[Weapons of Chaos 01] - Echoes of Chaos

by Robert E. Vardeman - (ebook by Undead)

  “What does this moving thing do?” asked Ralston.

  “The mathematical intricacy of the problem is worthy of my time.”

  With that, Westcott closed his eyes. The interface indicator light began pulsating once more. Ralston stopped and considered running his hand through the IR beam connecting cortex with computer.

  “Don’t,” came Westcott’s warning. “It gives me a headache.”

  Ralston started, then forced calm on himself. It was as if a corpse had risen from the grave to speak. He quickly left Westcott’s laboratory without breaking the IR remote sensor beam. Ralston wasn’t certain what he’d learned, other than Alpha 3’s civilization had died because of something that had passed by.

  Now the star was going nova.

  How did all this tie in with Yago de la Cruz’s death and the dioramas? Ralston had to know.

  TWELVE

  Michael Ralston left the mathematician’s office feeling unclean. He had nothing against Westcott as a researcher; it was generally admitted that Westcott had few peers in the abstract geometries where he lived. Nor did Ralston fault Westcott for his undeniable dedication to his work. He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of being so closely tied to a computer. While Ralston depended heavily on their use in the field—and in the classroom—the concept of oneness with a machine troubled him deeply.

  Ralston stopped at the door leading from the laboratory and quickly scanned the University’s spacious grounds. The sylvan setting had always soothed him—it had been one of the reasons he had accepted the University’s niggardly offer to teach archaeology. When the pressures of too many students, too much politics, too little time all came crushing in on him, Ralston had walked through the grounds and retreated to a better time.

  For him, that time was more fantasy than reality. Earth had never been like this, even before the quick war. His earliest childhood memories were of smog-filled skies, acid rains that stung the skin and burned the eyes, snow that fell black with soot, yellowish plumes of sulfur dioxide rising into the air, and his father talking of radon gas from fossil fuel combustion shortening their lives. The dinosaurs’ revenge, his father had always said with a cynical laugh.

  Ralston didn’t think of the Earth war as positive, but it seemed only a faster version of death to him. Choke on noxious fumes and glow blue from burning coal and heavy industry, or go up in a swift radioactive cloud.

  Slow or fast. He wasn’t sure which was the better death.

  But he didn’t have that to worry about on Novo Terra. All on-planet manufacturing had been banned soon after colonization two hundred years ago. What needed to be built was done in orbit where the detritus of industry could be disposed of safely. Most of the electricity on the planet came from orbiting geosynchronous solar power stations. The high-intensity beams to the ground afforded some leakage of microwave radiation, but it was a small price to pay for not sucking in fly ash with every breath. The surface of Novo Terra had been transformed into a garden with strict laws to maintain it.

  Ralston inhaled deeply and caught the subtle fragrances wafting on the gentle breeze. But when he closed his eyes he saw only the mud flats of Muckup, the copper door and the museum of death beneath Alpha 3’s surface. Ralston screwed his eyes shut all the tighter and winced at his mental image of the planet vanishing in a sudden flare of a nova.

  He knew such a sight would be impossible. The highest speed framing cameras, or even electronic block cameras, would be incapable of capturing the final instant of Alpha 3’s life. If such things were possible, a human observer would see only a purple flash as the speed-of-light radiation burned out optic nerves.

  Even this was fantasy. The slowness of impulse transmission along nerve paths would prevent any sight of the nova at all. Ten thousand centimeters a second versus thirty billion centimeters a second. His body and brain wouldn’t respond fast enough to the stimulus, not by a factor of three million.

  Ralston shook himself free of such morbid thoughts. He cared nothing for the destruction of Alpha 3; he wanted its preservation. More precisely, he wanted to preserve whatever might be uncovered about the populace that had lived on the planet. Knowledge of this magnitude should not be lost.

  Even in Nature’s fierce, cleansing nova fire.

  Ralston looked around to Novo Terra’s primary. The sun quietly slipped behind a row of greenery to the west and cast long, distorted shadows across the grounds. To think that Alpha 3’s sun looked so much like this one. Ralston didn’t want to think that whatever caused that nova might also be capable of triggering another.

  The main room of the library stretched before him, virtually deserted for the evening meal. One or two librarians sat hunched over their glowing consoles, rearranging their databases for the hundredth time that month, seeking new ways of making searches more esoteric, thus protecting their jobs for another pay period. They knew that their positions were tolerated, long since unnecessary because of easy access to their information from any point on campus. But old traditions died hard, especially in academic circles.

  Ralston tried to imagine a university without a library and failed. It might be an anachronism, but symbols usually were. He had never seen a promotional advertising for a school that didn’t include at least one zoomshot of the library, a quiet spot for reflection and study, a quick and still meaningful representation of the entire higher educational system in one location.

  He settled into one of the saddles and thumbed on the terminal. At the prompt, he typed in his departmental billing code number. Ralston frowned when it took a dozen seconds to respond. The authorization finally blinked on the screen.

  His fingers flew over the keys, demanding information, ordering it sent to the hardcopy room, asking for more. In less than five minutes he had finished. Ralston looked over his right shoulder toward the door. No one. Over his left he saw a solitary librarian behind a desk digging out a sandwich for dinner.

  The feeling of being watched had halted his work. And now that sensation forced him away from the console and toward the hardcopy room at a pace only slightly less than a run.

  The imprinter had spat out a stack of plastic sheets for him. He was one of the few who bothered with hardcopy. Most had the information placed in their computer files or had it burned onto a block for viewing later. But as an archaeologist, Ralston lived for the past. Some even accused him of living in the past.

  He pulled the sheets from the imprinter and began riffling through them, but his eyes weren’t focused on the pages. His nose wrinkled from an unexpected odor. Hairs rose on the back of his neck, as if he’d touched a high-voltage electrode. He didn’t have to turn to know who blocked his exit from the room.

  “Did you bring your mob with you?” Ralston asked.

  “Dr. Ralston, what fine coincidences this is meeting you,” came the P’torra’s voice.

  The rear door from the room was securely locked and alarmed. If Ralston managed to batter it down, he’d alert everyone. Better to fight his way past the P’torra, if that proved necessary.

  “Do not think so to do this unmentionable act,” the P’torra cautioned. Ralston squarely faced the alien. Clutched in one of the well-fleshed, stubby-fingered hands the P’torra held a small box with two protruding wires.

  “Not a lethal device, is it?” Ralston asked.

  “I wish no harm to come to you, Doctor. Why for do you think so ill of me?”

  Ralston tried to push past. He encountered blubbery P’torra flesh that didn’t yield.

  “I’ve got to get back to teach a class. Let me by.”

  “Your wondrous duties in teaching classrooms are suspended,” answered the P’torra, unperturbed by Ralston’s more aggressive attempts to push past and escape. “I mean you none harm.”

  “You manipulated the crowd well. I saw you with your impulse driver.”

  “I mean nothing against you personally,” explained the P’torra. It smiled, revealing the twin rows of needle-sharp teeth. Without a decent
nose, with the heavy folds of flesh on his face, the P’torra looked like something out of Ralston’s worst nightmare.

  Ralston tried to get past the P’torra again. The alien had wedged himself firmly into the narrow doorway, making escape almost impossible. Ralston stepped back and quickly sized up the alien. He had fought enough of them in the Nex-P’torra war to have an appreciation for how strong and hardy they were. Once, he had blasted off both legs of a P’torra field officer. That hadn’t killed him. He had followed the officer for almost twenty kilometers; along the way the P’torra had killed four different varieties of creature with his bare hands. One of them, Ralston had heard, couldn’t be killed with any armament short of a land-based energy cannon. When he’d finally found the P’torra officer, it took another five minutes of intense combat before the last whisper of life fled the fleshy alien body.

  Ralston might respect them for their toughness, but he despised them for what they had done to the Nex—and what they continued to do on a half dozen other worlds.

  “You think to slay me?” asked the P’torra.

  “The thought never crossed my mind.” Ralston knew how difficult such an act would be. He’d content himself with a disabling kick to the knees, a feint to one side and a quick escape in the opposite direction.

  “I mean you none harm.” The P’torra vented what Ralston knew to be laugh. He felt as if someone had scratched his soul with a diamond. “You are more much valuable to me as a symbol of the administration at Ilium University.”

  From outside the library, Ralston heard a student haranguing a crowd. He looked at the P’torra, who smiled even more wickedly.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Ralston asked. Even as he asked, he knew. The answer burned brightly within him. He wanted verification, however.

  “You are a popularly wanted professor, Dr. Ralston. All computer billings show their importance at some point in the University.”

  “You sidetracked the request at the comptroller’s office,” he said. This told Ralston more than he wanted to know. Not only did Salazar and the committee want to keep track of him, the University officials didn’t care who was privy to that information. They wanted to write him off as quickly and quietly as possible. If the P’torra provided additional aid, so much the better.

  “Such paranoia that is yours.” The P’torra chuckled. “Many humans want to be sought out. Are you unlike them?”

  Ralston kicked without any tensing of his muscles. The blow lacked real power but he’d aimed it accurately. He caught the P’torra on the side of his knee and brought the bulky alien down. A second, harder kick disabled the P’torra. Ralston lithely jumped over his victim and landed outside the hardcopy room.

  “Don’t,” Ralston said, such menace in his voice that the P’torra stopped trying to reach out and grab his leg. Ralston stepped away, out of any possible reach. “You say you don’t bear me any malice. It’s not true for me. Remember that.”

  “There is no need for to remember such a memory, Dr. Ralston,” said the P’torra. “You will not long be at this University.”

  Ralston didn’t want to blunder into the crowd gathering in front of the library. He found a side exit, glanced around and saw nothing but shadows and the insectlike winklights floating along the paths and providing gentle illumination. Ralston avoided the paths and kept to the darker areas. As he got to the top of a small rise, he looked back down at the library where the crowd gathered.

  The words were lost in the distance, but not their intent. The student leader on the steps made all the gestures appropriate to a lynch mob. Ralston kept walking, wanting to find Druanna Thorkkin and talk with her. But he knew that wasn’t possible. As much as he needed her, it wouldn’t be fair for him to involve her with the P’torra and his campaign of campus unrest. The P’torra had made it quite clear that Ralston’s every move was being closely watched.

  Ralston would have to do without a friend and consolation this, night. He spent many long hours studying the information he had pulled from the University computer banks, integrating this with what Westcott had told him.

  After he had finished, Ralston needed a friend to confide in even more. Never had he felt so alone.

  “I’ve got to see Dr. Salazar right away. This is important,” Ralston said, almost shouting. He’d gotten little sleep the night before and his nerves were frayed from dodging the P’torra-incited students around campus. He didn’t want to deal with underlings.

  “I’m sure you think it is, Dr. Ralston,” said Salazar’s secretary, “but he is in conference.”

  Ralston chafed at the delay but saw no way to circumvent the officious secretary. Few at the University had human secretaries; most bureaucrats made do with automated systems. Salazar proved more status conscious, and flaunted his importance by hiring the man sitting and glaring at Ralston.

  Ralston had to admit a human buffer proved more effective in most cases. Most people had been well enough trained to obey a mechanical command. Those few—like him—who hadn’t, only a human barrier could stop.

  After twenty minutes, three people left Salazar’s office. Two of them Ralston recognized as Constance and Arturo de la Cruz. The third, a neatly dressed woman carrying a small legal case, had to be their attorney. The two de la Crozes glared at Ralston but made no comment. The attorney didn’t even notice him.

  “You wanted something, Doctor?” called out Salazar.

  “Something vital, Dr. Salazar.”

  “Very well,” the man said tiredly. “But I can only give you a few minutes. This has been a busy day and it looks as if I’ll be here until well past midnight. I’m to meet with University legal counsel at eleven hours.”

  Ralston glanced at the wall chronometer. That gave him less than ten minutes. He hurried into Salazar’s office.

  “What is it, Ralston? I’ve had about enough of you these past few days. I assume you recognized the brother and sister of the student you killed.”

  “I killed no one,” Ralston said, hardly expecting more from Salazar. The man had already made up his mind on the matter. Ralston pushed aside-such concerns for one he considered even greater. “Look at this.”

  Ralston dropped a block into Salazar’s desk projector. Without asking permission, he turned it on. One wall filled with decorations faded away as the projection dominated.

  “Westcott plotted this. A trajectory of some device past Alpha 3, past these other points—all novas. I believe that this device caused the decline of Alpha 3’s civilization and was responsible for its eventual demise. And that it also caused these stars to go nova.”

  Ralston paused, then amended, “At least some of them might have gone nova. I haven’t had time to check on the possibility that some are naturally occurring. This one—the one in orange—seems to be of a type to naturally evolve into a nova.” He pointed out Chen’s 1054 “guest star”. “The others might have been triggered.”

  “What is all this rubbish?” demanded Salazar. “Are you totally insane?”

  “Consider this, Dr. Salazar. An object passes by a solar system. Somehow it causes instabilities to occur, in societies, in the stellar processes, in individuals.”

  “You’re trying to tell me this imagined device of yours is responsible for de la Cruz’s death?”

  “I don’t know,” Ralston said honestly, “but it’s possible that, by entering one of the dioramas depicting the final days of Alpha 3, he absorbed part of the madness that destroyed their culture.”

  “Absurd.”

  “I thought so, too, but this all fits together.”

  “What produced this alleged device?”

  “Maybe not what but who. It might be a messenger from some other race trying to contact intelligences. Back in pre-space days, Earth sent out satellites with messages.”

  “Preposterous. Both that and your theory.”

  “This might not be a friendly warning. It might be a weapon. Or it might be a naturally occurring field somehow orbiting th
rough the plane of the galaxy. I don’t know what it is or its possible origin, but its results are obvious.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Here,” Ralston said, moving to a new projection. “Something Westcott said to me sent me off on a search of University records. Three centuries ago on Earth mathematicians formulated what they called the equations of chaos.” Ralston cut off Salazar’s angry response. “These equations were supposed to predict what appears to be random behavior. The formation of weather patterns, radioactive decay, electronic component failure.”

  “And?” Salazar said sarcastically. “What else?”

  “They also worked to predict the course of epilepsy in humans. That and computer component failure have much in common.”

  Salazar rocked back in his chair and stared at Ralston for a few seconds, then said, “You want me to believe this mythical device, artificial or naturally occurring, went speeding by Alpha 3 more than ten thousand years ago and left as its legacy seizures of the sort that claimed Citizen de la Cruz?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  “There might be another problem, Dr. Salazar. The legacy, as you called it, might not be limited to humans. I strongly believe that it has caused the Alpha primary to become pre-nova.”

  “People go crazy, stars blow up, is there anything else this mythical machine of yours does?”

  “What other natural processes might be destabilized?” asked Ralston. “Can it cause war? Devastating weather patterns?” He spoke off the top of his head. Even as he mentioned the weather patterns, he remembered the diorama pictures of Alpha 3 and the current mudball. This change, too, might have been caused by the device’s passing.

  “This leap of faith on your part is incredible, Ralston. You have not one shred of evidence for your wild claims, and I don’t believe them for an instant. I must assume that you seek a scapegoat for your own negligence. Why de la Cruz died, I can’t say. But I can and do say that you are responsible.”