"Alien air-breather!" The sudden words from the translation unit brought Friday's attention back to ground level. The black rock sat immobile as ever. The words were being translated from sounds emitted by Two-Four. "Pay attention."
"I'm listening." At least it had stopped all the "Abase, abase," nonsense. "I told you my name, you know. It's not alien air-breather, it's Friday Indigo."
"Air-breather." The eyestalks waved, and the Malacostracan continued as though Friday had not spoken. "The One has been made aware of your proposal for cooperation. The One desires to know more, and is willing to discuss it with you. However, there are three problems. First, Level One speech is too advanced for your primitive device." A black pincer reached forward and touched the translation unit. "Communication through this would be as unproductive as an attempt at reasoned speech with a Level Four. Something better is needed.
"Second, The One requires additional evidence that you and your kind have something to offer. We have observed your feeble attempts to spy on our surface activities, and are in the process of neutralizing those orbiters. We anticipate no difficulty in doing so. The One declares the orbiters to be undefended and therefore primitive. If that represents your best level of technology, it is of little or no value. Do you wish to comment?"
"No." Orbiters? That was news to Friday. But it was good news. Somebody or something on one of the ships had found a way off the surface of Limbo and into space. All the riches in the universe were no good if you had no way of taking them home. On the other hand, "undefended" in the eyes of the Malacostracans apparently equated to "primitive." That was a clue to their outlook on life, and not an encouraging one.
Two-Four was continuing, "Third, The One believes that you and your kind are in a poor position for negotiation of any kind. We created and we control the sea-sky portal that you refer to as the Link. Without the Link, you will remain here on this world until you and all your spawn are dead. Do you understand?"
Friday nodded, then realized that was no use to the translation unit and said, "Yes, I understand." He wasn't much worried about his spawn at the moment. More on his mind was his own immediate future and the split and dried bodies of the bubble people. "I think you're wrong about our technology, though. It's just not represented in the equipment we brought with us. There's a tremendous amount of information in our ships' data bases, about all sorts of things. Everything from astrophysics to zoology. It's not possible that you already know all of it, and without our help you'd never be able to figure out how to get into the data bases."
That led to another two-way stream of high-pitched whistles and grunts between The One and its Level Two subordinate. It went on for a while. Something in Friday's last speech seemed to be producing excitement, and he wondered what it might be.
"It is possible that you are correct," Two-Four said at last. "Although we could assuredly learn everything that you and your kind know, time is important to us. The One is willing to consider acceptance of your assistance. You will become the intermediary between us and your kind. In return, you will not be harmed. However, there is one additional condition. The One is not satisfied with this slow and possibly inaccurate method of communication, first through me and then through your machine. You must agree to receive Level One compressed speech directly, and be able to speak for the Malacostracans to your own kind. How do you answer?"
Friday thought about it. The deal sounded pretty clean and simple, but he had to be sure that his lousy translator wasn't crapping out on some vital point.
"Let me make sure I understand you. I'm going to play back what I heard you say, and you can tell me if I have it right. I learn to understand The One's speech, right?"
"That is correct."
"How long does that take?"
"Very little time, with our technology. A small fraction of a day. At the same time, The One will learn your speech."
"All right. After that, I become the interface between your people and my own and any other visitors from outside this world?"
"Again, that is correct."
"The only interface?"
"Certainly. Only one is needed."
"Ah, but what about your technology?" Friday thought he saw the catch. "Will you be willing to tell me about that?"
There was a pause, followed by another two-way transfer between the Malacostracans. Friday again wondered what he had said. It had sounded pretty straightforward to him. But Two-Four was finally replying, and the tones that came from the translator sounded puzzled: "Of course, all knowledge of our technology will be available to you. That, together with all other facts regarding our origins and our plans."
"And I will not be harmed."
"Why would we harm someone who is serving as our intermediary? We repeat, you will not be harmed. You will be our valuable interface."
"Then—I accept." Friday wondered what would have happened had he declined, and decided he preferred not to speculate.
There was a brief squeak from The One, and the translator said, "Excellent. We will begin at once."
"Wait a minute!"
A pause, and a polite, "Yes? Do you have more questions?"
Did he? Friday couldn't think of any, but things seemed to be going awful fast and easy. He reviewed everything he had been told, and finally shrugged. "I guess I don't."
"Very good. Then we will proceed." Two-Four scuttled suddenly and sharply backward. At the same moment, six black hoses, each as thick as a human thumb, emerged from the holes as the base of The One and snaked in Friday's direction. At their ends they divided into fine bundles of thin filaments.
He tried to jump backwards, the same as Two-Four had done, but he was too slow. Two of the flexible arms curled around his thighs, two around his waist, and they pulled him closer to the black rock. The other two moved to attach to the sides of his head, just above his ears.
Friday cried out, "Hey, you told me I wouldn't be harmed." Before he could complete the sentence, something much worse was happening. He felt the divided ends of the cables sliding down his skull. They were entering his ears. They were inside him. He opened his mouth to scream in pain and terror, but he was too late. And suddenly it wasn't necessary. Instead of pain he felt the most intense ecstasy of his life. Nothing else—food, drugs, sex—nothing came even close. It was as much as he could stand.
Then it became more intense. Stronger, better. More than he could stand. Friday, safe in the protective embrace of The One, swooned into an ecstasy of unutterable pleasure.
23: EXPLANATIONS AND PROBLEMS
Bony had met Elke Siry less than an hour ago, but already he had formed his impressions. The scientist was naturally shy to the point of appearing antisocial—he could relate to that—yet she could not bear to sit by and hear wrong deductions being made from hard data. As a result, she had become the leader of the meeting.
General Dag Korin, who was already a known name to Bony, didn't seem to mind. He acted almost as the blond scientist's protector, encouraging her to speak and give her opinions. As a result the whole group had clustered around her and paid close attention to her words. The Angel sat with its roots deep in a great pot of dark soil dragged in by Chan Dalton and Deb Bisson from the garden of the Hero's Return. The Pipe-Rilla hovered high above it, with Tinkers clustered around her lower part. The humans, except for Chan Dalton somewhat uneasy with the recently arrived aliens, sat well away from them.
"Most of us seem to have ideas as to what's happened to us," Elke was saying.
Wrong, thought Bony, most of us have no idea at all.
But he did not speak, and Elke Siry went on, "Before we start to speculate, let's look at what we know for sure. Four different ships set out for the Geyser Swirl. Each one expected to emerge in open space—more than that, we saw no way that they could emerge to anything other than open space, because of the safeguards built into a Link transition.
"Each of us arrived in water, on a planetary surface. It should have been impossible but it happened,
not once but four times. Beyond the planet, according to the observations of the two unmanned orbiters that we sent out, is a region of space that looks nothing like the Geyser Swirl. Instead of dust clouds and normal stars, we see strange dimly glowing circles. We assume that they are spheres of some kind, but note that this is an assumption. So far as real knowledge is concerned, they could be circles painted on the sky."
Dag Korin said, "But—" then paused and shook his head.
"No, General, I don't think they are, either." On anyone else's face the slight relaxation of Elke's tight mouth would have been a smile. "I merely point out the difference between knowledge and assumption. What else do we know? Well, we know that the gravity field of this planet is abnormally small for its size. So small, the interior must be made of something less dense than ordinary water. But if that were the case, the heavy-water ocean should have sunk toward the planetary center. So let's call that a paradox, with no explanation.
"Also, we know from observations made by orbiters and by some of our party, that the primary star around which this planet revolves is a blue giant. We also know, again from the experience of some here, that there is life in this ocean. The bubble people are not only alive, they appear to be intelligent.
"These two facts together, the short life span of a blue giant star and the long time needed for living things to develop on a planet around it, give some of us problems. But those problems arise from our trust in our own scientific ideas. According to standard astrophysical theories, blue giant stars must run through their stellar lives very fast, in millions of years rather than billions. So Limbo can't be more than a few tens of millions of years old, at most. But according to our biological theories, the development of life requires a much longer time scale. It needs at least hundreds of millions of years to evolve from its primordial forms, and maybe billions of years to produce multicelled complex beings with intelligence. So we have two of our basic scientific theories, and they seem to be incompatible with each other."
More than anyone else in the fire control room, Tully O'Toole seemed at ease with Elke Siry. He was sitting closest to her, and he rubbed at his stubbled chin and said, "I burned my brains with Paradox, and maybe that's my problem. But I don't get it. Two theories sound like one too many. Why should we believe in any?"
That produced an actual smile on Elke's thin face. "I'm not saying we pick a theory at all at this point. I'm just listing the things we know, and the things we don't know but tend to assume. Let me keep going, and see where it leads. We know, from direct chemical tests, that the liquid of the ocean into which we fell is water. But it's not the form of water we're most familiar with, H2O, which forms the bulk of the oceans of Earth and the water-ice of much of the rest of the solar system. This ocean is D2O, deuterium oxide or heavy water. Heavy water occurs naturally in the solar system, but it's only one six-thousandth as common as ordinary water. Does anyone have a problem with that?"
She looked at the circle of faces. Dag Korin shrugged, and the others, taking their lead from Chan Dalton, shook their heads.
Elke said firmly, "Well, I do. And so should you. Deuterium is a stable alternate form of hydrogen, with a neutron in the nucleus as well as a proton. They don't turn into each other. And the relative proportions of the amounts of each were defined in the first few minutes of the universe, soon after the Big Bang started the whole thing going. Now, I know what you're going to say"—no one other than Elke showed signs of saying anything—"the Big Bang is a theory, too, and because it's a theory we don't know that the proportions of hydrogen to deuterium have to be fixed at six thousand to one. I can't disagree with that, but I'll say only this: if we're going to throw the idea of the Big Bang overboard, we won't have much left of current astrophysics and cosmology. I'm going to make the case for keeping the Big Bang, but before I do that I want to point out one other thing that we know.
"This one concerns times. The Angel pointed this out to me, so I can't take credit for it. Let's examine the dates when each of our four ships made the Link transition that was supposed to carry it to the Geyser Swirl. I don't need to go into detail. It's enough to say that it took time to decide to send another expedition when a previous one failed to come back. Months went by between the Link entry times of the Pipe-Rilla and Tinker expedition, the Angel expedition, and the first and second human expedition. These are known facts."
Bony caught Liddy's eye. No one was tactless enough to say that the efforts of the Mood Indigo had been undertaken without the approval or permission of the aliens of the Stellar Group, and also spectacularly unsuccessful. Friday's failure to return strongly suggested that he and his ship had been destroyed in the storm.
"Now consider our arrival times, here on Limbo," Elke said. "Again, we're dealing with facts, and not theories. Our ships arrived in the correct sequence, corresponding to the order in which they made the Link transitions; but they arrived no more than a day or two after each other. Link transitions are supposed to be instantaneous. Again, that's a theory, but it's a theory supported by many thousands of cases, with no counterexamples to suggest anything different."
Elke paused. "I think I've covered everything that's relevant. Oh, no, one other thing, and again it's a fact. The Link in the Geyser Swirl isn't one that we knew was there before. In fact, until recently every member of the Stellar Group would have sworn that there was no Link transition point anywhere in the Swirl. We didn't make it, and we know of no one else who might have done so. Add that fact in to everything else, and what have you got?"
She glanced from one member of the group to the next. Everyone remained silent, although the Angel was waving its upper fronds.
"I don't think we have anything," Tully said at last. "Unless you count a bunch of contradictions and impossibilities as something."
"I think we do." Elke turned to the Angel. "Would you like to explain, or shall I?"
The fronds dipped in her direction, and the synthesized voice from deep within the Angel said, "Too many cooks spoil the broth. Please, continue."
"All right. I'm going to throw an assumption at you. Better take a deep breath, because it's a big one. On the other hand, it seems to explain everything else. Here it is: the Link entry point in the Geyser Swirl is different from any that we know, and it doesn't perform the usual type of transition. A ship that transfers to it does not emerge in the Swirl. Instead, the ship undergoes a second transition to somewhere else.
"And"—she continued before anyone could object or comment—"that somewhere else is not anywhere in our own universe. It is in a different cosmos, call it a parallel universe if you like. That's why the safeguards against emerging where there is matter didn't work. And that's where we are now."
Someone, it sounded to Bony like Danny Casement, muttered, "A long way from home," and Chrissie Winger said softly, "I don't like this. Come on, somebody, give me a nicer explanation."
"If you can think of a better explanation," Elke said, "I'd be more than happy to hear it. But see what my one assumption explains. First, a different universe is likely to have different basic physical constants. Not too different from what we know; in fact things in both universes have to be very close or we wouldn't be able to survive here at all. The very fact that we're sitting talking means that any changes have to be small. But small changes are enough. Minor differences in the physical constants during the first minutes of the universe give big differences in the relative amounts of hydrogen and deuterium. I speculate that almost all water in this entire universe will be heavy water, in order to have a planet with heavy-water oceans. The same differences, later on, affect the rate of stellar evolution. A blue giant star doesn't burn up so fast, and planets around it have time enough to develop life, and even intelligent life. The strange globes in the night sky are alternate forms of stars, things which can form here but which can't form in our own universe. That would suggest a difference in the basic gravitational constant, which would also help explain Limbo's low gravity but large size
.
"Now, we might be able to talk away everything I've said, but there's one fact above all else that convinces me that we're in a different universe. That's the times. The intervals between the times when our ships entered the Link transition points in our universe, and the interval between our emergence into the ocean here, don't match. We're in a universe where not only the physical laws are different. The time rates in the two universes are not the same. A couple of months pass back home, while only a day passes here." Elke turned to the Angel. "You did the calculations. What did the relative rate come out to be?"
The Angel had sunk lower and seemed to be luxuriating in the presence of the rich soil at its base. It roused itself and mumbled, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying. To be more specific, and to three-figure accuracy, time is passing on this world 61.2 times as fast as standard time on Earth, Sellora, or other worlds of the Stellar Group."
Elke had seen the scowl on Dag Korin's face, and added, "In practical terms, General, the Angel is saying that two months will pass on Earth for every standard day that we remain here on Limbo. Our friends back home will already be worried about us. They'll be wondering why we haven't returned from the Geyser Swirl."
"Well, dammit, I'm ahead of them." The General was still scowling. "I want to know more than that. Maybe I'm simpleminded, Dr. Siry, and certainly I'm old, but I don't give a tinker's cuss about deuterium and time rates and all that science crap. The way I see it, we were sent here with a job to do. We had to find out what happened to the other expeditions that came before us. Well, we've done that, and more. Except for Friday Indigo, who it sounds like went off and killed himself in the storm, we have everybody from all the expeditions accounted for and here on this ship. So my question is this: How and when can we go home?"
"I'd like to know that, too, but you're asking the wrong person." Elke turned to Chan Dalton. "What's the condition of the ship?"
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