Proteus Unbound

by Charles Sheffield

  "I know. But I'm convinced there's something there, inside the shield. Some information source, some chaos generator for the form-change process. It's the 'negentropic' influence again—spurious information that's the source of disruption for the whole system."

  "But the other problems we've had were nothing to do with form-change!"

  "We've gone past form-change now, Leo. Form-change just happens to be highly sensitive to signal control sequences. Problems show up there first. But what I've found takes us into kernel control theory, and that's a different game. I don't know enough about Kerr-Newman black holes to decide what's going on. That's why I've been waiting for Aybee to get back from the Sagdeyev space farm."

  "Then you might have to wait a long time. He's not there."

  "But he's on the way back, isn't he?"

  "I'm afraid not." Leo Manx retreated to a cleared area of the floor and sat down cross-legged. "Before I came here I was with Cinnabar Baker. She'd just had a report from a repair and maintenance crew who had reached the farm. Apparently it's totally deserted. No farmers, no Aybee."

  "More mechanical trouble?"

  "No signs of that. The bubble was halfway repaired, reasonably habitable. But deserted. It was just as though everyone had decided to down tools at the same time and leave. We have no idea why they went or where they went. Or even how they went. Baker says that no transit vessel was missing. All they took with them were their suits. There was no sign of new violence."

  "So it could be worse. Aybee's probably safe. And he's a survival type." Bey left the screen and flopped down untidily on a pile of output listings. He was almost at home in his new body, but the odd center of mass offered occasional surprises. "But it's very bad for me. I don't know who else to ask."

  "We have other experts on the kernels."

  "Not like Aybee. I need somebody who thinks around corners." Suddenly Wolf's labors were catching up with him. He was exhausted.

  "And so do I." For the first time, Leo Manx held up his own blue folder. "That's why I came to you. You've got your problems, I've got mine. Aybee got me started on this before we left the farm. I need him as much as you do. But he told me to talk to you if he wasn't there—I don't know if you cherish the notion, but Aybee suggests that you and he think about things the same way."

  "He's wrong." Bey made no attempt to take the proffered folder. He was still staring moodily at the display screen. "Aybee's smarter than I am, but he makes me feel a thousand years old. I don't have his childlike faith. If I can't solve my own problems, I'm sure I can't solve anybody else's."

  It was a dismissive comment; at that point Leo Manx was supposed to stand up and leave. Instead he inched forward along the floor and placed the folder open on Bey's knees.

  "The Negentropic Man," he said. Bey looked down at him, then shook his head.

  "Where he came from," Manx went on. "What he means. Aybee listed four ways of thinking about entropy: thermodynamic entropy, statistical mechanics entropy, information theory entropy, and kernel entropy. But he couldn't suggest which meaning was appropriate."

  "Nor can I."

  "That's all right. I don't want to ask you about that." Manx lifted one sheet from the folder. "Aybee suggested that if we want to make progress we ought to examine the exact time when your hallucinations occurred. I've made a list of everything that you told me when we were in transit from the Inner System. Now I'd like to make sure it's complete."

  Bey stared gloomily at the list. He knew what Leo was doing: exactly what he would have done himself with a reluctant partner. Bait him with something he was interested in, reel him in slowly, and hope that after a few minutes he could be dragged far enough to be useful.

  Well, what the hell. It was a game two could play, and Bey had gone as far as he could in the form-change tracking without allowing time for his ideas to sort themselves out.

  "You only want to hear about my seeing the Negentropic Man? You know that Sylvia is sure he's Black Ransome?"

  "I know. We have only her word for it. Isn't the Negentropic Man the only person you saw in your hallucinations?"

  "He was, until a few days ago." Wolf did not look up. He was not sure he wanted to tell anyone at all about Mary's strange visit. It felt remote and improbable. Even the day after it happened, he had become half-convinced that he had dreamed the whole episode. "I saw Mary Walton," he said at last. "After I came out of the change tank."

  "You mean—saw her in person?"

  "No. A recorded message, left in my sleeping quarters."

  "And you didn't tell Sylvia or Cinnabar Baker?"

  "No." Bey hesitated for a moment, evaluating the risk. He decided that he had to trust somebody—they could not all be spies. "Leo, I had a reason why I didn't talk about this. We have an information leak here. We arrived from the space farm just a few weeks ago. No one knew we were coming; no one even knew we had survived the 'accident' there. No messages were sent out from here after we arrived, saying we were here. I know, because I checked the message center myself. And yet, as soon as I went to my sleeping quarters, a planted recorded message from Mary Walton was waiting for me. Leo, until I was taken to those quarters, I didn't know myself where I would be sleeping."

  "So that's why you didn't talk about it to me, or Sylvia Fernald, or Cinnabar Baker?" Manx was full of unfocused energy that made his arms and legs jerk like a puppet's. "Bey, I know you're not used to Outer System ways, and I know where you're heading. But it's crazy. Those are terribly serious charges that you're making, and it's just as well you told this only to me. I can absolutely assure you that Sylvia and Cinnabar are not providing information leaks."

  "Not intentional ones, maybe. But think back, Leo. Somebody seemed to know we were going to the farm almost before we set out. Somebody knew we were here the moment we arrived."

  "Then it must be somebody on the harvester staff."

  "On two different harvesters? We left the Opik Harvester; we came back here to the Marsden Harvester. Are you suggesting that there are two leaks, both close to Cinnabar Baker, one on each harvester?"

  "Then who? I hope you don't think that I—"

  "There's an old Earth saying: 'Everyone's suspect but me and thee; and I'm none too sure of thee.' I thought about you. But I don't see how it could be. When we arrived here you were in pretty bad shape, and you went straight to the tank for remedial form-change work. You weren't conscious until after this happened."

  "Your faith in me is touching. I wonder why you're telling me now."

  The bait was taken. Time to reel in the line. Slowly. "Because I need your help, Leo. And I want your word that you won't pass this on to anyone, unless we've discussed it first. And I mean anyone."

  "Not Sylvia? Not even Baker?"

  "Especially not Baker. Can't you see that if we're logical, her office is the only place where the leaks can start? Don't tell her anything, unless it's at a meeting that I've arranged, in a place I arrange. I think we should talk to Sylvia and see how she responds to the idea of a spy in our group. Will you come with me, right now, and do it?"

  "Under one condition." Manx took back his blue folder and looked at it in a puzzled way. Somehow the whole conversation had headed off in an unintended direction.

  "Anything reasonable."

  "Then you take a shower first. I don't want Sylvia or anyone else we meet to think that smell is coming from me."

  "Is this the Leo Manx who dragged me out of Old City? All right. If you insist. Let's go."

  Later, Bey would describe the shower as a wasted effort. As soon as he was scrubbed clean and dressed in clean clothing to Leo Manx's satisfaction, they headed for Sylvia's quarters.

  But she was not there. No one knew where she was or when she would be back. Twelve hours earlier, Sylvia Fernald had requisitioned a high-g transit ship. She had headed inward, toward the edge of the Halo, traveling fast and traveling alone. She had told no one her mission, and no one on the harvester seemed to know her destination.


  CHAPTER 19

  "Stone walls do not a prison make,

  Nor iron bars a cage."

  —Richard Lovelace

  "But empty space does a pretty good job of it."

  —Apollo Belvedere "Aybee" Smith

  The training schedule was rigorous but reasonable. Four hours of theory in the morning, a food break at which all the trainees were expected to eat together and discuss what they had learned, four hours of practical work in the afternoon, and then the evening free, but with enough reading, interactive education sessions, and quizzes to fill at least another six hours before sleeping.

  The program was scheduled to continue for seven weeks. Aybee kept his head down for the first couple of days, watched what the others were doing, and tried to fall nicely in the middle of the group when it came to tests and answering questions. That was not so easy. The rest of the trainees were a miserable, mismatched set who had apparently been dragged in from random sources. In Aybee's not so humble opinion, none of them had the least idea of any kind of science, and a couple of them acted positively half-witted. They offered bizarre answers to the simplest mathematical questions—Aybee could not figure out how they came up with such odd replies.

  On the third day he made his first request. He was not used to eating food with other people; it would be a lot less of a strain if he were allowed to take the midday break alone. Could he get permission?

  Gudrun looked doubtful, but she agreed. There were twenty-four trainees, and Aybee's absence would not make much difference to the discussions. "Remember, Karl," she added. "If you hurt your progress because you can't talk to others while what you've learned is fresh in your mind, you'll have no one but yourself to blame. If the reason you're doing this is that you find the work difficult and you're embarrassed to talk with the others, come and see me. I'll arrange personal coaching for you."

  Aybee/Karl nodded politely. He had gained an hour. The morning classes so far had covered routine general relativity material three centuries old, and he did not need to discuss that with anyone. More than that, he did not want to. The big danger was that he would reveal how much he knew about the subject.

  The evening work was a joke. He did not need to do the reading, and he could handle all the rest of the assignments in the middle of the day. His next request to Gudrun was a little more risky. He handed in a perfect test, which he was usually careful to avoid doing, and went to see Gudrun that afternoon.

  She beamed as he came in the door. "Well! Smart Karl. You don't seem to be harmed by missing the midday sessions."

  "Hope not." Aybee had the horrible feeling that he was her favorite trainee. She always looked at him in a special way. "But I'm not used to high gravity. Not like the farm. I sleep bad here. Wake up a lot in the middle of the night. If I'm all done with my work an' that happens, could I look around the ship?"

  He saw the danger signs. Her smile vanished, and she was staring at him suspiciously. "Look at what in the ship, Karl?"

  "Dunno. Whatever." He waved his arm vaguely around them. "Power supplies, maintenance shops. Anything."

  "Oh, that shouldn't be a problem. But only if you still do well enough in your training. Let's see how you perform in the next few days."

  She was not worried about security—she was worried that he would take too much time wandering around and flunk! Aybee made fewer deliberate mistakes on the tests, and three days later he had his permission. He was fascinated to see what was off-limits: armories, main drives, and the areas where the suits and transit ships were kept. It made good sense for them to keep him out of there until they were absolutely sure about his loyalties. It was also no big loss. So long as they were steaming along to nowhere. Aybee did not like the idea of leaving the ship until he knew exactly where he was.

  There was one big unexpected freedom. He would be allowed to go to the kernels and do what he liked there. Gudrun must have decided that he was not interested in suicide by fiddling with a power kernel and blowing up the whole ship. It also tended to confirm what she had said at their first meeting. When the training course was over, he would be working with the kernels.

  The first night he had permission to wander, he could not use it. A formal evening meeting was scheduled for all the trainees. After a special dinner that Aybee did not eat, they were subjected to a four-hour session of live and recorded speeches, slogans, and arm waving.

  Gudrun stood up and offered her version of system history. Between the millstones of the Inner and Outer Systems, the inhabitants of the Halo had been crushed for over a century. The Kernel Ring was a borderland, a dangerous region of scattered high-density bodies. As a result, all the travelers from Sunhugger territory bypassed it on their journeys outward. They were quite willing to exploit its energy supplies, but none of the wealth generated from the Kernel Ring's resources was ever returned to it. That was unjust and intolerable. Finally, it was going to change. The balance of power had shifted. The Halo had a born leader, and the revolution had begun.

  Jason came next, and he was worse: The Outer System is composed of oppressive tyrants! The Inner System is decadent! It supports an idle and growing population by the efforts of our people! Both federations deserve to fall! You are all part of a great reform that will achieve those ends—and soon!

  Aybee hid his yawns, but he noticed that the other trainees were lapping it up. Gudrun, Jason, and the handful of other permanent crew of the ship knew how to whip up enthusiasm. They had enough for everybody. Gudrun stood up again for another statement. A special announcement would be made on the ship in a few days, reporting an event that was truly extraordinary. All training would be interrupted when it happened, and everyone would have two days free. The group cheered.

  Aybee cheered as loudly as anyone and wondered if propaganda had a cumulative effect. If so, he would have to find a way to escape before his own brain was softened.

  Escape seemed harder and harder. All the access points to suits, transit ships, and weapons were guarded not by humans, which would have been bad, but by machines, Roguards that did not sleep, could not be distracted, and could not be persuaded.

  Aybee decided that he needed a radically new approach. The next night, he set out to prowl the ship.

  He had no illusions about the size of the task that faced him. The ship was small compared with the central sphere of a harvester, but it was still huge. With a length of two kilometers and a diameter of six hundred meters, the ship he was on had enough internal volume to house a couple of million Earth people—or one or two space farmers. Podders and the rebels of the Kernel Ring sat somewhere between those two extremes, but Aybee could not guess at the ship's internal structure from the limited regions he had seen in training.

  Fortunately, he did not need to. Overall ship schematics were held in a central data bank, and he had been studying them in the evenings for over a week. There were half a dozen blank spots in the plans, which he assumed corresponded to regions of special privacy, but all the rest of the ship was there.

  As an experiment, he headed outward toward the surface. The ship had been built to carry cargo, and so all the internal bulkheads and corridors were a later addition. The whole habitat interior had an unfinished and neglected look. Mildewed partitions were warped and grimy, and at central communications nodes, masses of cables and fiber lines festooned the walls and ceilings.

  Aybee wandered on, committing everything he saw to memory. If the need ever arose, he wanted to be able to run through the ship blindfolded.

  No one questioned him; no one stopped him. In a few minutes he was at an observation port, peering through the outer shell of the hull to the stars beyond. He could tell from the positions of the constellations that the ship was heading Sunward, but that was all he was able to deduce. He watched quietly for ten minutes. There were no signs of other man-made vessels out there or of natural bodies of the Outer System.

  When he finally moved on, easing his way along the hull toward the nearest air lock, a Roguard
appeared at his side before he had gone fifty meters. It seemed to ignore him, but it moved as he did and did not respond to his questions and commands. Twenty meters before he reached the lock, it passed silently in front of him and extended a broad polymer net to block his path.

  Aybee did not try to talk to it. The machine was too stupid for logic. Instead, he turned to head away from the surface. When he was forty meters from the ship's hull, the machine dropped behind. He turned to look and saw it disappearing through a service aperture. Aybee did not go back. If he did, he was sure that it or its sister Roguard would be there again to balk his progress toward the air locks. Instead he headed down the gravity gradient for the nearest kernel, two hundred meters away.

  In the corridors he encountered a couple of dozen maintenance machines and three humans. The machines offered him friendly greetings. The humans, each two feet shorter than Aybee, said not a word. They hardly looked at him, and they seemed preoccupied with their own worries.

  Was it his trainee's uniform, which made him so much lower in status than anyone else on the ship that they would not even talk to him? If so, that was fine with Aybee. He traveled on along a dirty passageway coated with the grime of a decade's neglect. Somehow the controller of the cleaning machines seemed to have lost the narrow alley from its memory.

  He passed down a narrow final stair just wide enough for his skinny body, and he was there. The shielded kernel was not the one that had been removed from the space farm. It was a monster. Even at the outer shield's thirty-meter radius, Aybee judged that he was standing in a field of over a twentieth of a g. That put the kernel mass at nearly eight billion tons. It must have been found near the middle of the Zirkelloch, the circular singularity that formed the center of the Kernel Ring.

  That did not mean it was particularly useful as a controllable power source. If it were a slowly rotating kernel, approximately a Schwarzschild black hole, it was useless for anything except raw heat.