by Greg Bear
They began to walk around the perimeter of the lander bay. Anna kept edging them away from the shrouded equipment packages. “Purely a natural event. Despite what the Aighors say, I think they had something to do with it.”
“They didn’t,” Kawashita said.
“Oh?” Donatien looked at him with a challenging smile. “What do you think, Kawashita-san?”
“The Aighors are brilliant, if Anna’s library is accurate, but they aren’t secretive in the least. Their claims about the Ring Stars show nothing but their willingness to take advantage of a mystery.”
“True,” Donatien said. “They’re not known for human honesty. Their idea of truth varies considerably from ours.”
“I think the Perfidisians were responsible.”
Donatien nodded. “Either way, artifacts will be the only things left behind.”
“There won’t be any artifacts of value if they were Perfidisians,” Kawashita said.
“You’re correct there, of course, but the if exists. Anna apparently thought the risk was worth it. I do, too. So the chase is on?”
“I was hoping we could relax for a while,” Anna said, “without discussing business.”
“Sorry,” Donatein said. “I’ll leave Marcus and Julia here for the socializing. I have to be back as soon as possible.”
“No,” Anna said, smiling coldly. “No spies, no hindrances, Father. They leave when you do.”
“They’re lambs,” he said. “Total innocents.”
Anna laughed. “Different pledge-sheets, Donatien. You’re welcome to stay awhile, all of you. If you want.”
“The race is on. There are sixteen chunks of rock in this system, fourteen in Gamma, three in Epsilon, and one remaining in Alpha. I’ll see every one as soon as possible and sweep them as thoroughly as I can.”
“Luck to you, then,” Anna said.
“Are you up to her, lad?” Donatien asked, looking over his shoulder at Kawashita. He turned and held out his hand.
“Someday you will ask whether she was up to me,” Kawashita said without expression, shaking his hand with a matched light pressure.
“Perhaps. If Mr. DiNova will roust Julia and Marcus, we’ll be off. Thanks for the time.”
“Not at all,” Anna said. “Relatives, even if on different sheets.”
“Certainly.”
They left as quickly as they’d come, and with as little ceremony. Kawashita followed Anna to her cabin. She paced aimlessly for a few minutes, then allowed a few tears. “He wouldn’t even stay an extra hour,” she said.
“He’s a strong man.”
“Oh, I could stand it if he were just a strong man, a good businessman. But I have this cursed, old-fashioned notion that families are supposed to be loyal to each other, not to pledge-sheets.”
“You mentioned them first,” Kawashita said.
“Because I know my father. Donatien would try to seduce an angel if he thought it would increase a voyage’s profit margin. Well, I think he’s on the wrong track, Yoshio. I still love him, but I’m going to teach him a lesson. We’re not looking at chunks of rock. I’m going to examine the old forbidden zone and see what there is to see.”
“Wrecks,” he said. “Scattered debris.”
“Exactly. Whatever happened here, it spent its force outward, and it was long gone by the time Alpha blew.” She rang up DiNova and delivered her instructions. “Turn all sensors to the old boundaries, and give us a short warp out there. We’re going to gamble a bit.”
There were thirty physicists aboard the Peloros, each with a specialty, all the specialties adding up to a well-integrated whole. When the new sensors were deployed, they began a patient search for things much finer than needles in haystacks, or individual sand grains on a beach—the remains of spacecraft intercepted by the Ring Stars probability disrupters.
They listened for the dim emanations of atoms that had been violently shunted between closely similar universes. The sphere of disruption had had a radius of twenty-five light-years from the orbital center of the Alpha and Beta components; since the frequency of remains increased inversely with the distance from the center, the best concentrations would be found inward from that, if any still existed.
Nothing was found in the first week. Yoshio tried to comprehend the scale of the search, calculating on his tapas the volume to be covered. Since the physicists considered it unlikely that any debris would have been released within a radius of twenty light-years, the volume was reduced—only about 2.7 × 1043 cubic kilometers. He shook his head and grimaced.
In the second week, further reducing the search volume by following the complex curves of warp exit points for vehicles from major known civilizations, they found a three-ton mass of slightly radioactive scrap metal. There was no clear indication of its source, and though it had been through a disruption, it could just as well have been an asteroid used for target practice. Nevertheless it was taken aboard, examined, and stored.
At the end of the first month everyone was tired and the search was slowing. Reports from ships in the first three systems being studied indicated nothing had been found there, either. DiNova, looking at the energy budget and schedules for possible projects in other areas, made his first suggestion that the Peloros should return to regular duty. Anna ignored him.
Kawashita finished his training on the lander and began taking instruction from DiNova on Nestor’s personal economics. This was harder for him than most of the technical and scientific material. Despite his work with early Japanese economics under the dome, as adviser to the Shogun Yoritomo, he had little acquaintance with the art. DiNova instructed him well but somewhat impatiently. Neither was very impressed with the other.
Kawashita then took a turn at standing low-activity bridge watches. His first fitness reports, compiled by the ship’s second officer and delivered to Kondrashef, gave him high marks. The work reminded him of the long nights on the Hiryu when he had stood on the bridge with the flight officer; waiting for dawn. In deep space there was no dawn, unless he counted the distant torch of the Alpha component in one of its last shows of glory, now twenty years old.
In the sixth week a tiny chunk of debris was located. To confirm the trace, all the ship’s equipment was shut down for ten minutes and the sensors were subjected to a rigorous cool-down. The trace remained.
“It measures at a kilogram mass, two hundred thousand kilometers from us,” the leader of the search team reported when Anna came to the bridge. “The trace is very weak, and it seems to be fluctuating, declining at the moment. We may not be able to find it if we move closer—”
“Or even if we stay here,” Anna said. “Keep track and send a lander after it. Coordinate—have we got equipment mounted on a lander? What are you using?”
“Virtual particle disruption with subsequent production of—”
“Which lander can match it?”
“Four.”
“If we can’t find it within five days, tell Mr. DiNova he can lay in a course for Bayley’s Ochoneuf.” She sighed. “I’m tired. A new bride shouldn’t be so tired, should she?”
The leader grinned. “Depends.”
“Think about putting yourself on report for flippancy, and let me know what you decide,” Anna said, turning to leave the bridge.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The lander was loaded with retrieval robots and launched from the bay an hour later. Slowly, like an animal stalking prey much smaller than itself, the lander nudged itself across the distance, deploying its finest sensors. The robots went out into the silent dark, special dampers muting their electrical interference.
Kondrashef and DiNova joined the team leader on the ship’s bridge. “We’ve got it,” he said when the indicators came on. “One and a half kilograms. They’re bringing it back.”
Most of the ship’s crew and at least a third of the e
ntourage gathered in the cargo bay as the retrieval robot was wheeled in on a cart. It produced a transparent package like a proud mother.
“Looks like a piece of something larger,” Kondrashef said, touching the capsule with one finger. “The edges look abraded, perhaps by contact with other debris in a small cloud.”
“Ship’s store memory has a source, sir,” an attending sphere said.
“Oh?” Anna said. “Where does ship’s store think it comes from?”
“It recognizes the fragment as part of an outdated STW-67 unit, madam. A ship’s toilet, weightless utility. Definitely terrestrial in origin and manufactured prior to 2300.”
“Ship’s toilet,” Anna said, peering through the packaging. “It doesn’t make our voyage, does it?”
“Unless we can trace its ship,” DiNova said wearily.
“Twenty thousand units were made,” the sphere said. “Essentially identical, no records detailed enough to allow identification.”
“Jason, I’m ready to go. We’ve had our share of snipe hunting.”
“Gladly.”
“You’re going to be snippy too, hm? I suppose I deserve it. I wonder what Father is thinking now? I doubt he’s found anything.”
Kawashita came to the bridge. “I can feel them here,” he said. “I know they were here.”
“Doing what?” Kondrashef asked. “Playing cosmic checkers with our spaceships?”
“Play’s as good a motive as any,” Anna said. “Maybe they’re just youngsters playing hide-and-seek, and we’re it.”
Kawashita shook his head. “Very old children.”
“Never growing up, never having work to do, never creating a rational pattern of behavior? Sounds good to me,” Anna said. “I’ll log that over a big ‘don’t know.’ Our first theory designed to fit the lack of facts. Congratulate us. And send congratulations to Father, Kiril.” She took Yoshio’s arm. “I wasn’t kidding about a sabbatical. Jason’s going to wipe the schedule now. We’re going to have a real honeymoon, just you and I, in about two dozen places very far from here. I don’t want to turn into another Donatien.”
Twenty-Eight
Kawashita visited the observation sphere six times. Each time, he approached it with trepidation. He could never predict the full flavor of his reaction.
In the sphere, slouched in comfortable weightlessness, he looked the stars over with a frown.
For the sixth time, he requested the same lecture. The sphere chimed and began.
“The distances between stars are lost when ships use higher spaces. An awful immensity is replaced by a short disorientation of the nerves. It is an economic exchange, but one which can give a false perspective. When travel is judged by the consumption of energy, when the longest voyage usually attempted is three months, and economics rules the sway of a wandering heart, space is civilized, some say, and the adventure is gone…”
Kawashita was barely listening. His mind was elsewhere. He was well-fed, well-loved, busy enough. Most of the time, his driving questions were in the background, where they didn’t occupy his full attention. The centuries under the dome were memories that seemed to have little effect. But a pervasive malaise still churned in him. Under the dome his limits had been broad, practically infinite. But here, suddenly mortal, everything he did was final. He felt his scale in an indirect way—not as a matter of size but as a matter of accounts. One side of the account book was filled with the daily minutiae of life, the other with the number of things he’d be allowed to do before death closed in. The number in the second column was vanishingly small compared to the actions required for perfect knowledge. So perfect knowledge was a perilous way to wisdom.
“…But nothing is further from the truth. Between warps, all a traveler has to do is take a short glide down an access tube to the observation sphere, ten meters outside the ship. The ship seems motionless in a black universe pricked with stars. Weightless, the traveler can position himself in the middle of the sphere, his back to the access tube, and feel as if his eyes are the only things for endless trillions of kilometers. The darkness is profound. After a few minutes, the mind relaxes into blankness…”
Anna’s people took the path of perfect knowledge as a matter of course, rushing here and there to build a complete picture they could never see. But another way was just as futile, even perilous—the way of abstracting and symbolizing. Soon enough, the language of abstraction would swallow its devotee and leave his thoughts mired.
Then there was the way of contemplation. As he now understood this time-honored path, contemplation led to a suspension of certain mental programs and the enhancement of others, and with this came the mastery of mental life. But throughout history, isolation had been necessary for the thorough contemplator. Kawashita enjoyed his life too much for that.
“…After a few minutes, the mind relaxes into blankness. The patterns of the stars seem very important a while later, and the craziest notions about religion and philosophy pass through the mind—childish questions: How did God place the stars where they were? Why do they suggest animals, people, or faces? That passes. The next phase is cold terror, and the traveler has to grip himself—clasp his arms with both hands, lift his knees up to see if they’re still present—and force himself to stay. There’s no horizon, no circle of familiar objects, no orientation of any kind. The distances come back as a reminder, and though the eye doesn’t really believe them, some part of the mind—perhaps the part most superstitious about written records—does believe…”
Kawashita squinted at the stars, knowing he was seeing much less than there was to see. The tide of sadness rose until his eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t even pray any more—the faces of the spirits were too far gone, too confused with the faces of simulacra; the kami had taken new forms, not to be prayed to; God (or Goddess) waited implacable, silent. He wasn’t searching for them.
“…Some will try to calculate how many human bodies, stretched end to end, would reach from the ship to the nearest star. Or, at a brisk walk, how many lifetimes it would take to traverse a sidewalk magically extending from here to there. That passes. Numbness takes its turn…”
Then what was he searching for? However much he loved Anna, he couldn’t begin to find it in her. Her life was dictated by immediate problems, practical solutions. But his love for her was the only thing he could fully, deeply believe was real. Everything else was a dream—starships and distant worlds, divine kidnappers and historical fantasies beneath a glass dome. Touching the hole of probabilities. Plucking debris out of space—a toilet! He smiled. It was one vast comedy, a shadow-show.
He was looking for—(a deeper frown).
For—(clenched fists).
“…It may all end in giggling and child-like behavior. That’s a bad sign. The regression may continue until the traveler simply closes his eyes. Then the sphere administers a mild shock, hustles him back to the body of the ship, and recommends a few hours of exercise and conversation. Few ever forget the experience. Some wish to have it erased, or its terror will haunt them for years after. Some reflect upon it as they would upon a religious experience. Others are unaffected, too blind, unimaginative or numb to pay it any attention. They look at the stars with less curiosity than an animal, convinced the universe is produced within them and exists for them alone.”
He was looking for the way to an easeful end, a fine end, full of dignity, obligations fulfilled. He wouldn’t find that way until he knew why he refused to commit suicide. According to all his tradition and training, he was a prime candidate for self-destruction. He had failed to reroute history, out of a weakness he still didn’t understand—and he had inflicted suffering on myriad ghosts. Four centuries ago, he had failed to join his honored leaders in seppuku on the bridge of the Hiryu. He had failed to kill himself on hearing of Japan’s defeat and the renunciation by the emperor.
He had sidestepped every basic beli
ef he had ever held. The shadowplay had surrounded him completely. He had no choice now—he had to flow with it and let it point out his new direction.
“Entering higher spaces in half an hour,” the voice warned. “This sphere will close in ten minutes.”
He twisted around and grasped the handrails in the tunnel.
Twenty-Nine
“Colonies in space, colonies on all kinds of planets, free states, consolidation worlds, worlds yet to buy their independence by paying off consolidation loans…we can even skim by forbidden worlds, where intelligent life exists or will exist in the foreseeable future—and don’t think that isn’t a controversial distinction! Take your pick. An atlas of seventy thousand worlds. I can take four years’ fuel allotment in advance, and if we combine business with pleasure every five or six worlds, DiNova says we won’t go broke. Half the entourage wants off before the trip begins, but ten thousand others have applied.”
“Long trips?” Kawashita asked. “How far can we go?”
“End to end, theoretically, but the atlas covers only about one percent of the galaxy. Anything else is exploratory, and we’d need to change our trip description. I think you’ll be satisfied to see a couple of dozen known worlds.” Anna smiled. “Besides, if we go exploratory, I can’t guarantee I won’t get enthusiastic again.”
“Are you sure this trip will be useful to you?”
“Yes. There’s nothing like seeing a place firsthand. I can suggest a few places where we can think things over in complete privacy—not just planets, but O’Neill colonies, eggworlds, asteromos.”
“Soon?”
“Three days. DiNova is down at the Centrum licensing center now. In three days we’ll leave Myriadne, leave everything behind.”
“If we’re agreed.”
“We’re agreed,” Anna said. “I feel better now than I have in five years. Sometimes I get so used to being hagridden that the hag steps down and I miss her. But not now.”
“To Bayley’s Ochoneuf first?”