we’re incapable of looking beyond the bottom line of the current quarter’s balance sheet. If a serious space development program becomes our official policy, every contractor will be looking for a share of the action, and sure, we’d expect to take our place in line with everyone else who has something to offer. But the issue that should concern all of us is the safety and future of humanity. Look at the western sky tonight just after sundown if you’ve forgotten what I’m talking about. It’s happened before, and now we’ve just come too close for comfort to seeing it happen again. Saying that you and I won’t be around next time isn’t an answer.”
“The Kronians say it happened before,” somebody at the back of the room called out. “But they’re the ones on a limb out there who need Earth to bail them out. Is it just a coincidence that the line of business you’re in happens to be what they’re telling us we have to do?”
Ricardo shook his head violently, looking along the table for support. “They’re not out on any limb. Hell, man, they’ve got drive systems that could run rings around what we put up.”
“But Kronia is economically nonviable,” somebody else threw out. “Admit it, their system’s shot. They have to get Earth’s support somehow or go under.”
“That’s just a line that the politicians take,” Joe Elms retorted, sitting next to Keene on his other side from Lomack. “They don’t want to think about what it might do to their budgets.”
“Me neither. Would you want to pay the taxes?”
“It doesn’t have to be a tax-funded thing,” Joe answered. “Taken as a whole, this planet has enormous resources. We spend more on cosmetics, alcohol, entertainment, and pet food than—”
“Corporate interests again,” another voice chimed in. “That’s the whole point that some people are questioning.”
Keene didn’t want this to degenerate into an airing of suspicions they had all heard before. There were vaster issues to be focusing on. “Look,” he said, raising both his hands. “Can we just put all this aside in our minds for a minute? These things are trivial compared to what we should be talking about. What we should be talking about concerns all of us. . . .” He gave the mood a second or two to shift. “It isn’t just the Kronians who are saying that Earth has undergone major cataclysms in its past from encounters with other astronomical objects. Scars and upheavals written all over the surface of this planet and its moon say it. Abundant records of violent mass extinctions say it. Evidence of sudden climatic changes and polar shifts say it. And records preserved from cultures all over the world say that it has happened within recorded human history. Traditionally, they’ve been dismissed as myths and legends, but they show too much corroboration to be coincidental. The facts have been there for centuries, but for the most part we’ve remained collectively blind to what they’ve been telling us. Athena is telling us that we can’t risk that kind of blindness any longer.”
“Exactly,” Lomack pronounced, nodding vigorously.
A dark-haired man who was sitting near the front raised a hand, then pitched in. “Phil Onslow, Houston Chronicle . Do we take it, then, that you endorse this idea that the Kronians have been pushing about Venus being a new planet?”
For a moment, Keene was surprised. He had assumed it was obvious. “Well . . . sure. It’s intimately connected with what we’re trying to say, and what yesterday’s demonstration was all about. Three and a half thousand years ago, the human race came close to being wiped out.”
“And if we buy that, you’re asking us to spend trillions of dollars,” Onslow persisted. “But isn’t it true that scientists have been refuting that claim for years?”
“Yeah, right,” Ricardo scoffed. “The same scientists who said that comets couldn’t be ejected by Jupiter, let alone a planet-size
“The Kronians say it happened before,” somebody at the back of the room called out. “But they’re the ones on a limb out there who need Earth to bail them out. Is it just a coincidence that the line of business you’re in happens to be what they’re telling us we have to do?”
Ricardo shook his head violently, looking along the table for support. “They’re not out on any limb. Hell, man, they’ve got drive systems that could run rings around what we put up.”
“But Kronia is economically nonviable,” somebody else threw out. “Admit it, their system’s shot. They have to get Earth’s support somehow or go under.”
“That’s just a line that the politicians take,” Joe Elms retorted, sitting next to Keene on his other side from Lomack. “They don’t want to think about what it might do to their budgets.”
“Me neither. Would you want to pay the taxes?”
“It doesn’t have to be a tax-funded thing,” Joe answered. “Taken as a whole, this planet has enormous resources. We spend more on cosmetics, alcohol, entertainment, and pet food than—”
“Corporate interests again,” another voice chimed in. “That’s the whole point that some people are questioning.”
Keene didn’t want this to degenerate into an airing of suspicions they had all heard before. There were vaster issues to be focusing on. “Look,” he said, raising both his hands. “Can we just put all this aside in our minds for a minute? These things are trivial compared to what we should be talking about. What we should be talking about concerns all of us. . . .” He gave the mood a second or two to shift. “It isn’t just the Kronians who are saying that Earth has undergone major cataclysms in its past from encounters with other astronomical objects. Scars and upheavals written all over the surface of this planet and its moon say it. Abundant records of violent mass extinctions say it. Evidence of sudden climatic changes and polar shifts say it. And records preserved from cultures all over the world say that it has happened within recorded human history. Traditionally, they’ve been dismissed as myths and legends, but they show too much corroboration to be coincidental. The facts have been there for centuries, but for the most part we’ve remained collectively blind to what they’ve been telling us. Athena is telling us that we can’t risk that kind of blindness any longer.”
“Exactly,” Lomack pronounced, nodding vigorously.
A dark-haired man who was sitting near the front raised a hand, then pitched in. “Phil Onslow, Houston Chronicle . Do we take it, then, that you endorse this idea that the Kronians have been pushing about Venus being a new planet?”
For a moment, Keene was surprised. He had assumed it was obvious. “Well . . . sure. It’s intimately connected with what we’re trying to say, and what yesterday’s demonstration was all about. Three and a half thousand years ago, the human race came close to being wiped out.”
“And if we buy that, you’re asking us to spend trillions of dollars,” Onslow persisted. “But isn’t it true that scientists have been refuting that claim for years?”
“Yeah, right,” Ricardo scoffed. “The same scientists who said that comets couldn’t be ejected by Jupiter, let alone a planet-size
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