Jim Baen’s Universe

by Edited by Eric Flint

  She set­tled in­to her duct-ta­ped, buc­ket se­at and stret­c­hed her legs un­til her fe­et met the wo­oden blocks ta­ped to the pe­dals on the flo­or.

  “Come on, Big Red!” she che­ered as she tur­ned the key. Big Red co­ug­hed, shud­de­red, lur­c­hed, and di­ed. In her si­de mir­ror, Brie wat­c­hed a clo­ud of blue smo­ke ex­p­lo­de from the ex­ha­ust and roll ac­ross her yard, en­gul­fing her newly emer­ged swe­et pe­as and the scar­let blo­oms of her rho­do­den­d­rons.

  “Oh, Red. Why’d you do that? They didn’t do an­y­t­hing to you. Wa­ke up, lo­ve. The world de­pends on us. It’s a be­a­uti­ful day to gi­ve pe­op­le smi­les!”

  Brie tur­ned the key. Red shud­de­red, and wo­ke. Whi­le the en­gi­ne war­med and set­tled in­to its gra­vel­ly purr, Brie threw swit­c­hes to bring po­wer to the equ­ip­ment in the re­ar. Fi­nal­ly, she tu­ned in her fa­vo­ri­te FM sta­ti­on. Dul­ci­mer, drum, and pi­pe tu­nes fil­led the truck. She swa­yed to the tu­nes and let out the clutch.

  ****

  For the se­ven­te­enth ti­me in a we­ek, Marg de­ci­ded to le­ave her wor­ka­ho­lic hus­band. She strip­ped off her spi­ke he­els. She’d tho­ught she co­uld ex­ci­te him with a lit­tle le­at­her and la­ce fan­tasy over bre­ak­fast.

  She’d be­en stu­pid. Only work held his at­ten­ti­on. She pul­led so­me slack in­to her fis­h­net stoc­kings and knelt to wi­pe splat­te­red egg from the flo­or. A brassy flash un­der the kit­c­hen tab­le ca­ught her eye. She pe­ered in­to the sha­dow of Alan’s cha­ir. The shi­eld-sha­ped lock of his bri­ef­ca­se ref­lec­ted the kit­c­hen lights.

  She ho­is­ted the bul­ging ca­se to the tab­le. The worn and rag­ged cow­hi­de body stra­ined. Its dry-le­at­her stench ma­de her no­se wrin­k­le.

  The ca­se held the num­bers and graphs that we­re mo­re im­por­tant than his wi­fe. She tug­ged at the le­at­her strap hol­ding the ca­se clo­sed. It was loc­ked.

  She po­ked the three com­bo whe­els un­til her bir­t­h­day li­ned up. The lock held. She rol­led her eyes. Of co­ur­se it wo­uldn’t be her bir­t­h­day.

  Damn him and his bri­ef­ca­se. He kept sec­rets from her. She was sick of his sec­rets, of sup­por­ting his ob­ses­si­ons, his de­lu­si­ons of No­bel pri­zes.

  She sat down at the tab­le and li­ned up his bir­t­h­day on the tiny whe­els.

  Nothing.

  His work had se­emed im­por­tant to her ten ye­ars ago-mo­re im­por­tant than her hap­pi­ness.

  His mot­her’s bir­t­h­day?

  No. Damn him.

  More im­por­tant than chil­d­ren.

  His fat­her’s?

  ****

  Alan clo­sed the lab’s fi­rep­ro­of do­or and threw the de­ad bolt to se­cu­re the ex­pe­ri­ment spa­ce. When he had le­ased the un­fi­nis­hed of­fi­ce spa­ce, the ma­na­ger had tri­ed to sell him car­pe­ting for the con­c­re­te flo­or, a sus­pen­ded ce­iling for the alu­mi­num grid over­he­ad, and wi­re and drywall for the ro­om’s me­tal stud ske­le­ton. Alan pre­fer­red to use his fun­ding on mo­re im­por­tant things.

  Morgan, his whi­te, ove­re­du­ca­ted, grun­ge lab as­sis­tant sta­red out the full wall win­dow op­po­si­te the do­or. Mor­gan was not an im­por­tant thing. Af­ter two hun­d­red grant pro­po­sals, only one flaky RD firm, LURC, was wil­ling to risk mo­ney on Alan’s ide­as. Un­for­tu­na­tely, Mor­gan was part of LURC’s de­al.

  The win­dow was im­por­tant. It was di­rectly over Bri­e­an­na’s par­king slot.

  Morgan tur­ned and flip­ped a dust-blond dre­ad­lock away from his eyes. “You lo­ok li­ke hell, Doc­tor Al,” he sa­id.

  “You ha­ven’t was­hed yo­ur ha­ir in ye­ars,” Alan sa­id, ven­ting his mor­ning’s frus­t­ra­ti­on. “You show up in a pur­p­le tee and baggy shorts, and you in­sult me?”

  “Take a pill, Doc­tor Al!” Mor­gan held up his hands in mock de­fen­se. “Yo­ur clot­hes are al­ways ret­ro-spiff. I me­ant the bags un­der yo­ur eyes.”

  Alan glan­ced at the cof­fee mac­hi­ne on top of a small ref­ri­ge­ra­tor in the cor­ner. The ca­ra­fe was empty. “It’s fi­ve-fifty. Whe­re’s my cof­fee?”

  “Sorry, Doc. I for­got.” Mor­gan la­ug­hed. “When Brie gets he­re, I’ll buy you a do­ub­le va­nil­la lat­te.”

  The mor­ning was bad and get­ting wor­se. First Marg had dres­sed up in le­at­her and spi­kes and thrown her­self over his eggs and to­ast in so­me tab­lo­id ro­man­ce ma­ke­over stunt. Then he’d left his bri­ef­ca­se ho­me. Now Mor­gan, with his woo-woo cre­den­ti­als in non­li­ner phe­no­me­no­logy, was too damn happy and as­su­ming Bri­e­an­na wo­uld ar­ri­ve as usu­al-and the dry-land surf bum hadn’t bot­he­red to ma­ke the cof­fee. “To hell with Bri­e­an­na Wol­fe,” Alan snap­ped. “I want cof­fee now.”

  “I’ll ma­ke it,” Mor­gan sa­id. “It’ll be re­ady in a mi­nu­te, but Brie’s is a lot bet­ter.”

  “No air- headed, cof­fee-sel­ling, ‘As if,’ earth muf­fin is go­ing to screw up the most im­por­tant study of my li­fe! I’m go­ing to fi­nish this to­day, Mor­gan. To­day!”

  Morgan sta­red, mo­uth open, from be­hind his dre­ads.

  Alan to­ok a de­ep bre­ath. To hi­de his em­bar­ras­sment, he cros­sed the lab to a long fol­ding tab­le sup­por­ting two com­pu­ter wor­k­s­ta­ti­ons se­pa­ra­ted by his dis­pat­c­her’s ra­dio set. He drop­ped his keys in his jac­ket poc­ket and hung the co­at over the back of his cha­ir.

  Alan to­ok a bre­ath. Stay obj­ec­ti­ve. Don’t let him get to you, he told him­self. To Mor­gan, he sa­id, “She won’t ma­ke it.”

  Morgan went to the cof­fee mac­hi­ne and strip­ped the top off a fo­il pac­ket. “Anti­ci­pa­ting re­sults, Doc? Won’t yo­ur ex­pec­ta­ti­ons in­f­lu­en­ce the out­co­me?”

  Ignoring Mor­gan, Alan set­tled in­to his cha­ir and tur­ned on his wor­k­s­ta­ti­on. Cab­les clim­bed from the back of both wor­k­s­ta­ti­ons li­ke red and gre­en vi­nes stran­g­ling the gal­va­ni­zed wall studs. The wi­res stret­c­hed in bel­li­ed arcs ac­ross the ce­iling grid and down the op­po­si­te wall. The­re, anot­her tab­le sup­por­ted LURC’s qu­an­tum com­pu­ter, “Q.” At a glan­ce, the mil­li­on-dol­lar mac­hi­ne lo­oked li­ke a child’s pre­tend com­pu­ter, a bright oran­ge sho­ebox an­c­ho­ring the des­cen­ding cab­les.

  Q co­uld track a ne­arly in­fi­ni­te num­ber of se­emingly un­re­la­ted de­ta­ils from Alan’s city-wi­de sen­sor grid. Using Alan’s equ­ati­ons, Q co­uld cal­cu­la­te the ef­fect of each de­ta­il on all ot­her de­ta­ils then pro­vi­de a pre­dic­ti­on of pro­bab­le out­co­me for a pre­de­fi­ned event. The pre­de­fi­ned event was whet­her a cer­ta­in air­he­ad co­uld put her truck in a cer­ta­in par­king slot at 7:30. Q co­uld sug­gest adj­us­t­ments to the in­ter­re­la­ted mi­nu­ti­ae of the ca­usal mat­rix. Using the dis­patch ra­dio, Alan co­uld or­der tho­se adj­us­t­ments ma­de by te­ams of dis­cip­li­ned, sto­ne-fa­ced fi­eld agents.

  When he he­ard the pop and hiss of the cof­fee mac­hi­ne, Alan tur­ned away from his wor­k­s­ta­ti­on. “Is Q re­ady?”

  Morgan slip­ped a sta­ined, gre­en mug un­der the ste­aming stre­am in the ca­ra­fe bay. “All qu­an­tum pa­irs ha­ve un­de­fi­ned, lin­ked, su­per-sy­m­met­ri­cal spin. Q’s co­pa­se­tic. The sen­sor grid’s up and re­cor­ding.” Mor­gan grin­ned and pe­ered thro­ugh tan­g­led dre­ads. “Sorry I kin­da’ pis­sed you off, Doc.”

  Alan gla­red. “It isn’t you, per­so­nal­ly,” he li­ed. “I just don’t li­ke ta­king mo­ney from a shady RD firm that rec­ru­its nut ca­ses for re­se­arch in ir­ra­ti­onal sci­en­ces.”

  “LURC stu­di­es luck. So do you. And the cor­rect term for the men­tal sta­tus of us LURC re­se­ar­c­h
ers is ‘pa­ra­digm free.’”

  “I li­ed. It is you,” he sa­id. “You and that cof­fee sel­ler are wrec­king my ex­pe­ri­ment and wrec­king my mar­ri­age.”

  “We are both pretty cu­te,” Mor­gan sa­id.

  Alan grip­ped the arms of his cha­ir and to­ok a de­ep bre­ath. “No mo­re prac­ti­ce.” He for­ced him­self to spe­ak with aca­de­mic aut­ho­rity. “To­day, we exe­cu­te Bri­e­an­na’s spe­ci­al ex­pe­ri­ment, end her in­f­lu­en­ce. I’m go­ing to pay off LURC at one hun­d­red to one and get rid of you.”

  “Ouch.” The cof­fee mac­hi­ne dry-sput­te­red. “Ple­ase don’t throw me in the bri­ar patch.” Mor­gan la­ug­hed.

  “Morgan, if you can’t be ser-”

  “Don’t jump me! You’re the one ob­ses­sing on Brie. You’re all ca­ught up in how to­mor­rows sho­uld be. I li­ve whe­re I am and see what I see.”

  Alan wan­ted to bash a clip­bo­ard in­to Mor­gan’s I’m a Zen kin­da’ guy smi­le. “And yo­ur su­pe­ri­or, pa­ra­digm free sight shows you what?”

  “That we’re part of the system you want to me­asu­re.”

  “Experimental con­t­rols ex­c­lu­de us.” Alan tur­ned to his wor­k­s­ta­ti­on. “Run di­ag­nos­tics. I want to be re­ady by six-fif­te­en.”

  “Your show, Doc.” Mor­gan han­ded Alan the gre­en mug, then set­tled in­to the cha­ir at his wor­k­s­ta­ti­on.

  The Bud­dha-boy got that right, Alan tho­ught. My show. Af­ter ye­ars re­fi­ning his equ­ati­ons, he had used hun­d­reds of tho­usands of mi­nu­tia sen­sors, se­ven su­per­com­pu­ters, and a ran­dom sam­p­le of two tho­usand com­mu­ters to bu­ild his mo­del of the ef­fects of hu­man ex­pec­ta­ti­ons on ca­usal mi­nu­tia.

  Every day for twen­ty-fo­ur months, he used co­vert ob­ser­va­ti­on pro­fi­les to iden­tify each su­bj­ect’s op­ti­mum da­ily par­king pla­ce. His ex­ten­si­ve sen­sor net­work re­cor­ded mi­nu­te en­vi­ron­men­tal chan­ges as the day’s com­mu­te un­fol­ded. He plug­ged the sen­sor da­ta and the su­bj­ect’s fa­ilu­re ra­te in­to his equ­ati­ons.

  After we­eks crun­c­hing num­bers, the com­pu­ters plot­ted the su­bj­ects’ be­li­ef in­f­lu­en­ce on the­ir suc­cess or fa­ilu­re.

  Of co­ur­se, Bri­e­an­na ne­ver fa­iled.

  Her im­pos­sib­le, per­fect re­cord des­t­ro­yed his hypot­he­sis. She had to fa­il if he we­re go­ing to me­asu­re the in­f­lu­en­ce of her ex­pec­ta­ti­ons on her out­co­mes. To for­ce her fa­ilu­re, he ne­eded to ma­ni­pu­la­te her en­vi­ron­ment and pro­j­ect out­co­mes in re­al-ti­me.

  He ne­eded Q’s spe­ed and his highly tra­ined, en­vi­ron­men­tal adj­us­t­ment te­ams.

  He smi­led. He’d lo­ok gre­at at the po­di­um in Stoc­k­holm. He stra­ig­h­te­ned his tie and tur­ned on his ra­dio. “Let’s do it,” he sa­id.

  “I got ze­ros, Doc,” Mor­gan sa­id. “Q’s happy. Are yo­ur spo­oks re­ady to ha­unt?”

  “They’re cal­led adj­us­t­ment te­ams.”

  “Whatever.”

  Adjustments had to per­fectly mi­mic na­tu­ral in­f­lu­en­ces. If Bri­e­an­na sus­pec­ted ma­ni­pu­la­ti­on, her ex­pec­ta­ti­ons wo­uld chan­ge, and her in­f­lu­en­ce co­uldn’t be me­asu­red. Alan had per­so­nal­ly tra­ined the adj­us­t­ment te­ams to act wit­ho­ut cre­ating sus­pi­ci­on.

  Alan put on the dis­pat­c­her’s he­ad­set. “Check one?”

  A de­ep vo­ice an­s­we­red from the he­ad­p­ho­nes. “Po­wer uti­li­ti­es co­ve­red.”

  “Two?”

  “Water and se­wer, con­fir­med.”

  “Three?” He con­ti­nu­ed un­til all te­ams con­fir­med re­adi­ness.

  “For on­ce, Mor­gan, yo­ur cof­fee is go­ing to be la­te.”

  Morgan la­ug­hed. “We got no num­ber yet. She’s way off the right end of yo­ur graph. I’m thin­king she’s li­ke gra­vity. Her in­f­lu­en­ce is si­mul­ta­ne­o­us. It’s ever­y­w­he­re.”

  Alan la­un­c­hed his in­ter­fa­ce sof­t­wa­re for Q. “You know bet­ter, Mor­gan. Gra­vity’s a spin two, vec­tor ga­uge bo­zon. Ever­y­t­hing’s qu­an­ti­fi­ab­le, Doc­tor Rat Ha­ir.”

  “Okay, not li­ke gra­vity, but she’s a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly stab­le po­int. May­be the uni­ver­se de­fi­nes va­ri­ati­ons re­la­ti­ve to her. It ne­eds so­me re­fe­ren­ce po­int. Why not her?”

  “That sta­te­ment as­su­mes con­s­ci­o­us­ness on the part of the uni­ver­se.”

  “The uni­ver­se is con­s­ci­o­us.”

  “You can’t pro­ve that.”

  “Are you con­s­ci­o­us?”

  “That’s a po­in­t­less, ri­di­cu­lo­us qu­es­ti­on.”

  “If you’re con­s­ci­o­us and you’re part of the uni­ver­se, the uni­ver­se is, by de­fi­ni­ti­on, con­s­ci­o­us.”

  “Idiot.”

  “That’s an ad ho­mi­nem et­hi­cal, rhe­to­ri­cal fal­lacy. Do you ha­ve an ac­tu­al co­un­ter ar­gu­ment?”

  Alan sho­ok his he­ad. “By the num­bers: we block her, do the anal­y­sis, and plot her in­f­lu­en­ce. You di­sap­pe­ar back in­to wha­te­ver grungy RD ca­ve spit you out, and I ac­cept the No­bel.” Alan po­ked his fin­ger in the air at Mor­gan. “You got that, Mr. Pa­ra­digm Free?”

  Morgan smi­led and nod­ded. “Re­lax, Doc.” Stud­ying his wor­k­s­ta­ti­on, he sa­id, “I’m on yo­ur prog­ram. Da­ta fe­eds are go, and I got num­bers for you.”

  Alan’s mo­ni­tor blos­so­med with cal­cu­la­ti­ons of pro­ba­bi­li­ti­es for Bri­e­an­na’s suc­ces­sful ar­ri­val.

  In his he­ad­p­ho­nes a vo­ice sa­id, “Te­am three to ba­se.”

  Alan chec­ked the di­gi­tal clock on his scre­en and ini­ti­ali­zed his log fi­le at 06:22:57:04. “Go ahe­ad, te­am three.”

  “Subject pas­sing our chec­k­po­int.”

  “Status, Mor­gan?”

  “Clocks are synched, sen­sors go,” Mor­gan sa­id. “She’s early. May­be she knows we’re trying to stop her.”

  Alan ig­no­red him. “Copy, te­am three. Com­pu­ting pro­ba­bi­li­ti­es.”

  “Like Brie ca­res,” Mor­gan mum­b­led. Then, in mock hor­ror, he sa­id, “The big red truck is ali­ve. It’s co­ming for us.”

  “Shut up, Mor­gan.”

  “I ho­pe the men in black can stop it! Oh god!” Mor­gan’s cac­k­le fil­led the lab.

  Alan mu­ted his mic­rop­ho­ne. “She’s mo­ving, Mor­gan. You don’t get pa­id for co­lor com­men­tary. Mo­ni­tor Q.”

  “Q’ll an­s­wer yo­ur qu­es­ti­ons.” Mor­gan grin­ned mis­c­hi­evo­usly. “You’re su­re you’re as­king the right qu­es­ti­ons?”

  “Just gi­ve me si­mu­la­ti­ons and pre­dic­ti­ons.”

  “Simulations co­ming up now,” Mor­gan sa­id.

  On Alan’s scre­en, num­bers flas­hed in two co­lumns. Q did its ma­gic. Mi­nu­te de­ta­ils from all over the city po­ured in­to the box: ba­ro­met­ric pres­su­re at the air­port; pa­ve­ment tem­pe­ra­tu­res on Bur­n­si­de and Third; the dis­po­si­ti­on of the preg­nant Dal­ma­ti­an at the fi­re sta­ti­on on Nor­t­h­west 23rd. Three hun­d­red tho­usand sen­sors pum­ped da­ta at light spe­ed, and Q tur­ned it in­to a mass of pos­si­bi­li­ti­es col­li­ding, can­ce­ling, and oc­ca­si­onal­ly am­p­lif­ying one anot­her in­to sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­ni­fi­cant pro­ba­bi­li­ti­es. In pi­co-ti­me, all the can­ce­ling and com­pa­ring re­sul­ted in a sin­g­le num­ber.

  Brieanna Wol­fe had an im­pos­sib­le 99.999 per­cent chan­ce of par­king suc­cess.

  Alan frow­ned.

  “There you go, Herr Dok­tor. Sa­me as every day for two ye­ars,” Mor­gan chi­ded. “Me and Q did our jobs ac­cor­ding to spec and pro­to­col. The par­kin
g god­dess co­meth.”

  Alan exa­mi­ned the co­lumn of sug­ges­ted adj­us­t­ments for Brie’s cur­rently pre­dic­ted path. He se­lec­ted a so­lu­ti­on and sent a mes­sa­ge. “Te­am se­ven, re­le­ase yo­ur mi­ce on my mark.”

  “Affirmative, ba­se. All se­ven?”

  “All se­ven.”

  “On yo­ur mark.”

  “Three, two, one, mark.”

  “Mice away.”

  ****

  From the das­h­bo­ard, Val­dez pla­yed with the swa­ying gold tas­sels han­ging from the sun vi­sor. A brown mo­use ran in­to the ro­ad. Val­dez bat­ted at the win­dow. Brie slo­wed to let the mo­use cross. Chec­king her si­de mir­ror as she con­ti­nu­ed on, she saw the mo­use scurry in­to the aza­lea bus­hes of a gar­den. “That was clo­se, lit­tle guy. Lo­ok both ways next ti­me.”

  ****

  On Alan’s scre­en, new num­bers ap­pe­ared. The mi­ce had chan­ged her ti­ming and ru­ined her pro­ba­bi­lity of suc­cess. He tur­ned to Mor­gan and grin­ned in tri­umph. “We did it! She’s got less than a one per­cent chan­ce of hit­ting her slot on ti­me.”

  “A lit­tle early to call, don’t you think?” Mor­gan sa­id. “I me­an, Brie’s not even at the end of her stre­et. A lot of stuff can shift the ca­usal mat­rix-”

  “Be as ne­ga­ti­ve as you want. I ha­ve my num­ber.”

  “A num­ber.”

  “The num­ber. And Mor­gan?” Alan spun to fa­ce his as­sis­tant.

  “Doc?”

  “You did a go­od job.”

  “Don’t be too ni­ce. You still might ne­ed to bla­me so­me­one.”

  Alan felt mag­na­ni­mo­us. He la­ug­hed.

  “Really, Doc. I know you don’t li­ke it, but I think you sho­uld re­con­si­der. We’re part of the system. So is Q.”