Engines Of God к-1

by Джек Макдевитт

  She commented that she'd always understood that artificial gravity was impossible, and Laconda responded with talk about high-energy particles, guide paths controlled by magnetic fields, and local space warps. Hutch got lost quickly, but she understood enough to ask whether the method, if it worked, could not also be used to produce anti-gravity?

  Laconda smiled, pleased by the aptness of his student. "Yes," he said. "That should follow. And the critical point is that very little energy would be needed."

  "Cheap anti-gravity?" Carson's eyebrows rose. "Makes you wonder where it will all end."

  The physicist glowed with satisfaction. "The future is coming very quickly," he said, glancing toward Hutch to gauge her reaction, "and we need to be prepared for it." He oiled through the phrase with smooth precision.

  Hutch was still considering the possibilities when they began their approach to the Wheel. True anti-gravity. Not the parlor magic stuff of superconductivity, but a real low-cost system that would negate mass and resistance. The power needs of the world would plummet. "You could," she told Carson, "move a sofa with the flick of a wrist. Sail over New York without an aircraft. We'd no longer be tied to the ground, and our individual strength would go to infinite." She grew thoughtful. "It would be a new kind of life."

  "It's science fiction," said Carson. "It'll never happen."

  The Japanese looked up from his computer, glanced around to assure himself that Laconda was out of earshot, and said quietly: "Your friend is right, young lady. It's a crock. The thing's a government grant, it'll never work, and Laconda knows it."

  Hutch was glad to see the Winckelmann again. She strode down the access tunnel, entered the main port, which was at the top of the ship, crossed the bridge (a technician was running queries on the navigation systems), dumped her bags on the deck, and began an inspection tour. She was not so pressed for time that she could not have gone to her station quarters, but she enjoyed the sense of security and comfort within the familiar bulkheads.

  There was a framed picture of Cal on her worktable, taken two years ago. Shortly after they'd met. He was wearing the outsize green golfer's hat that she'd once thought so charming. Still did, actually. She picked the picture up and slipped it face down into the upper right-hand drawer. Long past time—

  Maintenance people were wandering through the ship. Hutch went down to C ring to check supplies. The inventory showed food and water for six people for eight months. She conducted a physical check, and signed off.

  Two hours later, she met Carson in Vega South. He was every bit as anxious as she was to be away. "I would hate to get shut down now," he said.

  "Relax. We'll be fine."

  They sat at a corner table sipping drinks. "This is all happening pretty fast," he said. "We need to think a little about how this expedition should be run, what we want to accomplish, where things might go wrong. For example, what do we do if there actually is a functioning supercivilization?"

  "We get out as quickly as we can, and come back and report. I thought you said Homer made that clear."

  "But we can report without physically coming back. Are we really sending a team of researchers all that way just to push an alarm?"

  "I assume he doesn't want another disaster."

  "But how do you avoid risk? Look: if we come back and say somebody's out there, and it's somebody who had star flight twenty thousand years ago, how is anyone going to approach them safely? No. What he really wants is some hard data. But he can't tell us that flat out. He has to assume we'll be smart enough to understand. If they're there, we bring back enough details to make it possible to plan a follow-up mission. But how much is enough!"

  Earth glowed softly in sunlight.

  "Is this the same conversation you told me about?"

  "You've got to read between the lines a little, Hutch. He doesn't want us losing the ship, or letting them know we're around." He looked better than she'd ever seen him. He had lost weight, his energy level was up, and he was grinning like a big kid. "But he needs more than a go/no-go."

  Well, whatever, she thought. In any case, she expected to enjoy herself. It was, after all, the flight that Richard had always hoped to make.

  Janet Allegri and George Hackett arrived shortly after 0715. They came together, arm in arm. Janet looked fresh and enterprising, ready to go. She wore a blue and white jumpsuit with a Quraqua mission patch. Her blond hair was cut short, military style, and she moved with her customary flounce. Hutch was surprised by a jealous twinge.

  George walked easily at her side, one stride for every two of hers. A sweater was knotted round his neck, and he swung an imitation leather athletic bag. They might have been headed for an outing in the park.

  Hutch met them at the top of the exit ramp. Both had been out of the D.C. area since their return from the Temple, and she had seen neither. They embraced and exchanged greetings. "You said you weren't going to do any more field trips," she told George. "Get tired of the home front that quickly?"

  He grinned. "No," he said. "Frank asked me to come, so I came." He hesitated. "I also knew you'd be along."

  Hutch caught Janet's Oho, — what-have-we-here? expression. "Thank you," she said, enjoying the moment. It was good to know she wasn't completely overshadowed.

  She led them into the Wink, showed them where to stow their bags, and distributed mission patches and mugs. They featured an eighteenth-century four-master under full sail through an ocean of clouds, beneath a prominent star. The legends Beta Pacifica appeared at the top, and Onward at the bottom.

  When they were settled, they wandered casually through the ship, talking about what they'd been doing, and about the mission. Hutch explained how they'd tracked down Beta Pac, and put a diagram of the signal on a monitor. "Hard to see a pattern anywhere," said Janet.

  "It's there" Hutch said.

  George watched for a while. "Who else knows?" he asked.

  "We've kept it quiet," Hutch said. "Hardly anybody, other than the commissioner."

  "And he's letting us go after it?"

  "1 think he feels that since we tracked it down, it's ours."

  "More likely," said Janet, "he figures it's a long shot, and he wants the results in hand before he mentions it to anybody. No point looking foolish again."

  Flight luggage arrived. They all went down to get it and were dragging it back to their quarters when Carson charged through the main airlock. "Hello, George," he said, shaking hands. "Is Maggie here yet? We need Maggie."

  "We haven't seen her," said Hutch. "What's the problem?"

  He looked flustered. "The results from the Tindle were routinely passed to higher authority.".

  Hutch shrugged. "That doesn't surprise me."

  "No. But apparently somebody actually read them. It looks as if they figured out what the implications are. Horner's people learned that they are about to be told Beta Pac is off limits until further notice. If that happens, he'll have no choice but to stop the mission."

  "How'd you find out?" asked Janet.

  "The commissioner's private secretary." He was looking at his watch and an empty approach tunnel. "He wants us out and gone."

  Hutch was trying to think it through. "They can't communicate with us in hyper. How much time have we got?"

  "Don't know. We'd better assume it could come at any time."

  "The ship's ready to go. I'll only need a few minutes to run through the checklist. If we can get clearance from Flight Ops."

  "See if you can reach Maggie," said Carson.

  Janet pointed to the monitor. "No need," she said. Maggie Tufu was outside carrying an overnight case.

  Hutch called Flight Ops. While she was getting departure information, Maggie made her entrance. Stern and striking, she was an intimidating presence. She greeted them, and her dark eyes glanced perfunctorily around the room, hesitating momentarily when they encountered Janet. She did not seem to notice Hutch.

  The Traffic Controller gave Hutch a choice. "If you can get out at 0810, it
's a go." That gave them fifteen minutes. "Otherwise, we don't have another post until 1630 hours." That wouldn't be much better than the original departure time.

  "We'll be ready," she said. "Put us on the log."

  Maggie turned toward Hutch. "Have my bags arrived yet?"

  She saw no activity in the luggage chute. "No."

  "You may have to leave them," said Carson.

  "You're kidding." Maggie's expression changed, but it did not grow dour, as Hutch had expected. Instead, it took on an impish quality. "I'll be a little short of clothes." She showed them the overnight case.

  "We've got plenty of coveralls on board," said Hutch. "Several sizes."

  Maggie did not object, but looked ruefully at the over-nighter. "I didn't realize we were in that much of a hurry. Don't we have several hours yet?"

  "They're trying to cancel the mission," said Carson.

  "Hutchins," she said, "can you determine when my luggage will get here?"

  Not this side of Christmas, honey, I hope. "It's still in the sorter," she reported gravely. Too bad. Have to do without.

  Maggie looked for sympathy. "Any possibility we can wait?"

  "First contact in the nude," Janet said, grinning.

  "It's in the pipe," said Hutch. "There isn't anything we can do to hurry it along."

  Carson looked uncomfortable. "How long?" he asked Hutch.

  "Maybe a half hour."

  "Have to do without, then," said Carson.

  The console chimed. "Preflights check out." Hutch said. "We have permission to depart."

  Maggie took a long deep breath. "Let's go," she said, turning toward Janet. "You're close to my size. A little hefty, maybe. But if we take your stuff in a bit, we should do fine. Right?"

  17

  On board NCA Winckelmann. Friday, February 18; 1025 GMT

  They rode outward from the sun. Winckelmann & twin Hazeltine engines were fully charged, and she could have made the insertion into transdimensional space at any time, but regulations set minimum standards to avoid backwash. Her flight plan called for a jump in twenty hours.

  Carson sat with Hutch on the bridge. He was an odd mix that day: delighted that they were finally on their way, fearful that the recall might come, uneasy about the nature of the mission itself. "It's hard to plan for," he said. "I hate going into a situation blind."

  "That's what makes it interesting," said Hutch. The atmosphere was thick. They had both been glancing frequently at the communications console. "Maybe we ought to take out some insurance against getting canceled."

  "How can we do that?"

  "We should probably have a communication malfunction." She checked the time. "We're due to file a movement report in a few minutes. I'll garble it. That'll establish the problem for official purposes. After that, we don't respond to anything. Once we're in hyper they can't talk to us in any event. When we get to Beta Pac, we can effect repairs, or not, depending on events."

  "Do it," he said.

  "Okay. Now I have a question for you. If we get positive results from this trip, is it likely to help get Henry off the hook?"

  Carson didn't think so. "It can't hurt. But the Academy is in a comer. If they don't act against him, then they're in effect condoning his action. They can't afford to do that. No.

  Maybe history will do right by him. The Academy won't. And the media won't." He looked at her, and she could read the pain in his eyes. "And maybe they're right. He is responsible."

  He fell silent, took out his notepad, and drifted away from her. After a while, he began writing. Hutch had detected a change in Frank Carson since the Temple. Like Henry, he seemed to have aged. He was more reflective, less optimistic. Despite the bravado talk about going beyond the mission parameters, she sensed he would be more cautious than he might have been a few months earlier.

  She caught a glimpse of a title in his notebook, and smiled: CARSON AT BETA PAC. It sounded like Napoleon in Egypt, Schliemann at Troy, Costikan at Pinnacle. / hope you make it, Frank.

  She turned her attention to the movement report, brought it up on her screen, and garbled the back half of it. No way they could misunderstand: Wink has a communications problem. She hit the Transmit button.

  The response was almost immediate.

  WINCKELMANN: SAY AGAIN YOUR MR08.

  Okay, she thought. We're in business.

  A few hours later, while Hutch was making final enhancements for the transdimensional insertion, the message board chimed again. Hutch assumed it would be another request for a communication status check. But this was altogether different:

  WINCKELMANN FROM ACADEMY: ABORT MISSION AND RETURN. ABORT REPEAT ABORT. PLS ACKNOWLEDGE. HORNER.

  She cleared the screen and switched on the ship's intercom. "We'll be making our jump in eleven minutes. Everybody belt down. Please respond to the bridge."

  She showed the message to Carson. "We never received it." he said.

  Still, they both felt better when the stars went out and the fog closed around the ship.

  That evening, after dinner, Carson held a general briefing. The first question: What was known about Beta Pac? "Not much," he admitted. "No survey ship has visited it, or been anywhere close for that matter. Class G star, about three billion years older than the Sun. Located along the edge of the Void."

  "So we have no idea," said Janet, "what's waiting for us?"

  "None," said Carson.

  Maggie pressed her fingers together. "This signal," she asked, "started on its way at about the beginning of the twentieth century. Have we made any attempt to find out whether the source is still active? Did we check with any other stations?"

  Carson nodded. "We asked Nok to try to get a reading for us, and the Ashley Tee, which is our closest survey ship. Neither heard anything, but that could be because they're out of effective range for their receivers. The signal the Tindle picked up wasn't much more than a whisper."

  "Three centuries is not a long time," said George, "if these are the people who built Oz eleven thousand years ago."

  "So what's the plan?" asked Janet. "What do we do when we get there?"

  Carson was all business. "We're homing on the signal. We're going to make the jump back into standard space as close to the source as we can. It's hard to formulate a strategy beyond that. We've been directed not to make contact, if they're there. And not to allow ourselves to be seen. But we want to find out who's home. And bring back whatever details we can. To that end, by the way, we will make no transmissions while we are in the Beta Pac system."

  Maggie leaned forward attentively. They were gathered around a table. "Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. We may be talking about a civilization with twenty thousand years of development. Possibly a lot more. Does anyone really believe we can sneak in, take a look, and leave undetected?"

  "We don't know they've had twenty thousand years of development," said Janet. "They could be frozen in place. Or in a dark age."

  Carson agreed. "We can imagine all kinds of possibilities. Let's just take normal precautions. And play the rest by ear."

  Maggie looked annoyed. "Why would an advanced race care whether we wandered in or not? That seems a trifle arrogant to me. I suggest we sail right up to the front door, and show the flag. No pussyfooting around. That might get their respect right off the bat."

  "You could be right, but that's a direct violation of my instructions. We won't do it that way."

  Hutch was not officially a member of the expedition, and consequently not entitled to express an opinion. Still, she was responsible for the safety of the ship. "I think," she said, "we should take the possibility of hostile response seriously."

  "They won't be a threat," insisted Maggie.

  Janet peered at her over the top of a teacup. "Why not?"

  "If they're advanced, they're rational. Unprovoked hostility is //rational. And if they're not advanced, we don't have to worry about their hostility." Her tone was that of a harried instructor.

  George lis
tened quietly through most of the discussion. Eventually, he asked about the Academy's view. "Who does Horner expect us to find? Is there a real chance these are the Monument-Makers?"

  "Ed doesn't know any more than we do," Carson said.

  "I'll give you a straight answer," Maggie told George. "If there's anyone at Beta Pac, it won't be the Monument-Makers."

  Hutch was surprised and irritated by the conviction in her voice. "How can you be so sure?" she asked.

  "It might be the same race" Maggie explained. "But the Monument-Makers are gone. Just as the classical Greeks are gone. I mean, no one seems to be running around making Monuments anymore. Haven't for thousands of years. But the Monuments do imply that a long-lived, stable civilization once existed. Anybody want to speculate what happens to a culture that survives for twenty thousand years? Does it become highly advanced? Or moribund? Does it develop in some oblique way?"

  "Check out China," said Janet. "Or Egypt. Or India. Our experience is that durability is not necessarily good."

  Later, Hutch took Carson aside. "Let's talk worst-case scenario for a moment. What happens if we arrive and are promptly attacked?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Give me an answer first."

  "We clear out."

  "Okay. But you should be aware, for planning purposes, that after we jump into Beta Pac space, we will need a minimum of fourteen hours to recharge the engines. We are not going to be able to clear out on a moment's notice. No matter what."

  He nodded. "Okay. Let's hope we don't have a problem."

  Hutch had not forgotten Maggie's willingness to sacrifice her comrades. She didn't like harboring grudges, and her professional responsibilities militated against allowing her feelings to show. She made a pact with herself, to accept Maggie Tufu, with the reservation that, in a crisis, she would not trust the woman's judgment.

  Of her four passengers, Maggie was the only one who still qualified as a stranger. Hutch had not had an opportunity to spend any time with her at the Temple, or on the flight from Quraqua.

  She was polite enough. But the woman saw everything as simplistic or ironic, and seemed to take nothing seriously other than the professional issues raised by her work.