"As are we all,” Winston said. “You picked up quite a bit living with David, didn't you, Pog?"
"He was an excellent teacher,” Pog said. “Living with him was an experience in wisdom that few chamalians have ever known."
"I'll bet it was. You seem to have driven his poor AI stark, raving mad,” Winston said with a sardonic smile.
"But what does Professor Glenn have to do with this?"
"Professor Glenn no longer has anything to do with this. Sometime last night, he took his own life. But not before sending an e-mail to David's mindpad responding to the textwar. An e-mail with a particularly malevolent attachment. The attachment was a virus that commandeered David's food processor and produced a lethal amount of a unique toxin. And it was the mail from the poison pen pal that killed David Wu."
He tapped the mindpad, called up the message, and read it aloud: “You're right and I'm wrong. So terribly wrong. Bite me. Bite me and drop dead."
Pog felt his hearts squeeze hard and his head grow light. It was his fault. He had set the wheels in motion that had brought about the murder of Dr. Wu. The guilt seemed to rise within him, threatening to overwhelm him. He felt terribly, terribly small.
"It was my message,” he said. “The poison was meant for me."
The angel Winston looked down his nose at him critically, then shook his head slowly.
"Is this your message? ‘Rank social Darwinism ... reified prejudices of a closeted academic ... the mindless worship of idols ... Chamalians will make their own destinies.’ Signed ‘David Wu, History Department, War College of Kar-Kar-a-Mesh, Chamal.’”
"That's the one,” Pog said. “I am so sorry. I cannot begin to tell you. I wish I had never sent it."
Winston shook his head slowly once again.
"But that message went out hours after Professor Glenn sent his e-mail. After David had been poisoned.
"Here is the message that brought the poisoned response:
"'The texts you cite-link focus on the easily measured statistics of narrow-minded bit counters. They all measure the long-dead past without any sense of how it unfolded at the time. A grim tally of war, upheaval, suffering, all removed of the vital reality of the struggle and its meaning at the time. They leave out all that is human in history. And I cannot help but think that you cling to them because you recoil from that humanity—even when it is found in an alien species on another world.’ And it's signed ‘Walt Kelly.’”
"I know that name,” Pog said. “He's another poster in the textwar."
"It was the name David used when he posted on the bulletin board. The poison e-mail was addressed to him—and it went through his mindpad. You had nothing to do with it."
Pog felt all the tension fly from his small body. His hearts relaxed. His breath came more easily.
"But the steamwagon,” he said. “Who sent that? And what for?"
"We can answer that!"
Pog looked to the doorway and saw another party had arrived, ushered along by Porkle'pi. Leading them was Norm, from the Society for the Detection of Horse Thieves.
And behind them, attended by a half dozen stevedores, was Barkinflas. The room was sufficiently small that the big old dockworker had a hard enough time just getting himself through the door.
"Did you know that the Exchange is burning to the ground?” Barkinflas asked.
Pog admitted so reluctantly. “Things seem to have gotten out of hand."
"You detectives,” the angel Winston called out across the now-crowded room. “What did you say about answering Pog's question?"
Norm stepped forward.
"We tracked down the mist-ape who cracks his tazelnuts with his teeth."
"He led us to this short fox who took the contract,” Klavin said.
"And I brought him along so we could question him,” said Boyd.
He turned to the stevedores still in the hall and waved them in. They didn't try to enter H'ree's office, but they passed forward a small shape that turned into a short fox with a snout full of sharp teeth.
"He didn't know the name of his contractor,” Boyd continued. “He said it was someone with a commission who wanted a romantic rival out of the way. He said he was an educated officer with a flat nose and an arrogant manner."
Pog looked across the room at Deldred—as did Winston, Inspector Mag'Rrrruff, and all three members of the Society for the Detection.
The short fox looked around quizzically, then his eyes too were drawn to Deldred.
"I am so sorry, sir,” the fox said to Deldred. “They threatened to do things to my hands."
Deldred's eyes opened wide, he moved his mouth, but no words came out.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeyah!"
The ear-splitting shriek stunned everyone, most of all Deldred, who was further surprised by the sudden assault by Mally.
She leaped across the floor at him, baring teeth and claws as she flew through the air. She hit his shoulders, reaching out and scratching deeply into his face. She was going for his throat when Barkinflas grabbed her with one large hand and pulled her off.
"You beast!” she yelled. “How could you even think that if you got rid of Pog I would turn to you? If it weren't for the Public Vendetta, I would do things to you that would never heal."
* * * *
Winston felt his nose wrinkle as more and more creatures arrived in the hall outside the small office and tried to jam their way in. The noise grew to a new level as everyone spoke at once, newcomers making reports, those already there explaining what was happening, all turning to white static as the AI hit the limit of its ability to present a coherent set of translations.
Then he felt a tug at his sleeve. It was Pog. He tipped his head down closer to focus the AI's attention.
"What happens now?” the chamalian asked. “What will the angels do next?"
Winston drew a deep breath and thought a moment.
"I will make a report,” he said. “I have recovered David Wu's mindpad, so all our technology has been recovered. His AI is likely lost to us forever, so there is no real record of what went on between you and him. All that anyone will know is what I tell them. And I would prefer to leave David's legacy unstained by charges from the survey team."
Winston watched Pog closely and it appeared that the small creature was relieved, his breathing slowed and the color returning to what skin could be seen around his eyes and nose.
"I will have to tell them that you have learned enough English to send text messages to academics back on Earth,” he said. “But without the mindpad, you will no longer have that capability."
"I understand,” Pog said. “But what about us? What about Kar-Kar-a-Mesh? Will the angels intervene?"
"Intervene in what?” Winston asked. “There is no violence here. They've never felt the need to interfere in the earlier unrest, so they aren't likely to do so now. And when I explain its nature, they are probably going to be more pleased than alarmed. After all, the less likely chamalians are to return to their warlike ways, the better for everyone."
"Thank you,” Pog said.
"And let me thank you,” Winston said. “David has never had a more apt pupil or a better friend than you."
That left the chamalian speechless, and Winston as well. He felt a tear well up in one eye as he surveyed the growing clamor of aliens as they began to appreciate their newfound circumstances. And he hoped that all that David Wu had lived for would provide seed for their revolution.
* * * *
"I don't know about you,” Norm said, “but I still wouldn't trust your girlfriend. You know how these stories always turn out."
Pog smiled and said: “I have no reason to fear her betrayal. I trust Mally with more than my life. She knows everything about me and all my disguises and all my plots. If I cannot trust her, then I am undone and beyond help. But this isn't a Maltese Frog story anymore, Norm. This is a new kind of story. Film rouge. Tales of revolutionary change. All creatures, males and females, all working together. We may e
ven have to change the name of the bar."
Barkinflas rose up above the crowd and pushed closer to Pog.
"May I remind you that the Exchange is still burning?” he said. “And with it all the records of ownership of the shares of the enterprises of Kar-Kar-a-Mesh."
"Yes,” Pog said. “Isn't it grand? I'm only afraid that we aren't ready for this new world."
"Well,” Albrett said behind him, “it appears to be ready for us."
"Indeed it does,” Barkinflas said.
Then Mally appeared beside him, took him by the hand, and led him through the press of bodies to a door at the rear of the office. They stepped out onto a small balcony that gave them a view of the harbor and beyond. The waves were dappled by the Great Moon that was rising out of the sea.
"It is too bad about Dr. Wu,” she said. “You must feel terrible."
"I do,” Pog said. “But I'm feeling better."
And he was.
In one brief flash of insight, he saw the totality of death and the enormity of life balanced against one another. At last he allowed himself to feel the enormous loss of his teacher, his window into the wisdom of the angels. But he no longer felt like he was suspended over an abyss himself.
Now he saw that the loss of his old world was leading the way to an extraordinary new one—and that Dr. Wu had prepared him well for all it would bring. He couldn't have asked for more.
He took Mally's hand in his.
"Tomorrow morning, all the wise creatures of Kar-Kar-a-Mesh will wake to a city that is free of the domination of the banks and the admirals and The Exchange,” he said. “As a wise old angel once said, ‘We have seen the enemy, and he is us.’”
Copyright © 2009 Daniel Hatch
* * * *
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier stories of Chamal include “Seed of Destiny” [January 2003] and “Seed of Reason” [April 1999].)
[Back to Table of Contents]
Science Fact: THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER: A NEW ERA by Dr. Don Lincoln
A Race for the Ages
Every year during Memorial Day weekend, millions of Americans tune in their TV set to one of racing's greatest spectacles, the Indianapolis 500. For three grueling hours, racers hurtle their cars around a 2.5-mile-long oval track at speeds routinely exceeding 220 miles per hour. It's a testament to the skill and endurance of the drivers to navigate for so long and at such speeds.
However, no matter the passion of American racing fans, the Indy 500 is small potatoes compared to a new racetrack in Europe, just outside Geneva, Switzerland. No, this new race is not the venerable Le Mans, but rather a scientific one. On a circular track a little over sixteen and a half miles in circumference, subatomic particles travel at speeds so fast that they could complete the entire Indy 500 in a little over two thousandths of a second, far shorter than the blink of an eye. Traveling nearly at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), beams of protons race for ten hours or so, during which time they travel nearly seven billion miles or about to Neptune and back, with a round trip to Jupiter thrown in for good measure.
This new “race track” is called the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. Situated at the premier European particle physics laboratory, called CERN (a French acronym for European Nuclear Research Council), the LHC can accelerate two beams of protons, traveling in opposite directions around the circular accelerator, and collide them head-on at several spots around the ring. These collisions are recorded by gargantuan detectors that can be as big as 150 feet long, 80 feet tall, and weigh as much as twenty-five million pounds. The two largest detectors are shown in figure [1].
[FOOTNOTE 1: Fermilab, or Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, is the US's premier particle physics laboratory and the author's home institution.]
Particle accelerators have played a role in many science fiction stories, from activating wormholes, to forming powerful weapons, to the ghost-confining proton packs of Ghostbusters. However, the reality is that the biggest of these accelerators have a deeply scientific purpose. With them, one can heat matter to temperatures impossible by other techniques, even probing the conditions of the early universe, tiny fractions of a second after the Big Bang itself. For this purpose, the LHC is without peer. It can accelerate particles to fully seven times the energy of its nearest competitor, the Fermilab1 Tevatron, located forty miles west of Chicago. Lest you not appreciate the significance of the LHC beginning operations, the Tevatron turned on in 1983. Thus this is the first time in 25 years that a new energy frontier is being explored. Some of the graduate students working on the LHC experiments weren't even born when this happened last.
* * * *
* * * *
Figure 1: The CMS (top) and ATLAS (bottom) detectors are the largest particle detectors ever constructed and each can inspect 800,000,000 collisions per second. [Figure courtesy CERN.]
* * * *
The LHC collides beams of protons, but appreciating the details of these collisions requires a deeper understanding. Even though protons are essential components of all atoms and they are so unfathomably small that we often treat them as having no size at all, protons are actually made of even smaller objects called quarks. Each proton contains three such objects. At the very high energies present in the LHC, individual collisions are between not entire protons, but rather individual quarks, one from each proton. To get a mental picture of how this works, imagine two flocks of birds heading toward one another. If the flocks are not traveling very fast, the two flocks can avoid one another and each flock acts like a single unit. You could say “the flocks scatter from one another.” However, if the flocks head towards each other at very high speeds, then they won't have enough time to avoid one another. In this case the two flocks might pass straight through each other, with nothing more to show for it than a few startled birds. However, occasionally two birds will collide head-on and feathers will fly everywhere. Replace flocks and birds with protons and quarks and you have the right idea. When two quarks hit head-on in a very violent collision, you have accomplished the goal of a particle accelerator—to concentrate a huge amount of energy in a tiny space.
* * * *
The Black Hole that *Didn't* Eat Europe
The startup of any new energy-frontier accelerator has been accompanied by fear for some people, and the LHC has been no exception. While my colleagues and I waited with great excitement for the first LHC-initiated collisions in hopes that they would reveal something new and exciting about the universe, there are some Nervous Nellies who have viewed the LHC not as a scientific opportunity, but rather a cause for dread. Their worries are totally unfounded, but I should explain why they've been concerned and then why they shouldn't be.
LHC can collide protons together at energies never before accomplished in a laboratory, fully seven times more energetic than our previous best attempts. Essentially, those people concerned with the start up of the LHC worry that something unexpected and dangerous might occur, as in Alfred Bester's story “Adam and No Eve."[2] While the topics they worry about vary (from quantum bubbles to magnetic monopoles to the vague “something really bad"), the most common concern is that a black hole will be made in the LHC's collisions. Borrowing from what we know about stellar-sized black holes, people envision the black hole first eating the accelerator, then France and Switzerland, and finally the world. Scary stuff, if it were credible.
[FOOTNOTE 2: In Astounding Science Fiction, September 1941. In the story, a previously-untested technology destroys all life on Earth.]
Luckily, we know that black holes are not a danger. In 1974, physicist Stephen Hawking realized that black holes actually do radiate energy in the form of what is now called “Hawking radiation.” All black holes radiate, with the rate of radiation depending on the size of the black hole. As the size of the black hole decreases, the rate of radiation increases. So subatomic black holes evaporate essentially instantaneously.
However, black holes are only one imagined danger. We'd like to know that the LHC is safe,
no matter what kind of danger one imagines. Fortunately we have an airtight answer that is universal. We know we're safe because we're still here to worry about it.
Our proof is simple. For the 4.5 billion years that the Earth has existed, it has been constantly bombarded by cosmic rays from outer space. Cosmic rays are typically protons accelerated by the universe itself that crash into the protons of the Earth's atmosphere; protons colliding with protons, just like at the LHC. Further, some of these cosmic-ray initiated collisions are much more energetic than even the mighty LHC can achieve. In fact, if you add up all of the cosmic rays hitting the Earth since its creation, you find that there have been an awful lot of them. A detailed calculation reveals that the LHC would have to run continuously for about 100,000 years to make the same number of collisions of that amount of energy. While the Earth is very large, it is by no means the biggest thing around. The Sun is far more massive and has been hit by a correspondingly larger number of cosmic rays. The LHC would have to run for billions of years to generate as many collisions as cosmic rays have already induced in the Sun. The same question can be asked of our galaxy and indeed the universe as a whole. The observed rate of black hole generation in the nearby galaxy sets exceedingly stringent limits on the danger posed to us by the LHC.
So no matter what will happen in the collisions of two protons in the LHC, it must be safe. If the universe hasn't destroyed the Earth this way, neither will the LHC. This is a crucial point. The particle physics community took these concerns very seriously and commissioned an independent panel to evaluate the danger. After considerable effort, they came up with this comforting and compelling universal counter-argument. Anyone who predicts that the LHC will destroy the Earth in less than many billions of years of continuous running has ignored the fact that this experiment has already been done and that the prediction has already been falsified. The LHC poses no danger to the Earth: nada, zero, zilch.
Once we can dismiss the fear that making black holes (or anything else) in the lab is a dangerous thing, we can realize that making tiny black holes in Switzerland would actually be a really cool thing to do. Of course, we don't know if that's even possible, but some scientists have suggested it might happen. Their reasoning is described a little later.
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