Vectors

by Charles Sheffield

  Look ahead now a few thousand years. Civilization has largely moved off Earth, into free-space colonies. There are many thousands of these, each self-sustaining and self-contained, constructed from materials available in the Asteroid Belt. Although they are self-supporting, travel among them will be common, for commerce and recreation. Naturally enough, this travel will be accomplished without the use of reaction mass, via an extensive system of free-space Beanstalks which provide the velocity increases and decreases needed to move travellers around from colony to colony. There will be hundreds of thousands of these in a spherical region centered on the Sun, and they will all be freely orbiting.

  The whole civilization will be stable and organized, but there will be one continuing source of perturbation and danger. Certain singularities of the gravitational field exist, disturbing the movements of the colonists and their free transfer through the Solar System.

  The singularities sweep their disorderly way around the Sun, upsetting the orbits of the colonies and the Beanstalks with their powerful gravity fields and presenting a real threat of capture to any who get too close to them.

  It seems inevitable that, in some future Forum on one of the colonies, a speaker will one day arise to voice the will of the people. He will talk about the problem presented by the singularities, about the need to remove them. About the danger they offer, and about the inconvenience they cause. And finally, as a newly-arisen Cato he may mimic the words of his predecessor to pronounce judgment on one or more of those gravity singularities of the Solar System, the planets.

  "Terra delenda est"—Earth must be destroyed!

  BEANSTALK TIME—A FINAL NOTE.

  Beanstalks, originally called skyhooks, are an idea of the 1960's whose time may at last have come. They are used as important elements of at least two novels published in 1979, Arthur Clarke's "The Fountains Of Paradise" and my own "The Web Between The Worlds." I suspect that they will become a standard element of most projected futures, as a rational alternative to the rocketry that has served sf writers so long and so well.

  Afterword.

  This was the first semi-technical account of Beanstalk construction (principles and design factors) to appear in print. I know it will not be the last one.

  I wrote the article for two reasons. The first was to get the idea of the Beanstalk (or Skyhook, Orbital Tower, Space Elevator, Cosmic Funicular—all the same thing) into wider general circulation. As I mentioned in the Afterword to "Skystalk," most of that story had to be taken up with the description of the Stalk itself. Little space was left over to go far beyond the basic idea. Once the concept is as familiar to the reader as the rocket, though, we'll be able to go a lot further, to build on the idea and write stories that are much more speculative and intellectually demanding. Once you accept Beanstalks, a dozen things are possible on the interplanetary and even interstellar scale, and most of them have a good story in them. In another couple of years we'll be able to write those stories.

  That was the other reason that I wrote this article. When black holes became an idea familiar to the general reader, is seemed as though every sf writer rushed off to his or her typewriter. The result was a great flood of black hole stories, many of them scientific gibberish. I would like to do my bit to stop the same thing happening to Beanstalks. No Beanstalks tethered at the North Pole, please, and no Beanstalks on Venus or Mercury unless you are willing to make them a million kilometers long.

  TRANSITION TEAM

  Thomas Pringle,

  Department of Internal Security,

  L-5 Colony.

  Dear Tom,

  I'm sending you under separate transmission a bunch of references on the question of critical phenomena in biological systems. Without more details from you, they are the best answer I can offer to your question about the relevance of'critical mass' in group-behavioral patterns. A better term, by the way, would be critical times —there are lots of examples of those in complex organisms. Major changes of state often occur abruptly in a particular, well-defined period (examples: birth, death, metamorphosis).

  Now, stop screwing around and tell me what's happening up there. All the reports back here tell us everything is going marvellously. Are we getting a snow job?

  I can't tell you how pleased I was to hear from you. It's been a long time.

  Love,

  Beth.

  * * *

  Professor Elizabeth S. Lockwood,

  Department of Behavioral Sciences,

  Stanford University,

  Stanford, California.

  Dear Beth,

  José Vilas promised to get this package to you without opening it or telling anybody about it. He wouldn't even tell me how he'd get it in through Decontamination and Customs.

  You aren't getting a snow job. So far as all the usual indicators go, this colony is operating exactly as planned. Better than planned—we've had twenty percent fewer fatalities than we projected, and the mortality rate for new-borns is down to less than one in three. The first space-borns are reaching puberty a little ahead of schedule. What we didn't anticipate—a pleasant surprise—was the earlier maturity in intelligence. The space-borns are running out at an average IQ of over 140, Earthnorm. We think that's due to the general speeding-up of development, and the adult IQ's should level off at an average of about 120 (we started with good stock).

  Anyway, by any of the standard measures, including all those that we send back to Earth in the colony progress descriptions, we are in great shape here. What alarms me is a couple of non-standard indicators. Take a look at this batch of school reports, and tell me what you think. I've arranged for you to receive the originals, rather than data-stream copies, because I assume that you are still a nut on handwriting analysis. Should I be worried, or am I just getting paranoid?

  You are quite right, ten years is far too long. I look in the mirror now and wonder what happened to the hair you used to run your fingers through.

  Love,

  Tom.

  * * *

  Dear Tom,

  You do have a problem—a big one. Send me all the information you have on the physical description of the space-borns, as up-to-date as possible. Also send me details on the dating/mating habits of all children on L-5 between ages nine and fourteen. Also, tell me how I can get medical records for Skylab, Shuttle and Space Tug crews. Send soon.

  Love, Beth.

  * * *

  ELIZABETH S LOCKWOOD. I AM ARRIVING SPACE TUG FLIGHT 14D. DON'T GO ANYWHERE NEXT FOUR DAYS. NEED UPDATE YOU ON FACTS, HEAR YOUR IDEAS. THOMAS PRINGLE. 6 JUNE '16.

  * * *

  "This is just a sample, Tom. Are many of the others like this?"

  I waved down at the sheaf of papers sitting in my lap, and looked again at the sprawling, unformed calligraphy of the top sheet.

  "Mostly," said Tom. "I sent you one report from each grade. A lot of the others read like that. I picked out the most literate and easiest to follow. Do you need more, Beth?"

  He was sprawled on my redwood-frame settee, briefcase and travel case open beside him. Outside, the Portola Valley sunset was a glare of fuming brown and red—the hydrocarbons were bad tonight. Tom was looking out there in horror and disgust. I had grown used to it, but I couldn't deny it had grown worse in the past ten years. When had I last dared to sit out on the porch?

  Tom looked tired, handsome as ever but bowed down by the unfamiliar weight. Even though I knew it was the effects of the L-5 environment, I couldn't get over his appearance. He still had the lean, lightly-muscled body of a twenty-two year old (he was right, though, about his hair—it was receding off the temples and creating a sandy widow's peak). I was suddenly super-conscious of my own encroaching wrinkles and crows-feet, the sagging (real or imagined?) of my breasts, and the slow betrayal of my knees. Not for the first time, I took a complete survey of myself, from the top of my head (signs of grey at the crown) to my feet (still doing fine). Odd behavior from a behavioral scientist? Unfortunately, no—physician, heal t
hyself.

  "I don't need any more than you sent me to tell that things aren't right," I said. "When a first-grader answers the question 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' with 'I want to be a real person,' my hair starts to stand on end. Did you read that sixth grader's end-of-term project? 'The History Of The L-5 Colony'—it came across as a dirge of mistrust and betrayal."

  "Why do you think that I sent it to you, Beth? Look, there are other things that I didn't want to say until I saw you in person. There have been six deaths in the post-puberty group. They were up near the Colony Hub and they might—just conceivably—have all been accidents. But I doubt it, that would be too much of a coincidence. Beth, all this seems to have happened so quickly."

  "It looks that way—but I want to see some of the older school reports. There may be patterns that can only be seen with hindsight."

  "I'll have the old stuff pulled and take a look as soon as I get back. What on earth made you ask about the dating patterns of the space-borns? When I saw that in your last message, I decided I'd better get down here quickly."

  "I'd hoped you wanted to see my baby blue eyes again," I said coyly. Then I winced, inside. I hadn't carried that off at all well. It was supposed to sound light and humorous, instead it came across as a statement of fact.

  "Tom," I hurried on. "When kids are self-hating or self-doubting, their loving goes off-balance, too. I didn't believe that the children who wrote those reports could have normal dating patterns. What are they doing up there?"

  He rubbed his eyes wearily. I wondered what crazy diurnal rhythm he was on. As I recalled it, the L-5 Colony kept Greenwich Civil Time.

  "The space-borns don't date," he said at last. "At least, if they do, it's nowhere where we can observe it. They've developed past puberty, physically, but they aren't going in for any of the usual 'courtship rituals'—is that the right phrase? They just don't do it."

  "What do they do instead? They must do something with their free time."

  Tom knuckled at his eyes again. It must be well past midnight for his biological clock.

  "They spend lots of time in the low gravity sections, in by the Hub," he said. "We don't monitor them there. Privacy is very important in the Colony. But I'm sure they never flirt or make passes when they're with the rest of us, in the outer sections."

  He leaned forward and put his hand on my knee. "Look, Beth, that's the real reason I came to see you. Will you go back with me, and take a look at what's going on? I'm sure we've missed something basic."

  "To the Colony? Tom, I'm flattered. Tremendously flattered. But don't you have your own specialists up there?"

  "Quite a few. But none of them is Elizabeth Lockwood." He looked at me sadly, and I suddenly thought back to the first time we had met. "Beth, we need a head start," he said desperately. "People down here will find out eventually, but we don't want to say we're in trouble until we have a solution. There are enough jackasses in the Government talking about the 'waste of funds' for the Colony. What better use can they suggest for money? More war, or more welfare?"

  "Tom, what time is it?"

  The non-sequitur knocked him off balance. He looked at his watch. "Three a.m., according to me. Why do you ask?"

  "You're running down. Time change, plus the higher gravity. You need rest."

  "The tyranny of the clock. You're right, I'm wilting." He grimaced at me, then winked. " 'Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make perpetual day.' We have that perpetual day, Beth, up in L-5—apart from an occasional eclipse."

  I flew back again over fourteen years. Tom had been reminded of our first meeting, too. We had been at the University Dramatic Society, for a rehearsal of 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.' Through the next four years, our inside language had drawn from Marlowe and Shakespeare.

  I suddenly felt awkward and uncomfortable. Our reunion had been wonderful, so far, but the next step wouldn't be easy. There was no way to unmake the past, or step back through a ten-year gulf. In the old days, I would have said something like 'Lovers, to bed, 'tis almost fairy time,' and Tom would have replied, 'Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.' That wouldn't work any more. We had changed, and although Tom still looked the same, things wouldn't be easy. I felt the joy of an old wound waking.

  Tom saved the day. He passed out—not completely, but near enough so that the only question I had to answer was whether or not I should try and remove his shoes. I did, dimmed the lights and went for a blanket to cover him.

  I had already answered Tom's question. He had devoted his working life to the Colony. There was no way I could refuse to help him in the struggle. I would tell him when he awoke—which would be quite a while, by the look of him.

  * * *

  I would have liked to spend the time to the L-5 Colony studying the children's reports in more detail, but the distractions were too great. First there was Tom, sitting beside me, thin and etiolated as dahlia tubers that germinated too early in my cellar. I guessed that he had lost fifty percent or more of his muscle structure through living so long in low-gee. Then there was the space tug itself, spiralling lazily away from parking orbit and lofting us out to the Libration Point colony.

  At the halfway mark, I had the chance to look out of the viewing port for the first time. Earth was a giant blue-white half-moon, occulting four or five degrees of the bright star-field. I tried to imagine myself as a space-born child, never knowing anything more of Earth than that abstraction of a mottled ball in the sky. I couldn't make the switch in viewpoint. I understood now why the education schedule for space-born children included a couple of years of 'finishing school' back on Earth.

  The Colony itself remained invisible for the whole trip. By the time we were near enough to see it, the angle ahead was too narrow for it to be visible through the side-facing ports. My first sighting was of the central hub, moving past the port just a few yards from my eyes as the tug moved to a docking with the stationary spindle of the big cylinder. It was a disappointment. I had imagined us swimming slowly up to the Colony, seeing it steadily growing through the viewports. It occurred to me that the frequent television shots of such a docking must either be a simulation or a view from a non-standard tug with extra (and functionally unnecessary) forward-looking ports.

  "We're here," said Tom, as there was a final bump of the docking. "Let's get you cleared through disease control, then I expect you're ready for a rest."

  "I'm all right." I suddenly realized I really was all right, and smiled. "You know, I think I actually like free fall. I thought it was supposed to make me feel all sick."

  "It varies with the individual. I've known people who were sick the whole time they were in low-gee. We even had to ship a few of them back, or they would have died. You seem to be one of the lucky ones. Anyway, you'll have your sleeping quarters on the outer rim. Gravity there is almost a fifth of a gee."

  "Gravity?"

  "Oh, don't be a pedant. Centrifugal force, if you prefer to call it that. Work it out for yourself. The Colony has a radius of three hundred meters, and it turns once every eighty seconds. You'll feel almost as light on the outer rim as you would on the Moon. It's less now than it used to be—I can remember when we had one revolution a minute. Mind you, if the space-borns had their way we'd be slowing the spin a lot further than that."

  There it was again, nagging away at the edge of my attention. This time I caught it. Tom always seemed to refer to the 'space-borns.' Never to the 'kids' or 'children.' But all the children on the L-5 Colony had been born in space. There had been neither incentive nor equipment to ship infants up from Earth. I tucked the odd fact away in my mental files—the files that Tom had joshed me on so much in our student days. Was it my fault if I didn't forget things? People who envied me never knew how much misery it had caused me.

  Tom was looking at me alertly. He hadn't lost his old knack of reading a lot of my thoughts from my face.

  "Anything you want to do before the sleep-period?" he asked. "I'd like to sho
w you around here, then get in my session in the exercise room."

  "Today? Surely you don't need to exercise now."

  "Every day, sick or healthy. You ought to do it, too, while you're here. It's voluntary, of course. But didn't you read the Skylab and Spacelab reports that you asked for—the medical records?"

  "I read bits of them. I wanted to see how accurately your student had reported the reality in her term paper. She did a good job."

  "If you read past the cover, you know that there's a rapid calcium loss unless you exercise hard and have adequate gravity. About a seventh of a gee seems to be enough—lucky thing, or we'd have real problems with the lunar bases. You don't need to worry about the exercise much, because you won't be here more than a week or two. But I daren't skip my own conditioning."

  As we spoke, the final docking had been completed and the hatches opened. The air smelled odd, as though there were clumps of rotting seaweed not too far away. It was tolerable enough, but I suspected that the hydroponics systems needed a little fine tuning.

  The decontamination process turned out to be long and tedious. We were sprayed and irradiated, stark naked in zero gee, with a fine variety of liquids and colored lights. There was no time to complain about loss of dignity when we emerged. We were whisked out, pronounced suitably sterile, and issued Colony clothing. I looked at mine with distaste.

  "You don't dress for sex appeal here, do you, Tom?"

  He shrugged. "Dress is optional. Quite a few people prefer to go without. Most of the rest make their own. We've had a devil of a time getting the space-borns to wear anything at all when they're not in formal training sessions. We have good temperature control all over the Colony, so clothing is all a matter of taste, anyway."

  We set off along a long corridor, a gentle spiral that turned steadily out from the central hub towards the outer living quarters. We proceeded by a combination of walking, drifting, and 'falling'—it was slightly downhill all the way. After a few minutes I began to feel a bit disoriented. I stopped, and the feeling left me. Tom looked at me and laughed.