Wheelers

by Ian Stewart

  Prudence was coming around to the opinion that going public had been a strategic error. Unfortunately, she'd had little choice. Her normal clients had been strangely subdued when she'd posted her epoch-making prospectus on the Rare Collectibles billboard, and nobody had seemed eager to bite—not even to look, which was decidedly strange . . . Any attempt to drum up custom on the public-access sector of the Xnet, however discreet, would have brought the vultures down anyway: the media knew Pru had returned to Earth, and her notoriety was enough to keep them on her tail until they found out why. So she'd decided to be hung for a sheep, and had put out a general media release.

  Trouble was, the wrong sector of the media had taken the bait. She gritted her teeth. Why did Nathalie Courtney have to be such a total scientific ignoramus? She drew a breath. "Well, Nathahe, there are dating techniques for objects found near the surface of airless bodies—"

  Courtney interrupted her. "I know dating techniques for hairless bodies, too, honey, but not any I can tell on a family program."

  Cute. "Ways of telling the age of the wheelers. Based on the effect of cosmic rays."

  "No need to get technical, honey." Courtney picked up one of the wheelers, showed it to the camera, put it back down before anyone could get a good look. Nathalie Courtney was not about to be upstaged by a toy truck.

  Pru nodded. "Uh-huh. The wheelers were buried under a thin layer of ice. The particles hit the ice and plow their way into it, decelerating rapidly Like a bullet hitting a brick wall. The impact creates a shower of secondary particles that create characteristic conical cavities. So the longer the objects have been exposed to cosmic radiation, the more impact cavities you find. All you have to do is image the surface of the object and feed the results to a proprietary impact dating algorithm. That tells you how old the object is."

  The image switched to a close-up of the alleged artifacts. There were four of them, each looking like a child's toy that had gotten too close to a fire. One was little more than a corroded gray lump with oddly shaped protuberances. The other three were about the size and shape of a cat, and curiously snubnosed. Their most striking feature was their wheels, mounted in pairs front and back, which seemed to flow into the bodywork. One, more battered than the others, had a wheel missing. The three better-preserved artifacts had an array of headlightlike blobs along one end.

  "Obvious fakes," said Bailey. "Look, that one's even got a tailpipe!" He was overwhelmed with irritation at the stupidity of W programmers. They didn't care about the truth; all they wanted was a good story line, even if it was all pseudoscientific trash. Aliens? Nuts. "Why would aliens have toy trucks, anyway?"

  Jonas leaned closer to the W

  "They just look like toys, Bailey," said Cashew "No reason to suppose that's what they really were."

  Jonas slapped his hands despairingly to his cheeks. "Cash, are you believing all this rubbish?" He sighed elaborately "You a lifelong U-Foes fan, by any chance?"

  "Sure," said Cashew, her voice dripping sarcasm. "I even collect the screensavers." She sensed Bailey was on the brink of losing it, and her voice softened. "I dunno, Bailey, I really don't. But I do recognize a gratuitously aggressive interview technique when I see one. Very Emily Crooke. Adversarial."

  "Pig-ignorant, too," said Jonas. His eyes were glued to the screen. What was it about those Tinkertoy constructs that sent shivers along his spine? If only the camera would stay on them for more than a few seconds . . .

  "For chrissake!" yelled Bailey "We're sitting here arguing about a stupid cow who ruined a year's planning, three weeks on location, and all our careers!"

  "Bailey," said Jonas carefully, "shut the fuck up, okay? There's something very weird indeed about these funny-looking toys."

  "Yeah. That woman, she's weird."

  "No, Bailey, she's the only one on the show with any marbles at all. And I'm pretty damned certain that those things aren't toys."

  The interviewer had now maneuvered Prudence Odingo into a dead end and scented blood. She leaned closer for the kill.

  "So your entire case for the age of these wheeler things is based upon an analysis of particle impact cavities?"

  "At the moment. There are other meth—"

  "Let's move on." Courtney turned toward the camera. "On our Xlink I have Dr. Emilio Battista from the Technical University of Milan. Dr. Battista: what I want to know—along with our zillion viewers—is just how easy it is to fake objects like this."

  Battista cleared his throat. "Very easy. Any rapid prototyping company could do it."

  "But to fake the particle cavities? To counterfeit aging?"

  "You would need access to an accelerator to simulate the effect of cosmic radiation."

  Courtney pursed her lips. "An accelerator. Dr. Battista: thank you." His image faded.

  Prudence sat rigid. There was no way to counter this nonsense without lending it credibility. Courtney continued. "Ms. Odingo: have you ever made use of a particle accelerator?"

  "Of course not!"

  "Hmmm." Courtney signaled to the mixer desk with her left hand, out of shot. A window opened in the W image to show an enlargement of a document. "Do you recognize this?"

  "I've never seen it before," said Prudence. "What are you—"

  "All in good time." Courtney was keeping an eye on the studio clock. One minute to wrap. Enough. More than enough. "This, Ms. Odingo, is a notarized copy of a purchase order to a company called Etched Nanofilm." The camera focused on the document's hologo for a moment, long enough for the name to be picked out. "Do you know what Etched Nanofilm's business is?"

  "Never heard of it."

  "They make masks for VHD chip manufacture. And they etch those masks using a particle beam, produced by an in-house accelerator. This document is a purchase order for five hundred hours' time on the accelerator." Prudence saw which way Courtney was heading. She would deny it, but nobody would believe her, and it might take weeks to regain credibility. "Do you know whose signature is on that order?"

  "If its mine, it's a fake."

  "No, it's not yours. Let's see whose it is." The document moved in its window, expanding until a signature was clearly visible.

  Charity Odingo.

  The shock was too much. "You rotten bitch!" Prudence shouted. "You leave my sister out of this! It's a setup! She's never—" Oh, damn. Prudence stopped, but the damage was done.

  "Precisely. Your sister purchased time on an accelerator. Doesn't she normally work with animals? Does she use an accelerator to count monkeys?" She glanced again at the clock. The camera zoomed in until her face filled the screen. "Ms. Odingo, thank you for taking part in Breakers this evening." Cut to Prudence, also in close-up. "This is Nathalie Courtney for QVX/WashDC, signing off until the same time tomorrow night— and every night. Good night."

  Roll credits, jade in ID jingle. The theme music swelled, the image of Prudence's horrified face froze, held for a little too long, fragmented, reassembled into the production company's hologo.

  "Nine-hour wonder, just had to break during our crucial window." Bailey shook his head glumly.

  Jonas swore.

  Cashew turned to stare at him. "What's got into you?"

  He was fiddling with his 'node. "I'm booking a flight."

  "What, now? You haven't had breakfast."

  He nodded. "Now."

  "Where to?"

  Jonas pointed to the W "There. DC. Odingo."

  Bailey Barnum looked at his cameraman in astonishment. "Jonas, she's a nut!"

  Jonas shook his head. "Oh, no. Not at all. A crook, maybe, but not that kind of a crook."

  "How can you be so certain?"

  "Occam's razor. You can counterfeit a purchase order an awful lot more easily than an alien artifact. That business with her sister's signature really shocked her rigid; I don't think she's a good enough actress to fake it. But I need to talk to her, see those wheelers myself, before I can be sure."

  Cashew grabbed his ears and pulled his head to face her. "Sure
of what, lunkhead?"

  Jonas reached up, took her hands, and gently but firmly removed them from his earlobes. "Sure that those alien artifacts are genuine."

  On the way to her very expensive hotel room—courtesy of QVX/WashDC—Prudence Xmailed her lawyer a succinct summary of events and some terse instructions. He'd listen to them in the morning. She checked in and flung herself full length on the bed.

  That didn't go too well, she thought. In fact, my dear, it was a total disaster. It was ironic. Here she was, sitting on the greatest archaeological discovery of all time, and nobody—not her clients, and certainly not the media—would believe a word of it. And now Charity—poor, innocent, helpless Charity, happy in the tiny world of her animals—had been dragged into the spotlight. Scientific fraud. Charity's job depended on her scientific reputation; she would never survive separation from her beloved animals . . .

  I hope she wasn't watching. Probably not: Prudence hadn't told her she'd be on, and Charity would rather tend her animals than watch W . . . Think, woman! They would survive; any investigation would soon discover that the purchase order was a forgery. The prospect of being hauled over the academic coals for scientific fraud was just a minor distraction, though her past record wouldn't help . . . The authorities would take their time deciding she was innocent, but she could live with that . . .

  No, the big problem was the very large hole that Nathalie Courtney had shot in Prudence's immediate credibility. And if she couldn't sell some wheelers soon, she wouldn't just lose out on a fortune; she'd lose Tiglath-Pileser. She'd had to mortgage the ship to finance her last voyage. She could almost see the triangular fins of her creditors, circling, circling . . .

  She felt like bursting into tears. She'd been so sure that the world would beat a path to her door.

  Like every moustrap merchant before her.

  Idiot

  Time to start outthinking the opposition. Nathalie Courtney didn't have the smarts to come up with such a technical scam. Probably she'd received anonymous Xmail, then a package with the forged purchase order inside it—silly bitch probably thought she was a great investigative journalist. . . Hadn't double-checked her sources, just jumped in with both feet . . .

  The worst thing was, most people wouldn't see it that way Great show, Nathalie — really stuck it to that Odingo conwoman! And now the rest of media would suck it up like giraffes round a watering hole. Pseudoscientific crap about strange lights in the sky, alien abductions—they believed that kind of thing implicitly But show them signs of real aliens and it was just too much for their tiny imaginations. Stupid grounders thought they knew everything. Never felt the vacuum of space all around them, going on forever; had never known the vastness, the incomprehensible otherness, of the universe. Cocooned in their thin layer of atmosphere, how could they know the reality?

  Of course there had been alien life-forms. Are now, somewhere out there in the godless emptiness. Inevitable as the Sun turning red giant... So why not here? Not now, that would be too great a coincidence, like two ants meeting in the Sahara ... No, back when mammoths roamed the Siberian plains, when Homo erectus threw its first rock at a rabbit, when dinosaurs danced by the light of a spinning Moon, or when the first muddy amphibian crawled out onto dry land to set up a new home . . .

  And if they had been here, they might have left a calling card.

  She hauled one of the wheelers out of its padded bag and put it on the bedside table. Its triple headlights—for that's just what they resembled—stared at her. She ran her fingers over the wheels, which were locked solid, probably by corrosion. She swore, quietly now, and swallowed a tear.

  Not beaten yet.

  She tried to give Charity a call, but there was no answer. She left a short explanatory message and a long apology for her sister to listen to whenever she got around to it. Then she pulled off her clothes, slid between the sheets. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep almost at once.

  In the middle of the night she sat bolt upright in the bed. Prudence Odingo, there are times when you are so slow that you amaze even me.

  If Courtney has received anonymous calls and packages, then somebody must have sent them.

  It might be a smart move to try to find out who, and why.

  She was just about to check out of the hotel when she looked out of the window and noticed the police car parking outside. Maybe it was just a guilty conscience, but she suddenly decided not to wait around to find out if she was right. It had dawned on her that as well as scientific fraud, she might be open to criminal charges, too.

  She slung her overnight bag across her shoulder, picked up the padded one with the wheelers nestling inside it, and took the service elevator to the basement. From there she made her way to the underground loading bay where the hotel took delivery of everything that it needed to keep running. She dumped her 'node in a trash disposal unit. She hated being off-X, but wristnodes could be traced.

  She peered around the end of the loading bay, but the only people in sight were two men supervising a forklift robot stacking boxes of soap. Presumably the police hadn't expected her to fly the coop.

  Police! Prudence imagined more of them raiding Gooma Facility, carting her bewildered sister away to face questions that she couldn't possible answer. Poor Chanty . . . She didn't exactly approve of my plans to sell the artifacts, did she? What will she think of me now?

  At least Charity had no idea where the rest of the wheelers had been stashed. Not on Tiglath-Pileser, and not anywhere near Gooma Facility, that was for sure. She thought about calling her sister, but Xcalls were easily traced. This made her feel really guilty. But guilt wouldn't help anybody. What Prudence had to do was find out who had set her up, and why.

  The trouble was, she had no idea how to start. The most constructive thing she could do right now was to go to ground. A cheap, disreputable motel—one that asked for no names, not real ones . . . She headed for the nearest pedway terminal, to take her out of downtown DC to where property values were lower. She had almost reached it before she realized that she was being followed.

  All kinds of thoughts rushed through her head. Police? Was the stalker linked to whoever had set her up? Was he government? Neither seemed likely; he was much too unprofessional. Proof: she'd spotted him. Reaching the pedway entrance, where there were plenty of witnesses, she stopped suddenly and turned around; her pursuer all but bumped into her.

  "Why have you been following me?"

  The man seemed unperturbed by her directness. "I'm a W journalist. I want to talk to you." He leaned up close, a sharp whisper: "Ms. Odingo: please come with me before the police find you. I assure you that you will be safe with me. Do I look as if I could do you harm?"

  How could she trust him? "From some scandalbox, are you? Well, listen, buster, I've just about had it up to here with jour—"

  "Yes, you would. Nathalie Courtney's a real weasel, isn't she? I saw your interview; she gave you a rough ride. Unprofessional, unprovoked, and unfair."

  This wasn't what Prudence had expected. "Who are you?"

  "Name's Jonas Kempe. I'm not really a journo, I'm a cameraman. I want to help."

  "I don't need any—" She stopped. She did need help. But from a total stranger? "Why Kempe? What's in it for you?"

  "Don't know. Not until you tell me a lot more than you said on Breakers."

  "How did you track me down?"

  "QVX gave me your hotel address. Got here just as the police arrived. On a hunch, went around the back, saw you making a getaway." He took her arm and propelled her onto the pedway heading uptown. "Which we'd do well to continue. When we get close to South Fontenay, jump off and follow me. Um." He hesitated. "Do you have those alien artifacts in that sack?"

  Prudence lost what little patience was left. "For God's sake, why?"

  Jonas shrugged. He wasn't completely sure himself. "I want to look at them. Just a hunch." He grinned self-consciously "I've learned to listen to my hunches."

  Prudence acted on
impulse. "So have I. Find us somewhere safe to talk, Mr. Kempe; convince me you're kosher . . . and if you can do that, maybe I'll tell you what you want to know."

  He found them a small bar, the kind where the proprietor tips off clients if the police are going to show up. It was cleaner inside than it looked from outside. He ordered two coffees and had a whispered conversation with the bartender, who gave a quick nod and pocketed ten times the cost of the drinks. Jonas could hardly keep his eyes off Prudence's bag, but this was definitely not the place to open it up and see what was inside.

  Thirty minutes later they were still there. They hadn't exactly become old friends, but Prudence had lost most of her suspicions when Jonas explained how her media release had upstaged Bailey Barnum's triumphal landing.

  "The important thing to find out," said Jonas, "is who set you up. I did a stint as a hacker before I turned to camerawork. I know ways to persuade the Xnet to spill useful information. What have we got to go on?"

  "Etched Nanofilm."

  "No, they'll turn out to be innocent bystanders. That purchase order is a fake."

  "Battista, then."

  "No, he was just hauled in as a talking egghead. Poorly informed, too."

  "Sorry?"

  "I worked for years making science features—picked up all sorts of stuff, I'm a regular walking scientific database, and it's all in my head. I'm good with gadgets, too, and I can hack software in my sleep. Anyway, I made features on accelerators, and on cosmic rays. So I know that you can't fake a hundred thousand years' worth of cosmic ray damage in three weeks, not on that kind of accelerator. You can't fake it in three years. Hell, you can't fake it in a hundred thousand years."

  "What?"

  "Nanomasking requires a beam of positrons. Those are the only particles that Etched Nanofilm's accelerator would be able to produce. But cosmic radiation is a mix of all kinds of particles, and positrons are somewhat rare."

  "Shit. You'd get the wrong kinds of cavities! I should've thought of that. Damn."

  "Back to basics, then. We do know you were set up. Someone wanted to discredit you, forged that purchase order. Who? Who would want to do that, Pru?"