Chansing watched the quick flashing in the walls. For him to see these sparks at all, they must be enormous, since his reeling, relentless speed took him by kilometers of the ruby-red rock in an instant. Still he felt the dizzying velocity. It threatened to make him throw up, and he had to clench his throat against that.
He saw from the 3-D simulation Felix ran in his left eye that he was rising toward the surface, slowing as gravity asserted itself.
He had to find a way to escape the tube, but no idea came to him. He had nothing he could throw to gain even a tug of momentum. The coolant jet throbbed behind him, but relative to the blur of motion in the walls he could not tell whether it did any good. It occurred to him that if he was too successful, he would crash into the speeding wall and be torn to pieces in an instant. Somehow the abstract nature of these things, the dry, distant, physics-experiment feel, frightened him all the more.
THE TUBE IS FLARING OUT. WE ARE APPROACHING ONE SIDE OF IT, BUT I CANNOT JUDGE OUR VELOCITY WELL. AS WE RISE, THE HOOP CURVES AWAY TO MAKE ITS GREAT ARC OUTWARD. THE MAJESTY OF IT IS IMPRESSIVE, I MUST SAY.
“Forget that. What can I do?”
I AM TRYING TO SEE HOW WE CAN USE OUR SITUATION, BUT I MUST SAY THAT A SOLUTION CONTINUES TO ELUDE ME. THE DYNAMICS—
“We’re getting close.”
The rock around him had already ceased to glow, and beyond the walls lay complete darkness. The tunnel was broadening. He saw it by the steady golden aura, a shimmering passage that led away both up and down.
Again he thought of what would happen if he could do nothing up ahead. The cool logic of dynamics would, Felix said, fling him back into the core. The heat would kill him on the next pass, or if it only managed to send him into delirium, there would be another cycle, and another, and another.… He would bob endlessly, a crisp cinder obeying simple but inexorable laws.…
And then instantly he was swimming in light.
Stars bloomed beneath his feet. A bowl of brilliant gas and suns opened below him as he shot free of the planet’s grasp, above the twilight line. After the sultry darkness, this sky was a welcoming bath of colors and contrasts.
Out, free!
He could feel his suit cool as it lost heat to the cold sky. It went ping as joints contracted. Wrinkled hills rose above his head, the whole naked landscape stretching as it drew away.
The golden walls fell away from him on one side, but in front of him the radiance did not fade or recede. It was much closer. He had gained some significant speed, then.
But now he was losing his speed along the tube. He watched the planet above his helmet turn into a gigantic silvery bowl. The dawn line cut this bowl in half. As he rose, Venus’s curve brought into view the immense gray orbital works of the Alphas.
His rate of rise dwindled. The far side of the hoop tube was bending away. In front of him the glow was brighter, and he took a few moments to be sure he was in fact curving over along with the hoop walls. Could he see the flicker of motion from the rapidly rotating string? He had begun to think of the walls as solid, and now he became aware of their gauzy nature.
THE COSMIC STRING CAN EXERT PRESSURE ONLY WHEN IT IS VERY NEAR YOU, OF COURSE. UNTIL NOW YOU WERE MOVING WITH RESPECT TO IT AT HIGH SPEEDS. NOW YOU WILL HAVE A LOW RELATIVE SPEED, BUT ONLY FOR A BRIEF MOMENT.
“You save any of that cooler stuff?”
YES, BUT THERE IS VERY LITTLE.
“Get ready.”
Already he could detect no further shrinking in the wrecked face of Venus below. He must be near the top of his swing.
“Firing!”
He felt the jetting pressure at his back. The glowing hoop tube curled away like an opening funnel. Beyond, he could see the gossamer surface generated by the globe-spanning cosmic string. It appeared now to wrap the world in a rainbowy strangle hold.
The venting at his spine gurgled to a stop.
Whuum-whuum-whuum.
A vibrant, intense glow was all around him. He windmilled his arms and brought his boots down toward the golden surface. It pulsed with freshening energy. He felt as though he was a fragile bird, vainly flailing its wings above a sheet of translucent, wispy gold. Falling toward it. Performing his own sort of experiment …
The impact slammed him hard. It jarred up through his boots like a rough, wrenching punch. He had crouched, letting his legs absorb the momentum. Suddenly, he was shooting along the surface of the sheet.
IT HAS CONVEYED IMPULSE TO YOU, AN INFINITESIMAL FRACTION OF ITS SPINNING ENERGY.
Chansing felt himself loft slightly higher, then come down toward the sheet again. He had shot sidewise, away from the polar axis, going out on a tangent like a coin flung off a merry-go-round.
He hit again.
This time the jolt twisted his ankle. It felt like a hand grabbing at him, then losing its grip. But it gave him another push out.
I ESTIMATE YOU ARE GAINING SIGNIFICANT VELOCITY FROM THESE ENCOUNTERS. IT IS DIFFICULT TO CALCULATE, BUT—
Chansing ignored the tiny piping Advisor. His ankle ached. Was it broken? He had no time to bend over and feel it. The shimmering plain came rising toward him again, hard and flat.
This time the shock was greater. It caught his feet and flung him off at an awkward angle, twisting him with a wrenching stab of pain.
YOU WILL HAVE TO BE MORE CAREFUL AS YOU SET DOWN UPON IT. IT CAN CONVEY SPIN, BUT IF YOUR VELOCITY IS NOT ALIGNED WITH ITS, THERE IS A VECTOR COUPLING, A TORQUE—
“Shut up!” he cried in pain and frustration. He did not want to set down on the golden surface again, the ghostly curtain that could clutch and break him. But the velocity he was picking up from the thing flung him sideways, not up. Only his own rebounding through his knees kept him above the flickering radiance. If he slipped, tumbled, went shooting across the damned thing as he spun out of control—
The golden sheet rushed at him.
He struck solidly. This time his left leg shrieked with pain, and he barely managed to kick free. The glow immersed him, and he saw he was going to fall again soon. He windmilled. This time the shock was not as great, but the muscles of his left leg seized up with an agonizing spasm.
He blinked away sweat. A weakness came over him and his ears rang. He wearily spun himself again, using his arms, slower this time because the motion hurt his leg.
He expected to hit quicker, but the jolt did not come. He looked down and could not judge the distance. The glow had dimmed. It took a long moment before he realized that the sheet was curving farther away from him, wrapping down to follow the arc of the planet.
He was free. Out. In the clean and silent spaces.
WE ARE ON A HIGHLY ELLIPTICAL ORBIT, I GATHER. IT SHOULD TAKE US AT A SIGNIFICANT ANGLE WITH RESPECT TO THIS HOOP PLAIN. I CANNOT CALCULATE THE DETAILS, SO IT MAY BE THAT WE WILL RETURN WITHIN ITS VOLUME.
“Never mind,” he said, panting.
WE WILL NEED THE INFORMATION IN DUE TIME, HOWEVER.
“I doubt it. Look up.”
Obsessed with its own mathematics, the Advisor piped with surprise as it responded to what Chansing saw.
Above them floated the long, sleek metallic body of the cyborg.
* * *
He had not intended to be the butt of a thousand jokes, and still less did he appreciate being the example cited in physics textbooks.
Some of the jokes turned upon childish anal analogies, others upon the sheer helplessness of his situation.
But he had done something very nearly impossible.
The Alpha that plucked him from above the shimmering veil of the rotating cosmic string explained nothing. It simply returned him to the gutted hulk of his ship.
At first he thought the rest of the expedition was dead. Electrical overload had seared the inner chambers.
But in the control center he found a metal equipment shell sealed from the inside. He popped it open and there was Doyle, crouched and ready in case he had turned out to be an Alpha. She had gotten herself into the shell as a precaution, gues
sing that the Alphas would use induced lightning as a weapon. Electricity can’t penetrate inside a conductor.
They shared the awful job of storing away the bodies. Chansing found himself staring into their contorted faces for a long time, trying to read meaning into their last moments.
With a week’s work Chansing and Doyle were able to get ship systems running again. They limped away from Venus and were picked up three weeks later. By that time Chansing was in pretty bad shape and needed a lot of medical attention. The media attention was less agreeable to him.
Earthside authorities were incensed, of course, but there was little they could do. Earth massed its transmission power and beamed messages at the still-growing Alpha webworks in orbit about Venus. After wasting time on acrimonious insults, the bureaucrats asked a few pointed questions. Surprisingly, the Alphas deigned to reply.
Had the Alphas truly intended to kill the crew?
Yes.
Had they intended to kill Chansing?
Yes, doubly yes.
Why?
No answer.
Why had they finally saved him?
Because he displayed (untranslatable) and proved himself (untranslatable).
Could they admit another scientific team to study their great works?
They could not say, truly. Perhaps another team would like to try?
Well, then, would the Alphas guarantee their safety?
That depended. Could the humans guarantee that their team would display (untranslatable)?
Well, what was (untranslatable)?
In reply the Alphas sent a picture of Chansing.
Much discussion followed this. Could the Alphas not generalize from the particular to the general? That would explain why they sent a picture of a single person when they were asked for a general property.
Or did their philosophy simply not hold the belief that experience could be chopped up into categories?
This last seemed unlikely, given their ability to manage the huge mass and power of the cosmic string. Science itself depended on mathematical generalizations. The ability to generalize was intelligence, wasn’t it?
Still … Did anyone want to gamble his or her life on the turn of a philosophical point?
So the Alphas continued to gut the world that was once linked with beauty and feminine grace. They pulled the rich metal core free and freeze-formed their own vast gray cities, for reasons still unknown. Though they shared the solar system, they took no further notice of humanity.
Chansing remained the only person who had ever seen an Alpha. And no one tried to repeat his performance.
He quickly tired of publicity, the questions, the fame, the money, the women, the incessant buzzing attention. He went in search of Doyle, after the noise had died down, and she was everything he had hoped.
He successfully resisted public appearances by simply pointing out that he never flew anywhere. Never mind that he had been a pilot once.
He bought a large, comfortable home on ample wooded grounds in northern China. Doyle furnished it during layovers between her ongoing career as a pilot. It is a single-storied, pine construction with handsome teak walls, and has no stairs. Nowhere in the house is there an elevated floor.
Chansing is cordial to guests and in later years has adopted the curious practice of going everywhere in a powered wheelchair. Though his legs are sound, he rarely stands up.
He takes his exercise in other ways. There is a swimming pool, but no diving board.
CONNIE WILLIS
At the Rialto
Connie Willis lives in Greeley, Colorado, with her family. She first attracted attention as a writer in the late 1970s with a number of outstanding stories for the now-defunct magazine Galileo, and in the subsequent years has made a large name for herself very fast indeed. In 1982, she won two Nebula Awards, one for her superb novelette “Fire Watch,” and one for her poignant short story “A Letter from the Clearys”; a few months later, “Fire Watch” went on to win her a Hugo Award as well. Last year, her powerful novella “The Last of the Winnebagos” won both the Nebula and the Hugo. Her short fiction has appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, OMNI, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Berkley Showcase, The Twilight Zone Magazine, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. Her books include the novels Water Witch and Light Raid, written in collaboration with Cynthia Felice, and Fire Watch, a collection of her short fiction. Her first solo novel was Lincoln’s Dreams; upcoming is a new solo novel, Doomsday Book. Her story “The Sidon in the Mirror” was in our First Annual Collection, her story “Blued Moon” was in our Second Annual Collection, her story “Chance” was in our Fourth Annual Collection, and her “The Last of the Winnebagos” was in our Sixth Annual Collection.
In the fast-paced and funny screwball comedy that follows, she teaches us a lesson in quantum physics unlike any we’re likely to have seen before.
At the Rialto
CONNIE WILLIS
Seriousness of mind was a prerequisite for understanding Newtonian physics. I am not convinced it is not a handicap in understanding quantum theory.
—EXCERPT FROM DR. GEDANKEN’S KEYNOTE ADDRESS TO THE 1988 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF QUANTUM PHYSICISTS ANNUAL MEETING, HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
I got to Hollywood around one-thirty and started trying to check into the Rialto.
“Sorry, we don’t have any rooms,” the girl behind the desk said. “We’re all booked up with some science thing.”
“I’m with the science thing,” I said. “Dr. Ruth Baringer. I reserved a double.”
“There are a bunch of Republicans here, too, and a tour group from Finland. They told me when I started work here that they got all these movie people, but the only one so far was that guy who played the friend of that other guy in that one movie. You’re not a movie person, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m with the science thing. Dr. Ruth Baringer.”
“My name’s Tiffany,” she said. “I’m not actually a hotel clerk at all. I’m just working here to pay for my transcendental posture lessons. I’m really a model/actress.”
“I’m a quantum physicist,” I said, trying to get things back on track. “The name is Ruth Baringer.”
She messed with the computer for a minute. “I don’t show a reservation for you.”
“Maybe it’s in Dr. Mendoza’s name. I’m sharing a room with her.”
She messed with the computer some more. “I don’t show a reservation for her either. Are you sure you don’t want the Disneyland Hotel? A lot of people get the two confused.”
“I want the Rialto,” I said, rummaging through my bag for my notebook. “I have a confirmation number. W37420.”
She typed it in. “Are you Dr. Gedanken?” she asked.
“Excuse me,” an elderly man said.
“I’ll be right with you,” Tiffany told him. “How long do you plan to stay with us, Dr. Gedanken?” she asked me.
“Excuse me,” the man said, sounding desperate. He had bushy white hair and a dazed expression, as if he had just been through a horrific experience or had been trying to check into the Rialto.
He wasn’t wearing any socks. I wondered if he was Dr. Gedanken. Dr. Gedanken was the main reason I’d decided to come to the meeting. I had missed his lecture on wave-particle duality last year, but I had read the text of it in the ICQP Journal, and it had actually seemed to make sense, which is more than you can say for most of quantum theory. He was giving the keynote address this year, and I was determined to hear it.
It wasn’t Dr. Gedanken. “My name is Dr. Whedbee,” the elderly man said. “You gave me the wrong room.”
“All our rooms are pretty much the same,” Tiffany said. “Except for how many beds they have in them and stuff.”
“My room has a person in it!” he said. “Dr. Sleeth. From the University of Texas at Austin. She was changing her clothes.” His hair seemed to get wilder as he spoke. “She thought I was a serial killer.”
“An
d your name is Dr. Whedbee?” Tiffany asked, fooling with the computer again. “I don’t show a reservation for you.”
Dr. Whedbee began to cry. Tiffany got out a paper towel, wiped off the counter, and turned back to me. “May I help you?” she said.
* * *
Thursday, 7:30–9 p.m. Opening Ceremonies. Dr. Halvard Onofrio, University of Maryland at College Park, will speak on the topic, “Doubts Surrounding the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.” Ballroom.
* * *
I finally got my room at five, after Tiffany went off duty. Till then I sat around the lobby with Dr. Whedbee, listening to Abey Fields complain about Hollywood.
“What’s wrong with Racine?” he said. “Why do we always have to go to these exotic places, like Hollywood? And St. Louis last year wasn’t much better. The Institut Henri Poincaré people kept going off to see the arch and Busch Stadium.”
“Speaking of St. Louis,” Dr. Takumi said, “have you seen David yet?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh, really?” she said. “Last year at the annual meeting you two were practically inseparable. Moonlight riverboat rides and all.”
“What’s on the programming tonight?” I said to Abey.
“David was just here,” Dr. Takumi said. “He said to tell you he was going out to look at the stars in the sidewalk.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Abey said. “Riverboat rides and movie stars. What do those things have to do with quantum theory? Racine would have been an appropriate setting for a group of physicists. Not like this … this … do you realize we’re practically across the street from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre? And Hollywood Boulevard’s where all those gangs hang out. If they catch you wearing red or blue, they’ll—”
He stopped. “Is that Dr. Gedanken?” he asked, staring at the front desk.
I turned and looked. A short roundish man with a mustache was trying to check in. “No,” I said. “That’s Dr. Onofrio.”
“Oh, yes,” Abey said, consulting his program book. “He’s speaking tonight at the opening ceremonies. On the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Are you going?”
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection Page 18