Frowning, Freya said, "What do you mean to imply, Rachmael?"

"The time capsule," Rachmael said, "from Whale's Mouth, the launching of which we watched years ago on TV — it wasn't detected by our tracking stations because it never arrived. And it never arrived, Miss Holm, because despite those crowd scenes it was never sent."

"You mean what we saw on TV — "

"The vid signal, via Telpor," Rachmael said, "which showed the happy masses at Whale's Mouth cheering at the vast public launching ceremony of the time cap­sule — were fakes. I've run and rerun recordings of them; the crowd noise is spurious." Reaching into his cloak he brought out a seven-inch reel of iron oxide Am­pex and tape; he tossed it onto her desk. "Play it back. Carefully. There were no people cheering. And for a good reason. Because no time capsule, containing quaint artifacts from the Fomalhaut ancient civiliza­tions, was launched from Whale's Mouth."

"But — " She stared at him in disbelief, then picked up the aud tape, held the reel uncertainly. "Why?"

"I don't know," Rachmael said. "But when the Om­phalos reaches the Fomalhaut system and Whale's Mouth and I see Newcolonizedland, I'll know." And, he thought, I don't think I'll find ten or sixty malcon­tents out of forty million... by that time, of course, it'll be something like a billion colonists. I'll find —

He ended the thought abruptly. He did not know.

But eventually he would know. In the little matter of eighteen years.

2

In the sybaritic living room of his villa, on his satellite as it orbited Terra, the owner of Lies In­corporated, Matson Glazer-Holliday, sat in his human-made dressing gown smoking a prize, rare Antonio y Cleopatra cigar and listening to the aud tape of the crowd noises.