Analog SFF, November 2006



















* * * *

ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT

Vol. CXXVI No. 11, November 2006

Cover design by Victoria Green

Cover Art by Jean Pierre Normand





SERIAL

ROLLBACK, Part II of IV, Robert J. Sawyer



Novella

THE GOOD KILL, Barry B. Longyear



Novelette

WHERE LIES THE FINAL HARBOR?, Shane Tourtellotte



Short Stories

PREVENGE, Mike Resnick & Kevin J. Anderson

MAN, DESCENDANT, Carl Frederick



Science Fact

THE INTERSTELLAR CONSPIRACY, Les Johnson & Gregory L. Matloff



Reader's Departments

THE EDITOR'S PAGE

IN TIMES TO COME

THE ALTERNATE VIEW, Jeffery D. Kooistra

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY, Tom Easton

BRASS TACKS

Vol. CXXVI No. 11

November 2006





Click a Link for Easy Navigation




CONTENTS


EDITORIAL: THE TYRANNY OF
PHYSICAL LAW by Stanley Schmidt

THE GOOD KILL by
Barry B. Longyear

SCIENCE FACT:
THE INTERSTELLAR CONSPIRACY by Les Johnson & Gregory L. Matloff


PREVENGE by Mike
Resnick & Kevin J. Anderson

Man, Descendant
by Carl Frederick

IN TIMES TO COME


THE ALTERNATE
VIEW: THANKSGIVING MUSINGS Jeffery D. Kooistra

WHERE LIES THE
FINAL HARBOR? by Shane Tourtellotte

ROLLBACK: PART
II OF IV by Robert J. Sawyer

BRASS TACKS


* * * *








EDITORIAL: THE
TYRANNY OF PHYSICAL LAW by Stanley Schmidt


We've all heard the joke about
the patient who tells the doctor, “It hurts when I do this."


To which the doctor replies,
“Don't do that."


It's funny but also wise. While
the patient can reasonably hope the doctor will be able to cure the
problem and restore the ability to “do this”
without hurting, unless and until that happens, the patient is well
advised not to do the thing that hurts.


But how many of us actually have
the patience and self-control to follow that advice—and how
many can't resist the temptation to keep trying it to see if it still
hurts?


The lesson extends far beyond
medicine. There are plenty of things that the physical universe won't
let you do, but people persist in trying to do them anyway. If a hose
or electric cord is obviously caught on some unseen obstacle, people
will often yank on it over and over, in just the same way except maybe
harder and harder, all the while muttering coarser and coarser language
in frustration that it won't behave the way they want it to. Drivers
stand tall bags of groceries upright and unfettered on car seats and
get angry when they plunge forward and spill their contents at the
first less than perfectly gentle stop, even though they've seen it
happen many times before. Or leave plastic toothbrushes or CDs on the
dashboards of locked cars on hot summer days, and feign surprise and
indignation when they melt and flow into amusing but otherwise useless
shapes.


We're often advised,
“If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.”
But often the more sensible and useful advice would be, “If
at first you don't succeed, try something else.” Simply
repeating something that you've already established doesn't work is
most unlikely to work any better now than it did then—because
physical objects follow physical laws, quite consistently, whether you
like them or not. At the macroscopic level, at least, a particular
action will almost certainly produce a particular result—the same
result, time after time.


Simply pulling again, or harder,
on a stuck hose or cord accomplishes nothing because the obstruction is
still there and still has the same effect it did. (If you pull hard
enough, of course, something may break, but that will probably have
unwelcome side effects.) Newton's laws of motion dictate that if a car
comes to a fairly rapid stop, loose objects with high centers of mass will
try to keep going and thereby tip forward. The greenhouse effect as
applied to a sunlit car with glass windows dictates that objects with
low melting points left there will melt.


All of these things are annoying,
sometimes to the point where it may seem that the Universe has it in
for us. But none of them is surprising, if we think about what's going
on and remember some of the very basic things we all know about how the
world works. So rather than railing at the Universe for making bad
things happen to us or not letting us do things exactly the way we'd
prefer, we'd be well advised—like the aforementioned pain
patient—to refrain from doing the things that we know don't
work, and concentrate instead on learning to do the ones that do.


In this respect, we have one big
advantage over that hapless patient. Physical laws unequivocally forbid
some actions, but they just as unequivocally allow, and even require,
others. It's pointless to grumble about the things nature won't let you
do (like leaving a toothbrush on the dashboard in the desert and
expecting to use it the next morning). We should concentrate instead on
learning to utilize the things it does allow (like protecting the
toothbrush from the heat by keeping it an insulated container in a
shaded place).


The spray hose in my kitchen sink
sometimes gets caught as I described above, by getting a loop behind
one of the shutoff valves under the sink. Pulling repeatedly in the
same way does nothing to free it because it's still behind the valve,
but snaking it in and out a few times while gently twisting can easily
move it out of that position and end the problem. If grocery bags keep
flying off the seat when you brake your car, there are at least a
couple of ways to prevent that in the future—e.g., strapping
the bag in with a seat belt, or simply loading it so the heaviest items
are at the bottom. Or both.


I must, of course, say a few
words about “Murphy's Law [1]"and the “innate
perversity of inanimate objects.” Both seem so perfectly
descriptive of so much human experience that it's sometimes hard not to
think of them as rigorous scientific concepts. And it's true that some
real objects don't seem to behave consistently. An electronic device
may work fine at some times and not at all at others because of a loose
wire that sometimes makes good contact and sometimes doesn't. Anybody
who's been driving very long has probably had car problems that
occurred only when the car was hot, or cold, or turning left or turning
right.


[Footnote 1. If anything can go
wrong, it will.]


Yet in all of these cases, if you
look closely enough, it turns out that even intermittent problems are
following the same relatively few and simple physical laws. If you find
that loose wire, for instance, and resolder it securely, the gadget it
occupies will again work reliably.


And often the “innate
perversity” of objects simply means they're doing exactly
what they're made to do, which does not coincide with what we'd like
them to do. In many of these cases the objects are human artifacts and
the limitations are technological—not fundamental physical
principles, but the sorts of things that computer users call
“bugs” and computer salespeople call
“features.” In many such cases you can change the
limitations by changing the design, though implementing the improved
design may be expensive. If you can't or don't want to do that, you can
often learn to achieve your main goals with what you have, simply by
learning what the design limitations are and how to work within them.


My house, for example, has an
integrated heating and hot water system in which water is heated when
needed by a coil attached to the boiler. One of its less endearing
design features is that the bathtub faucet can draw water at a
considerably faster rate than the coil can heat it, so if I want to
fill the tub with nice hot water as quickly as possible, turning the
hot water on full and leaving it that way is exactly the wrong way to
do it. If I do that, I'll always wind up with a tub
full of cold (or at best lukewarm) water. Fully opening the valve first
quickly pulls the cold water out of the pipes so you (briefly) get very
hot water; but soon you exhaust that and it continues to draw water
that hasn't stayed in the coil long enough to get hot. Once you
understand that that's what's happening, you can use a method that
gives much better, if somewhat slower, results: turn the hot on full
only until the water gets hot, then cut the flow back to maybe half
that and adjust the temperature with the cold knob. That way the hot
water is heated as fast as it's drawn off, and you can maintain the
temperature you want.


That doesn't mean it's trivially
easy; you have to develop a feel for what the maximum allowable flow
is, because if you exceed it by even a little you're soon back to cold
water. And it does take longer to fill the tub this way than if you
could just turn the hot water full on and expect it to maintain full
temperature. There are systems that can do that, and we'll buy one
eventually (likely as soon as this year, since fuel prices are now so
high that a more efficient system shouldn't take long to pay for
itself). But so far it's been a relatively low priority because the new
system will be a substantial investment, there've been more urgent
demands on the budget, and we know a usable workaround.


And in some cases, the option of
upgrading to a better system just doesn't exist because the limitation
is not just a matter of technological design, but a fundamental
physical law. A favorite example for science fiction readers is the
apparent speed-of-light limitation on mechanical travel. It's
conceivable that a loophole may someday be found even there, in
basically new science as yet undiscovered; there are even hints that a
way around it may be implicit but not obvious in the existing theories
of relativity and quantum mechanics. Unless and until such a thing is
found, though, any aspiring starfarers will have to accept that
limitation and find other ways, such as highly relativistic speeds,
suspended animation, or generation ships.


For a more mundane example,
humans spent thousands of years wishing they could fly like birds; but
no matter how hard they flapped their arms, with or without things
attached to them, they couldn't get off the ground. It just isn't
possible to generate enough lift that way to raise a human mass against
the pull of Earth's gravity. But if you learn enough about fluid
dynamics and combustion and materials science, you can develop other
ways that work well enough to routinely carry hundreds of passengers at
a time on regularly scheduled transcontinental and transoceanic flights.


Learning, of course, is the key.
It's frustrating that the laws of nature are absolutely unyielding in
denying us the ability to do certain things. But because those laws
apply consistently, understanding them gives us the power to do a great
many other things. All of us understand this on at least some level.
It's fashionable in too many circles to say almost with pride,
“I don't know any physics,” and to sneer at any
display of interest in learning any. But the people who say they don't
know any physics are wrong. People (or other beings) who don't
understand any physics don't survive to adulthood.


If you've ever thrown a baseball,
driven a car, guided food to your mouth, walked across a room, or even
rolled out of bed without breaking anything, you were applying quite
complicated physics. What most people don't understand is not physics,
but the formal language that physicists use to talk about it. More of
them need to understand the value of learning at least some of that
language, because that is the way to understanding the ways of the
world well enough to make them work for you in ways beyond your own
body—things like building cars, planes, and microwave ovens
that work, and buildings and bridges that stand up.


For while the laws of nature are
in one sense tyrannical, they are in another sense empowering. They
tell us not only what we can't do, but also what we can—and
how. The better we understand them, the more we can shape our lives to
be the best they can.


Copyright © 2006 Stanley
Schmidt


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THE GOOD KILL
by Barry B. Longyear


* * * *





Illustrated by
John Allemand


Changing
times can put an end to old traditions—unless they can find
untraditional ways to adapt. Very untraditional, in
this case....


* * * *


The Rent-A-Mech, Walter, had just
put my breakfast on the table when D. Supt. Matheson rang me. "Forgive
me for ringing you so early, Jaggers, but London ABC wants us to look
into that fox hunting matter at Dartmoor. Apparently there's an amdroid
involved. It's an outdoor scene and if you don't move quickly the
evidence may become contaminated.... “


Matheson hadn't begun with a
knock-knock joke, which meant he was troubled. The Miles Bowman death
was the biggest story to hit Devon in decades. The wealthy and
charismatic Master of Houndtor Down Hunts had died, I had gathered from
yesterday's news reports, when he had been thrown by his horse during a
run. Apparently someone in the park police was exploring another theory.


Val momentarily looked up from
the table where she had been lapping her single cream. Seeing nothing
to distress her, she twitched her tail as if to launch an unwelcome
insect and resumed emptying the saucer. A sepia and golden Tonkinese,
her soft coat colored in a random watermarked silk pattern, she was
much too elegant ever to be observed using the litter box, although I
supposed she must be using it. It was, after all, being used. Perhaps
she had friends in.


"Jaggers? Jaggers,
there. Pay attention. Blast! When are you getting a modern screen
phone? Bloody hell. Jaggers?"


With a parting glance at my
rapidly cooling eggs and bacon, I responded into the handset,
“Yes, Superintendent. You were saying?"


"Now, I've made a good
number of allowances for you, Jaggers, because of your record. You were
once an impressive detective. Do not take advantage. Am I understood?"



"Certainly, Superintendent."


"You're going to want
to get to the scene before it rains."


I shifted my gaze to the glass
door that looked into the garden as Matheson continued. The mid-March
sky over the city was gloomy grey with curtains of mist coming up from
the river. "The park constabulary think they have their
murderer, Jaggers. London wants us to go through everything. After all,
artificial beings are our bailiwick. Ready to receive?"


I toggled the receive on my hand
desk. “Go ahead, Superintendent."


"Sending now."



As the case file form and
location instructions loaded, I mulled the late Miles Bowman's place in
the scheme of things. In certain upwardly crusted circles, Bowman's
death was immense. Houndtor Down had brought riding to the hounds and
the good kill back to Albion after an eight-decade hiatus, dotted with
less than satisfying drag hunts and those absurd experiments with
AI-equipped robotic foxes. Houndtor's answer was to introduce genuine
bio fox amdroids for prey, but imprinted with human engrams. The fox,
therefore, would be physically a fox, but no longer a fox according to
the prohibition against fox hunting, in that the creature understood
the consequences and could volunteer. In actuality, the vermin was a
human in a fox's “meat suit,” entitled under law to
engage in whatever absurd, but legal, occupation he or she chose.
Nevertheless, where one got volunteers was a puzzle.


I'd never been at the Houndtor
Down Lodge, although I had witnessed a bit of one of the operation's
hunts on Cripdon Down the year before when I was on an easily resolved
poodle abuse enquiry. The amdroid poodle had undeniably abused her
owner, a Harley dealer from Torbay. However both poodle and woman
confessed to being consensual S&M partners in the area for a
hunt, hence no crime. Too bad really. The poodle matter promised to be
the most interesting case I'd been on since being assigned to the
Exeter office. Nevertheless, since I was on the moor then and a hunt
was on, I watched. Except for the chase being followed above by a hoard
of hovercraft, the hunt itself had been something caught in amber.
Elegantly costumed riders mounted on magnificent steeds chasing a huge
pack of handsome foxhounds, the peculiar warbling notes of the Master's
tiny horn signaling the sighting of the prey. As long as you weren't
particularly fond of foxes, it was rather uplifting.


The lodge was twenty-five
kilometers southwest of the city, just beyond the village of Lustleigh
on the east edge of the moor. The enormously lucrative concession had
its own skydock, and the park detective in charge, one DCI Stokes,
condescended to have a constable at Houndtor Down to bring us up to
speed. “Superintendent, on the killing, did the park cops get
a verbal?"


"No. This Stokes
fellow is certain he has his killer, nevertheless: Lady Iva Bowman,
Miles Bowman's wife."


Lady Iva Bowman. The image of
that stunning beauty was fixed in the nation's memory. Her marriage to
Bowman had been little short of a media coronation.


"Their theory is
Bowman and Lady Iva, along with the hunt staff and some eighty
followers and club members, were in the middle of one of their smaller
commercial runs when Miles was found dead along the route. Lady Iva
inherits and I gather from DCI Stokes she had just learned that her
husband was bonking the company's lead second horseman, one Sabrina
Depp."


"Motive and
opportunity,” I commented.


"They're up the wrong
branch, Jaggers."


"You disagree, sir?"


"I knew Lady Iva years
ago. For all her beauty, she is old school, very refined. I can't see
her getting down into the muck and beating a grown man to death with
what appears to have been a horseshoe, regardless of the provocation.
In fact, I rather suspect Miles Bowman's horse."


"An amdroid?"


"Yes. The horse isn't
running on a human imprint, though. It appears a year ago a favorite
jumper of Bowman's was near death from an injury and Bowman spent a not
inconsiderable fortune to have the mount's engrams copied and imprinted
on an equestrian meat suit drawn from the mount's own DNA."


"That which Miles rides shall
never die,” I dogmatized.


"Quite. I suspect
Bowman's nag determined one lifetime under Miles Bowman's arse was
sufficient."


"In which case, Superintendent,
it wouldn't be a murder."


"All of which I
imagine Lady Iva would very much like to have established as quickly as
is feasible—oh. Swing by Heavitree Tower before you leave for
Dartmoor. You have a new partner: DS Guy Shad."


"You're having a laugh, right,
Superintendent?


"Not really."



"Guy Shad? Sounds like someone
copied the name off an old action vid poster."


"That is his name,
Jaggers. Shad is an American."


"Of course he is. Now, we
agreed—"


"This isn't a
negotiation, DI Jaggers. Shad has been assigned to this enquiry because
of his prior association with two of the principals, as well as his
familiarity with the artificial being end of the law enforcement
spectrum. He'll be waiting at the skydock." That warning edge
crept back into the superintendent's voice: "Grasp the
nettle, Jaggers. It's up to you to make this work."


"Yes, Superintendent."


A significant pause and then the
superintendent decided to lighten the mood. "Jaggers: Knock,
knock."


"Ringing off, Superintendent.
There appears to be someone at the door."


I quickly hung up the handset as
I muttered, “Brilliant,” to no one in particular.
After the dreadful experience I had partnered up with the
ever-effervescent Ralph Parker, I thought Matheson and I had agreed I
always work solo.


Guy Shad. American. He'll want to
eat at Wendy McDonald's Kentucky Burger Hut and call me Bud, I mused. I
certainly hoped Parker's meat suit was one of a kind. I'd go into
retirement before I was made to work with another Parker.


I looked at Val and she was
eyeing my bacon and eggs. “You may as well,” I said
to her as I petted her head and went toward the hallway to get my
raincoat and hat. “I have to get to work. I'm on the Miles
Bowman matter."


"Is something wrong?”
she asked.


"The superintendent's assigned me
a new partner. An American named Guy Shad."


She looked at me with those
stunning aqua eyes and said, “Give him a fair chance, Harry.
I don't want to worry. Is Walter coming in this evening?"


"Yes."


Val looked at me for a moment
then averted her gaze. “I'm sorry I can't cook for you,
Harry."


"You catch mice. That's quite as
important."


"You're a dear, but you know
Walter keeps this place so clean, there hasn't been a mouse to catch in
months.” She turned back to my plate and continued lapping at
the yolk.


"Have a good day,
dear,” I said and closed the door.


* * * *


As the division sky cruiser
assigned to me headed south into the muck above the city, I ran up the
mechs in case we'd have to copy into them. There probably wasn't going
to be any need to get small; the animal android involved, after all,
was a horse. Nevertheless, routine is its own reward, as the
superintendent was wont to remark between knock-knock inanities. They
were ugly little mechs, but useful for following assorted beings into
places tight, high, or otherwise inaccessible to humans. While they
went through their system scans, I checked InterNews on Miles Bowman's
death. Indeed, Lady Iva had been taken into custody, Detective Chief
Inspector Raymond Stokes of the Devon-Exmoor National Park Constabulary
stated in his news conference, blah, blah, blah....


My mood was terrible, and it was
time I faced up to it. I was having quite a bit of trouble letting go
of having a new partner thrust upon me. I knew full well why ABC
Division had human-imprinted animal androids as investigators. That's
the criminal dimension that necessitated the creation of our component
of Interpol. Still, almost every amdroid I ever worked with had such
bizarre excuses for having wound up in a critter meat suit, I was
convinced it couldn't help but have an effect on their work. It
certainly had with Parker.


DC Parker had been the worst of a
succession of amdroids assigned to work with me. It wasn't just the
thick Estuary accent Parker affected, his odor, the incessant grunting,
or that he had difficulty in controlling his bowels. It was Parker's
effect on a subject during an interview. I don't think I'm being unfair
when I say undergoing interrogation by a thirty-five-stone mountain
gorilla puts some people off. Banana peels and fruit flies all over the
cruiser, fleas. I mean, really.


As the cruiser descended out of
the overcast above the new Consolidated Police Administration Tower on
Heavitree Road, I could see that the only living being waiting for me
on the skydock was a mallard duck complete with green head, white neck
ring, chestnut breast, grayish-white feathers, yellow bill, and orange
feet. “Showing at a crime scene with Daffy in tow; that'll
put the yobs in a fright."


As the cruiser's computer control
put the vehicle down in the center of the landing target, I declined a
slot assignment, put the power on standby, and pressed the buttons to
open both doors. I looked around briefly in waning hopes that this was
some sort of practical joke, then resignedly got out of the driver's
side and trudged over to where the duck was standing. “DS
Shad?” I inquired.


"I'm Shad,” said the
duck in a voice that sounded very much like—a duck.


"Detective Inspector
Jaggers,” I introduced myself.


"I know just what you're
thinking,” he said. “'My God, a duck! I sure feel
safe now that poultry has my back. Where ever does he keep his
handcuffs? What was that idiot Matheson thinking to saddle me with this
fugitive from a Chinese restaurant! I ought to go down to the
superintendent's office right this minute and put in for my walking
papers! You've laid an egg this time, pigeon-brain. This is for the
birds! Are you out of your bleeding mind? A
duck!’”


"Sorry. Didn't mean to ruffle
your feathers."


He held out a wing.
“Bird jokes? It's going to be bird jokes?"


"Actually, I was going to ask if
you wanted to drive."


Shad lowered his wing, gave me a
bit of a look, then flew into the open driver's side of the cruiser.
“That went rather well,” I muttered to myself.


I got into the passenger side,
buckled in, and faced the duck. The power revved up, the doors closed,
and the cruiser lifted off the landing target and headed southwest into
the morning commuter traffic, the duck standing motionless on the seat.
The GPS showed that our destination and control had somehow been given
to the autopilot. “Wireless interface,” smugly
explained Shad.


"Something you should know about
me, as well, Shad."


"What's that?"


"I am a detective inspector, your
senior as well as your superior, and if you should ever shoot off your
bill to me like that again, me lad, I'll stuff and roast your goose
proper."


"Ah, yes, sir. I apologize,
despite the additional gratuitous fowl references.” After an
awkward moment of silence, he glanced at me. “Admit it,
though: I am an improvement on Parker."


"You met him?” I asked.


"Back at the tower he mentioned
something about having been your partner. Does Parker have a banana
problem?"


"At least.” I glanced
at Shad. “You do take up less space."


"And I don't crap in the cruiser."


"That is an asset.” We
both laughed at that.


Later, visibility almost down to
zero as we approached the Alphington vector roundabout, Shad said,
“Matheson told me to fill you in on my connection to Houndtor
Down."


"Please."


"Back in New York about ten years
ago, I knew Miles Bowman's business partner, Archie Quartermain. I was
a human, Archie was English, and we roomed together in a roach hotel in
the Village. Back then we were both starving, taking acting lessons,
and trying to get theater acting careers started. Archie waited tables
and hustled vidgames, and I was a part-time police assistant at the
local precinct, answering phones, filing, that sort of stuff. We were
doing cattle calls and getting an occasional walk-on. Remember the
Gladys Hudder case, when that DNA bio of Cary Grant sued his owner for
emancipation?"


"The case that took the
‘slave’ out of ‘slavery’ for
the human-imprinted and self-aware AI population."


"Yeah, what would you rather be:
an eighty-year-old woman's boy toy or a filthy rich reincarnated
Hollywood superstar covered with babes?"


"Decisions, decisions,”
I added.


"Anyway, that case put Archie
onto something,” Shad continued. “He wouldn't talk
to me about it. Kept saying, ‘I'm not finished
yet.’ Still, he had some kind of scheme cooking. Every now
and then when he was out I'd sneak a peek at what he was doing, but it
was all technical stuff on staging, theatrics, English history,
artificial-being law, air transport, artificial intelligence, business,
computers, and android-amdroid bios and mechs. Then, one day when I was
particularly hungry, the New York PD called for recruits—"


"You saw how much police recruits
were being paid,” I interjected.


"Yeah, well, my stomach and I had
a talk, and I entered the police academy. Training took up all my time,
the work was interesting, and they kept me running as a probie. I lost
track of what Archie was doing. My police probationary period
eventually ended, I was assigned to a precinct patrol unit, and then I
met a girl."


My eyebrows went up.


"No. Her name wasn't
Daisy,” Shad responded with a modicum of heat. “Her
name was Shondelle.” The duck glanced out the side window at
a break in the clouds which revealed still more clouds.


"Archie was my best man when I
married her. When I moved out, Archie moved in with another starving
actor, Miles Bowman. I got to know Miles a little, but a year later
both of them moved back to England. By the time I made detective,
Archie and I had lost touch altogether. A couple years later, right
before I was killed, Houndtor Down Hunts hit the media, fox hunting was
back, and Miles Bowman was big news, filthy rich, and married to the
daughter of an earl. But no mention of Archie Quartermain."


I glanced at Shad. “You
suspected something?"


"Sure. I sent a message to Archie
and he eventually sent back his thanks but no thanks for the attempted
rescue. According to him, everything was going according to plan. I did
a little checking on my own and found out why Archie wasn't getting any
billing. He's a really silent partner in Houndtor
Down Hunts. Archie Quartermain is the fox."


"You're joking."


"No. See, he copies his engrams
before each hunt. If he wins he wins, but if he gets killed, he's
copied into a new bio cloned from his previous meat suit. It's really
not as grim as you might think."


"Perhaps I'm making too much of
being torn apart by a slavering pack of hounds."


"He never remembers getting
killed, see? When he does get killed, the set of engrams copied before
the hunt are imprinted into the new fox suit and the new fox inherits
but doesn't remember."


"But he knows he's going to get
killed."


"Archie told me it's like getting
a knee operated on, except when he wakes up from his procedure it
doesn't hurt."


"It still strikes me as rather a
punishing way to make a living."


"You've never been an actor, have
you?"


"No."


"Take my word for it, boss; there
are roles to kill for and roles to die for.” He gave a duck
shrug. “Besides, win or lose, Archie's take per hunt is close
to three million."


"Per hunt?"


The duck nodded. “Each
of the followers pays thirty thou or so to ride to the hounds, and
there are eighty to a hundred or more per hunt, but that's not where
the real money is. The big cash cows in the fox hunting racket are the
tally-hovers: air hover pods that follow along the route of the hunt,
giving their passengers all the thrill and excitement of the hunt
without the need of learning how to ride or risking any jumps.
Tally-hover seats run three thousand per, which includes the virtual of
the hunt complete with the purchaser's face and body CGI substituted
for the scarlet or black coat of his or her choice, and the entire ride
experienced from the point of view of one of several riders."


"How many of those tally-hover
seats do they fill on an average hunt?"


"Thousands."


"Astonishing. I find it difficult
to believe that anyone would pay that much for a bit of a thrill ride
that can be excelled by any number of virtual computer games."


"Ah, that's where you're wrong.
See, inspector, it's not just the thrill of a dangerous horse ride and
the challenge of ganging up with hundreds of hounds, nags, and snobs to
chase down and kill a small dog. What you also get for your money is to
be seen at the opening tea ceremony and other refreshment stops along
the route, dabbing lips and raising pinkies with such luminaries as
Lady Iva Bowman and Lord Peter Talmadge. Talmadge is the hunt's paid
snob draw. There's also an old rock star and an old movie star as draws
for the upwardly mobile Lumpenproletariat who crave an association with
fame. Archie Quartermain has fifty percent of the company. I'm betting
he's the richest fox in the world."


"And the dottiest.” I
frowned as I thought of something. “Does Lady Iva inherit
Miles Bowman's interest?"


"Unless she's found guilty of
murdering Miles."


"If she doesn't inherit, who
does?"


"They don't have any children, so
Archie gets it all. Interesting, no?"


"To say the least.” I
turned toward Shad. “None of which explains how a New York
City cop wound up being a duck in Interpol's Artificial Beings Crimes
Division."


"This is where I bare my soul,
right?"


I held up a hand and dropped it
to my lap. “Not a requirement. A desire to understand."


"In that case, I'll tell you. I
think I said I was wounded in the line of duty."


"Actually, you said you were
killed."


We began descending from the
Bovey Tracy Roundabout. “I was backing up some guys taking
down a perp. The next thing I knew all the bullets in the world were
headed in my direction and I was fricassee. When I came to, my engrams
were in memory, Shondelle was pounding on my keyboard demanding to know
where the car keys were, and I get a call on my modem from my agent
wanting to know if I'd be willing to have my engrams imprinted on a
mechanical shark for a remake of Jaws that was
going into production."


"You agreed?"


He faced me with an expression of
astonishment. “It was Hollywood. Jaws.
With a role like that in my credits, who knows what other
roles I might've been offered? That was when my agent changed my name.
He figured a shark named Donald Lipper would be hard to take seriously."


"Your given name is Donald?"


The duck leveled a rather
menacing gaze at me. “Don't go there, man."


"What about your wife?”
I asked, judiciously changing the subject.


"Shondelle,” muttered
the duck. “Even though I explained what a huge break this
would be for us, she took a walk. With the bread I could've made from a
production like Jaws, I could've had my engrams
imprinted on a six-figure bio of anything or anyone she wanted. No
dice, though. The first person she called after she left my terminal
was a divorce shark."


"My sympathies. What happened
regarding the remake?"


"What else? Jaws
bit it. I was about ready for a karma transplant. A week later, though,
my agent came through with a pretty good commercial gig. It was a role
that before had been limited by computer-generated imaging and trained
animals. They were finally ready to move up to a real actor."


"What was it?” I
inquired.


"Spokesentity for an insurance
company."


Shad saw my expression.


"Yeah. That's the one. Really.
That's me."


I frowned at him. “That
duck was white."


"Make-up,” Shad
explained. He looked forward as our descent crossed the edge of
Dartmoor, vast expanses of hilly bracken and grassland interrupted by
rocky tors all beneath a gloomy sky. “Good years of really
great physical comedy. I was on all the talk and game shows. I was the
duck who turned the world on to disability insurance. But then the
company was taken over by another insurance outfit. The new bunch
wanted to use their own mascot: a creepy little computer-generated
lizard, the same old animation they'd used for fifty years."


"Unfortunate. I really enjoyed
your commercials, Shad. Very amusing."


Shad shook his head and angrily
padded on the seat from one webbed foot to the other. “Treat
me like some CGI that'd gone out of style. Me! I
put life in that duck. I brought new dimensions to that role. I was the
one who made that company a household name in every palace and hoodoo
hutch on this planet. That's what dedication, hard work, and loyalty
get you: No severance, no residuals, out with the old
letterheads.” He took a breath and let it out.
“Anyway, alone, out of work, and no prospects, I went to the
International Police Benevolent Association and invoked the
‘still living and able’ employment clause. They
either had to put me on pension or find me a job in law enforcement."


"So they sent you to ABCD."


"First I was with Northern New
England Wildlife Protection investigating duck hunting violations.
Lucky I had this connection with Archie Quartermain."


"Oh?"


"Whether it's illegal to shoot a
wildlife officer who's a duck during duck hunting season really hasn't
been settled yet."


"I see what you mean."


"Besides, I had a supervisor who
was an eared grebe. That's a bird."


"I assumed it was either that or
an illegal wrestling hold."


Shad gave my joke a truncated
pity laugh and continued, “Dudley Baumgartner. A small bird,
he had a big black crest and these flaky little golden ear tufts he was
really proud of. He could've been an American bald eagle, but BioDyne
couldn't legally recode the bald eagle DNA to give him black head
feathers."


"Why on earth would he want that?"


"Baumgartner was very sensitive
about hair loss."


"Eagles don't have hair."


"Tell it to Baumgartner. Red
eyes, his voicebox implant programmed to talk like a frog—I'm
telling you, boss, this case is saving more than my life."


"Speaking of programmed
voiceboxes, Shad, why do you use this duck voice? I mean, it's still
rather comical."


"This was the voice that made me
a star."


The cruiser came in over the
village of Leighon and up a gentle rise to a wood of oaks, maples, and
conifers at the eastern foot of Hound Tor. In the center of the wood
was a clearing, and in the center of the clearing, at the intersection
of a maze of bricked paths and boxwoods, was the grand lodge of
Houndtor Down Hunts, a city within a palace made familiar by countless
posters, post cards, vid story settings, skyvault projections, and
telly commercials.


A circular drive only slightly
smaller than the M-5 ran from the front steps to an improved road that
lead north toward Manaton. Most of Houndtor's clientele came in by air.
The huge skydock was south of the lodge. The dock appeared to have
parking slips for only a few hundred vehicles, but as we came in over
it, I could see the access lanes to additional parking slip floors
below ground level. As we descended onto one of the multiple landing
targets, I noticed with some alarm that Shad was shaking his tail
feathers back and forth. “I say, Shad, do you need to go to
the loo?"


"What?” He glanced back
at his own shaking tail. “Oh.” He dismissed my
concern with another wave of his wing. “Updating my
anti-virus definitions."


* * * *


Despite the promised rain, the
gardening staff was out in force, clipping, pruning, weeding, and such.
No one else, staff or guests, seemed to be about. Of course, the
promised park constabulary vehicle and driver were absent, which was a
dual problem for us since the ABCD charter requires us to turn our case
over to the local authorities in the event an arrest is to be made. The
missing fellow, in addition, was supposed to bring us to the scene and
copy us the park constabulary's case file.
“Typical,” I muttered as we exited the cruiser.
“A thing you'll notice during your time with ABCD, Shad, is
that, as you Americans say, we can't get no respect."


"Let me see if I can scare up our
ride,” said Shad, pointing his right wingtip up at the sky.


"You can fly?"


"But of course.” He
took a running step, furiously flapped his wings, and took off low
across the ground, gradually increasing his altitude in an
ever-widening arc to the right. Quite beautiful, really. Almost
completing a circuit of the clearing, south of the skydock he dropped
from the sky like a hawk, disappearing into the trees below. This was
shortly followed by rather loud duck calls, and the whine of an
electric energizing. In moments a green and white park constabulary
electric emerged from the trees, my partner perched triumphantly upon
its light array.


* * * *


Park Police Constable Lounds was
a lethargic lad about fifteen stone, dark-complexioned, and keeping
both head and face hairless. Clad against the anticipated precip in a
constable's yellow anorak, he appeared to be torn between his affected
contempt for the “Interpollys,” as local police are
wont to address ABCD investigators behind their backs, and his actual
esteem-crushing shame for being so terribly low in DCI Stokes's
estimation as to be the one detailed to meet with us. His eyes were
puffy and there was a bit of dried drool on the left side of his chin.
Lounds had been napping. He pulled his desktop from his belt array and
transferred the current Miles Bowman murder casebook to my portable. We
boarded the vehicle, Lounds in the driver's seat, I in the passenger
seat, and Shad up on the light array. Lounds drove us to the scene
following a route marked by numerous hoof impressions. I noticed
carefully hidden motion cameras and sound pickups in several places
along the way. It appeared as though the vid director and those manning
the cameras and audio for the tally-ho virtuals knew exactly which
course the wily old fox would take during the hunt. Probably all the
details had been worked out with Archie Quartermain prior to the meet
where the followers joined the hounds, tipped their hats to the
Master—now deceased—and sucked down the first of
several libations offered along the way. Call me old-fashioned, but the
fox being in on the planning of the hunt seemed to take at least a bit
of the sport out of the thing.


The route Constable Lounds took
led around the ends of several hedges and fences, none of which
enclosed anything. They were placed there, obviously, to provide the
mounts and riders barriers over which to jump.


Eventually we crossed
sheep-grazed grassland up a moderate grade to the left of Hound Tor, a
magnificent citadel of weathered granite towers, a motorway-wide notch
through the center of which became visible once we crossed the
crumbling remains of an old asphalt road and reached midway between the
lodge and a grove of conifers near the crest of the down.
“Scene's up there,” said Lounds.


I faced him and saw he was
nodding toward the pines. I noticed my partner flying on ahead of us,
soon disappearing behind some trees. I took a moment to look at the
case file, but could find nothing in it referring to an interview with
Archie Quartermain. “Are you familiar with this case file,
Constable?” I asked Lounds.


"Read it twice waiting for you
and your feathered friend there, guv. Fact is, I was first responder
here.” He shrugged resignedly and stifled a yawn.
“Been here since."


"All night?"


"I was supposed to get relieved,
but some bloody cock-up left me carrying the can."


"I don't see any interview with
the deceased's business partner, Archie Quartermain."


"The fox, y'mean, guv? He's in a
hole somewheres."


"No one's seen him?"


Constable Lounds tapped his own
portable desk in its holster. “Only address Quartermain's
got's here at the lodge. He don't have a room, though. No room and
hundreds of millions in the bank."


He parked the vehicle, we got
out, and crossed the tape. There was a lane through the grove made by
the trees being thinned to where no two of them in the path were any
closer than six meters from each other. The trees themselves were
Quik-gro pines, the vegetable kingdom's twenty-meter-tall answer to
Quik-gro human and amdroid meat suit bios. The tree branches throughout
the entire wood had been trimmed to four meters plus from the ground.
Within the confines of the path, then, there was an intermittently
clear view from above, allowing the tally-hover spectators to follow
the riders with their eyes and cameras, with no one actually riding to
the hounds being more than a second or two out of view from someone
above. Off the lane, however, the view from above was completely
blocked due to the closeness of the trees. The yellow tape placed by
the scenes of crime officers enclosed part of the lane but extended
deeply into the off-lane trees.


"We got the vids, guv, both the
lodge's and from the folks up in the hovers."


"Did anyone catch the actual
killing on camera?"


"Not a one. Bowman got his in the
thick of it.” Lounds pointed a finger toward our left.
“Trail vids got Miles, his missus Lady Iva, Huntsman Diana
Weatherly, Lead Second Horseman Sabrina Depp, the head whipper-in
Thomas Flock, his nibs Lord Peter Talmadge, and that old West End
actress Dotty T. off the main track here."


"Dotty—Dorothea Tay, do
you mean?"


The constable grinned.
“Grand old lady. She got ‘er a meat suit'd break
your heart, guv.” I couldn't help but smile. Dorothea Tay, my
childhood fantasy love from afar. I had seen all her early plays and I
still had the vids of all her movies. PC Lounds's face grew troubled.
“DCI Stokes told me you're Interpollys and you're not to make
arrests. That's my job."


"We are aware of the
regulations.” I nodded toward the deep woods. “What
do you think, Lounds?"


His bunchy little eyebrows
arched. “Me?"


"You've read the file, you're a
trained police officer, I'd like your take on it."


"Well, guv,” he began,
slightly surprised at being asked, “only ones I know bring
horseshoes to a fox hunt is horses."


"Constable Lounds, you will be
pleased to hear that my superintendent agrees with your assessment. Do
you know why your DCI Stokes discarded that theory?"


Lounds looked very uncomfortable.
He glanced up at the still darkening sky, then shifted his gaze to me.
“Off record, inspector?"


"Of course."


He pursed his lips and nodded
once. “'Titled Lady Croaks Multimillionaire Hubby In Grisly
Slaying’ makes a juicer headline than ‘Horse Kicks
Rider.’”


As we walked deep beneath the
cover of the trees off the lane, I could see a laser marker perhaps ten
meters ahead. DS Shad came flying the other way, his landing pattern
weaving between a succession of tree trunks, the touchdown right before
us—a competently executed maneuver. Shad waddled over and
said, “Not much left. What hasn't been taken away or trampled
into the pine needles has been picked over by the wildlife."


"Can you make out where Bowman's
body was found?"


"They have a Vader prang in
place, but I didn't run it up.” He nodded toward the cleared
lane. “Notice once you get away from that open run, there
aren't any cameras or audio pickups?"


I nodded and followed as Shad
lead the way, Constable Lounds bringing up the rear. Once we were next
to the tree where the marker was attached, I asked Lounds to activate
it. He took out a remote and did so, and a high-definition image of the
deceased Miles Bowman appeared in its place on the forest floor two
meters west from the base of the tree. He was on his left side, his
head pointing southwest, body curled in a loose fetal position. The
image was depicted wearing scarlet coat over cream-colored cravat,
waistcoat, and trousers tucked into gleaming black riding boots, all of
which had been marked with bloody hoof marks, the source of the blood
being the deceased's scalp, face, and hands. “Full scan,
Lounds,” I requested.


Lounds touched the remote and the
image expanded to include everything within the prang's line of sight
up to ten meters from the unit, which included several pairs of
disembodied feet at the periphery: The scenes-of-crime officers
awaiting clearance to approach the body. “I don't see
Bowman's black velvet riding helmet,” I said to Lounds.


"Lady Iva had it in ‘er
hand, guv."


"Be a good fellow and cycle the
SOCS."


The scenes of crime sequence
images cycled: Footwear impressions included all of the suspects,
including Bowman's horse, as well as all of the other horses ridden by
the suspects. A bloody horseshoe had been recovered from the ground
near the body, and the shoe had come from Champion's right front hoof.
A note: Champion's hooves had all been tested for blood and had come
back negative, which would have been remarkable except when Champion
had finally been recaptured, the nag was standing with all fours in a
spring-fed brook.


I looked up at Lounds.
“They didn't test the rest of the horse for blood spatter?"


The constable shrugged
helplessly. “DCI Stokes's got ‘is
bird—” He glanced at Shad. “Beg pardon,
Sergeant."


"Forget about it,”
answered the duck. Shad looked at me.


"Yes. It does appear to be left
to us.” The beginning of raindrops hitting the needles above
us announced itself. I pulled up my collar, took a holoanalyzer out of
my breast pocket, and nodded at Lounds.


As he turned off the laser
marker, we were momentarily plunged into relative darkness. I turned on
the pen-sized analyzer, placed it in the receptacle on the laser marker
to steady it, and controlled it with my portable. By default the
analyzer first projected the aggregate images: All substances on the
tree trunks not actually made of that type of wood. The tree trunks
appeared mostly in shades of white and gray speckled with brown, red
orange, lavender, and so on.


"A lot o’ stuff on them
trees,” observed Lounds.


"Moss, lichen, animal waste,
insects, and insect waste,” I said, filtering out the
hundreds of thousands of colored speckles. I filtered out the bird
droppings, rodent droppings, canine, and feline hair, urine, and
excrement, as well.


"I hope that I shall never see a
toilet filthy as a tree,” quipped Shad.


There was some equine as well as
human blood on the tree nearest where the body had been. The tree was a
twenty-centimeter-thick pine standing in front of a deadfall that was
well into rotting its way back into the floor of the grove. The human
blood was Bowman's. The analyzer DNA-matched the horse blood through
the world amdroid database to Champion, Mile's Bowman's horse. There
was equine hair, also Champion's. On three other tree trunks was human
blood spatter in medium-velocity patterns. That blood, too, was
Bowman's.


I ran the spatter forms and
sequence, derived the impact angles, and determined the points and
order of origin. It then projected a reconstruction of the blunt force
impacts, and it was looking more and more as though a horse was our
suspect. The blows that were struck, at least six of them, occurred in
pairs, in that two blows were struck at a time, and with horseshoes. D.
Supt. Matheson couldn't imagine Lady Iva getting into the muck to beat
a man to death with a horseshoe. I was having difficulty, frankly, in
imagining any human beating another to death, a horseshoe in each hand
held such that the flat of the shoe struck the victim each time, rather
than an edge, and that three times both hands were employed delivering
blows at the same time.


"Guv,” said Lounds as
he stifled a yawn, “need me?"


"I suppose you could stand a nap.
Are all the vids in here?” I tapped my portable.


"They are."


"We have all you can help us
with, then, Constable Lounds. Drive us to the lodge, and then you can
take the car and go home with our thanks for all your assistance."


* * * *


After an hour and a half in the
lodge's walnut-and-leather-festooned club lounge watching the
professional and amateur vids of the interrupted hunt, Shad and I were
swamped with useless information. Time and time again we saw the six
riders following the hounds as they led away from the thinned lane
beneath the solid canopy, then twenty seconds later, all but one
returning to the lane and pausing as the foxhounds milled around
searching for the scent. The prey, Archie Quartermain, appeared several
times during the run. We saw him on stationary cameras coming into the
lane through the grove, running along it, and exiting as he raced
toward the rise beyond the grove, no one following.


No one caught Miles Bowman's
demise on camera. Lady Iva Bowman, indeed, had been the first to return
to the spot off the lane, ostensibly looking for her husband, returning
moments later with the Master's black velvet cap in her hand to cry out
to Lord Talmadge, who was the closest to her. He called to the others,
all of whom followed Talmadge and Lady Iva back to where Bowman's
corpse was cooling.


Only three of the riders in the
party had been carrying point-of-view vid cameras: Bowman, Talmadge,
and Dorothea Tay. Miles's POV camera went dark as soon as his horse ran
beneath the thick cover. No audio.


Talmadge's camera showed he was
ahead of the Master when his own horse turned off the lane to follow
the hounds, his camera going dark until he came out from beneath the
thick cover and came up behind the staff riders back in the lane, where
it appeared the hounds had lost the scent. Talmadge pulled his mount up
behind Tay. Weatherly, Depp, and Flock then turned, supposedly in
reaction to Lady Iva's call for help. He and the others followed Lady
Iva back beneath the solid cover, where the images from his camera were
so dark they were almost useless. Talmadge dismounted, then we could
just make out the image of Lady Iva standing next to her husband's
corpse.


After that, we watched Dorothea
Tay's POV vid from the beginning, starting with the opening ceremonies,
the fields of riders moving off, the casting of the hounds, and then,
as Shad put it, “Yoicks away."


It was rather exciting watching
the unedited recording. Miss Tay was quite a rider, as were the five
persons with whom she was riding, the hounds almost always in view.
Glimpses of Miles, Lady Iva, Lord Talmadge, even an occasional glimpse
of Archie Quartermain, his white-tipped tail vanishing and reappearing
as he led the chase. Midway through the lane of thinned trees, the
hounds veered left and ran beneath the solid cover. Miss Tay led the
other riders, her camera going dark beneath the dense cover, the images
clearing as she returned to the lane.


"If we're to believe these
vids,” said Shad, “the only ones who could've done
in Miles were his spouse and his horse."


"It's easy enough these days to
doctor vids, Shad, inserting or removing anything one wants. It still
takes time, though, and all those tally-hover amateur tapes seem to
back up everything shown by the stationary and POV cameras.”
I glanced at Shad. “As subtly as you can, see if the park cop
SOCOs examined any of the vids for editing."


"Check."


As I returned to Dorothea Tay's
POV vid, Shad did his wireless thing. From my end, the call was silent.
Shad noted me watching him, and I pointed at my ear. Shad pointed at my
portable. “Six-sixty-one,” he quacked.


As soon as I opened that
particular channel, I was treated to an authoritative and distinguished
investigator questioning DCI Stokes of the park cops on the case
evidence, and about any testing that might have been done regarding any
editing. The voice Shad was using was very commanding, very British,
and seemed very familiar. Every syllable simply oozed gobs of absolute
authority and withering contempt. No testing had been done, as it
turned out, and Shad's voice intimated that having the vids examined
for editing would reflect kindly upon DCI Stokes's future, whereas
continuing to fail to examine them would likely earn him a posting as
toilet attendant to the northernmost of the Shetland Islands.


"Very effective, Shad,”
I said. “The voice you were using—I know it from
somewhere."


The duck nodded.
“Laurence Olivier as Marcus Licinius Crassus in the old
motion picture Spartacus. I find it works very well
on most Britaucrats."


While I digested this particular
facet of my new partner's sound equipment, I studied a frame of one of
the stationary vids I had up on my screen. It showed a red fox: short
legs, a long bushy tail, and a narrow muzzle. The creature's ears and
feet were black, its tail had a white tip, and the coat was glossy and
rust red. I turned and glanced through one of the many tall windows in
the club lounge facing Hound Tor. The promise of rain had been
fulfilled. “Shad, run the cruiser around to the front of the
lodge beneath the portico. I think it's time someone interviewed the
fox."


* * * *


An hour later the rain was
falling steadily on the cruiser's canopy a half kilometer south of the
lodge grove, giving us a distorted view of the protected site of a
nameless medieval village and the large rock formation just beyond it.
In the distance, occasionally obscured by patches of ground fog, rose
the imposing heights of Haytor Rocks. Had the village been located in
the American southwest, it would have been called a ghost town. It was
little more than lanes, foundations, and the occasional restored wall,
with a small imitation stone, prefab National Park Information Center
sporting a pseudo thatched roof and pseudo brick chimney at the site's
northwest corner, with a rather real-looking sparrow perched on its
top. Shad had posted a wireless text message for Quartermain and when
the fox answered, this was where he said we were to wait. Putting the
waiting time to use, Shad checked with the District AB Registry for the
particulars on both Archie Quartermain and Miles Bowman's horse.


"Both amdroids were gestated,
grown, and activated through Fantronics, Ltd. out of London,”
said Shad. “The bio amdroid assignment supervisor there, Dr.
Shirley Wurple, dodged my call. Her chief assistant to the assistant
chief, one Martin Corbola, says he would be happy to answer all of our
questions—once we present at the Fantronics legal offices,
during normal business hours, a duly sworn and signed warrant for the
information on Quartermain.” He faced me. “The
information on the horse, however, he gave up willingly."


"Horse engrams can't quite grasp
the concept of litigation, I suppose. Have London ABCD apply for a
warrant for Quartermain's records and post us with the names of any
Fantronics employees connected with Quartermain's transformation into a
Vulpes vulpes."


After sending in the warrant
request, Shad said, “Where were you before you wound up in
ABCD?"


"Metro. London Metropolitan
Police."


"You mean, Scotland Yard?"


"Just ‘the
Yard.’”


The duck studied me.
“So, you were a big-time murder cop in the Yard
and you wound up out here in West Mudflap doing grunt work for
Artificial Beings Crimes ... how?"


"What about you? How come you're
still a duck? The International PBA pays for human meat suits for
fallen officers."


"Have you ever seen those generic
bios they use in the States? One size fits all. They don't come with
wireless modems either."


"Also they don't fly,”
I added.


"There is that.” He
nodded. “The flying is one reason I'm a duck."


"I hear for many ams it's the
sex."


Shad faced me as his eyes
widened. “Are you kidding?"


"Not at all. Many species of
animals have better sex than humans, I understand."


"What—did Parker tell
you that?” The duck laughed with a repeated wak,
wak, wak sound. “Better
sex? Ignoring the really severe seasonal limitations for most
waterfowl, have you ever seen ducks copulate?"


"I can't say that I have."


"No matter how you slice it, man,
it's criminal sexual assault."


"You mean rape?"


"I'm not exaggerating.”
He shivered all over. “In Duckville, man, if you don't do it
like that, you don't do it at all. I can't do it that way. It is one
big stone cold turn-off."


"Then why don't you opt for a
human meat suit?” I insisted.


"Look, when I was working for
that insurance company, part of the deal my agent put together was
quite a sophisticated package for their spokescritter. This duck is
loaded: ENN-band wireless interface, portable engram reader,
all-weather thermal imaging, state-of-the-art sound, a memory bigger
than the Library of Congress, disease-proof, and mildew-resistant. As
long as I don't get shot by a hunter, sucked into a jet intake, or
caught by a chef, I'm practically indestructible. But it's not just
that I'd have to give up all those features to put on one of those
Mediocre Myron meat suits to become a mere mortal human back in New
York's finest. What would happen to me—I mean, what would
happen to the duck?"


"The meat suit would be put in
the queue for whoever wanted to become a duck."


"That line doesn't exactly wrap
around the block. I'll tell you what would happen: This little duck
would be allowed to die, its mind emptier than my pension plan. This
duck made me a star, put my name in Variety, and
got me my own booth at Billy Bob's Buffalo Burger. I owe it more than
letting it wind up in a recipe or a landfill somewhere."


"The lovemaking, though, Shad. Do
you miss it?” I almost regretted asking. Each question is, in
its own way, a confession.


Shad stared at me for a second.
“Sure, I miss it. About a year ago there was this hooded
merganser I met on a landfill in Skowhegan, Maine. Cutest little tail
you ever saw."


"How is a mallard attracted to a
hooded merganser? Doesn't that violate some sort of law of nature?"


Shad waved a wing, dismissing the
question. “Every year in New England some moose comes out of
the bogs and falls in love with a dairy cow, and I'm talking real moose
and real cows. You do realize I'm not a real duck, don't you?"


"Pardon me if I seem a bit dense,
Shad, but it seems even more perverse for a human to be sexually
attracted to a hooded merganser."


"You need to walk a mile in my
webbed feet. Besides, you never saw her fluffy pink and white
pinfeathers. Your theory works the other way, though. She wouldn't give
a mallard a second look.” He faced me. “I still
haven't forgotten my question."


I stared at the rivulets of
rainwater streaming down the canopy. “About three years ago
my wife died. It was in some sort of building explosion. Killed seven
others as well, including the bomber."


"Religious nut?"


"Insurance scam gone awry, as it
turned out. The fire brigade's paramedics managed to harvest my wife's
engrams before she went neutral.” I smiled sadly, recalling
her reaction when she regained consciousness in the generic female bio
the National Health and the IPBA had provided. I glanced at Shad.
“She called her bio Averill Average."


Shad only nodded, his gaze fixed
on some inward quandary of his own.


"My wife had many health
problems: chronic headaches, arthritis, difficulties with her
heart—"


"None of which Averill Average
had,” completed Shad.


"Quite.” I let out an
involuntary sigh. “She was so healthy I imagined it would be
for her like being born again. To be honest with you, Shad, generic
that female bio may have been, but I found her rather attractive."


"Built, huh?"


I felt myself blush.
“Well ... in a word.” I glanced at him.
“That notwithstanding, my wife couldn't stand her new body.
She saw a therapist and all the rest, but I'm afraid she had some
rather severe issues that were brought to full flower by inhabiting
what she considered someone else's body, although hers was the suit's
first imprint. We explored the possibility of doing a Quik-gro bio from
her own DNA, but the NH and the PBA wouldn't cooperate because of her
DNA's built-in health problems."


"Policy,” remarked Shad.


"Indeed. The short of it was that
she wanted out."


"Suicide?” asked Shad.


"No. She wanted out of Averill
Average. She wanted a new meat suit."


"How? The union wouldn't spring
for a second body—particularly not a designer suit. Those can
cost millions."


"As it turned out, she didn't
want a human bio no matter who it looked like. Valerie traded her human
meat suit on eSwap for an automatic dishwasher, ten years housekeeping
service from Rent-A-Mech, and an amdroid meat suit. She had her engrams
imprinted on a female cat bio."


"You're married to a cat?"


"A Tonkinese. We're still
together, of course. I love her very much."


The duck let out a snort of
frustration. “Great. Neither of us are getting any."


I burst out with a laugh at that.
“Quite.” I looked over at him. “Regarding
your question, I'm on my second bio myself. Between that and my
experience with Val, I qualified for ABCD.” And now came the
difficult part. “Perhaps my work at the Yard was slipping.
Set in my ways. I'd been a detective for almost sixty years. Perhaps
Metro just needed to clear the upper ranks in order to bring up
deserving youth. Whatever. Since I refused to retire, I was forced to
take a position with ABCD."


"Yeah,” said Shad as he
nodded. “Now I know who you remind me of. You sort of look
like Basil Rathbone."


"I noticed the same resemblance
in this bio. I rather like it. How does one so young remember Rathbone?"


Shad placed the back of one
wingtip against his forehead. “Surely you jest. Basil
Rathbone, big star in the nineteen forties and fifties, his Sherlock
Holmes films still on the B&W vids all the time."


"Ah, yes,” I said as I
recalled. “'Guard this with your life, Watson.’ He
was an early Sheriff of Nottingham, as well."


"The Sheriff of Nottingham was a
brother officer who got a bum rap from a biased media,” Shad
observed, then held out his wing. “So, what happened? Did you
get killed?"


"The first time. The second time
there was a genetic glitch in the bio that resulted in rather
debilitating health problems. The IPBA insurance covered bio
replacements both times, and Valerie insisted I take this one."


"What happened to the old you?"


"The first was ransacked for body
parts with the remainder cremated and scattered in Val's
garden—back when she used to garden. The second one, believe
it or not, is still alive and in the nick up in North Yorkshire
awaiting trial for multiple murders."


"G'wan. North Yorkshire? The old
you is the Harrogate Slasher? Chucky Bulvine? The guy who used a
portable engram assignment unit to steal an identity to disguise
himself for his nighttime murder sprees?"


"That's the one. Some terminal
pensioner from Otley took on my old body thinking he might get an
additional four or five severely limited years out of it for next to
nothing. Then one night Chucky Bulvine caught him, wiped him, did a
swap, killed his first victim, then reassigned back to his old body. He
kept that up, using my old body, then reverting to his usual self
between killings. He might never have been caught except Bulvine's
ex-wife found his body in stasis when he was out in mine and put a
plastic bag over his head. By the time he returned, his old self was
covered with flies."


"So Bulvine's stuck in the old
you."


I couldn't help but smile.
“The old me simply wasn't up to running from the police."


"Too much cop in your DNA."


"Mostly a weak heart and a pair
of bad knees.” I grinned as I added, “Quite a
dilemma for Bulvine, though."


"How so?"


"Bulvine's best legal strategy is
to drag things out until the crown's aged chief witness either dies or
can be frightened off. The doctors, however, don't think the old me can
possibly live another six months. Quite a predicament."


"That's the future,”
Shad remarked laconically. “What a fascinating modern age we
live in."


I grinned as I pointed at the
duck. “Lucky Jack Aubrey in the vid remake of Master
and Commander. Right?"


"You know your flicks. In the Master
and Commander remake, do you remember the flightless
cormorant the doctor saw when the Surprise made the
Galapagos Islands?"


"Of course."


The duck crossed his right wing
across his breast, held out his left wing and did a courtly bow.


"No,” I said.
“I don't believe it—"


A tapping sound came from Shad's
side of the cruiser. He straightened from his bow and looked down
through his side of the canopy. “We better copy into the
mechs, boss. It's Archie Quartermain, and right now he's going into a
muddy hole in the ground."


* * * *


"No. Impossible. I cannot believe
Ida killed Miles,” said the fox.


Archie Quartermain paced back and
forth, looking about warily in what passed for his office. The site of
the medieval village below ground level was a warren of tunnels and
chambers, many of the chambers being old hidey-holes formed from the
village's remaining root cellars, wells, and cisterns. The stone slab
chamber in which our meeting took place was a little over three meters
by two and contained an occupant other than Shad, Quartermain, and
myself: a human skeleton.


While our meat suits reclined in
the cruiser, hovering prudently out of reach of local malefactors, Shad
and I were in the mechs. Mine resembled a tread-mounted aluminum
grapefruit topped with miniaturized vid, lighting, audio, and analysis
equipment. Shad was in the fist-sized hover mech, which resembled an
art deco Saturn with a badly straightened set of rings. The only
illumination in the chamber was provided by our mech lights. While
Quartermain paced, I did a quick carbon on the skeleton to see if it
was something I needed to ring in. It wasn't. The bones dated back to
the thirteenth century. Judging from the earthenware jug next to the
bones, the likely cause of death was slow suicide. From his own mech,
Shad tuned into my test data and responded with a signal inaudible to
the fox, "Talk about your cold cases."


"I don't understand any of
this,” Quartermain said. “Miles and Ida Bowman
are—were the love story of the century. Besides, Miles was a
bear of a man. Strong, muscular, good in a scrap. Ida was half his
size. Beat him to death with a horseshoe? Rubbish.” He
stopped suddenly and looked at Shad. “The run was all wrong.
Have you looked into that?"


"What about the run?”
asked Shad.


The fox glanced warily at the
hover egg. “It didn't follow the planned route, did it, Don?
The hounds and horses were supposed to follow the glade lane through
Quik Grove. Have you seen where Miles was found?"


"Yes,” responded Shad,
“but the horses follow the hounds, and the hounds follow you,
right?"


"Not that time. I zigzagged down
that lane and never got off it. Suddenly all the hounds were
gone.” He looked at Shad. “You have GPS and
wireless in that mech?"


"Yes."


"You'll see. The run was all
planned out in advance, down to the last turn.” The fox sat,
his tail around his legs, hunched his head forward, and bared his
teeth. “I'm sending you the plan, as well as the performance
record. I hit every mark exactly, in sequence, and on time.”
The fox glanced at me. “We use the records to debrief the
staff after each hunt."


"Why?"


"Constant improvement at Houndtor
Down, inspector. Identifying weak areas and mistakes, sharpening up the
challenge, polishing the act."


My partner nodded. “Got
it, Archie."


"My run was cut short at the
first turn, after leaving the grove. That's when I noticed none of
those hounds were dripping hot slobber in my dust.” The fox
froze for an instant, then fixed me with a beady-eyed stare.
“I have a built-in image reader in my package. Once I
realized something had gone wrong with the hunt, I tuned in and peeked
through Champion's eyes. He was the only amdroid in the leaders.
Miles's horse was already out of the grove, running down toward Becka
Brook. Champion's emotional feed spilled into his vid. I was sure
something terrible had happened. I didn't find out what until I was
back in my den and tuned in the message Sabrina Depp posted for me."


"About Miles's death?”
I asked.


"That, Lady Iva's arrest, and
that the police wanted to talk to me. It's simply all so preposterous.
Iva couldn't have killed Miles. You've got to get to Champion and
download his recall bank."


"When you tuned in Bowman's
horse, what did you see?” asked Shad.


"A scramble of terrible
images.” He thought a second. “A horse hit by a
lorry hauling toilets, horses horribly wounded and killed in a desert,
horses falling and being blown apart by cannons—all of it at
once, filled with deafening pain and panic.” The fox looked
at me. “It was like looking at a horse's nightmare."


There was a scuffling sound,
movement beyond the old bones. Quartermain jumped over the skeleton and
vanished from view. Shad and I aimed sensors at each other. He dipped
his front ring and whispered, “Recognize it? The horse hit by
a truck hauling toilets?"


"Yes,” I answered.
“Lonely Are The Brave, Kirk Douglas and
Walter Matthau, nineteen sixties."


"Nineteen sixty-two. The desert
thing might be from an old vid called Hidalgo,”
he suggested.


"Horses dropping and being blown
up could be from any of the old movies centered on the Crimea or the
Napoleonic Wars."


"Charge of the Light
Brigade, Errol Flynn,” said Shad. “I'll
see if I can tune in Champion."


I tracked over next to the old
bones and saw that beyond them was an opening between two of the
foundation rocks that led to a burrow. I swiveled my sensor array in
Shad's direction. “Any luck with the horse?"


"I can't get through."


"Put it off for now. I want to
know the layout of all these burrows, Shad, and I want the mapping to
be unobserved. Go on up to the cruiser and transfer over to a micro."


"Man,” he muttered.
“The last time I went out in a micro I was swallowed by a
grouper. You have any idea of the disgusting things fish eat?"


"Soon."


"Yes sir,” he answered
with a sigh as he turned and flew out of the chamber the way we had
entered.


I looked back at the skeleton.
Archie Quartermain was skulking behind the ribcage. “My
mate,” he said furtively. “Brought me
mouse.” He licked his chops, panted for a brief moment, then
said, “Still warm."


"Steady,” I cautioned.


"She's pregnant."


I was left speechless for a
moment. At least foxes were getting it on. “Well,
congratulations, you sly old ... Congratulations.” Time to
return to the investigation. “Tell me, Mr. Quartermain. Where
do you keep your body in stasis?"


"Body?” The fox paused
long enough to glance at the floor and shake his head. “This
is my body now. Don't keep anything in stasis."


"Well, what about your human
body? Where is that?"


"Sold it. Seed money for the
operation. Brought a good price. Ask Don. Archie was a young handsome
fellow in good health. Brought almost two million."


"Mr. Quartermain, I have to ask
about your own possible interest in your partner's death."


"Mine?"


"If Lady Ida is found guilty of
Miles Bowman's murder, you stand to inherit quite a respectable sum,
not to mention a very lucrative operation."


"Money. That's what you're
talking about, isn't it? Money?"


"Of course."


The fox began pacing again, his
nose sniffing at the chamber floor. “Mice,” he said
as though to himself alone. “Mice are important. Mating,
grubs, grass, eggs, gates, cubs, fast-fast legs, and chickens are
important. Money: that's paper.” He abruptly turned and fled
through that opening at the rear of the chamber. “The
game,” he growled huskily as his voice faded. “The
game is all!"


Archie's soliloquy on priorities
concluded, I tracked out of the muddy burrow and called down the
cruiser. Shad was in it just completing his transfer to the micro, a
flat-black colored hover vehicle resembling a stealth lipstick, one end
encrusted with instruments. After hosing out the mech, I went back to
my meat suit and Shad darted off to map the burrow system. While Shad
was occupied doing that, I went to the lodge.


* * * *


As evening approached, making
everything dismally dark as well as wet, Shad and I were back in the
cruiser, the vehicle parked at the skydock, our engrams back in our
current selves. Shad was labeling the GPS tunnel map he had made. That
done, he leaned back from the screen and said, “So, while I
was grubbing in the dirt, you did a tour of the palace?"


"Yes."


"So? What was it like?"


I thought for a moment.
“Good taste and great vision meet big money and unlimited
energy."


The duck faced me and said
seriously, “That sounds like approval."


"I confess, Shad, I was prepared
to view the whole place as outmoded values wallowing in unlimited
wealth, but it is quite well done. All the halls, rooms, great rooms,
and the shopping center are stunningly beautiful, and the service is
prompt, polite, and practically invisible. Did you know there are hunt
clients and their families that live there all year?"


"Service?"


"Why, yes. I had a cream tea at
one of the shops in the mall."


"Cream tea,” he stated
flatly, that hint of menace sharpening his tone just a trifle.
“I don't suppose the place was set up to entertain ducks."


"Actually, the shop had a
fountain, and there were ducks entertaining themselves in the
fountain's pond. They appeared to be enjoying themselves, but who can
say? Ducks are so inscrutable.” I glanced at him to see if he
was properly steamed, but he was onto me.


His bill was open as he emitted a
low laugh. “You're one of those people who believe that life
is a test, aren't you?"


"How did you find your old
roommate, Archie? Different?"


His demeanor grew serious.
“You notice how Archie kept referring to me as Don even after
I told him my name was Guy? He's in some kind of weird zone."


"I'm afraid your old roommate's
gone a bit native, Shad. He said his mate has cubs on the way, and you
should've heard his paean to a plump warm mouse. He said something
strange to me—"


"You mean other than liking
Mickey sushi?"


"He was telling me what was
important to him. He ended by saying, ‘The game is
all.’ Does that mean anything to you?"


"The game is what we used to call
live theater.” Shad thought for a moment. “That's
what he's doing now, isn't it? Live theater?"


"He's not after money. In fact,
Bowman's death jeopardizes everything Archie Quartermain currently
holds dear, doesn't it?"


"The same could be said for Lady
Iva, boss. Miles might have been getting a little on the side from
Sabrina Depp, but take my word for it, Sabrina had to have been only
the latest in a long string of honeys. That's the way Miles always was.
Anyway, if you are Lady Iva and want to protect hearth and home against
a homewrecker, who do you kill?"


"The other woman,” I
answered. “And, if you want to get revenge on a rich,
philandering husband,” I continued, “who do you
see? A hit man or a lawyer?"


"Ninety-seven point three percent
of prospective vengeance wreakers go for the court shark,”
responded Shad. He looked at me. “It's time to see a horse
about a man—a dead man."


"I agree."


* * * *


After leaving the cruiser in an
unused loading dock, Shad and I were standing in the antechamber to the
complex, a space reminiscent of the hanger deck of an aircraft carrier.
Very big, very white, with technical, mechanical, and horsy looking
personages hurrying this way and that at the direction of automated
panels festooned with blinking lights and glowing indicator bars. The
air in the space carried trace scents of paint, prepared foods, hot
electrical boards, polished leather, hay, and horse manure. Directional
signs pointed to various wings in the structure. In one, tally-hovers
were being repaired, cleaned, polished, stocked with refreshments, and
stored for the next hunt. In another wing were the vid studios
sectioned into units that operated and repaired vid and sound systems,
viewed, edited, and “supplemented” vids with
complete sound stages and computer animation facilities. There was a
third wing in which mechs of animals and other appliances were
programmed and maintained—it seemed a significant portion of
the birds singing in the treetops, as well as bunnies munching leaves
along the paths, were mechs. There was a complete hospital wing capable
of handling most human and animal illnesses, both natural and bio. The
last wing was where the operation kept horses, with stalls for two
hundred of Houndtor Down's horses and another three hundred
guest-leased stalls. There were two barn-sized rooms attached to the
wing for feed and other supplies, and a third barn-sized area that
contained offices, tack rooms, employee lockers, and changing rooms,
and a full-sized indoor riding paddock. The hounds, we were informed,
had their own separate kennel complex. All of this because at some
point back in prehistory, some farmer got fed up with foxes eating his
chickens.


Diana Weatherly, Huntsman to
Houndtor Down Hunts, joined us in her office, which was richly
appointed with a walnut desk, brown leather overstuffed chairs, and
liquid crystal walls that currently showed striking views from the top
of Hound Tor, but on a sunny day. Weatherly was in her middle forties,
good-looking in a sturdy sort of way, and gave the impression of being
quite fit. As she sat in one of the overstuffed chairs facing us, she
was wearing a buff suede jacket over a black blouse and black skintight
lowers, the cuffs tucked into highly polished brown riding boots. From
the records we knew that Weatherly had been Master of Horsham Hunts out
of Manaton, a much smaller and much less successful operation than
Houndtor. When they were starting up Houndtor Down, Miles Bowman and
his fox of a partner sold Archie Quartermain's old self and used the
proceeds to make a down payment to buy out Horsham Hunts. Once they
closed, Bowman, Quartermain, and Weatherly moved the entire operation
to Houndtor Down, Diana Weatherly becoming the operation's Huntsman,
responsible during the hunt for controlling the hounds through three
whippers-in, the lead whipper-in being Thomas Flock.


"Didn't Bowman run you out of
business?” the duck pressed.


She actually held her hand to her
mouth as she giggled. “You're a queer duck."


He stared at her for two seconds.
“Nevertheless."


"If you insist, ducks.”
She then laughed out loud with sufficient zeal and abandon to raise her
exhibition to the level of wanton guffawing. Calling a duck
“ducks” somehow struck her as the absolute zenith
of wordplay wit. Once she regained control of herself, she said,
“When I was the Master of Horsham Hunts, ducky, I was up to
my ears in debt, only a step ahead of my creditors, and literally
didn't know from where my next meal was coming. Thanks to Miles and
Archie, I ride to the hounds at least three times a week, drive a Steel
Gazelle, vacation wherever I want, live in my family's ancestral
home—all taxes and debts paid—and I'm earning per
year sixteen times the amount I earned the best year I ever had at
Horsham. I haven't even mentioned the stock sharing plan, which brings
in as much as my earnings. I wouldn't have to be ungrateful to resent
Miles. I'd have to be insane.” She glanced at me, a bored
expression on her face. “Anything else?"


"Could we see
Champion?” I asked.


"I'd say it was about
time,” she said coolly as she stood.


We followed Diana Weatherly out
of her office and the duck said to me out of the corner of his bill,
“'Horse Throws Rider.’”


"For money, ducks?” I
asked with a smile.


Shad glanced in my direction,
studied me for a moment, then shook his head. “You're being
sneaky. What do you know that I don't?"


"Five dimensions to a case, Shad."


"Left-right, up-down, in-out,
time, and ... what?” he asked. “What's DI Jaggers's
fifth dimension?"


"The fifth dimension, dear
fellow, is this: chances are the murderer—if indeed a
murderer there is—has looked at and considered the other four
dimensions much longer than the investigators, and with a lot more at
risk."


"Staged?” whispered
Shad as we entered the cavernous hall of the operation-owned horse
stables. “You think there's a killer, and the killer staged
this to make it look like the horse did it?"


I pointed toward Diana
Weatherly's rapidly receding back. “Let's see the horse and
find out."


* * * *


Miss Weatherly left us inside
Champion's spacious stall with instructions to call one of the grooms
or attendants in the area if we needed anything. The horse was a
largish, glossy, black Arabian. He had a handsome face with a pure
white patch in the center of his forehead. The source of the hair and
blood from Champion found on the tree at the scene was a deep scrape
high on Champion's left shoulder. “I'll check him over, Shad.
While I'm doing that, give Champion a scan and see if you can access
his memory."


I passed the analyzer over the
horse's body and legs, checking principally for blood. I found a good
bit of medium-velocity spatter on his chest and the front of his neck.
The analyzer matched it to Miles Bowman.


"I don't get it,” said
Shad.


"What's that?” I asked
as I logged and filed the data.


"I've been wringing this nag's
sponge with my neural image reader, and Champion isn't just subhuman,
boss; he's subhorse."


I faced Shad and returned the
analyzer to my pocket. “How so?"


"Watch out!” screamed
Shad looking behind me at something way up there.


I turned and Champion had reared
back on his hind legs, his front hooves pawing at the air, his
wild-eyed gaze fixed directly on me. “Bloody hell!”
I cried as the hooves came down hard. Thanks to Shad's timely warning,
I avoided the brunt of the onslaught, only catching a glancing blow
above my left temple. Nevertheless it was sufficient to knock me off my
feet. I collapsed in the straw in one of the corners, my ears deafened
by the most horrible screaming. When I could focus my eyes again, I was
momentarily powerless to do anything but watch as Shad distracted the
murderous brute from killing me by flapping his wings and running
figure eights between and around the horse's legs, all the time
screaming “Aa-flak, aa-flak, aa-flak, aa-flak!"


Torn between trying to get away
from the duck and trying to kill it, Champion lost track of me long
enough for me to pull myself up, stumble to the stall's gate, and get
on the other side. As I slammed shut the gate, automatically latching
it, Shad came flying over the top, landing in the center of my chest
with sufficient force to knock me on my backside.


As I sat up I saw Shad flat on
his back, wings straight out against the floor, his webbed feet
sticking straight up in the air. It looked to me as though he had lost
a considerable quantity of feathers from his left wing and tail.
“Well,” he said, looking between his legs at his
missing tail feathers, “I'll be plucked."


"Close to what I was just
thinking, as well, Shad."


"I bet.” Using his
wings, he rolled himself over on his left side, at last flopping on his
breast. Another couple of flaps and he was wobbling on his feet, which
is more than I could say for myself. I noticed several drops of my own
blood decorating the left lapel of my suit. “Oh, dear."


"Not that bad,” said
Shad, looking at my head. “Cut. Bruising. You might need a
butterfly or two. Not as bad as it looks."


"You'll have to come home with me
for dinner, Shad."


He cocked his head at me in
modest wonderment. “Great. When?"


"Tonight."


The duck stared at me for a
moment. “Kind of short notice."


"Can't be helped.” I
debated with myself for a moment, then confessed. “My last
year in Metro I was wounded during an arrest. Shot. In and out my left
bicep. I had it treated, went home, and told Val it was nothing."


"Then she found out the truth."


"Quite. Ever since, if I have any
kind of injury, I need to provide a witness if Val is to believe that
it's nothing serious. There's a man who comes in to cook—the
mech I mentioned, actually. His name is Walter. I'm sure he can make
something you can eat."


"I eat everything but waterfowl
and spinach,” Shad answered. He seemed to frown for a moment.
“I can tell Val your injury isn't serious, but how you got
that injury is real serious. It's what I was trying to say when we were
so rudely interrupted. About the neural scan I was doing on Champion?"


"Yes?"


"That nag has been fried,
partner. I'm surprised he has enough of a nervous system left to feed
himself."


"He seemed bloody spry to me."


Shad cocked his head to one side,
glanced at the door to Champion's stall, and looked back at me.
“While we were in there, someone hit Champ with an image
implant. I was reading it when the horse freaked: Truck full of toilets
runs over horse? Desert equine destruction—"


"Charge of the Light
Brigade,” I completed. “How could someone
do an image implant in a horse stall unobserved? For all that matters,
how could they do it in a forest? As I recall, that equipment is heavy,
awkward, and that doesn't even include the power requirements."


"However impossible, that horse
was panicked into trying to kill to defend itself."


"Someone is going to a lot of
trouble to pin Miles Bowman's death on a horse."


"And whoever it is doesn't seem
too particular about who gets killed to do it."


We both thought upon that for a
moment, then I faced him. “Shad, when we were in there and
you were busily and quite bravely saving my current life, there was
something you kept screaming."


"Oh, that.” He squatted
and sat like a duck, his gaze wearily on the beautifully tan and rust
tiled floor. “From my old commercials.
‘Aa-flak!’”


"Yes."


"Spelled different than it
sounds. Pressure is what does it. Handy during cattle calls when you're
really stressed. I never forgot a line. See, when the weight's on, all
I can think to say are old lines from scripts I've
memorized.” He faced me and said, “'Here's looking
at you, kid,'” with the voice of classic actor Humphrey
Bogart.


We heard a siren and in moments
we saw a Houndtor Down ambulance approaching us through the corridor.
“I wonder,” Shad asked with just a touch of
perpetually rejuvenated comedian Robin Williams in his voice,
“is that for us or the horse?"


* * * *


After informing D. Supt. Matheson
of our progress, leaving him even more convinced that Lady Iva was
innocent, I brought Shad home for show and tell. Even after his
harrowingly honest account of our brief misadventure with the
deceased's horse, Val seemed less concerned about my condition or who
might have caused it than she was about how famously I was getting on
with my new partner.


Walter had prepared an appetizing
eggplant Parmesan and judging from the quantity Shad put down, it was
duck-compatible. Despite being a mech and frequently in a state of
melancholy, that evening Walter couldn't resist laughing at his own
duck jokes (There was a veterinarian he knew who was a duck, but the
guy was a quack). Despite Shad's exception to fowl references upon our
first acquaintance, he gave Walter as good as he got with a repertory
of his own mech jokes that even had Val laughing (How many screws in does
it take to light a robot's bulb?).


Once dinner was finished, Walter
cleared the table and began cleaning the dishes. Val, Shad, and I moved
to the lounge. Shad stood on an end table and slurped at his mint tea,
Val curled up on the folded duvet on the settee, and I sat next to her
and sipped at my Assam. The telly was on to BBC 228, which was airing
the original Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart, the
lovely Ingrid Bergman, and the forgivably corrupt police official,
Claude Rains. I had imagined it would be a treat for both Shad and
myself, but I wasn't able to concentrate. It had been a while since
anyone had tried to kill me, and all those old feelings were back
again: fear, paranoia, anger, and a sense of relief I couldn't trust.
Shad wasn't paying attention either.


"Jaggers?” he said.
“All right if I call you Jaggers? The boss-inspector thing
seems a little bulky."


"No objection. How is your south
end?"


"Sore. How's your head?"


"It feels like a horse kicked it.
Something you wanted to ask?"


"Yeah. After I did that scan on
Champion, remember I said the nag was fried?"


"Something about being surprised
he could still feed himself."


"Yeah.” The duck jumped
down to the floor and began pacing. “On the Benton-Lutz AB
Scale, average horse intelligence is twenty-seven point something. Back
there in his stall Champion came in at a four, which is only a little
better than a banana slug."


"That's not fried, Shad. That's
cremated."


Shad froze, then slowly turned
and looked at me. “Insects. Fly on a wall,” he said
at last. “The expression, you know? I wish I was a fly on
that wall, meaning I wish I could've seen and heard what was going on
in a particular place unobserved."


"Yes?"


"Remember years ago the
surveillance industry offered a prize to whoever could figure out how
to successfully human imprint a mech or bio vehicle under one and a
half millimeters in size?"


"Yes. They couldn't compress a
complete human imprint below something much larger—well, the
micro you used to map the burrows today. That's as small as it can be
done without a severe loss of information. Didn't the industry began
experimenting using remote auxiliary processors to hold the mass of the
imprint and through it direct the bio?"


"Yeah. Bio Week
and AI Times both had pieces. It was a big deal for
about ten minutes.” Shad's pacing became a bit more frenzied.
“To a man in a bug POV suit, it was supposed to seem as
though he's crawling or buzzing around with everything on board, but
the imprint really wouldn't be in the bug."


I leaned forward, my headache
temporarily forgotten. “But they never got it working."


"No. Something to do with neural
equivalency failure and remote transmission fidelity. Too much of the
first and too little of the second.” He stopped pacing and
faced me. “After it was dropped, Fantronics used the research
they'd done to come up with a prototype master/slave unit that was put
into trials to see if it would be effective and safe for implanting
images for use in mental health treatment."


"I don't remember that."


"You wouldn't unless you'd been
in one of the trials.” He held up a wing to preempt my next
question. “They had gotten a portable imprinter down to the
size of a Kaiser roll and were lining up amdroids under psychiatric
care for clinical trials. After my wife dumped me, I was seeing someone
because of a little depression I was going through. Anyway, before the
trials even got started, the wheels came off the program and it was
dropped. Then Fantronics unleashed an army of media molders to assure
everyone in the world that there never had been any program, and if
there had been a program, Fantronics didn't have anything to do with
it, and if they did have something to do with it, no serious lasting
effects had been suffered."


"Big law
suits?"


Shad whistled and held his
wingtips far apart. “Law firms were beating the law schools
for recruits. See, what the Fantronics lab came up with was a brand new
compact way to take perfectly sane individuals and turn them stark
barking bonkers.” He lowered his wings. “If they
could do that with a human, why not with a horse?"


"Rather sophisticated, but that
might be our murder weapon.” I drummed my fingertips on the
arm of my chair. “For what possible reason? The success of
Houndtor Down Hunts has been an enormous free advert for the
corporation's fantasy amdroid lines. Killing Miles Bowman with a
Fantronics amdroid horse—"


"—could destroy the
corporation,” Shad completed. “Disgruntled
employee? Someone connected with the cancelled project?"


"Fund my project or I'll take
everyone in Fantronics down with me."


"It could get us a trip to
London, Jaggs. I love the parks there."


"It's a little early for
vacationing.” I pointed at my partner. “Get on the
net and see how Fantronics's stock is doing."


After a few moments of tail
twitching, Shad looked at me. “No real changes: between
three-ninety and four hundred a share, the same as it's been since the
general market increase this past January. No layoffs at Fantronics.
They're hiring.” He paused for a moment. “Want to
supervise a recreational program for used bios that've been
engram-scrubbed? Some housebreaking training involved, no experience
necessary, bring your own mop."


"I have another commitment."


Shad whistled. “Want to
know the starting salary?"


"It would only discourage
me.” I took a sip of tea and put my cup down on the coffee
table. On the telly Claude Rains was shocked, shocked to find out
there's gambling going on in Casablanca. I picked up the remote and
paused the flick. “We're not getting anywhere with motive.
Let's focus on means."


"Okay.” With a flap and
a hop, Shad was back on the end table. He took a slurp of his tea, sat
down, and said, “We know the ability exists to remotely
implant images that can trigger off a homicidal nightmare, and it's
pretty clear something like that was done to Champion when the horse
killed Bowman and when he tried to kill us.” Shad looked at
me. “And?"


"If we can find out where the
image implant device was located when it triggered Champion in his
stall, we might find a trail that we could follow to our killer. I
haven't looked at your burrow map. Any of those burrows come near the
stables?"


"No burrows. Just a conduit
carrying vid feeds to the studio wing. No access into the pipe. The
actual fox burrows are pretty much limited to Old Bones Village,
extending south and southwest from the ruins coming up at various
places on Houndtor Down, Holwell Lawn, and Hedge Down on the other side
of the road to Manaton. They have remote camera hookups throughout the
whole area so they can continually vary the route of the chase. Only
the burrows in the village are dirt and rock. The long ones that come
up in the chase areas are forty-centimeter-diameter plastic pipe.
Archie's hair is in the Old Bones Village burrows and throughout the
pipes that come up in the chase areas.


"If Houndtor Down Hunts put in
all that pipe, the plans should be on file with the Dartmoor National
Park Authority. There has to be a way to get at Champion's stall. When
you have a minute, Shad, access the plans on file with the authority
and see how they compare with your map."


"Will do. Something to think
about though, Jaggs.” Shad glanced at Val, noted she was
sleeping, and said in a lower volume, “That horse is still a
dangerous weapon. How's your head? Personally, I'm not eager to donate
any more feathers."


"Point taken.” I looked
at Val. Often when she looked asleep she was only relaxing. Then a
thought came to mind that chased away all caution. “What
about us, Shad?"


"Us?"


"We both have bio receivers. If
our killer has the means to make horse amdroids crazy, what about us?"


He looked down and slowly shook
his head. “The prototype made humans crazy. That's why the
program was dumped. I think we have to assume whoever made Champion
crazy can do the same for us, and will do it if we get in their way."


"Even killers have to sleep
sometime,” interrupted Val as she yawned and stretched her
front legs.


"I apologize for keeping you up,
dear,” I said. “We'll be done in a minute."


The duck jumped from the end
table to the floor and waddled over to Val's end of the settee.
“I believe Val was suggesting that right now might be an
opportune time to sneak into the stable wing to take a peek."


"Smart bird,” she
responded as she rose, arched her back in a global stretch, turned
around twice, and settled back into the same exact position.


She was probably right, too.
Unless the killer had accomplices, there was no way to stand guard on
everything all of the time. I stood, petted Val's head and ran my hand
down her back. “Thank you, dear. Don't wait up."


"I never do,” she said
with her eyes closed. “Harry?"


"Yes, dear?"


She looked at me. “It's
good to see you after a killer again.” She glanced at Shad
then back at me. “Both of you, take care."


* * * *


On the way from Exeter, Shad
accessed the plans filed with the park authority, and the underground
piping Quartermain used for long-distance burrows matched exactly the
map Shad had generated, including a strange little cave near Old Bones
Village Shad had mentioned. The burrow Quartermain had used to exit
from Bones’ chamber led to the cave, but, although there were
cracks in the upper part of the chamber, allowing a little light and
more than a few bats to enter, Shad hadn't found any exit large enough
for a fox. Judging by the number of bat wings he had found without bats
between them, Shad concluded the cave was one of the places where the
Quartermains dined.


There was drainage piping from
the stables, but it was a completely separate enclosed system with all
wastes purified and recycled. No connection to the fox runs. While he
was at it, Shad ran a search on anyone who ever had any connection with
Fantronics's experimental insect imprint or mental health programs. The
scientist who had been in charge of both programs, Beatrice Widdows,
PhD, had moved to Florida three years before to join the faculty of the
state university there as professor of applied biotronics. It was
reputedly the only college course in the world taught by a manatee.
Among the names of Dr. Widdows's assistants that Shad had listed, the
name of one caught my attention. “Why does the name Shirley
Wurple seem familiar?"


"Dr. Wurple is the current bio
amdroid assignment supervisor at Fantronics. Remember, she ducked my
call?"


"Is there any connection between
her and Houndtor Down Hunts you can find?"


"Working,” Shad
announced as his tail twitched. As the cruiser came down from the Bovey
Tracy Roundabout, the rain had stopped, but it was still overcast,
making the night deadly dark, which was perfect for our purposes. Just
as we came over the village of Leighon, Shad announced, “Back
at the beginning of Houndtor Down Hunts, when Archie Quartermain
imprinted onto his first fox bio, Dr. Wurple assisted Dr. Widdows with
the imprint and supervised the transfer of Archie's human meat suit to
its new owner. As far as my software knows, that's the only connection.
Where do you want me to put down?"


"Put us into a hover just east of
the lodge grove below treetop level and run up both micros. If we find
another way from Champion's stall out of the stables, we're going to
follow it wherever it goes."


* * * *


Copied into our micros, we
entered the stables through an air vent leaving open the hole we had
made through the screen and air filter. Keeping above the cameras and
motion detectors, we came to the horse stable wing and once there,
aligned ourselves behind a vertical electrical conduit and descended
until we could enter an open transom. Keeping beams, boxes, or bales of
hay between us and the security sensors, we made our way to Champion's
stall and slipped in undetected. The horse was lying down in the straw
on its right side.


"I thought horses slept standing
up,” said Shad on our secure net.


I hovered my micro just above the
horse's head and extended my holo. “They may very well sleep
standing up, Shad, but this one is as dead as Dillinger.” I
did a quick neural activity scan and came up empty. “This bio
has been dead long enough to zero out all recoverable neurological
activity and data.” I initiated a full scan and Shad opened a
channel to it and watched. We both noted the results at the same time:
Champion's red blood cells were almost devoid of oxygen.


"Chemical asphyxia?”
said Shad.


"Let's see.” I looked
up horse anatomy, located a big artery, and shot an independent
microanalyzer into the dead animal's blood stream. The rice-grain-sized
laboratory reported its results within seconds: “Blood
cyanide level: two-point-three milligrams per liter. Get a liver temp."


Shad moved his micro around to
the horse's flank and fired a sensor into the dead animal's liver.
“Champ's been dead about two hours."


"Perhaps our killer was neating
up.” I looked back at the dead horse. “The poison
still had to be administered. Do your wireless magic and see if you can
access the stable security vids. Any and everything of Champion, his
stall, and anyone going to or coming from the stall the past three or
four hours. I'll check the horse's food and water and see if the poison
was administered that way."


"I'm on it, Jaggs."


While Shad was busy accessing the
security vids, I tested Champion's water and feed station for cyanide.
Neither had even trace amounts. The feed was automatically mixed,
apportioned, and transported to the stalls on overhead belts, and down
through vertical chutes into the feeding stations.


"Shad, while you're checking the
surveillance vids, be a good fellow and run the schematics for the
automated feeding and watering systems. See if there's any way for
something or someone to get through them into the stalls."


"Got it."


On the other sides of the
walls—both sides, the back, and back corners—were
other stalls, all occupied. I checked the adjoining stalls and examined
the walls. They were covered with white imitation wood planking made
from a durable combination of poly and gypsum cement. Very well done.
Until I actually put the holo to them, I thought them to be of genuine
oak. The stall walls were solid down to the imitation concrete plastic
foundation. The foundation was solid and one uninterrupted piece with
the textured floor. I poked through the straw on the stall floor, as
well as beneath lumps of horse poo, finding no opening large enough to
allow even a micro to enter, much less something as large as a Kaiser
roll.


"I've run through the vids of all
three cameras that have views of this section of the horse stables,
Jaggs. Nothing."


"The feed and watering
systems?” I prompted.


"The water goes through a series
of filters and screens. The feed is run through larger mesh screens,
but goes through foreign matter detectors designed to find and remove
all ferrous and nonferrous metals, plastics, rocks, insects, rodents,
contaminants—anything that isn't the intended feed. Find
anything with the foundation or floor?"


"What I found was that this
building is tight and made of practically indestructible materials. The
only place I haven't examined is beneath the horse."


"We could put our power supplies
in parallel and give Champ a zap,” Shad offered.
“Maybe we could frog-twitch him off that spot."


I aimed my lens at my partner.
“Before resorting to measures that have equal chances of
either crushing our micros or setting this straw on fire, Baron
Frankenduck, let's do density and matrix continuity scans on the floor
and foundation that we can reach."


"Think someone pulled a plastic
plug and put it back, Igor?” he said, I believe, with the
voice of Colin Clive.


"Let's see. And that's Detective
Inspector Igor to you."


Density and matrix continuity
scans, originally adopted by forensics for restoring purposefully
obliterated serial numbers from weapons, autos, and stolen goods, were,
because of that, deadly slow if the area to be scanned was larger than
a few square centimeters. The stall was approximately three meters wide
and four deep. Fortunately, we both began scanning at the back of the
stall, I on the right and Shad on the left. We hadn't been at it longer
than twenty minutes when Shad said, “Got it."


I glided over to his side of the
stall, tuned in his scan, and saw in his corner of the stall an arc,
the complete circle of which would be twenty-five centimeters in
diameter and would include part of the floor and a bit of the back. I
began scanning the back, and in minutes we had marked bits of arc the
complete circle of which would, if the plug were removed, make a rather
high-tech foxhole. “Are we back to Archie
Quartermain?” asked Shad. “What motive?"


"Perhaps he's a better actor than
you thought. He originally got into that fox suit for money."


"I don't buy it. Back when we
were in New York, Archie liked money the same way I liked money. We
both preferred eating to starving and sleeping with a roof over our
heads to shivering beneath all the news that's fit to print out on a
park bench. In the end, that's why I became a cop and Archie became a
fox, but money wasn't what was driving us. Acting, getting a great
role, hearing that laughter, that applause, getting a thousand men and
women to play with you at the same time, leading them along into your
game, and springing the surprise on them, collecting all those oohs and
aahs. Applause. That's what drove us—that's what drove
Archie. Judging by what he told you when I was out mapping the burrows,
that's what's still driving him: the game, although I admit the appeal
parameters seemed to have changed."


"So, what else can fit through a
fox hole?"


"Fox terriers,” offered
Shad. “Various mechs, squirrels, rats, all kinds of birds,
weasels, badgers, monkeys—"


"You said your package included
thermal imaging,” I interrupted. “How sensitive is
your system?"


"I can track another bird through
the air by the long heat trail it leaves and can determine which
shotgun a duck hunter used five hours after it was fired by the heat
differential between it and the hunter's unfired weapons, and that with
a load of birdshot in my butt."


"Shad, we have to get back up to
the cruiser. When we get there, move into your feathers and do a scan
around the lodge and stables for the underground route that was used to
get in here. Whatever was used, it had to generate some heat to get
through this foundation. My instruments, crude as they are, can detect
a temperature differential between the inside of the arc we've been
scanning and the surrounding material."


"What are you going to do?"


"Perhaps I'll find a shovel to
wield."


Shad's micro hovered for a
moment, then he said, “You're going to make me copy into the
big mech and do the digging, aren't you?"


"Unless your scan can find us
another way in."


* * * *


While I downloaded my data into
the cruiser's computer, Shad did one quick flap around the lodge and
stables. Long before I managed to copy back into my meat suit, he was
back with a report. “I found the underground tunnel coming
out from beneath the northwest corner of the lodge. That was the end
cut last. From there it runs around three meters deep northwest, then
arcs until it heads southwest, arcs again until it's headed southeast,
and then the thermal signature is so faint my equipment can't pick it
up. The largest part of what I could follow was cut through mostly
solid granite."


My sync was complete and I sat up
and pointed at the cruiser's data screen. “Show me."


It was as he said. In addition,
the trace was very regular, not a perceptible difference in diameter
between any two parts of the machine-cut tube. Every detectable portion
of the tunnel was three to four meters deep, most of it running through
granite. If we were going to break into it, we'd need equipment,
explosives, daylight, a crew, and to throw away any kind of edge
surprise might lend us. I glanced over to the driver's seat, and Shad's
tail was twitching. “What are you doing?"


"Searching for small-diameter
tunneling equipment. I've found three designed for putting in water and
sewer lines, as well as running conduit through masonry, that can do
the tunnel job we detected. The Euclid 750 Pipe Snake is what was used
to put in all of the long-run tunnels Houndtor Down Hunts uses to run
camera feeds along the different fox runs. I see it's pretty obsolete,
too, as far as knowledgeable plumbing and sewerage dons are concerned."


The image came up. The Euclid
model resembled a horrible huge snake, the mouth on its fearsome head
tipped with ghastly-looking circular grinding teeth. Just behind the
teeth were high-pressure water jets and intake holes to float the stone
dust and remove the slurry. Just behind the takeaway scoops was a
gasket, and behind that were holes designed to inject and coat the
interior of the tunnel behind the head with a smooth layer of chemical
and weather-resistant plastic. The rattle on the tail of this snake was
a huge piece of nuke-powered equipment that would be incredibly obvious
wherever it was used. Shad pointed out that the Pipe Snake could have
easily made the hole into Champion's stall, but all it could do after
that is coat the inside of the opening with plastic. It couldn't have
refilled the hole.


"The other two models are the
Pipe Dream, manufactured in Macao by Red Star Industrial, and the Magic
Mole, manufactured in Burbank by an outfit called Whack-A-Hole. Both
pieces of equipment use the same technology, matter
transcompression—"


"They eat dirt and rocks and
squirt out pipe."


"Yes. Self-contained, nuke
powered. A feature of the Magic Mole, however, is its ability to fill
the pipe it's made with anything the contractor wishes, whether it's an
inline computer-controlled valve, a line switch—"


"Or what it removed,” I
completed. “Does Whack-A-Hole have a twenty-four-hour office
in London?"


"Yes."


"See if Marcus Licinius Crassus
can get the manufacturer to give up a customer list. Meanwhile, take
the cruiser over to where Bowman's body was found. If our killer used a
Magic Mole to get a portable image implanter into Champion's stall, I'm
pretty certain the same was done where Bowman was killed. Perhaps we
can get in at that end. The forest floor there, at least, isn't made of
plastic or granite."


* * * *


It was well past three in the
morning by the time we located the tunnel entrance. It was beneath the
remaining branches of the dead tree next to the pine that had
Champion's hair on it. No attempt had been made to fill the hole. It
looked, in fact, as though a fox or some large burrowing animal had dug
it. Shad had Whack-A-Hole's British customer list, and it was daunting.
Every municipality, hamlet, and large institution in the country had
one or more of the tools, as well as plumbers, drain layers, and
building contractors of all types. For the mundane tasks of laying pipe
or running conduit, it seemed, there was nothing like a Magic Mole. To
take all the variously formatted employee databases of all of the
institutions and companies and run each person's antecedents against
our total name database was beyond our capacity. Shad logged into the
Heavitree ABCD Center and gave the task to the mainframe. Meanwhile, we
got small, copied into our micros, and entered Whack-A-Hole's
underworld.


Once the excitement of being
confronted by a belligerent salamander and several alarming spiders was
past, monotonous would be too generous a description of how it felt to
be in a flying lipstick traveling down an apparently endless but
definitely featureless length of dark pipe. After a few minutes of
travel there was a very gentle arc toward the northeast, and we
traveled along that, gradually descending all the while. After more
than an hour of this, another gentle arc had us heading due east, but
still descending. “Here's something interesting,”
said my partner at last.


"Let me have it, Shad. I'm
stimulation-starved to the point where I could eagerly listen to
knock-knock jokes."


"You know how fast a twenty-five
centimeter diameter Magic Mole can travel through an unobstructed pipe
of its own manufacture?"


"Can't say that I do."


"It can top sixty kilometers per
hour under its own power. With compressed air behind it, the mole can
top a hundred and seventy."


"Fascinating."


"I only bring it up, Jaggs,
because I note we are both flying along at our top speed of four
kilometers per hour. Sort of made me wonder what the plan is, should we
find a Magic Mole coming at us from the other direction."


I thought on it. “In
such case, we get annihilated. Now that you bring it up, it would
probably behoove us to maintain a continuous data sync with the
cruiser. That way, should we get swatted, we'll remember it. What's our
signal like to the cruiser pickup?"


Shad ran a quick signal strength
and fidelity test. “Weak. I'm bringing the cruiser over our
present position.” After a minute or two, Shad ran the test
again. “Perfect. As long as the cruiser follows along above
us, it should be fine."


"Very well. Keep an eye on the
autodrive monitor, though. Wrapping the cruiser around a tree or
dashing it to pieces on a building or rock cliff would be all Supt.
Matheson needs to sack both of us."


"Something from Exeter coming
in,” he announced. “Fantronics's maintenance
division currently keeps three Magic Mole systems in its inventory. Two
of the systems were replaced three months ago. Apparently the replaced
systems were destroyed along with a lot of other equipment when the
division's warehouse in Reading was consumed in a chemical fire. Kind
of a drastic way to cover up an equipment theft,” he observed.


"But effective."


That was all the excitement we
had until we came to a point just west of Old Bones Village Ruin.
Twenty meters north of the National Park Information Center was a
junction. To our left a tunnel led due north. That was likely the other
end of the tube that led to Champion's stall. Straight ahead, however,
was the real question mark. Without discussion, Shad and I had both
flown in that direction. Another few meters and the tube took a
ninety-degree turn south.


"Oops!” said Shad.


"What is it?"


"Nothing."


"You said
‘Oops,’ Shad. Oops is never good."


"We—I almost ran the
cruiser into that little information center in the ruins. I put it in
hover park.” He aimed his sensors at me. “That's
where the tunnel leads, Jaggs: the basement of that building."


"Find out who is employed there."


While Shad accessed the park
authority records, we moved ahead until suddenly there was a light at
the end of the tunnel. Several lights, actually. I zoomed in on them
and they looked like instrument lights on some sort of control panel.


"Hold up, pard,” said
Shad, causing both of us to come to a halt.


"Who did you find?"


"No one—I mean, there's
no record of anyone ever being employed there. According to the Park
Authority, there is no information center there. There's no record of
anyone even thinking about it. It's a front."


"Shad, give me the cruiser
controls.” In a moment, I was looking through the cruiser's
forward camera. It was still dark. The infrared illumination revealed
the back side of the little building. A late-model Honda electric was
parked there on the uncut grass. I maneuvered the cruiser around until
I could see the front of the building. As evidenced by the weeds and
grass growing in it, the crushed gravel path to the front door had seen
little traffic. There was a sign on the door saying that the center was
closed for repairs and thank you for all your patience. I left the
cruiser hovering there and turned to Shad. “Let's go."


We moved toward the end of the
tunnel, and long before we reached the end we could tell the space
beneath the small building was much larger than the structure above,
the curiously scalloped walls apparently carved from the granite
bedrock courtesy of a Magic Mole. There was the sound of a small
internal combustion engine running. The panel lights we had seen from
inside the tunnel were mounted in the face of a large orange-colored
console. Mounted above the lights was an identification plate, which
cleverly named the machine upon which it was mounted a genuine
Whack-A-Hole Magic Mole Control. To the right of the console on the wet
granite floor were what looked like pipes of different diameters. Shad
moved over to them to see what they were. Beyond the pipes and
extending as far as I could see in the carved-out space were what
looked to be piles of purple glass hockey pucks—millions of
them.


"These pipe thingies are
different-sized Magic Mole bits in their containers,” said
Shad.


"See if you can tell what those
piles of purple things are."


"Puckets,” he answered
immediately.


"Sorry?"


Shad aimed his lens at me.
“I ran across it when I put in the search for boring
equipment and came across Whack-A-Hole. Transcompression equipment
manufacturers call them puckets. When the Mole goes through certain
dense materials, like granite for instance, there's stuff left over
after the matter transcompression forms the tube lining. The Mole
compresses the excess material to about a sixth of its volume and
excretes it in this form: puckets.” Shad aimed his lens to
his right. “Hello?"


I turned in the direction my
partner was facing. Behind the Mole control unit was a refrigerator, a
table with a hotplate, and a shelf with a few tins and boxes on it:
biscuits, crisps, jam and such. To the right of this rudimentary
kitchen, standing next to a stairway, was a forty-year-old vertical EMU
capsule, its casing scratched and dented, its bottom sitting in at
least five centimeters of water. “Where's all this water
coming from?"


I slipped a bit to my left and
saw the companion capsule standing next to the first in a send-receive
configuration and a massive old engram management unit console beyond
it. I hadn't seen equipment that old since I copied into my first bio.
The EMU console was located next to an equally vintage stasis bed. In
repose upon the bed was a middle-aged woman dressed in Wranglers and a
Harris tweed jacket over an olive turtleneck. Her hair was graying,
unusually short, and she wore heavy black-framed eyeglasses. Her skin
color was bright red. “Shad, run the air quality."


After thirty seconds, Shad said,
“I'm glad we're in the mechs, Jaggs. The carbon monoxide
level in here is lethal. If she's not dead, she's not an oxy breather."


"Get a DNA and liver temp."


While Shad was sticking a needle
into the corpse, I flew past the stasis maintenance console following
the sound of what I suspected was a generator. Indeed it was, and a
petrol burner at that, the fuel bladder tucked into the northeast
corner of the chamber. Air was piped into its carburetor from outside
and the exhaust fed into a stack that went up through the floor above.
The seal between the purple glass exhaust pipe and stack was leaking
badly, the glass apparently cracked. Just behind the generator, the
scalloped chamber wall was wet and dripping. It was rainwater seeping
through the dirt between the edge of the building and the bedrock.


I reversed course and as I passed
the stasis bed, Shad was running the DNA ID on the body. Past the EMU
capsules I turned left and left again to go up the long staircase. The
door to the upstairs was open slightly and I moved in, the overcast sky
visible through one of the windows just beginning to grow light. There
was enough furniture and decoration in the room to convince someone
looking through a window that this was indeed an official information
center. There was, however, only the one room, a closet with nothing in
it, and the stairwell leading to the mysterious cavern below.


I did a quick analysis of the
upstairs air and the carbon monoxide level above ground was even more
concentrated than below. The exhaust stack from the generator came up
through the floor at the back of the building, apparently with the
assistance of a Magic Mole, which had made the glass stack pipe, as
well. The piping ran across the open ceiling and up into the casing of
the pseudo brick chimney. Prefab the building might have been, but it
was fairly tight, without a crack or hole large enough for me to get to
the outside. I was about to call an end to my meat suit's stasis and
have myself land the cruiser and open the door with a pry bar, but I
hate doing that. When the mech and the meat suit both are running at
the same time and independently altering our engram content, there are
always sync problems with useful items frequently deleted in the
resolution. It was unnecessary, though. I opened the mail slot in the
door and exited through it. Once outside I moved up to the roof and
over to the chimney. One glance down the chimney showed what was
blocking the generator exhaust port: dead birds.


As I came back through the mail
slot and down the stairs, Shad was returning from the direction of the
pucket dump. We both altered direction and stopped at the stasis bed.
“Did you ID the body?” I asked Shad.


"DI Jaggers, I'd like you to meet
the late Dr. Shirley Wurple. She's been dead a little over three hours.
Find out where the water's coming in?"


"In the back. There's no
foundation. The rain caused the building to settle slightly, which
cracked the exhaust seal and probably toppled a couple of dead birds in
the chimney over the exhaust port, blocking it."


"Something doesn't mesh, Jaggs.
She's a wheel at Fantronics, right? She has to have access to better
equipment than these old junkers."


"Probably left over from her
research days with Dr. Widdows, Shad. She wanted her plans under the
radar. Junkers are junked, you see, not registered."


"So, why? We're back to motive.
Why'd she try to kill us and, presumably, Miles Bowman?"


I thought on it until, at last, a
mouse brought me the answer. “When you were married, Shad,
before your flying days, did your wife ever bring you a sweetie when
you were feeling low, some sort of little treat to bring you out of
your doldrums?"


"Sure—” He
aimed his light at me. “The mouse! That doesn't happen with
real critters and their mates."


"She tried to kill us, Shad,
because she didn't want us to discover that she killed Bowman. She
killed Bowman for the very noblest of reasons: to protect her family.
She's Archie Quartermain's mate and is about to become a mother. I
think if you check inside those EMU capsules you'll find fox hair that
won't match up with Quartermain's. Have you seen that image implanter?"


"I haven't found it, and I
looked."


"Unfortunate."


"Jaggs, don't you think Archie's
in this with her?"


"No. I believe your old roommate
thinks his mate is a genuine vixen. Why should he think anything else?
He's not a proper fox himself. Where's his den?"


"When I was mapping the dirt
tunnels, I found a couple of wide spots, but nothing like a place to
sleep or make little foxes. No little animal bones—"


"Can you get us back to Old
Bones, where Quartermain first talked to us?"


"Sure, but it'll take hours to go
back the way we came."


"Let's take a shortcut. We can
get out through the mail slot."


I led the way and we hurried.
There was no telling what Shirley Wurple might do with that image
implanter once she awakened and found out she was dead.


* * * *


Once we left the mail slot, it
was a mere thirty meters south to reach the entrance to the burrow.
After reaching his rather lean receptionist, I led the way over Old
Bones's ribcage to the back of the chamber and into the hole between
the two rock slabs. According to Shad's map, the hole turned abruptly
down, then zigzagged generally southwest until it entered an inclined
shaft carved by groundwater. The shaft led to a small grotto
illuminated by two very dim cracks of natural light from the surface.
There was not even enough room for a man to stand upright, but the tiny
cave averaged between one and two meters wide and well over forty
meters in length where it began sloping down, the overflow pouring into
a rubble-filled channel that presumably found its way to Becka Brook.


"When the vixen brought
Quartermain his mouse, this is where she came from. This is to where
Quartermain followed her after leaving me.” I turned and
aimed my lens at Shad's micro. “Something I don't understand.
With the research Quartermain did on foxes and the hunt, your old
roommate had to know about that mouse—that it didn't fit. Is
it possible that Archie Quartermain deluded himself into thinking
Shirley Wurple is a real vixen?"


"You should've seen me stalking
that hooded merganser all over Maine. It's a good thing she was a real
bird or she would've taken out papers on me. When you're lonely and
desperate, you can talk yourself into believing anything. Archie lives
in a hole in the ground. By the time he could afford to buy himself a
designer meat suit he was already a fox in his head. Trouble is, when
we copy into one of these ams, we bring that human need for
companionship along with us. After a lonely couple of years by himself,
running before the hounds his only meaning in life, along comes this
warm, cute, sexy little vixen who wants to rub, cuddle, bring him mice,
and make little foxes. You bet he could delude himself—Hold
it."


After Shad's warning, we both
fell silent and streaked for cover. We were behind a small ledge, our
lights off, our sensors on. A warm mass was entering the chamber from
above. “I heard that,” said a voice. It was
Quartermain. Shad and I moved our mechs out from behind the ledge. The
fox was standing beside the pool of water. “What are you two
doing here?” he demanded.


"Where's your mate,
Arch?” asked Shad.


"My mate?"


"The vixen who's fixin’
to make you a pappy."


He walked a few steps in one
direction, then turned and walked back, leveling his gaze on Shad's
micro. “What do you want with her? She's a fox—a
real fox."


"She's nothing of the
sort,” I said. “She's a Fantronics bio imprinted
with the engrams of a woman named Shirley Wurple."


Quartermain was so still he could
have been a taxidermist's showpiece. “Doctor
Shirley Wurple?” he said to my micro.


"Yes."


"The person who ... Bloody
hell.” He sat next to the water and stared deep
into the pool. “She killed Miles, didn't she?"


"Yes,” I answered as
Shad crossed the pool to investigate something. “I don't know
if this helps, Quartermain, but I think she believed she was doing it
for her family: you and the coming cubs."


"How did she do it?"


"During the run, after you passed
that spot in Quik Grove lane, she cut your scent trail with probably
some sort of chemical, then laid a drag trail into the thick woods,
probably with one of your former body parts from a previous hunt."


"She has an old tail of mine. A
bit morbid, but I thought it was kind of touching."


"When Miles reached that
particular spot in the grove, she hit the horse with an image implant
that drove the animal insane. Champion saw Miles Bowman as a
threat—"


"—and then Champion
trampled to death the man who loved him more than anyone else in the
world,” completed Quartermain. “This is insane.
Back in the Fantronics lab, that woman—I thought she was
joking. She made like she was flirting with me when she was getting me
ready to print into my fox suit—making jokes about buying my
human self and bringing it home with her for fun and
games—She must've been sixty! You don't suppose she actually
bought me."


"No,” Shad said from
the other side of the pool. “The old you is in Hollywood
right now under the name of Trent Scanlon playing the feature role of
Saddam Hussein in the black comedy Uday and Qusay are Ed-day.
Principal photography began last February."


"Hollywood,” the fox
repeated. Again he was motionless, no doubt having one of those
life-assessing moments. Lifting his head, at last, he faced me.
“How can you be so certain she did it?"


"She tried to kill us,
too.” I explained how the vixen had tunneled into Champion's
stall and how we discovered her expired human meat suit below the phony
National Park Information Center. He shook his head at last, got up on
all fours, turned toward the back of the chamber, jumped up on a ledge,
and seemingly vanished into the rock. We heard his voice say,
“This way."


I moved up to where Quartermain
seemed to have vanished and saw a shelf of stone. Just beneath it was
an opening that was impossible to see unless one was right up on it.
“This way, Shad."


"I found something,” he
said.


I moved back down and crossed the
water to where Shad's light was illuminating something the size of a
dinner roll that looked sealed in waterproof plastic. “Is
that the missing portable image imprinter?"


"She tried to hide it in the
water. The vixen carried it down here holding the plastic bag in her
mouth. Tiny, sharp, little teeth. Water got in the bag. We'll be able
to match Wurple's bio to the bite mark impressions."


"We'll need the tracked mech to
bring it out, Shad. Before we do that, call it in to Police Constable
Lounds for the arrest. That ought to raise his esteem in the park
constabulary."


"I'd love to see his boss's face
when he finds out his case fell apart."


"Let's get to Quartermain's den.
Your old roommate is about to give up his mate."


* * * *


"Why did you kill
Miles?” we heard Quartermain demand as Shad and I came out of
the tunnel into a chamber where the only illumination was provided by
our lights.


"I didn't mean to at
first,” answered the vixen's tearful voice. She looked at us,
her eyes wide. Looking at Quartermain she said, “Really I
didn't. I'd hoped to frighten him out of the—Oh, I can't look
at you and tell you this!"


"It doesn't matter. I'm sending
you over,” said Quartermain. He seemed to laugh to
himself—at himself—then he glanced at Shad's micro
and hung his head. “Yeah. I'm sending you over,” he
repeated as he slunk out of the chamber.


She turned from watching
Quartermain's departing tail, and laughed nervously.
“Oh—he frightened me for a moment. He was joking.
That's it. After all, I'm carrying his babies. He was joking, wasn't
he?"


"Don't be silly,” said
Shad in that special Bogart voice of his. “You're taking the
fall. You killed Miles and you're going over for it."


"How can you ... how can he do
this to me?” She broke down and began a really irritating
series of whines.


"Listen,” said Shad
after awhile. “This won't do any good. You'll never
understand me, but I'll try once and then give it up. When a fox's
partner's killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't
make any difference what the fox thought of him, he was your partner
and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens they're in
the fox hunting business. Well, when one of your fox hunters gets
killed by a fox, it's bad business to let the fox get away with it. Bad
all around. Bad for every fox hunting operation everywhere."


Shirley Wurple didn't know her
next line from The Maltese Falcon, which left Shad
with nothing left to say.


The vixen looked at me and said,
“What if I run? You two little pocket pips couldn't stop me."


"No, we couldn't,” I
answered. “In Houndtor Down Lodge this instant, though,
equipped with the best riding stock and guided by the most competently
trained hounds in the world, is an assembly of the most proficient and
fanatical fox hunters in the world. You've never run before the hounds,
doctor. You don't know how. I fear in a matter of minutes you and your
unborn cubs would be cornered and most likely torn to pieces. Why not
let a judge and jury decide your fate?"


"I can run faster than you can
move. My human body can—"


"Your human body is dead, Dr.
Wurple,” said Shad.


Her eyes grew wide as she faced
me.


"Carbon monoxide poisoning from
your generator,” I explained. “There was nothing we
could do.” I could see the defeat in her face as I turned
away, sad for her.


* * * *


She cooperated in exiting the
burrow once PC Lounds arrived to caution her and make the arrest. He
put her in a dog cage and drove off with her in the electric. There
wasn't anything we could say to console Archie Quartermain. All we
could do was to give him the number of a facilitator for an amdroid
grief group, see to it that DCI Stokes released Lady Ida Bowman with
all due apologies, and head back to Exeter, the sun actually making it
through the clouds for a minute before a new front came in and the
rainfall resumed.


While we rode off into the
truncated sunrise, I asked my new partner, “How would you
like to be on that jury, Shad? He was the fantasy love of her life, and
the price of her union with him was she'd have to remain helplessly by
while he was killed over and over again. What to do?"


"We just catch ‘em,
Jaggs. We don't cook ‘em."


"Indeed, Shad. Too bad we
resolved things so quickly, though. I really wanted to meet Dorothea
Tay. Back in the dim reaches of time, I fear she was my childhood
heartthrob."


After a moment of silence, Shad
said, “Speaking of old movies, The Maltese Falcon
was a script Archie and I had memorized front to back. ‘I'm
sending you over.'” He chuckled and said with Humphrey
Bogart's voice, “'When a fox's partner's killed, he's
supposed to do something about it.'” He glanced at me and
said in his own voice, “Why did you let me go on like that?"


"My dear chap, I never would have
dreamt of deprivin’ you of your moment of triumph."


He frowned, regarded me with one
dark eye, and said, “The Scarlet Pimpernel,
Anthony Andrews vid remake, nineteen eighty-two."


"Quite right,” I said
as I beamed at my new partner. “Excellent."


Copyright © 2006 Barry
B. Longyear


[Back to Table of Contents]









SCIENCE FACT: THE
INTERSTELLAR CONSPIRACY by Les Johnson & Gregory L.
Matloff


Interstellar
travel is (no pun intended) a long way off—but the first
steps may already be underway.


What if...


If we were designing a
human-carrying starship that could be launched in the not-too-distant
future, it would almost certainly not use a warp drive to
instantaneously bounce around the universe, as is done in Isaac
Asimov's classic Foundation series or in episodes
of Star Trek or Star Wars.
Sadly, those starships that seem to be within technological reach could
not even travel at high relativistic speeds, as does the interstellar
ramjet in Poul Anderson's Tau Zero. Warp speeds
seem to be well outside the realm of currently understood physical law;
proton-fusing ramjets may never be technologically feasible (Matloff,
2000). Perhaps fortunately in our terrorist-plagued world, the
economics of antimatter may never be attractive for large-scale
starship propulsion (Mallove and Matloff, 1989).


But interstellar travel will be
possible within a few centuries, although it will not be as fast as we
might prefer. If humans learn how to hibernate, perhaps we will sleep
our way to the stars, as do the crew in A. E. van Vogt's “Far
Centaurus.” However, as discussed in a landmark paper in The
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, the most
feasible approach to transporting a small human population to the
planets (if any) of Alpha Centauri is the worldship (Bond and Martin,
1984). Such craft have often been featured in science fiction. See, for
example, Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama
and Robert A. Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky.


Worldships are essentially mobile
versions of the O'Neill (1974, 1977) free-space habitats. Constructed
mostly from lunar and/or asteroidal materials, these solar-powered,
multi-kilometer-dimension structures could house ten thousand to one
hundred thousand humans in Earth-approximating environments. Artificial
gravity would be provided by habitat rotation, and cosmic-ray shielding
would be provided by passive methods, such as habitat atmosphere and
mass shielding, or magnetic fields (Johnson and Holbrow, 1977). A late
twenty-first century space-habitat venture might support itself
economically by constructing large solar-powered satellites to beam
energy back to Earth.


But how might a
multi-billion-kilogram space habitat be propelled if its inhabitants
choose to attempt an interstellar migration without antimatter,
ramjets, or space warps? A landmark paper by Dr. Anthony Martin, who
currently edits The Journal of the British Interplanetary
Society, addresses this issue (Martin, 1984). Gravity-assist
maneuvers using the giant planets may be used to fling a spacecraft
toward the stars, as has been demonstrated by our first extrasolar
probes, Pioneer 10/11 and Voyager 1/2.
Unfortunately, this is a time-consuming technique—about
seventy thousand years would be required by the fastest of these
vehicles to reach Alpha Centauri, if any of them happened to be
traveling in that direction.


If interstellar migrants intend
to cross the forty trillion kilometers between the Sun and Alpha
Centauri within a millennium or so, there are only two propulsion
systems that currently appear promising. These are nuclear-pulse
propulsion and the ultra-thin solar-photon sail unfurled as close to
the Sun as possible.


The nuclear-pulse rocket, which
is derived from the DoD/NASA Orion Project of the
1960s, would ignite nuclear or thermonuclear
“devices” as close as safely possible to the
spacecraft. A properly shielded combustion chamber would reflect
explosion debris, thereby propelling the spacecraft by Newton's Third
Law. As demonstrated by Dyson (1968), a thermonuclear Orion could
propel a worldship on a voyage of less than 1,300-year duration to
Alpha Centauri, if the world's nuclear powers agreed to sacrifice most
of their thermonuclear arsenals. Fat chance!


A somewhat sanitized
nuclear-pulse starship, Project Daedalus, was
studied by a British Interplanetary Society team during the 1970s (Bond
et al, 1978). Daedalus would
have been propelled by electron-beam-initiated explosions of fusion
micropellets. The fusion fuel of choice was a combination of deuterium
and helium-3. Although theoretically capable of accelerating a large
starship to 10 percent of the speed of light (0.1c), the Daedalus
concept was hampered by the terrestrial rarity of helium-3. Unless we
can mine this isotope from a cosmic source—the solar wind,
lunar regolith, or giant-planetary atmosphere—Daedalus
would not be a practical solution to starflight.


Another disadvantage to
nuclear-pulse propulsion is scaling. No matter whether the payload is a
billion-kilogram worldship or a 10-kilogram microprobe, the propulsion
system will still be enormous.


The remaining interstellar
option—the solar sail—is quite scalable, which is a
good thing for the budgets of present-day sail experimenters. The
concept of interstellar solar sailing was developed independently by
two teams in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Chauncey
Uphoff of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
California, considered this as an alternative propulsion method for the
NASA Thousand Astronomical Unit (TAU) extrasolar probe study, but his
work was only incorporated into that study as an “unpublished
memo” (Jaffe et al, 1980). In a series of
papers beginning in 1981, Gregory Matloff and Eugene Mallove presented
various aspects of this propulsion option in the peer-reviewed
literature (Matloff and Mallove, 1981, 1983).


As described in the cited
references, an interstellar solar sail would approach the Sun as
closely as possible with the sail either directed away from the Sun or
otherwise protected from solar radiation pressure prior to perihelion.
At perihelion, the sail would be partially or fully unfurled and
exposed to sunlight, accelerating the solar sail by the radiation
pressure of solar photons.


Analysis revealed that if
ultra-thin (20-30 nm), space-manufactured, all-metal sails are used
with perihelion passes that are as close to the Sun as physically
possible (within about 0.04 AU of the Sun's center), and if the cables
joining sail to payload approximate the tensile strength of an
industrial diamond, even large payloads could be accelerated in this
manner towards Alpha Centauri on trajectories requiring about one
thousand years. After acceleration (at 1 g or higher), cable and sail
could be wound around the habitat section to provide extra cosmic-ray
shielding. Assuming the space-manufactured sail has a very long
lifetime in the galactic environment, sail and cables could also be
used again for deceleration at the destination star system (Matloff,
2000a).


Of course, we could not construct
such a starship today. But a NASA project—the In-Space
Propulsion (ISP) Technology Project—is gaining knowledge
about sail films and structures, high-acceleration operation of
gossamer structures in space, and the application of ultra-thin
filaments that could lead to the development of sail cables. Since this
capability is being developed to support modestly funded science
missions, not voyages of interstellar colonization, the work of ISP may
be thought of as an “interstellar conspiracy,” by
which means humanity is developing an interstellar capability almost as
an afterthought.


What is...


The In-Space
Propulsion (ISP) Technology Project?


Managed at the NASA Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the In-Space Propulsion
(ISP) Technology Project is an outgrowth of the NASA
“Interstellar Initiative” of the late 1990s. The
initial ISP research concentration was on propulsion systems, such as
current-technology Earth-launched solar sails unfurled
0.2—0.3 AU from the Sun, that would enable in situ
exploration within a few hundred AU of the Sun on missions of a few
decades duration (Johnson and Leifer, 2000). The purview of ISP has
since been expanded to include propulsion systems that could enable or
enhance all scientific space missions under consideration by the NASA
Science Mission Directorate with destinations above low-Earth orbit
(LEO).


Most technologies considered by
ISP researchers are approaching flight readiness, although some
attention in the past was devoted to more speculative, higher-risk
propulsion concepts with potentially high payoffs, such as plasma
sailing (Lai, 2004). A prioritization system has been developed by ISP
to match in-space propulsion technologies with planned or proposed
space missions in an effort to pace their development so they will be
ready when needed.


Six in-space propulsion
technologies dominate the ISP research spectrum. These include advanced
chemical propulsion, advanced solar electric propulsion (SEP),
aerocapture, solar photon sails, solar thermal propulsion (STP), and
tethers.


Advanced Chemical
Propulsion


Today's chemical rockets are
approaching their practical and physics-driven limits. To maximize the
scientific return from space probes designed to descend for landings on
planetary surfaces or ascend from such surfaces to return samples to
Earth, a number of improvements to chemical rocket technology are under
study and development.


Goals of this research include
increased performance and safety, reduction in propellant storage
uncertainties, and improved system efficiency. As well as advanced
chemical fuels, researchers are investigating improvements in cryogenic
fluid management to improve the efficiency and handling of cryogenic
components. Another high-payoff improvement would be the reduction of
the mass and complexity of structures utilized to carry and transfer
propellants. While advanced chemical propulsion systems would not be
applicable to interstellar voyages, this evolutionary technology could
enable more ambitious exploration of our Solar System.


Advanced Solar
Electric Propulsion (SEP)


Also called the “ion
drive,” solar electric propulsion works by using collected
solar energy to first ionize and then accelerate propellants to exhaust
velocities considerably higher than the 4.5 kilometers per second
(km/sec) exhaust velocity of state-of-the-art chemical fuels. The
exhaust velocity of the ion engine aboard the highly successful NASA
Deep Space 1 probe was about 30 km/sec. The best SEP propellants are
inert gases such as xenon and krypton.


Although high velocities are
possible using SEP (and its nuclear cousin NEP), ion drives have low
thrust and will always be utilized in space, never for Earth-to-orbit
transportation. A number of improvements are planned to increase the
performance of future SEP-propelled interplanetary probes.


One approach seeks to reduce the
complexity and increase the operating lifetimes of SEP systems. To meet
these needs, laboratory demonstrations of Hall-effect thrusters are
currently underway. This will allow efficient SEP operation on missions
significantly more challenging than previously flown.


Researchers are also working on
methods for increasing the exhaust velocity of next-generation SEP to
around 50 km/sec. Because of the higher exhaust velocity, fuel
requirements for a given mission using next-generation SEP will be
reduced, which also promises to increase the scientific payload mass.


Increasing the efficiency of ion
thrusters will result in longer-duration SEP missions farther from the
Sun, some of which may serve as interstellar precursors.


Aerocapture


Aeroassist technology has been
used since the early days of space travel. Every Earth-returning
capsule and the space shuttle have applied the atmosphere as a drag
brake and thereby greatly reduced the requirement for reentry fuel.


A related technology is
aerobraking, whereby a spacecraft in an elliptical orbit around a
planet with an atmosphere dips into that planet's atmosphere
repeatedly, to gradually circularize the orbit and decrease the
spacecraft's distance from the planet.


An interplanetary spacecraft will
be able to use the new technology of aerocapture to become a satellite
of a planet by performing a single pass through its atmosphere.


Current aerocapture research
under ISP emphasizes integrating a low-mass aeroshell with a thermal
protection system and the development of aerocapture instrumentation.
Various advanced aerodynamic decelerators are under consideration for
aerocapture missions, including rigid structures, trailing and attached
ballutes (a ballute is a combination balloon and parachute), and
inflatable aeroshells. Figure 1 illustrates the different technology
approaches for aerocapture.


* * * *





* * * *


Aerocapture is a fast maneuver,
with a spacecraft decelerating from interplanetary to orbital velocity
within one orbital pass. Decelerations in some cases are higher than 1
g, and knowledge of the destination planet's atmospheric profile is
required to optimize the aerocapture trajectory.


Other than the Earth, a number of
Solar System bodies have atmospheres dense enough for aerocapture.
These include Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Titan, Uranus, and Neptune.


Advances in aerocapture
technology could quicken the development of aeroshells of lower mass
and greater thermal tolerance. One can imagine advanced aerocapture
missions decelerated by Neptune's atmosphere for rendezvous with Kuiper
Belt Objects (KBOs) near the giant planet (Matloff, 2000b, Matloff and
Taylor 2003). As aeroshell mass is reduced, the propulsion mass will
also decrease since aerocapture greatly reduces the requirement for
deceleration fuel.


* * * *


The Solar Photon Sail



ISP solar sail research
concentrates upon near-term Earth-launched solar sails with a typical
areal density of 0.015 kg/m2. Operational near-term sails will be
stowed for launch and unfurled in space. Unlike the ultimate
space-manufactured metallic sails, these are generally tri-layered. A
plastic substrate is sandwiched between a reflective layer facing the
Sun and a rear emissive layer that radiates absorbed solar energy.


As well as investigating low-mass
materials and supporting structures, ISP sail researchers are
considering methods of propellantless guidance, navigation and control,
and developing relevant computer codes. Ground validation of deployment
techniques for sub-scale sails is currently underway.


The solar sail requires no
propellant (since thrust is provided by linear momentum transferred
from impacting solar photons) and has no environmental impact. Unless
efficient methods of power beaming are developed (Forward, 1984), sail
technology will find most application on inner-Solar System missions
where sunlight is most intense.


Near-term missions that may be
enabled by the solar-photon sail include pole sitters permanently
situated over high-latitude locations (McInnes, 1999) and
constellations of solar observatories situated sunward of the Earth on
long-duration missions to monitor space weather.


Although thin-film and inflatable
structures have been unfurled in space, no dedicated solar sail mission
has flown to date. The first NASA-launched sail may fly before 2010.


Solar Thermal
Propulsion (STP)


Solar Thermal Propulsion is
another in-space propulsion system that can live off the interplanetary
land. This propulsion technology operates by focusing sunlight on a
gaseous propellant, such as hydrogen (Shoji and Frve, 1988, and
Grossman and Williams, 1990). Concentrated sunlight is focused upon an
absorbing heat-exchange system for transfer to the propellant. For
efficient operation, the propellant is heated to temperatures as high
as 2780 Kelvin. Exhaust velocities of the heated fuel are intermediate
between chemical and solar electric propulsion, typically 8 to 10
km/sec. Although STP does not have sufficient thrust for ground-LEO
operations, the technology could transfer a payload between LEO and
geosynchronous orbit (GEO) in about 30 days.


Research on this propulsion
system deals with a number of issues, including solar-concentrator
design. Both inflatable and rigid concentrators are under
consideration, although inflatable concentrators are currently favored.


Tethers


Of all the near-term in-space
propulsion technologies, the tether seems the most magical.
Imagine—all an Earth-orbiting spacecraft has to do to raise
its orbital height is to unwind an appropriately designed long, thin
cable! Both electrodynamic (ED) and momentum exchange/electrodynamic
reboost (MXER) tethers may be used for propulsion in the future.


Electrodynamic tethers have been
described by Samanta et al (1992), Beletskii and
Levin (1993), and Estes et al (2000). They have
also been demonstrated in space by the NASA Tethered Satellite System
mission in 1996. To boost a LEO spacecraft using an ED tether, a long
conducting strand is deployed downward from the spacecraft. Electrons
are collected from the Earth's upper ionosphere at the low end of the
tether. Powered by energy obtained from the spacecraft's solar array,
the collected electrons travel up the tether and are emitted at the
spacecraft. The resulting electrodynamic force on the unidirectional
current adds energy to the spacecraft's orbit, thereby raising the
orbital height. Figure 2 describes the electrodynamic boost process.


* * * *





* * * *


As described by Sorensen (2001),
the MXER tether is a hybrid ED/momentum-exchange tether. A rotating
momentum-exchange tether can increase a payload's orbital energy by
grappling the payload at the low point of the tether's rotation and
releasing it at the high point. However, the orbital energy of the
tether itself decreases during this maneuver, and its orbital height is
consequently lowered.


A rotating MXER tether has its
rotation timed so that the tether tip is oriented below the
tether-system center-of-mass and is swinging backwards at the perigee
of its elliptical orbit. A payload from a LEO or sub-orbital launch is
captured by a grapple on the lower tether tip at zero relative velocity
and released at the high point of the tether's rotation. In theory,
payloads could be accelerated to escape velocity in this fashion.


Left to its own devices, the MXER
tether's orbit would decay after each payload capture and release. But
if the MXER tether can also operate as an ED tether, electrodynamic
forces on the unidirectional current flow can be used to raise the
tether-station's orbit.


Much analytical work remains to
be done to demonstrate the feasibility of this concept. But the MXER
tether has the potential to revolutionize interplanetary space travel.


Ad Astra


Implementing an
Interstellar Capability


At this point in space history,
routine Earth-to-orbit travel remains a major challenge. But the Moon,
Mars, and more remote destinations draw our attention outward. The
propulsion technologies described will positively impact the
development of the space infrastructure required to support an
expanding interplanetary and, ultimately, interstellar human
civilization.


Certain requirements for the
expansion of human civilization beyond the
Earth—understanding and mitigation of space-radiation
effects, determination of optimum artificial gravity levels,
development of closed-environment systems, etc.—will be
satisfied by experiments aboard the International Space Station, or in
conjunction with the next phase of exploratory missions above LEO.
These will not be further discussed in this article.


Application of new propulsion
technologies will have many positive effects in the development of an
interplanetary (and ultimately interstellar) civilization. One
requirement for such a civilization is expanded knowledge of the
resource base of the Solar System. Advanced chemical rocketry, solar
electric propulsion, and aerocapture should result in more massive and
flexible scientific payloads to acquire this knowledge.


As well as reducing the cost of
orbital transfer, development of solar thermal propulsion should assist
the development of space mining and construction. Focused sunlight from
the STP concentrator optics will provide an intense energy source for
these applications.


Advances in chemical rocket
technology may lead to the construction of spacecraft components
directly from extraterrestrial resources. Such construction might be
implemented by Rapid Prototyping (RP), which is the three-dimensional
equivalent of a fax (Doyle, 2000). After a prototype is designed by a
computer-aided design package, the RP machine quickly constructs the
prototype layer by layer, conceivably using extraterrestrial resources
as the feedstock. Perhaps this technique will be applied to the
in-space construction of the ultra-thin solar-photon sails required for
interstellar travel.


As discussed by O'Neill (1974,
1977), SEP research may lead to the development of the mass driver.
These solar-powered electromagnetic catapults could transfer large
quantities of material from space mines to space manufacturing
facilities.


The ultimate design of robotic or
crewed solar sail starships will be served by current research. In
addition to the in-space fabrication of ultra-thin sail films, starship
designers will require thin, strong cables connecting sail and payload
and demonstration that the ship can operate in the high-temperature,
high-acceleration environment of a close solar pass.


Finite-element computer models
indicate that several sail configurations remain stable for
accelerations as high as 2.5 g (Cassenti et al,
1996). Tethers will yield experience with the operation of cable-like
structures in space. Some aeroshell designs decelerating in planetary
atmospheres will simulate the near-Sun acceleration of solar sail
starships.


During the summer of 2005, the
ISP team completed full deployment and thermal vacuum testing of two
20-m solar sails (Figure 3).


* * * *





* * * *


To those who witnessed the
deployment, it was clear that the idea of interstellar travel is
beginning to emerge from the theoretical paper and the science-fiction
story into the realm of system engineering. Perhaps within the
lifetimes of many Analog readers, humanity's first
robotic interstellar emissaries will be sailing the interstellar seas.
Although we will not witness them, we can dream of the expeditions to
follow, which will carry people to the stars.


Copyright © 2006 Les
Johnson and Gregory L. Matloff


* * * *


References Cited:



Beletskii, V. V., and Levin, E.
M., “Electrodynamic Tethers,” Dynamics of
Space Tether Systems, Advances in the Astronautical Sciences,
83, Univelt, San Diego, CA (1993), pp. 267-332.


Bond, A., Martin, A. R.,
Buckland, R. A., Grant, T. J., Lawton, A. T., Mattison, H. R., Parfatt,
J. A., Parkinson, R. C., Richards, G. R., Strong, J. G., Webb, G. M.,
White, A. G. A., and Wright, P. P., “Project Daedalus: the
Final Report on the BIS Starship Study,” supplement to JBIS,
31, S1-S192 (1978).


Bond, A., and Martin, A. R.,
“Worldships: an Assessment of the Engineering
Feasibility,” JBIS, 37,
254-266 (1984).


Cassenti, B. N., Matloff, G. L.,
and Strobl, J., “The Structural Response and Stability of
Interstellar Solar Sails,” JBIS, 49,
345-350 (1996).


Doyle, A., “Pioneering
Prototypes,” Computer Graphics World, 23,
No. 9, 39-47 (September, 2000).


Dyson, F.,
“Interstellar Transport,” Physics Today,
21, No. 10, 41-45 (October, 1968).


Estes, R. D., Lorenzini, E. C.,
Sanmartin, J., Pelaez, J., Martinez-Sanchez, M., Johnson, C. L., and
Vas, I. E., “Bare Tethers for Electrodynamic Space
Propulsion,” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets,
37, 205-211 (2000).


Forward, R. L.,
“Round-Trip Interstellar Travel Using Laser-Pushed
Lightsails,” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets,
21, 187-195 (1984).


Grossman, G., and Williams, G.,
“Inflatable Concentrators for Solar Propulsion and Dynamic
Space Power,” Journal of Solar Energy, 112,
229-236 (1990).


Jaffe, L. D., Ivie, C., Lewis, J.
C., Lipes, R., Norton, H. N., Sterns, J. W., Stimpson, L. D., and
Weissman, P., “An Interstellar Precursor Mission,” JBIS,
33, 3-26 (1980).


Johnson, L., and Leifer, S.,
“Propulsion Options for Interstellar Exploration,”
AIAA 2000-3334.


Johnson, R. D., and Holbrow, C., Space
Settlements: A Design Study, NASA SP-413, NASA, Washington,
D.C. (1977).


Lai, Gary, “Hot-Air
Ballooning Through Space: The Promise of Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma
Propulsion, Analog Science Fiction & Fact
(January/February 2004).


Mallove, E. F., and Matloff, G.
L., The Starflight Handbook, Wiley, NY (1989).


Martin, A. R., “World
Ships—Concept, Cause, Cost, Construction, and
Colonization,” JBIS, 37,
243-253 (1984).


Matloff, G. L., and Mallove, E.
F., “Solar Sail Starships—The Clipper Ships of the
Galaxy,” JBIS, 34,
371-380 (1981).


Matloff, G. L., and Mallove, E.
F., “The Interstellar Solar Sail: Optimization and Further
Analysis,” JBIS, 36,
201-209 (1983).


Matloff, G. L., Deep-Space
Probes, Springer-Praxis, Chichester, UK (2000).


Matloff, G. L.,
“Persephone: A Non-Nuclear Rendezvous Mission to a Kuiper
Belt Object,” in Proceedings of Space Technology
and Applications International Forum-STAIF 2000, ed. M. S.
El-Genk, American Institute of Physics (2000).


Matloff, G. L., and Taylor, T.,
“The Solar Sail as Planetary Aerobrake,”
IAC-03-S.6.02.


O'Neill, “The
Colonization of Space,” Physics Today, 27,
No. 9, 32-40 (September, 1974).


O'Neill, G. K., The
High Frontier, Morrow, NY (1977).


Samanta, R. R. I., Hastings, D.
E., Ahedo, E., “Systems Analysis of Electrodynamic
Tethers,” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets,
29, 415-424 (1992).


Shoji, J. M., and Frve, P. E.,
“Solar Thermal Propulsion for Orbit Transfer,” AIAA
88-3171.


Sorensen, K. F.,
“Conceptual Design and Analysis of an MXER Tether Boost
Station,” AIAA 2001-3915.


* * * *


About the Authors:



When he is not managing NASA's
Science Programs and Projects Office, Les Johnson follows his alternate
path as a science-fiction fan.


Greg Matloff, who consults for
ISP, is an assistant professor at New York City College of Technology.
He has published widely in the field of space propulsion.


The authors will soon see their
book, “Living Off the Land in Space,” published
later this year by Praxis and Copernicus.


The preparation of this document
was partially supported by SAIC sub-contract 440055739, from NASA MSFC.


[Back to Table of Contents]









PREVENGE
by Mike Resnick & Kevin J. Anderson


Being a
person of firm principles has its pitfalls....


It wasn't the murders themselves
that broke his heart. They weren't permanent. He had the ability to
un-do something as simple and straightforward as a murder.


No, the maddening part was that
people never stopped trying. Why was the total,
cold-blooded obliteration of a human life the preferred problem-solving
method for so many men and women? It offended his deep moral sense.


His name was Kyle Bain, and he
and the other members of the Knights Temporal had to make things right,
either before or after the fact.


Kyle couldn't help wondering
about the killers whose crimes he was assigned to negate. You
had a good start in life; you had money, education, opportunity. Where
did it all go wrong?


Or you—you
had love, and now you'll never have it again. Do you know what a rare
gift you threw away, just like you'd throw out the garbage every
morning?


Or this current case: Vincent
Draconis, a major industrialist who controlled an empire on three
continents. He had been/would be murdered in one unguarded moment,
leaving a widow and three fatherless children. The confusion in the
aftermath would cost almost twenty thousand people their jobs. So much
suffering.


That couldn't be allowed. It was
a situation made to order for the Knights Temporal....


Kyle arrived in the afternoon,
ten hours before the murder was due to occur. According to the file,
Draconis was going to be shot down in cold blood just before midnight
while working late at his office. Even without witnesses, the man
immediately fingered for the crime was Jason Bechtold, vice president
of one of Draconis's companies.


Dressed just like the hundreds of
other businessmen entering Bechtold's suite of offices, Kyle gained
access to the correct, bustling floor. If he followed Bechtold as he
left for the day, he could be there later on in time to deflect the
murder. A simple enough job, one for which he was well trained.


The Knights Temporal had been
founded by Harvey Bloom, a name that hardly seemed destined to go down
in history, though Bloom had already placed his name in a thousand
alternate histories, maybe more. A theoretical mathematician, Bloom
spent the first half of his professional life finding the secrets
hidden in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, and the second half
acting upon them.


Bloom was also a moralist, more
interested in Doing Good than in Making A Fortune. Instead of taking
out patents or using his privately-funded “temporal
displacement” work to study the past, Bloom knew in his bones
that he had an obligation to right wrongs. And the most unforgivable
wrong, commandment number one, was Thou Shalt Not Kill. When he
recruited twenty-five Right-Thinking young men and women to be his
crusaders, he made sure they all shared his moral values.


Thou shalt UN-kill,
whenever possible.


After reviewing the file of
Vincent Draconis's murder, Kyle waited and watched. When Bechtold
emerged from his office late in the day, Kyle discreetly followed him
out of the building, then in a cab, to where the executive met an
elegantly dressed young woman at an expensive restaurant; they kissed,
and a head waiter led them to a table.


Kyle holed up in a coffee shop
across the street, nursing his small coffee and nibbling a cheese
Danish. After an hour he could sense some irritation from the waitress,
so he tipped her twenty dollars to leave him alone. He knew that right
now, in the restaurant across the street, Jason Bechtold must be
planning the murder of his boss, though he didn't seem particularly
agitated. Cool customer. Establishing an alibi.


Kyle would block him before he
could get to Draconis's office late at night. A subtle intervention was
best, and if done properly no one would even notice. Waiting too long,
cutting too close to the murder event, often raised awkward questions
and suspicions.


Bechtold and his lady emerged
from the restaurant at ten, and Kyle hastily tagged along, invisible in
the street crowds. The woman was swaying slightly as they casually
entered a five-star hotel. Nothing in the executive's behavior gave any
hint of his murderous intent.


According to the file, Bechtold's
defense was that he'd spent the night with this woman in room 2145. If
she was sound asleep—from a tranquilizer slipped in her
drink, perhaps?—and Bechtold was back in bed before she woke
up in the morning, she'd corroborate his story.


After giving them ample time to
reach the room (considering the way the lady was hanging on Bechtold's
arm, Kyle didn't think the executive would be leaving soon) he rode the
elevator up to the twenty-first floor and posted himself a few feet
from the door to 2145. He sat down on the corridor's plush carpeting
and waited. And waited.


And waited.


Past time for the murder. Kyle
hadn't done anything at all; had he somehow intervened without knowing
it? He knew Bechtold was still in the hotel room, but Draconis was
supposed to be dead by now.


He took a cab and raced to the
industrialist's office. The door was locked, but any Knight Temporal
had the experience and tools needed to bypass security systems, no
matter how sophisticated they might be.


When he opened the door, he
stared down at the corpse of Vincent Draconis. Shot in the head, with
blood pooling on the plush new carpet.


This was Kyle's thirty-fifth
case, twenty-seven of which had been successes. On seven occasions
Time, or Fate, or God, or some combination of them, had conspired to
prevent history from being changed. But Kyle wasn't finished yet.


If a Knight Temporal couldn't
prevent the murder, he was authorized to use his own judgment. He could
give up and go back home, he could try again to prevent
it—or, as a last resort, he could give the victim an
opportunity to take preventive action. Prevenge.


Only twice in all of his cases
had Kyle resorted to that option. With the greatest reluctance, he had
allowed the victim to kill his would-be murderer before the fact.


Now that he knew Bechtold wasn't
the guilty party after all, Kyle turned to the most distasteful aspect
of his job: He would have to watch the murder
happen and work backward from there.


Turning away from the corpse, he
studied the office, discarding various hiding places. The coat closet
looked small and cramped, and crouching behind the large decoy safe
(the real one was behind a painting in the outer office) felt too
exposed. Kyle chose Draconis's private bathroom as the best place to
observe. He pulled the door almost shut, leaving only a narrow gap.
From here, he could see both the office door and the desk.


He pulled out his PDA-look-alike
temporal transformer, programmed in the proper
coordinates—and promptly experienced the moment of dizziness
that accompanied each brief jump. When the fog cleared from his brain
he checked his watch: 11:25 P.M.


Through the crack in the door, he
could see a very-much-alive Draconis pulling up various screens of
information on his computer and taking an occasional sip from the
highball on his desk. He hoped the man wouldn't need to use the
bathroom before the time of the murder. Explaining his presence
wouldn't be easy, and Kyle preferred not to use his ace-in-the-hole
proofs if he didn't have to.


Five minutes passed, then
fifteen. Not long now. Draconis didn't look the least bit worried. So
the killing was going to be totally unexpected.


An elderly woman entered the
office, pushing a cart filled with towels, rags, brushes, feather
dusters, and cleaning fluids. Her hair was gray, her face heavily
lined; osteoporosis and long years of hard work bent her over.


Draconis never glanced up from
his computer, grumbling about his spreadsheets. The cleaning woman
didn't seem to exist for him, and he paid no attention when she locked
the office door. Kyle's eyes were wide as the old woman reached into an
empty bucket and withdrew a handgun.


"Look up, Vincent,” she
said harshly.


He finally bothered to notice
her. “Who the hell are you?"


"You really don't know, do you?"


He saw the gun. “If
this is some kind of joke..."


"This is no joke, Vincent. I'm
going to kill you."


He gave her a withering look,
showing no fear at all. “Who are you?"


"You have all eternity in hell to
figure it out.” She pulled the trigger.


Kyle had not expected her to act
so swiftly, so coldly. He didn't have a chance to intervene. Already
too late! Two strikes in one night. He made no sound in his hiding
place. If the woman panicked and shot him, he'd
have no way to slip back in time and prevent his own murder.


Draconis lay in a bloody mess on
the new carpet. Moving in a daze, as if wondering whether she should
clean the office after all, the old woman unlocked the door and slipped
away.


Stunned, Kyle wasn't sure what to
do next. Now that he knew the real killer, he needed to find the
woman's name and address. He had less than fifteen minutes before a
night security guard was due to discover the body, and the place would
be crawling with cops.


He needed more time to plunder
the files, and fortunately he could buy all the time in the world.
Without leaving the office, Kyle made the calculations and adjustments
and jumped back a few days.


* * * *


The cleaning woman was Bertha
Gilligan, age sixty-three, widowed, mother of one. She'd applied for a
job as a night cleaning woman less than a month ago—clearly
with the intent of killing Draconis.


Late at night, when Bertha was at
work, Kyle slipped off to her dingy room in what could only be called a
flophouse. He needed to learn something about her.


Two small cats greeted him,
purring and rubbing against his legs. He saw the opened can of cheap
generic cat food covered by a plastic wrap with a teaspoon next to it.
Two open cans on the floor were for the cats; this other can must have
been for Bertha herself. The kitchenette had no refrigerator, only a
hot plate; the shelves contained a few packets of dirt-cheap ramen
noodle soup and one box of off-brand macaroni and cheese.


On the nightstand he found a row
of medication bottles. Pills for pain, pills for depression, pills for
half a dozen serious physical ailments. Behind the bottles was an
extensive photo display of a lovely blonde woman in her mid twenties.
The cleaning woman's daughter?


A battered wooden table doubled
as a desk. One leg was shorter than the others, propped up with a
paperback book. On it were a scrapbook and a notebook. Kyle couldn't
have asked for more.


The scrapbook began with a few
news items about one Edward Gilligan, a distinguished-looking man,
graying at the temples, with frameless glasses and a thin mustache, a
natty dresser. He'd created some nearly frictionless compound the
experts estimated would extend the life of heavy machinery by 50
percent.


Kyle kept thumbing through the
book, and the tenor of the news items changed. Vincent Draconis had
managed a hostile takeover of Gilligan's company, appropriated the
formula, and fired Gilligan. Gilligan had sued, but Draconis had the
best lawyers and (it was implied) owned the judge; Gilligan had not
only lost, but went broke in the process. The last page was an
announcement of the untimely passing of Edward Gilligan, who had taken
his own life.


Next, the notebook consisted of a
series of letters, all of them addressed to Draconis, all signed by a
Naomi Gilligan—no doubt the blonde girl in the photos. She
accused Draconis of persecuting her father; she pleaded with him, she
argued with him, she threatened him. The dates on the letters abruptly
ended three months ago.


Kyle neatly replaced both books,
finished his examination of the room, and left.


* * * *


Later, at a library terminal, he
scanned internet records and news databases for Naomi Gilligan. He
wasn't surprised to find her obituary in an eleven-week-old paper.
She'd been beaten to death in an apparent mugging.


Following the trail, he used his
device and jumped back to the night of Naomi's murder. She was found
dead in the park, her head staved in. From the position of the body and
lack of blood on the scene, it was obvious even to a clumsy amateur
detective that she had been killed elsewhere, and her body dumped out
here. Considering that Naomi's purse—with money and credit
cards intact—turned up in a trashcan about a mile away, Kyle
had more than enough reason to doubt the simple
“mugging” explanation.


Bodies went to the coroner, not
the police station, but cops talked. He posted himself at the district
station and kept his ears open. Within a few hours, jumping back and
forth with his temporal adjuster, he had all the information he was
going to get.


When the crime lab dusted Naomi's
purse for prints, the mood in the station changed. Kyle overheard one
of the cops whisper “Vincent Draconis!” and they
all looked scared as hell. Somebody phoned Draconis and told him that
they had a little problem and he'd better come down to the station.
Obviously, it was payoff time.


Why hadn't one of the Knights
Temporal been sent back to prevent Naomi's murder? But Kyle knew the
answer: Harvey Bloom simply didn't have enough manpower, and he had to
choose the crimes with the most impact ... one of the few concessions
he made to his otherwise rigid moral code.


Kyle cut off those thoughts
before he could start to obsess on the conundrum. Preventing Naomi's
murder wasn't his function. Like it or not, his assignment was Vincent
Draconis.


* * * *


Back to the night of the murder,
one more time.


Bertha showed up for work at nine
o'clock. What he'd learned certainly explained why she wanted to kill
the man who had ruined her husband and murdered her daughter. But Kyle
was not a judge; he despised “situational
morality,” people who changed their minds with the blowing of
the wind. The law was a framework, not a convenient set of suggestions.


According to her established
habit, Bertha took her break at eleven; doubtless that was when she
planned to plant the gun in the bucket. Kyle waited until she went to
the small lunchroom. He watched her moving more mechanically than
usual, stumbling through the motions. When she sagged into a plastic
chair and poured herself watery coffee from a thermos, Kyle carefully,
silently, locked the breakroom door so that she wouldn't be able to
leave for her murderous rendezvous. He posted himself just outside the
room, ready to accost her if she somehow managed to get out.


But the door remained locked. He
didn't even hear her rattling to get out. Finally, at a quarter to
twelve, he slipped upstairs to make sure that Draconis was still
working at his desk. The straightforward delay should have been enough
to derail the killing. Case closed, mission accomplished.


But Vincent Draconis was sprawled
on the floor, blood still seeping out of the fatal wound in his head,
still ruining the carpet.


Kyle groaned when he discovered
that the break room had a second door, which Bertha had used.


His next attempt to prevent the
murder was to confront Bertha directly in the break room—but
for whatever reason, she went straight upstairs and killed Draconis.
Again.


This was getting complicated, one
of those cases that seemed jinxed, as if Fate didn't want it to be
fixed. For reasons that no Knight Temporal understood, certain actions
simply couldn't be diverted.


Poor Bertha's only sin was to
have married a man who'd stood in the path of a steamroller named
Vincent Draconis. Her daughter had stood up for fairness and justice,
and she had been killed. Bertha's life had been in a downward spiral,
emotionally and physically—going from all the benefits of
wealth and culture to that horrible room five blocks away, seeing two
loved ones trampled into oblivion by an unethical bastard whose sole
virtue was that he was stronger than anyone else.


But Kyle had to stop her. The
rules were clear-cut. All Knights Temporal swore an oath. Moral gray
areas were for the weak and indecisive, not for the agents of Harvey
Bloom.


Kyle realized that his only
alternative was to give the victim a chance for prevenge.


* * * *


"Who the hell are you?”
demanded Draconis when Kyle appeared in his office two hours before the
scheduled murder event.


"My name is Kyle Bain—"


"Well, get your ass right out of
here, Kyle Bain, or I'm calling security. In fact, a couple of them are
going to get fired for letting you get this far."


"I'm here to save your life
tonight."


Draconis made a rude snort.
“What are you selling, religion or laxatives?"


"Murder prevention.” He
had already prepared the way for this man to believe his improbable
revelations, planted his ace in the hole. Since Draconis was a
secretive man, there were plenty of places Kyle could drop the
necessary information—a hidden safe that even his wife and
his most trusted aides didn't know about, private notebooks kept under
lock and key. One or two “impossible” details would
be enough to raise sufficient doubt.


Kyle explained briefly how and
why he had come here, not expecting Draconis to believe his crazy
time-travel story. “Go to the safe in the outer office. Open
the ledger for July of last year. Turn to page three."


"What do you know about that
safe?"


"Just do it, Mr. Draconis. We
haven't got much time. If you try to sound the alarm on her desk, or
the one on the way out of this office, I'll leave you to your fate."


Frowning, Draconis seemed about
to ask something, then thought better of it. “You've bought
yourself a few extra seconds, Mr. Bain. I'm intrigued.” Kyle
watched him dial the safe's combination, open the door, remove the
ledger, and look at page three.


"If you need further
proof,” said Kyle, “call your house and ask your
maid or your wife to bring your 1973 diary to the phone and read you
the June 15 entry."


"I believe you—or at
least I believe your tricks are highly sophisticated,” said
Draconis, looking down at the totally unexpected note in the ledger.
“So, who's going to try to kill me?"


"She's going to do more than try,
Mr. Draconis. Due to some temporal exclusion in this case, I myself
have been unable to stop her. Therefore, it's in your hands. If I don't
give you the wherewithal to take your prevenge, she's going to kill
you. Tonight."


"All right. Who is she and what
has she got against me?"


"We'll come to her name in a few
minutes.” Now that he knew Bertha, understood her anguish,
Kyle felt cagey. “As for her motive, you ruined her husband."


"I've ruined a lot
of people.” Draconis made no attempt to keep the contempt out
of his voice. “That's the way the game is played."


"It's the way you
play it,” replied Kyle distastefully.


"And I'm damned good at it. Look
around you. I don't just work in this building. I own
it, all thirty-four floors of it."


"How many people did you destroy
along the way?"


"Business is Darwinian. Clear
cut, black and white. There's meat and there's meat-eaters, nothing in
between."


That's what Harvey
Bloom always says about murder. It's clear cut, black and white. To
feel sympathy for a killer is an insult to his victims. I wonder what
he'd say if he knew how much he sounded like you?


Finally Kyle spoke.
“Aren't you forgetting to include bystanders, advocates,
families? The woman who's going to kill you has another grievance
besides the fact that you ruined her husband."


"Yeah, they all do.”
Draconis was unimpressed, almost bored. “What's this one's?"


"Her daughter."


"What happened? Did she go into a
nunnery?"


"No. Into a morgue."


Draconis shrugged.
“Lots of people die. Half of them are somebody's daughters."


"Half of them haven't had their
heads staved in by a person with your fingerprints."


Draconis frowned.
“Yeah, I read in the papers that Eddie Gilligan's daughter
was killed in the park. So tell me this, hot shot—if my
fingerprints were found, why wasn't I ever charged with anything? I was
out of town that week."


"No, you weren't. I was at the
police station when they contacted you and arranged for the payoff."


"Have fun trying to prove it!"


"It's not my job to prove it.
It's my job to prevent Bertha Gilligan from murdering you.”
He tried to sound firm, convinced. Even if it'll destroy the
last few scraps of her life ... and even if you deserve it.
“Your office has new carpet, Mr. Draconis. I guess Naomi bled
on the old one? Is this where you killed her, then dumped her body in
the park?"


"You're really not a cop, even in
the future?"


"I'm really not a cop.”
Sometimes I just wish I was.


"The bitch bled like a
sieve.” Suddenly he grinned. “She actually thought
she could threaten me with a letter opener. Hell, she couldn't have
weighed a hundred and ten pounds."


Kyle felt sick. “Why do
so many people consider murder an effective solution to their problems?
You could have just disarmed her and sent her away. Or reported her to
your friends at the police station and gotten a restraining order."


"You think that would stop a
psycho girl? She'd come back with a gun the next time. Anyone who
threatens me had better make good on that threat, because I don't give
second chances."


"The Darwinian rule of threats?"


"Yeah, now that you put it that
way."


"I consider myself a moral man,
Mr. Draconis. Law and ethics are the glue that holds our civilization
together. Justice is blind, and murder is wrong. My job is supposed to
be simple. You make it complicated."


Draconis looked at him with a
sneer. “Oh, you're one of those types."


"I assume you short-change your
partners, lie to your friends, cheat on your wife, and stiff the
government on taxes.” Kyle sighed wearily. “It's
all Darwinian, when you get right down to it."


Draconis took a sip from the
highball on his desk. “You don't like me much, do you?"


"Does anyone?"


"Probably not. But they sure as
hell respect me."


"I think it's more likely that
they fear you."


"Same thing.” Draconis
shrugged. “Look, hot shot, you just concentrate on keeping me
alive and I'll take care of you. Vincent Draconis always pays for
services rendered."


Except when you can
get away with not paying. Aloud, Kyle said, “Doing
my job well is payment enough."


There was a long silence.
Finally, Draconis broke it. “So what do we do now?"


"Now we wait. She'll be here
soon, and you'll have to prevent your own murder."


"You're telling me Eddie
Gilligan's used-up widow is going to sneak past all my security and try
to kill me?” He let out a contemptuous laugh.


"She won't have to sneak past
anyone. She has every right to be here."


Draconis frowned for a moment,
then looked up. “Cleaning service, right?"


"That's right."


"What's she like?"


"Probably like a thousand other
people you wouldn't recognize by sight. She's been beaten down by
circumstances—circumstances of your making. She's lost the
two people she cares for, she's destitute, she's taking medication for
pain and for depression, she lives in a dump, and she has only one goal
left in her life—to kill you."


"That's her
misfortune. No one will miss her, any more than they miss Eddie or her
daughter. They're the roadkill of history. It'll be like she never
existed.” He picked up his highball glass, realized it was
empty, and put it back down on his desk. “You know, I always
figured if anyone had the brains and guts to take me out, it'd be Jason
Bechtold. I keep the bastard under surveillance every minute he's near
me."


"It just goes to show that you
can't choose your killer any more than you can choose your family.
Hell, they're lined up around the block to kill you. In fact, even if
you stop her, that just means someone else with every bit as much
reason to hate you will take you out next week or next month. And then
I'll have this same case dumped in my lap again. Maybe it's just not
worth the effort to stop your killer."


"Quit calling her my
killer,” said Draconis irritably. “She's my would-be
killer, and she's about to become a piece of dead meat. Now, how does
this work? You called it prevenge, so I assume I get to take my own
pre-revenge and kill the bitch myself. Self-defense. You're just an
interested bystander?"


"That's correct."


"So give me a gun. Or do I have
to take care of that myself?"


"I have a gun for
you—when the time comes. I've tried to prevent this three
times, and it keeps happening. So no matter what I do, it looks like someone's
going to get killed here tonight."


"You afraid I'll shoot you
too?” Draconis seemed amused.


"I wouldn't put it past
you,” admitted Kyle.


"Why would I do something like
that?"


Because it's your
nature. Aloud, he said, “I'm a witness, and who's
going to believe a story about a guardian angel from the future?"


"Then we sit and wait,”
said Draconis. “Just stay close enough that you can pass me
the gun when the time comes."


Kyle pulled a leather chair next
to the desk, sat down, and stared at the door. Right on schedule,
Bertha Gilligan entered the room behind her pushcart. She seemed
surprised to see two men confronting her.


"Hello, Bertha,” said
Kyle.


"You know my name?"


"I know a lot more than that. I
know what you plan to do, and it's my job to stop you from killing him.
Scum like Draconis isn't worth one second of prison time."


"I don't care about what happens
afterward.” Her face reflected her hatred. “You
don't know what he did to my husband and my little girl."


"I know."


Startled, Bertha reached into the
bucket and pulled out her gun. “You think my Naomi is the
only person he ever murdered or had killed? You think my Eddie is the
only man he ever hounded to the grave?"


"I know they're not."


"Stop talking and give me the
goddamned gun!” yelled Draconis.


"Then why do you want to save
him?” she asked.


"I'm not saving him,
Bertha,” said Kyle gently. “I'm saving you.
You've suffered enough."


You were wrong,
Harvey. The world's not black and white. It's twenty-three shades of
gray. In fact, you were wrong about a lot of things. Sometimes it's an
insult to the murderer to feel sympathy for his victim.


"My suffering doesn't
matter,” said Bertha. “He's got to die.”
She swung her gun, aiming at Draconis.


"He will,” promised
Kyle.


"How?"


"Like this.”
Kyle pulled his pistol and fired point-blank at Draconis's head.


"Jesus!” Bertha stared
in rapt fascination as the man fell to the floor in the identical
position that Kyle had initially seen him. “Jesus!"


"Get out of here, Bertha. He's
dead. You have a life to live."


"Not much of one,” she
answered bitterly.


"If you don't make the most of
it, then even in death he's won. Are you going to let a scumbag like
that beat you even after he's been shot and killed?"


"Who are
you?” she asked suddenly.


"I'm the man who just gave you
back the rest of your life. Don't make an Indian giver out of me. Go
home and think about it. Security will be here any moment, and the cops
won't be far behind."


"What about you?” she
asked.


"I'll be fine. Now leave!"


She stared at him, then pushed
her cart into the hallway and over to the elevator.


Kyle left the gun behind, covered
with his own clear fingerprints (which, thanks to Harvey Bloom and a
few simple jaunts back in time, were not in any database). That way,
nobody would accuse Bertha, and of course Bechtold's alibi would hold
up. When he heard the footsteps of a security guard running down the
hall, he pulled out his temporal transformer, went forward to his own
time, and walked out of the empty office.


Now he was a
murderer. Even if the case baffled the cops, the Knights Temporal would
solve it easily enough. Would Harvey Bloom order his termination? He
couldn't imagine any circumstance under which Bloom wouldn't order his
death.


But Bloom had a problem. Every
Knight Temporal was a moralist, just as he was. Kyle wouldn't make any
effort to hide from them. He'd simply explain the situation, the events
that led to his action, and bet his life that they would understand.
Situational ethics? Some of the Knights, he was sure, would volunteer
to stay in the past and protect him from more of Bloom's operatives.


And then he was going to present
Bloom with the same moral conundrum he himself had just faced ...
because even if one did manage to kill him, wouldn't Bloom's own rules
allow him to take his own prevenge?


The thought brought an amused
smile to his face.


Copyright © 2006 Mike
Resnick & Kevin J. Anderson


[Back to Table of Contents]









Man, Descendant
by Carl Frederick


All lives
have dark moments, but some go deeper and last longer than
others—a lot longer


Only the engines matter. I'm
never unaware of them. When they throb, I throb. When they complain, I
worry, and when they're happy, droning like locusts on a summer
afternoon, I feel content."


Conrad hit the “End Log
Entry” button and a synthesized voice said, “Time
stamp:


Explorer Clock: 12 February
2048—09:04. Capsule Clock, 12 February
2048—08:59.” The computer monitor echoed it in text.


Yes, he had reason to be obsessed
with the engines. This wasn't an everyday space jaunt where if the
engines falter, you simply drift along until you fix them. These
engines held his tiny craft motionless against the gravity of a
0.4-solar-mass black hole. Engine failure meant oblivion.


A chime rang over the thrum of
the engines—mail call. Conrad returned his attention to the
monitor and triggered the incoming message. He smiled, seeing the
familiar faces of the Titan expedition crew—his
expedition until a few months ago when he'd agreed to be pulled away to
join his brother for the relativity experiment. But hearing the
animated commentary from his former crewmates and seeing the great
frozen vistas of Titan framed by the majesty of Saturn and its rings,
he questioned his choice—his lonely choice.


* * * *


The
Librarian-scientist moved softly through the gallery, then stopped to
experience the sculpture, “Galaxies in Collision.”
It was glorious: the lines, planes, the brilliant interplay between the
angles of electric and magnetic fields. As he moved around the work,
the field lines subtly changed, electric and magnetic in harmony. At
other times the clash of the undulating fields, the angles between
electric and magnetic, was staggering. Brilliant.


It was good being of
the world again: signaling with others, going to museums, experiencing
life. He'd been closeted away too long at the university, working on
his translation.


The Librarian moved to
the next exhibit, the alien sculpture—more than a sculpture.
The electromagnetic interactions were primitive, yet strong and
vibrant. The compact form spoke of a wondrous yet inaccessible culture.
Concentrating on the piece, The Librarian quivered with regret. He did
not see the Keeper approach.


"Is it really
you?” signaled the Third Keeper of the Art.
“Haven't seen you for many lesser-years. Does this mean your
translation is finally done?"


"Yes,”
signaled the Librarian, radiating an aura of modesty.


"Splendid. I'd love to
scan it. Could you show it to me—now?"


The Librarian
understood that the request, although polite, was more in the nature of
a command. One did not deny the Third Keeper.


"Yes, of course. Come."



They glided from the
museum, then skimmed across the university to the Librarian's lab.



The Librarian took up
the ancient artifact and patted it. Long ago he had been given the task
of translating this most personal relic from the deserted ship.
Carefully, he opened the cover of the alien document, immersing himself
in its power, feeling the familiar link with the unknown creature that
had written it.


The Third Keeper of
the Art emitted a quivering field pulse.


"Oh, I'm
sorry,” signaled the Librarian. “After all this
time, I'm afraid I've become obsessed with the alien craft."


"Did the alien's
document tell how it happened to come to our world?"


"Only
hints.” The Librarian-Scientist reached for the translation
cylinder and presented it to the Keeper. “The rendering may
not be good but I hope it is at least coherent."


The Keeper assumed the
static resting posture, popped the cylinder, and began scanning.



* * * *


Entry 34


Explorer Clock: 14 April
2048—09:00


Capsule Clock: 13 April
2048—18:10


This journal is for you,
Jennifer. I hope you'll want to read it when you're old enough to
appreciate your father's line of work.


It's been three months since the
launch. I spent the last two of them alone in this little probe ship
that they call the Time Capsule, and the first
month on board the mother ship with the others, including Mark, my twin
brother.


NASA conceived the mission only
two years ago—just after a compact black hole was discovered
about a light-month from the Sun. It's hard to understand why it wasn't
discovered earlier. But it is perpendicular to the plane of the solar
system so its perturbation on the planets is slight.


NASA wanted a closer look and,
with the new Richardson Field Effect engines, a spacecraft could get
there in five or six weeks, and the Richardson Field would also protect
the ship's crew from black hole tidal effects. The relativity
experiment was a bonus.


We're attempting to verify
Einstein's prediction that time runs more slowly near a black hole. I'm
in the Time Capsule up close to the hole and Mark
is farther away in the mother ship, the Gravity Explorer.
Where I am now, it's a one-percent effect. But the plan calls for
taking the Capsule in to the five-percent depth.
So, after three months, I'll be about five days younger than Mark. They
say they can measure that.


There's a clock here on the Capsule
that lets me measure how my brother and I drift apart in age. It has
two displays. One shows my local time and the other the time on the Explorer.
It works by measuring the gravitational shift of the interstellar
hydrogen-alpha line. (Forgive me, Jennifer. We astrophysicists talk
like this.)


It's clear that the Time
Capsule was a rush job, cobbled together from other craft. I
smile whenever I think of the escape pods. Yes, pods. There are two of
them, and that is quite silly considering this is a one-man mission.


I've got to admit, though, that
the experiment itself is a little silly. They could have used an atomic
clock or even a couple of dogs. But NASA funding these days is as much
a function of the Public Relations Office as the Science Assessment
Group.


Karen and Jennifer: I love you
and miss you terribly. Exploring is a disease, but this mission is my
cure. I'm sure of it.


* * * *


"This is
remarkable,” signaled the Keeper. “Your
annotations: are you comfortable with them?"


The Librarian exuded
polite humor. “You mean the units of time?"


"Yes, actually."



"The spacecraft had a
module, almost a handbook, for learning their language. And there was
information on atomic spectra, and also basic properties of
electromagnetic radiation—very fundamental data. But with
them, we could convert their units to ours."


"Odd that the
properties were recorded,” signaled the Keeper, low, more to
himself than to the Librarian. “One would expect any
intelligent creature to know them almost from birth.” He
returned to the scan.


* * * *


Entry 39


Explorer Clock: 21 April
2048—09:01


Capsule Clock: 20 April
2048—16:31


I just received a video
transmission from Karen and Jennifer. I miss them terribly. Jennifer is
about to start school and is bubbly with enthusiasm. Karen is suffering
from empty nest syndrome.


It's maddening to get a
transmission every day, and know that it was broadcast a month ago.
Holding a conversation where it takes a couple of months for a simple
exchange is hard. The speed of light is such a nuisance.


I'm lucky Mark is nearby on the Explorer.
I need the conversation—and the companionship.


* * * *


Entry 46


Explorer Clock: 28 April
2048—09:00


Capsule Clock: 27 April
2048—14:50


NASA has found a way for me to
kill time. They're relaying TV programs to me via the Explorer.
Watching them with my feet up on the console, I can almost forget where
I am. Not that I want to, for space is beautiful.


I'm looking out my top viewport
now, and I'm overwhelmed. The Gravity Explorer
gleams white in the black of space. It is magnificent in its
complexity. The antenna array, every conduit, every viewport, the
docking bay, the engines: beauty. It looks like a painting. Against the
unnaturally bright, point-sharp stars, it doesn't seem real. I've gazed
at the sky almost every night since I was a kid. Stars should twinkle.
In space they don't.


Only the slow movement of the Explorer
against the field of stars lets me know that I'm not frozen in time.


* * * *


"He has a sense of
aesthetics,” signaled the Keeper. “So like us, he
is."


"I was sure of
that,” the Librarian responded, “when I first saw
the sculpture in the museum—"


"Yes. Quite right."



"But then I discovered
that the sculpture was not intended as such."


"Oh?"


"It's in the
translation, Keeper."


"Ah. Then, I'll
continue scanning."


The Librarian emitted
a soft aura of art appreciation. “But, despite
misunderstanding the sculpture, I do agree; the alien appreciated art."



* * * *


Entry 51


Explorer Clock: 03 May
2048—09:02


Capsule Clock: 02 May
2048—13:42


My chess game is improving. Mark
and I are pretty evenly matched, and we play for several hours each
day. It helps fight the isolation and tedium. Despite the beauty
visible through the viewport, it's hard to avoid boredom. I even find
myself watching the relayed sitcoms.


I'm glad I have a good
astronomical telescope on board. When I'm not making scientific
measurements, I keep the scope trained on the Gravity Explorer.
Just seeing its huge antennas aimed toward Earth makes me feel closer
to home.


* * * *


"I wonder what a
sitcom is,” signaled the Keeper.


"Not a clue. Something
to do with aesthetics, I imagine. He also uses the notation
‘TV’ for it."


"Many of the entries
are missing."


"He explains that in
the journal,” signaled the Librarian. “A failure of
his technology."


"A pity. Completeness
would be useful in a document this important to our cultural unity."



"Cultural
unity?” The Librarian loosed a flash of surprise.


The Keeper emitted an
avuncular aura. “You do know the Theon Council wanted to have
the spacecraft destroyed?"


"But why?"


"Who can tell with
Theons? They called it an abomination.” The Keeper flashed
tolerant humor. “I went over their heads to the Union of the
People. I argued—successfully, I'm proud to
say—that the destruction of the craft would be a desecration
of art."


The Keeper radiated a
blocking field, a discouragement to communication. Then he signaled,
“But let me return to scanning your amazing translation."



* * * *


Entry 54


Explorer Clock: 06 May
2048—10:40


Capsule Clock: 05 May
2048—14:36


The Explorer
team has authorized me to take the Capsule to the
five-percent time-dilation depth. I'm a little worried about the
engines. Mark says I'm paranoid. I told him I'd like to be around to
see my daughter grow up, and he just laughed.


I'm moving the Capsule
deeper. The engines sound fine.


* * * *


Entry 55


Explorer Clock: 07 May
2048—09:04


Capsule Clock: 06 May
2048—11:21


The Earth clock is moving faster
than it should be. I've radioed to Mark, and they confirmed it. There
has been an error—not a serious one. I've dropped to about
the twelve-percent dilation effect.


I asked if I should move the ship
back out a little. They calculated and said no. Either I use the
engines to come all the way out, or stay where I am. Coming out a
little and stopping would take too much power. Until they figure out
exactly what happened, they'd rather I didn't touch anything.


So for the moment, I'll stay put
and keep watch on the engines. They seem happy—purring like
kittens. They get their fuel from matter falling into the black hole,
and since the Time Capsule is a little deeper now,
the matter density is higher. So the engines have less trouble sucking
in fuel.


I'm almost three days younger
than Mark now; he has taken to calling me “Kid
Brother.” Funny guy.


Time is running noticeably slower
for me than for Mark. I notice he seems to be talking faster, and his
voice is higher. To him, I must seem lethargic. I find I try to
compensate by speaking rapidly and raising the pitch of my voice.
Transmissions from Earth are also affected, of course, but the Gravity
Explorer has signal processing equipment. They slow the
transmissions down for me. I'm still able to watch the relayed TV
programs without them looking like old silent films.


* * * *


Entry 62


Explorer Clock: 14 May
2048—11:20


Capsule Clock: 13 May
2048—01:00


I'm beginning to think of Mark as
my superior. That's ridiculous. I guess it's because I'm so dependent
on him now; he's my conduit to home. And he seems to be smarter than I
am. When we play chess, he makes his moves more quickly and he thinks
faster, reacts faster. I understand that this is just because of the
time-dilation effect, and he's really no more agile than I am. But I
can't help it. It feels as if he's smarter and
faster.


* * * *


Entry 63


Explorer Clock: 14 May
2048—14:19


Capsule Clock: 13 May
2048—03:18


What I've worried about has
happened. The engines were getting too rich a matter influx and
sputtered out. Luckily, I was able to spot the problem and cut down the
flow. It only took seconds but even so, the Time Capsule
sank down to about the 100-percent time dilation level.


This would be a good time to get
out if I can. I've just thrown the engines to full power. I hope it
works, but I won't know until I get a read from the Explorer.


The problem now is
communications. I can't talk to the Gravity Explorer
directly—our time rate difference is too large. Now we record
our words and send them to each other as data files. But this layer of
processing makes it all but impossible to have a simple back-and-forth
conversation.


They say it will take them a
couple of hours to calculate how the engines will perform at my current
position above the black hole. I'll be nothing but nerves until I hear
the results. But then, I'll only have to wait half their time. A small
consolation.


While I'm waiting, I find it
comforting to train my telescope on the Explorer.
It looks bluer than normal, of course.


I can't help but concentrate on
the sounds of the engines. Every little variation, real or imagined,
sends my pulse racing.


* * * *


Entry 71


Explorer Clock: 14 May
2048—19:29


Capsule Clock: 13 May
2048—05:53


I've just received news from the Explorer.
My vessel will slide further in before the engines bring it to a
stop—to the 300-percent level, they think. Worse, there is no
way the engines have enough power to get me out. The Gravity
Explorer can't do anything for me either. They're waiting for
instructions from NASA, and it will take them two months to hear back.
I'll only need to wait weeks. Little consolation!


I trust NASA, though. I've got
to. They'll get me out.


I hate this.


* * * *


Entry 73


Explorer Clock: 26 Jun
2048—05:37


Capsule Clock: 29 May
2048—06:05


I can't just wander my cramped
quarters and do nothing—not without going insane. I'm
studying up on the Richardson Effect. Maybe I can think of something.
Sure, once NASA gets the news from the Explorer,
they'll put everything they've got on it, but it's not life or death
for them.


* * * *


Entry 75


Explorer Clock: 30 Jun
2048—20:14


Capsule Clock: 30 May
2048—17:46


I can hardly cope with the
torrent of data coming in from Earth now. When I'm not studying or
sleeping, I watch transmissions from my wife and daughter. Jennifer is
a little older each time I look at her. I wanted to be able to see her
grow up, but not this way.


"It's hard not to feel
compassion for the creature,” signaled the Keeper, his
attention locked on the translation cylinder.


"Very hard."



* * * *


Entry 76


Explorer Clock: 02 Jul
2048—05:40


Capsule Clock: 31 May
2048—03:36


I've got an idea how to get out
of this. Theoretically, it should be possible to divert power from the
Richardson Field to the engines. This is touchy since if I divert too
much, the field won't be able to protect me from tidal forces. If the
field fails, it would be like dying on the rack—stretched for
hundreds of miles—a nasty death.


I'm pretty sure I can build the
control circuit to channel the Richardson Field. It won't be easy,
though, as first I'll have to make the tools. Then before I even start
building, I'll have to salvage field-programmable logic array chips
from back-up computer boards—tiny surface-mount chips.


I've located the right computer
board. It has an awkward triangular shape, but it'll do.


I don't think I'm going to tell
Mark about this. He'd want me to let NASA handle it, especially since
I'll have to cannibalize for parts. But deep down, maybe I don't want
to tell him because he might find a flaw in the plan.


"Triangular?”
signaled the Keeper. “That's the sculpture, isn't it?"



"Yes,”
signaled the Librarian.


* * * *


Entry 77


Explorer Clock: 02 Aug
2048—04:49


Capsule Clock: 08 Jun
2048—12:27


I've just heard from NASA.
They've said all the right words, but what it comes down to is that
they'll whip up a rescue mission, but they can't say when. I'm not
surprised. I know how NASA works.


There's even worse news; they've
calculated that the Capsule will sink a good bit
further into the gravity well before stopping. They can't predict
exactly how much. But it's not going to make my rescue any easier.


So it comes to this: either I get
my field diverter circuit built, or I'm stranded here—maybe
for years.


* * * *


Entry 79


Explorer Clock: 3 Sep
2048—5:25


Capsule Clock: 16 Jun
2048—12:36


I've just gotten devastating news
from the Explorer—although I can't say it
was unexpected. NASA says they have to return to Earth. I'm okay since
my food and oxygen will last a long while, at least by their time. Time
though, is getting to be a tricky concept to keep on top of.


I can't bear to think of the Gravity
Explorer going back, leaving me alone here. I'll be isolated
in space, but in a real sense, isolated in time also.


There is some good news,
relatively speaking. They'll detach their antenna array and leave it.
That way I'll still have contact with home.


Mark really doesn't want to go. I
can hear it in his voice. But then, he has a family too, and he has no
choice. He tells me that if it looks as if my provisions are likely to
run out, just take the Time Capsule a little
deeper. That'll give NASA more time to get together the rescue mission.


My Field diverter board is coming
along, but at a glacial pace. The work is more like art than
engineering. I've had to laser-melt the solder from the backup computer
boards so I can reuse it for my diverter. And I'm using first aid tape
for insulation. It is tedious beyond measure. I'm racing time. For
every hour I work, over four hours go by on Earth. And it'll only get
worse. And I can only work on the board for four or five hours at a
time before I start making mistakes. I have to take breaks, agonizingly
long breaks.


The Keeper paused in
his scanning of the cylinder. “He struggles for his
technology the way we struggle for our art."


The Librarian pulsed
agreement.


* * * *


Entry 80


Explorer Clock: 03 Sep
2048—15:48


Capsule Clock: 16 Jun
2048—15:01


The Gravity Explorer
is gone.


* * * *


Entry 85


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 25 Jun
2048—17:18


I've been watching Earth
transmissions, but it is hard. I feel that the half-hour spent watching
an occasional sitcom is a waste of time, days and weeks of time. And
the news programs are less interesting to me now since I'm losing touch
with the context. It's hard keeping up. I feel like I'm drowning,
events flashing before my eyes so rapidly, I can't pause for breath.


I saw myself on the news
today—moving slowly, as if through molasses. I'm beginning to
feel like history.


The engines seem to be working
well, thank God. I wish I could move my ship into orbit around the
black hole and not have to worry about the engines. But then I'd lose
my line of sight with the antennas and wouldn't be able to communicate
with home. I couldn't bear that.


Anyway, around a
three-hundred—meter horizon-diameter black hole, that orbit
would be too fast to be stable.


But above all, it is the diverter
board that obsesses me—that little triangular circuit board
that is my link to home. When I'm working on it, I can hold off the
despair.


"Who is that God, he
thanks?” the Keeper signaled.


"I'm not sure, Keeper.
Perhaps you should ask a Theon."


"That is what I was
afraid of."


* * * *


Entry 86


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 26 Jun
2048—09:00


I look at myself in the mirror
and see that I'm ragged and exhausted. It's hard for me to sleep. I
don't want to, and when I do succumb to sleep, months pass.


* * * *


Entry 88


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 28 Jun
2048—09:00


Jennifer is getting married.


As my ship sinks into the abyss,
Earth-time moves ever more quickly. I've watched as my little girl has
grown up: going from Brownies to Girl Scouts, discovering boys, going
off to college and now is about to get married. (I'm really happy for
you, Jennifer. He seems a nice guy—not much younger than me,
actually. At least I don't envy his youth.)


* * * *


Entry 89


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 30 Jun
2048—07:49


I'm afraid my wife has aged
badly. I hate myself for it, but I find I'm becoming repulsed by her
wrinkled face surrounded by white hair. It feels as if I've married a
grandmother. “Grow old along with me.” God, I wish
I could.


Mark, my twin and soul mate, is
becoming an old man.


Needless to say, NASA has not
sent out a rescue ship, and I've grown tired of asking them why. Either
they don't have the technology or they don't have the money. Even if
they did send in a ship, there's not much for me to go back to. My
colleagues are dying like flies.


Damn it! When will this diverter
board be done?


* * * *


Entry 90


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 01 Jul
2048—09:00


I don't have video communications
anymore and have to make do with old-fashioned audio and text
transmissions. Not that the news from home is good. My wife has died,
and my brother is near death. Jennifer is 64, almost twice my age. She
calls me by my first name now, as “Daddy” seems
increasingly inappropriate. At my current rate of time flow, she'll die
within hours. I don't know if I can take that. I love her dearly, and
she's my last connection to Earth.


I've finished the diverter board.
Now I've got to wire it into the Richardson Field controller. It's
straightforward, but it requires precision. One slip and it's all over.


* * * *


Entry 92


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 03 Jul
2048—10:26


I'm utterly alone. The Earth link
has gone down. I don't know why. I guess after a century or so, the
antenna-targeting servos were bound to fail.


Why am I still updating my log?
Jennifer's dead. The log was for her. Habit, I guess. Something to do.
An attempt to keep my wife and daughter alive in my mind. I don't know.


The diverter board is connected.
All I have to do is to turn it on. But, I'm afraid. What if it doesn't
work? I'll either die or be left without hope, and I'm not sure which
is worse.


I'm staring at the little
triangular diverter board—my three-sided salvation. I hope
and pray.


I've got to stop temporizing.
I'll have a cup of coffee and throw the switch.


* * * *


Entry 93


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 03 Jul
2048—11:31


It didn't work.


"I go dark for
him,” signaled the Keeper, “even though if it had
worked, I assume we'd never have gotten the journal. But still, I
grieve."


The Librarian emitted
a field of shared empathy.


* * * *


Entry 95


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 05 July
2048—01:16


I've come to grips with the
failure of the diverter board. I'm alone but I have humanity's works
all around me: ghosts of humanity. I feel like a ghost myself.


Since I've lost contact with
Earth, I don't feel as if events are rushing by anymore. I have
time—all the time in the world.


I talk to myself and play chess
passionately—not against the computer, but against myself. Is
this schizophrenia? I wonder if my mind is going. I'd hate that since
my mind is all I have left. I find myself humming Bach fugues, using
the drone of the engines as counterpoint. The engines are a comfort.
They seem alive.


But why after all these thousands
of years, has no one come to explore this black hole? Even if they've
long forgotten me, what's happened to humanity's drive for exploration?
For that matter, what's happened to humanity? I'm plagued by the
thought that there may have been another Dark Age from which the Earth
has never recovered. Why else would they have given up on the universe?


After all that has happened, I
don't know why this troubles me so much, but the constellations have
changed. The stars are drifting out of position and the sky that I've
watched since I was a small boy is turning alien. Orion, Ursa Major,
Cassiopeia ... I have the urge to reach out and put the stars back
where they belong.


At least the Sun will pretty much
stay put. The black hole and the Sun are in fact a weak binary system.
The black hole will stay in the solar neighborhood indefinitely.


* * * *


Entry 96


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 05 July
2048—13:00


One more isolation—this
time from myself. Apparently, the magnetic pulse from the diverter
board scrambled the computer's hard drive. The programs are okay;
they're on ROM. But my journal has been trashed. I've worked hard to
recover as much of my log as possible—committing it to paper
this time. I don't know why I feel so attached to this journal,
especially as I'm the only one who'll ever read it.


Now I'm printing out hard copy of
the entries as I write them. There's a comfort in paper.


* * * *


Entry 97


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 06 July
2048—15:12


The Sun has just gone into its
red-giant phase. Its diameter reaches out to the Earth's orbit. The
Earth is now a charred cinder.


Since there is little else to do,
I've been making astronomical observations—measurements of
the time rate of change of the Hubble constant. (My little girl is
gone, so I can write like an astrophysicist again.) Mark was right. The
universe will die the entropy death of expanding into nothingness.
Gosh, I'd like to tell him that, but he's been dead for billions of
years. I know the answer to the ultimate question of cosmology, but
there is no one to tell.


* * * *


The Keeper quivered in
surprise, an electromagnetic aura of excitement radiating from his
body. “Billions of years? Are you sure of the time unit?"



"Completely."



"This is wonderful,
fantastic, great!” He flowed over to the Librarian.
“Do you know what this means?"


The Librarian exuded
shared joy. “Yes, Keeper. But I didn't want to spoil the
thrill of your discovery."


The Keeper threw
excited electromagnetic spikes to the extremities of the lab.
“The Theons are wrong,” he signaled. He grew dark,
then focused on the Librarian. “You must publish the journal
immediately. If the Theons are shown wrong that the universe was
created one million years ago, then they're totally discredited. We can
outgrow this idiotic idea of Artistic Creation."


"Agreed,
but...” The Librarian emitted a soft aura of tentativeness.



"Not you too,
Librarian."


"No, no. Of course
not,” signaled the Librarian. “But I do wish there
were an aesthetically pleasing explanation of the origins of life on
our world."


The Keeper's aura
clouded. “Yes. It is a vexing question.” It
brightened. “Now about that journal..."


"Yes, of course. I'll
beam it directly to the Disseminator. Do you wish to scan the rest of
the document before I do?"


The Keeper paused.
“No. I'm too excited to scan more at the moment. I'll absorb
the rest when it hits the ether.” He exuded a contemplative
aura, then set the cylinder on a lab table. “Still, I'd like
to meet here again tomorrow—at first light plus two, if that
is possible for you."


"Yes. Certainly."



Shortly after
dawn-major, the Keeper stormed into the lab. The Librarian awaited him.



"The cursed field-dead
Theons,” the Keeper signaled, choppily. “They claim
the journal is a hoax and the craft a clever fabrication. They cite the
lack of an alien body as proof."


The Librarian, his
aura showing dejection, signaled, “I know. The Theons have
always been better at dissemination than we've been."


The Keeper showed
agreement. “I'm afraid so. With this claim of fraud, they'll
be stronger than ever.” He flowed to the lab table and took
up the cylinder. “In the frenzy,” he signaled,
“I didn't manage to finish scanning it."


"There's not much
more,” signaled the Librarian. “Please feel free to
scan it now."


"Thank you."



* * * *


Entry 98


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 07 July
2048—11:22


It's almost funny. I was going
over the diverter board. There was a cold solder joint—a
damned solder joint. It was an easy fix. Took fifteen minutes.


It still didn't work. When I
hooked it up, the board emitted a wild assortment of electromagnetic
field signals. All the computer and video monitors go crazy when the
diverter is on.


But the tragically funny part is
that the diverter diverted me from finding the solution. I worked the
math (I can't understand why NASA didn't come up with this) and found
that if I used an escape pod, I could maneuver it in front of the Time
Capsule. The Capsule's Richardson Field
should shield the pod. I could simply blast free of the black hole. I
can't allow myself to think about it—to dwell on billions of
years of what-ifs.


I can escape now, but there's no
place to go. Escape is pointless.


* * * *


Entry 99


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 08 July
2048—09:33


It will be quiet
soon—like the still of a mountain valley after a gentle
snowfall. Very soon now, I'll turn off the engines. After a short while
the Time Capsule will pick up speed, plunge through
the event horizon where time in a sense stops, and then fall to the
naked singularity at the center. I wonder how long the Richardson field
will protect me from being crushed or pulled apart by tidal forces.
Maybe forever—whatever that means.


I feel somewhat better now that
I've made a positive decision. Strange, but until now I'd never
considered suicide as particularly positive.


I still have enough scientific
curiosity left to wonder what it'll be like going through the event
horizon. It's a small, vestigial curiosity, though, as I have no one
with whom to share the experience. “No man is an
island,” somebody said, John Donne, I think. I almost want to
laugh. How could he have known? How could he have possibly known?


It's funny. As I die, so too will
the universe. It will not outlast me. Strangely, that is a comfort.


I feel the need to die with some
emblem of humanity—music perhaps. What is appropriate for the
death of the universe? Beethoven's Ninth? Schubert's Unfinished
Symphony? Well, if it's not finished now, it never will be. I think
I'll go with the Ninth.


* * * *


Entry 100


Explorer Clock: ERROR


Capsule Clock: 08 July
2048—10:00


I've just had
breakfast—my last meal.


With Beethoven playing in the
background, I'm writing this—probably my last
entry—probably the last entry (100 is a
nice round number for the end of time).


All that's left for me is to
throw the switch. Then, I can use my telescope and watch the Milky Way
die. As for the other galaxies, they'll grow so distant that they'll be
beyond the resolving power of my scope. In my mind, I see the stars
turning blue from the gravitation field—a lovely, rich shade
of blue becoming deeper and fading to invisible ultraviolet.


But then, perhaps Einstein-Rosen
bridges do exist and as I go through the black hole, I'll pass through
a wormhole and travel back in time. I could come out in physical space,
filled with stars and galaxies and warm living souls. And since all
NASA spacecraft are fitted with SETI-kits, including this one, I might
even be able to communicate with those souls.


This is absurd; I'm kidding
myself. The certain outcome is death. Let it be quick.


My family, my
friends—they lived their natural lives. It makes no sense for
me to grieve for them. I can only grieve for myself—and I
refuse to do that any longer.


My hand is on the switch. I'll
miss the sound of the engines.


* * * *


"So, that's
it,” signaled the Keeper.


"That's it."



"Too bad.”
The Keeper started for the portal. “It would have been
exceptionally helpful if we'd had the body."


The Librarian signaled
agreement.


"But how is it I
wonder, that we have the craft?"


"I have a
theory,” flashed the Librarian, displaying extreme modesty.



"Do you?”
The Keeper gestured that the Librarian draw closer. “Come.
Join me in my studio for sustenance.


"I'm honored. Thank
you."


"Afterward, tell me
your theory.” The Keeper radiated a deep-thought aura.
“And since you are the principal authority on the alien,
perhaps you and I together can find something in the document that
would prove the creature's existence."


* * * *


"No!” Conrad moved his
hand away from the switch. “This is not the way for humanity
to die.” He made a fist and let it fall to the console.
“Last one leaving the universe, turn off the
lights.” He shook his head. “No."


Snapping to his feet, he backed
away from the pilot's console. He wasn't sure what changed his mind;
maybe his instinct for self-preservation, maybe his longing for home.
Earth was no more, of course, but he still could end his days in his
own solar system—if he could break free.


He opened the connecting hatch to
the left-side escape pod. Feeling pleasure at the thought of leaving
the Capsule, he grabbed his journal and started
through the hatchway. Then, almost out of a sense of whimsy, he pivoted
around, pulled free the diverter board from its wiring harness, and
took it with him into the pod. Assembling that board had been the work
of eons.


After strapping himself in at the
pod's pilot's console, he powered up the electronics and turned his
attention to the navigation cluster. He paused. There was no Earth to
navigate to. But he could auto-locate Saturn. He let out a bark of a
chuckle. Titan, in fact, had been the last solar system body he'd set
foot on. It was as much home as anywhere. He set in the A.I. navigation
parameters for Titan.


Before starting the engines, he
ran through a mental checklist. His NASA flight training had taken
hold; he had a mission again. Logic suggested that since he had two
escape pods, he could set this one on remote-launch and watch from the Capsule
to see if it worked.


Quickly, he released his harness,
and dashed back to the Capsule. He whistled. The
physical activity had made him feel human again.


In the Time Capsule,
he took remote control of the pod. Hearing the clank as the pod
separated from the Capsule, he eased the pod to a
position directly over his top viewport. It didn't take much thrust as
the pod was well within the Capsule's Richardson
field. Gritting his teeth, wondering if the viewport would stand up to
the blast from the pod, Conrad threw the pod control to auto-navigate.
He held his breath as he pushed the launch button.


The pod moved slowly at first,
then rapidly gathered speed. Conrad whistled in astonishment at how
fast the pod accelerated. Then he realized that it was a gravity
effect; the pod's clock was speeding up as it escaped the black hole.
The pod would reach Titan many months before he could possibly arrive
in the other escape vehicle. But the point was—it worked. He
had a ticket home. He smiled. Odd, thinking of Titan as home.


Conrad stretched, then scrambled
into the remaining pod. He reprised his actions on the first pod, then
hit the control separating the vehicle from the Capsule.
His craft, buffeted by the turbulence from the Capsule's
engines, shook like a bicycle on a railroad track. He maneuvered the
pod to sit over the Capsule and the vibrations
ceased. Conrad took a deep breath, slowly blew it out, and then levered
the thrust control to full. The engine roared, the craft trembled, and
the acceleration forced Conrad deep into his seat. It took a long hour,
but the pod broke free of the black hole. Conrad moved his hand to pull
back on the thrust control, but then changed his mind. Having no reason
for caution, he ran full-speed toward Saturn. This time, relativity
would work for him. With the Richardson engines, he
could travel at near light speed and reach Titan in almost no time at
all.


He slapped a hand against the
control panel. Damn it. I left the journal in the other pod.
He shook his head. As if it matters.


Three hours later, as measured by
the pod's elapsed time meter, he reached the Oort cloud, the nominal
boundary of the Solar System. He slowed his engines, and then slowed
them further as he came into Saturn's neighborhood. Through the forward
viewport, the Sun loomed large and Saturn gleamed with magnificent
intensity under the red-orange light. Although the Sun was now a
low-luminosity star, it was huge and, relatively speaking, close. As he
watched, the auto-navigation system directed the pod toward Titan.


Shifting his attention from the
viewport to the computer screen, he pulled up a manual navigation
display and eased the pod into a close orbit around the great
satellite. After a moment of relaxation, reveling in the sensation of
weightlessness, he switched the monitor to the pod's forward camera.


He jerked forward against his
harness, staring open-mouthed at the monitor. Unlatching his
constraints, he push-floated to the viewport and gazed out. He had
trouble believing what he saw; Titan looked like
Earth—oceans, green continents, fluffy cloud cover. But the
spectrum was shifted toward the red—Earth through
rose-colored glasses. This is impossible!


Then he remembered reading a
paper theorizing that in eight or so billion years, the Sun in its
red-giant phase would heat Titan to the point where the temperatures
would be in the habitable zone. Conrad smiled. It was great seeing a
validation of theory.


In a fit of scientific curiosity
tinged with hope, he pushed back to his console and made some
measurements.


He ran a spectrographic analysis
of the atmosphere and surface, and then ran them again before allowing
himself to believe the results; the air was actually breathable, the
atmospheric pressure like Earth's at sea level, and the oceans composed
of water—a far cry from when he'd been here last: 95 percent
nitrogen atmosphere at sixty times Earth's pressure, surface
temperature of—175 C.


He returned to the viewport, this
time merely to drink in the beauty of nature. Saturn's disk subtended
an angle of about five degrees—about ten times that of the
moon as seen from Earth. And the Sun, at about fifteen degrees of arc,
appeared thirty times larger. But with its lower luminosity, Conrad
could gaze on it without hurting his eyes. Simply beautiful!


Conrad returned to his seat and
fastened his harness. His destiny, brief though it might be, lay on
Titan. In preparation for landing, he switched the monitor to the
down-looking camera and cranked up the magnification. He needed flat
terrain to set down safely.


"What?” Conrad felt as
if he'd been struck. Straining forward in the harness, he peered at the
monitor, trying to see deep but being limited by pixels. There was no
doubt; structures, artificial structures, were slowly drifting across
the screen. The regularity and complexity of the view suggested a
medium-sized Earth city. Conrad let out a breath he didn't know he was
holding. There was life on Titan, intelligent life. He shook his head
in wonderment.


When the shock had subsided and
the “city” had drifted out of view, Conrad tried to
think it through. The obvious answer was that people of Earth had
migrated to Titan before the Sun went red giant. But as he considered
it further, that seemed astronomically improbable; at that point, Titan
would still have been a dark, frozen, uninhabitable world. And anyway,
he'd been monitoring Earth and had seen it go dead.


As for colonists from another
star system, that too seemed a stretch; he would have likely seen the
traffic and the voyagers would surely have explored his black hole.


Conrad shrugged. Life
must have just evolved naturally on Titan. He narrowed his
eyes, realizing that evolution was an even less likely solution than
were his other ideas. The Sun's red-giant stage could not possibly have
lasted for more than about seven hundred million years. There was not
enough time for a high order of life to evolve—not from a
cold start at any rate. And his expedition had found no trace of life
whatsoever on Titan, not even any complex organic molecules.


Thinking about his Titan
expedition, it suddenly hit him. Evolution spends most of its time in
the microphase—the development of microbes and single-cell
organisms. If Titan had been seeded with those microorganisms, then
there would have been time for intelligent life to evolve.


Conrad laughed, a sound grown
unfamiliar to his ears. It had to be the waste canisters from the
expedition. When the satellite warmed up after those billions of years,
the canisters decayed, spilling microbe-rich human waste onto the
surface.


Humming softly, Conrad seized the
controls and began his descent to the surface. He smiled. He could
drink the water, at least after boiling it. And since Titan's life was
derivative of Earth's, if his luck held, he might even find food; his
destiny might not be as brief as he'd expected. And it would certainly
not be boring.


In his eagerness to go forth and
meet his descendants, Conrad had to force himself not to rush the
landing. He could scarcely bear to waste even a minute.


Copyright © 2006 Carl
Frederick


[Back to Table of Contents]









IN TIMES TO COME



Our November issue leads off with
“Imperfect Gods,” a new novelette in C. Sanford
Lowe and G. David Nordley's series about a research project so big that
it won't fit in one story—or even one solar system, or one
century. “Kremer's Limit,” in our July/August
issue, was set relatively close to home; “Imperfect
Gods” takes place in a colony around Groombridge 34A (almost
twelve light-years away), on a planet called New
Antarctica—at story time the most Earthlike extrasolar planet
but, as the name suggests, still quite different. And if you think
cooperation over such times and distances is easy...


We'll also have a very different
novelette by Grey Rollins, and a potpourri of stories by such writers
as Wil McCarthy, Jerry Oltion, and Catherine H. Shaffer, including a
little something for the season. “Floatworlds,” the
science fact article by Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D., looks at a type of
world familiar in science fiction, and where such places might actually
exist and what they might be like.


And, of course, we'll have Part
III of Robert J. Sawyer's four-part novel Rollback.


[Back to Table of Contents]









THE ALTERNATE
VIEW: THANKSGIVING MUSINGS Jeffery D. Kooistra


It's Thanksgiving time here in
the States, and one thing I'm thankful for is, as one might expect, my
children. Haley, Ashley, and Joshua are all good kids. What I often
find most interesting about them, despite how self-absorbed this
sounds, are those parts of me that I see residing
within them.


Haley definitely favors Dorothy
in looks and stature, my half-Japanese wife being on the short side.
Though remarkably precocious intellectually as a baby, Haley seems
destined to be a jock. There's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes I
think the only thing she inherited from me is poor penmanship. Ashley
favors my side of the family in looks, and was taller than her mom by
age nine. If I were to pick one of my kids who is most likely to pursue
a literary career, she's the one. She also shares my interest in
science and nature, and is the most likely of the three to bury herself
in a book and get cranky when interrupted. She wanted both a microscope
and a telescope for Christmas and she got them. She invents robotic
alligators out of Tinkertoys and dreams of one day finding Narnia for
real.


My son Joshua is the youngest,
and has personality traits in common with both of his sisters. Though
my girls were tomboys, when Joshua came along, Dorothy and I saw the
difference between little girls who act like little boys, and an actual
boy. Though the girls played with their share of toy cars, Joshua was
our first child to take a picture of a car from a magazine and make
motor noises as he raced it along the wall. His sisters share his
interest in making things, but they are not at all as fond of breaking
them. Only my son exhibits, as did I, that typical behavior of the
mechanically inclined child—deliberately taking or breaking
things apart just to see what's inside or how they work. More than
that, he's the only one that likes to exhibit a thing with springs and
gears, or chunks of circuit boards with stray wires and colorful
capacitors, as an objet d'art.


With age comes maturity, or at
least the requirement to keep up the appearance, so I, of course, no
longer tear things apart just to scope out their insides. Okay, that's
a lie. Actually, I don't hesitate to help Joshua take things apart if
he can't quite manage it on his own. And I still do it for myself, only
now I claim that I'm “harvesting parts.” Sometimes
I even keep those parts, if for no other reason than that they are
pleasing to the technological eye.


However, taking things apart to
see how they work just isn't as fun as it used to be. I don't think
it's because I'm older—the problem is that technology isn't
as transparent as it used to be. Sure, you can still disassemble a
simple wind-up watch and figure out what the gears do and how the
spring mechanism drives the gizmo. But you can't learn a whole heck of
a lot when you open up an electronic watch unless you already know
quite a bit about them to begin with.


The same goes for a TV or even a
simple AM radio. Take the back off the radio and at best you only see a
few wires. Most everything is on a circuit board, and some of the
components are literally black boxes looking more like a Cubist's idea
of a spider than anything having to do with electricity!


I miss those days when technology
was transparent to the mechanically inclined boy or girl. I only caught
the extreme tail end of that period, and only benefited from it as much
as I did because my father (about whom you can read in my June 2006
Alternate View, “My Mysterious Father") knew how to do
everything and I could watch him.


Perhaps that's also why Golden
Age science fiction sings to me with such a sweeter voice than most of
the more recent stuff. I don't think it is just because I was reading
Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke when I was 12 and thus connect those
stories to my own youth. I think it's because those writers grew up in
an era when most technology was accessible to the educated layman in a
way that most of it now is only accessible to those with a technical
education.


There is a good description of
that era in the author's preface to Electrostatics
by A. D. Moore (1), which is essentially a how-to book on
build-it-yourself electrostatic machines. Born in 1895, Moore grew up
in Pennsylvania, and had this to say about his formative years on page
15:


"I was raised on a farm, where
there are many problems to be solved and many handy things to be
learned. And when painters or roofers or carpenters or plumbers or
threshers would come, endless questions could be asked—and I
surely asked them ... But when loose from farm chores, I spent lots of
time in the plumbing shop, the hardware store, the blacksmith shop, the
foundry, the machine shop, the brickyard, the lumber mill and the glass
plant. There were the coal mines to visit, and the coke ovens. There
was a power plant, where the engineer was my friend. There was the
streetcar line, where the motorman was my friend. There was the
telephone man, who came to put new dry cells in our telephone, and he
would give me the old ones to use in my experiments. It was a very rich
environment for a kid who wanted to be an electrical engineer...."


Moore's experiences were hardly
unique for engineers who came of age in the early decades of the
twentieth century. But he then contrasts his era with ours:


"Coming back to you: today,
safety rules prevail, and you, to my great regret, cannot wander at
will in a glass plant or other factory. ‘KEEP OUT’
is a familiar sign. This denial of free access to American industry is
a great loss to a full childhood, and believe me, a great loss to
science and engineering."


And I can only agree. Clarke's
observation about sufficiently advanced technologies being
indistinguishable from magic has applied in our own era at least since
the advent of VCRs unprogrammable by most owners. True, we know we
aren't really dealing with magic, but the practical
result is often that we might just as well be. Going to the shaman or
going to the IT guru, both do tricks that look like magic.


What's a body to do?


Even though the thirst remains to
take things apart with my hands, I've found a substitute to slake that
thirst, and that brings me to something else I'm thankful for,
Lindsay's Technical Books (2). I found out about Lindsay when reading
the little three-line classified ads in the back of a Popular
Mechanics in the barbershop maybe 15 years ago. Lindsay
offers exactly the kinds of books a guy like Moore would like to see in
every library, often reprinting books from a long lost era. For
instance, one of my recent purchases was a reprint of the 1935
Shortwave Radio Manual, edited by Hugo Gernsback and H.
Winfield Secor. Gernsback is none other than the man after whom the
Hugo award is named.


In that Alternate View about my
dad, I talked about how he used to have his own radio and TV repair
business. Once for fun he decided to make a four-tube radio receiver
straight from the schematics, only he laid it out to physically reflect
pretty much exactly the way the schematics depicted the circuitry. He
built a wooden base and the tubes were inserted upside down so that the
connections to the sockets would be visible. For the common chassis
ground he used a buss bar of thick copper wire. All of the wiring was
straight, just like the lines depicting wires in the diagram.


Unfortunately, at the time I was
too young to appreciate that radio, and I have no idea what ever became
of it. But the memory stuck in my mind and I used to think how cool it
would be to go one step farther, and actually build a tube radio with
homemade tubes. That is, to actually make the cathode and anode and
grids of a vacuum tube by hand, then enclose the unit inside a bell jar
and pump out the air.


I never actually did it (well,
haven't yet done it), but someone else has, and
surprised and delighted I was when the (then) latest Lindsay's
Technical Books catalog arrived featuring Instruments of
Amplification by Peter Friedrichs. There's a picture from the
book right there in the catalog showing exactly what I'd had in
mind—you can see the cylindrical anode with a wire-spiral
grid and a cathode inside that, all enclosed in a spherical glass
bottle. According to Friedrichs, these model tubes give performance
comparable to the earliest vacuum tubes. If you're at all like me, your
fingertips are already tingling in anticipation of making one of these
yourself.


For those who want to emulate
Moore in this day and age, I really know of no better place to start
than the Lindsay's Technical Books catalog. If you don't have your own
machine shop, Lindsay has books that will show you how to make your
own. I mean that literally—books are offered that will show
you how to make a metal lathe, milling machine, drill press, sheet
metal brake, and others, and all from scrap materials. A few additional
titles will give you the flavor of the offerings: Build a Two
Cylinder Stirling Cycle Engine; Automobiles 1913-15;
Steam Engine Projects; Manufacture of
Bricks and Tiles; Electrical Things Boys Like to
Make; Secrets of Building An Alcohol Producing Still;
Building Small Barns, Sheds, and Shelters; Mechanical
Devices for the Electronics Experimenter; Metal
Spinning; How to Build a Forge; Procedures
in Experimental Physics; and incredibly, Saturn:
The Complete Manufacturing and Test Records, perfect for
anyone who wants to take a Saturn V Moon rocket apart to see how it
works, but doesn't happen to have one at hand.


Even though I've been getting
Lindsay Book Catalogs for years, I'm still amused by the unusual and
humorous nature of some of the offerings, like the I Just
Love to Fart Cookbook, which contains recipes to enhance the
flatulence in your life. There is also Gems of American
Architecture, a mock-catalog featuring 22 different
“brands” of outhouses from their final golden age
during the Great Depression. And if you're into siege engines, there's The
Art of the Catapult by William Gurstelle, in which you will
learn about catapults, both their physics and their history, and how to
construct your own working models.


A. D. Moore finished that last
paragraph I quoted about our era with this thought:


"What can you do to help make up
for it? You can steam ahead on your own, as an experimenter, learning
about materials and processes and functions, having your own failures
and successes, acquiring common sense and judgment as to what will work
and what won't. There is just no substitute for acquiring this kind of
know-how.


"If this book does nothing more
than coax you into experimentation with electrostatics—or
anything else!—it will have served a good purpose."


And that goes for this column,
too.


Copyright © 2006 Jeffery
D. Kooistra


References


1) Electrostatics
by A. D. Moore. ISBN 1-885540-04-3. You can find it at
www.electrostatic.com.


2) You can request the latest
Lindsay's Technical Books catalog at www.lindsaybks.com, or by writing
to Lindsay Publications Inc., P.O. Box 538, Bradley, IL 60915-0538.
(Catalogs are free in the U.S. and Canada, $4.00 US for the rest of the
planet.)


[Back to Table of Contents]









WHERE LIES THE
FINAL HARBOR? by Shane Tourtellotte





Illustrated by
Mark Evans


* * * *


Some
exceptional individuals give extraordinary srevice to their fellows.
What do we owe them in return?


Where have all the navigators
been going?"


The young man set down his drink
as peripheral talk in the station lounge crested, then receded.
“If you think I can answer that question, it's going to be a
short interview."


Chloe Roberts leaned in just a
bit, a honed technique for her. “As a navigator yourself,
don't you wonder sometimes? Don't you worry?"


Pascal Mesereau's face grew
solemn. It looked natural for him, the direction in which his
still-boyish face was evolving. “I have my duties to worry
about, Ms. Roberts. That's enough to occupy anyone."


That was a standard sentiment
among navigators. Their links with ships’ computers, crucial
for faster-than-light travel, were draining experiences. How draining
they were, the navigators alone knew. Chloe was enough of a
professional skeptic, though, to see what they could gain from
overstating the matter.


"Well, other people are noticing
the trend, and it worries them. FTL navigators are a critical, um,
component of modern society."


"You were about to say
‘commodity,'” Pascal observed.


"No. I don't think
that.” Was she about to lose him?


"When there's a limited supply,
that's how people start thinking.” His face shifted.
“I guess if you hear other people say it enough, you can
start thinking it, even if you don't believe it."


Chloe sighed inside. If Pascal
was making excuses for her, she had him on the hook. As usual, her
natural charms were making her reporting work easier.


"But your rarity is all the more
reason that people worry,” she said. “We can't
afford to lose navigators, but very quietly, almost secretly, we are.
They just vanish from one port or another—no pun
intended—and by the time anyone reports them missing, it's
hopeless to try to track them down."


Pascal sipped his drink.
“It's not something I've ever heard other navigators
discussing. Maybe it's a taboo—we've got some—but
there's just no talk."


That didn't surprise Chloe. The
few navigators she'd spoken to since arriving in the Zeta Reticuli B
system, and most of them back at Chi Ceti, had been tight-lipped about
the disappearances, and everything else. She'd thought they were
excluding a nosy outsider, whatever fame she might carry. Perhaps they
were that way even with themselves. That was why this young fellow was
so promising, so far.


"What about the navigators who
die in transit, and get buried in space or on some remote corner of a
colony planet by their colleagues? A few people think that's a cover-up
of something."


Pascal shrugged. “I
can't help what people think. If that's how navigators want to be
treated after they die, well, we're a tight-knit group. We'll look
after our own, to the very end."


"I understand,” Chloe
said. “I wouldn't deny anyone that respect. Still, that kind
of thing seems to happen a little too often.” She passed him
a complate. “Take a look at those numbers.” He read
the plate with some interest.


"It's happening more and more
often,” she said. “The disappearances go back
decades. I think they go all the way back to Prahlad Shastri."


Pascal nearly dropped the
complate. “That Shastri? This
Shastri?” he said, waving a hand to encompass all of the
Shastri Orbital Station, where they and thousands of others were at
that moment. Chloe nodded. “I ... well, I knew he had gone
missing, but he was an explorer. That's always been dangerous,
especially so thirty-seven, thirty-eight years ago.” He
passed back the complate. “I think you're on the wrong track."


"I have reason to believe I'm
not.” Chloe had lowered her voice, and Pascal involuntarily
shifted closer to her to hear. “Isn't there anything you've
ever heard about these things?"


"I don't know. I...” As
he stammered, Chloe pulled closer, receptive, hanging on his words.
“Navigators really revere Shastri,” he said, almost
whispering. “There are others who charted more systems, more
distant ones. There are others who disappeared. But he's the icon,
especially among the older navigators. I don't see how that fits in
your puzzle, but—"


"Mesereau!"


A fiftyish, dark-hued woman was
walking over. Chloe had questioned her yesterday, with zero success.
She didn't even know her name.


"We thought it was
her,” the woman said. “She's been pestering
navigators the past two days. Come on back to the Quarter."


"I beg your
pardon—” Chloe started to object.


"She wasn't pestering
me,” Pascal said. “She had a few questions, and
I—"


"You've just been navigating
three days solid. You haven't even had time to sleep since you came
aboard Shastri."


"I had a few hours before
docking. I'm okay, Thalia. Maybe a little peaked."


"I can reserve you a
room—"


Thalia skewered Chloe with a
glare. “He has a room in the Navigator's Quarter.”
She turned a more motherly look to her fellow navigator.
“Pascal."


Pascal wavered. “Ms.
Roberts, maybe we should continue this another time."


Chloe knew when she was licked,
for the moment. “I'll be here a while longer, Pascal. Call me
anytime.” He nodded.


Thalia gave her a scornful,
up-and-down parting look, then led Pascal away. “Just what
kind of proposals was she making?” Chloe heard her ask Pascal
as they wended through the crowd. Chloe was too mad to blush.


* * * *


She staked out the lounge and
other public areas for much of the afternoon and evening, but no more
navigators appeared. They kept to their specially assigned quarter, the
one most sizable stations had. Word had probably gone out to avoid her,
same as at Bluford Station back at Chi Ceti V. She couldn't enter the
Quarter herself, of course.


She returned to her room after an
unsatisfying dinner. There wouldn't be another ship arriving at Shastri
for two days, so no more navigators to buttonhole for a while. Unless
one of her feelers paid off, she would make no more progress tonight or
tomorrow. And maybe not after that.


Just as she was dressed for bed,
her handbag chimed. She raced over to pull out her palmphone.
“Hello?” There was only the faint pop of a
disconnected link, then the standby tone.


Chloe smiled, went to the door,
and drew it open a decimeter. A short translucent rod rested on the
floor just outside. She snatched it and shut the door. Her contact in
the computer center had come through. He had refused attribution,
fearing for his job, but he had delivered, and that was enough for
Chloe.


Her travel comp was on a table
near one wall. She slipped the rod into one of its dataports and spoke
her instructions. “Data analysis. Same parameters as Bluford
Station data. Don't wake me when you're done. I'll review everything in
the morning."


She managed to sleep well,
without being tempted to check her computer's progress. Once she first
opened her eyes in the morning, though, there was no comfortable
drifting back into slumber. She took the comp into the bathroom and had
it read out its results as she showered.


The rumors were right, again.
Plenty of navigators had been here, departed, and never made
system-fall again. There was the same pattern of increasing rate of
disappearance, a building phenomenon. Added to the numbers from Chi
Ceti, it was now definitely rising as a percentage of active navigators.


And that was if these were the
main two points of disappearance, as those few spreading the tales back
on Earth had suggested. If there were other loci for the trend, this
secret wouldn't keep much longer, as the disappearances would soon be
too common to miss.


The ages of the vanishing
navigators still averaged quite high, with a slight downward trend the
last decade or so. If it was some navigation-related malady, as she
suspected, this augured ill. Whatever chronic effects FTL navigating
had, they were finishing people off younger.


Chloe shut off the water and
reached for a towel. Her computer was now reciting its findings on the
courses of ships where navigators died in transit. This part wasn't
adding up. She stepped out of the stall and listened closer.


To and from Chi Ceti, the bulk of
those courses had passed in the general direction of Zeta Reticuli.
Here at Zeta R, though, the courses weren't leading anywhere near Chi
Ceti. They weren't centering on any major colony or hub, just a diffuse
collection of secondary ports.


"Project a starchart,”
she ordered. “Show the tracks of relevant transits to and
from Zeta Reticuli B."


A constellation appeared in the
air, with a spray of fine lines erupting from the pair of bright dots
that were the Zeta Reticuli suns. Chloe found it little help.
“Add tracks of similar transits from Chi Ceti."


Lines sprouted from that star.
The main bunch passed several light years to one side of Zeta
Reticuli—and intersected the densest part of the tracks
coming from that system.


Chloe stared at that juncture.
Her original hypothesis dissolved in the interference light of those
crossing tracks. What was rising in its place was inchoate, but
compelling. She had learned from past assignments to trust this
instinct: it had never betrayed her. She had also learned not to
hesitate when a lead like this appeared.


She had the computer reel off a
few system names, which she committed to a complate and memory. She got
dressed, packed up her computer, then packed up everything else in her
room.


At the room's Net station, she
called up the charter docks and looked over the small ships they had
available. Finding the best bargain she could on something with a good
sensor suite, she toted up the numbers for the lease fee, deposit, fuel
for sixty light years of travel, and stocks for a month. It wouldn't
break her corporate account, but it would leave her margin thin. She
didn't hesitate.


With the ship's service number in
hand, she called up the navigators’ roster. Every navigator
on the station who was available for hire was listed here. Many worked
independently, so she'd have no trouble finding one, assuming they
wanted to be available to her.


If she was lucky,
though—there! Pascal Mesereau. She pulled up his info box.
She had been right about him being young: twenty-six, two years younger
than she was. Even so, he had five years of experience as a navigator.
She could trust him, professionally.


She entered her request, giving
the service number and docking bay of the ship for confirmation and a
deposit on his fee. That done, she checked out of her room and settled
the bill, then walked out, luggage in tow, toward the docking bays.


* * * *


Pascal passed through the inner
hatch, not moving his eyes off Chloe. “It really was
you,” he said. “If this is a ruse to get some quiet
interview, Ms. Roberts, I'm afraid I'd have to report it to the
Commission."


"It's no ruse, Pascal. It's a
lead. I need to take a look at a few systems."


Pascal still looked guarded.
“Okay, which systems?"


She handed him a complate.
“Those four."


He looked it over. “But
there's nothing there."


"Nothing we know
about.” She waited for a reaction. “Are you willing
to sign on now, or do I need to fill you in all the way?"


"It's not just what I know. It's
... I'm not sure anyone's done these routes before.” He
looked up, his face unsettled. “You do know that it's tougher
to navigate an uncharted route, right?"


"More dangerous?"


"Some. It's also harder
on...” He composed himself. “It's easier on a
navigator when he has records from other ships, to get a feel for the
texture of underspace along that course. New territory requires greater
concentration, greater ... exertion."


Chloe nodded slowly.
“Are you not up to it?"


Her needle went home.
“No, I'm capable. I'm rested enough. Just finished a good
fourteen hours of sleep."


Chloe hid some mild surprise.
“Okay, you're ready and able. Are you willing?” She
didn't wait for Pascal's hesitation to stretch. “I can go to
the others. They may not like me, but someone will like the fee."


After another moment, Pascal
stepped toward her, handing her the complate. Chloe thought he was
refusing, but then he stepped past her. “Let me check
something on the bridge first."


She followed him through the
hatch. He took the pilot's seat, situated next to the navigator's port,
and started downloading records from the station mainframe.
“Yes,” he said, “there has."


"Has what?"


He pointed to the display.
“There's been a trip from this system to one of the ones on
your list. The closest, it turns out: Zeta Doradus. It was a secondary
exploratory survey, twenty-five years ago, after—”
He laughed. “The first survey was done by Prahlad Shastri."


"I'll take that as an
omen,” Chloe said.


"So will I. At least one leg of
our trip should be a little easier."


"Our trip? Is that a commitment?"


"I suppose it is.”
Pascal cleared the display. “Have you engaged a pilot yet?"


"I don't need to."


Pascal turned the seat around
hard. “See here. I don't care how small the ship is, it needs
a slower-than-light pilot. I can do it in emergencies, but—"


"Pascal, Pascal.” Chloe
handed him a badge from one of her pockets. “I'm certified on
small craft. It's really helpful in my work."


He examined the badge and its
information screen. “You've never piloted outside the Solar
System?"


"Not yet, but I haven't just been
doing Earth-Luna shuttles. Should I tell you how I got mixed up with
the Kuiper Revolt four years back?"


He handed back the badge.
“I remember those accounts. It's how I recognized you
yesterday."


Chloe smiled modestly.
“Thank you."


Pascal turned back to the
console. “Okay, let's get me officially signed on."


* * * *


"Pascal, it's time."


Chloe heard no response over the
intercom. She had been alone on the bridge for hours, during the
undocking, pulling away from Shastri Station, and making a vector for
Zeta Doradus. Now that they had headway and were out of the traffic
lanes, she needed Pascal.


He had closeted himself in his
cabin, to get some last rest before starting his duties. Wasn't
fourteen hours enough? Chloe had resisted asking that question. She
wanted no acrimony with someone who'd be sharing tight quarters for
weeks.


Soon, Pascal walked through the
hatch. He approached the navigator's port hesitantly, like a child
going to the dentist.


The port was a large support
chair, enclosed up to chest level. Above it hung a burnished hemisphere
studded inside with thousands of thin filaments. Those filaments would
be the link between his brain and the ship's computer.


It used to be that navigators had
direct physical links, through jackports surgically implanted in their
heads. Technical advances now allowed for an interface less invasive,
more elegant in design. It had lifted some of the physical and mental
burden from navigators. Only navigators could say how much.


Pascal opened the side entrance
to the port: the name had outlived the jackport years. The opening
faced Chloe. “Um ... could you give me a second, to get
settled in?"


Since navigators couldn't leave
their stations while in underspace, the port chairs had to handle all
human biological needs. It seemed strange to Chloe for him to be modest
about this, after five years. Still, she turned her body and averted
her eyes.


Finally, there was the snick of
the port closing up. She saw Pascal ensconced, lowering the inductance
helmet toward his head. He winced at the myriad pinpricks on his scalp.
The helmet fastened itself automatically, molding itself to his head.
His face showed relief, but not relaxation.


"All right, I'm in
contact.” His voice sounded tighter, as though his chest were
squeezed. “Course is set. FTL engines powered. Transition in
ten seconds ... five ... and now.” The starfield turned to a
swirl of gray, slowly flowing past the viewscreen like turbid waters.


Pascal made a sound deep in his
throat, midway between a groan and a sigh. “We're underway,
Ms. Roberts,” he said. “If you want to go to your
cabin, you're free now."


Chloe looked his way, casually,
as if his situation were nothing odd. “Hoping to be rid of me
that soon, Pascal?"


"Uhh, no, but if you have your
own—"


"I have my own post-transition
checklist. That'll keep me here a while.” She started on it.
“After that, I can still keep you company.” She
gave him another look. “And you really should start calling
me Chloe."


* * * *


Small ships, with small FTL
engines, were invariably slow. This one would need three days to travel
the ten light years to Zeta Doradus. Chloe needed the time to establish
herself on Pascal's good side.


He might be resentful of her,
feeling pressed so soon after one assignment into another one he knew
little about. Fortunately, she had a gift for dealing with people in
delicate situations: coaxing out information, talking her way into
sheltered areas, and a few times convincing people not to arrest,
abduct, or kill her.


Chloe probed a little into
Pascal's background, letting him tell what he wanted. She learned fast
when to give him a break. Sometimes it was those matters he had been
shy about when first entering his port in her presence. Sometimes it
was the drain of conversing and navigating at the same time. That drain
only increased.


The second morning, she walked
into the cockpit with a chipper greeting. “Occupied, Ms.
Roberts,” he said dully.


"All right.” She sat
down, and only then saw his face. He was blank of expression, almost a
zombie in his port, a nightmare vision of what became of navigators.
“Are you okay?"


Pascal's eye twitched her way.
“Sleeping. After a fashion. Another twenty-seven minutes,
eight seconds."


Chloe had heard of this. The port
induced a few hours of sleep separately in each hemisphere of the
brain. Half his mind navigated underspace, while the other half got
enough rest to keep functioning. She said no more, and sat still in the
pilot's chair, waiting.


Some time later, light returned
to his eyes. He let his head roll over to look at her. “Good
morning, Chloe,” he said, then rolled his head back and
called up a drink from his port's dispenser. Chloe waited for him to
take a longer look, but he never did.


It wasn't that her outfit that
morning was outrageous: it never was. She had taken care, though, to
make it appealing, with soft colors and silky fabrics. It always helped
with men, that and showing interest in what they said. Pascal had shown
mild interest back at Shastri Station. Now, though, he had bigger
things occupying him.


Chloe didn't let it bother her.
She kept up pleasant conversation, recounting incidents from the
Hartford clone bank story and the Quaoar peace talks when he seemed
interested. Sometimes, though, she would alter her pose a little, shift
her leg just so. Pascal never took notice.


It was late that afternoon when
Pascal finally asked the question Chloe had been awaiting.
“Do you know what you're going to find on this
chase?” he said. “Of course, if you aren't sure of
the system, how sure could you be of what might be there?"


"I'm not sure,” Chloe
admitted. “My earliest working theory was that navigators
were dying of some link-related malady, and it was being covered up.
But that wouldn't require getting so many of the vanishing navigators
to pass close to a particular patch of space. They're gathering
somewhere, or being gathered."


"Oh.” Pascal's face
looked like it did during pseudo-sleep. “Gathering for what?"


"I can only speculate. Maybe
they're being conscripted into some secret military force, a fleet of
FTL warships being mustered for an attack on ... who knows?"


"But you said this began decades
ago. The first navigators they took would be dead or decrepit today.
Doesn't make much sense, even for the military."


Chloe didn't take Pascal's bait.
“It could also be a secret exploratory corps, but it's
difficult to imagine what they could be exploring that would need such
secrecy. Except, maybe, aliens."


Pascal gave a drawn-out
“Oh,” and smiled. “That's a secret I can
see the authorities trying hard to keep. Worries about culture shock,
unauthorized contacts, even belligerent acts. But they'd maintain
limited contacts, and skim away some navigators to make the runs to and
from alien space. That makes sense."


Chloe nodded. “And
they'd take older navigators because it'd be easier for outsiders to
believe they had died natural deaths."


"What's this?” said
Pascal. Chloe explained the statistics to him. “No, that
doesn't add up. Older, more experienced navigators have the highest
profiles among us. We'd be losing our best people—we are
losing them—so we'd notice."


He sank back into his chair.
“So why haven't we made a bigger fuss?” he said.
“Do we know what's happening, why it's happening? I sure
don't."


"Perhaps you don't qualify as
needing to know. Not experienced enough, for one thing."


"Oh. Still, it doesn't really
tally. Why wouldn't they take some younger navigators, just as they're
coming in? They'd get much longer service from them."


"Maybe they are,” Chloe
said, “and I haven't found that piece of the pattern."


Pascal fell into a study. Chloe
waited for him to share whatever he was thinking. In time, she realized
he wasn't pondering their theories, but navigating some difficult
stretch of underspace. He didn't come out of it for almost an hour, by
which time he was pale and needed a ration of water much more than a
chat.


He never resumed that discussion.
He was losing interest in all conversation, turning inward by visible
degrees. Chloe kept up her side, but as his answers and his attention
grew shorter, she soon accepted the inevitable.


Still, she wore another
eye-catching outfit the next day, for whatever submerged part of him
might appreciate it.


* * * *


"Transition ... now.”
The gray churn on the viewscreen went black, and the stars came out. A
bright white one dominated the view.


Chloe heard Pascal's gasp, and
politely ignored it. She ran her post-transition pilot's checklist, as
Pascal ran his own. When she heard him shift inside his port, she
raised a hand to shield her eyes. A minute later, he was out of the
port, though a little unsteady on his legs.


"Might I ... get a little
shut-eye? Unless you need ... me here."


"Go, Pascal. You've got at least
six hours.” She shooed him out, then got working on scans.


They were ten light hours from
the primary, twenty degrees below the system's ecliptic plane. All the
planets were visible on line-of-sight, and Chloe ran preliminary sensor
sweeps on them, working outward. The third planet stopped her dead.


"Pascal, I need you back
here.” She ran the protocol again, and got the same readings.
She checked the ephemeris again, but the contradiction remained.


"What is it?” Pascal
called petulantly from the corridor.


"The third planet doesn't match
the catalog."


He trudged onto the bridge.
“How doesn't it match? Different orbit? You get that
sometimes with older surveys."


"Would an older survey ship miss
an oxygen atmosphere?"


"What?” He peered over
her shoulder. The catalog listed Zeta Doradus III as a habitable-zone
world, with a Venusian atmosphere choking off its chances to bear life.
The planet they were scanning had oxygen-nitrogen air, the oxygen
partial pressure being almost an exact match of Earth.


"That can't be right,”
Pascal said. “No sensor suite could make a mistake that
large."


"Then it wasn't a
mistake,” said Chloe. “Somebody falsified the
records, either the Exploratory Commission, or the original surveyor
himself: Mr. Shastri, forty-two years ago."


"No. He couldn't have. Besides,
the second surveyor would have found the mistake."


"Unless she was in on it. That
was Ursula Bosch, twenty-five years back.” Chloe scrolled
through one of her complates. “And she went missing thirteen
years ago."


"Oh boy.” Pascal leaned
against the navigator's port. “Whoever falsified this had to
do it immediately, either Shastri or the Commission. A habitable
world—and this one sure seems habitable—would be
too valuable to go unexploited for any length of time. It couldn't be a
false record patched into the files after the fact.” He blew
out a breath. “Anyway, congratulations."


"For what?” Chloe asked.


"You found it, first place you
looked."


"I guess we did. But what have we
found?"


Pascal snatched some sleep while
Chloe let the sensors tackle that question. Data trickled in slowly at
that range, but the picture soon took shape. Moderate temperature
range, slight axial tilt with two sizable moons to prevent excessive
precession, and an orbit almost perfectly circular—at least
according to the records, which apparently hadn't falsified that
astronomical fact. The planet seemed perfect.


It also seemed empty. The ship
picked up no transmissions, and there were no sizable artificial
objects in orbit. If this was the base for a secret project, it
remained secret for now.


Chloe waited for sensors to catch
something more, but it only delayed her decision. She touched the
intercom panel, then switched it off. She left the bridge, went to the
door of her navigator's cabin, and knocked.


"Pascal? Pascal, I need your
help."


It took a minute for Pascal to
open the door. “What's the problem?” he mumbled.


"How soon after coming out of
underspace could this ship go back in? If it had to leave in a hurry?"


Pascal perked up. “This
is after a short, ten light hour jump, I assume?"


"Yes.” She stepped
aside to let Pascal past, and followed him back to the bridge.


"The FTL engines would have some
residual charge, especially after a mini-jump. They could power up
faster than if they were starting cold.” He sat down at the
pilot's station to pull up some specs. “I'd say ninety
seconds, if we weren't picky about where we were going."


"We wouldn't be. I assume we
wouldn't get lost, or anything.” His look answered the
question. “Okay, I was just asking. You know your business."


"I do,” Pascal said.
“So, are we visiting the mystery planet?"


"Of course. We have to. It's only
given us more questions, not answers."


Pascal left her seat, and opened
up the port again. “How close?"


"Depends on how accurate you can
be bringing us out."


"At this range? Within three
thousand kilometers."


"Then make it good and close.
Inside the lower moon's orbit."


"Aye aye.” He nearly
smiled, but something weighted down his mouth. He winced as the helmet
made its connections, and his eyes focused somewhere beyond the cockpit.


They went into underspace again,
the gray whorls creeping past. When they popped out, Chloe went right
to the sensor readings, looking for anything that spelled danger. She
found nothing. “All quiet,” she said hopefully.


Pascal had his long stare again,
but this time it had a focus, the planet filling most of the screen.
Wisps of white drifted over expanses of blue, brown, and—it
wasn't quite chlorophyll green, but closer to the aqua of clear,
shallow seawater. “Lovely, isn't it?"


"Oh, yes. Let's give it a closer
look.” She set commands to enter a polar orbit, so they could
scan the whole surface. “I'll need you to stay ready for a
quick escape. I'm sorry."


"I understand."


Five minutes after swinging
beneath the south pole, the sensors got a hit. “Detecting
metals,” Chloe said. “Significant
concentrations—those are ships on the surface. Three, I
count. And buildings nearby. Mostly small, but at least a hundred.
We've found it!"


"Whatever it is,”
Pascal noted. “And if we can see them..."


"Gotcha. I'll raise
our—"


The ship's radio crackled to
life. “Unknown orbiting vessel,” said a firm female
voice, “please identify yourself."


Chloe and Pascal met each other's
eyes nervously. “I think,” Chloe said,
“they'd react better to a navigator responding than a
reporter. Call them back, and stay ready for transition."


Pascal sent the reply, giving the
ship's name and registry number, and his name and navigator's license
number. “Stand by,” the planet said.


Pascal did not wait easily.
“I think we should get away now."


"Not yet. I'll tell you
when.” She saw his hands tremble and hoped it was his
built-up fatigue affecting him.


When the voice returned, his
fingers moved toward the transition controls before he heard a word.
“Pascal, your identity's confirmed. Welcome. You can set down
at the field, pad five. A beacon will guide you in."


Pascal was a little stunned.
“Copy that. Out.” He turned to Chloe. “Do
we—"


"Absolutely. I'm not walking away
now.” She cut off his protest. “We won't walk in
blind, either. Can you handle the approach? I'm going to set up some
precautions."


She didn't need long, and she was
able to retake control at the edge of the troposphere. They approached
over an uneven forest with patchy clearings. Near the horizon ran a
wide silver-blue band, a slow river bordered by flatlands, then rolling
meadows.


The forest resolved to individual
trees as they passed below two kilometers. Thick dark boles supported
leafy canopies that spread out like flattened mushroom caps or huge
sea-green nail heads. Thinner layers from seasons past flashed through
the gaps.


The trees gave way to ground
cover, which yielded to a checkerboard of tans, beiges, and other
earthy colors. Narrow roads led back to a small town, its streets laid
out like spokes through concentric wheels. Off to one side lay a belt
of tarmac, lined into six sections, half of them occupied by small FTL
ships. A hangar stood nearby, close to the riverbank.


Chloe stayed attentive. Sensors
had shown nothing resembling active weapons systems during approach,
but now was the best time for a quick power-up and ambush. It never
happened, as she settled their ship gently onto pad five. She ran her
landing checklist, then rechecked her safeguards.


Pascal tottered out of the
navigator's port. “If you expect me to be point man
here,” he said, “and you probably do, I should tell
you I still don't know what this place is."


"Neither do I,” Chloe
admitted. “And you're the one they welcomed."


Pascal nodded. “So
you'll be staying inside?"


"When there's a big story waiting
outside? No chance,” she said, grinning. “Besides,
they'll know I'm here soon enough. Better to be forthright with
them.” She waved a hand. “After you."


The airlock hatch opened, letting
in a bracing draught of outdoor air. A short ramp extruded down to the
tarmac. As Chloe hung back, Pascal walked out, looking for a welcoming
committee.


It came from the side, two men
dashing over to grab Pascal. While one pinned his arms, the other made
for the hatch. Chloe hit the button too fast for him. The hatch slammed
shut.


She fumbled to activate the hull
camera and the outercom. Pascal was protesting as the two men, both
gray-haired but wiry and strong, thwarted his attempts to tear loose.
“What is this?” she heard him shout.
“What did I do?"


"You weren't passed to come
here,” one of them answered in a growl. “Who gave
you our location?"


"No one!"


"You didn't find us by
accident,” the other said. “You'd better come
clean. Who told you about us?"


"I did!"


The toughs turned toward the
ship, still holding Pascal tightly. “Who are you?"


She summoned all the authority
she could put into her voice. “Chloe Roberts, Inter-Info
Network. Nobody had to tell me about your hideaway. I uncovered it
myself."


One of the men groaned out a
curse. The other shouted, “Captain! We need you here!"


From out of Chloe's camera angle,
probably from the hangar, walked an older woman, her thick hair almost
wholly white. She ignored the ship for the moment, concentrating on
what her musclemen told her, then on their captive. Pascal returned the
scrutiny, and his eyes went wide.


"I know you. You're Zhang
Mei-zhi."


"That's right, Pascal,”
she answered with a faint smile.


"I didn't know you had
disappeared. I thought you just retired."


The smile grew. “I
did.” She turned toward the hatch, spotting the camera
effortlessly. “Ms. Roberts, I'm Zhang Mei-zhi. I run this
place, to an extent."


Chloe studied the face. It showed
no threat, for the moment. “Pleased to meet you. What is this
place?"


"That's something I could explain
better if I could show you."


"Oh no,” Chloe said.
“I won't leave the ship that easily."


"Please, Ms. Roberts. I don't
want this playing out like a hostage situation."


"You're the ones who grabbed
Pascal, after welcoming him to land."


The two men looked at Zhang, as
if that rebuke might be enough to move Zhang to order Pascal released.
She did turn his way, frowning in thought, then reviving her smile.
“We can show you, Mr. Mesereau. You may understand
better.” She looked closer at him. “Unless you want
to rest first. It looks like you had a difficult flight in."


Pascal thought a moment.
“I ... think I want to see a little of the place first."


Zhang nodded. “Orson,
come along with us. Andrei, stay and keep an eye on the ship. Notify me
if—"


Chloe seized their moment of
distraction. She opened the hatch and bolted out.
“Close!” she shouted back to the computer, which
obeyed, sealing the ship. She ended up right in front of all of them,
who stared at her.


"The ship's locked up
tight,” she told Zhang. “You won't get inside
without Pascal and me."


Zhang's shock wore off quickly.
“All right. But you won't get inside without our permission,
either. Andrei.” The stockier man moved to the bottom of the
ramp, taking an alert, forbidding pose. “I take
it,” Zhang continued, “you'll be accompanying our
tour."


"I wouldn't miss it. Now, as I
already asked, what is this place?"


Zhang sighed. “Well,
let me take—"


"You don't know?"


Pascal's question left Chloe
baffled. “No,” she said, noticing the looks Pascal
and Zhang traded.


Pascal told her. “It's
a retirement home."


* * * *


The planet had no name, other
than Zeta Doradus III. Rather, it had several names, but none had
become fixed with its inhabitants.


"El Dorado was an obvious one,
but it doesn't mesh with the purpose of the place.” Zhang was
in the front seat of an open car, with Orson driving and her guests
sitting in the back. “Some call it Shangri-La, but we don't
have any secrets of immortality here. One person called it the Secret
Garden. I confess I like that one. Sentimentalism aside, it fits."


They were driving, not into town,
but toward the fields Chloe and Pascal had overflown. Plots of several
grains passed by, early in their growing seasons, just tall enough to
sway in the breeze rather than bend. Chloe recognized wheat and corn,
but couldn't place those stalks of a clayey red that reminded her of
buttes in the Mojave. Beyond lay vegetable plots and a small orchard.
Several residents were tending them with small farm machines, or by
hand.


"It's a pretty active retirement
for these people,” Chloe noted.


"Farming's always been
work,” said Zhang. “We've got some good equipment,
so it's not too much work. We've never lacked volunteers yet."


"Volunteers?” Chloe
said. “For outdoor manual labor?"


Zhang chuckled. “If for
forty or fifty years, your version of work was sitting motionless,
plugged into a ship's computer, some healthy outdoor activity would be
just the thing."


"She's got a point,
Chloe.” Pascal wore a big smile as he looked at the fields
and the outskirts of the forest beyond. The nailhead trees were even
more impressive from below, where one could see the branches rising
level on level, buttressing the ones above. Their trunks were smooth,
almost glossy, like something on Leviathan or New Chiron.


Chloe appreciated the beauty, but
Pascal seemed mesmerized. She fought the urge to slap him and snap him
out of it. “What told you this was a retirement
community?” she asked instead.


"It seemed obvious, finally.
Older navigators gathering together, no stations, no military bases.
And Zhang said she was retired. What, you didn't believe her?"


Chloe didn't answer, instead
aiming a barb at Zhang. “So you hid a whole habitable planet,
perfect for colonization, from all of humanity, to form a farming
commune?"


Zhang gave her a patient look.
“We have more than agriculture here, plenty of necessary
specialties. We aren't self-sufficient, but we're working toward it. As
for being a commune ... there was never a conscious decision about
that, but perhaps we are. Maybe we're still small enough that we can
function like one. Small enough for pure democracy to work, too."


"Not pure democracy,”
Chloe said. “You told me you run this place."


"To an extent. I'm just someone
to handle day-to-day matters, or to act in emergencies, when something
needs a quick decision."


"Like our arrival."


"Exactly.” She tapped
Orson's shoulder. “Get us back to town.” He turned
them around at a wide spot on the road.


Pascal was now looking past Chloe
to watch the fields pass. “Ms. Zhang, how do navigators get
to come here? Who tells them this place is here, and they're welcome?"


Zhang's smile receded.
“We can't welcome all navigators, or people would know
something funny was happening. We have to choose our candidates
carefully, for how long they've worked as navigators, how much the work
has worn them down, and how reliable they are, especially in keeping
secrets."


"You can keep tabs on all that
from here?” Pascal wondered.


"No. Navigators who are already
in line to come here do the choosing. I won't tell you who they are.
That's something you'd only learn if you found yourself tapped, since
you'd be joining them in making those decisions."


"You mean they don't come here
right away?” The idea apparently shocked him.


"A few do, if they can pay in
immediately.” That turned two heads. “We aren't
Paradise here. You have to provide enough supplies and materials to
support you however long you live here, and to maintain and improve the
colony. It's a tidy sum: seven hundred thousand solars."


"That much?” Chloe
gasped. “And people can still pay it?"


Pascal turned to her.
“Experienced navigators can net that in eight years or so.
And lots of navigators don't spend very much—though now I see
why some of them don't."


He looked off into the distance.
Chloe thought he was admiring the countryside again, but Zhang saw
something else. “We can find you lodgings as soon as we're in
town. We have empty houses awaiting permanent residents.” She
looked from Pascal to Chloe. “Where are you in your diurnal
cycle?"


"Early afternoon."


"We're a little later. You'll
have some time for rest, Pascal—and you, Ms.
Roberts—before dinner."


Chloe heard a quiet emphasis
there. “What happens at dinner?"


"You two will meet some more of
our residents, and we'll have a discussion.” She said no more.


* * * *


Chloe was washed and ready by the
time her escort knocked. Pascal and another escort were waiting with
him. Together, they headed down a radial street from the town's edge
toward the hub of the wheel.


They passed other houses, a
general store, and the colony clinic. This acted as both a hospital and
a home for the chronically infirm. Zhang was right, sadly: this was no
Shangri-La. Age still took its toll.


Opposite the clinic, they passed
a wedge of space given over to garden plots, sporting what had to be
local flora. Chloe had never seen a bush with such parti-colored
blossoms, or flowers with those helical stalks, anywhere else. She saw
a set of small plaques at one corner, but passed too fast to read what
they said. She didn't think it wise to hold up the procession to go
back for a look.


They went to one wing of the
small administration building and found the dining hall, or at least a
room fitted out for dinner. The table seated ten, with six chairs
already filled. The chairs and table had a familiar gloss to their
wood. Zhang was seated, as were a few people Chloe had met or seen
during her tour of the town. She sat at Zhang's left hand, near the
head of the table, with Pascal taking the opposite seat.


"Glad you could make
it,” Zhang said. “The first courses should be out
any moment."


Someone came through a side door
with a trolley. She passed out salad bowls, put breadbaskets at each
end of the table, and poured out water. She then took a seat and
started eating with everyone else.


Chloe tried the salad, which had
nothing she didn't recognize and was reasonably good. The bread was
different, with a reddish color she remembered from the fields. She
took one roll, broke off a small piece, and sampled it. It was malty,
with a subtle smoky undertone. She tried more, and more, until she
caught herself starting to bolt the bread.


"It is good, isn't it?”
Oscar Menendez, the colony's carpenter, said to her left. He passed
over a small jam pot. “Try the pryorberry preserves with it."


She did, and their extra-tangy
plum taste won her over fast. “It's a shame you can't sell
these,” she said once her mouth wasn't quite full.
“You'd make out very well."


"We actually considered it
once,” Zhang said, “but it's too risky. Besides,
redgrass doesn't yield well enough for us to have surplus. We're
improving it with good selective breeding, but that takes time."


"No recombination?”
Pascal wondered.


"We're small. We have to pick
what technology we can utilize. Our agriculture supports us well, so
improving it is low priority."


"If this planet weren't a
secret,” Chloe said, “you wouldn't have to parcel
things out."


Zhang inclined her white-topped
head toward Chloe. The reporter noticed the red lump at her temple,
where one of her jackports must have been before conductance links came
into use. “That isn't going to convince anyone here, Ms.
Roberts. We need this place to ourselves. I hope we can convince you of
that."


Chloe didn't sense a threat in
Zhang's voice, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. “I'll
be glad to listen,” she said in her best open-minded voice.


Zhang didn't look persuaded of
that. “How much do you know about navigators, Ms.
Roberts?” she asked. “What they undergo in their
work, how it affects them?"


Chloe fought not to glance over
to Pascal. “More than the layman, I'd guess, but I'm not an
expert."


"You couldn't be. You aren't a
navigator. The common impression of the difficulties of a navigator's
life is inadequate. There really is no conveying it. It must be like
going through extended combat, or having a mental illness."


"The only people who really
understand,” Menendez said, “are the ones who
experienced the same things. It leaves you lonely in a crowd. There's
even a kind of loneliness when you're with fellow navigators. It's a
group, but the group itself is isolated."


While Menendez talked, Chloe shot
a questioning glance at Pascal. He gave the tiniest nod.


"Of course,” Zhang
said, “there's the counter-impression of navigators as this
pampered elite, gouging a hundred worlds for a vital service they
cannot get any other way. I'll admit there's good pay, and retreats at
most ports catering to us. It's an attempt to compensate us. A good
attempt, but one that has to fail.


"We can't explain the burdens.
It's probably best that we can't. Humanity needs navigators, fresh
trainees every year. If people knew, the applicant pool would dry up
fast.” Zhang turned to Pascal. “Tell her, Pascal.
If you had really known what you were getting into, would you have
thought twice?"


Pascal looked flustered at being
put on the spot. His eyes met Chloe's, wavered, and sank.
“Yes. Don't get me wrong. I'm in now. It's necessary work,
and I wouldn't just walk away from it. But if I met the
sixteen-year-old Pascal, and I could encourage him or warn him away ...
I'm not sure what I'd do."


Zhang patted his shoulder.
“We recognize the need for navigators. We appreciate the duty
we had. However, over time, other needs overcome that.


"That's why the Original
Six—” She pronounced that name with implicit
capitals. “—hatched their scheme, and founded this
place, as a haven for navigators who had given as much as they could.
They gradually let others in on the secret, gave them the chance to
join them. Most did. A few have actually declined. None have ever given
us away. They understood well enough why we needed this place.


"You understand it,
Pascal,” she said. He gave her the same small nod he had
given Chloe. “You, Ms. Roberts,” Zhang said,
“are another matter. You're the first person to know about
this world who doesn't implicitly understand. That makes this a
dangerous moment for us."


The server had gone back into the
kitchen during Zhang's speeches and was now back with the main course.
They apparently had animals at the colony, because Chloe was served
chicken with a light sauce, wrapped in what looked like lettuce except
for the light bluish tinge. She took a sample and discovered a taste
like arugula.


The serving and clearing of
plates gave her time to formulate a reply to Zhang. “I don't
dispute your desire for a pleasant retirement,” she said.
“I think you deserve one. But do you deserve a whole planet?"


"You've seen some of this
world,” said somebody down the table whom she didn't
recognize. “Can you blame us for wanting this one?"


"I—no, but that isn't
my point. All of this, for less than two hundred of you? There are
plenty of colonies, Ms. Zhang, many crying out for new settlers."


"But not any new settlers. They
want colonists who'll help them catch up to the pace of life on the
established worlds. They're not interested in a group that takes it
slow, that's old, that's unproductive, or isn't producing what they
want produced."


"Not all colonies are like that."


"No,” Zhang said,
“but the traditionalist sects don't include others readily."


Chloe almost smiled.
“Much like yourselves."


Zhang had the grace to look
abashed. “Yes, much like ourselves."


Chloe took a few bites of dinner,
to let that discomfort fade. “You say you had six original
founders. Really, it had to be one. Prahlad Shastri discovered the
system forty-two years back, and logged false scans of this planet. He
knew what he was doing from the start."


There was a murmur down the
table, which Zhang ignored. “That's true. He had help
building the colony, but Prahlad conceived it. He is our one true
founder.” She pointed down the table. “That's his
seat, in fact."


Chloe looked at the foot of the
table. The chair there was the only one unoccupied. “A
symbolic gesture?” Chloe said. “Present in spirit?"


"A nice sentiment,”
Zhang answered, “but no. He just wasn't up to
joining—oh, so you were."


Chloe's head was the last to turn
to the main door. A brown, slightly stooped man, with the barest fringe
of white hair, stood propped against the doorway. A face crowded with
wrinkles told of great age, past a hundred and five, if Chloe
remembered the records correctly.


"Oh my,” he said in a
soft, piping voice. “I'm sorry, Mei-zhi. I seem to have
missed everything."


Zhang left her seat to take him
by the hand. “Nonsense, Prahlad,” she said, and
turned to catch Chloe's eye. “You're right on time."


* * * *


"I don't know how long I had the
idea of a navigators’ sanctuary. When I had my first good
look at this planet, it seemed to spring from the depths of my mind,
fully made from years of imaginings."


Chloe and Pascal were in
Prahlad's home, on the invitation he gave before dinner had ended. It
was small and cozy, with lived-in wear. They all sat at his small
kitchen table, sipping his herbal tea.


"You really knew from the start
you could pull this off?” Pascal asked. He had been
fascinated by Prahlad's arrival at dinner and peppered him with
questions. His animation was fast winding down, but it revived in
spurts.


"I knew nothing,”
Prahlad said, “except that it was worth the effort. We
navigators were giving humanity so many new worlds. I wanted one for
us, one for myself. I needed, and I was right in thinking others
needed, a place that would fill what the links emptied, to close up
what they had laid open."


Chloe reflexively shifted her
eyes. It was too easy to look at his jackports, never uninstalled from
his skull, open holes in his flesh.


Prahlad saw the aversion.
“You are too polite, Ms. Chloe. I'm not ashamed of my ports.
They are a part of my being."


"Of your past,” Chloe
said.


"Actually, my old scout is still
here. I fly it sometimes, when we need it to bring in a new
member.” He thought. “Well, not for seven years
now, so yes, it is part of my past. But the past is part of me, as much
as the present moment is. For forty years—"


He stopped, looking at Pascal.
The young navigator was nodding, the cup tipping in his hand, dribbling
tea onto the tabletop. Prahlad gently took the cup from his hand, which
roused Pascal.


"I'm sorry, Captain Shastri. I
... uh, I..."


"Have they given you a room,
Master Pascal?"


"Huh? Yes. I got some sleep there
earlier."


Prahlad was up. “Get
some more. Come."


"But I—”
Pascal's protest died under Prahlad's gentle eyes. He obeyed Prahlad,
following him to the door, his head hung in mortification.


There was a brief exchange with
the guard outside the door. Prahlad's “She will be fine with
me,” was the only part Chloe made out. He was back a moment
later. “He thinks he's weak,” he said, gingerly
lowering himself back into his chair. “He will learn. He has
time.


"And I was speaking of time. For
forty years, I was a navigator. For almost forty years, I have lived in
retirement here. I finally feel my life is balanced. Perhaps it will
not take as long for young Pascal to reach his balance."


"If he's chosen to come
here,” Chloe noted.


"I choose him. The colony will
honor that. Whether we will still be here when he is ready to claim the
privilege is, naturally, a different matter."


His eyes were soft, but Chloe
felt like that showed how trivial it was for them to see right into
her. “Would this colony truly be destroyed,” she
asked carefully, “if it ceased to be secret? There's no
reason why you couldn't live alongside other people, at least with a
piece of the world set aside for yourselves."


"No. We would lose control over
this place, and that would destroy it. Consider, Ms. Chloe: if all
navigators knew this place existed, most of them would want to come
here, many as soon as they could manage it. They would be navigators
for ten or twenty years, then live here for fifty or sixty. It would
overturn the balance. More, it would drain navigators from the
starlanes, produce a crisis."


"But you could still restrict who
comes here, by time of service or a higher residence fee, or both, or
more."


"Ah, but now we are under the
scrutiny of outside authorities,” Prahlad said. “If
they think our policies are unfair in any particular, they will
overrule them, strip our autonomy. We won't be able to decide which
navigators may come live here. We won't be able to keep it to
navigators alone, if they wish otherwise."


He sipped some tea.
“They could even decide that our skills are too important to
allow us to withhold them. We are so crucial to interstellar unity,
after all. It would scare them to think that navigators could simply
walk away from their duties.” He looked into his cup.
“I understand that fear. That is why I don't want to give it
a chance to grip them, to make them act out of that fear."


He put his half-full teacup
aside. “So many things can go wrong. We might avoid one
hazard, or two. We wouldn't avoid them all. The delicate balance we've
struck would vanish. No, we must remain secret.


"Being navigators set us apart,
long before this. Our best hope for safety and security lies in
remaining apart. It is not an ideal solution, but it is the best we can
reach without risking all.” He smiled. “It requires
an act of philosophy. Once you can accept what is possible, you will
accept what is."


Chloe nodded slowly. It was a lot
to absorb, and she didn't want Prahlad thinking she had fallen asleep
like Pascal. “Well,” she finally said,
“that's all about the future, or what it could be. I'd like
to know more about your past here. How difficult was it to found this
colony? How hard was it to find navigators you could trust to help you
with such an undertaking?"


Prahlad let a sigh escape.
“I'm sorry, Ms. Chloe. These questions will have to wait."


"Why, sir? Are you holding back
secrets? Are you uncomfortable?"


"What I am,” he
chuckled, “is tired. My tea always makes me sleepy."


Chloe rose a beat behind Prahlad,
with the same slow care. “I really would like to continue,
Captain Shastri."


"I know. There is always
tomorrow.” He chuckled again. “At least there
always has been so far.” He patted Chloe's arm. “Go
and rest, please."


* * * *


Chloe woke slowly to a sunrise
that crept into her bedroom. She lingered in the rays cast through the
window as she walked to the bathroom. She often had trouble sleeping
her first night on a new world, station, or ship, but she hadn't here.
Maybe Prahlad's tea had done that.


She rethought all that had
happened last night as she washed herself ... and an unaccountable
sense of dread began creeping over her. She dismissed it as stray
morbidity, but within moments she was hurrying to finish her shower.
Dressing went even faster, and she all but dashed out the front door.


The guard outside was stunned,
briefly. “Hey! Where are you going?"


"Shastri,” she called
over her shoulder. She was running, slowly enough that her sentinel
could keep pace, and slowly enough that she didn't feel completely like
a fool. She certainly would if she were imagining all this, as she
hoped she was.


Three colonists were outside his
door. Chloe recognized Zhang. She hadn't been crying, but she looked
ready to start.


Chloe coasted to a stop a pace
from Zhang. “Is he...?” Zhang nodded, shaking the
first tear loose.


There was a shuffle inside. Oscar
Menendez and another man gently bore out a sheet-draped form.
“The cart will be here in a moment,” Zhang told the
men.


Chloe stared at the shrouded
body. She had chased this man all the way from Earth, without knowing
it was he she was chasing—and now he was dead. She heard the
guard come up next to her, and gasp. She felt the same way.


"I was so blind,” she
said. “I think he knew he was going last night."


Zhang rubbed at her eyes.
“It wouldn't surprise me. There's so much to
the—was so much. Was.” She turned away, pulled
herself together, and whispered something to Prahlad's bearers before
returning her attention to Chloe.


"The funeral will be in a few
hours. We don't procrastinate over such things here. Could you please
tell—"


"Of course.” Chloe
walked away, slowly, needing the time to figure out how to break it to
Pascal.


Over half the population had to
be there, and they were still streaming in. Chloe watched some coming
out of the clinic, two driving themselves in support chairs, a third
being pushed along by an attendant. The only residents not coming, she
suspected, were a few who would soon join Shastri in death.


She and Pascal walked together
toward the gravesite. Pascal was looking better now, after having been
almost catatonic at one point. He was crushed at losing the chance to
talk more with Shastri, a man he had admired before coming here, and
now all but worshiped. He hadn't said those things, but the texture of
his self-recriminations had made them plain.


Pascal plucked at his tunic, and
looked reproachfully behind him. They still hadn't been allowed to
enter their ship, even for a change of clothes in which to attend the
service. The guard who had been watching the ship was a couple of dozen
paces behind them. He'd be at the funeral, as long as they were.


They arrived at the plot adjacent
to the administration building. Through the bodies circling it, Chloe
could see five plots of native plants, and one fresh, shallow grave.
“I just need to see something,” she whispered to
Pascal, and started threading through the crowd.


She found the plaques she had
seen before, and could now read them. They were no surprise:
“Kantaro Koizumi/2257—ZD 6,”
“Aliyah Qawi/2260—ZD 18,” and the like.
The rest of the Original Six.


Chloe started back toward Pascal,
only to find he had accompanied her. He reached out to touch the space
without a plaque, where one would soon go. Then they shifted back,
ceding that prime space to the others.


Soon the pallbearers came, four
of them carrying the shrouded body of Prahlad Shastri. Zhang and a few
others followed at a respectful distance. The pallbearers laid the body
next to the grave, and one of Zhang's companions stepped forward. Chloe
recalled him from dinner, but she couldn't think of his name before he
spoke.


"I can say little about Prahlad
Shastri that you don't already know, and if I said all that I could
say, it would take me until nightfall.” There was a rustle of
something close to laughter.


"He was a man of layers. There
was the everyday man of quiet, unassuming wisdom. Just beneath that was
the man of daring and determination, taking big chances for a big
dream. Beneath that, there lay the man of rock-hard work ethics, who
poured his labor into building that dream into reality, for as long as
his body would let him. There were so many other parts to him, but
those are the ones we will always remember, because
they—he—made a world for us.


"He was our Moses, only he did
not die with merely a sight of the Promised Land to comfort him. His
forty years in the wilderness, he spent making that wilderness into a
home and haven."


He swallowed to clear his throat.
“We owe him everything, but as he often told us, he
considered the debt paid in full. In creating what we needed, he found
what he needed: a life lived in balance. May we all be as fortunate."


The pall-bearers unwrapped one
layer of the shrouds, then carried Shastri until he was positioned just
over the grave, two of them holding the shroud on each side. As they
knelt to start lowering him, the eulogist began a recitation.


"Forasmuch as it hath pleased God
of his great mercy to take unto himself the life of our dear friend
here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground: earth to
earth, ashes to ashes..."


Chloe knew the words, but it was
strange to find them spoken here. They continued as Shastri settled
into the ground, and his bearers draped the ends of the shroud they had
used to lower him back over his body. Once that was over, a woman put a
spade into the mound of soil mounted up near the grave, and pitched in
the first clod.


Chloe heard the sob. Others had
been crying, but Pascal had been quiet until then. She found his cheeks
already wet, and he trembled with every breath. She pulled him close,
letting him weep on her shoulder, holding him like they were part of
the same bereaved family.


Several people were filling the
grave, but nobody had left the service. Chloe found that strange, but
said nothing. By the time Pascal cried himself out, the ground over
Prahlad was level.


The eulogist stepped forward,
pulling two small objects from his pockets. The first he tore open,
sprinkling its contents on the soil. By the time Chloe realized they
were seeds, he had knelt to plant his second object. It was a small
flowering plant, with two bright yellow blooms growing Janus-headed
from the same stalk.


He stood up again, slowly with
his age. “Thank you all for coming,” he said, and
that fast, it was over. The crowd began milling, some drifting closer
to the grave, some gathering in knots, only a few leaving.


Chloe gave Pascal a squeeze.
“Come on, let's get you back to your quarters."


He resisted her pull.
“I ... actually, I'm going to stay here a while.”
He slipped out of her arm, and hesitantly approached a trio of
navigators. He caught their attention, which was rather wary of the
obvious outsider. Pascal coughed. “Could you ... tell me
about Captain Shastri?"


Three faces brightened.
“Where do we start?” one of them said. They pulled
him into their circle. Chloe slipped away. Pascal didn't need her now.


She made her way toward Zhang,
who had a lot of people around her. Chloe was ready to be patient, but
Zhang spied her, made excuses, and joined her. “You look like
you have questions, Ms. Roberts."


She hadn't, but Zhang's gambit
revived one. “Was Shastri really Christian? He struck me as
... something else."


Zhang got them walking away from
the crowd. “Early on, the original colonists settled on this
way of handling the dead: the gardens, I mean. Shastri was brought up
Hindu, where they immolate bodies. He gave that up. Christianity was, I
think, an aesthetic choice: returning to the earth, a rebirth into a
gentler life. If he truly believed, well, that's something only he
knew."


Chloe nodded, filling the time so
she could think. “Shastri told me last night that he chose
Pascal to come here, when the time was right. I don't imagine he had a
chance to convey that decision to you, so I'm doing it now."


"Really,” Zhang said.
“We'll honor that, naturally. Of course, there's an
assumption that goes with that, one that isn't quite confirmed yet."


"Shastri mentioned it
himself.” Chloe sighed and looked at the ground.
“I'll keep your secret. I'm sure Pascal will, too."


Zhang waited for Chloe to look
up. “What convinced you?"


"I don't know. I was still a
skeptic when I went to bed last night, but now ... I know what burying
this story could mean for my career, but it doesn't seem to matter. I
guess Shastri convinced me after all.” Her eyes fell again.


Zhang patted her shoulder.
“He had that effect on most people. I'll speak to Pascal
about this, but I'm sure he'll be with you."


"So am I,” Chloe said.
“We won't impose any more on your hospitality, not at a time
like this. We'll leave as soon as you like."


"Tomorrow, I think. We need to
vote on letting you depart, but with me behind it, it'll
pass.” She looked past Chloe. Pascal was still talking with
the trio, more animated, a smile peeking out on his face for a moment.
“And he'll appreciate the extra time, don't you agree?"


Chloe said the only thing she
could. “Of course."


* * * *


The previous night's rain
persisted as a morning drizzle, so the car driving them back to the
landing field was closed-topped. Zhang drove, so Andrei could keep an
eye on the departing guests in the back seat.


They were still cautious. Before
leaving her guest house, Chloe had been searched and scanned for
recording devices, data storage, even biological samples like a grain
of redgrass or a splinter of local wood that would help confirm a story
of a secret colony. She assumed Pascal had gotten the same treatment.


"Remember, Pascal,”
Zhang said, “don't try to identify any of our recruiters.
When the time comes, they'll find you."


"I know,” Pascal said
in a monotone.


They pulled up close to the scout
ship. It still had a guard at the hatch, who didn't move while the car
emptied. Chloe walked around the back to get to Zhang.


"Even if I can't tell people
about this world,” Chloe told her, “I'm glad I got
to see it. Thank you for your hospitality."


"And thank you for your decision.
Have a safe trip. Orson, you can come away now."


The soaked guard cleared the way.
Chloe and Pascal climbed the ramp, and placed their right hands on the
ID plate at the hatch. The combination worked, and the hatch eased
open. She half expected them to ascend the ramp after them, to search
the ship. Instead, they were already in the car, turning around.


Chloe headed off Pascal going to
the bridge. “I'll launch us. Get some new clothes."


"That obvious?” Pascal
said, but he obeyed. Chloe got into the pilot's seat and checked the
computer logs. No sign of entry since their arrival, and no sign of
tampering in the log. That settled, she ran her checklist, gave Pascal
an intercom warning, and lifted the ship.


She kept the forward view and
flight data on the main viewer, but had the departing angle on a
sub-monitor. Overcast as her view was, the beauty of the place was
undiminished.


Pascal arrived in a fresh
jumpsuit while the ship was still in the upper stratosphere.
“I'll take over piloting,” he said, “and
let you get your own change."


"Thank you.” She gladly
yielded her seat, went to her cabin, and got rid of her own overly
familiar jumpsuit. She took a moment picking a new outfit, something
not quite as lifeless.


"Altitude nine hundred
kilometers,” Pascal reported when he heard her reenter the
bridge. “Just getting us on course for Zeta Reticuli. There."


He relinquished the seat, to move
over to the navigator's port. Chloe saw him give her a quick
up-and-down look before opening the chair. She remembered to look aside
while he got himself settled.


"Thanks,” he said, and
she looked back. “FTL engines need to complete charging, then
we can drop into underspace.” He worked for a moment before
his eyes slipped back toward her. “Is that for my benefit?"


"Uhh, not entirely,”
she improvised. “I felt like showing a flourish of youth, no
offense to them."


"Hm.” Pascal went deep
into thought, almost looking like he was linked when he wasn't.
“You must have been persuasive, telling Zhang you wouldn't
expose the settlement."


"I suppose I was."


"You had to be.” Pascal
looked over his console. “You were lying, weren't you?"


Chloe was stunned. She began to
answer, then checked herself. “Yes,” she finally
said. “We could never have gotten away otherwise. They would
have had to silence us somehow."


"'Silence?’ Your way of
saying ‘kill?’ They wouldn't have done that."


"You haven't been around many
people whose deepest secrets you've uncovered."


"Yes, that's right. You have a
way of getting into people's confidences.” Still Pascal would
not look at her. “Why are you going to expose them? Or should
I say, what do you gain?"


Chloe got angry despite herself.
“Pascal, they didn't have the right to do what they did,
however worthy their aim. Planets that can support open-air
colonies—planets that similar to Earth
itself—aren't so common that humanity isn't going to miss
one. People won't be so indifferent that they wouldn't care if they
weren't permitted to live there. I half want to
live there, after two days!"


"So that's it? You want it, so
you're going to take it from us?"


"They took it!
They didn't ask, or propose, or lobby. They took it, and put lies into
the public record to cover up the fact. They used their professional
positions—they abused their power—to profit
themselves.


"And please,” she said,
cutting him off, “don't plead the worthiness of their cause.
If all it takes to disregard duties and violate trust is to think
you have a good reason, that can justify almost anything. It usually
has, all through history, ancient and recent alike."


Pascal's face was a hot red.
“Well, if some old navigators are a bad example to criminals
and tyrants, that settles the matter. No point in trying to dissuade
you."


Chloe felt his mockery like acid
in her gut. “Pascal, I'm sorry. Navigators may have a hard
life, but it doesn't mean they deserve a whole planet to compensate. Or
maybe it does, I don't know, but they aren't the ones who get to decide
that."


Pascal's eyes remained resolutely
forward, and his jaw was clenched hard enough to crack his teeth. Chloe
felt a sense she had learned during the Kuiper Revolt, that someone was
turning dangerous. “Pascal,” she said, “I
need to know that you aren't going to do something rash."


He shot her a deadly glare. She
froze under it. Then he blinked, turned away, and brought the
inductance helmet down to his head. “You don't have to worry,
Ms. Roberts. You hired me for a job, and I'll complete it. Navigators
do their duty."


"Pascal, I—"


"Engines charged. FTL transition
... now.” His eyes went glassy, looking at nothing but the
gray infinity of underspace.


Chloe gave up and let him sit in
silence. Further talk now would only isolate him more. She would wait
for him to say something first.


Twelve hours later, when she
finally went to bed, he still hadn't spoken.


Sleep wouldn't come for Chloe.
She lay in bed for over an hour, waiting for it. She thought she
finally drifted off, but awoke again with sleep more distant than
before. She sat up, massaging the dull ache in her temples, wondering
how she would get through the night.


She heard something. She kept
still, waiting, and heard it again. Was that coming from the bridge?
Better than a strange noise from the engines.


She left her cabin, quietly as
she could, and tiptoed toward the bridge. Rather than open the door,
she slipped up to the bulkhead and put an ear against it. She heard a
muffled voice, droning, exclaiming, and once moaning.


Now Chloe was worried. She
stepped through the hatch, in mid-sentence for Pascal. He didn't notice.


"—lost, lost ...
could've waited ... forty, fifty years, I could have ... knowing it was
there ... given me strength ... how will I endure now?
How...?” Words gave way to a trembling sigh.


Chloe was transfixed. Was Pascal
having a breakdown? A mentally unhinged navigator was a danger too
horrible to contemplate. If his emotional state and that eerie detached
voice were anything to go by—


No, she had heard that voice
before. Pascal was in half-sleep, and this stream of consciousness
was—what? The emotional half of his brain, like the
analytical half she had heard before? That old duality theory of the
brain hemispheres had taken some knocks, but right now she believed it
unreservedly.


"...decades of this ... what's at
the end? ... same as before ... should never have seen ... false hope
... this all my life will be? ... Chloe!” She froze at the
word, hurled like an accusation. Had he noticed her?


"Chloe, why? ... thought you
cared ... thought you ... me ... stupid ... should have known ... my
fault? Ohhhh...” He dissolved completely into sobbing moans,
but his posture never slumped, his eyes never left their fixed line.


Chloe slipped out and wouldn't
let herself think of what she had witnessed until she was back in her
cabin, standing in the dark. Then she had to think about it.


It might have been two minutes,
or twenty, before she turned on a light and found something to write
with. She always liked to sketch out a story before she committed it to
video files, and this one would need more than usual.


Much of her thesis was unchanged.
People needed to know what Shastri and his band had done, how they had
gone around the Exploratory Commission they were supposed to be
serving, how their colony was tapping the pool of navigators to this
day. Given that set of facts, the response was in little doubt.


That was why she had to deliver
more than those facts. That was why the navigators needed an outside
advocate to plead their case. They needed her.


This wasn't how she did business.
She prided herself on letting facts speak for themselves, even when she
went in expecting, even hoping, they would speak a certain way. She
knew plenty of agenda journalists, and was glad at how few media
critics counted her among them.


That was about to end. All she
could do to mitigate it was to be honest about taking sides, and bend
every effort to lay out everything that mattered in the story, even the
parts that could hurt the navigators’ cause.


With all the evidence before the
public and the authorities, there could be deliberation, rather than a
foregone verdict. The navigators would have a chance to preserve what
they had built. The rest of humanity would have a chance to regain some
of what they had been denied for four decades. There might even be a
solution that satisfied everyone. Stranger things had happened, and
Chloe hoped it could happen here.


She was still betraying her word
to Zhang. Chloe had come to terms with that the day of Shastri's
funeral. What she hoped to soften was her betrayal of the man on the
bridge.


Chloe would tell him her plan in
the morning, in hopes that he would help her with it. If he scorned her
offer, she wouldn't blame him. He had had his hope for the future
ripped away, along with whatever trust, or more, he'd had in her. She
wasn't going to get that trust back. Maybe, though, she could give him
back his future.


That would have to be enough.


Copyright © 2006 Shane
Tourtellotte


[Back to Table of Contents]









ROLLBACK: PART II
OF IV by Robert J. Sawyer


Actually
getting something you've always wished for but never expected can be
fraught with complications.


THE STORY SO FAR:



The year is 2048.
Sarah and Donald
Halifax , both eighty-seven, are celebrating their
sixtieth wedding anniversary with their children and grandchildren at
their Toronto home. Don is melancholy: he knows that this is the last
milestone anniversary he and Sarah will be around for; their lives were
good and full, but now are drawing to a close.


Back in 2009, Sarah,
then a professor of astronomy at the University of Toronto, had decoded
the only radio transmission from another star ever detected by the SETI
project—a message from Sigma Draconis, 18.8 light-years
away—and she orchestrated Earth's reply to that message. A
phone call comes during the anniversary party. As the astonished Sarah
relays to her family: “The aliens from Sigma Draconis have
responded to the radio message my team sent all those years ago."



Incredibly, though,
the new message is encrypted—scrambled so
that it can't be read without a decryption key. It's baffling: the
whole point of SETI is to send messages that will be easy to read; the
notion that a message would be designed not to be
read makes no sense to Sarah.


The media begin
inundating Sarah with phone calls—everyone wants to know what
“the Grand Old Woman of SETI” makes of this; Sarah
ignores the calls. But she's intrigued when a humanoid robot shows up
at her door. Sarah has often said that SETI depends on the kindness of
strangers, and one of the most generous of those strangers has been
Cody McGavin , the billionaire founder of
McGavin Robotics. He's sent this robot, carrying a cell phone, because
he wants to talk to Sarah. She accepts his call, and he says he's got a
proposal for her, and wants to fly her and Don down to Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where his company is headquartered.


Astonished, Sarah
agrees, and she and Don meet with McGavin in his office. Sarah,
according to McGavin, is the key to communicating with the aliens. Four
decades ago, she was the one who figured out what the aliens were
asking in their original message, and he's sure that she'll be pivotal
in cracking the current one.


As McGavin says,
“Planets don't talk to each other. People do.
Some specific person on Sigma Draconis II sent the message, and one
specific person on this planet—you, Dr. Sarah
Halifax—figured out what he'd asked for, and organized our
reply. You've got a pen pal, Dr. Halifax. It happens that I, not you,
pay the postage, but he's your pen pal."


And so, McGavin says,
Sarah needs to be around for subsequent exchanges of messages, even
though, because of the speed-of-light time lag, decades will elapse
between each one.


Don thinks McGavin is
being both ridiculous and cruel, and tells him so: he and Sarah both
know that they have only a few years of life left.


Maybe not, says
McGavin. He offers to pay for a rollback for
Sarah: a new technique that can rejuvenate a person. It costs billions,
but it'll return Sarah to being physically in her mid-twenties, giving
her many decades of additional life to continue the dialogue with the
aliens.


Sarah is startled but
intrigued. But she immediately sets out one nonnegotiable condition:
McGavin must also pay for a rollback for her husband Don. McGavin
initially balks—Don was an audio engineer and producer for
CBC Radio before he retired; he's of no use to the SETI effort, and the
process is supremely expensive. But the rich man relents, and, after
considerable soul-searching, Sarah and Don agree to undergo the
procedure.


Tragically, though,
the procedure works for Don, but not for Sarah. Rejuvenex, the company
that performed the treatment, thinks the failure of Sarah to become
young again may be related to experimental therapies she underwent
decades previously for breast cancer—but regardless of the
cause, there's nothing they can do. Although it'll take months for
Don's rolling back to complete, it's inexorable: he's going to end up
being physically in his mid-twenties, while Sarah will remain in her
late eighties.


The current message
from Sigma Draconis remains unreadable, locked behind an encryption
algorithm that the aliens have clearly explained in a header to their
message but to which they've failed to provide the decryption key.



In trying to figure
out what that key might be—and to keep her mind off the
growing age gap between her and her husband—Sarah spends a
lot of time contemplating the first message from Sigma Draconis,
received way back in 2009. In it, the aliens established that although
it's technically correct to write the result of the question
“What is eight divided by twelve?” as either 2/3 or
4/6, the answer 2/3 is preferable (because the
fraction has been reduced). They also established that whether the
number one is or isn't a prime number is a matter of opinion. This
mathematical vocabulary allowed them to explore moral issues in the
rest of their message. Sarah vividly recalls the fateful day all those
years ago when she finally figured out exactly what the first message
was, and what sort of reply the aliens wanted...


* * * *


Chapter 13


To be young again!
So many had wished for it over the years, but Donald Halifax had
achieved it—and it felt wonderful. He
knew his strength and stamina had ebbed these past several decades, but
because it'd happened gradually he hadn't been conscious of how much
he'd lost. But it had all come rushing back over the last six months,
and the contrast was staggering; it was like being on a caffeine jag
all the time. The term that came to mind was “vim and
vigor"—and, although he'd played “vim”
often enough in Scrabble, he realized he didn't actually know precisely
what it meant, so he asked his datacom. “Ebullient vitality
and energy,” it told him.


And that was it! That was
precisely it! His energy seemed almost boundless, and he was elated to
have it back. “Zest,” another word only ever
employed on the Scrabble board, came to mind, too. The datacom's
synonyms for it—keen relish, hearty enjoyment,
gusto—were all applicable, but the cliché
“feeling like a million bucks” seemed woefully
inadequate; he felt like every one of the billions of dollars that had
been spent on him; he felt totally, joyously, happily alive.
He didn't shuffle anymore; he strode. Just walking along felt like the
way he used to feel on those motorized walkways at
airports—like he was bionic, moving so fast that it'd all be
a blur to onlookers. He could lift heavy boxes, jump over puddles,
practically fly up staircases—it wasn't quite leaping tall
buildings in a single bound, but it felt damn near as good.


And there was icing on this
delicious cake: the constant background of pain that had been with him
for so long was gone; it was as though he'd been
sitting next to a roaring jet engine for years on end, always trying to
shut out the sound, to ignore it, and now it had been turned off; the
silence was intoxicating. Youth, the old song said, was wasted on the
young. So true—because they didn't know what it would feel
like once it was gone. But now he had it again!


Dr. Petra Jones confirmed that
his rollback was complete. His cell-division rate, she said, had slowed
to normal and his telomeres had gone back to shortening with each
division, a new set of growth rings was starting to appear in his
bones, and so on. And the follow-up work had been completed, too. He
had new lenses, a new kidney, and a new prostate, all grown from his
own cells; his nose was restored to the merely honker-esque proportions
it'd had in his youth; his ears had been reduced; his teeth had been
whitened and his two remaining amalgam fillings replaced; and a few
nips and tucks had tidied up other things. For all intents and
purposes, he was physically twenty-five once more, and aging forward
normally from that point.


Don was still getting used to all
the wonderful improvements. His hearing was top-notch again, as was his
vision. But he'd had to buy a whole new wardrobe. After the
recalcification treatments and gene therapies, he'd regained the two
inches he'd lost over the years, and his limbs, which had been reduced
to not much more than skin and bones, had beefed up nicely. Ah, well;
his collection of cardigans and shirts with buttons would have looked
silly on a guy apparently in his twenties.


He'd had to stop wearing his
wedding ring, too. A decade ago, he'd had it reduced in size, since his
fingers had gotten thinner with age; now, it pinched painfully. He'd
been waiting until the rollback was over to get it sized back up, and
he'd get it done as soon as he found a good jeweler; he didn't want to
trust it to just anyone.


Ontario had mandatory driver
re-testing every two years starting at one's eightieth birthday. Don
had failed the last time. He hadn't missed it, and, besides, Sarah was
still able to drive when they really needed to go somewhere. Now,
though, he probably should take the test again; he had no doubt he'd
pass this time.


At some point, he'd also have to
get a new passport, with his new face, and new credit cards, also with
his new face. Technically, he'd still be entitled to seniors’
discounts in restaurants and at movies, but there'd be no way to claim
them without convincing incredulous waiters and clerks. Too bad,
really. Unlike, he was sure, every other person who had undergone a
rollback, he really could use the break.


Despite all the good things,
there were a few downsides to being young again.
Sarah and Don were spending double on groceries now. And Don slept
more. For at least ten years, he and Sarah had been doing just fine
with six hours’ sleep each night, but he found he needed a
full eight again. It was a small price to pay: losing two hours a day,
but gaining an extra sixty years. And, besides, presumably as he aged
the second time, his sleep and food requirements would lessen again.


It was now a little after 11:00
P.M., and Don was getting ready for bed. Usually, he was quick in the
bathroom, but he'd gone out today, and it had been hot and muggy.
Toronto in August had been unpleasant when he'd been a kid; these days,
the heat and humidity were brutal. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep
well if he didn't first have a quick shower. Carl had installed one of
those diagonal support bars for them several years ago. Sarah still
needed it, but Don now found it got in the way.


He shampooed, quite enjoying the
sensation. He now had a full head of inch-long sandy-brown hair, and he
just loved the feel of it. His chest hair was no longer white either,
and his other body hair had lost its grayness.


The shower was sensuous, and he
luxuriated in it. And, as he cleaned himself down there, he felt his
penis growing a little stiff. As the water ran over him, he idly
stroked himself. He was thinking of finishing himself
off—that seemed the most expedient course—when
Sarah entered the bathroom. He could see her through the translucent
shower curtain; she was doing something over by the sink. He rinsed the
soap off, his erection fading as he did so. Then he turned off the
water, pulled back the shower curtain, and stepped out of the tub. He
was used by now to being able to swing his legs one after the other
over the side without it being painful, and without—as he'd
been doing in the preceding few years—sitting on the edge of
the tub while doing so.


Her back was to him. She was
already dressed for bed, wearing, as she always did in summers, a long,
loose red T-shirt. He grabbed a towel from the rack and vigorously
dried himself off, then headed down the short corridor to the bedroom.
He'd always been a pajama man, but he lay naked on top of the green
sheets, looking up at the ceiling. After a moment, though, he felt
cold—their house had central air-conditioning, and an outlet
vent was directly above the bed—and so he scurried under the
sheets.


A moment later, Sarah entered.
She turned off the light as she did so, but there was enough
illumination seeping in from outside that he could see her moving
slowly to her side of the bed, and he felt the mattress compressing as
she climbed in. “Good night, sweetheart,” she said.


He rolled over on his side, and
touched her shoulder. Sarah seemed surprised by the
contact—for the last decade or so, they'd had to plan sex in
advance, since Don had needed to take a pill beforehand to kick-start
his lower regions—but soon he felt her hand gently on his
hip. He moved closer to her and brought his head down to kiss her. She
responded after a moment, and they kissed for about ten seconds. When
he pulled away, she was lying on her back, and he was looking down at
her while leaning on one elbow.


"Hey,” she said, her
voice soft.


"Hey, yourself,” he
said, smiling.


He wanted to bounce off the
walls, to have wild, athletic sex—but she wouldn't be able to
stand that, and so he touched her gently, softly, and—


"Ouch!” she said.


He wasn't sure what he'd done,
but he said, “Sorry.” He made his touch even
lighter, more feathery. He heard her make a sharp intake of breath, but
he couldn't tell if it was in pain or pleasure. He shifted positions
again, and she moved slightly, and he actually heard her bones creak.


The activity was so slow, and her
touch so weak, that he felt himself going soft. While looking into her
eyes he vigorously stroked himself, trying to get his erection back.
She looked so vulnerable; he didn't want her to think he was rejecting
her.


"Tell me if this
hurts,” he said as he climbed on top of her, making sure that
his own arms and legs were bearing almost all his weight; he wasn't the
least bit fat, but he was still much heavier than he'd been before the
rollback. He maneuvered carefully, gently, looking for a sweet
compromise between what his body was now capable of and what hers could
endure. But after only a single thrust, one that seemed oh-so-gentle to
him, he could see the pain on her face, and he quickly withdrew,
rolling onto his back on her side of the bed.


"I'm so sorry,” she
said, softly.


"No, no,” he said.
“It's fine.” He turned onto his side, facing her,
and very gently held her in his arms.


* * * *


Chapter 14


Sarah had leapt from her chair in
the basement on that fateful night all those years ago, and Don had
hugged her, and lifted her up so that her feet weren't touching the
ground, and he'd swung her around, and he kissed her hard, right there,
in front of the kids.


"My wife the genius!”
Don declared, grinning from ear to ear.


"More like your wife the plodding
researcher,” replied Sarah, but she was laughing as she said
it.


"No, no, no,” he said.
“You figured it out—before anyone else did, you
figured out the meat of the message."


"I've got to post something about
this,” she said. “I mean, it's no damn good if I
keep it a secret. Whoever announces this publicly first is the one
who..."


"Whose name will be in the
history books,” he said. “I am so
proud of you."


"Thanks, darling."


"But you're right,” he
said. “You should post something, right
now.” He let her go, and she started to move back to the
computer.


"No, Mom,” said Carl.
“Let me.” Sarah was a hunt-and-peck typist, and not
a very fast one. Her father, back in Edmonton, had never understood her
wanting to be a scientist, and had encouraged her to take all the
typing she could so she'd be ready for a secretarial career. A single
typing course had been mandatory. It was the one class in her whole
life that Sarah had failed.


She looked at her teenage son,
who clearly, in his own way, wanted to share in this moment.
“Dictate what you want to say,” Carl said.
“I'll type it in."


She smiled at him, and began
pacing the length of the rec room. “All right, here goes. The
meat of the message is..."


As she was talking, Don ran
upstairs and called an overnight news producer at the CBC. By the time
he returned to the basement, Sarah was just finishing dictating her
report. He watched as Carl posted it to the SETI Institute newsgroup,
then Don said, “Okay, hon, I've got you booked for a TV
interview in one hour, and you'll be on both The Current
and Sounds Like Canada in the morning."


She looked at her watch.
“God, it's almost midnight. Emily, Carl, you should be in
bed. And, Don, I don't want to go downtown this late—"


"You don't have to. A camera crew
is on its way here."


"Really? My God!"


"It pays to know the right
people,” he said with a grin.


"I—um, well, I look a
mess..."


"You look gorgeous."


"Besides, who the hell is
watching TV at this hour?"


"Shut-ins, insomniacs, people
channel-flipping looking for nudity—"


"Dad!” Emily had her
little hands planted on her hips.


"—but they'll keep
repeating the report, and it'll be picked up all over the world, I'm
sure."


* * * *


"We'd been so wrong,”
Sarah told Shelagh Rogers the next morning. Don wasn't the
Toronto sound engineer for Sounds Like Canada—Joe
Mahoney was doing that these days—but Don stood behind Joe as
he operated the board, looking over Joe's shoulder at Sarah.


And, while doing so, he reflected
on the irony. Sarah was in Toronto, but Shelagh was in Vancouver, where
Radio One's signature program originated—two people who
couldn't see each other, communicating over vast distances by radio. It
was perfect.


"Wrong in what way?”
Shelagh's voice was rich and velvety, yet full of enthusiasm, an
intoxicating combination.


"In every
way,” Sarah said. “In everything we'd assumed about
SETI. What a ridiculous notion, that beings would send messages across
the light-years to talk about math!” She
shook her head, her brown hair bouncing as she did so. “Math
and physics are the same everywhere in the universe. There's no need to
contact an alien race to find out if they agree that one plus three
equals four, that seven is a prime number, that the value of pi
is 3.14159, et cetera. None of those things are
matters of local circumstance, or of opinion. No, the things worth
discussing are moral issues—things that are debatable, things
that an alien race might have a radically different perspective on."


"And that's what the message from
Sigma Draconis is about?” prodded Shelagh.


"Exactly! Ethics,
morality—the big questions. And that's the other thing, the
other way in which we were totally wrong about what to expect from
SETI. Carl Sagan used to talk about us receiving an Encyclopaedia
Galactica. But no one would bother sending a message across
the light-years to tell you things. Rather, they'd
send a message to ask you things."


"And so this message from the
stars is ... what? A questionnaire?"


"Yes, that's right. A series of
questions, most of which are multiple choice, laid out like a
three-dimensional spreadsheet, with space for a thousand different
people to provide their answers to each question. The aliens clearly
want a cross-section of our views, and they went to great pains to
establish a vocabulary for conveying value judgments and dealing with
matters of opinion, with sliding scales for precisely quantifying
responses."


"How many questions are there?"


"Eighty-four,” said
Sarah. “And they're all over the map."


"For instance?"


Sarah took a sip from the bottle
of water she'd been provided with. “'Is it acceptable to
prevent pregnancy when the population is low?’ ‘Is
it acceptable to terminate pregnancy when the population is
high?’ ‘Is it all right for the state to execute
bad people?’”


"Birth control, abortion, capital
punishment,” said Shelagh, sounding amazed. “I
guess those are posers even for extraterrestrials."


"So it seems,” said
Sarah. “And there are lots more, all in one way or another
about ethics and acceptable behavior. ‘Should systems be set
up to thwart cheaters at all costs?’ ‘If an
identifiable population is disproportionately bad, is it permissible to
restrict the entire population?’ These are just preliminary
translations, of course. I'm sure there'll be a lot of quibbling over
the exact meaning of some of them."


"I'm sure there will
be,” said Shelagh, affably.


"But I wonder if the aliens
aren't a bit naïve, at least by our standards,” said
Sarah. “I mean, basically, we're a race of hypocrites. We
believe societal norms should be followed by others, and that there are
always good reasons for ourselves to be exempt. So, yeah, asking about
our morals is interesting, but if they actually expect our espoused
beliefs to have any strong relationship to our actual behavior, they
could be in for a big surprise. The fact that we even need a platitude
‘practice what you preach’ underscores just how
natural it is for us to do exactly the opposite."


Shelagh made her trademark
throaty laugh. “Do as I say, not as I do."


"Exactly,” said Sarah.
“Still, it's amazing, really, the sociological concepts the
aliens were able to get to from talking about math. For instance,
building on some discussion of set theory, several of their questions
deal with in-groups and out-groups. William Sumner, who coined the term
‘ethnocentrism,’ noted that what he called
‘primitive peoples’ had very different ideas about
morality for in-group versus out-group members. The aliens seem to want
to know if we've risen above that."


"I'd like to think we
have,” said Shelagh.


"For sure,” agreed
Sarah. “One might also expect them to wonder whether we'd
outgrown religion.” She looked through the glass at Don.
“The vocabulary the Dracons established certainly would have
made it possible to formulate questions about whether we believed an
intelligence existed outside the universe—essentially,
whether a God exists. They could have also asked if we believed any
information persisted after death—in other words, whether
souls exist. But they didn't ask those things. My husband and I were
arguing about that on the way down here this morning. He said the
reason they didn't ask about religious matters is obvious: no advanced
race could still be caught up in such superstitious beliefs. But maybe
it's just the opposite. Maybe it's so blindingly obvious to the aliens
that God exists that it never even occurred to them to ask us if we'd
failed to notice him."


"Fascinating,” said
Shelagh. “But why, do you think, do the aliens want to know
all this?"


Sarah took a deep breath, and let
it out slowly—causing Don to briefly cringe at the dead air.
But, at last, she spoke. “That's a very good question."


* * * *


Chapter 15


Like most astronomers, Sarah
fondly remembered the movie Contact, based on Carl
Sagan's novel of the same name. Indeed, she argued it was one of the
few cases where the movie was actually better than the over-long book.
She hadn't seen it for decades, but a reference to it in one of the
news stories about the attempts to decrypt the response from Sigma
Draconis had brought it to mind. With pleasant anticipation, she sat
down next to Don on the couch to watch it on Wednesday night. Slowly
but surely she was getting used to his newly youthful appearance, but
one of the reasons she felt like watching a movie was that she'd be
doing something with Don in which they'd be sitting side by side and
not really looking at each other.


Jodie Foster did a great job
portraying a passionate scientist, but Sarah found herself smiling in
amusement when Foster said, “There are 400 billion stars out
there, just in our galaxy alone,” which was true. But then
she went on to say, “If only one out of a million of those
had planets, and if just one out of a million of those had life, and if
just one out of a million of those had intelligent life, there would be
literally millions of civilizations out there.” Nope, a
million-million-millionth of 400 billion is so close to zero as to
practically be zero.


Sarah looked at Don to see if
he'd caught it, but he gave no sign. She knew he didn't like being
interrupted by asides during movies—you couldn't memorize
trivia the way he did if you weren't able to concentrate—and
so she let the screenwriter's minor flub pass. And, besides, despite
its inaccuracy, what Foster had said rang true, in a way. For decades,
people had been plugging numbers made up out of whole cloth into the
Drake equation, which purported to estimate how many intelligent
civilizations existed in the galaxy. Foster's wildly inaccurate figure,
pulled out of the air, was actually quite typical of these debates.


But Sarah's amusement soon turned
to downright cringing. Foster went to see a large corporation to get
funding for SETI, and, when it initially turned her down, she went
ballistic, exclaiming that contacting an extraterrestrial civilization
would be the biggest moment in human history, more significant than
anything anyone had ever done or could possibly imagine doing, a
species-altering moment that would be worth any cost to attain.


Sarah cringed because she
remembered giving such patently ridiculous speeches herself. Granted,
the detection of the original signal from Sigma Draconis had been
page-one news. But until the second message had been received, it had
been over thirty years since a mention of aliens had appeared on the
front page or main screen of any newspaper that didn't have the words
“National” and “Enquirer” in
its title.


It wasn't just SETI researchers
who had overhyped the impact of such things. Sarah had forgotten that
then-president Bill Clinton appeared in Contact,
but there he was, talking about how this breakthrough was going to
change the world. Unlike the cameos by Jay Leno and Larry King, though,
which had been specifically staged for the movie, she immediately
recognized the Clinton speech as archival footage—not about
the detection of alien radio messages, but about the unveiling of
ALH84001, the Martian meteorite that supposedly contained microscopic
fossils. But despite the presidential hyperbole, that hunk of rock
hadn't changed the world, and, indeed, when it was ultimately
discredited several years later, there was almost no press coverage,
not because the story was being buried, but rather because no one in
the public even really cared. The existence of alien life was a
curiosity to most people, nothing more. It didn't change the way they
treated their spouses and kids; it didn't make stocks rise or fall; it
just didn't matter. Earth went on spinning, unperturbed, and its
denizens continued to make love, and war, with the same frequency.


As the film continued, Sarah
found herself getting increasingly pissed off. The movie had its
extraterrestrials beaming blueprints to Earth so humans could build a
ship that could tunnel through hyperspace, taking Jodie Foster off to
meet the aliens face to face. SETI, the movie hinted, wasn't really
about radio communication with the stars. Rather, like every other
cheapjack Hollywood space opera, it was just a stepping stone to actually
going to other worlds. From the beginning with Jodie Foster's
cockeyed math, through the middle with the stirring speeches about how
this would completely transform humanity, to the end with the totally
baseless promise that SETI would lead to ways to travel across the
galaxy and maybe even reunite us with dead loved ones, Contact
portrayed the hype, not the reality. If Frank Capra had made a
propaganda series called “Why We Listen,” Contact
could have been the first installment.


As the credits started to roll,
Sarah looked at Don. “What did you think?” she
asked.


"It's a bit dated,” he
said. But then he lifted his hands from his lap, as if to forestall an
objection. “Not that there's anything wrong with that, but..."


But he was right, she thought.
Things are of their times; you can't plug something meant for one era
into another. “What ever happened to Jodie Foster,
anyway?” she asked. “I mean, is she still alive?"


"She might be, I guess. She's
about your...” He trailed off, but it had been obvious what
he was going to say: “She's about your age.” Not
“about our age.” Although he
still saw her as an eighty-seven-year-old, it seemed he was now in full
denial about the chronological facts that applied to
himself—and that was driving Sarah up the walls.


"I always liked her,”
she said. When Contact had come out, the American
press had said that Ellie Arroway, Jodie Foster's character, was based
on Jill Tarter, and the Canadian papers had tried to spin it that Sarah
Halifax had been the inspiration. And although it was true enough that
Sarah had known Sagan back then, the comparison was a stretch. Why the
press refused to believe that characters were just made up was beyond
her. She remembered all the theories about who the paleontologists in Jurassic
Park were based on; every woman who had taken even one paleo
course was reputed to be the model for the Laura Dern character.


"You know what movie Jodie Foster
is really good in?” Sarah said.


Don looked at her.


"It's um—oh, you know
the one. It was one of my favorites."


"I need another clue,”
he said, a bit sharply.


"Oh, you know! We bought it on
VHS, and then DVD, and then downloaded it in HD. Now, why can't I think
of the title? It's on the tip of my tongue..."


"Yes? Yes?"


Sarah winced. Don was becoming
more and more impatient with her as time went on. When he'd been slow,
too, he hadn't seemed to mind her slowness as much, but now they were
out-of-synch, like the twins in that film she used to show her
undergrads about relativity. She thought about snapping that she
couldn't help being old, but, then again, he
couldn't help that he was young. Still, his impatience made her
nervous, and that made it even harder for her to dredge up the title
she was looking for.


"Um,” she said,
“it had that guy in it, too..."


"Maverick?” snapped
Don. "The Silence of the Lambs?"


"No, no. You know, the one about
the—” Why wasn't the term coming to
her?—"the, the ... the child prodigy."


"Little Man
Tate,” Don said at once.


"Right,” said Sarah,
very softly, looking away.


* * * *


Chapter 16


Don moved over to the La-Z-Boy
after Sarah had gone to bed, and sat glumly in it. He knew he'd made
her feel bad earlier, when she'd been trying to remember the title of
that movie, and he hated himself for it. Why had he been patient when
his days were numbered, but impatient now that he had so much time?
He'd tried not to snap at Sarah, he really had. But he just couldn't
help himself. She was so old, and—


The phone rang. He glanced at the
call display, and felt his eyebrows going up: “Trenholm,
Randell.” It was a name he hadn't thought about for thirty
years or more, a guy he'd known at the CBC back in the Twenty-Teens.
Ever since the rollback had gone bad for Sarah, Don had been avoiding
seeing people he knew—and now he was doubly glad they didn't
have picture phones.


Randy was a couple of years older
than Don was, and, as he picked up the handset, it occurred to him that
it might be Randy's wife calling. So often these last few years, calls
from old friends were really calls from their surviving spouses with
word that the friend had passed on.


"Hello?” said Don.


"Don Halifax, you old son of a
gun!"


"Randy Trenholm! How the hell are
you?"


"How is anyone when they're
eighty-nine?” Randy asked. “I'm alive."


"Glad to hear it,” Don
said. He wanted to ask about Randy's wife, but couldn't remember her
name. “What's up?"


"You're in the news a lot
lately,” Randy said.


"You mean Sarah is,”
said Don.


"No, no. Not Sarah. You, at least
in the newsgroups I read."


"And, um, what groups are those?"


"Betterhumans. Immortality. I Do
Go On."


He knew gossip about what had
happened to him had to have spread further than just the block he lived
on. But, “Yeah, well,” is all he said in reply.


"So Don Halifax is rubbing
shoulders with the movers and shakers,” said Randy.
“Cody McGavin. Pretty impressive."


"I only met him once."


"Guy must have written you a
pretty big check,” Randy said.


Don was feeling more and more
uncomfortable. “Nah,” he said. “I never
saw the bill for the procedure."


"Didn't know you were interested
in life prolongation,” Randy said.


"I'm not."


"But you got it."


"Randy, look, it's getting late.
Is there something I can help you with?"


"It's just that, like I said, you
know Cody McGavin—"


"Not really."


"And so I thought maybe you could
have a word with him, you know, on my behalf."


"Randy, I don't—"


"I mean, I've got a lot to offer,
Don. And a lot of things still to do, but—"


"Randy, honestly, I—"


"Come on, Don. It's not like
you're special. But he paid for your rollback."


"It was Sarah he wanted to have
rollback, and—"


"Oh, I know, but it didn't work
for her, right? That's what they say, anyway. And, look, Don, I'm
really sorry about that. I've always liked Sarah."


Randy apparently expected a
response, as if having made this obeisance he was now due something in
return. But Don remained quiet. After the silence had grown to an
uncomfortable length, Randy spoke again. “So, anyway, he did
it for you, and—"


"And you think he'll do it for
you, too? Randy, I honestly don't know how much all the work I had done
cost, but—"


"They estimate eight billion on
Betterhumans. Most people on I Do Go On think it's more like ten."


"But,” continued
Don, firmly, “I didn't ask for it, and I didn't want it,
and—"


"And that's pocket change to the
likes of Cody McGavin."


"I don't think that's pocket
change to anybody,” said Don,
“but that's beside the point. He can spend his money any way
he likes."


"Sure, but now that he's doling
it out to let some of those who aren't insanely rich have a rollback,
well, I thought, you know, maybe..."


"There's nothing I can do for
you. I'm sorry, but—"


The voice was getting more
desperate. “Please, Don. I've still got a lot to contribute.
If I had a rollback, I could..."


"What?” asked Don, his
tone sharp. “Cure cancer? It's been done. Invent a better
mousetrap? Gene-splicers will just make a better mouse."


"No, important things.
I'm—you don't know what I've done in the last twenty years,
Don. I've—I've done things. But there's a lot more I want to
accomplish. I just need more time, is all."


"I'm sorry, Randy. Really, I
am—"


"If you'd just call
McGavin, Don. That's all I'm asking. Just make one phone call."


He thought about snapping that it
had taken forever to get through to McGavin the last time, but that was
none of Randy's business. “I'm sorry, Randy,” he
said again.


"Damn it, what did you do to
deserve this? You're not that special. You're not that bright, that
talented. You just fucking won the lottery, is all, and now you won't
even help me buy a ticket."


"For Christ's sake, Randy..."


"It's not fair. You said it
yourself. You aren't even interested in transhumanism, in life
extension. But me, I've spent most of my life pursuing that.
‘Live long enough to live forever'—that's what
Kurzweil said. Just hold on for a few more decades, and we'll have
rejuvenation techniques, we'll have practical immortality. Well, I did
hold on, and it's here, the techniques are here. But I can't afford
them."


"They'll come down—"


"Don't fucking tell me they'll
come down in price. I know they'll come down in
price. But not in time, damn it. I'm eighty-nine! If you'd just call
McGavin, just pull a couple of strings. That's all I'm
asking—for old time's sake."


"I'm sorry,” Don said.
“I really am."


"Damn you, Halifax! You've got to
do this. I—I'm going to die. I'm going—"


Don slammed the handset down, and
sat quaking in his chair. He thought about going upstairs to see Sarah,
but she couldn't understand what he was going through any more than
Randy Trenholm did; he so wished he had someone to talk to. Of course,
there were other people who had undergone rollbacks, but they were
totally out of his league—the financial gulf separating him
from them was so much greater than their shared experience of
rejuvenation.


A while later, he headed
upstairs, and went through the motions of getting ready for bed, and,
at last, he lay down, next to Sarah, who had already turned in, and he
stared at the ceiling—something he found himself doing more
and more these days.


Randy Trenholm was right, in a
way. Some people probably should be kept around. The last of the twelve
men who had walked on the moon had died in 2028. The greatest thing the
human race had ever done had happened in Don's lifetime, but no one who
had actually ever set foot upon the lunar surface was still alive. All
that was left were photos and videos and rocks and a scant few poetic
descriptions, including Aldrin's “magnificent
desolation.” People kept saying it was inevitable that humans
would someday return to the moon. Perhaps, thought Don, he might now
live to see that, but, until they did, the actual experience of those
small steps, those giant leaps, had passed from living memory.


And, even more tragic, the last
survivor of the Nazi death camps—the final witness to those
atrocities—had died in 2037; the worst thing humanity had
ever done had also passed out of living memory.


Both the moon landing and the
Holocaust had their deniers: people who claimed that such wonder, and
such horror, never could have happened, that humans were incapable of
such technological triumphs, or of such conscienceless evil. And now,
every last one of those who could gainsay that from personal experience
was gone.


But Donald Halifax lived on, with
nothing special to attest to, no important experience to which he alone
bore witness, nothing that needed to be shared with future generations.
He was just some guy.


Sarah stirred in her sleep next
to him, rolling onto her side. He looked over at her in the darkness,
at the woman who had done what no one else had ever done: figured out
what an alien radio message meant. And, if Cody McGavin was right, she
was the best bet to do it again. But she'd be gone all too soon, while
he would go on. If the rollback were only going to work for one of
them, it should have been her, Don knew. She
mattered; he didn't.


He shook his head, his hair
rustling against the pillow. He knew logically that he hadn't taken the
rejuvenation away from Sarah, that its success with him had nothing to
do with its failure for her. And yet the guilt was oppressive, like the
weight of six feet of earth pressing down upon him.


"I'm sorry,” he
whispered into the dark, facing the ceiling again.


"For what?” Sarah's
voice startled him. He hadn't realized she was awake, but now that he
turned his head to face her, he could see little reflections of the dim
outside lights in her open eyes.


He scooched closer to his wife
and gently hugged her to him. He thought about letting the words he'd
spoken apply only to his having been short with her earlier that
evening, but there was more—so much more. “I'm
sorry,” he said at last, “that the rollback worked
on me but not on you."


He felt her expand in his embrace
as she took a deep breath, then contract again as she let it out
slowly. “If it could only have worked on one of
us,” said Sarah, “I'm glad it was you."


He hadn't been expecting that at
all. “Why?"


"Because,” she said,
“you're such a good man."


He could think of no reply, and
so he just held her. Eventually, her breathing grew regular and noisy.
He lay there for hours, listening to it.


* * * *


Chapter 17


It was time, Don knew, that he
got a job. Not that he and Sarah were desperate for money; they both
had pensions from their employers and the Federal government. But he
needed to do something with all the energy he now
had, and, besides, a job would probably help get him out of his
deepening funk. Despite the physical wonders of being young again, it
was all weighing heavily on him—the difficulty in relating to
Sarah, the jealousy of old friends, the endless hours he spent staring
into space while wishing things had turned out differently.


And so he walked over to North
York Centre station, just a couple of blocks from their house, and got
on the subway at the station located beneath the library tower there.
It was a hot August day, and he couldn't help noticing the scantily
clad young women aboard the train—all of them
healthy-looking, tanned, and lovely. Watching them made the trip go
quickly, although he was stunned, and a bit embarrassed, to note that a
girl who got off at Wellesley had in fact been looking at him with what
seemed to be admiration.


When he reached his own
stop—Union Station—he got out and walked the short
distance to the CBC Broadcast Centre, a giant Borg cube of a building.


He knew this place
like—well, not like the back of his hand; he was still
getting used to that appendage's new, smooth, liver-spot-free
appearance. But he no longer had an employee's passcard, and so had to
wait for someone to come and escort him up from the Front Street
security desk. While he waited, he looked at the full-size holograms of
current CBC Radio personalities. Back in his day, they'd been a
collection of cardboard standees. None of the faces were familiar to
him, although he recognized most of the names.


"Donald Halifax?” Don
turned and saw a slight Asian man in his mid-thirties, with incongruous
peach-colored hair. “I'm Ben Chou."


"Thank you for agreeing to see
me,” Don said, as Ben got him through the gate.


"Not at all, not at
all,” said Ben. “You're a bit of a legend around
here."


He felt his eyebrows go up.
“Really?"


They entered an elevator.
“The only audio engineer John Pellatt would work with? Oh,
yes indeed."


They left the elevator, and Ben
led them into a cramped office. “Anyway,” he said,
“I'm glad you came down. It's a pleasure to meet you. But I
don't get what you're doing applying for a job. I mean, if you can
afford a rollback, you hardly need to work here.” He looked
around the windowless office. It happened that they were on the fifth
floor, and so should have been able to see Lake Ontario, but no matter
where you were in this building, it felt subterranean.


"I can't afford a
rollback,” he said, taking the seat Ben was gesturing at.


"Oh, yeah, well, your wife..."


He narrowed his eyes.
“What about her?"


Ben looked cornered.
“Um, isn't she rich? She decoded that first message, after
all."


"No, she's not rich,
either.” Perhaps she could have been, he thought, if she'd
struck the right book deal at the right time, or had charged for all
the public lectures she'd given in the first few months after the
original message had been received. But that was water under the
bridge; you don't get a second chance at everything.


"Oh, well, I—"


"So I need a job,” Don
said. Interrupting his potential boss probably wasn't a strategy a
career counselor would have approved of, he thought, but he couldn't
take this.


"Ah,” said Ben. He
looked down at the flatsie reader on his desktop. “Well, you
did Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson. Good man; so did
I.” Ben squinted a bit. “Class of 1982.”
He shook his head. “I was class of 2035."


The point was obvious, so Don
tried to deflect it by making light of it. “I wonder if we
had any of the same instructors?"


To his credit, Ben snorted a
laugh. “And how long did you work here at the CBC?"


"Thirty-six years,”
said Don. “I was a recording-engineer/producer when I..."


He backed away from saying the
word, but Ben provided it, underscored by a crisp nod of his head:
“Retired."


"But,” continued Don,
“as you can see, I'm young again, and I want to go back to
work."


"And what year did you retire?"


It was right in front of him, Don
knew, on his resumé, but the bastard was going to force him
to say it aloud. “Twenty Twenty-Two."


Ben shook his head slightly.
“Wow. Who was prime minister back then?"


"Anyway,” said Don,
ignoring the remark, “I need a job, and, well, once the
Mother Corp is in your blood..."


Ben nodded. “Ever
worked on a Mennenga 9600?"


Don shook his head.


"An Evoterra C-49? Those are what
we use now."


He shook his head again.


"What about editing?"


"Sure. Thousands of
hours"—at least half of which had been cutting physical audio
tape with razor blades.


"But on what sort of equipment?"


"Studer. Neve Capricorn.
Euphonix.” He deliberately left off model numbers, and he
also refrained from mentioning Kadosura, which had been out of business
for twenty years now.


"Still,” said Ben,
“the equipment keeps changing all the time."


"I understand that. But the
principles—"


"The principles change, too. You
know that. We don't edit the same way we did a decade ago, let alone five
decades ago. The style and pace are different, the sound
is different.” He shook his head. “I wish I could
help you, Don. Anything for a fellow Ryerson man—you know
that. But...” He spread his arms. “Even a guy fresh
out of school knows the stuff better than you do. Hell, he knows it
better than I do."


"But I don't have to be
hands-on,” said Don. “I mean, the last while, I
wasn't much, anyway. I was mostly doing management, and that doesn't
change."


"You're exactly right,”
Ben said. “It doesn't change. Meaning a guy who looks
twenty-something isn't going to be able to command respect from men and
women in their fifties. Plus, I need managers who know when an engineer
is bullshitting them about what the equipment can and can't do."


"Isn't there anything?”
Don asked.


"Have you tried downstairs?"


Don drew his eyebrows together.
“In the lobby?” The lobby—the Barbara
Frum Atrium, as it was technically known, and Don was old enough to
have actually worked with Barb—contained nothing much except
a couple of restaurants, the three security desks, and lots of open
space.


Ben nodded.


"The lobby!” Don
exploded. “I don't want to be a fucking security guard."


Ben raised his hands, palm out.
“No, no. That's not what I meant. I meant—don't
take this the wrong way, but what I meant was the museum."


Don felt his jaw go slack; Ben
might as well have punched him in the gut. He'd all but forgotten about
it, but, yes, in the lobby there was a small museum devoted to the
history of the CBC.


"I'm not a bloody exhibit,”
Don said.


"No, no—no! That's not
what I meant, either. I just meant that, you know, maybe you could join
the curatorial staff. I mean, you know so much of that stuff first
hand. Not just Pellatt, but Peter Gzowski, Sook-Yin Lee, Bob McDonald,
all those guys. You knew them and worked with them. And it says here
you worked on As It Happens and Faster
Than Light."


Ben was trying to be kind, Don
knew, but it really was too much. “I don't want to live in
the past,” he said. “I want to be part of the
present."


Ben looked at the wall clock, one
of those broadcasting units with red LED digits in the middle encircled
by sixty points of light that illuminated in sequence to mark passing
seconds. “Look,” he said, “I've got to
get back to work. Thanks for dropping by.” And he got up and
extended his hand. Whether Ben's shake was normally limp and weak, or
whether he was being delicate because he knew he was shaking an
eighty-seven-year-old's hand, Don couldn't say.


* * * *


Chapter 18


Don returned to the lobby. It
said something nice about Canada that anyone could walk around the vast
Barbara Frum Atrium, looking up at the six floors of indoor balconies,
and watch while all sorts of CBC personalities—the
Corporation frowned on the use of the word
“stars"—came and went, unaccompanied by security
guards or handlers. The little restaurant Ooh La La!, which had been
there forever, had tables spilling out into the atrium, and there was
one of Newsworld's anchors enjoying a Greek salad;
at the next table, the lead performer in a children's show Don had
watched with his granddaughter was sipping coffee; crossing over to the
elevators was the woman who currently hosted Ideas.
All very open, all very welcoming—of everyone, except him.


The broadcasting museum was tiny,
and tucked off to one side, clearly an afterthought in designing the
building. Some of the stuff predated Don. The kiddie program Uncle
Chichimus was before his time, and This Hour Has
Seven Days and Front Page Challenge were
shows his parents had watched. He was old enough to
remember Wayne and Shuster, but not old enough to
have ever thought they were funny. But he'd learned his first French
from Chez Hélène, and had
spent many happy hours with Mr. Dressup and The
Friendly Giant. Don took a minute to look at the model of
Friendly's castle, and the puppets of Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the
Giraffe. He read the placard that explained that Jerome's bizarre color
scheme of purple and orange had been selected in the days of
black-and-white TV because it had good contrast, and had been left
intact when the program switched to color in 1966, giving him a
psychedelic look, an unintentional reflection of the times.


Don had forgotten that Mister
Rogers had gotten his start here, but there it was, the original
miniature trolley from that show, back when it had been called Mister
Rogers’ Neighbourhood, the last word notably
sporting a U.


No one else was in the museum
just now. The emptiness of the handful of rooms was a testament to the
fact that people didn't care about the past.


Monitors were showing clips from
old CBC shows, some of which he remembered, much of which was
cringe-worthy. In the vaults here there must be tapes of dreadful stuff
like King of Kensington and Rocket Robin
Hood. Perhaps some things should be
allowed to pass out of living memory; perhaps some things should be
ephemeral.


There was some old radio and
television hardware on display, including machines he himself had used
early in his career. He shook his head. He shouldn't be curator of a
museum like this. He should be on display, a relic of a bygone age.


Of course, he didn't look like a
relic—and the Canadian National Exhibition no longer had a
freak show; he could just barely remember visiting the Ex as a child
and hearing the barkers call out descriptions of fish-tailed men and
bearded ladies.


He left the museum, and left the
building, going out the Front Street entrance. There were other
broadcasters in town, but he doubted he'd have better luck with them.
And, besides, he liked working on radio drama and audio documentaries
of the kind nobody but the CBC made anymore; as far as other
broadcasters would be concerned, his CV might as well have said he
painted cave walls at Lascaux.


Don had arrived at the entrance
to Union Station, which was at the bottom of the U comprising the
oldest part of the subway system. He headed downstairs and passed
through the turnstile, paying the normal adult—rather than
senior citizen's—fare, and then took the escalator down to
the platform. He stood beneath one of those digital clocks that hung
from the ceiling. A train came rushing in, and he felt his hair
whipping because of its passage, and—and he was transfixed,
unable to move. The doors opened, making their mechanical drumroll
sound, and people jostled in and out. Then the three descending tones
sounded, indicating that the doors were closing, and the train started
moving again. He found himself stepping right up to the edge of the
platform, looking at its departing back.


A little boy, no more than five
or six, was staring out the rear window at him. Don remembered when he
used to like sitting in the front car as a kid, watching the tunnel
speed by; the rear car, looking back, was almost as good. There was a
grinding sound as the train banked, turning to go north, and then it
was gone. He looked down onto the tracks, maybe four feet below, his
toes sticking over the platform's edge. He saw a gray mouse scuttle by,
and he saw the third rail, and the notices, covered with grime, that
warned of the electrocution danger.


Soon enough, another train was
coming down the curving track; its headlights cast mad shadows in the
tunnel before it became visible. Don felt the vibration of the train,
inches from his face, as it zoomed past him, felt his hair whipping
again.


The train stopped. He looked into
the window facing him. Most riders got out at Union, although a few
people always rode the train around the bend.


Around the bend.



This was the
time-honored method to do this, wasn't it? Here, in Toronto, it was the
way the despondent had handled things since before he'd been born. The
subway trains roared into the station at high speed. If you waited at
the right end of the platform, you could jump in front of an incoming
one, and—


And that would be it.


Of course, it wouldn't be fair to
the train's operator. Don remembered reading years ago, in the Star,
about how devastating it was for subway drivers when people killed
themselves this way. The drivers often had to go on extended leave, and
some were so afraid that the same thing would happen again they were
never able to return to their jobs. Stations in the downtown core were
forty-five seconds apart; there wasn't even time for the drivers to
relax between them.


But that had been back when the
trains had had human drivers. These days, they were operated by sleek
mechanicals, courtesy of McGavin Robotics.


The irony was tempting,
and—


And he was trembling from head to
toe. Suddenly, his body sprang into action, moving as fast as it could,
and—and he just barely squeezed through the doors before they
rumbled shut. Don clung tightly onto a metal pole for the whole trip
home, like a drowning man grasping a log.


* * * *


Chapter 19


Back in 2009, Sarah had spent at
least as much time discussing the Dracon questionnaire as she did
teaching astronomy, and the topic often spilled over into evening
conversations with Don. One night, when Carl was down in the basement
playing The Sims4, and
ten-year-old Emily was at her Girl Guides meeting, Sarah said,
“Here's an ethical dilemma that came up on the SETI newsgroup
today. Some of the SETI researchers think they know what the aliens are
trying to determine with their survey, which means we could give them
the answers they want, in hopes that they'll keep up contact with us.
So, should we lie to get what we want? That is,
just how unethical is it to cheat on a survey about ethics?"


"The Dracons are probably at
least as clever as we are, no?” Don had said. “So
wouldn't they see through any attempt at deception?"


"That's what I said!”
Sarah replied, sounding pleased to be vindicated. “The
instructions for the questionnaire make it quite clear that the
thousand responses we send should be produced independently and in
private. They say there may be follow-up questions, and any
consultation among participants will ruin those. And I suspect they've
actually got some sort of way of determining if the answers are all
from one person, instead of the thousand individuals they'd asked for,
or are from a group that collaborated—you know, by some sort
of statistical analysis of the answers."


They were doing general cleaning
up. With both of them working during the days, housework ended up being
a low priority. Don was dusting the mantel. “You know what
I'd like?” he said absently, looking at the framed Emily Carr
print on the wall there. “One of those big sixty-inch
flatscreen TVs. Don't you think it'd look great right here? I know they
cost a fortune right now, but I'm sure they'll come down in price."


Sarah was gathering up sections
of newspaper. “You should live so long."


"Anyway,” he continued,
“you were saying about the Dracon questionnaire?"


"Yeah. Even if we did want to
fake it and have a committee draw up all the answers, for some of the
questions we honestly don't know what the ‘right’
answer is."


He moved on to picking up the
used mugs from the coffee table. “Like what?"


"Well, like question thirty-one.
You and another person jointly find an object that has no apparent
worth, and neither of you desire it. Which of you should keep it?"


Don stopped to ponder, two yellow
mugs in his right hand, and one in his left; at sixteen, Carl was
learning to drink coffee. “Umm, I don't know. I mean, it
doesn't matter, does it?"


Sarah had finished gathering
newspapers, and nipped into the kitchen to dump them in the blue box.
“Who knows?” she called out. “There's
obviously some moral point here that the aliens are
getting at, but no one I've spoken to can see what it is."


He followed her in, rinsed the
mugs under the faucet, and then put them in the dishwasher.
“Maybe neither of you should take the object. You know, just
leave it where you found it."


She nodded. “That would
be good, but that's not one of the allowed answers. The survey is
mostly multiple choice, remember."


He was loading a few plates into
the dishwasher. “Heck, I don't know. Um, the other guy should
take it—'cause, um, ‘cause that's me being
generous, see?"


"But he doesn't want
it,” she said.


"But it might turn out to be
valuable someday."


"Or it might turn out to be
poisonous, or to belong to somebody else who'll be angry over it being
taken, and who will exact revenge from whoever stole it."


He shook his head, and put an
Electrasol tab into the detergent cup. “There just isn't
enough information."


"The aliens think there is,
apparently."


He started the dishwasher, and
motioned for Sarah to follow him out of the room; the machine was
noisy. “Okay,” he said, “so you can't
just give the Dracons the answers that'll make us look good, because
you don't know what those are in all cases."


"Right,” said Sarah.
“And, anyway, even for those questions we do
understand, there's debate about which answers would
make us look good. See, some of our morals are rational, and others are
based in emotion—and it's not clear which ones the aliens
would prize most."


"I thought all morals were
rational,” Don said. He looked around the living room,
gauging if anything else needed tending to. “Isn't that the
definition of morality: a rational, reasoned response, instead of a
knee-jerk, visceral one?"


"Oh?” she said,
straightening the pile of current magazines—Maclean's,
Mix, Discover, The Atlantic Monthly—that lived on
the little table between the couch and the La-Z-Boy. “Try
this one on for size. It's a standard puzzle in moral philosophy, a
little number called ‘the trolley problem.’ It's
called that because a British philosopher came up with it. Her name, by
the way, was Philippa Foot—two fetishes in one, if you stop
to think about it. Anyway, she said this: say a streetcar is out of
control, rushing along its tracks. And say there are five people stuck
on those tracks, unable to get away in time—if the train
hits, it'll kill them all. But you happen to be watching all this from
a bridge over the tracks, and on the bridge are the switching controls,
including a lever that if you pull it will cause the streetcar to be
diverted to another track, off to the left, missing the five people.
What do you do?"


"Pull the lever, of
course,” he said. Deciding there was nothing else that needed
doing tonight, he sat down on the couch.


"That's what almost everyone
says,” Sarah said, joining him. “Most people feel a
moral obligation to intervene in situations where human life is at
risk. Oh, but I forgot to tell you one thing. There's a really big guy
stuck on that other track. If you divert the
streetcar, he'll be killed. Now what do you do?"


He put his arm around her.
“Well, um, I'd—I guess I'd still pull the lever."


She leaned her head against his
shoulder. “That's what most people say. Why?"


"Because only one person dies
rather than five."


He could hear in her voice that
she was smiling. “A Trekker to the core. ‘The needs
of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’ No wonder that's
what Mr. Spock believes; it's clearly the product of rational thinking.
Now, what about this? Say there's no second track. And say instead of
being the one hapless fellow stuck on the left, the big guy isn't stuck
at all. Instead he's standing right next to you on the bridge. You know
for a fact that if you push him off so that he falls in front of the
streetcar, hitting him will be enough to make it stop before it hits
the five other people. But you yourself are a little guy. The streetcar
wouldn't be stopped by hitting you, so there's no point in jumping
yourself, but it'll definitely be stopped by hitting this big fellow.
Now what do you do?"


"Nothing."


Don could feel her head nodding.
“Again, that's what most people say—they wouldn't
do a thing. But why not?"


"Because, um, because it's wrong
to ... well, ah...” He frowned, opened his mouth to try
again, but then closed it.


"See?” said Sarah.
“They're comparable situations. In both scenarios you choose
to have one guy die—the same guy, in fact—to save
five others. But in the first, you do it by throwing a lever. In the
second, you actually push the guy to his death. The rational equation
is exactly the same. But the second scenario feels
different emotionally. For most people, what was judged right in the
first scenario is judged wrong in the second.” She paused.
“The aliens didn't ask that specific question about the
streetcar, but there are others for which there's an emotionally
ethical response and a logically ethical response. As to which one the
Dracons would prefer to see, I'm not sure."


Don frowned again. “But
wouldn't advanced beings naturally prefer logic to emotion?"


"Not necessarily. Fairness and a
desire for reciprocity seem to be emotional responses: they occur in
animals who obviously aren't reasoning in an abstract, symbolic way,
and yet those are some of the things we prize most. The aliens might
prize them, too, meaning the emotional answers might in fact be what
they're looking for. Still, some of my colleagues do
argue that the logical answers are the better ones, because they denote
more sophisticated cognition. And yet giving the purely logical answers
wouldn't really portray who we are. I mean, consider this, for
instance—the aliens didn't ask about it, but it makes a good
point. We've got two kids, a boy and a girl. Suppose when Emily's
older, Carl and Emily both went away somewhere for a weekend, and
decided to have sex with each other—just once, just to see
what it was like."


"Sarah!"


"See, you're immediately
disgusted. And, of course, so am I. But why are we
disgusted? Well, presumably because evolution has bred into us a desire
to promote exogamy and avoid the birth defects that often come out of
incestuous unions. But say they were practicing birth
control—you know any daughter of mine
will be. That means the concern about birth defects isn't relevant.
Plus, say that both were free of venereal disease. Say they only did it
that once, and that it caused them no psychological harm at all, and
they never told anyone else about it. Is it still disgusting? My
gut—and I bet yours, too—says yes, even though we
can't articulate a rational reason for the disgust."


"I suppose,” he said.


"Right. But for an awfully long
time, in a lot of places, homosexual unions were greeted with disgust,
too, as were interracial ones. These days, most people don't react
negatively to them at all. So, just because something disgusted people
once doesn't mean it's universally wrong. Morals change, in part
because people can be won over to new positions. It was mostly rational
argument, after all, that made the women's rights and civil rights
movements possible. People became convinced that slavery and
discrimination were wrong on a principled basis; you educate people
about an issue, and their view of what's moral changes. In fact, that's
what happens with children. Their behavior gets more moral as their
reasoning powers develop. They go from thinking something is wrong
simply because they might get caught, to thinking something is wrong in
principle. Well, maybe we're grown up enough for the Dracons to want to
continue being in contact with us, and maybe we're not, and if we're
not there's no way we can guess what the right answers are.”
Sarah snuggled against him. “No, in the end, I think the only
thing we can do is exactly what they asked: send a thousand,
independent sets of answers, each done in isolation, each one as honest
and truthful as possible."


"And then?"


"And then wait for whatever reply
they might eventually send."


* * * *


Chapter 20


Another hot August day. Don had
headed downtown again, but this time it wasn't for a job interview, and
so he was actually wearing clothes appropriate for the weather: cut-off
denim shorts and a light-blue T-shirt. He was grateful for them as he
effortlessly climbed the stairs from the subway station, and exited out
into the muggy, searing heat.


Sarah, along with the rest of the
SETI community, was still trying to find the decryption key for the
second message from Sigma Draconis, and last night an idea had occurred
to her. But to try it, she needed some old paper records that were
stored down at the University.


It was only a short walk from
Queen's Park subway station to the McLennan Physical Laboratories
tower, which housed the University of Toronto's Department of Astronomy
and Astrophysics. On its roof were two observatory domes. Don
remembered what he used to think when he saw them: that they couldn't
possibly do any good, surrounded by the glare of downtown Toronto. But,
to his surprise, as he glanced up at them now, he found himself
thinking that they looked like a nice, firm pair of breasts.


As he came out of the elevator on
the fourteenth floor of the tower, he saw that along one wall of the
corridor there was a display about famous people who had been
associated with the department. Included were Dr. Helen Sawyer Hogg,
dead for fifty-five years now, whose weekly astronomy columns Don
remembered reading as a boy in the Saturday Star;
Ian Shelton, who discovered Supernova 1987a in the Large Magellanic
Cloud; and Sarah herself. He paused and read the placard about Sarah,
then looked at her photo, which must have been taken at least forty
years ago; she hadn't worn her hair that long since.


Ah, well. Timeworn photos were
appropriate here. Universities themselves were an anachronism, bucking
the long-established trend to do everything online, everything by
telecommuting. Hallowed halls, ivory towers—the synonyms his
mental thesaurus provided just underscored how quaint and old-fashioned
such institutions were. And yet, somehow, they endured.


He looked again at the photo of
Sarah and found himself grinding his teeth. If things had gone the way
they were supposed to, his wife would be even younger-looking now. This
photo would be of what she'd have had to look forward to, when she
gracefully entered middle age for a second time ... around 2070, he
supposed.


He headed around a bend in the
corridor, the walls now lined with framed astronomical photos, until he
found the door he was looking for. He knocked lightly on it. Old habits
die hard, he realized; he'd long ago given up fervent rapping, since it
used to hurt his arthritic knuckles, but now he wondered if anyone
could have possibly heard him through the thick wood. He was about to
knock again, and more loudly, when he heard a female voice call out,
“Come in."


He entered, leaving the door open
behind him. A young redhead, seated at a computer workstation, looked
up at him expectantly.


"I'm looking for Lenore
Darby,” Don said.


She raised a hand.
“Guilty."


He felt his eyebrows going up.
Now that he saw her, he did remember that there'd been a redhead among
the grad students at the last Christmas party, but he'd forgotten, or,
more likely, had failed to notice then, just how pretty she was.


Lenore looked to be
twenty-five—a real twenty-five, no doubt. Her orange hair
cascaded down to her shoulders, and she had freckled white skin and
bright green eyes. She was wearing green denim shorts and a white
T-shirt that said “Onderdonk” on it, which, he
guessed, was the name of a musical group. The shirt's lower half had
been tied in a knot around her stomach, revealing a couple of inches of
midriff that hadn't bunched at all even though she was sitting down.


"Can I help you?” she
asked, smiling a perfect smile. So many of Don's contemporaries had
spent their whole adult lives, as Don had until recently, with various
dental imperfections—misalignments and gaps, overbites and
underbites—but young people today almost always had perfect
teeth, brightly white, totally straight, and completely free of
cavities.


He steeled himself for giving the
spiel, then: “I'm Don Halifax,” he said.
“I know I—"


"Oh, my goodness!”
exclaimed Lenore. She looked him up and down, causing him to feel
embarrassed and awkward, and probably even to blush. “I'd
been expecting—well, he must be your grandfather. Are you
named for him?"


She'd met an
eighty-seven-year-old man back in December named Don Halifax, and she'd
been told someone with that name was coming by to pick up some papers
for Sarah, so...


So, yeah, it was a perfectly
reasonable guess on her part. “That's right,” he
said. Indeed, what she'd suggested was in fact true, just not in the
way she meant it. His full name was Donald Roscoe Halifax, and Roscoe
had been his father's father's name.


So, why not? It was a harmless
enough fiction, and he really hated having to explain his current
situation; he certainly didn't want to go over the whole sorry mess
with everyone he met. Besides, he'd probably never see this girl again.


"Nice to meet you!”
said Lenore. “I've met your grandfather a couple of times.
What a charming fellow!"


He was pleased by this
assessment, and allowed himself a small smile. “That he is."


"And how is—”
Don felt himself holding his breath. If she had finished her sentence
with “your grandmother,” he doubted he could have
gone on with the charade, but she said, “And how is Professor
Halifax?"


"She's fine."


"That's good,” said
Lenore, but then she surprised Don by shaking her head. “I
sometimes wish I were older.” She smiled and got up, tugging
at the tied-up part of her T-shirt after she'd done so to get it to sit
properly, which had the effect, for a moment, of emphasizing her
breasts. “See, I could have had her as my thesis supervisor.
Not that Professor Danylak isn't great, but, you know, it's frustrating
studying where the most famous person in my chosen field actually
worked and having almost no interaction with her."


"Your specialty is SETI, too?"


She nodded. “Yup. So,
as you can imagine, Professor Halifax is a bit of a hero of mine."


"Ah,” he said. He
looked briefly around the room, because—


Because, he realized, he'd
probably been looking too intently, too long, at the very attractive
young woman. There were the usual fabric-covered room dividers, and one
wall was lined by filing cabinets. The paperless office and the flying
car had been a few years in the future for his entire life, but maybe,
finally, he'd actually now live long enough to eventually see one or
the other become a reality.


He opened his mouth to go on, but
caught himself in time. He'd been about to say “Sarah asked
me to...” but who the hell calls his own grandmother by her
first name? And yet he couldn't bring himself to actually say,
“My grandmother.” After a second, he fell back on
the passive voice. “I've been asked to pick up some old
files."


"Oh, I know,” said
Lenore. “I'm low person on the totem pole here; I'm the one
who had to dig around for them down in the basement.” She was
about five foot four, although presumably never thought of herself that
way; his generation had been the last Canadian one to be taught
imperial measures in school. “Let me get them for you."


She walked across the room, and
he found his eyes tracking the movement of her rear end through her
shorts. Sitting on top of one of the filing cabinets was a stack almost
a foot high of papers stuffed into several manila file folders.


Don was worried that his new
looks didn't quite stand up to scrutiny; his own appearance these days
was so startling to himself that part of him assumed it should be
startling to others, too. But as she handed the great pile of paper to
him, she gave no sign if she found anything out of the ordinary about
him.


For his part, he found himself
noticing the gentle hint of fruit fragrance—how wonderful to
have his sense of smell back! It wasn't perfume. More likely, he
thought, it was her shampoo or conditioner, and it was quite pleasant.


"My goodness,” he said.
“I didn't expect there to be so much!"


"Do you need a hand getting it
all down to your car?” asked Lenore.


"Actually, I took the subway."


"Oh! I can get you a box to put
it in."


"Thanks, but...” She
lifted her orange eyebrows, and he went on. “It's just I was
going to go the Art Gallery this afternoon. They've got a special
exhibition on of Robyn Herrington blown glass that I want to see."


"Heck, the Art Galley is only a
couple of blocks south of here. Why don't you leave the papers here,
and pick them up when you're done?"


"I don't want to be a bother."


"Oh, it's no bother at all! I'll
be here straight through until five o'clock."


"Workaholic, eh? You must really
like it here."


She leaned her shapely rump
against a nearby desk. “Oh, yes. It's terrific."


"You're doing a Ph.D.?"


"Not yet. I'm just finishing my
Master's."


"Is this where you did your
undergrad?"


"Nah. I went to Simon Fraser."


He nodded. “And is that
where home is? Vancouver?"


"Yup. And, no offense, it sure
beats this place. I miss the ocean, I miss the mountains, and I can't
stand the climate here."


"But don't you get tired of all
the rain in Vancouver?"


"I don't even notice it; it's
what I'm used to. But the snow here in winter! And the humidity now.
I'd die if it weren't for air-conditioning."


Don wasn't much of a fan of
Toronto's climate either. He nodded again. “So, are you going
to move back after you finish here?"


"Nah, probably not. I want to go
somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Not nearly enough SETI searching
has been done of the southern skies."


"Anywhere in
particular?” asked Don.


"The University of Canterbury has
a great astronomy department."


"Where's that?"


"New Zealand. Christchurch."


"Ah,” said Don.
“Mountains and the ocean."


She smiled. “Exactly."


"Have you ever been there?"


"No, no. But someday..."


"It's great."


"You've been?” she
asked, letting her eyebrows climb her freckled brow.


"Yup,” he said,
adopting her style of speech. “Back in—”
He stopped himself before he said, “Back in 1992.”
“Ah, a few years ago."


"Ooow,” said
Lenore, her lips puckering appealingly as she made the sound.
“What was it like? Did you just love it?"


He thought he should break eye
contact with the young woman again, and his gaze landed on a digital
wall clock; it was 1:10. He was getting hungry. That was another thing
that had come back along with his sense of smell, now that his body had
renewed itself. For so long, he'd been eating tiny meals, always having
leftovers to take home from restaurants, and during the rollback, while
his body had been rebuilding lost muscle mass, he'd eaten like the
proverbial pig. Now, though, his appetite had settled into being what
it'd been when he really had been twenty-five, which was still pretty
prodigious.


"Anyway,” said Don,
“thanks for letting me come back later to get the papers. I
should be heading off."


"To the Art Gallery?"


"Actually, I thought I'd grab a
bite first. Is there anywhere good around here?"


"There's the Duke of
York,” she said. “It's good. In fact..."


"Yes?"


"Well, I really am seriously
thinking about applying to New Zealand. I'd love to pick your brain a
bit. Mind if I join you for lunch?"


* * * *


Chapter 21


Don and Lenore headed outside.
The sun was high in the quicksilver sky, the humidity stifling. To the
south, the CN Tower shimmered through the haze. The campus had been
mostly empty, this being summer, but Bloor Street was packed with what
was probably an equal mix of downtown businesspeople and tourists, plus
a few robots, all madly hurrying somewhere. Don and Lenore chatted
about New Zealand as they walked along.


"It's a great place,”
he said, “but I'll warn you, they've got this annoying
tendency to put a slice of beet on hamburgers, and—oh,
look!” There was a car parked at the curb. He pointed at its
white and blue license plate: PQHO-294, with the hyphen, as was normal
in Ontario, a stylized crown. “Qoph."


Lenore's eyebrows leapt up her
forehead. “The name of a Hebrew letter!” she
exclaimed with relish. “Do you play Scrabble?”
Every serious Scrabble player had memorized the handful of acceptable
words that had a Q but no U in
them.


He smiled. “Oh, yes."


"Me, too,” said Lenore.
“I'm always practicing with license plates. A few weeks ago,
I saw two cars side by side, and their plates were anagrams of
‘barf’ and ‘crap.’ I was
smiling for days after that."


They continued on, talking some
more about New Zealand, and by the time they arrived at the restaurant,
they'd exhausted just about everything Don had to say on the topic. The
Duke of York turned out to be a two-story-tall pub-style restaurant on
a quiet street north of Bloor. The other buildings on the street, all
classy renovated houses, seemed to contain the offices of high-priced
lawyers and accountants. They were shown to a booth near the back on
the pub's first floor, and settled in. Rock music—or whatever
kids today called the stuff they listened to—was playing over
the speakers. Mercifully, the place was air-conditioned.


There was a table near theirs,
with three men seated at it. A server about Lenore's age, and almost as
pretty, wearing a skin-tight black top scooped low to show a lot of
cleavage, was taking that group's order for a bottle of wine to go with
their meals.


"Red or white?” asked
one of the men, looking at his friends.


"Red,” replied the
fellow on his left, and “red,” repeated the guy on
his right.


The first man tipped his head up
to look at the server, and said, “I'm hearing red."


Lenore leaned over the table and
whispered to Don, while indicating the guy who'd just spoken with a
tilting of her head. “Wow,” she said. “He
must have synesthesia."


Don barked a delighted laugh.


The same server turned her
attention to them. She was tall, and broad shouldered, with chocolate
brown skin and waist-length blue-black hair. “Can I get
you—oh, Lennie! I didn't realize it was you, honey!"


Lenore smiled sheepishly at Don.
“I wait tables here two nights a week."


He suddenly had a nice mental
picture of Lenore dressed like the server, whose name tag read
“Gabby.” Gabby put a hand on her rounded hip,
appraising him. “So, who's this?” she said, with
mock seriousness, as if Lenore's companion had to pass muster with her.


"This is my friend
Don,” said Lenore.


"Hello,” he said.
“Nice to meet you."


"You, too,” Gabby said.
She turned her attention back to Lenore. “See you at the bank
on Saturday?"


"For sure."


Gabby took their drink orders.
Lenore asked for a glass of white wine; Don ordered his old standby of
Diet Coke. He was glad that the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo had
finally merged; he used to hate that little game of “Is Pepsi
okay?” in places that had served only that brand.


"So,” he said, after
Gabby left, “you're helping her rob a bank?"


Lenore looked a little
embarrassed. “Food bank, actually. Gabby helps out there all
the time. Me, I'm there most Saturdays.” She paused, then, a
bit awkwardly, as if she felt a need to offer some further
justification: “Working in a restaurant, you see so much food
go to waste, and yet people still go hungry."


He looked away, wondering how
many—good Christ, how many millions of
people could have been fed with the money that had been spent
rejuvenating him.


Lenore was, as his answering
machine had opined, a chatty sort, and he was mostly content to just
listen to her ramble on; indeed, it was safer than him doing much
talking. She had such an animated face, such a lively voice, that he
could have listened to her for hours. Still, he made occasional efforts
to keep up his end of the conversation. “So, you like
Onderdonk,” he said, indicating her T-shirt.


"Oh, they're warp,” she
replied. He had no idea whether that was good or bad, and kept a poker
face. “What about you?” continued Lenore.
“What groups do you like?"


Oh, shit,
thought Don. He'd set himself up for this. The bands of his
youth—ELO, Wings, Supertramp, April Wine—would mean
nothing to her, and, for the life of him, he couldn't think of the name
of any contemporary group. “I, um, ah...” And then,
in a flash of brilliance, he pointed at the wall speaker, indicating
the group that was playing now—not that he could name it, or
the song.


But she nodded, impressed.
“Hyperflower,” she said.
“Skytop.” Don tried not to frown. One of those
words was probably the name of the group; the other, a favorable
reaction to his choice. If it had been her pointing at the speaker and
oh, say, “Call Me"—a standard from his own
university years—had been playing, he'd have identified the
musician first, then added his assessment: “Blondie.
Cool.” So he assumed “Hyperflower” was
the name of the band, and “skytop,” a term of
praise. Just like decoding an alien language, he
thought. Sarah would be proud.


"Anybody else?” asked
Lenore.


"Umm...” After a
moment, in desperation, he said, “The Beatles."


"No way!” she squealed.
“I love them! What's your favorite song of theirs?"


"'Yesterday.’”


She murmured appreciatively.


"It's unusual,” he
said, “liking the Beatles these days.” Although
once he said it, he was afraid he might be wrong. For all he knew, the
Fab Four could be enjoying a general resurgence of interest right now.
When he'd been in university, there'd been a huge Bogart revival on
campuses, and Bogey's great films had been almost a half-century in the
past, even then.


But she nodded enthusiastically.
“For sure. Hardly anybody I know has even heard of them."


"How'd you get into them?"


She looked at him quizzically,
and he thought that maybe he'd used a dated turn of phrase. But she
must have sussed out its meaning because she said, “My
grandfather had a collection of them."


Ouch.


She went on. “He used
to play them for me whenever I came over as a kid. He had an antique
stereo—that was his hobby—and a whole bunch of them
on nylon."


It took him a moment to get it;
she meant vinyl. But it wasn't polite to correct people when they made
innocent mistakes—his grandfather had
taught him that.


Still, thought Don, there had to
be something they could discuss that wouldn't put
him at such a disadvantage. Of course, they could have talked about the
one person they both knew: Sarah. Isn't that what most strangers do?
But he couldn't stand to hear another reference to his
“grandmother."


Gabby returned with their drinks
and took their food order. Don asked for something called
“the blue steak salad"—sliced steak on garden
greens with crumbled blue cheese. Lenore, who hadn't had to even glance
at the menu—working here, she presumably knew it by
heart—ordered fish and chips.


Don loved debating politics, but
usually avoided it with people he'd just met. But there was a
provincial election looming here, and, since Lenore was from British
Columbia, she likely didn't have strong feelings about what was
happening in Ontario; it was probably a safe topic. “So,
who'd you like to see win on Friday?” Don asked.


"I always vote NDP,”
she said.


That made him smile. He
remembered his own socialist days as a student. Still, as they
continued to talk, he was impressed with how much Lenore knew about the
current scene. But when history came up—


"Favorite prime minister? I guess
I'd have to say Mulroney."


Don really got pissed off by the
revisionist history that was popular these days.
“Listen,” he said, “I remember when Brian
Mulroney was prime minister, and he—” He cut
himself off when he saw her wide-eyed expression. “I
mean,” he quickly corrected, “I remember reading
about when Brian Mulroney was prime minister, and he was even worse
than Chrétien when it came to being sleazy..."


Still, why was he leaving his
true age a secret? It wasn't as if he could keep it under wraps
forever. People would eventually find out—including people at
the astronomy department; Sarah was still in touch with several of
them, and they had no pact to keep what had happened quiet. Besides,
Lenore would probably be fascinated to hear all about his meeting with
Cody McGavin, who, after all, was the patron saint of SETI these days.
But whenever he contemplated the selective success of the treatment,
the guilt cut him from within, like swallowed glass, and—


"Okay,” said Lenore,
“let's see what you're made of."


He stared at her, completely
baffled, as she rummaged in her purse. After a moment, she pulled out
her datacom and placed it on the table between them. She pressed a
couple of keys, and it projected a holographic Scrabble board onto the
wooden tabletop.


"Wow!” Don said.
Although he had a nice collection of portable Scrabble
boards—fold-up sets, magnetic sets, a set with self-stick
vinyl tiles, dedicated electronic devices, even a miniature version
that fit on a key chain—he'd never seen one this ... this skytop.


"All right, Mr. Qoph,”
Lenore said. “Let's play."


* * * *


Chapter 22


A spring evening in 2009.
“Sweetheart, I'm home!” Sarah called out.


Don came out of the kitchen,
crossed through the living room, and stood at the head of the six
stairs leading down to the entryway. “How'd it go?"


It was The
First International Collaborative Session for Dealing with the Message
from Sigma Draconis, a three-day marathon, hosted by the University of
Toronto, chaired by Sarah herself, with SETI experts from all over the
world having flown in to attend.


"Exhausting,” said
Sarah, sliding aside the mirrored closet door and hanging up her
raincoat; April was Toronto's wettest month. “Contentious.
But ultimately worthwhile."


"I'm glad,” he said.
“I've got a pot roast in the oven, by the way. It should be
ready in about twenty minutes."


The door to the house opened
again and Carl came in, looking soaked and bedraggled. “Hey,
Mom,” he said. “How was the conference?"


"Good. I was just telling your
father."


"Dinner in twenty minutes,
Carl,” Don said.


"Great. I'll wash up.”
Carl managed to get his wet shoes off without bending over or undoing
the laces. He didn't take off his wet jacket, but just scooted up the
stairs, slipping by Don as he did so.


"So, what happened?”
Don asked.


Sarah came up to the living room,
and they shared a kiss. “We started with an inventory of the
unauthorized messages that we know have already been sent to Sigma
Draconis."


"Like what?"


"There's a group that says it
managed to render the opening of Genesis in the language the Dracons
provided."


"Christ,” said Don.


"No,” she said.
“He doesn't show up until the sequel. Anyway, another group
has sent up a library of digitized Islamic art. Somebody else says he's
sent a list of the serial numbers of all of the US soldiers killed in
Iraq. Another person sent a version of the Mensa admissions test. He
said instead of us worrying about passing the aliens’ test,
they should be worrying about passing one of ours; maybe they're not
good enough to join our club."


"Huh,” said Don.


"And there's been lots of music
sent.” Sarah moved over to the couch and lay down. He
motioned for her to lift her legs so he could sit down at the far end.
She did so, then she lowered her feet into his lap, and he began
rubbing them for her.


"Mmmmm,” she
said. “That's nice. Anyway, Fraser Gunn was
there—remember him? He argued that sending music was a
mistake."


"Why?” asked Don.
“Afraid of being sued by the copyright holders?"


"No, no. But, as he said, the
only thing we've got to trade with aliens is our culture; that's the
only thing you might want from another civilization. And if we give
away the best stuff—Bach, Beethoven, the
Beatles—we'll have nothing good to offer when the aliens say,
hey, what have you got to swap for our best work?"


Don knew all about scraping the
bottom of the cultural barrel. He was a DVD addict—more so as
a collector than as an actual watcher. He'd been thrilled when all the
great television of his childhood and teenage years had been released
on DVD, and he'd snapped up the boxed sets: Thunderbirds, All
in the Family, M*A*S*H, Roots, Kolchak: The Night Stalker
and, of course, the original Star Trek. But the
last time he'd been in Future Shop, all he'd seen in the new-releases
section was forgotten crap like Sugar Time!, a
seventies sitcom starring Barbi Benton, and The Ropers,
a spinoff from Three's Company whose only virtue
was that it proved the original wasn't the worst TV
show ever made. The studios had gone through their good stuff at a
breakneck pace, and were now desperately trying to find anything at all
worth releasing.


"Well,” he said,
“maybe Fraser's right. I mean, the only thing SETI is good
for is sending information of one sort or another, no?"


"Oh, I'm sure he is
right,” said Sarah. “But there's nothing we can do
about it. People are going to send whatever they want to. It's turned
Carl Sagan's old saying on its ear. He used to ask, ‘Who
speaks for the Earth?’ The question really is, ‘Who
doesn't speak for the Earth?’”


"That's our number one product
these days, isn't it?” said Don. “Spam."


He saw her nod ruefully. SETI, as
he'd often heard Sarah say, was a mid-twentieth-century idea, given
birth to by Morrison and Cocconi's famous paper, and, as such, it
carried a lot of quaint baggage. The notion that governments, hopefully
cooperating internationally, would control the sending and receiving of
signals was a fossil of an earlier age, before cheap, mass-produced
satellite dishes became common, allowing everyone everywhere to watch
ESPN and the Playboy channel.


No, these days anybody who wanted
to cobble together the equipment from off-the-shelf parts could build
their own radio-telescope array. Using home-computer astronomy software
to drive them, consumer satellite dishes could easily track Sigma
Draconis across the sky. Such dishes separated by wide distances could
be linked via the Internet, and with the aid of error-correcting and
noise-canceling software, groups of them effectively formed much bigger
dishes. The phrase “SETI@home” had taken on an
all-new meaning.


Of course, the American FCC, and
comparable bodies in other jurisdictions, had the authority to limit
private radio broadcasting. At the urging of the SETI community, the
FCC was trying to prosecute many of the individuals and groups that
were beaming unofficial replies to Sigma Draconis. But those cases were
almost certainly all going to be lost because of First Amendment
challenges. No matter how powerful they were, tight-beam transmissions
aimed at one tiny point in the sky had no impact on the normal use of
the airwaves, and attempts to ban such narrowcasts were therefore an
unwarranted infringement of free speech.


Don knew that some religious
organizations, including a few new cults that had sprung up, had
already built their own vast dishes, dedicated to beaming signals to
Sigma Draconis. Some did it twenty-four hours a day; Sigma Drac never
set in the sky for anyone whose latitude was greater than twenty
degrees north.


And for those who just wanted to
send one or two messages—crackpot theories, execrable poetry,
political tracts—there were private-sector firms that had
built dishes and offered various transmission plans. One of the
best-known was Dracon Express, whose slogan was, “When it
absolutely, positively has to be there 18.8 years from now."


Nine-year-old Emily appeared,
having come up from the basement. “Hi, sweetheart,”
Don said. “Just a few minutes to dinner. Set the table, will
you?"


Emily looked petulant.
“Do I have to?"


"Yes, dear, you do,” he
said.


She let out a theatrical sigh.
“I have to do everything!"


"Yes, you do,” Don
said. “After dinner, you have to go out and plow the fields
for a few hours. And when you're done with that, you'll need to sweep
all the streets from here to Finch Avenue."


"Oh, Daddy!” But she
was grinning now as she headed off into the kitchen. He turned back to
his wife, who was visibly trying not to wince every time Emily banged
the plates together.


"So,” he said,
“did your group figure out precisely why
the aliens are interested in our morality?"


She shook her head.
“Some paranoid types think we're being tested, and, if found
wanting, will be subject to retribution. Someone from France went so
far as to suggest we were undergoing an evaluation by the Sigma
Draconian equivalent of PETA, wanting to determine, before they came to
eat us, whether we had the higher moral and cognitive standing of true
intelligences, or were just dumb cattle."


"I thought it was an article of
faith in SETI circles that aliens only communicated; they never
actually go places."


"Apparently they didn't get that
memo in Paris,” said Sarah. “Anyway, someone else
suggested that we're just one data point in some wider survey, the kind
that would be summarized in multicolor pie charts in the Dracon
counterpart of USA Today."


A timer sounded in the kitchen.
Don patted her legs, indicating she should let him up. She did so, and
he headed in. He rinsed his hands, then opened the stove, feeling a
rush of hot air pouring out. “And what about orchestrating
the replies?” he called out. “What did you guys
decide about that?"


Sarah called back,
“Hang on, I'm going to wash up."


He got the oven mitts and removed
the pot, placing it on the stove top.


"Where are the
napkins?” Emily asked.


"In that cupboard,” he
said, indicating it with a movement of his head. “Just like
yesterday. And the day before."


"Stacie said she saw Mommy on
TV,” Emily said.


"That's pretty cool, isn't
it?” he said, opening the pot and stirring the vegetables
surrounding the meat.


"Yeah,” said Emily.


Sarah appeared in the doorway.
“Something smells good."


"Thanks,” said Don,
then, shouting, “Carl! Dinner!"


It took a few minutes to get
everyone seated and served, then Don said, “So, what are
you going to send the aliens?"


"We're going to do what they
asked. We're going to set up a website, based at U of T, and let people
from all over the world answer the questions the aliens asked. We'll
pick at random a thousand completed surveys, and send them off."


Carl was reaching for the dinner
rolls. “Hey,” Don said, “come on, Carl.
Don't reach halfway across the table. Ask your sister; she'll pass
them."


Carl sighed. “Can I
have the rolls?"


"Say please,” Emily
said.


"Dad!"


Don was tired. “Emily,
give your brother the rolls."


Scowling, she did so.


"Why do you suppose they want a
thousand sets of responses?” continued Don. “Why
not just, you know, send a summary—like, X
percent chose answer A, Y
percent chose B, and so on."


"This isn't Family
Feud," said Sarah.


Don chuckled.


"Seriously,” said
Sarah, “I suspect it's because if you summarize it all, you'd
never see the seemingly contradictory stuff. You know, saying that X
percent are against abortion and Y percent are for
the death penalty doesn't let you draw out the fact that, often, it's
the same people who are pro-life and also pro-capital punishment. Or,
for that matter, the aliens might consider my own beliefs to be
bizarrely contradictory. Being both pro-choice and anti-capital
punishment could be interpreted as meaning you're in favor of murdering
innocent children but against killing those who could be said to
deserve it. I'd never put it that way, of course, but combinations like
that are interesting, and I guess they don't want them to get lost in
the data."


"Sounds like a plan,”
Don said, while carving another piece of roast for Carl. “But
what about your own answers?"


"Sorry?"


"You figured out that it was a
survey,” he said. “Surely one of the thousand sets
of answers sent should be yours."


"Oh, I don't know about
that...” Sarah said.


"Sure, Mom,” said Carl.
“You've got to include your own answers. It's your right."


"Well, we'll see,” said
Sarah. “Emily, would you please pass the peas?"


* * * *


Chapter 23


After lunch, Lenore headed back
to the university, and Don made his way down to the Art Gallery. He'd
been impressed by the young lady's Scrabble play. She had a terrific
vocabulary, a good strategic sense, and didn't take too long to make
her moves. Although he did ultimately win, she had the best single
turn, placing oxlip vertically starting at the
triple-word-score square in the upper-left corner of the board.


The Art Gallery of Ontario had
the world's largest collection of Henry Moore sculptures, as well as
major collections of European Old Masters and Canada's Group of Seven,
plus a permanent exhibition of Helena van Vliet water
colors—and although Don had seen all of those before, he
enjoyed looking at them again. But it was the traveling exhibition of
blown glass by Robyn Herrington that had really brought him here today,
and he took his time admiring each piece. He had a fondness for art
forms that required genuine manual skill; so often, today's digital
arts substituted patience for real talent, he thought.


The AGO was popular with
tourists, and he had to put up with being jostled a fair
bit—but at least it didn't actually hurt to be bumped by
people anymore; until recently, he often used to ache for hours after
colliding with a wall or another person.


His favorite Herrington piece, he
decided, was a yellow fish with big blue eyes and giant pink lips;
somehow, out of molten glass, the artist had imbued great personality
into it.


After he'd seen his fill, Don
headed outside and started making his way back to the university to
pick up the pile of papers. Rush hour had begun and the traffic on the
streets was already bumper-to-bumper. By the time he got back to the
fourteenth floor of the McLennan tower, it was a quarter to five, but,
as promised, Lenore was still there.


"Hi, Don,” she said.
“I was beginning to think you'd fallen into a black hole."


He smiled. “Sorry. Lost
track of time."


"How was the exhibition?"


"Terrific, actually."


"I put your papers into a couple
of bags for you, so they'd be easier to carry."


And who said young people today
were inconsiderate? “Thanks."


"It's too bad it's so
late,” Lenore said. “The subway will be jam-packed,
at least for the next ninety minutes. Sardine-city."


"I hadn't thought about
that,” he said. It had been years since he'd had to come home
from downtown in rush hour. A tin can full of sweaty, exhausted people
didn't sound very pleasant.


"Look,” said Lenore,
“I'm about to head back to the Duke of York."


"Again?” said Don,
astonished.


"I get a discount there. And it's
Tuesday night—that's wing night. Me and a few other grad
students meet there every week. Why don't you come along? You can hang
with us until the subway traffic dies down a bit."


"Oh, I don't want to intrude."


"It's no intrusion."


"I, um..."


"Think about it. I'm going to
have a pee before I head out.” She left the office, and Don
looked out the little window. In the distance, beyond the campus, he
could see gridlocked streets. He reached into the pocket of his shorts,
and pulled out his datacom. “Call Sarah,” he said
to it, and a moment later he heard her saying, “Hello?"


"Hey, hon,” he said.
“How are you?"


"Fine. Where are you?"


"Actually, down at your old
stomping grounds. Just picking up the papers you wanted."


"How was the exhibit at the AGO?"


"Good; I'm glad I saw it. But,
listen, I really don't want to face the rush-hour crush on the subway."


"No, you shouldn't."


"And Lenore here, and a few other
grad students, are going out for chicken wings, and—"


"And my husband loves his
wings,” Sarah said, and Don could hear the smile in her voice.


"So would you mind if...?"


"No, not at all. In fact, Julie
Fein just called. They've got theater tickets for tonight, but Howie's
not feeling up to going, so she wanted to know if I wanted to go; I was
just about to call you."


"Oh, for sure. Go. What are you
going to see?"


"Fiddler on the Roof,
at Leah Posluns.” Just a few blocks from their home.


Don did a decent Topol
impersonation, and he sang a few bars of “If I Were a Rich
Man"—he liked any song that properly employed the
subjunctive. Then he added, “Have a wonderful time."


"Thanks, dear—and enjoy
your wings."


"Bye."


"Bye."


Just as Don was closing up his
datacom, Lenore came back into the room. “So, what's the
verdict?” she asked.


"Thanks,” he said.
“Wings sound great."


* * * *


When Don and Lenore arrived back
at the Duke of York, Lenore's friends had already shown up. They were
seated in a small room to the left on the ground floor, an area Lenore
said was called “the snug."


"Hey, everybody,”
Lenore said, pulling out a captain's chair and sitting down.
“This is my friend Don."


Don took a seat, as well. Two
small round tables had been shoved together.


Lenore indicated a lanky Asian
man in his twenties. “Don, this is Makoto. And this is
Halina” (petite, with brown hair) “and
Phyllis” (a blond who looked like she'd be quite tall, if she
were standing up).


"Hi, everybody,” Don
said. “Thanks for letting me join you.” A moment
later, Gabby, who was still on duty, came by. He listened as she
recited what was on draft, and he ordered an Old Sully's Light, the
only low-carb beer on the list.


Lenore immediately dove into the
current topic of conversation, something about a guy they knew having
gotten into a fight with his girlfriend. Don settled into his chair and
tried to get a handle on the personalities. Halina didn't seem to ever
speak, but she had an expressive face that reacted—indeed,
overreacted—to whatever the others were saying: eyebrows
shooting up, jaw dropping, big smile, bigger frown; she was a living
series of emoticons. Phyllis had what seemed to Don to be a juvenile
and bawdy sense of humor, and she made liberal use of the F-word.
Makoto looked unhappy that Don was there; perhaps he'd been counting on
being the only guy with three beautiful women.


Don mostly just listened to the
conversation for the next little while, laughing a bit at those jokes
he got, and drinking beer. He knew he could have joined in the
discussion, but what they were talking about was so trivial, and they
seemed to blow their little life crises out of any reasonable
proportion: being away from home for the first time, petty social
dynamics, and so on. Makoto, Halina, and Phyllis didn't have a ghost of
an idea what it was like to have lived a life, to have raised kids and
had a career. Lenore did have interesting things to
say, and he paid attention when she was speaking, but when the others
were talking he found himself mostly eavesdropping on the middle-aged
couple at the next table, who were having a spirited discussion about
how they thought the Conservative party was going to rout the Liberals
in the upcoming election, and—


"Did you see Sarah Halifax on TV
last week?” Makoto said to the others. “A fucking
corpse walking. She must be like a hundred and ten."


"She's only
eighty-seven,” Don said evenly.


"'Only,'” said Makoto,
as if repeating a punchline for the benefit of those who might not have
heard it.


Lenore spoke up.
“Makoto, Don is—"


Don cut her off. “I'm
just saying, Sarah Halifax is not that old."


"Yeah, well, she looks like
Gollum,” said Makoto. “And she must be completely
senile."


Halina nodded vigorously but said
nothing.


"Why do you say that?”
Don said, trying to keep his voice even.


"Don't get me wrong,”
said Makoto. “I know she figured out what the first message
meant. But the TV thing said Cody McGavin thinks the old bat is going
to figure out the new message, too.” He shook his head in a
“can-you-imagine” sort of way.


"Speaking of messages,”
said Lenore, gamely trying to change the topic, “I got a call
the other day from Ranjit at CFH. He says—"


But Don couldn't help himself.
“Professor Halifax understands the Dracons better than
anyone."


Makoto waved a hand dismissively.
“Oh, she might have back in her day, but—"


"This is still
her day,” said Don. “She's Professor Emerita,
remember—and without her, we wouldn't be communicating with
the Dracons at all."


"Yeah, yeah,” said
Makoto. “But if McGavin would put some of his money behind
someone who's got a chance—"


"You mean you,” Don
snapped.


"Why not? Better someone born
this century, this millennium, than a dried-up old fossil."


Don looked down at his half-empty
beer bottle, trying to remember if he was on his second or third.
“You're being unfair,” he said, without looking up.


"Look, Dan,” Makoto
said, “this isn't your field. You don't know what you're
talking about."


"It's Don,” Lenore
said, “and maybe he should tell you who—"


"I do know
what I'm talking about,” said Don. “I've been to
Arecibo. I've been to the Allen."


Makoto blinked. “You're
full of shit. You're not an astronomer."


Damn.
“Forget it.” He got up, his chair making a loud
wooden whack as it collided with the table behind
them. Lenore looked at him in horror. She clearly thought he was going
to take a swing at Makoto, and Makoto had a
“just-try-it” scowl on his face. But he simply
said, “I'm going to the john,” and he squeezed his
way past Halina and Phyllis, and headed for the stairs leading down to
the basement.


It took a while to empty his
bladder, which was probably just as well; it gave him some time to calm
down. Christ's sake, why couldn't he have just kept his mouth shut? And
he knew what conversation was going on back in the god-damn snug.
“Shit, Lenore, that friend of yours is—”
and Makoto would plug in whatever term kids today used for
“touchy” or “crazy."


Kids today.
The urinal flushed as he turned around and walked to the sink. He
washed his hands, avoiding looking at his reflection, then he climbed
back upstairs. When he sat down, Lenore glared expectantly at Makoto.


"Look, man,” Makoto
said, “I'm sorry. I didn't know she was your grandmother."


"Yeah,” said Phyllis.
“We're sorry."


He couldn't bring himself to
respond in words, so he just nodded.


There was more conversation,
although Don didn't say much, and lots of wings were eaten; the primal
tearing of flesh from bone with his teeth actually helped calm him
down. Finally, the bill came. After paying his share, Makoto said,
“Gotta motor.” He looked at Don. “Nice to
meet you."


Don managed a calm tone.
“And you."


"I should go, too,”
said Phyllis. “Got a meeting with my supervisor first thing
in the morning. You coming, Halina?"


"Yeah,” said Halina,
the only word Don had heard from her all evening.


When they were alone, he looked
at Lenore. “I'm sorry,” he said.


But she lifted her rusty
eyebrows. “For what? For defending your grandmother who
wasn't here to defend herself? You're a good man, Donald Halifax."


"I'm sure I spoiled your fun. I'm
sorry your friends don't like me, and—"


"Oh, they do. Well, maybe except
for Makoto. But while you were in the washroom, Phyllis said you were
gallant."


He felt his jaw go slack.
“Gallant” wasn't the sort of word one normally
applied to a twenty-five-year-old.


"I guess I should be going,
too,” he said.


"Yeah,” she said.
“Me, too."


They headed out the pub's doors,
Don carrying his two plastic bags full of file folders. To his
surprise, it was now dark; he hadn't realized how long he'd been in the
pub. “Well,” he said, “that was fun,
thanks, but—"


Lenore seemed surprised that it
had grown dark, too. “Walk me home?” she asked.
“It's only a few blocks, but my neighborhood's a bit rough."


Don looked at his watch again.
“Um, sure. Okay."


She took one of the bags, and
they made their way along, Lenore chatting in her animated way. It was
still hot and sticky as they came to Euclid Avenue, a tree-lined
downtown street filled with crumbling, ancient houses. Two beefy guys
passed them. One, with a shaved head that glistened in the light of the
street lamps, had an animated tattoo of the grim reaper on his bulging
right biceps. The other had laser scars on his face and arms that could
easily have been erased; he was presumably wearing them as badges of
honor. Lenore cast her gaze down at the cracked and broken sidewalk,
and Don followed her example.


"Well,” she said, a
hundred meters or so farther along, “here we are.”
They were standing in front of a dilapidated house with dormer windows.


"Nice place,” he said.


She laughed. “It's
scuzbum. But it's cheap.” She paused, and her face grew
concerned. “Look at you! You must be parched in this heat,
and it's a long walk back to the subway. Come on in. I'll give you a
Diet Coke to take with you."


They walked around to the side of
the house, and some animal—a raccoon, maybe—quickly
moved out of their way. Lenore opened the side door and led them down
the stairs.


He braced himself for the place
to be a mess—he remembered his own student days—but
her apartment was tidy, although the furniture was a mismatched array,
presumably of garage-sale acquisitions.


"Very pleasant,” said
Don. “It—"


Her mouth was on his. He felt her
tongue pressing against his lips. His mouth opened, and his penis grew
instantly hard. Suddenly her hand was on his zipper, and—Oh,
my!—she was on her knees, taking him into her mouth
... but only for a few spectacular seconds. She rose to her feet, took
his hands, and, walking backward, facing him, a lascivious smile on her
face, she started pulling him toward the bedroom.


He followed her in.


Don was terrified that he'd come
too soon. This was, after all, more excitement and stimulation than
he'd had in years. But the old boy kept himself in check as he and
Lenore rolled around—now him on top, now her on
top—until finally he did come. He immediately went back to
work until, at last, she had a shuddering orgasm, too.


"Thank you,” she said,
smiling at him, as they now lay side by side, each facing the other.


He lightly traced the line of her
cheek with his index finger. “For what?"


"For, um, making sure that I..."


His eyebrows went up.
“Of course."


"Not every guy, you know,
cares..."


She was totally naked, and the
room's lights were on. He was delighted to see that the freckles were
everywhere, and that her pubic hair was the same coppery shade as the
hair on her head. She seemed totally at ease with her nudity. Now that
they were done, he wanted to scoot under the sheet. But her body was
pinning the sheet in such a way that he couldn't get under without
making a big deal out of it. But as her finger played with the hair in
the middle of his chest, he was uncomfortably conscious of her scrutiny.


"No scars,” she said,
absently.


The dermal regeneration had
gotten rid of all Don's old ones. “Just lucky, I guess."


"Well,” said Lenore,
whapping him playfully on the arm, “you certainly got lucky
tonight.” And she made a big O with her mouth.


He smiled at her. It had been amazing.
Tender yet spirited, gentle and vigorous all at once. It wasn't quite
sleeping with a supermodel—but it would do! Oh, yes, it would
do!


His hand found her nipple, and he
tweaked it lightly between thumb and forefinger. “The pallid
bust of Pallas,” he said softly, smiling at her.


Her eyes went wide.
“You're the first guy I've met who knows more of that poem
than just the ‘nevermore’ part. You don't know how
sick I got of people intoning ‘nevermore,
nevermore’ at me."


He stroked her breast gently, and
said:


* * * *


"And the raven, never
flitting


still is sitting,
still is sitting


"On the pallid bust of
Pallas


just above my chamber
door


"And his eyes have all
the seeming


of a demon's that is
dreaming


"And the lamp-light
o'er him streaming


throws his shadow on
the floor


"And my soul from out
that shadow


that lies floating on
the floor


"Shall be
lifted—nevermore!"


* * * *


"Wow,” said Lenore,
softly. “I've never had a guy recite poetry to me."


"I've never had a girl challenge
me to Scrabble before."


"And I want a rematch!”
she said.


He raised his eyebrows.
“Now?"


"No, not now, silly.”
She pulled herself closer to him. “In the morning."


"I—I can't,”
he said. He felt her stiffen against him. “I, um, I've got a
dog."


She relaxed. “Oh. Oh,
okay."


"Sorry,” he said. He
meant “for lying,” but let her take it to mean
“for not being able to stay.” He scanned around the
room for a clock, saw one, and his heart jumped.
“Look,” he said, “I, um, I really do have
to get going."


"Oh, all right,” said
Lenore, sounding not at all happy about it. “But call me!
I'll give you my number..."


To be continued.



Copyright © 2006 Robert
J. Sawyer


[Back to Table of Contents]






THE REFERENCE LIBRARY Tom Easton

Regeneration, Julie Czerneda, DAW,
$24.95, 543 pp. (ISBN: 0-7564-0345-6).

Glasshouse, Charles Stross, Ace, $24.95,
335 pp. (ISBN: 0-441-01403-8).

Thunder of Time, James F. David, Tor,
$27.95, 400 pp. (ISBN: 0-765-30770-7).

Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management,
Howard Tayler, $15.00, 80 pp. (ISBN: 0-9779074-2-2).

The General, Rick Sutcliffe, Writers
Exchange E-Publishing, $3.95, $2.96 from Fictionwise
(www.fictionwise.com) (ISBN: 1-920972-65-X).

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third
Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed., St. Martin's, $19.95,
660 + xlii pp. (ISBN: 0-312-35334-0).

James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B.
Sheldon, Julie Phillips, St. Martin's, $27.95, 449 + xii pp.
(ISBN: 0-312-20385-3).

Heinlein's Children: The Juveniles,
Joseph T. Major, Advent, $25.00, 535 + xvi pp. (ISBN:0-911682-34-1).

Ten Worlds: Everything that Orbits the Sun,
Ken Croswell, Boyds Mills Press, $19.95, 56 pp. (ISBN: 1-59078-423-5).

* * * *

Julie Czerneda began a new and intriguing
series—Species Imperative—with Survival
(reviewed here in October 2004), in which salmon researcher Mackenzie
(Mac) Connor was enlisted to investigate why many worlds were being
attacked by something that left large areas stripped of all life. By
the time she was done, the truth was out: The alien Dhryn metamorphosed
into a “feeder” form and were surely responsible
for the long-lifeless worlds of the Chasm as well as for the current
threat. Invisible aliens called the Ro, feared by the Dhryn, may be an
essential ally, except that they are not terribly forthcoming.

In the series’ second volume, Migration
(reviewed here in November 2005), Mac became a major player in a huge
Interspecies Union research effort that in due time revealed the Dhryn
to have some remarkable similarities to her beloved salmon and the Ro
to be villainous on a scale to rank with any of the creations of the
late E. E. “Doc” Smith. Volume three is Regeneration,
and it does an excellent job of resolving mysteries and assuring a
happy future for both the galaxy and Mac. Her old friend Emily Mamani,
still more than a bit twitchy from her mangling by the Ro, is now set
to work on a tracking device to find whatever the Ro have left in
Earth's oceans. Mac herself, less twitchy because less mangled, has to
deal with the “idiot” faction that continues to
view the Ro as representing salvation from the evil Dhryn as she
prepares to visit a Dhryn world. That's when a fleet of Dhryn derelicts
is discovered and her team is redirected to checking out the ships.
Once there, they discover a single Dhryn survivor, one of the
“Wasted” who have failed their metamorphosis into
the “Progenitor” (think queen bee) form. It is near
starvation, but a human medic analyzes the evidence from the Dhryn
homeworld and finds a diet that not only revives the survivor but has
marvelous and informative effects. The villainy of the Ro is greater
than anyone had suspected!

Czerneda has a touch with aliens that makes me think her world
would be a great one to live in. Her humans too—from the
officious Oversight (Charles Mudge) to the delectable Nik—are
convincing. Her trilogy here reaches its natural and satisfying
conclusion, but I wish there were more to come.

And perhaps there is. Emily Mamani is obsessed with the legend
of the Survivors, aliens that somehow escaped the ancient devastation
wrought in the Chasm. She plans to hunt them out, and that should
provide at least one more book. I will look forward to it.

* * * *

In Charles Stross's Accelerated future, people can be
transmitted hither and yon by Gates that use nanotechnology to
disassemble whatever goes in, read out the identity and location of
every atom, transmit the data to a destination Gate, and assemble a
duplicate. The data can of course be saved, so a person can be backed
up or put into a kind of digital “suspended
animation.” The data for objects can also be saved, so a Gate
is a great way to manufacture whatever one needs, whether clothes or
weapons. And since it's all just data, a person can be copied. (How
many of me do you want? Just hit the print button.)

The data can also be edited, so there is an end to disease and
injury and old age, as well as any idea that there is only one sort of
human body. But there is also a new kind of war, which Stross sees in
the old adage about those who do not remember history being condemned
to repeat it. If this is true, he suggests, then those who would impose
old-style tyrannies would do well to eliminate all memory of history.
So he supposes a bit of software, known as Curious Yellow, that infects
Gates, installs itself in people's communications implants, spreads as
people are copied through the Gates, and when activated destroys
memories of the past. It also activates assassins aimed at historians.

To win such a war must mean destroying infected Gates,
quarantining local tyrannies, and disinfecting people, as well as
fighting old-style thud-and-blunder battles. Unfortunately, there can
be no guarantee that every villain was found or that the villains will
find no way to start the war again.

So much is background to Glasshouse, which
begins when Robin, who used to be a historian, was a whole tank
regiment during the war, and is now recovering from drastic memory
editing, meets Kay, cute and four-armed. They get it on quite happily,
and when she mentions a certain research study looking for
memory-edited volunteers, he lets himself be tempted. The study
involves setting up an old-style society (based on best guesses, given
the loss of records in the war, of what things were like around 2000)
to see how things like the war could happen.

Once in, Robin discovers he's not a guy any more. He's Reeve,
and it's no big deal since he's switched before. But if Kay is there,
she's been changed beyond easy recognition. And the study has no exit,
surveillance is constant and total, you get points for acting in
character (including getting pregnant), church displays rather strange
symbology, and the folks in charge seem more than a little over the top.

If the set-up reminds of Zimbardo's prison role-play study (in
which college students showed how easy it was to start being rather
brutal), it is surely deliberate; Stross even mentions Zimbardo at one
point. But there's more than role-play going on. Reeve's dreams bring
awareness that she is on a mission of infiltration. Memory creeps back.
The reader learns about the background to the story and grows just as
alarmed as Reeve, and as discouraged, for in a world where the self can
be easily edited, what room is there for rebellion or dissent?

If you love freedom and liberty, you may well see the
Accelerated future as the epitome of personal choice. But there is this
other side to the coin, for the choices can be those of others, imposed
upon you willy-nilly. The heaven of free choice can become the hell of
no choice all too easily. It's easy to root for Robin/Reeve and to
cheer when the good guys prevail. But at the same time it's hard to see
how they had any real chance at all. If the villains had been just a
little less sloppy...

Still, I recommend it to you as both thought provoking and
entertaining. Stross keeps doing very well indeed.

* * * *

Ten years ago, says the puff sheet, James F. David
“burst onto the scene with the exciting time-travel novel, Footprints
of Thunder. The basic notion was that suddenly patches of
prehistoric jungle, complete with dinosaurs, popped into the modern
world (with the corresponding modern patches presumably popping into
the ancient world). The phenomenon was quickly dubbed
“time-quilting,” it was blamed on nuclear testing,
and a bit of nuclear counter-blasting scrambled the responsible time
waves and stopped the problem.

Now David is back with Thunder of Time,
whose premise is that the problem was stopped only temporarily. Now
it's back, and it's not just bits of the dinosaurian landscape that are
popping up. Time is getting scrambled, and the end of human
civilization is at hand! But never fear, Kenny Randall of the earlier
book left behind enough theory to give the computer modelers a hand,
and Nick Paulson is on the case, begging for funding to investigate
mysterious pyramids on the moon and in the Yucatan. He's also curious
about hints of a mysterious government project in Alaska, and when no
one will talk, he sets his girlfriend, Elizabeth, on the trail.

That turns out to be another pyramid, and as we learn why the
ecoterrorist wants to blow it up with a quartet of bootleg nukes, we
learn why pyramids. It's all about orgone energy, you see. That's what
makes the time-quilting happen, that's why the government suspects a
nefarious hand behind the ongoing disaster, that's what the government
project is about studying and learning to control, and that's what the
ecoterrorist wants to harness to create a world without humans (except
for himself and his harem). Schemes aplenty, and those are what Nick,
Elizabeth, John Roberts, Ripman, and even Kenny Randall have to stop,
if they can avoid hungry tyrannosaurs and blood-crazed Mayans. They
also have to choose what sort of world to have when all is said and
done.

I suppose it would make a great movie. It's got enough
melodrama and violence to make two! But as soon as David mentions
pyramid power and orgone energy—both as thoroughly debunked
as phrenology and phlogiston!—suspension of disbelief flies
out the window. There is no plausibility, not the sort we are
accustomed to in SF, where the made-up bits at least try to be
consistent with what we know to be true, nor even the sort we accept in
fantasy, where the consistency is with myth and legend and sometimes
fairy tales. Here the consistency is with outright falsehood, and it
does not work.

Don't waste your money.

* * * *

It is perhaps not astonishing how many web-comics there are,
but it is astonishing how many are actually quite good. As a case in
point, you should look at “Schlock Mercenary” (
www.schlockmercenary.com), whose creator, Howard Tayler, has just
released his first book, Schlock Mercenary: Under New
Management (introduction by John Ringo). The galaxy is
occupied by a great many sentient species, a number of which are found
in Captain Taff Tagon's crew aboard the Serial Peacemaker.
One of the most charming of the characters is Schlock, who resembles a
giant pile of dog poo and hides blasters in his tummy. There's a mad
scientist, Kevyn Andreyasn, who has nearly a billion matterporter and
time clones wandering around; not surprisingly he keeps popping up.
There are women, busty but deadly. In the book's bonus tale (never seen
online), there are even evil clowns!

And that's enough to give you the flavor: Inventive and
humorous. Look at it online, and then buy the book, if Tayler has any
left.

* * * *

Rick Sutcliffe's The General is the fourth
volume in his Worlds of the Timestream: The Interregnum series. I
reviewed the first volume, The Peace, back in May
2001.

Sutcliffe is a professor of computing science and mathematics
at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. His fiction he very
aptly calls “Christian Science Fiction with an Irish
flavour.” The setting is the “Worlds of the
Timestream,” a handful of parallel Earths separated by
important crisis points. One such point was the Crucifixion; in our own
Earth, it happened as we believe; in the world of the story, Pilate
released Jesus and Christianity developed with a very different flavor,
especially once Ireland came to dominate the world under the High Lord
of Heaven. Technology developed centuries ahead of our own schedule,
and Irish customs of honor came to govern war and politics. The series
began when the King was deposed and his clan was banned for sixty
years, a period the series tracks as the King's kin and friends build a
web of sworn loyalties that will someday permit their grandchildren to
reclaim the throne.

In The General, those grandchildren are
front and center, and the day of their ascendance is not far off. But
the nobility are corrupt. There are plots and schemes and conspiracies
in plenty, and it's a darned good thing that the grandchildren are
supremely skilled at swordplay, computers, history, and everything else
that might be needed. When Mara Meathe comes to court in 1997 and
claims her place, ruler Donal XII promptly assigns her to a series of
challenging tasks, which she accomplishes with remarkable displays of
good sense. Meanwhile—beginning in 1987—Tadgh
O'Kelly is working his way up the ranks with a series of forensic
investigations that hint at the sort of very nasty kinds of human
experimentation and sacrifice that make it no surprise when later the
villains reveal an agenda that reminds us of the Nazis of our own
world. Jump to 1998, when Sutcliffe introduces us to an amnesic patient
in a nursing home on our Earth. Memory struggles to return: an airplane
crash, capture, swords hacking at her body. An internal voice, an
implanted computer system, hints at her past. There is no name. But as
the story develops from 1997, the reader begins to guess. In due time,
the heroes—good Christians all, and the best of them
Born-Agains—prevail, the amputee is rescued and restored to
her position, and the villains are thrown down. Some of them anyway.
The series is by no means finished.

The Irish flavor is well handled. The Christianity, however,
is not just cultural world-building. There is a good deal of God-talk,
good boys and girls remain virginal till married, and liberalism is a
corruption of the body politic. Check Sutcliffe's homepage biography
(www.arjay.bc.ca/biog.htm) and you can see pretty quickly that this is
his life. Yet you don't have to share his beliefs to enjoy the story.
It works well as multigenerational dynastic intrigue. The biggest
flaw—one hardly unique to this series—is the way
the author lapses from time to time into textbookish summary mode,
telling the reader what happened rather than showing.

And you can hardly beat the price!

* * * *

I'm looking at this one in May, so it can't possibly be what
it says it is, the best SF of 2006. In fact, every one of the thirty
stories in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third
Annual Collection appeared in 2005. But Gardner Dozois has
still done an excellent job of finding excellent SF by the likes of
Michael Swanwick, Robert Reed, Bruce Sterling, Vonda N. McIntyre, Gene
Wolfe, and many more. Many of the names are familiar from our
bookshelves. A few—Paolo Bacigalupi, Hannu Rajanieme, Dominic
Green, David Moles—are new, at least to me. Source
publications are varied, perhaps more than the last time I looked at
one of these volumes; perhaps it has served the reader well for Dozois
to give up magazine editing. Analog is represented
twice, with Harry Turtledove's “Audubon in
Atlantis” and Mary Rosenblum's “Search Engine."

As usual, an excellent survey of recent SF, complete with a
long essay summing up developments in publishing, TV, and film, and a
long list of Honorable Mentions which could easily keep you reading
until the next volume comes out.

* * * *

James Tiptree, Jr., was famous for two things. First, he wrote
excellent, insightful stories that took the SF field in new directions,
stories that were “brilliant and disturbing ... urgent
messages from some haunted house on the corner of Eros and
Mortality.” Second, he didn't exist. After the debut, after
the praise for being a man who (at last!) understood women,
“he” turned out to be a woman, Alice Sheldon, whose
early photos show her on safari with her parents, who eloped soon after
her coming out, who worked for years for the CIA, who became a
psychologist, and who eventually committed suicide. A troubled genius,
of exactly the sort whose story begs to be told in detail, which is
exactly what Julie Phillips does in James Tiptree, Jr.: The
Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon.

The book is fairly standard in form—parents,
childhood, youth, discovering SF&F, developing a rebellious
streak, and running head-on into the inevitable conflicts that awaited
any woman who wanted to be independent in the 1930s. Phillips uses
letters of Alice Sheldon and her mother, interviews with family members
and colleagues, and a great deal of research to assemble the story of
who Sheldon was, what made her that way, why she wrote, and finally why
she died. The result is one more book that deserves a place in every SF
reader's library.

* * * *

A major foundation block for Robert A. Heinlein's reputation
is the dozen novels known as the “Heinlein
juveniles.” They began with Rocket Ship Galileo
in 1947 and continued through Have Space Suit, Will Travel
(1958), all from Scribner's, and they introduced a generation of kids
to the solar system and the galaxy and the wonderful adventures waiting
to be embarked upon. Some of those kids became the rocket scientists
who put astronauts on the moon in the ‘60s. Some became
science fiction writers, many of whom are still mining the claims
staked out by Heinlein and struggling to meet the standards Heinlein
set.

After 1958, Heinlein signed with Putnam for the still
youth-oriented but more adult-toned Starship Troopers
and Podkayne of Mars. All fourteen novels are
discussed at length in Joseph T. Major's Heinlein's Children:
The Juveniles. His focus is plot and context and
interconnections, not literary and social significance, which makes the
book an excellent survey for those who remember the juveniles fondly,
wish a reminder but don't want to reread them all (there are so many
new novels coming out, after all!), or who want to know what all the
fuss was and is about. In his introduction, Alexei Panshin (author of Heinlein
in Dimension, 1968) does an excellent job of portraying
Heinlein's impact on the kids of the time: His work was eye opening
“growth food,” a taste of the future (in Space
Cadet, 1948, there is actually a pocket-sized phone of a very
familiar sort today), and life-lessons galore.

This one is essential to any good SF collection.

* * * *

It's for kids nine and up, but Ken Croswell's Ten
Worlds: Everything that Orbits the Sun is still a
coffee-table book, over-sized and loaded with gorgeous photos and
paintings of planets and moons. What makes it kid stuff is surely its
accessibility, a matter of length, simplicity of language, and price.
It's the first book to include the newly discovered tenth planet beyond
Pluto and its gentle introduction to the rest of the Solar System is
entirely suitable for older readers who want to know a bit more.

I don't expect Analog readers are very
likely to want this one for themselves. But Analog
readers have kids and grandkids and friends, and though this is the
December column, you're reading it in plenty of time to buy this one as
a gift.

Copyright © 2006 Tom Easton

[Back to Table of
Contents]








BRASS TACKS



Dear Stan,


Michael Click's letter (June 2006
issue) sure raises a lot of possibilities for alternate universe
storage. Apparently, however, he's not aware of Heinlein's usage of
essentially the same concept in “Glory Road"; of course
Heinlein was there first, though!


Also, he and Bob agree on at
least one thing: military applications would be one of the premier uses.


I do have to disagree with one of
his points: the one where he states that prisons and apartments would
be essentially the same thing. I believe that this would be prevented
by intent. Prisons, after all, are supposed to be places of punishment,
not rest homes with luxury hotel rooms ("Camp Fed"-type prisons
notwithstanding)! So while that could be done, I
doubt very much that it would be done.


Howard Mark


* * * *


Dear Analog,


I enjoyed “Puncher's
Chance” in the June issue, and I liked the follow-on article
about “MagBeam Plasma Propulsion” at least as much.
In fact, it was the Science Fact article that prompted me to write this.


I'd like to address a couple of
thoughts brought to mind by the article itself. For one thing, I note
the absence of any mention of the effects of the projected ion beam on
the orbiting platform. Ions have mass, and Newton's third law suggests
that such a beam must produce some thrust that would act on the orbit
of the platform itself. This effect might be trivial, in view of the
relatively large mass of the platform, but it would seem to be
something that would have to be handled in any real-world
implementation of the scheme. Of course that would be an engineering
problem, not necessarily needing to be discussed in an introductory
presentation.


What intrigues me more, however,
is the idea of a hybrid “first step” scheme for
building the distal terminus of a magbeam route. This would entail
using a platform in Earth orbit to boost a payload to Mars, for
example; the payload might consist of a conventional (chemical rocket)
system designed to place a small magbeam platform, or perhaps only part
of one, in Mars orbit. Such a “one-ended” magbeam
implementation would not be nearly as efficient as the finished
product, but it could be used to bootstrap the process.


By the way, I assumed that this
idea had sprung full-blown from my own mind, until I recalled (and
re-read) a phrase from the story that says, “The magbeam
harness is just strapped on.” This leads me to suspect that
my “original idea” is perhaps something that's
already being evaluated. If so, so much the better!


Norm Mosher


Corinth, NY


* * * *


Dear Analog,


I grew up on Staten Island New
York City, which has electric commuter trains with a third rail on most
of the tracks on the island. Also, I am familiar with the Pennsylvania
Railroad that ran commuter trains across New Jersey, from Washington DC
to New York City using overhead power lines for power. I also was
exposed to the electric powered inter-urban trolley cars that traveled
across Michigan from Lansing to Jackson and Battle Creek, back around
1923 to 1927. So the concept of using ground-based power to drive a
mobile power system was not new to me.


However, I worked on the test
planning for the development and early flight tests of ion propulsion
in early space programs back in the 1960s. After all, we had to put the
test item up into space where the vacuum available permitted ionization
and acceleration of ionized gasses to generate a measurable thrust and
payload attitude adjustment.


To me, the use of plasma
propulsion was just something possibly useful for vehicle attitude
control, too feeble to be ever useful for propulsion to Mars. Until I
read James Grayson & Kathy Ferguson's very interesting story
and article about a solar system commuter train.


Suddenly I realized that
Professor R. M. Winglee had provided an answer to the main problem
facing the proposals for establishing a Mars base for manned settlement
as was proposed several years ago.


Clear back in 1963, I worked on a
test-planning proposal for a manned flight to Mars using atomic power
for thrust using superheated hydrogen for jet propulsion. Even with
that plan, the flight to Mars took more than six months, making the
proposal unrealistic even if the use of atomic power had been solved.


I retired from work as an
engineer on space programs in 1990, but follow engineering progress yet
via Analog.


I once had to justify an income
tax deduction for the cost of taking a course in fiction writing that I
made. The income tax inspector wanted to know why I deducted the cost
of taking a course in fiction writing when I was an engineer. My answer
was that “I write test plans that when written, look like
science fiction, but often become true."


Regardless, I had to remove that
deduction.


Henry M. Salisbury


Vista, CA


* * * *


Brass Tacks;


As a former toiler in the
uplink/downlink sync-sat trenches, I wonder what effect an inadvertent
pass of the beam across dozens of satellites would have.


As a former toiler in the beam
business, I wonder about beam-spreading attenuation at large distances.


As a former editor, I am puzzled
by 4-page Brass Tack letters.


Jolyon Ramer


Winter Park, F


* * * *


Usually we limit
“Brass Tacks” letters to about 1000 words, or a bit
less than 2 printed pages, and prefer them as much shorter as their
content will allow. However, we are not completely inflexible about
length and will make rare exceptions if a letter covers enough ground.








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www.analogsf.com for information on additional titles by this and other
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