terrans. Nor could it have been a coincidence that all his wives had been from Earth.

Yet this had been a matter of amusement, rather than annoyance, until only a dozen years ago. As boys, Duncan and Karl had been inseparable, and there had been no cause for conflict between the families until Armand’s swift rise through the technological hierarchy of Titan had brought him into a position of power. Now the Controller did not

bother to conceal his belief that three generations of Makenzies were enough.

Whether or not he had actually coined the famous “What’s good for the Makenzies…” phrase, he certainly quoted it with relish.

To do Armand justice, his ambitions seemed more concentrated on his only son than on himself. That alone would have been sufficient to put some str i s on the friendship between Karl and Duncan, but it would probably have survived paternal pressures from either direction. What had caused the final rift was still something of a mystery, and was associated with a psychological breakdown that Karl had experienced fifteen years ago.

He had emerged from it with all his abilities intact, but with a marked change of personality. After graduating with honors at the University of

Titan, he had become involved in a whole range of research activities, from measurements of galactic radio waves to studies of the magnetic fields around Saturn. All this work had some practical relevance, and Karl had also played a valuable role in the establishment and maintenance of the communications network upon which Titanian life depended. It would be true to say, however, that his interests were theoretical rather than practical, and he sometimes tried to exploit this whenever the old “Two Cultures” debate raised its hoary head.

Despite a couple of centuries of invective from both sides, no one really believed that Scientists, with a capital S, were more cultured (whatever that meant) than Engineers. The purity of theoretical knowledge was a philosophical aberration which would have been laughed out of court by those Greek thinkers who had had it foisted on them more than a thousand years earlier. The fact that the greatest sculptor on Earth had begun his career as a bridge designer, and the best violinist on Mars was still doing original work in the theory of numbers, proved exactly nothing one way or the other. But the Helmers liked to argue that it was time for a change; the engineers had run Titan for long enough, and they had the perfect replacement, who would

bring intellectual distinction to his world. At thirty-six, Karl still possessed the charm that had captivated all his peers, but it seemed to many-and certainly to Duncan-that this was now underlined by something hard, calculating, and faintly repellent. He could still be loved, but he had lost the ability to love; and it was strange that none of his spectacular marriages had produced any offspring.

If Armand hoped to challenge the Makenzie regime, Karl’s lack of an heir was not his only problem. Whatever the Seven Worlds might say about their independence, the center of power was still on Earth. As, two thousand years ago, men had once gone to Rome in search of justice, or prestige, or knowledge, so in this age the Imperial planet called to its scattered children. No man could be taken seriously in the arena of Solar politics unless he was personally acquainted with the key figures of Terran affairs, and had traced his way at least once through the labyrinth of the terrestrial bureaucracy.