Bug Park

by James P. Hogan

  "Andy, it's Phil. Do you know where Martin is tonight?"

  "On the yacht. He's entertaining. I don't think he'd appreciate interruptions unless the world's about to catch fire. Why, what's up?"

  "I've just had an attorney for that Japanese outfit onto me, wanting to know things about Jack Anastole. It's a 'she,' and she's asking too many questions. I don't like it. I think we could have a problem. Can you get in touch with Martin and tell him I need to talk to him before Monday."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hiroyuki headed a family-managed consortium of automatic vending franchises that dispensed everything from overnight kits and throwaway shirts to non-prescription pharmaceuticals and office supplies. He was perpetually rushing off to some remote part of the world to expand the empire, at which times Ohira would generally step in to watch over the domestic front and be on hand to deal with emergencies. As a result, Kevin had seen more of, and come to know better, Taki's uncle than he had his best friend's father.

  Hiroyuki's house was situated roughly ten miles east of Eric's, on the other side of Olympia. A large, gaudy affair sprawling beneath a discord of green-tile roofs and gables, it boasted an impeccable expanse of billiard-table lawn with floral beds and borders at the front, and several acres to the rear that Hiroyuki had had landscaped into a private 9-hole golf course. There was a pool, and along with it a sand pit, swing set, carousel, play house, tree fort, and climbing frame for the private army of grandchildren, grand-nieces, grand-nephews, and seemingly limitless friends that appeared in swarms on sunny days. Hiroyuki liked it that way. He said that houses without laughing children around were like mausoleums, and he'd get to spend enough time in one of those soon enough, anyway.

  Kevin estimated that at least a hundred people had shown up at the barbecue by early afternoon. Hiroyuki himself, attired in white cowboy hat and blue jeans to announce him an American, was searing steaks to the accompaniment of spectacular gushes of smoke and flame at the grill at one end of the pool, while his wife, Chi, and assorted other smiling relatives dispensed chicken, burgers, salads, and other fixings, including, incongruously, sushi, from a long table taped with red crepe paper. An adjacent table carried desserts and cakes, urns of coffee and hot water, icechests of fruit juices, sodas, and beers. A large tent and several awnings had been erected in case of rain, but they hadn't been needed. The younger children splashed and screamed in the pool, while teens and a few adults bobbed to music supplied courtesy of one of the cousins turned DJ, piped via loudspeakers fixed to the trees. Taki's older sister, Nakisha, was at the center of a bevy of Japanese girlfriends, all petite, all pretty, who were drawing the young males like kittens to a cage of canaries. Kevin and Taki were having to deal with a similar kind of situation in reverse.

  Avril was one of the high-school cheerleaders and dated football players. She had honey-blond hair that hung halfway down her back, took a 32B bra, and that day was wearing jeans that looked as if they could have come out of an aerosol can. She had homed on Kevin with the determination of a prima donna at a critics' convention making it clear that she was not someone you ignored, and was making her pitch with calculated professionalism that provoked nervous glances from her father, fifty feet away, who was trying at the same time to follow the conversation of a chairwoman of a local education committee, a Vancouver ferry captain, and an electronics designer with Boeing.

  "Where'd you get the shirt?" she asked Kevin. It was a gray cord with black edging at the pocket and collar. "It looks neat. I'm tired of all these guys dressing country."

  He shrugged. "Some store at some mall, I guess."

  "It's like the one the guy on Open Minds had last week," Avril's friend, Janna, said. She was slightly shorter, with curly dark hair and big brown eyes, clad in skimpy white shorts and a tank top—an equiprobable calamity trying hard to happen.

  "I don't know. I never watch it," Kevin said.

  "You never watch it?" Avril looked incredulous, as if he had announced that he hadn't breathed for the last ten years. "But how can't you? Everybody watches Open Minds."

  "Well, that's obviously untrue, isn't it," Kevin said. " 'Everybody' would include me, and I've just said it doesn't."

  "But it's got some really neat stuff," Janna insisted. "Like the one they did last week about the UFOs and aliens. Did you know we're being watched? They're up there all the time."

  "Oh, really? Can't say I've noticed many lately." Kevin cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Taki. Taki shook his head. "Neither has Taki," Kevin interpreted.

  "Well, of course you wouldn't," Janna said. "They don't want us to know, so they stay out of sight."

  "Not doing a very good job, then, are they?" Taki commented.

  "You're supposed to be open minded. That's what the whole thing is about. But people don't know how to be, see. That's why everything's like it is."

  Taki nodded knowingly. "Oh."

  Avril was studying Kevin's face. "Why don't you buy it?" she asked.

  He sighed and gave an easygoing grin, at the same time ruffling his hair with his fingers. He didn't want to argue—it never achieved anything. In any case, why should it matter to him what somebody else chose to believe? It was their right, wasn't it? "Oh . . . I just figure that if we'd been discovered by anybody who's come all that way, we'd know. It'd be like some island in the Pacific or wherever when the Navy showed up on its way to somewhere in World War Two. I mean, you've got juke boxes and Coca Cola machines, guys with tractors building airstrips. You know you've been found. There isn't any doubt about it."

  Avril's gaze flickered over his face keenly. Something seemed to tell her that she could find herself outgunned here if she pressed the point. "I don't buy it either," she declared, opting for safety, and at the same time shooting up several points in Kevin's estimation for astuteness at least. Janna seemed confused by the sudden desertion. Avril looked around for a way to change the subject and saw Eric talking with Michelle a few yards away. "Isn't that your dad over there?" she said to Kevin.

  "That's right."

  "I was listening to somebody talking about him," Avril went on. He owns some company around here, right?"

  "A bit closer to Tacoma."

  "They make these little robot guys that you control like VR, except it goes straight into your brain. You can make them walk around and do all this stuff, and you feel like you're really inside them."

  "Hey, cool," Janna pronounced.

  "That's close enough, I guess," Kevin agreed.

  "Kinda like ESP," Janna said.

  "And is that your mom too?" Avril asked Kevin.

  "No, just a friend. My mom's at a seminar in Seattle this weekend."

  "She's my uncle's business lawyer," Taki said.

  "Who, his mom?"

  "No, her."

  "Oh, okay."

  Janna was giving Kevin a quizzical look. "They have ESP and stuff like that on Open Minds sometimes as well. Don't you go for that either?"

  Kevin started to answer; but almost at once, felt as if he was about to start lecturing, and checked himself. This was supposed to be a party, after all. . . . He stole a glance at Taki and winked. Taki returned a faint nod.

  "Well, of course, ESP's different," Kevin said. "I can show you that's real. Has either of you got a quarter?" The two girls frowned at each other. "Or it could be anything, really."

  "Oh, I dunno. Lemme see . . ." Avril unsnapped the flap of her purse and rummaged inside.

  "Here." Janna produced a handful of coins from a pocket of her shorts.

  "Look away," Kevin told Taki. Taki turned his back on them and surveyed the activity by the pool. Kevin faced the two girls, using his body to screen the coins displayed in Janna's hand. "Pick one," he invited Avril.

  "What is this?" she asked suspiciously.

  "Just point to one."

  "Okay. . . ." Avril studied the mix of coins for a second. "That one." It was a quarter.

  Kevin peered at it and addressed Taki's back over his shoulder. "How a
bout this, Taki? Now, what is it?"

  "It's a . . . quarter."

  "Okay."

  "Oh, my God!" Janna exclaimed.

  "And the date on it is? . . ."

  "I'm concentrating . . ." Taki's voice trailed off. They waited. "1982."

  In fact, Kevin had already told him by wording the question in the form of a magician's code that they played with. Taki turned back, beaming. Janna gaped in astonishment.

  "I don't believe he did that," she stammered. "How did he know?"

  Kevin shrugged and shook his head. "We don't know how he does it. Maybe it's something to do with Orientals. You know, them being more spiritual, all that stuff. . . ." He caught Avril's suspicious look. "But not only ESP. Watch this!" He walked the quarter along the backs of the fingers of one hand, first one way, then back the other. Or at least, it was a quarter. . . .

  In fact, he had slipped Avril's quarter to Taki and was performing with another that he had quietly taken from his own pocket. While the girls followed what Kevin was doing, Taki leaned closer as if to watch, at the same time reaching surreptitiously behind Avril and dropping the coin into one of her hip pockets. Then he backed off and moved behind Kevin to stand by Janna, making it so natural and inconspicuous that neither of the girls registered that he had been near Avril at all.

  Kevin tossed the coin from one hand to the other and back again, then held out both fists, closed. "Which?" he invited.

  "I knew we were into tricks," Avril declared.

  Janna tapped one of Kevin's fists lightly. He peeled back his fingers one by one, smirking all the time, and showed it to be empty. "The other one, then," Janna said.

  But Kevin showed that to be empty too. Then he made a throwing motion toward Taki, opening his hand but sending nothing. Taki caught the imaginary coin and redirected it toward Avril.

  She looked at them uncertainly. "What . . . ?"

  "Oh, it went right through. Check your back pocket," Taki said.

  Avril did, and produced a quarter. She held it up, mystified. "How'd it get in there?"

  "Let me see the date on that," Janna demanded, taking it. "Oh, my God! Look. It is!"

  "Say!" Avril exclaimed, wide-eyed. "I don't believe this. Know something? These two guys are really neat!"

  Michelle smiled to herself and looked back at Eric. It was the first time that she had seen him off-duty and relaxed. The real Eric that she felt she was discovering had a disarming modesty about his accomplishments, didn't press his opinions, and took the world with a strong dose of humor that she sometimes needed a few seconds to recognize, all of which was delightfully at odds with the stereotypes she had absorbed of Germans. He should make time to be himself more often, she thought.

  "Kevin and Taki seem to be very popular with the ladies," she remarked.

  "Do them good, too. Young people should learn how to defend against predators before they're old enough to marry. Then they'll be more likely to find the right one."

  Michelle decided that might be a topic best steered clear of. "What was that they just did?" she said. "Some kind of magic trick? I couldn't make it out from here."

  "Probably. . . . As a matter of fact, they're not bad."

  "I didn't know they were into that kind of thing as well."

  "Oh, you name it, they're probably into it." Eric took a swig from a bottle that he was holding. "It ought to be taught in schools as standard. Fifth grade."

  "What? Conjuring?"

  Eric nodded. "It's a great way to learn that things aren't always what they seem, and to examine your assumptions about what you think is going on. What better grounding in science could there be than that? Learning should be fun. Was there ever a kid that didn't love conjuring?"

  The mention of science sent Michelle's thoughts back to their earlier conversation. "You never did tell me about your previous life as a heretic," she said, giving him a curious look.

  Eric's eyes laughed through his spectacles, savoring his own unrepentance. "Why do you want to hear about that?"

  "Lawyers are like scientists." She bit into a pickle and regarded him impishly. "They want to hear about everything."

  "Oh . . ." He waved a hand vaguely. "I dared to question the High Church of Relativity. Science has its infallible popes too, you see. And when one of them has been canonized and made a saint, any suggestion that he might have been following a false god gets you immediate excommunication." Eric took another sip of beer, apparently weighing up how far he wanted to go into this; then he gestured with the hand holding the bottle to take in the scene around them. "Just imagine, the Earth we're standing on is hurtling around the sun at thirty kilometers per second. And the sun's moving faster than that through the galaxy. So why doesn't the wind tear the roof off the house and blow all these tents away?"

  Michelle frowned, hesitating to state the obvious. Eric nodded encouragingly. "Yes?"

  "Because the air . . ."

  "The atmosphere is moving with us," he completed for her. "That's right. There's no catch. It's like when you're in a plane. You can talk easily to the passenger next to you in the cabin because your whole acoustic environment and its physics is moving with you. But try doing it sitting out on the wing."

  "Okay. . . ." Michelle nodded that it made sense so far.

  Eric shrugged in a way that seemed to say that was all she really needed to understand. "The Earth carries its electromagnetic environment along with it too, in exactly the same way." He used both hands to trace a vertical, streamlined drop shape in the air. "You can see it clearly on the field plots of data from space probes over the last fifty years. There's a huge bow shock-wave about ten Earth radii out, which the charged-particle flux from the sun streams around like water around a boat."

  "You mean like a kind of . . . bubble?"

  "Exactly—with us inside it, like the cabin of the plane. Well, about a century ago, before all that was known, a famous experiment was performed to measure the electromagnetic wind of the Earth moving through space. But it didn't detect anything."

  "So? . . ."

  "So they invented Relativity to explain why."

  Michelle screwed up her face, checking for something she might have missed, then shook her head. "But why would it need explaining? They shouldn't expect to detect anything. It would be like . . ." she sought an analogy, finally settling for the one Eric had used, "trying to measure your airspeed inside the plane."

  Eric nodded. "Exactly. But it's in all the textbooks. And the clergy have been taught not to question the written Word, you see."

  Michelle looked at him disbelievingly. "Surely it can't be that simple."

  "I really think it is. So do a number of other physicists. But they're not the ones in charge. Science has gone the way of the medieval European Church and sold out to politics. It doesn't pursue truth anymore; it promotes correct agendas."

  "So are you saying that Relativity is wrong?"

  "Not wrong. Just a needlessly complicated way of interpreting what's going on. Ptolemy's epicycles weren't 'wrong.' You can still say that the planets move in loops if you want. It fits the observed data. But trying to figure out laws of motion to make it work would drive you crazy. We're still waiting for the new Copernicus to come along who'll be listened to—but in the meantime, we do what we can. In fact I'll be speaking on this at a conference that's being held up in the mountains over the holiday weekend. So wish me luck, eh?"

  "Oh? Where's this?"

  "A place called Barrow's Pass. It's a new, glitzy creation that doubles as a conference center and ski resort."

  Michelle shook her head. "Vanessa away this weekend. You next week. Is it always like that? You don't seem to see too much of each other." She meant it as a hint to take a look at his life, without wanting to sound critical.

  "We're like the two yuppies in the story, aren't we?" Eric said, smiling. "Did you hear about them?"

  "Go on."

  "They pass each other on the stairs of the house, both wearing suits and carry
ing briefcases. He's just come in; his wife is just rushing out. He shouts back at her, 'Where are you going?' She shouts, 'Tokyo. Where are you back from?' He says, 'London.' Then, just as she gets to the door, she stops and calls back up the stairs, 'How are the children?' And he answers, 'I thought they were with you.' "

  Michelle laughed, but then her expression became serious again. "We joke about it, but it's not far from the way a lot of people are getting these days. Life is something that should be lived, not strip-mined. Don't you think so?"

  Eric snorted. "That sounds funny coming from a lawyer. I thought they were supposed to be among the worst."

  "We're like airplanes," Michelle told him. "You only hear about us when one flies faster, higher, or crashes."

  Eric grinned, putting a foot up on one of the lawn chairs and resting an arm on his knee while he surveyed the scene around them. "Younger people still have their values right, though. They make friends for the right reasons, read things they like, and are healthily skeptical of eminent authorities. You know, sometimes I think that all of this so-called wisdom that we brag about acquiring as we get older is really nothing more than rediscovering the common sense that we had at sixteen."

  "That's interesting. Did you think it up yourself?"

  "No. I got it from Kevin, of course."

  Doug Corfe had appeared from the direction of the house and been joined by the Vancouver ferry captain, who had left the group he was with earlier. Ohira detached himself from a mingling of people and children by the pool and came over, holding a paper plate piled with pieces of steak and chicken. Like Hiroyuki he was in blue jeans, his hair plastered in points around his forehead by a scarlet headband worn in place of the cowboy hat.

  "Too dangerous for grown-ups back there," he said. "A man could get drowned in all that flying water."

  "Kids relive their fish ancestry," Michelle told him.

  "I think it's called recapitulation," Eric said. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

  "I always say that I'm enjoying myself. If you can't tell a lie honestly, then fake it. I learn from American lawyers."