A Sense of Infinity

by Howard L. Myers

  "Let's do it like this, Kelly," he decided at last. "Put my name at the top of the report, and add an opening paragraph that says: 'On Jan. 17, 2843, entry was made into the stability known as the Whorl by myself aboard my ship the Kelkontar, traveling under the impetus of the high-velocity warp drive developed a few weeks prior to that date. Inside we encountered a condition of extreme relativistic contraction, which endured throughout our stay inside the Whorl. Various factors would make any subjective estimate of the time spent inside unreliable.' No, leave that sentence out, Kelly. No need to go into that. Just say, 'Following is an analysis and summation of the phenomena encountered, as reported by my ship.' If Science Reporting Service won't accept that, to hell with them."

  "Okay, Mark."

  "And put this at the end: 'Postscript by Keaflyn: During the final moments of our stay inside the Whorl, I received a subjective awareness of several presences aboard the ship. This awareness continued until a few seconds after return to normal space, at which time the presences seemingly departed. My supposition is that these presences included crewmembers of ships previously lost in the Whorl and unable to escape. I am including this subjective material here for the purpose of apprising the public of the existence of these egofields, and to suggest that their long entrapment could have left them in a burdened condition."'

  "All right, Mark. I will prepare the report with those additions," said the ship.

  Keaflyn nodded and sat gazing at nothing. "Of course," he said after a while, "if the report is rejected, I can redo it myself after Tinker cleans the rubbish out of my mind. But that might take a while, and I like to be prompt about reports. Kelly, have you made any guesses about what the Whorl really is? Its purpose, I mean?"

  "No, Mark. Your comment to the effect that it's a time machine could be accurate to a degree. I cannot propose a purpose of value for such a time machine, if that is the case."

  "Well, one of the few things I grasped in your report," Keaflyn said, "is that normal material entering the Whorl—material not being pushed along as we were by a warp drive—would take an almost meaningless number of years to drift all the way through—something on the order of 1021 or 1023 years, you said."

  "That is what I calculated, Mark, on the basis of average encounter velocities between the Whorl and the material in overtakes and engulfs."

  "That's not billions or trillions, or even quadrillions of years!" Keaflyn continued. "A star going into the Whorl today would come out so far in the future that . . . well, it's meaningless."

  The ship did not reply.

  After a long pause Keaflyn added, "Unless its purpose is to distribute matter and energy throughout time. Maybe the Whorl will eject a galaxy—a small galaxy—all those years from now, when everything else is long gone. And that galaxy will be the seed for a new universe or a whole series of universes."

  "Such a seed will not grow, Mark, without the presence of creative life-forces," said the ship.

  "Oh." Keaflyn was distressed as the realization hit him. By traversing the Whorl, he had provided a means of escape for life-energies which, in the natural order of things, might have been the builders of that distantfuture universe. "Looks like I've put my foot in the jellyjar again, Kelly," he mumbled.

  "That could be, Mark. However, there are presumably other Whorls in existence. Also, there should be numerous additional occasions for the one we traversed to entrap life-entities."

  Keaflyn considered this and nodded. "You know, Kelly, I think it's a good thing to learn about such possibilities as this future-universe thing. If humanity knows the purpose, or the possible purpose, of something like the Whorl, they'll know how to avoid interfering with it. If they don't know, they might interfere time and again, out of ignorance.

  "In the same way, it's worth knowing that thought can nullify the Resistant Globe and probably can nullify any stability, for that matter. If we know what the bad possibilities are, we'll know to avoid them. Maybe I've done something that's worth a little bit. I've shown everybody there are some rocks in the path by stubbing my toe on them."

  "Shall I include your supposition concerning the Whorl's purpose in the report, Mark?"

  "Might as well, although it could be something a normally intelligent person would see right off. Just say something like, 'Keaflyn's tentative conclusion of the Whorl's function is . . . such-and-such.' Put it in your own words, Kelly. My words are sounding clumsy to me."

  "Okay, Mark."

  They continued the flight toward Danolae in silence, Keaflyn wondering morosely what the reaction to his return would be.

  Doubtless he had been considered out of existence for twelve years. The Calcutta had been close enough to witness his entry into the Whorl, and no one had ever come out of that stability before.

  Would his return signal a renewal of the chase by the Sect Dualers and the Arlan Siblings? Probably so, he guessed glumly. Maybe some of them would have cooled off by now, but not the diehards. And if he remained as slow-wilted as he was now, he could not hope to escape them for long, or, when captured, to convince them that his Neg was gone for good.

  So the first order of business was to get Tinker to use therapy on him, to restore his mind to what it was before Berina Arlan had put him under her machines. Then he would at least be able to go on as he had before, not hopelessly handicapped by galloping stupidity.

  It would be good to be with Tinker again. He hoped she wouldn't spoil things by feeling a lot of pity for him. She might be inclined to do just that, and pity was the last thing he wanted from her.

  He would soon be able to see her reaction for himself, he noted, glancing at the viewscreen. His ship was approaching the Danolae system.

  At that moment the ship reported, "I have a shielding malfunction, Mark."

  "Huh? What's the trouble?"

  "The problem is atypical and may require lengthy analysis," the ship replied. "While shifting into an approach warp, several thousand particles of gas and dust with low relative momentum passed through the shieldscreens and impacted on the hull."

  "Sure," shrugged Keaflyn. "That's normal, isn't it, Kelly? The shields keep out the high-velocity stuff that could do damage and let the harmless stuff alone. When you go out of warp near a planetary system, even for a split second, you get some of that stuff coming through." Keaflyn wondered if his ship was beginning to reflect his own stupidity, bringing up such a trivial matter and calling it a problem.

  "That is correct, Mark," Kelkontar agreed. "However, these particles are exploding energetically when they strike the hull. The damage sustained during the brief exit from warp was minor. However, a long-duration exit from warp, before the cause of this condition is determined and corrected, could be destructive."

  "Oh. Well, do you have any idea what the trouble is?" Keaflyn asked, irritated by the possibility of a delay in reaching Tinker.

  "I checked and eliminated the possibility of improper shieldscreen performance before calling the problem to your attention, Mark," the ship replied. "The shield is functioning normally. Observation discloses no abnormality in the Danolae system that would produce highly reactive dust. The remaining possibility is that we are ourselves the source of the atypicality. Our substance, including my hull, is reactive in contact with normal matter."

  A contra-atom in a cloud chamber, the thought flashed through Keaflyn's mind. But that was impossible! He wasn't a Neg! Or . . . was he?

  It took him several seconds to shake off the sense of unreality this thought inspired, along with a fantasy of his Neg, having been forced to give up on his ego-field, turning its attention to his body and his ship and converting them into something similar to contramatter. But a Neg couldn't possibly do that!

  "H-how do you suppose we got reactive?" he asked.

  "I believe I must reassess the phenomena of the Whorl in the light of this new data, Mark," the ship said. "No event other than our passage through that stability has transpired to account for our atypical condition. Some theoretic
al work has been done, as you know, on temporal energy. It is possible that we left the Whorl carrying a charge of such energy."

  Keaflyn nodded slowly. He had read of those theories. The basic idea was that any object displaced in time would be energized into a condition incompatible with its surroundings. This was an energy of tension—the desire, so to speak, of the temporally displaced object to snap back to the time in which it belonged. All this was hypothetical, as no means of achieving temporal displacement had been developed.

  "Relativistic contractions don't cause displacement in time . . . at least not in a way that left ships charged with energy," Keaflyn remarked.

  "That is true," replied the ship. "Thus, I suggest that we encountered phenomena other than relativistic contraction inside the Whorl."

  "Something for which the contractions were merely symptomatic?" asked Keaflyn.

  "Perhaps, Mark. In any event, and as you noted in my report, the contractions alone could account for very little of the twelve-plus years of lapsed universal time during our traversal of the Whorl."

  Keaflyn had missed that point in the report completely, he realized. "Well," he demanded impatiently, "if we're charged up with some kind of time-energy, how do we blow it? I gather we can't land on Danolae or anywhere else in this condition."

  "Indeed we cannot, Mark. And I have no data on how we can achieve compatibility with the universe of this date."

  "What the hell do we do, then?" Keaflyn snapped.

  "I don't know, Mark."

  Keaflyn paced the deck, feeling ultimately trapped.

  "Are you absolutely sure you're right about our condition?" he asked. "Shouldn't we verify it instead of depending on what a few thousand stray dust particles did? They could have drifted in from anywhere."

  "A verifying experiment could be informative, Mark," the ship agreed.

  "Okay. As I recall, this system has a Plutonian asteroid belt. How would it be to toss a small chunk of metal at one of the asteroids, and see what happens?"

  "That would be a satisfactory test, Mark. Shall I warp toward the asteroid belt?"

  "Sure! Let's get this test over with!"

  Several minutes later the ship positioned itself a quarter of a million miles from a barren chunk of rock in the belt. The sun of Danolae was, at this distance, hardly more than an unusually bright star.

  "I have launched a centigram pellet of steel toward the asteroid, Mark," the ship reported. "Is a centigram enough to tell us anything?" Keaflyn asked.

  "It should be, Mark."

  "Are you still getting hull reactions every time you take us out of warp?"

  "Yes, Mark."

  The asteroid test was doubtless a waste of time, Keaflyn thought fretfully, being conducted solely because he hated to face an obvious truth: he was isolated in his ship, isolated until death, which wouldn't be long in coming—just as long as it took to exhaust the ship's vital consumables.

  What was the old saying of scientific researchers? Somebody's law they called it. Oh, yes. Murphy's Law. To the effect that "If something can go wrong, it will." Well, Murphy hadn't loused up his stability probes in particular, but the law had applied with a vengeance to his personal affairs of this lifetime!

  First the Neg had invaded him; then the Sect Dualers had loaded him with a pleasure-impress, thinking that would counter the Neg; then Tinker had turned up in an eleven-year-old body; then the Insecurity of the Resistant Globe had turned half the human population into a modern lynch mob; then the Senior Arlan Sibling had finished the job the Sect Dualers had started, by burdening him down to a backtrack level of mentality; and then . . . this.

  Of course, some desirable things had happened, too. He had made some discoveries he considered important, whether anybody else did or not. And others would have to recognize the value of his improved warpdrive. But none of the desirable events had disturbed the vector of the undesirable—a vector carrying him straight to death and total degradation.

  A brilliant burst of radiation flowered for an instant on the viewscreen and was gone.

  "Was that it?" he asked.

  "Yes, Mark. Our steel pellet proved to be reactive," said the ship.

  "The explosion seemed awfully energetic, to look that bright at a quarter of a million miles, and to be created by just a centigram of steel. Something on the level of total annihilation of matter."

  "It was on that order of magnitude, Mark. The asteroid was, of course, vaporized."

  "Well, that's that."

  "Yes, Mark."

  After a long pause, Keaflyn said dejectedly, "I suppose I should call Tinker, anyway. No, maybe it would be better if I talked to her father again. Have you finished revising your Whorl report?"

  "Yes, Mark."

  "Okay. I'll get him to let you feed it to one of his computers. So, get him on the comm. Clav Didorik, I mean."

  "Right, Mark."

  But a few seconds later, the face that appeared on the screen was that of Alo Felston. The former cowpoke's eyes bugged when he saw who was calling.

  "Mark, old pardner!" he exclaimed.

  "In the moldering flesh," Keaflyn returned with an effort at lightness. Felston, he saw, carried his thirteen additional years gracefully. He had lost some of his leanness but otherwise seemed to have aged very little. Felston's face wore a look of shock. "Why the stoned expression?" Keaflyn asked him.

  Felston shrugged and chuckled tightly. "Well, you got to admit, pardner, this is a combination of meeting an old friend, seeing a ghost, and bumping into the hero of the age all at the same time!"

  "How did that hero bit get in there?" asked Keaflyn, surprised to find himself feeling almost good, just from talking to a fellow human again. "The last I heard, I figured to qualify for the job of villain."

  "Folks have had time to reconsider . . . Where've you been, anyhow, old buddy? You look mighty done in."

  "I'm just a few hours out of the Whorl. I time-traveled over twelve years going through that thing. My ship's got a report on all that, to feed Didorik's computer, since I can't land. The report tells why I can't land. How is it you're answering Didorik's comm for him, Alo?"

  "Clav's off-planet on business, and I came back to Danolae to look after things for him. Usually I'm on Rimni these days. That's a center of ego-field research, you know. Tinker and I moved our project there about ten years back, so we could get in the thick of things."

  "Oh," Keaflyn nodded, feeling that he was missing something. Probably his lowered IQ was making him insensitive to conversational nuances—to high-comm.

  "Seems to me old Clav would have picked a relative for his take-over guy," he remarked.

  "He did, Mark. I'm his son-in-law."

  "No kidding? And I didn't even know Tinker had a sister!"

  "She doesn't, Mark."

  So . . . that was the point he had been missing. The way Felston had said "Tinker and I" . . . it was all there in the phrasing and inflection.

  Keaflyn tried to stop himself from reacting badly to the news. After all, Tinker had ample reason to consider him gone beyond return. Why expect her to wait for a man who wouldn't be coming back? Who for all practical purposes actually had not come back? He was here, in the Danolae system, talking to Alo Felston, but he could never touch the surface of a planet again, much less the flesh of his beloved Tinker . . .

  So, this was no new defeat for him. No new loss. Nothing to be so upset about. How could this be a loss, when he had already lost everything?

  Slowly his quivering stopped. He gave a rueful little laugh.

  "As I recall the Wild West stories," he said, "the straight-shootin' cowpoke always got the girl. I wish both of you the best, Alo."

  "Thanks, Mark." There was understanding in Felston's acknowledgement. Understanding, but—mercifully—no pity. More like . . . admiration?

  "I suppose Tinker's on Rimni . . . or is she with you?" Keaflyn asked.

  "On Rimni. Our project's grown into a sizable operation, with about two dozen investi
gators and maybe fifty other full-time people involved. Rimni's quite a place for ego-field studies."

  Keaflyn nodded. "I guess Tinker had been there before," he said. "The Brobdinagia disaster was in the Rimni system, I recall."

  "That's right," said Felston. "She was in school on Rimni in her nine-year life. That's how she happened to be on the Brobdinagia. She was headed home for a vacation. So in this lifetime she knew what the planet had to offer a project like ours."

  There was a break in the conversation, an uncomfortable one for Keaflyn. He was constraining himself from asking if Tinker had turned into as beautiful a woman as she usually did. But, hell, he didn't need to ask that! He had seen her as an eleven-year-old. It had been obvious then that she was going to blossom into enchanting loveliness.

  He searched for something else to say. "You're the first person or computer I've run into, since Berina Arlan worked me over, whom I didn't have to ask to talk slowly," he said.

  Felston grinned. "Something I picked up in researching animal ego-fields, Mark. It's funny people would miss something as simple as that for so long—the necessity of slowing down their communication in dealing with animals. Just that one thing could've enabled men to talk with their pets long ago!"

  "The project's making headway, then," said Keaflyn.

  "It sure is! Look, Mark. You say you have a report on the Whorl to feed Clav's computer. Since you're twelve years out of date, why don't I feed a summary of what's been going on to your ship, at the same time—with emphasis on what Tinker and I have been up to, and on the upshot of your own work?"

  "Okay. That 'hero' remark of yours has roused my curiosity, I admit. If I've been getting some pats on the back in my absence, I'd certainly like to feel them now!" He was ashamed of that maudlin comment immediately, but Felston seemed tactfully unaware that he had made it.