“There will be ten thousand people trying to escape from the righteous path.”

“We cannot allow that to happen.”

“For their own good.”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” Eberly agreed meekly. Then he added, “But I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“We want you to join them.”

“And go all the way out to the planet Saturn?” Eberly squeaked.

“Exactly,” the yachtsman replied.

“You will be our representative aboard their habitat. We can place you in charge of their human resources department.”

“So that you’ll have some hand in selecting who’s allowed to go.”

The pig added, “Under our supervision, of course.”

“In charge of human resources? You can do that?”

“We have our ways,” said the yachtsman, grinning.

“Your real task will be to set up a God-fearing government aboard that habitat,” the pig said. “We mustn’t allow the secularists to control the lives of those ten thousand souls!”

“We mustn’t let that habitat turn into a cesspool of sin,” the yachtsman insisted.

“A limited, closed environment like that will need a firm, well-controlled government. Otherwise they will destroy themselves, just as the people of so many cities did here on Earth.”

“You’re too young to remember the food riots.”

“I remember the fighting in St. Louis,” Eberly said, shuddering inwardly. “I remember the hunger. My sister dying from the wasting disease during the biowar.”

“We don’t want that happening to those poor souls heading out for Saturn,” said the pig, his hands still folded.

“Whether they realize it or not,” the yachtsman said, “they are going to need the kind of discipline and order that only we can provide them.”

“And we are counting on you to lead them in the direction of righteousness.”

“But I’m only one man,” said Eberly.

“You’ll have help. We will plant a small but dedicated cadre of like-minded people on the habitat.”

“And you want me to be their leader?”

“Yes. You have the skills, we’ve seen that in your dossier. With God’s help, you will shape the government of those ten thousand souls properly.”

“Will you do it?” the yachtsman asked, earnestly. “Will you accept this responsibility?”

It took all of Eberly’s self control to keep from laughing in their faces. Go to Saturn or remain in jail, he thought. Be the leader and form a government or live another nine years in that stinking cell.

“Yes,” he said, with quiet determination. “With God’s help, I accept the responsibility.”

The two men smiled at one another, while Eberly thought that by the time the habitat reached Saturn he and everyone in it would be far away from the strictures of these religious fanatics.

Then the pig said, “Of course, if you fail to accomplish our goals, we’ll see to it that you return here and serve out the remainder of your sentence.”

“We might even add a few more charges,” said the yachtsman, almost genially. “There’s a lot in your dossier to choose from, you know.”

DEPARTURE MINUS 45 DAYS

James Colerane Wilmot was a peer of the realm, a baronet who had left his native Ulster in the wake of the Irish Reunification despite his family’s five hundred — odd years of residence there.

To his credit, he felt no bitterness about leaving his ancestral home. The family had never been wealthy; for more than a dozen generations they had struggled to maintain a shabbily dignified lifestyle by raising sheep. Wilmot had no interest whatsoever in animal husbandry. His passion was the study of the human animal. James Colerane Wilmot was an anthropologist.

He was also a very able administrator, and as adroit as they come in the quietly fierce internecine warfare of academia. He felt that being named to head this strange collection of people in their mission out to distant Saturn would be the acme of his career, a real, carefully controlled research program, an actual experiment in a field that had never been able to conduct experiments before.

A closed, carefully limited community in a self-sufficient ecology and a self-contained economy. Every feature of their physical existence under control. Individuals from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Free-thinkers, mostly, people who chafed under the restrictions of their own societies. And the scientists, of course. The avowed purpose of this mission was the scientific study of the planet Saturn and its giant moon, Titan.

Wilmot knew better. He knew the true purpose of this flight to Saturn, and the reason its real backers wanted their financial support kept secret.

The Chinese had refused to join the experiment, as usual; they kept to themselves, isolationists to their core. But otherwise most racial and religious groups were represented. What kind of a society will these people create for themselves? An actual experiment in anthropology!

Wilmot glowed inwardly at the thought of it, even though the purpose behind this experiment, the underlying reason for this venture to Saturn, troubled him deeply. Yet he put aside such worries, content to revel in the prospects lying before him.

His office was a reflection of the man. It was as close to a duplicate of his office at Cambridge as he could make it. He had brought up his big clean-lined Danish styled desk and its graceful chair that molded itself to his spine, together with the bookcases and the little round conference table with its four minimalist chairs. All in white beech, clean and efficient, yet warm and comfortable. Even the carpet that almost covered the entire floor had been taken from his Earthside office. After all, Wilmot reasoned, I’m going to be living and working here for five years or more. I might as well have my creature comforts around me.

The only new thing in the office was the guest chair, another Danish piece, but of shining chrome tubular supports and pliant butterscotch-brown leather cushions.

Manuel Gaeta sat in it, looking much more relaxed than Wilmot himself felt. The third man in the room was Edouard Urbain, chief scientist of the habitat, a small, slim, dark-bearded man, his thinning hair slicked straight back from his receding hairline; he was seated in one of those spare, springy-looking chairs from the conference table in the corner. Wilmot did not particularly like Urbain; he thought the man an excitable Frenchman, despite the fact that Urbain had been born and raised in Quebec.

“I can see that you’re physically and mentally fit,” Wilmot was saying to Gaeta, gesturing toward the wallscreen that displayed the man’s test scores. “More than fit; you are an unusual specimen, actually.”

Gaeta grinned lazily. “It goes with the job.”

His voice was soft, almost musical. He was on the small side, but solidly built, burly. Lots of hard muscle beneath his softly pleated open-necked white shirt. His face was hardly handsome: his nose had obviously been broken, perhaps more than once; his heavy jaw made him look somewhat like a bulldog. But his deep-set dark eyes seemed friendly enough, and his grin was disarming.

“I must tell you, Mr. Gaeta, that—”

“Manuel,” the younger man interrupted. “Please feel free to call me Manuel.”

Wilmot felt slightly perplexed at that. He preferred to keep at least a slight distance from this man. And he noted that although Gaeta seemed quite able to speak American English, he pronounced his own name with a decided Spanish inflection. Wilmot glanced at Urbain, who did nothing except raise one eyebrow.

“Yes, sorry,” Wilmot said. Then, “But I must tell you, Mr. … um, Man-well, that no matter what your backers believe, it will be impossible for you to go to the surface of Titan.”

Gaeta’s smile did not fade one millimeter. “Astro Corporation has put up five hundred million international dollars for me to do the stunt. Your university consortium signed off on the deal.”