by Nancy Kress
The rest of his life seemed to possess the same mild, competent tone. He dated women, slept with them, grew fond of some, married none. He enjoyed reading physics journals, but not enough to study physics seriously, even if he had possessed the necessary aptitude for mathematics, which he knew he did not. His post on Mars, in the Solar Alliance Defense Council Military Advisory Committee, was interesting enough. He explored and recommended, with level-headed judiciousness, diplomatic options among the sometimes fractious member nations of the council and military options in the war against the Fallers. He played politics, of course—in his position it was inevitable—but not for partisanship, revenge, or self-aggrandizement. He expected to make colonel in due time.
The first time Lyle Kaufman had ever stepped outside the expected was to champion Dr. Dieter Gruber’s passionate desire to return to the planet he called “World” to dig up the object he called “an alien probability machine.”
Gruber himself didn’t move Kaufman. In fact, he found the German geologist to be the sort of man Kaufman didn’t much like: noisy, one-sided, bull-headed. Nor did Gruber’s passion impress Kaufman. The military was full of passion, especially in wartime. No, what impressed Kaufman was Gruber’s story. The fascinating physics of it. The possibilities for a new weapon. And the desire, which Kaufman hadn’t even known he possessed, to forward, in some small behind-the-scenes way, a major scientific find. For Lyle Kaufman, science had always been a spectator sport, but the only sport that interested him, however moderately.
Now on Luna he was about to meet one of that sport’s … no, not major players. Perhaps major outcomes. It was hard to tell.
She was waiting just inside the dome, beyond the airlock, alone. Kaufman removed his helmet. “Hello, Ms. Grant.”
“Hello, Major Kaufman.”
She matched the space under the dome. All the living and working quarters on Luna were below ground, safe from meteor bombardment. The dome served as elevator exit-point, observatory, visitor reception, and garden for Luna City’s eight thousand inhabitants, who were mostly scientists, technicians, military, and their dependents. The number was low enough that the dome could be small and still contain separate areas: some shielded bunkers, a playground for kids, a sports field (for what?), and the “garden” where Marbet Grant greeted him.
Like it, she was pared-down and stylized. The garden consisted of raked smooth sand set with boulders, benches, and the occasional bed of genetically modified flowers developed from low-light fungi. Marbet Grant, short and slim, wore a white tunic and pants with no adornment except her own beautiful bone structure. Her cheekbones cut like knives above a wide, soft nose. Her skin was chocolate brown, her eyes emerald green, her short curly hair auburn. Never had Kaufman seen anyone so aggressively genemod. She was wholly artificial, as artificial as human habitation where there was neither water nor arable soil.
He said, “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“Would you like to go below, or sit out here? You’ve never been to Luna City before.”
How did she know that? It seemed as good a place to begin as any. “May I ask how you know that, Ms. Grant?”
She smiled, and he had his answer.
“Let’s sit out here. You’re right, I haven’t ever been to Luna City. But I don’t want a tour. I’d rather just tell you why I’ve come. Unless you already know that, too.”
He said it with deliberate playfulness, but she didn’t take the bait. Instead she led him to a bench made of laser-carved lunar rock. Kaufman’s suit had adjusted for the heated air under the dome, but he still found the gravity, one-half of Mars’s, unsettling. Marbet Grant obviously did not, lounging with her legs curled under her, a small graceful figure against the stone.
She began, “No, Major, I don’t know what you’re thinking. I’m not telepathic in the slightest degree. You’re safe from mental eavesdropping.”
“From what I’ve read, that’s only half true. The mental inevitably gets mirrored in the physical, except for good actors. I’m not that.”
“No.” She smiled again. He liked her honesty.
“So does my physical presence tell you that I want something from you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But not what?”
“That would be a lot to ask from body language.”
They studied each other frankly. Kaufman knew that she was seeing more than he did—oh, so much more!—and tried not to mind. That was her gift. It was why she had been created.
Throughout history, there had always been people who were unusually sensitive to others, unusually adept at reading others’ states of mind. Historians claimed it was a survival necessity of the underclasses: serfs, slaves, women, subject peoples. Life itself might depend on correctly reading the mood of the masters.
Evolutionary biologists pointed out that this fit well with Darwinian theory. Survival of the most accurately perceptive, those who could adapt to others because they perceived accurately what they must adapt to.
Social researchers documented the tiny, unconscious clues that signaled emotion and intent: minute facial changes, shifts in body distribution, voice intonations, rise in skin temperature. Cross-cultural anthropologists traced the existence of people good at perceiving these clues, almost always without knowing how they did it, in all societies.
But it was the genetic engineers who tied this perceptiveness to specific genetic patterns, subtle but identifiable combinations of otherwise disparate genes. And it was a single group of geneticists who engineered for it, starting with the most available research subjects, their own children. The geneticists had believed themselves to be giving their children a survival advantage, not much different than the augmented muscles, boosted intelligence, or enhanced beauty common to the rich. It hadn’t quite worked out like that. Instinctively understanding your neighbor might aid you, but it disconcerted the neighbor. Many, many people do not wish to be understood. They would rather that their feelings and intentions remained hidden.
When the “Sensitives” encountered notoriety, job discrimination, and the inevitable hate crimes, most of them reacted to the news frenzy by disappearing into anonymity. Marbet Grant, daughter of the brazenly publicity seeking Dr. Eric Grant, had merely moved to the moon.
She said, “Major, let’s not fence. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go on a scientific expedition to the far end of the galaxy. A military science expedition. There’s something there that we’re interested in, and we’re putting together an expedition to study it.”
“But you don’t need a Sensitive for that.”
He noted that she used the word, an ordinary one turned pejorative through prejudice, without irony. “No. But there’s a chance, not certain but definite, that the expedition may also capture the first live Faller ever. If so, we want you to be there to help interpret whatever it says or does.”
He had succeeded in astonishing her. She said, “I thought that in twenty years of war, no one has captured a live Failer.”
“No. Not even a Faller ship. At the mere possibility they blow up themselves, their crafts, their colonies, and their civilians. If they have civilians.”
“And no one has communicated with the Fallers, either, have they?”
“No.” Humanity didn’t even know why it was at war. The Fallers didn’t negotiate, warn, convey terms, or surrender. To humans, they had exhibited only two behaviors: killing and dying.
“Then how—”
“I can’t tell you that. There’s a plan, and it may or may not work. But if it does, and we get a live Faller, we want you to be there. To give us an edge in communicating with it.”
“I’m sure you already know, Major, that communication signals are always species-specific, and usually culture-specific. What I do is interpret human behavior. Also, after direct observation of them and many trials and errors, the behavior of alien species. But those alien species have all been DNA-based, and remarkably similar to our own
. The ‘galaxy-seeding theory,’ in fact. An enormous amount of behavior grows out of genetic imperatives. We know from charred corpses that the Fallers are not seeded from DNA like our own. And there is no reason to think I would be any better at reading Faller behavior than would any other random human. You, for instance.”
Kaufman smiled. “Thank you. But we will provide direct observation for you to build on, plus trial-and-error. It should be, if nothing else, a fascinating experience for you. Can you pack and leave with me now?”
She laughed, a laugh full and deep for that slight frame. “You knew I would say yes. You’re something of a Sensitive yourself, Major.”
“No, Ms. Grant. I have no particular talents.”
She studied him for a long minute. “You actually believe that.”
Kaufman didn’t answer. She might be a Sensitive, but he was better acquainted with the recesses of his own mind. All she could read was the outer packaging. Still, with the Fallers, perhaps that would be better than nothing.
Perhaps.
FOUR
ABOARD THE ALAN B. SHEPARD
Who’s arrived on Mars so far?” General Gordon asked. He was again feeding and watering whatever lived in the mesh cage in his underground office. Lyle Kaufman wondered what animal actually lived under all those artificial plastic shavings. So far, the shavings hadn’t as much as rustled.
“Dr. Capelo’s arrived, with his children and their nurse. Marbet Grant. Dieter Gruber and his wife, Dr. Ann Sikorski, expedition xenobiologist. She too was a member of the previous expedition, and speaks the native language extremely well. Far better than her husband.”
Gordon grinned, watering can in hand. “You don’t like Gruber.”
“That’s irrelevant, sir,” Kaufman said primly.
“Yes, it is: But since the planet’s proscribed and we’re unwelcome on it, there’s not going to be a great deal for a non-military xenobiologist to do anyway.” Kaufman caught the distinction. If the doubly secret part of this mission succeeded, the capture of a Faller, the military would provide its own xenobiologists.
Gordon continued, “The orders—grudgingly obtained, I might add—are minimal contact with natives who don’t want us. You keep away from them, and you keep them away from the mission.”
An uneasy feeling started in Kaufman’s stomach. He ignored it. “Sir, I’m told that at least one native will need to be located and talked to. She had extensive contact with the previous anthropological team, especially Ann Sikorski. She—”
“I’m only telling you the official position, Lyle. You’ll rule on exceptions as they come up.”
“But I’m—”
“Who else has arrived?”
“Marbet Grant. Also another physicist whom Dr. Capelo requested, Dr. Rosalind Singh from Cambridge University, UAF. We’re still waiting for the military physicist that High Command assigned to the project, Captain Harold Albemarle, and the spelunking tech. And the warship shuttle has docked. They’ve given us the Alan B. Shepard, under Commander Matthew Grafton.”
“Good man.”
“The ship is awaiting completion of weapons inspection. Commander Grafton has an appointment with you at fourteen hundred hours. After that, he can be underway whenever you want.”
“You mean, underway whenever you want.”
“Me?” Kaufman said. The uneasy feeling returned to his stomach, this time not ignorable.
“You. I’ve got you appointed as expedition leader.”
Instantly Kaufman said, “I don’t want it.”
“I know you don’t. And I don’t blame you—it’s a bunch of goddamn cowboys and misfits, and if Dr. Capelo comes up with nothing or fucks up that primitive native culture while digging around in it, your career is over. Sorry, Lyle. It’s a rotten shame to do this to you. But you’re the best man for the job.”
“Sir, with all due respect, I don’t see how you could have decided that. I’m not at all qualified. I’m not even command rank!”
“You are now. I put in for you for colonel this morning, battlefield processing. Lyle, you have three qualifications for this post. First, you actually believe Dieter Gruber’s story that there’s something of value on World, which is more than anybody else on Mars does.
“Second, you understand more physics than anyone but an actual physicist, and from what I can see, they’re all nuts.
“Third, and most important, you see all sides of issues. To some, that might make you look wishy-washy. I suspect that to yourself it makes you wishy-washy. But to me, it looks exactly like what that bunch of wild people are going to need out there. You’ll keep the entire quixotic affair from going over the top in any way.”
Kaufman said sourly, “I never knew a general before who could use the word ‘quixotic.’ Sir.”
Gordon threw back his head and laughed. “You’re probably right.”
“What’s in that cage, sir?”
“What do you think is in there. Colonel?”
“I think nothing is in there. I think you feed and water nothing just to keep your visitors wondering what you’ve captured, and so a little bit off-balance.”
“Right again. See, Lyle, I knew you were the correct choice for this job. Now get yourself up to the Alan B. Shepard and plan your team quarters. Oh, and one thing more—”
“Yes, sir?” Kaufman said unhappily.
“Good luck.”
* * *
The first night aboard ship, Kaufman arranged for a Special Project Team get-acquainted party. Commander Grafton made available the services of the ship’s galley, the observation deck, and a spectacular view of Mars as the Alan B. Shepard pulled away from orbit. She would proceed at top speed toward Space Tunnel #1, that enigmatic object silently circling the Solar System out beyond Neptune.
The space tunnels had been discovered fifty-six years ago. A flexible, mappable network of wormholes, they made the galaxy into a giant instantaneous bus system. All you had to do was get your bus to the nearest tunnel, drive it through, and you emerged at another station at the edge of another star system. Double back through the same tunnel and you emerged at your place of origin—if nothing else had gone through that tunnel in the meantime. If something had, you emerged in the same place it did. The bus system kept rerouting its vehicles.
Some systems had three or even four tunnels in orbit around them, although Sol had only one. Evidently whatever long-vanished race had constructed the tunnels had not considered Sol an important nexus.
It was now. Exploring the space tunnels, humans had made two astonishing discoveries. One was that the other races in the galaxy and even most (not all) of the other vegetation in the galaxy shared basic DNA with humanity. Somewhere there had been a common “seeding” of an enormous number of planets—by whom? Unknown.
The second discovery was that humans were the most technologically advanced of all species—until the Fallers emerged from their own space tunnel to make swift and uncommunicative attacks.
The discovery of Space Tunnel #1 had rocked the struggling solar civilization. New disciplines sprang up: xenobiology, interstellar treasure hunting, holomovies shot under pink or yellow skies. Serious thinkers pointed out that humankind was scarcely ready to colonize the stars, having solved none of its problems at home. Nobody listened. The rich flourished on the new investments; the poor remained poor; Earth went on lurching from one ecological tragedy to another. Everything was the same, and nothing was.
The first years were filled with triumphs and disasters. Experimentation proved that a ship—or any other object—put through a space tunnel for the first time went to wherever the directly previous ship had gone. A ship that had gone through a tunnel and then went through it from the other side was automatically returned to its starting point, no matter how many other ships had used the tunnel in the meantime. Somehow—that most operative word in human understanding of tunnel technology—the tunnel “remembered” where each individual ship had entered tunnel space. It was an interstella
r “Chutes and Ladders” composed of all chutes.
After fifty-six years, science still knew almost nothing about how space tunnels actually worked. The physical objects, panels floating in space in the general shape of a doughnut, were completely impenetrable. The science was too alien. The best guess was that the panels created a field of macro-level object entanglement, analogous to the quantum entanglement that permitted one particle to affect its paired counterpart regardless of distance, thus eliminating any spatial dimension to the universe by treating it as a single point. But this was merely a guess. Achieving entanglement for an object the size of a warship—let alone controlling the phenomenon—violated so many cherished principles that the feuding in physics journals resembled gang warfare. But the bottom line remained: The tunnels worked.
It would take the Alan B. Shepard several days to reach Space Tunnel #1 and less than twenty-four hours to go through the rest of the tunnels that would bring her to the “World” System. And, of course, the Special Project Team would be together for weeks after that. Kaufman hoped the first-night celebration would provide a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere for the all-important initial sizing up of each other.
The party was a disaster.
Dr. Rosalind Singh, Capelo’s choice as back-up physicist, was the first to join Kaufman on the observation deck. She was a short, gray-haired woman in her sixties, robust enough to suggest health genemods but obviously possessing no appearance modifications. Based at Cambridge University, UAF, she had never before been out of the Solar System. She seemed to Kaufman very civilized. He liked her precise, musical British accent and her low-key manner. They chatted about the view, about music, about anticipated living conditions on World.
Capelo arrived next, a daughter on either hand. Kaufman hadn’t realized he was bringing them to the party; he’d assumed they would stay in their quarters with their nurse. He didn’t approve of Capelo’s having dragged his daughters on a military mission, but he had of course not said so. Kaufman didn’t much like children, another fact he kept to himself.