by Greg Bear
"Yes, sir," Patricia said quietly. Takahashi—short, half Japanese, well muscled, with close-cropped black hair and large self-assured green eyes, returned Lake's nod. Takahashi was the only one wearing Earthside clothes—a cotton shirt, windbreaker and denim pants. "Dispensation," he had explained back by the tent. "I'm allergic to the dye in the overalls."
Lake urged the truck forward. Carrolson checked off their equipment as Farley read a slate list.
The truck carried a total of eight passengers, four military men and four "principals," as Carrolson referred to the scientists and Patricia.
Patricia kept her eyes on the seat in front of her. In her pocket was a letter from Paul, delivered to her in the first chamber the shift before.
Dear Patricia,
Wherever you are, my mystery woman, I hope all is well. Life here is mundane—especially when I think of where you might be—but it goes. I keep in touch with your folks—Rita's a doll and Ramon and I have had some pretty good conversations. I've learned a lot about you behind your back. Hope you don't mind. My applications to Prester and Minton (two software manufacturers) have been processed, I hear, but things are on hold until the Defense Platform appropriations bill passes. There's some talk about a filibuster and that could screw things up for months.
Enough talk of that. I miss you desperately. Rita asked me if we were going to get married and I kept mum, just as you want. I do want to; you know that. I don't care how weird you are, or where you are right now; just come back and give me a nod. We'll find our own home. Don't be too stubborn this time. Well, enough of this; you probably have other fish to fry, and my particular floppings and slappings on the bank—where you have beached me with your line—are just distractions. (Now, you know I can't end a letter without something clumsy and confusing.) I love you. Neat, prim kisses.
Paul
She had typed up a long, self-censored reply, showed it to Carrolson for approval, and had it sent Earthside on the next OTV.
Surprisingly, writing the letter had been easy. In it, she said all the things she knew Paul would want to hear, all the things she thought needed to be said if, indeed, Paul was going to be dead in a few weeks. Not that she had really accepted that possibility. If she had, she wouldn't be as calm as she was.
Lanier was on his way to Earth by now. Patricia envied him. She would rather be on Earth, waiting to die, than up here, facing what she knew.
No, that wasn't really true. She closed her eyes and cursed herself. This was the most responsibility she had ever had. She had to overcome her crazy grief and fear and work as best she could to prevent.
And—she almost hated herself for it—she was working. Her mind was in the state, finally. Solutions were starting to come to her, presenting themselves like suitors, all formally dressed in equations, each rejected when its inadequacies became apparent.
Takahashi seemed a bright and conscientious fellow, but Patricia hadn't felt like talking as the expedition had gathered, and so she knew little about him. Takahashi and Carrolson would be her seconds in almost everything from now on, Lanier had said.
The road ended fifty kilometers from the base camp. The truck lurched into a shallow gully, its rubber-tired band-metal-spoke wheels making their queer singing noise on the dirt. The forward aspect of the corridor didn't change as they advanced. The southern cap receded slowly, steadily, and became less overwhelming. Patricia didn't feel comfortable angling for a view, however, so she caught only brief glimpses as they traveled. Carrolson, Farley and Takahashi played chess on a slate as Patricia watched inattentively.
"Halfway," Lake said two hours later. The chess players recorded their moves and cleared the slate as the truck slowed and came to a smooth stop. The doors slid aside and the marines climbed down with groans of relief. Patricia slid after them and stood on the dry dirt, stretching and yawning. Carrolson came around from the opposite side of the truck, water cooler in hand, and poured drinks into their cups. "All the luxuries," she said.
"Beer?" Reynolds asked.
"Sacrificed to science," Carrolson said. "Anybody hungry?"
Patricia removed a sandwich from the kit and walked with Takahashi a few dozen meters away from the truck. For a time, she had felt a floating sense of anxiety and nausea, but that had dissipated. How could there be anything to fear in an endless stretch of desert, devoid even of insects? The very blandness was comforting, a blank slate.
"'The sea was wet as wet could be, the sand was dry as dry,'" she said.
"Indeed," Takahashi agreed. She squatted on the dirt and he sat beside her, folding his legs into an easy lotus. "Do you know why I'm along on this trip?"
His approach was awkwardly direct. She looked away from him. "No doubt to keep an eye on me."
"Yes. Lanier said you should be observed diligently. How are you holding up?"
"Well enough."
"The library. . .” He lowered his voice and stared back at the cap. "It isn't easy."
"Pretty soon I'm going to feel like a royal princess, surrounded by retainers."
Takahashi chuckled. "It won't get that bad. I'll keep Lanier's worries in check. But I have to ask one important question. Can you work?"
Patricia knew precisely what he meant. "I am working. Right this minute."
"Good." No more needed to be said on that topic.
She plucked a branch of scrub to see if the growth differed from the variety near the camp. It didn't—small leaves, waxy surfaces. Even the dry grass was the same. "Not a garden spot," she said. "At least I expected some more dwarf forests."
"It gets worse," Takahashi said.
"Have you ever considered how much dirt they had to bring into the corridor?" she asked, standing up. She had taken only a few bites from her sandwich. She hadn't been hungry for two days. "If the dirt is about a quarter kilometer deep—"
"So we estimate from sounding," Takahashi said.
"And let's say the corridor is a billion kilometers long. . .”
"Why that figure?"
"Just a guess," she said. "That makes about forty billion kilometers of dirt."
"If we broke the Earth down and paved the corridor with it—crust, magma and core—we could cover about thirty billion kilometers." Takahashi poked his finger into a sandy patch.
"What if they have mountains farther on? Even more dirt and rock required, then."
"That's possible," Takahashi said, "But the big question is, Where did they get it all? And don't forget the air. It's about twenty kilometers deep, so that would make. . . one point six trillion cubic kilometers of air, at just over a gram a liter—"
"You've worked all this out before."
"Of course. Many times. Rimskaya started it, and the statistics people carried on. I kibitzed. So many questions about logistics and design. How does the air get renewed in the corridor? The Stone's regeneration ponds couldn't possibly keep up with it, not if there's any sizable population of animals farther on. So maybe there's just enough air to last a few thousand years."
"That doesn't seem right," Patricia said. "Whoever—or whatever—set this up, designed it for eternity. Don't you get that feeling?"
"Sometimes. Doesn't mean it's a valid assumption."
"Still, there must be some kind of corridor maintenance system."
Takahashi nodded. "Rimskaya theorized there would be openings in the corridor even before we discovered the wells."
Carrolson joined them. "Ever notice what the corridor smells like?" she asked.
Patricia and Takahashi shook their heads.
"Smells just like before a storm. All the time. But the ozone levels aren't very high. Another mystery."
Patricia sniffed the air. It smelled fresh, but not like a brewing storm.
"I was raised in storm country," Carrolson said defensively. "That's the smell, all right."
Back in the truck, continuing the journey, Patricia spent much of the time doing problems on the processor, figuring volumes and masses and putting them all int
o a small table.
An hour later, Takahashi pointed out the first circuit, four wells at the quadrilateral points of a ring. Each well sat in the middle of a dimple about half a kilometer in diameter and twenty meters deep. In the center of the dimple was an inverted bronze-colored dish fifteen meters wide, suspended eight meters above the bowl. The dish hovered in empty air, unsupported.
The truck slowed near the rim of the dimple. At Takahashi's request, Lake drove them around the well before stopping. They climbed down and approached the rim.
"We've made about twenty trips to this circuit," Takahashi said. "Beaten a path, almost."
Patricia held her multi-meter before her. The value of pi held steady. She knelt down and hung the instrument over the rim. The readout remained the same.
"Now step into the depression," Takahashi suggested. The marines, Farley, Carrolson and Takahashi stood beyond the rim in a group. She wrinkled her nose at them. "Another initiation? You first, then."
"That would spoil the fun," Carrolson said. "Go ahead."
Patricia pushed one foot forward, then put her weight onto the sloping, sandy soil.
"All the way," Lake urged.
She sighed and walked into the dimple. Ten meters from the rim, feeling peculiar, she looked back. Her body was not inclined at the same angle as the others. Dizzy, she tried to right herself and almost fell over. The natural stance was along the radius of curvature, as if the corridor force followed the curve of the bowl. Yet there was no local distortion of space registering on the multi-meter. The rest of the group followed after.
In the shadow of the floating dish was a slightly protruding bronze-colored plug about half as wide. Takahashi walked across the plug to show it was safe. Patricia followed, multi-meter again at the fore. No change.
"Any idea what holds the dish up?" she asked. Farley and Carrolson shrugged. The marines sat in the sand around the well, looking bored.
"That may not be an appropriate question," Takahashi said. "Look at the material of the dish and plug—up close. As far as we can tell, it's the same stuff as the corridor walls."
Patricia kneeled and ran her hands along the plug's surface. The color was not uniformly bronze. There seemed to be red and green streaks, even spots of black, merging, separating and twisting in the surface like worms.
"This stuff is geometry, too, then?" Patricia asked.
"It isn't matter," Carrolson said. "We ruled that out just after the wells were discovered."
"It took us all some time to get used to the idea of using space as a building material," Takahashi said. Farley nodded emphatically.
"Not at all," Patricia said coolly. "I wrote about it four years ago. If nested universes are somehow kept from assuming one definite state, a barrier against penetration will form due to continuous opposed spatial transforms."
Takahashi smiled but Carrolson and Farley simply stared. "So," Takahashi said, "nothing supports the dish. It doesn't have any real existence. It's simply a shaped jam-up of probabilities. Makes perfect sense."
"Oh," Farley said.
Lake sat in the middle of the plug, Apple lying across his knees. "I'm just a small-town boy from Michigan," he said. "But it sure feels solid. It isn't even slippery."
"Good point," Patricia said. She reached down to feel it with her palms. "There apparently isn't total separation of probabilistic states. Some interaction between matter and the surface is allowed, besides resistance to intrusion." She put her multi-meter directly on the surface. The value of pi fluctuated wildly, then stabilized: 3.141487233 continuous. "Pi's down," she said. She invoked the other constants. "Gravitational constant is nominal, speed of electromagnetic radiation is nominal and stable."
"Slash aitch?" Carrolson asked.
"The same. What purpose do the wells serve?"
"This circuit is capped, so it serves no purpose we can determine."
"The wells may give access to something outside the corridor," Takahashi said. "We decided against finding out where they lead. But the wells were not plugged, and the sand was kept out of the central hole by a spongy field of force, nature unknown. The only thing we could see was red light coming up out of each well. We sent a little drone helicopter into one well. It didn't come back. Our viewing angle was such that we couldn't see it after it traveled about ten meters. We decided against sending anybody after it."
"Wisely," Carrolson said.
Lake, still sitting, said laconically, "My men are ready to go as far as you'd like, any time you like."
"We appreciate that, Lieutenant," Carrolson said. "But we have good reasons for taking these things slowly."
"Give me an all-environment suit and a weapon, a couple of backups. . .” He grinned.
"You'd really go down?" Patricia asked, turning to the officer with an incredulous expression.
Lake grimaced. "If we were reasonably sure about the general category of things to see and experience, I'd go. We'd all go." The marines nodded in unison. "Duty here hasn't been all that exciting. Outside of the obvious scenic values."
"We dug all around the dimple," Takahashi said, edging up the slope and pointing with extended arms to indicate placement of the holes. He picked up a handful of dirt and let it sift between his fingers. "The dirt in all the wells is dry. No microorganisms, no large life forms, no plants."
"No living things. . . except us," Farley said.
"And no radiation," Takahashi continued. "No traces of unusual chemistry. So maybe these closed wells are just survey markers."
"Benchmarks of the gods," Carrolson intoned.
"Each well is alike?" Patricia asked.
"As far as we know," Takahashi said. "We've only examined two circuits."
Reynolds stood and brushed sand from his overalls. "Hey, Lieutenant. Maybe this is where boojums come from."
Lake rolled his eyes.
"Have you ever seen a boojum?" Patricia asked, looking intently at the marine.
"I don't think anyone has," Carrolson said.
"Mr. Reynolds?"
Reynolds glanced between Lake and Patricia. "Am I really being asked?"
"Yes," Patricia said. "I'm asking." She tapped her badge, uncertain whether that carried any weight with the marines.
"I've never seen one," Reynolds admitted. "But others have, others that I trust."
"We've all heard about 'em," another marine named Huckle said. "Some guys are full of stories."
"Still," Lake said, "these men aren't prone to seeing things that aren't there. The reports are few, but interesting."
Patricia nodded. "Are there any plans to descend into a well?"
"Not so far," Takahashi said. "We have other problems to face."
She looked down at the plug, rubbing her boot across the surface. "I'd like to see the complete expedition report when we get back," she said.
For the first time, a solution had presented itself—even as they talked—that had survived the first level of criticism. She looked up at the inverted dish, at the minutely active colors.
"Shall we return, then?" Takahashi asked.
"I think so," Patricia said.
The Frant used an adapted pictor to project the objects and landscapes around them and camouflage their activity in and about the tent. The two guards, dressed in black, might hear Olmy if he was especially noisy, but they wouldn't see him. He walked within a few dozen centimeters of one guard on his way to the box that served Patricia Luisa Vasquez as a desk.
He was particularly interested in the young woman; from what he had heard, she was becoming central to the group's endeavors. And if she was the same woman he had heard the Engineer speak of. . .
On the box, notes filled perhaps fifty sheets of paper, arranged in no apparent order. Many of the notes were scribbled over or heavily blacked out; sometimes entire pages, except for a few square centimeters of equations or diagrams, were obscured by hard-pressed pencil marks. He leafed through the sheets quietly, puzzling over Patricia's private notation.
/> A slate lay on one corner, its silver-gray screen blank. A memory block had been plugged into the aperture in the right side of the slate, just above the small keyboard. Olmy glanced around, checking for the position of the guards, and kneeled beside the slate, turning it on. Learning how to use the antique was not difficult; in a few minutes, he had it rapidly scrolling up the contents of the memory block. He recorded the series of files in his implant for later analysis; this took about four minutes.
From what he could see and understand of her work, she was quite advanced for her century.
He was arranging the papers into their previous order when a guard came around the corner of the tent and stared in his direction. Olmy stood slowly, certain the picted camouflage was still effective.
"You hear anything, Norman?" Sergeant Jack Teague asked his colleague.
"No."
"Puff of wind or something? I could have sworn I heard these papers moving."
"Just another boojum, Jack."
Teague approached the box and looked down at the papers. "Jesus," he murmured. "Wonder what this stuff is." He bent and ran his fingers just above the line of symbols. There were cursive letters mixed with bold black lowercase letters; double upright bars reminiscent of the matrix symbols he had studied in flight school, integral signs, exponents containing German gothic letters and Greek letters, squiggles and triangles and lopsided circles with double dots in the middle, letters with single and double dots like umlauts over them. . .
"What a mess," Sergeant Teague said, rising again. His neck hair bristled and he sniffed the air, twisting suddenly.
Of course, nothing was there. What did he expect?
Chapter Twelve
Lanier had slept through most of the two-day OTV ride, head full of weightless dreams indiscriminately mixing the Stone and Earth, past and future.
He looked at his watch and then at the face of the secret service agent sitting beside him in the limousine. There was an eighteen-hour lag between the time he had landed at Vandenberg and the time he would report to Hoffman's office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside the smoke-colored car window, desert flashed by. The air pressure was high and the gravitation oppressive. Even through the dark windows, the sun was hot and yellow.