by Anthology
“You mean, you get energy from nothing?” said the most junior of the press. He had an open, gullible face. The other two, one man and one woman, didn't look even vaguely interested, and I guessed that they thought of the whole trip as a chore they hadn't been able to wriggle out of.
“Not from nothing . From the vacuum!” That was one of Marcus's problems, because although it was clear from their facial expressions that this subtle distinction was far beyond all the reporters, he swept right on: “Now, the energy available from the vacuum is so big, you tend to think of it as unlimited. But the Genizee insist that tapping the zero point energy sets up a local stress in space, which ultimately must be relieved. If you remove local energy past a certain critical point, they say, there will be a jump to a lower-energy ground state. The only more stable state is a black hole. The whole region pinches off from the rest of the universe."
“In other words,” I said. “The rest of universe will get rid of the stressed region by making it vanish. ” I saw the open mouths, and wondered if I was being as obscure as Marcus. But he had been over this with me again and again, until I had something that made sense to me inside my head. My picture might be over-simple, but the reporters ought to find it easier going. “Imagine that there are a whole lot of elastic bands,” I went on, “all over the universe. Somebody starts to stretch one, in one place. That's what we were doing, when we tested the drive. You can stretch it a fair bit, and nothing happens. All the other bands give a tiny bit, and everything settles down again. But if you go on stretching, there finally comes a point where something has to give. The band breaks. When it does, everything can’t go back the way it was. You've got snapped elastic, and you're catapulted right out of this universe."
“And that's what the Genizee are warning us about?” said the young reporter.
“They were. But it’s not true ,” said Marcus hotly. “When I heard what they were saying, I went back and did all the calculations over from scratch. There's no backlash effect. Spacetime makes a small and quiet adjustment—maybe the local curvature decreases by one part in ten to the twentieth. An FTL drive is quite safe."
“But that means the Genizee were lying to us,” said the woman reporter, in an annoyed tone. “Are you suggesting that they didn’t come all this way on those ships? Or that they didn’t take a quarter of a century to get here?"
“Both!” said Marcus loudly. The guards stirred, and made sure their weapons were at hand. “They were lying about both . They didn't come all the way in those ships, and they didn't take a quarter of a century to get here. They came from Tau Ceti—if that's really their home, and they're not lying about that, too—in a big, fast ship, with a faster-than-light drive. They parked the mother ship out beyond Saturn, where we couldn't see it. Then they switched to their slow little ships, and came crawling in the rest of the way to Earth."
Marcus was losing any shred of credibility he might have had, because the youngest of the reporters at once asked the obvious question: “But why would they lie to us? What good would it do them?"
“They don't want us to use the FTL drive. They want to bottle us up, here in the solar system. They don’t want humans out among the stars. I think they’re scared of us, because we're smarter than they are."
It sounded paranoid, even to me. He was wasting his breath anyway. Even if the reporters believed him, and it was clear to me that they didn't, they would never find an editor willing to run the story. The Genizee, initially repulsive in appearance, had not stayed long enough for humans to learn their possible defects. Their slow and bumbling speech patterns and apparent confusion, which Marcus considered evidence of human superiority of thought, were to most people part of their appeal. The Genizee had become everyone's favorite alien, and you couldn't get away with a bad word about them. The stores were packed with cute little mop-topped black jelly cylinders—although for aesthetic reasons the toys didn't have the disgusting layer of slime that allowed the amphibian Genizee to function out of water.
When it was Marcus Aurelius Jackson against the Genizee, MAJ didn't have a chance. After all, hadn't the altruistic Genizee taken many years of their own lives, just to come to Earth and deliver a warning? And weren't they, even now, creeping back across the lightyears in their cramped, uncomfortable little ships, with twenty-five years still to go? How many Earth people would do something like that, even to save their own closest relatives? Especially to save their closest relatives.
So, although Marcus went on talking, I knew he was wasting his time. He wouldn't get one inch of column space or a second of air time for his unpopular views.
As it turned out, I was wrong. “MAD DOG SCIENTISTS UNREPENTANT!” shouted the only headline. And underneath: “Death Penalty Favored For Insane Inventors."
* * * *
Marcus is an interesting case for the psychologists. When his idea of a faster-than-light drive was ridiculed, he redoubled his efforts. And when his just-as-heretical views of the Genizee were pooh-poohed, he at once turned all his efforts from conjecture to possible methods of proof.
“There has to be a way to show that I'm right,” he said. “Wilmer, let me try something out on you."
I said nothing. When you are living together in one locked room, it is hard to avoid a discussion.
“Point one,” went on Marcus, “According to me, the advanced potential from our test must damp out rapidly as it goes backwards in time. The Genizee say they picked it up a quarter of a century ago, but I say it fades to background level and becomes undetectable in a year or less. If I'm right—and I am—they can't have picked up evidence of our test more than a year before they got here.
“Point two. They say they came from Tau Ceti, and their departure trajectory supports that idea. Even if they didn't, though, they certainly came from outside the solar system. The nearest star is over four lightyears away. Four lightyears or more in one year or less means they had to have come using a faster-than-light ship.
“Point three. They left two weeks ago. If they really intend to fly all the way back to Tau Ceti, or any other interstellar destination, in those sub-light ships, they are still in the early acceleration phase of the trip. Even with the most efficient propulsion system I can imagine, it will take them nearly a year to work their way up to half the speed of light."
He stared at me. “Do you see what that means?"
“It means they're still a hell of a long way from home. They're as altruistic as everyone believes."
“No.” If the press could have seen Marcus now, they would have felt that their MAD DOG SCIENTISTS UNREPENTANT headline was thoroughly justified. “Wilmer, it means that if they were telling the truth about how they came here, and how they are going back, and where they are going back to, then anyone with an FTL ship could fly out and catch up with them . If they aren't where they should be, then they are lying, either about coming from Tau Ceti or about the drive. One lie is enough to discredit everything they said to us. If you ask me, they're already back home, wherever they came from—and I'll bet money it's not Tau Ceti—having a good laugh at the credible people of Earth."
I looked at him, then let my eyes roam around the featureless beige walls of the room. “Let me try something out on you , Marcus. Point one. There is just one FTL drive in the solar system, and it is impounded, up in orbit and protected by maximum security guards, because everyone on or off Earth is terrified of it. If they weren't afraid to touch the thing, they'd have destroyed it long ago.
“Point two. There are just two human beings who know how to fly that ship. No one else will go near the Godspeed .
“Point three. Those two humans are locked away in an underground room in a building in the middle of the Nevada desert. They have no tools, no friends, no money, and no way of getting to space, still less of reaching the Godspeed . Forget it, Marcus, you could never do it, not in a thousand years."
“I know I couldn't,” he said. He was still staring at me. I felt a quivery feeling in my stomach
, as though my recent breakfast had suddenly been converted to live worms.
“I know I couldn't,” he said again. “That's not my line. But you, Wilmer, if you—"
“It's impossible."
“I'm sure it is."
“Totally impossible."
“Yeah.” He stood up and went over to lie on his bed without another word.
After a few seconds I went across to my own bed, lay down on it, and closed my eyes. I decided that I hadn't been totally honest when I was speaking to Marcus. I still had friends outside, and I still had some equity with them for past favors. I had cultivated our guards, too, drawing a little on Marcus's wealth, to the point where they normally left us to ourselves, but would do the odd paid favor for me provided it was obviously no threat to them or to anyone else. So far as the security around the Godspeed was concerned, I had probably exaggerated that. No one would be too worried, as long as it was known that Marcus and I were locked up here...
I shivered, and stopped my thinking right there. What was Marcus trying to make me do? Help him to destroy the pair of us, and the whole of the human race as well? But he had touched that dark, hidden spot where the true ego dwells. Now the live worms in my stomach had crawled up my throat into my brain, and set it on fire.
If we escaped from prison, the alarm would go off at once. The search for us would begin. The two of us would never make it far outside the prison walls, let alone into space, and the guards around the Godspeed itself would be tripled in numbers and placed on maximum alert.
But it took only one person to fly the Godspeed. And there would be real juggling to be done here, inside the prison, to hide the fact of that one person's escape.
Marcus, then, to pilot the ship and to design the programs that would allow the sort of freeze-frame sequence of hops that the unmanned payload had taken to Mars, searching at each transition for the Genizee ships. I, to stay here, and to arrange matters—how, for God's sake? I had no idea—so that no one knew that Marcus was missing, until he was on his way in the Godspeed .
I opened my eyes. Marcus was sitting up on his bed, gazing at me expectantly.
“Any good?” he asked.
“Go to hell.” I closed my eyes again. What did he take me for? I had been lying there for maybe three minutes. Extraordinary things can sometimes be done in real time. Miracles take a little longer.
* * * *
A “little longer” in this case turned out to be six weeks. Everything had to be choreographed tighter than a five-ship orbital rendezvous. I broke the problem down into discrete pieces, each one requiring a solution if the whole effort were to succeed. Marcus had to escape from here unnoticed. Then I had to conceal the evidence of his disappearance for at least five days. Marcus would need that much time to travel from Nevada, all the way out to theGodspeed . Then he had to have credentials that would allow him to board the ship, and he had to remain there undisturbed. After that he would be on his own.
I was prepared for a year-long effort, with a good chance of failure at the end of it. It is a curious fact that my six-week success was possible only because I had been placed in prison. Given enough money, and Marcus had plenty of that, a man can get anything in jail that he can get outside it—plus a whole lot more. Prisons, as I quickly learned, are the natural focal points for any imaginable legal or illegal activity.
You want Marcus Aurelius Jackson to take part in the sensory deprivation experiments now being conducted in this very jail? The external university team responsible for the experiments will be glad to have him. To them, one healthy prisoner is much like another, and the recommendation of the guards is all that they ask. Bringing someone into a prison, to enter the sensory deprivation tank in place of Marcus, costs a few thousand dollars. Getting Marcus out in that man's clothes is more expensive, but not much harder.
Not everything is so cheap. You would like a set of forged credentials, showing that you are a Nevada businessman making a trip up to space with a need for commercial secrecy? No problem, except money and lots of it. Many of the world's best forgers are already behind bars, ready to serve you.
The one piece of the puzzle that I couldn't see how to solve would be on board the Godspeed itself. Marcus didn't want company on his journey, so somehow he had to arrange to be left alone on the ship, long enough to make the first FTL transition.
While I was still pondering that, Marcus was worrying a different issue. “I hope the ship's power plant has been left on,” he said, as we were transferring some of his money to an anonymous bank account. “It would be a pain to have to bring all the systems back on-line."
I stared at him. “Thanks, Marcus. That's what I needed."
His new forged credentials showed that he was a specialist in industrial safety, flying out to the Godspeed to power-down the ship's dangerous nuclear equipment so that it would not explode. With that in hand, and a few casual words as he went aboard, it would be difficult to get anyone else to stay within a thousand kilometers.
On the final morning we shook hands, for the first time in our long acquaintance. The door was unlocked from the outside. Marcus left the room, and a man in his twenties wearing a bewildered look and a bad case of acne appeared in his place. Within the hour he had been collected. I wondered briefly if he even knew what sensory deprivation experiments were. From the look of him, it would be little change from his existing condition.
I settled down, to estimate Marcus's progress. Now he would be approaching the airport, dropping off the rented car that had been arranged for him outside the prison and collecting his ticket. Now he should be at the space facility, undergoing a routine physical check that included a DNA identification. He ought to pass that easily—I had rented the best illegal hacker that money could buy, to slot an ID for Marcus into the right computer data bank. Eight hours later he should be ascending to orbit, and four hours after that he would be in an orbital transfer vehicle, on his way to the Godspeed .
I kept the tv on, twenty-four hours a day. No news was good news, of course, until Marcus reached the Godspeed and could take the final step.
I had plenty of time to wonder if my faith in Marcus was too great. It was one man against the world, his authority against the word of the Genizee.
* * * *
This morning, right on schedule, the television came alive. Every channel reported the inexplicable disappearance of the Godspeed . It was obvious that they had no idea what was happening, since the commentators were worried about the fate of the “safety inspector” who had been on board at the time. Within the hour, I was being questioned.
I saw myself on television, and learned to my relief that Marcus Aurelius Jackson was “in prison, but unavailable for comment.” I said that I could tell them nothing useful. I thought that I looked worried.
I was worried. And now, late in the afternoon, waiting for another television interview, I look at my guards and at the afternoon sun streaming in through the bars of the little window, and I am still worried.
Although Marcus and the Godspeed left only ten hours ago, they ought to have been back long since. Following the path supposedly set by the Genizee would have taken our ship only a few seconds, even with the brief pauses between transitions needed to drop back into normal space and scan for the Genizee ships. Marcus could have traveled out half a lightyear, well past the place they ought to have reached with their slow ships, and still been back hours ago.
Strange thoughts have been running through my head. Suppose that Marcus found the Genizee ships, and they destroyed him so that he could not return and tell? We had never asked if their ships carried weapons. Then I realize that my thought is totally illogical. Marcus could find the Genizee only if they had told us the truth, and were lumbering along in their slow ships. In that case, they would have nothing to hide from us.
But perhaps Marcus, having failed to find any trace of the Genizee on the way to Tau Ceti, had decided that they were concealing from us their true place of origin. It woul
d be easy for him to take the Godspeed out for a second journey, toward some other probable stellar target. And if that produced no result, he might go out again. How many trips might he make, before he had enough evidence to prove to anyone back on Earth that the Genizee had been lying?
I know Marcus very well. It is part of his nature that he likes to be absolutely sure of things. He will not risk being mocked again. I would settle for one trip out, and rest my case. He might feel he had to make a dozen.
And that leads to another thought entirely. Half a dozen full-scale shots of the FTL drive, according to the Genizee, could lead to “major repercussions” in a region of space.
How big a region? The Genizee were talking of the collapse to a black hole of part of spacetime, with the separation of that region from the rest of the universe. Are we dealing with the collapse of something the size of a ship ... or a planet ... or a solar system? Would the collapse take place violently, or quietly and unobtrusively? And would the Godspeed itself be inside that region, or excluded from it? Might Marcus and his ship, left outside, become the only evidence in the whole universe that humans had ever existed?
Those are the sort of questions I am not equipped to answer. I wish that Marcus were here, to assure me that the Genizee were certainly lying, that I am talking nonsense, that I have nothing to worry about. I take some comfort from the setting sun, shining as usual through the little barred window.
But I wish that dusk would come quickly. I want to look for the stars.
VRM-547
W.R. Thompson
A robot, like a computer, is a machine that follows the instructions it is given. But how is it to deal with something it doesn't recognize or about which it has no instructions? If it is anything like the caretaker robot in W. R. Thompson's "VRM-547" (which was a finalist for the 1991 Hugo Award), it will deal with the situation very effectively.