by Nancy Kress
“Also, both sides seem to have reached a kind of tacit agreement: Humans will not go through Tunnel Number Two-one-eight into Q System, because it’s too heavily fortified. And Fallers don’t go through Tunnel Number Two-one-eight in the other direction, into Artemis space, because our side of the tunnel is just as heavily fortified. No one can win. We both carry on the war elsewhere.”
Marbet said, “But, Lyle, I still don’t see how this means Pierce won’t have a stalemate if he takes our artifact into their system. He sets it off at thirteen, they defend at eleven, nothing happens.”
“No. There’s more. We know that when the artifact is used as a weapon at settings one and three, there’s a zone around it that is not affected. That doesn’t destabilize. We’ve known that ever since Syree Johnson did her first test. She was close to the other artifact and she wasn’t affected, but her shuttle, farther away, was. The shuttle pilot died. Every atom above atomic number seventy-five destabilized briefly, sending out improbably high numbers of alpha particles. At settings seven and thirteen, atoms destabilize above atomic number fifty. But there may still be a ‘safe zone’ immediately around the artifact. Which is why the Faller ship carrying the thing to Viridian wasn’t destroyed as well.”
“Not necessarily,” Capelo argued. “They could have sent the artifact through the tunnel with a pre-set detonator for setting thirteen. It blows, Viridian is fried, they wait for the wave to pass, and then they go back into the system and retrieve their artifact. After all, we went in later and took high-resolution photos from space of the Viridian colony.”
Kaufman had seen those photos. He pushed away the memory. “Yes, it might have happened that way, Tom. Or there might be a safe zone around the artifact, before the wave effect begins. We don’t know. But here’s the speculation: The Fallers know more about all this than we do, because they’ve fried a star system at setting thirteen and we haven’t.”
“No,” Capelo said, “because our artifact has been sitting aboard the Murasaki while I supposedly probe it with my mental scalpel. Morons.”
Kaufman knew he had to let Capelo make these interjections; it was the only way to get Capelo to go along with Kaufman’s plan. He knew this from past experience with the physicist. But the interruptions were taking precious time. Kaufman talked faster.
“The Fallers know more about the artifact’s working than we do. They know that we only know one way into their home system. We tried and tried to find a second access tunnel, and we didn’t. So if they guard the Q-space-Faller-home-system tunnel from us, they’re absolutely safe. Unless we bring bur artifact aboard a ship turned to setting two, the way they did, and barrel our shielded way through the tunnel.
“Yes, they could keep the artifact at setting eleven to protect the home system, but they’d still have humans in their home system: Everything we know about the Fallers says they can’t stand that. They’re the most xenophobic life form anyone has ever seen. They’ll do anything, the speculation goes, to keep us out of their star system. Marbet, you’re the only human being to ever have actually communicated with a Faller, and he would tell you absolutely nothing until you told him that we had an artifact, too. Then he tried to say, ‘Don’t ever bring the two artifacts together and set them off in the same system!’”
“Get to the point,” Capelo said impatiently. “This floor is hard.”
“The point, Tom, is this: Faller military strategy and Faller psychology both say the same thing. Their artifact is not in their home system set at prime eleven. It’s in Q System, their ‘front yard,’ set at prime two to protect the ship or station it’s on, so that if we show up again in their yard they can blow us away with conventional weapons or atomic bombs, while remaining protected themselves. And if by chance we should bring our artifact into Q System, they’d know it because their weapons won’t work against our ship. So they’ll set their artifact off at prime thirteen and fry the entire Q System, except themselves, in the safe zone. When the wave is passed, they’ll pick up our artifact, if it still exists, and then they’ve got two. If it doesn’t exist, then the Fallers now have the only artifact in existence and they come to fry Sol.”
“My God,” Marbet said. “Did Stefanak know this theory?”
“Of course. It’s the reason he never tried to use his artifact to attack the Faller System. Stefanak was ambitious and ruthless, but he wasn’t stupid.”
Marbet said, “Pierce isn’t stupid, either.”
“No,” Kaufman said. “But unlike Stefanak, neither science nor engineering interest him. Tom, I don’t think Pierce believes your probability theory. To him it’s just garbled blue-sky intellectualizing. He believes in the artifact destroying material objects such as planets, because he’s seen the physical results. Destroying spacetime is an abstract to him.
“But even if it’s true, he thinks the Fallers will never set off their artifact at prime thirteen in the same system as our artifact, because we might do the same, and the Fallers definitely do believe this gobbly-gook about destroying the fabric of space. They believed it enough so that they told you about it, through Marbet, in order to prevent it happening inadvertently. So Pierce believes they’d never set off their artifact at prime thirteen in Q System, and anyway, probably nothing will happen if they and we both do.”
“Madman!” Capelo said.
“Yes. But I think that’s what he’s about to do. Take the artifact to Q System and set it off at prime thirteen there to wipe out the Faller units. Maybe pick up their artifact afterward, maybe not. Either way, Pierce’s ship waits until the wave has sufficiently passed, travels unimpeded through Tunnel Number Three-zero-one, and fries the Faller system without defense.”
Marbet said, “Then Pierce is wrong. The Fallers will detect that our ship has set off the prime thirteen wave … can they? Before it reaches them? I thought it traveled at c.”
“It does. No, they won’t know it’s coming until it hits them. But remember how it works, Marbet. It causes all atoms with an atomic number above fifty to destabilize, but not instantly. The atoms emit more alpha radiation than usual, then more, then more. There’s time to activate their artifact at prime thirteen, especially if it’s rigged to do that automatically, with a device made of atoms with atomic numbers lower than fifty. Not hard.”
“So they see we’re coming to wipe out their home star system, and they prefer instead to destroy spacetime itself.”
“Why not?” Kaufman said. “That way they take us with them.”
She burst out, “But Pierce must know all that!”
“I told you … he doesn’t believe it. He’s counting on one of three scenarios. One, their artifact is set at prime eleven in their home system, protecting it—that way he gets a stalemate and has lost nothing. Or, two, their artifact is in Q System, there’s no safe zone, he destroys their ships and his own but he’s fried Q System and in a little while he can go scoop up one or even two artifacts, before the Fallers beyond Tunnel Number Three-zero-one even know what happened. Or, three, their artifact is in Q System and the enemy is too much in thrall to their own physicists to risk destroying spacetime. So they can’t stop Pierce and he goes through, protected by setting two, and fries the Faller home planet.”
Capelo said somberly, “You can’t know all this, Lyle. You and Stefanak and Pierce and everybody else really are just spinning speculative scenarios.”
“Yes,” Kaufman said, “but only one of the scenarios is acceptable. The third one won’t happen; the Fallers will destroy spacetime rather than let the humans win. Stefanak knew that. Pierce is too blinded by egomania to see it. He wants to consolidate his power by being the greatest war hero in the history of humanity.
“The second scenario, both artifacts at prime thirteen in the same star system, results in a flop-transition that changes spacetime so much no one, human or Faller or bacteria, survives. Not acceptable.
“The only scenario that is acceptable is the stalemate. I don’t think that the Fallers’ artifac
t is currently in their home system, set at prime eleven, protecting them. I think, and the military advisors in Stefanak’s more rational regime apparently agreed, that the Faller artifact is in Q System. So someone has to convince the Fallers to move their artifact and change its setting.”
Capelo and Marbet stared at Kaufman. In the cramped space between the bulkhead and machinery, they looked like scrunched-up dolls, limbs momentarily frozen and mouths agape. Finally Capelo said, “And who’s going to convince them of this?”
“We are,” Kaufman said, and explained his insane plan.
TWENTY-THREE
THARSIS, MARS
When the house system let Amanda, Aunt Kristen, and Uncle Martin into the apartment in Tharsis, every room was full of flowers. Huge bouquets everywhere: genemod roses, pink and striped; gardenations, with the fullness of carnations and the intense fragrance of gardenias; humble dahlias; masses of the fast-growing, low-light blooms Martians called “rockflowers.” All the flowers in Tharsis, Amanda thought dazedly. All gathered here in one place.
“Ah-man-dah!” Konstantin cried, bounding forward. “You are by home now!”
“Oh, my God,” Aunt Kristen said under her breath.
“Hello, Dr. Blumberg, Mrs. Blumberg,” Konstantin said politely. “I get flowers at Ah-man-dah. Because she to come by home.”
“They’re beautiful,” Amanda breathed. Wait until the girls at school heard about this!
“You are beautiful more,” Konstantin said admiringly, gazing at Amanda with her newly blonde hair and pretty clothes. “Very beautiful! Splendid!”
“It smells like a funeral parlor,” Aunt Kristen said, and Uncle Martin shot her a warning look.
“And your father? You to find him? He to come also?”
“We didn’t find him yet,” Amanda said, and her whole last conversation with Aunt Kristen came crashing back down on her. Aunt Kristen said that Admiral Pierce, who was not the nice person he’d seemed, might not return her father. That Daddy might be dead, killed like the people who’d opposed Pierce and had just disappeared, including her father’s friend Dr. Ewing, That Konstantin’s father was a big supporter of Admiral Pierce, and Amanda was therefore to be very careful to never ever criticize the admiral in front of Konstantin or Demetria.
“Admiral Pierce will to find your father,” Konstantin said confidently. “Will to carry him at you.”
“Do you really think so?” Amanda said.
“Oh, yes,” Konstantin said.
Maybe he was right! After all, even Aunt Kristen had said that Konstantin’s father was big buddies with Admiral Pierce, whereas Aunt Kristen had never met the admiral at all, not even on this last trip to Lowell City with Amanda. So shouldn’t Konstantin know more about Admiral Pierce than her aunt did? It was a cheering thought. Amanda smiled gratefully at Konstantin.
“What smells like food?” Uncle Martin said, pointedly changing the subject.
“Demetria to cook. Come!”
“Thanks for the invitation to my home,” Aunt Kristen muttered.
The small dining room table groaned with Greek food, or as close to Greek as Demetria could get with ingredients available on Mars. Amanda’s mouth filled with sweet water. Even Aunt Kristen looked happier. Everyone ate, Demetria beaming wordlessly at her success.
“Tell at me what to happen by Lowell City, Ah-man-dah.”
Amanda swallowed a sticky mouthful of Martian baklava and said carefully, “They asked me questions. I told them all I could, and Admiral Pierce said they would look for Daddy.”
“Splendid. My father to look also.”
Aunt Kristen stopped chewing. “What?”
“I call at my father, by Greece. He to know very many important peoples. I ask by him to help to look to Dr. Capelo because I to stay at the house of the daughter, beautiful Ah-man-dah. I say Ah-man-dah by Lowell City, at Admiral Pierce, for questions. My father is of very much interest. He says yes, he to help.”
Aunt Kristen closed her eyes.
Uncle Martin said, with noticeable constraint, “Thank you, Konstantin. I know … I know you meant well. We all hope Dr. Capelo will come home soon.”
“Very great physicist,” Konstantin said seriously. “Much respect by physicists. Dr. Stajevic call from Earth by you, Mrs. Blumberg.”
“And did you view the message, Konstantin?” Aunt Kristen said evenly.
Amanda held her breath. Her aunt and uncle were strict about personal privacy.
“Oh, no,” Konstantin said. “House system to say message are come. Is at you, not me.”
Amanda breathed again. Aunt Kristen said, “Excuse me,” and left the room, closing the bedroom door.
Uncle Martin said, “Konstantin, won’t your parents be missing you and Demetria? Won’t they want you back on Earth?”
“Oh, no. We go by Earth at school. Not at summer. To tourist by Mars now. Very interesting, splendid. I to care at Demetria.”
Demetria, hearing her name, looked sulkily at her brother. Was that because of Nikos, Amanda wondered? This family operated nothing like the ones she was used to.
Aunt Kristen returned, “Dr. Stajevic wanted to know if we have any private papers of Tom’s related to what he was working on. Apparently Stajevic is working in the same area, and until Tom disappeared, they’d been exchanging ideas. Stajevic has what he called ‘a new line of attack,’ and if we have anything of Tom’s, he was going to post it on the Net so that he, and anybody else involved in the same problem, could have access to it.”
Uncle Martin said, with a quick glance at Amanda, “But Tom may be coming back to post it himself.”
“That’s what I told him,” Aunt Kristen said, attacking her gyro with unnecessary force.
There was a long silence, so long it grew painful. Finally, to break it, Amanda said, “What … what was Daddy working on?”
“Macro-entanglement. To fit into the theory of probability. He has promising initial equations,” Konstantin said, with the sudden increase in English proficiency he managed whenever he spoke of physics. He must, Amanda thought, memorize whole sections of scientific papers.
Aunt Kristen looked startled. “How do you know that?”
“I read physics by the Net. Always. Dr. Capelo to post always. Parts of theories, also, not finished. Dr. Capelo to ask at other physicists by help. To find physics answers. Great, great man.”
Uncle Martin said, “Kris, if that’s so … maybe we should ask the Boston police for any papers they confiscated from Tom’s house, and let this Dr. Stajevic post them.”
“I’ll think about it,” Aunt Kristen said.
When they’d finished eating, everyone went into the living room. Uncle Martin brought up a news channel on the terminal. Konstantin sat at one end of a sofa, Aunt Kristen at the other end. Demetria and Uncle Martin had taken chairs; the center of the sofa was the only place left to sit. Amanda settled awkwardly beside Konstantin. This close, his scent came to her, and something in her chest tightened. She felt herself blush. Good thing he wasn’t looking at her!
“—surprise departure from Lowell City to Space Tunnel Number One aboard the navy flagship Vladivistok. A spokeswoman for Admiral Pierce told the press that an undisclosed ‘military emergency’ at the tunnel required the admiral’s presence. She further announced that the Vladivistok was traveling with all possible speed to minimize the time Admiral Pierce will be away from Mars. Speculation has run high about the nature of the military emergency, but no additional information has been forthcoming from the Summit. It is unclear at this time whether Admiral Pierce intends to actually leave the Solar System through Space Tunnel Number One.
“In Admiral Pierce’s absence, he has appointed General Yang Lee as acting commander of the SADC. However, Admiral Pierce has assured the Solar Alliance that he will be in constant radio contact with the acting commander. Meanwhile, in the Belt—”
“My father is by Space Tunnel Number One,” Konstantin said casually.
Aunt Kristen look
ed at him. “I thought you said your father was in Greece.”
“Oh, yes. In Greece. And by Tunnel Number One. And by the Belt. And by Mars. My father to own many many ships, many flyers. My father are many places always.”
“I see,” Aunt Kristen said, and Amanda knew that Aunt Kristen thought Konstantin was bragging. Well, he wasn’t! Those were just facts! Amanda’s father always said to put facts first, and that’s what Konstantin was doing, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that.
Konstantin said, “Tomorrow is Sunday.”
“Yes?” Amanda said, when no one else spoke.
“You to come to church by me, Ah-man-dah? To hear Mass. Church must to be by Tharsis.”
He meant a Catholic church, Amanda realized. Konstantin thought she was religious. Well, he’d first seen her outside the spaceport holding Brother Meissel’s gold chalice, which stood now in the master bedroom.
An unexpected tide of emotion swept her. Brother Meissel, Ares Abbey. The deep voices chanting plainsong: Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Vespers, Matins. “‘When you have become God’s in the measure He wants, He Himself will bestow you on others.’ That’s St. Basil, Amanda, remember…”
“Ah-man-dah?”
Her father always said religion was stupid superstition for people who didn’t want to think. But Brother Meissel thought, and he wasn’t stupid, even though nothing he said actually made any sense … It was very confusing. Why did everything have to be so confusing?
“Ah-man-dah?”
“Yes, Konstantin. I’ll go to Mass with you tomorrow. Uncle Martin, is there a Catholic church in Tharsis?”
“I don’t know.” Uncle Martin was looking at her in astonishment, Aunt Kristen with apprehension. Well, let them! Was it such a crime to go to church with a boy you liked? A guest in your home?
“Splendid,” Konstantin said. Amanda’s aunt and uncle were still looking at her, making Amanda feel very uncomfortable, when Demetria suddenly jumped up. “Coffee!” she said loudly, and Amanda was grateful to her even though she didn’t really know why.