by Larry Niven
Chapter Twenty-One
GO FOR GOLD
“Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State.” The response came almost instantly, sharp and crisp through near-vacuum and dwindling distance. The CARM was out of the Smoke Ring. Kendy had clear sending for the first time since the mutiny. He sent: “Status?”
The motors were functional, all of them. Fuel: a few teacupsful. Water: a good deal. Solar power converters: functional. Batteries: charged, but running down as they changed water into liquefied hydrogen and oxygen. Sunlight flux from T3 would be steady in vacuum. There would be fuel.
The CARM was on manual. CO2 flux indicated a full load of passengers. The carbon dioxide was accumulating slowly; the life support system could almost handle it…and the cabin was leaking air. Oh shit, they were dying!
“Course record since initiating burn.”
It came. The CARM was rising. It would have passed near the L2 point—Kendy’s own location, the point of stability behind Goldblatt’s World—were it not for Goldblatt’s World itself. And were it not for Goldblatt’s World, the CARM would presently fall back to safety…but the core of an erstwhile gas giant planet was pulling the CARM’s orbit into a tilted near-circle entirely outside the Smoke Ring.
“Switch to my command.”
Massive malfunction.
“Give me video link with crew.”
“Denied.”
And the cabin pressure was dropping. Something had to be done. Kendy sent, “Copy,” and waited.
The CARM computer thought it over, slowly, bit by bit; geared up; and began beaming its entire program. It took twenty-six minutes. Kendy looked it over—a simplified Kendy, patched with subsequent commands and garbled by time and entropy—while he sent, “Stand by for update programming.”
“Standing by.”
Kendy didn’t believe it. The long-dead programmer would have embedded protect commands. He simply hadn’t reached them yet…unless they had deteriorated too? Kendy didn’t have an update program, he’d been so sure. He’d have to assemble it from scratch.
The speed with which a computer can think was Kendy’s triumph and tragedy. Always he was freshly surprised by the boredom of his eventless life. It stayed fresh, because Kendy was constantly editing his memories. The storage capacity of his computer-brain was fixed. He was always near his limit. He had edited his memory of the mutiny, deleting the names of key figures, for fear that he might later seek vengeance against their descendants. He regularly deleted the memory of his boredom.
Once he had examined the solution to the Four-Color Problem in topology. The proof submitted in 1976 by Appel and Haken could not be checked except by a computer. Kendy was a computer; he had experienced the proof directly and found it valid. He remembered only that. The details he had deleted.
He had used a simplified program for the CARM computers, then deleted it. But now he had the CARM’s program as a template. He ran through it, sharpening everywhere, correcting where suitable, updating his own simplified personality…leaving intact the CARM’s own memories of the time of mutiny, because he was determined to ignore them. He looked for a way to plug the leak in the cabin. It was hopeless: the life support sensors had failed, not the program. He almost deleted the command that barred use of the main motor. The main motor was more efficient. He didn’t understand that command…but it was input, and recent. He left it alone.
Now: a course program to bring them here, to study them…
He barely had time to hope. Kendy apprehended orbital mechanics directly. He saw instantly that the fuel wasn’t there, nor the sunlight to electrolyze enough water in time. His own pair of CARMs, which fed him power via their solar collectors, didn’t have fuel to meet and tow the savages’ CARM even if he were willing to risk them both.
Forget it and try again…He could get them back into the Smoke Ring via a close approach past Goldblatt’s World. In fact, the CARM’s computer had already worked out a course change. It didn’t matter. They’d be dead by then.
He left that part of the program intact. He deleted the barriers that barred him from communication. He beamed the revised program to the CARM at the snail’s pace the CARM could accept.
The CARM filed it.
It had worked! At least he could look them over, get to know them a little, before they were gone. After five hundred and twelve years!
The cold had gotten to the jungle giants. Anthon and Debby and Ilsa were curled into a friendly, cuddling, shivering ball, with the spare ponchos pulled around them.
The other passengers were taking it better. There were ponchos for everyone but Mark, and two to spare. One they tore into scarves. Jinny wound a scarf around Mark’s neck and tucked the ends into the collar of the silver suit. “Comfortable?”
The silver man seemed cheerful enough, despite the lines that held him immobile in his chair. “Fine, thanks.”
“Is that suit thick enough?”
“Damn it, woman, you’re the one who’s shivering. This suit keeps its own temperature, just like the carm. If anyone needs my scarf…you want it?”
Jinny smiled and shook her head.
“Of course, I’d be even better off with my helmet closed,” Mark said, and they laughed as if he’d said something funny. It didn’t need saying: if they couldn’t plug the leak, or if Lawri chose to kill them somehow, Mark would die with the rest.
The Grad had made a torch from one of the scarves plus fat scraped from the skin of the salmon bird. He was about to light it when he noticed mist before his face. He blew…white smoke. Everyone save Horse was breathing white smoke, as if they were all using tobacco.
“If you think something’s leaking, breathe on it!” he announced. “Watch your breath. No, Jayan, forget the doors. Voice has sensors there.”
Lawri did something to the controls “I’m turning up the humidity…the wetness in the air. More fog that way.”
Citizens took their turns at the control panel to find the blank spots in the yellow diagram. The Grad began the uncomfortable job that others might miss: he crawled between the seats, edging around the cold corpse of Gavving’s friend, blowing mist where the floor joined the starboard wall.
Merril called, “I’ve got it. It’s the bow window.”
A crowd of citizens crawled around the rim of the bow window, blowing, watching the pale smoke form streamlines where the window joined the hull. The window was loose around the ventral-port corner.
“Keep looking,” Lawri ordered. “There may be more.”
She herself made her way aft. The Grad joined her at the back wall. “What have you got in mind? Is there a way to plug the leaks?”
Voice began a countdown. Lawri waited while small jets fired. The cluster of jungle giants sagged against the aft wall without falling apart. Ilsa giggled. She must be still floating from the spitgun drug.
The burn ended. Lawri said, “Maybe. Have we got something to hold water?”
The Grad called, “We need squeezegourds!”
They found three. Merril collected them and brought them back. Jayan and Jinny were blowing on the side windows, which seemed all right. Gavving and Minya moved along the rim of the bow window, blowing and watching. Mist formed outside and vanished immediately, along a curve of window as long as the Grad’s arm, shoulder to fingers.
Lawri turned a valve. Brown water oozed from the aft wall, formed a growing globule.
“It’s mud!” Merril said in disgust.
Lawri said, “We put pond water in. The carm breaks the pure water into hydrogen and oxygen, but it leaves the goo behind. Every so often we have to clean it out. That’s why there’s an eject system, and you can be damn glad of it.”
“We can’t drink that stuff. We should have picked up Minya’s water supply.”
“Say that if we live long enough to get thirsty.” Lawri took the gourds and filled them from the brown globule. Merril winced, watching each of their water gourds become fouled.
Lawri w
ent forward with the gourds. Would she plug the leak with mud? He could do it himself, now, if Lawri balked; but he wanted her on his side, as far as that was possible.
Lawri squeezed muddy water along the rim of the bow window.
Mist showed outside. The glass began to frost. The water stayed where she put it, in a long brown bubble. Over the next several minutes—while Lawri alone watched the controls—the water dwindled and thickened to a darker brown. Presently it began to turn hard.
Clave said, “Grad? Is it working?”
The Grad had read of ice. It was no more real to him than the liquefied gases in the tanks. He looked to Lawri.
Lawri met his eyes and said, “I will not accept the position of Scientist’s Apprentice.”
After such a performance, was she quitting on them? Clave spoke first, and in haste. “I’m certain there’s room in Quinn Tribe for two Scientists. Especially under the circumstances.”
“I’ve saved you. Now I want to go home to London Tree. That’s all I want.”
She’s earned it, the Grad thought, but—
Clave said, “Point to it.”
The carm was nose-down to the Smoke Ring. Closest was the storm pattern that surrounded and cloaked Gold, a turbulent spiral of cloud, humped in the middle. The whole pattern drifted west at a speed that looked sluggish, but must be quick beyond imagination. The arms of the Smoke Ring reached away in both directions. They could see the flow of cloud currents, faster toward Voy, drifting backward near the carm. Minor details—like integral trees—were invisibly small.
“You’re the Scientist,” Clave said. “Could you get us back to London Tree?”
Lawri shook her head. She began to shiver; and once begun, she couldn’t stop. Minya got her the last of the ponchos and they wrapped it around her, then tied a strip of cloth round her head and throat. She said, “We’re not losing air anymore. Leave the humidity up and we won’t get thirsty so fast. Jeffer, I’m cold and tired and lost. I can’t make decisions. Don’t bother me.”
They weren’t human.
Kendy had watched them for a bit. They had the temperature turned far down. Kendy was going to fix it, until he realized that the lowered temperature had slowed the leak.
They must have kept some of the old knowledge. But the cold was killing them too. He watched the really strange ones succumb first and crawl into a ball to wait for their deaths.
The CARM’s medical sensors indicated a corpse and twelve citizens, not one of them quite normal. One had no legs. If lethal recessive genes were appearing in the Smoke Ring, it might point to inbreeding. Otherwise they seemed healthy. He saw no scars or pockmarks, no sign of disease—which was reasonable. Discipline had carried none of the parasites or bacteria that had adapted over the millions of years to prey on humanity. They didn’t even show the sores that came with insufficient bathing.
The abnormal height, the long, vulnerable necks and long, fragile fingers and long, long toes, must be evolution at work, an adaptation to the free-fall environment.
He would have his problems, bringing these back into the State. In its way this small group was a perfect test sample. He could make his mistakes here and never pay a penalty. In time the CARM would be found by other savages.
Time to make his appearance.
Lawri was eating raw salmon bird, clearly hating it, but eating. Jayan and Jinny had gone aft to join the clustered Carther States warriors. It looked like fun, the Grad thought wistfully; but he was needed here.
Something was happening to the bow window: a pattern like a colored shadow, occluding the view.
“Lawri? Have you done something?”
“Something’s wrong…I’ve never seen anything like…” she trailed off.
The carm was silent. A ghostly face filled the bow window. It took on color, huge and transparent, with the storms around Gold showing through.
It was brutal, with bushy brown hair and brows; thick brow ridges and cheekbones; a square, muscular jaw; a short neck as thick in proportion as a man’s thigh. A face that resembled Mark’s or Harp’s. A gigantic dwarf. It spoke in Voice’s voice.
“Citizens, this is Kendy for the State. Speak, and your reward will be beyond the reach of your imagination.”
The passengers looked at each other.
“I am Sharls Davis Kendy,” the face said. “I brought your ancestors here to the Smoke Ring and abandoned them when they made mutiny against me. I have the power to send you into Gold, to your deaths. Speak and tell me why I should not do so.”
Too many were looking at the Scientists. Was this some trick of Lawri’s? The Grad could feel the hair rising in a halo around his head…but somebody had to speak. He said, “I am the Quinn Tribe Scientist—”
“And I am the London Tree Scientist,” Lawri said firmly. “Can you see us?”
“Yes.”
“We are lost and helpless. If you want our lives, take them.”
“Tell me of yourselves. Where do you live? Why are you of different sizes?”
The Grad said, “We are of three tribes living in two very different places. The three tall ones—” He kept talking while his mind sought a memory. Sharls Davis Kendy?
Lawri broke in. “You were the Checker for Discipline.”
“I was and am,” said the spectral face.
“‘The Checker’s responsibility includes the actions, attitudes, and well-being of his charges,’” Lawri quoted. “If you can help us, you must.”
“You argue well, Scientist, but my duty is to the State. Should I treat you as citizens? I must decide. How did you come in possession of the CARM? Are you mutineers?”
The Grad held his breath…and Lawri said, “Certainly not,” contemptuously. “The carm belongs to the Navy and the Scientist. I’m the Scientist.”
“Who are the rest of you? Introduce me.”
The Grad took over. He tried to stick to lies he could remember, naming the copsiks of London Tree—Jayan, Jinny, Gavving, Minya—as London Tree citizens; Clave and Merril as refugees who had become copsiks; himself as a privileged refugee; the jungle giants as visitors. Too late, he remembered Mark tied motionless in his chair.
Go for Gold—“Now, Mark is a mutineer,” he said. “He tried to steal the carm.”
Would the dwarf brand him a liar? But the rest would back him up…except Lawri…Mark let his eyes drop. He looked sullenly dangerous.
Sharls Davis Kendy began to question Mark. Mark answered angrily, belligerently. He created a wild tale of himself as a copsik barred from citizenship by his shape; of trying to steal the carm by activating the main motor, hoping to immobilize all but himself, then finding that the ferocious thrust left him as helpless as the rest.
The face seemed satisfied. “Scientist, tell me more of London Tree. You keep some who are barred from citizenship, do you?”
Lawri said, “Yes, but their children may qualify.”
“Why does a tree come apart?” the face asked, and “How does London Tree move?” and “Why do you call yourself Scientist?” and “Are many of you crippled?” and “How many children do you expect to die before they grow to make children?” It wanted populations, distances, durations: numbers. Lawri and the Grad answered as best they could. With these they could stick close to the truth.
And finally the voice of Kendy said, “Very well. The CARM will reenter breathable atmosphere in eleven hours. The air will slow it. Keep the—”
“Hours?”
“What measure do you use? The circuit that Tee-Three makes around the sky? In about one-tenth of a circuit, you’ll be falling through air. Air is dangerous at such speeds. Keep the bow forward. You’ll see fire; don’t worry about it. Don’t touch anything at the bow. It will be hot. Don’t open the airlock until you’ve stopped. By then you’ll have fuel to move about. Do you understand all of that?”
Lawri said, “Yes. What are our chances of living through this?”
The face of Kendy started to answer—and froze with its mouth ha
lf-open.
Update: Cabin pressure has returned to normal.
They had blocked the leak! How? A man without glands might naturally feel curiosity and duty as his strongest emotions. For Kendy these were now in conflict. And the CARM was about to pass out of range.
Kendy had never intended to tell them that they would not live to see reentry. Medical readouts implied that they had lied to him too…and he dared not accuse them of it.
This changed everything. The savages might actually return to describe Kendy and Discipline. He could stop them, of course, by beaming some wild course change to the CARM. Or he could spend the next few minutes…indoctrinating them into the State? Impossible. He could take one trivial step in that direction, then try to impress them with the need to talk to him again.
And when they did that—years from now, or decades—he could begin the work that had waited for half a thousand years.
The face said, “You have stopped the leak. Well done. Now you must kill the mutineer. Mutiny cannot be tolerated in the State.”
Mark went pale. Lawri started to speak; the Grad rode her down. “He’ll face trial on our return.”
“Do you doubt his guilt?”
“That will be decided,” the Grad said. At this point he probably became guilty of mutiny himself, but what choice did he have? If Mark didn’t talk to save himself, Lawri would. And I captain the carm!
“Justice is swift in the State—”
The Grad countered, “Justice is accurate in Quinn Tuft.”
“Our swiftness may well depend on instant communication, which you clearly do not have.” The face began speaking louder and more rapidly, as if in haste. “Very well. I have a great deal to tell you. I can give you instant communication and power that depends on sunlight instead of muscle. I can tell you of the universe beyond what you know. I can show you how to link your little tribes into one great State, and to link your State to the stars you now see for the first time. Come to me as soon as you can…”
The voice of Kendy died in a most peculiar fashion, blurring into mere noise, as the brutal face blurred into a wash of colored lines. Then the voice was silent, and the storm pattern around Gold glowed blue and white through the bow window.