"All right, Mark."
Keaflyn yawned and climbed into his sleeptank.
Chapter 9
When he woke he remained still for several minutes, examining his sensations. He was experiencing no pain, but he sensed that the Neg was back on the job. This was something new, this awareness of the Neg's presence in his mind, even when the Neg was content to do nothing more than watch.
Probably, he decided, this was a result of the incident at the Resistant Globe. During those seconds when the Neg had acted in parallel with his own mental process, adding its nullification of the Globe to his, it had displayed a . . . a characteristic of itself, a recognizable facet. Not its personality—probably not even a personality trait—but merely a perspective of a segment of a trait, Keaflyn hazarded.
A twisty bitterness was the best verbal description he could find of how this facet of the Neg seemed to him.
He grinned and focused his attention on the twisty bitterness. "Good morning, Neg," he said aloud to it. Its only reaction was a slight shifting, hardly a response to raise hopes of man-Neg communication.
"Good morning, Mark," said the ship with a certain hesitancy, as if not sure who its master was addressing. Keaflyn laughed.
"Where are we, Kelly?" he asked.
"Two light-years from Locus, as you instructed."
"We can really travel now, can't we," Keaflyn said smugly.
"Yes, with unprecedented rapidity, Mark." Keaflyn sat up in the sleeptank. "I want a hell of a big breakfast, Kelly. Eggs, steak, toast and coffee. Have you picked up any comm to or from Locus?"
"No."
Keaflyn hadn't expected an affirmative answer. He guessed that, after the ruckus over the Resistant Globe, the Sect Dualers (and perhaps even the Bensor officials) had sent out warnings that Mark Keaflyn was a dangerous being, particularly not to be allowed in the vicinity of stabilities. But at interstellar distances, psionic comm beams had to be tight. It would have been a fluke for the Kelkontar to intercept one two light-years away from a comm terminal.
"Any traffic in or out from Locus?" he asked.
"None within detection range, Mark."
Keaflyn nodded. That, too, was the answer he had expected. A number of people knew he had intended to go to Locus from Lumon's Star, and probably the research stations on the planet had been advised that he might show up. Whole squads of Emergencymen might be on the way, but certainly they could not have arrived yet. His improved warp had brought him here ahead of any special defending forces.
But even so, what did he intend to do?
It was a difficult question, and he tried hard not to let his pleasure-impress cause him to treat it with amusement.
He had seen on Bensor that his Neg definitely could produce disaster. He recalled Berina Arlan's analogy of the Neg as an atom of contramatter in the cloud chamber of the normal universe. That was pretty apt, he decided. The Neg had sure made the particles fly when it tried to nullify the Resistant Globe! For that matter, he guessed, the particles were probably still zinging off that event. Some startling things had happened, such as the telepathic reaction of the Bensor-on-Bensor citizenry to the deed. That was probably what the Sect Dualer Carmon Daylemon had been referring to when he spoke of an automatic defense mechanism being triggered by the compromise of the Globe.
If the Neg could cause trouble on that kind of scale, Keaflyn mused, wouldn't it be wise to give up his research and stay far away from stabilities—particularly if the integrity of the basic fabric of the universe rested on the firm solidity of the stabilities? That must be close to the actual state of things; the stabilities must be crucial to be defended by a previously unknown ego-field instinct that could do something as wild as turning a whole city telepathic!
So . . . maybe the best course was for him to quit. Find himself a raw planet somewhere and hide out. Or better, secretly get in touch with Tinker and Alo Felston and let them use him as an experimental subject in their efforts to discover a process for releasing pleasureimpresses. After all, the advance of mental science was at least as important as the advance of physical science . . . The Kelkontar served his breakfast, and he ate with a lively appetite while he continued considering his position.
The decision he faced was far from simple. To quit his research . . . in effect to buy the convincing interpretation of Carmon Daylemon . . . would be the safest course. If he immobilized himself, he would also immobilize the Neg and thus avoid the commission of harmful acts.
But that would also lead to the omission of valuable acts. And regardless of the uncertainties always involved in anticipating the value of still-to-be-discovered knowledge, Keaflyn felt strongly the rightness of his longplanned research project. Look how it had already paid off—with a new warpdrive seventy-eight times faster than the old, and more important, a resulting increase in practical range of approximately the same multiple. Why, it would be no trick to explore the entire galaxy with a drive like this! Maybe even a cluster of galaxies! The crucial question in determining his course was the same as before: Did the Neg want him killed or otherwise stopped, or did it want to use him as a tool with which to undermine the stabilities?
Keaflyn studied that over in detail. He reviewed the events from the time the Neg made its presence felt, at Splendiss-on-Terra, up to the present. As he had told Daylemon and Smath, every instance when the Neg really pushed him hard—except one—was aimed at encouraging someone to kill him, provided the person had a Sect Dualer outlook. The exception was when he was probing Lumon's Star. In that instance, the Neg seemed to be trying to discourage him from his work. And he had not done anything to undermine Lumon's Star as a stability. If that were the Neg's game, why hadn't it acted then?
The evidence, from his point of view, was overwhelming. The Neg wanted him dead. Its nullification attempt on the Resistant Globe had come much closer to accomplishing Keaflyn's death than to doing real damage to the Globe. Only a rare instance of serendipity had brought him out of that alive.
He finished eating breakfast and making up his mind at about he same time: he would go ahead with his research project.
But he would do so, from now on, with a little more caution. For example, he would find out what kind of opposition he might face before dropping down on Locus.
"Kelly, raise comm with the director of Locus Observatory."
"All right, Mark . . . Comm established."
A man's face appeared on the viewscreen, to regard Keaflyn curiously.
"Hi. I'm Mark Keaflyn. Don't believe we've met in current corpus."
"Halla Penchat," the man responded. "We were told you might show up here, Keaflyn. Didn't expect you so quickly, though."
"Yeah, some acquaintances of mine seem to want to play backtrack games with me," Keaflyn snickered.
"Under the circumstances, I thought I'd check with you on the quality of hospitality Locus has to offer me before I drop down."
"Um. Well, we have received certain suggestions . . . urgently worded suggestions."
"Such as?"
Penchat was frowning. "We've been asked to . . . uh . . . take you in protective custody if we get the opportunity."
Keaflyn grinned at Penchat's discomfiture. "Interference with another's freedom of movement is a code break," he said.
"Of course," agreed Penchat angrily. "I'd follow those suggestions with regret."
"Oh," chuckled Keaflyn, "but you would follow them."
"This puts me in a most uncomfortable position, Keaflyn," the man growled. "Some of the sources of that suggestion are also talking about a moratorium on all stability research . . . about closing up such installations as this observatory, and about cordoning all stabilities." Keaflyn chortled with amazement. "Blackmail is going pretty far, even for Sect Dualers!"
"Wrong on two counts, Keaflyn. We've heard from the Sect Dualers, but we've also heard the same thing from the governments of Bensor, Terra, and a dozen others. Also, from the Arlan Siblings. So don't regard your opposition as the Sect
Dualers—unless you agree that the near disaster with the Resistant Globe made Sect Dualers out of everybody . . . "
"Oh come now, Penchat!" Keaflyn snorted. "Such exaggeration from an objective man of science like yourself—"
"I'm not exaggerating," Penchat denied firmly. "The Insecurity gave everyone quite a turn! I confess to having been shaken by the experience, myself. The result is that attitudes toward the stabilities are undergoing urgent reappraisals. That's why you're wrong in assuming the talk of closing this observatory is intended to force me to cooperate in holding you. The stabilities may actually be placed off limits to everyone, and cordoned." Keaflyn stared at the man's image in mystified silence. The very concepts represented by the words "off limits" and "cordon" were anachronisms, out of place in the year of Grace and Sanity 2842. Yet Penchat was using the words with obvious sincerity.
What the hell had happened?
"You spoke of 'the Insecurity,"' he began, "which doesn't convey a meaning to me. Will you explain it, please?"
"Don't you know? That's what happened when your contralife invader nearly nullified the Resistant Globe. It was a precarious moment, Keaflyn. Everybody had to grab reality and hang on for dear life. It was as if everything was about to slip away from us . . . about to fade out. That theory about the stabilities serving as anchorpoints of cosmic creation is now demonstrated to everyone's subjective satisfaction. Why else do you think everyone would be so concerned over what you may try next?"
"You keep using such words as 'everyone' and 'everything' with a looseness unbecoming to a rigorous mind," Keaflyn said mildly.
"I'm using those words with care, and in the belief they are fully justified," Penchat replied with some stiffness. "Reports we've received indicate the Insecurity was felt on every world known to humanity, by every human, and perhaps by lesser beings as well."
Keaflyn was beginning to get the picture, and guessed he would be appalled if his pleasure-impress had allowed. His Neg had indeed proven itself a contra-atom in a cloud chamber—perhaps a whole mass of contraatoms!
"Under the circumstances," he murmured, "it would be indiscreet of me to come down for a visit right now, Penchat. Thanks for bringing me up-to-date on the news."
The man nodded. "I'm glad you're being reasonable, Keaflyn. I was afraid the contralife thing wouldn't permit that. Yes, it's best, I think, for you to keep your distance. I'm dispatching a ship to join you, with a few men who can . . . sort of look after you until a squad of Emergencymen arrives."
Keaflyn grinned. "That's not exactly what I had in mind, Penchat. Being in protective custody, my backlife recall assures me, is among the less enjoyable conditions of existence. So I'll be running along now. Thanks again, and goodbye."
"Don't be unrealistic!" Penchat snapped. "You can't get away from . . . " He hesitated in frowning thought, then said, "How did you reach the Locus vicinity so swiftly, Keaflyn? We're over ninety hours from Bensor, and the Insecurity was less than fifteen hours ago."
"Didn't my Sect Dualer pals on Bensor spill that data?" Keaflyn asked. "They were chasing me, after the Insecurity, with murderous intent. Thanks to a bit of serendipity, I pulled away from them as if they were standing still. I thought the news of that would be all over the universe by now."
"I've heard of no such chase," said Penchat, eyeing Keaflyn speculatively.
"Those guys seem to go for the old cloak-and-dagger approach," Keaflyn laughed. "Secretiveness for its own sake. One of my chasers was Arnod Smath of Terra, and another was Carmon Daylemon, probably of Bensor."
"You have an improved spacedrive?" asked Penchat."
"That's putting it mildly!"
"How does it work?"
"Aha! A good question," Keaflyn said with mock slyness. "Pardon me if I'm secretive, too. The habit's catching."
"A better spacedrive is something humanity needs, Keaflyn," said Penchat.
"Right, and humanity can have it, as soon as humanity decides I'm still a member. As things stand, I have a hunch I'm going to need an advantage of speed to stay loose."
"Keaflyn," rumbled Penchat, "it is now clear for the first time, as a result of the Insecurity, that matter is dependent upon mind. It follows that the more humanity knows of the universe, the more understanding we have, the stronger our universe will be. The reality of it will gain to the extent that we gain in our conquest of knowledge. If you hold back information on a spacedrive that would permit us to extend our knowledge and understanding, you will be serving the cause of your contralife invader."
Keaflyn nodded slowly. "Could be, but in that event my Neg has mixed feelings on the subject—because the Neg also wants me dead or in confinement. I keep my secret and stay free, or I give it to you and we increase our reality . . . or the rest of you increase your reality, because I wouldn't survive in a condition to contribute much. Either way, the Neg loses, so hooray for our side!"
"You aren't making sense, Keaflyn."
"Who is these days?" he snorted. "It would be deplorable if it weren't so amusing, the way one little scare seems to have turned a purportedly sane humanity into one big witch-hunt!"
"Something as positive as a better spacedrive will go far to counter the negative attitude that now seems to prevail concerning you," argued Penchat.
Keaflyn grinned at him in silence for several seconds.
"I'll think about it," he said. "In the meantime, I'm going to be discreetly scarce for a while . . . till the heat's off, as we used to say. So long, Penchat. Out!"
His ship broke comm and the screen went blank. Minutes passed before Keaflyn said, "Kelly, if Locus has poles, there's no way to locate them, is there?"
"There are no poles of rotation, Mark, inasmuch as Locus does not turn," the ship replied. "However, it is possible to define a pole of the ecliptic . . . that is to say, a line perpendicular to the plane in which Locus' sun revolves about the planet."
"I'm not sure that ought to count," said Keaflyn.
"Locus' sun isn't a stability, and neither is its orbit. What I want is a direction that has significance in relation to Locus itself. That's hard to come up with for a body that seems to be completely motionless in space. There is its mild magnetic field, but I'd like a more impressive and better defined line than that."
"I know of nothing in that category, Mark. However, the line of Locus' magnetic field has been determined with some precision within the past decade, according to data in my files."
Keaflyn sat up straighter. "It has? Can you give me a display on it?"
"Yes." The screen brightened with a 3D chart of the Locus system, the planet in the center circled by the orbit of its far more massive sun, with neighboring star positions indicated around the edges. A bright blue line appeared, spearing through the planet and extending diagonally off the screen at top and bottom. "That is the line of the magnetic field, Mark."
Keaflyn studied it. In one direction, the line passed through a few hundred light-years of the explored galactic arm before entering a dust area. Beyond the dust, he knew, was another arm, still unexplored, and perhaps the realm of another human society.
In the other direction, the line passed through thinning stars to move out of the galaxy on a slanting course, into the surrounding area of sparse star clusters.
"We're going to follow that line, one way or the other,"
Keaflyn told the ship. "The question is, which way?"
"I don't have sufficient data concerning your purpose to answer that, Mark."
"Oh. I'm looking for another Locus, one I can study without harassment. Something said back on Avalon indicated that the stabilities we've found in our own little sector of the galaxy are duplicated many, many times in the universe as a whole. There is an Avalon for each realm of humanity, and there may be several realms in this galaxy alone. Probably each realm also has its own Lumon's Star, its own Resistant Globe, its Whorl, its Forever Ember, and its Sleeping Ghost.
"As for the Locus series, it seems reasonable to assume these obje
cts aren't located by realms, but rather form a grid. They are the motionless objects to which all motions are relative, I would guess. Possibly they are also the source of inertia; the Einsteinian and neo-Einsteinian explanations of inertia as a summation of total universal mass always struck me as clever mathematical inventions rather than descriptions of a natural law.
"In any event, I think it's a fair guess that the Locus type objects are evenly spaced in a geometrically simple configuration, like atoms in a crystal . . . that they provide a foundation of sorts for what we know as the space-time continuum. And like atoms in a crystal, the Locus bodies have attitudinal relationships to the lines of the configuration. If these relationships are simple enough, all we have to do to find another Locus is follow the line of the magnetic field of this Locus in either direction."
"I understand," said the ship. "What do you assume to be the distance of spacing of these bodies, Mark?" Keaflyn let out a bellowing laugh. "I haven't the slightest idea!" he roared.
"Such an object would be more easily detectable," the ship said, "where there is little other mass in the vicinity. Thus, a search along the line moving away from the galaxy may be preferable."
"Right," Keaflyn managed to reply, getting his pleasure-impress back under some control. "Ordinarily, I might be curious enough about what lies beyond the dust to say go in that direction, but my name is already mud with one human realm and I don't need conflict with another. Set our new warp to follow the line out from the galaxy, Kelly."
"Okay, Mark."
Work, exercise, sleep, work, exercise, sleep—the cycle began to take on the automaticity of routine for Keaflyn as the Kelkontar sped along its course toward a guessedat destination of indeterminable distance.
The Neg apparently disapproved.
"You wanted me to stay where the action is, didn't you, old buddy?" Keaflyn chuckled as he gulped a couple of aspirins to counter the aches in head and body.
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