Analog SFF, July-August 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Hilda shuddered, looked up at the table top, then over at Tse Wen sitting cross-legged under it. She did a quick calculation and smiled. “Well, I think we should have black holes. If we had a 16-billion-ton black hole on top of this table, Tse Wen, you could levitate!"

  Tse Wen smiled. “Truly a demonstration to impress the greatest critic."

  Brad laughed and put an arm around her shoulder; his body felt good next to hers, reminding her of the one night they'd spent together some twenty years earlier, when they'd gotten the go-ahead for the initial phase of the Black Hole Project.

  They'd been at a conference in Lillehamar, Norway, talked impactor design and done simulations until the Sun rose at nine the next morning. Then, when the maid knocked and they realized it was getting near checkout time, Brad had held her hands and suggested that, as they were going to have the name for it anyway, they might as well play the game.

  It had made her happy to make him happy. When she'd confessed to his girlfriend a year later, she'd gotten a laugh and a hug and the statement that boys will be boys. But there'd somehow never been another such occasion with Brad. Now, feeling him next to her brought back that the pleasant memory. She shut her eyes and tried to exist in the immediate moment, banishing explosions from her mind.

  When she opened her eyes, there was Ried, staring at her as if registering something that hadn't occurred to him before.

  “I couldn't find Dr. Levine, but I think we're in the clear,” he said, relieved. “The net's back up."

  With a nonchalant smile that she didn't feel at all, she extricated herself from Brad and under the table. The two of them helped Dr. Zhau to his feet. Maintenance robots were already whirring around, picking up the debris.

  She touched the net, comforted by its familiar presence. No one had been seriously hurt, the damage was superficial, and the building would be usable again tomorrow.

  “Well, Mr. Ried,” Dr. Zhau said while brushing the dust from his shirt and pants, “do you know anything about who might be behind this?"

  Ried shook his hear. “The Public Safety Administration puts the explosion almost half a kilometer under the institute building—it's as if someone loaded a mining mole with a half ton of chemical explosives. It was more likely intended to scare than injure."

  “Really, mate?” Brad asked, his voice laced with irony. Did your brother tell you..."

  Ried cut him off. “My brother's politics are his business. We're just half brothers anyway, and raised fifty years apart. I'm doing my best to be a reporter, that's all. But I think I can assure you that being connected with any kind of terrorism is the last thing he'd want politically.

  Brad snorted. “Is that so? He wouldn't make danger from antiproject terrorists just another argument for shutting us down?"

  There was an embarrassed silence. Hilda had never seen Brad so angry about something that didn't involve a steering magnet or a photon field lens. She reached for his hand and gave a light squeeze. Let's not be too antagonistic, she sent

  Brad squeezed her hand back and took a deep breath. Then he offered a hand to Ried. “Sorry, mate ... a bit shaken, it seems."

  “Me too,” Ried replied with a softer face and shook hands. “No offense taken."

  Dr. Zhau smiled. “Well, Brad, Hilda, if things are back in harmony, perhaps we should check to see if our things are still on our shelves. The upper floors are cleared for reentry, it seems."

  Hilda shut her eyes. Not surprisingly, her office cam was still offline.

  Then it hit. “Cleared for reentry?"

  Dr. Zhau shrugged and smiled. “I thought there would be less chance of injury in a fairly mild shake if we took cover here. Everyone else went out the exits. Afterwards, we were not missed, except by you. It appears we were not as important as the other events today might have led us to believe."

  Sarah appeared. “Was I the only one here with the presence of mind to get out of the building?"

  Brad started laughing uncontrollably. Soon they had all joined in, and the tension drained away.

  Ried put a hand on Hilda's shoulder. “They've ID'd the group responsible for this mess. Another small fringe group I've never heard of that wants recognition. Dr. Kremer, I'd be happy to help you put things back in order. Of course I might have a few more questions over dinner afterwards."

  Hilda saw the reporter's face lighten up. It seemed an earnest offer. Brad gave her an “it's okay” look.

  “Okay, Ried,” she said. “But only if you agree to call me Hilda. I've had about as much of ‘Dr. Kremer’ as I can take today."

  “That,” Brad added, “is another kind of Kremer's limit."

  Ried smiled and stuck out his hand towards Hilda. “Torsten, then."

  Zhau Tse Wen gestured to the stairwell.

  Hilda sighed. The elevators would be down for a few more hours.

  * * * *

  Dinner was at the Ridge House in North Boulder Creek. The meat was replicated, but the crepes and the soup were house-made and smelled delicious. The view sitting just above the pine tops was dramatic. At dessert, the fog rolled in below them like some kind of alien flood.

  Knowing Torsten would eventually break the quiet mood with questions, Hilda ventured one of her own first. “Tell me what it's like to be in a political family. I can't imagine the pressures it must place on everyone around your brother."

  Torsten chuckled. “No probably not. In my family, everything revolves around my brother's political career. He's the Vaterführer. Anyone can do anything they want as long as it doesn't get in the way of his vision for the family."

  “It sounds a little autocratic."

  Torsten shrugged. “It takes a lot of effort to put someone in office. You need a support team, and what better a team than a family. I'm kind of the black sheep in the family because of my independence.

  “Quite a sacrifice, I would think,” Hilda said, not entirely convinced of the independence or the sacrifice.

  He shrugged. “Not for me. I always wanted to be a journalist. So I told them to leave me out of their political games. I just want to do my work the best way I know and leave the family politics out of it. You're Kate Avonford's daughter, aren't you, as well as Wotan Kremer's? That must have made for an eventful home life."

  Hilda smiled wryly; she knew about living with famous parents. Her starship-captain mother and planet-molding father couldn't live with each other and couldn't stay away from each other, living a soap opera story that had spread to every human habitation in known space.

  “Until I was sixteen; then Mom left and Dad sent me back to Earth to go to school. I had other ideas; I wanted to come right back, so I asked the crew to let me stay awake on the voyage and I studied on my own. I pretty much grew up on that starship; I learned to pilot on the ship's runabout, learned zero-g sports from the crew."

  “Relationships?"

  “No. The only ones up were three women and a couple of very married men who weren't interested.” She shrugged. “I wasn't that interested either."

  Torsten looked vaguely disappointed, and switched topics. “I see you don't have a school certificate or bachelor's degree?"

  “No, just the Ph.D. I'd passed all the tests for entrance to grad school by the time I arrived and went right into research.” She smiled, somewhat embarrassed.” I've gone to some lectures, but never actually attended a regular class since leaving New Antarctica. So much for Dad sending me away to school!” She laughed. “At least your family's politics are external,” she said. “You act like an objective journalist, but your questions seem, well, biased towards your brother's political bent."

  “Popular Issues considers the consolidationist viewpoint a legitimate one. I try to ask the kind of questions my reading public would ask if they were here. Having a point of view doesn't make me unobjective or untruthful. Our readership has serious questions about what you folks are doing. My job is to address their concerns."

  Hilda nodded, trying to understand his point of view.
“I suppose every new thing ever done has been terrifying to someone. Automobiles—people thought human beings wouldn't survive 50 kilometers an hour. Now we approach the speed of light. Some thought these genetically engineered radios we grow in our heads were going to turn us into computer-controlled zombies; now they're so natural to us, we forget about them. Change happens. We adjust."

  “Hilda,” he said earnestly. “This black hole project is terrifying to ordinary people who don't understand it. It's just way out of anyone's intuitive range. I don't know if I can really explain it, but at least help me understand it."

  She made herself smile and replayed the simulation she'd shown at the press conference on the restaurant table screen.

  Finally he asked, “But a new universe is possible, isn't it? I mean, anything can come out of the quantum foam, can't it?"

  “Look, according to statistical mechanics, every air molecule in this room might suddenly find itself on a trajectory toward the upper left corner of the room, leaving us in vacuum. Well, don't hold your breath."

  Ried sighed. “Okay, I guess it's something I don't have to worry about right now. You don't mind if I use this interview on the net, do you?"

  “Huh? How?"

  “Watch the table screen. I'll play back the view from the restaurant's surveillance camera."

  Hilda saw herself and Torsten from above, with the simulation on the tiny image of the table screen, looking for all the world like some weird place mat art.

  “But what about privacy?” she asked. “How can you do that?"

  “I'm licensed media, remember; I have access. We can use security video because otherwise everyone would be running around with cameras making a nuisance of themselves."

  “I didn't know.” She mulled over his revelation.

  “Most people don't. As for privacy, we have to ask before using it, or lose our license."

  She smiled as she saw herself talk and gesture.

  “No problem?” he asked.

  Maybe it was the wine, but she looked all right to herself. “No problem.” Hilda laughed. “But, for the project information. Sarah's the key person right now."

  “Does she understand it as well as you do? How do you work as a team?"

  Hilda thought about that one. “We all work well together; Dr. Zhau asks the right questions, Sarah generates all the possible answers, I winnow the answers down to those that make sense and can predict something. Brad figures out how to test the predictions. Then Dr. Zhau and I go over everything that Brad does with anal-retentive thoroughness, and Sarah generates worst case scenarios—she has the most imagination. Occasionally, I decide whether a worry is real or not."

  “But if some new theoretical concern came up at the last minute, you'd be the one they'd turn to, wouldn't you?” Torsten pressed. “They'd be reluctant to go on without you."

  Hilda laughed and waved a hand expansively, “Okay, I'll admit it. I'm probably essential.” Four glasses of wine, she thought, was what it took to let her say something like that. “It's getting late."

  Torsten nodded. “Yes. But I'd like to continue this some day."

  The conversation had been pleasant, Hilda thought, and the offer sounded innocent enough. “Okay, when and where."

  “Well, I'm supposed to cover one of my quote brother's unquote speeches next week. Any chance you'd like to come hear it? Nobody needs to know who you are, of course. Then we can discuss it over dinner, on or off the record, as you like."

  She did need to understand these people better. “Okay, it's a date."

  They arrived at her car, the car door opened for her, and she flowed languidly into it. Torsten, grinned foolishly as he touched her shoulder, then let the door shut after her. She fell asleep on the seat as the car steered itself down the grassway and rocked gently as it caught the buried maglev track. Her last waking thoughts were that she was going to feel a bit silly the next morning, assuming some idiot with a bomb didn't blow her up for real because if she was really as important as all that, maybe the opposition would ... do ... something.

  * * * *

  Chapter 2

  The Hillside home of Rolf and Anna Messenger, Milbrae, CA, 12 April 2257

  * * * *

  “Ever the daydreamer, eh?"

  Torsten looked up, mildly irritated. He'd been working on the net—not daydreaming.

  “Hi, Anna."

  Anna Messenger, cousin Rolf's wife and a distant Ried cousin herself, was his hostess when he was in the San Francisco Bay area. She was tall, with straight auburn hair parted in the middle, and casually dressed in a plain gray long shift. When she moved, it was pretty clear that was all she was wearing. Such casualness, he knew, was sheer art—as an actress, she had learned how to gain advantage with men. An advantage Torsten had long since conceded to her.

  He waved a hand in the air. “On the net, studying BHP simulations."

  “Full access? How did you get by their blocks?"

  “As far as I can tell, there are no blocks. No need. The explanatory text is in a foreign language—physics."

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on inside, the fog's rolling in and I'm chilly. Any penetration?"

  “I didn't get anywhere with Levine,” Torsten said. “She's suspicious of me. But Kremer seemed less on guard. So I got her woozy enough over dinner, but she backed away. We may have the beginnings of a relationship, though. She's curious about us; she accepted an invitation to come to the forum next week."

  Anna shot a glance at him. “Kremer? The black hole science geek? A wonder she'd let you get close. Levine looked more amenable to drugs and seduction. Kremer doesn't look the type. You think she'll really come to the forum?"

  Torsten shrugged. “She says she needs to understand why we're doing it."

  Anna spat. “Now you're swallowing her BS She more than anyone knows damn well that they're rolling the dice with everyone's lives—and I mean everyone in creation—all for their own damn hubris. Torsten, politically, we need to get someone with inside credentials to say something embarrassing about the project. We don't have enough people scared yet. Did you get DNA samples?"

  “We had dinner. I got her fork. What do you need that for?"

  That got a wicked grin. “Opposition research. The less you know about it the better. Anyway, Lars wants to see you about your reportage. He's downstairs."

  “Here?"

  Anna shrugged. “I didn't think that was a good idea either. He insisted on coming with me."

  As they came down the stairs, Torsten saw Lars and Mono Tukapo, his bodyguard and political secretary. Lars was actually shorter than Torsten, but so toned and barrel-chested that he looked bigger. His professionally styled hair was so neatly cropped that he looked more artificial than a humanoid robot. He reeked of the presence and self-confidence of a successful politician, and had for as long as Torsten had known him.

  Torsten reached out a hand. “Hello, Lars. Something wrong with one of my stories?"

  Lars flashed his best campaign commercial smile. “Hey, what kind of brother would I be if I didn't pester you once in a while? I'm worried that you might be doing the disinterested reporter bit a little too much, and thought we should have a chat. The polls being where they are, we could use a little more of a boost, and everyone knows Popular Issues' lean, anyway."

  Anna chuckled and ordered some drinks.

  Torsten shook his head. Only a tiny handful of physicists really challenged the physics, and they did so in a language he couldn't understand any better than Hilda's. “Lars, I've got a reputation to maintain—my stuff is much more effective if I appear objective; a point for their side for every two of ours.” To do even that much he had to be careful.

  A robot floated in with the drinks. Lars latched onto one and sipped it as he stared off into space. Anna played with her ice cubes. It was clearly up to Torsten to fill the silence.

  “Maybe I could go to three points for our side for every one of theirs?"

  Lars shook his head.
“No, if anything, get the ratio more even. AI's look at ratios like that and report bias. No, the points for our side need to be more telling, the ones for the other side more trivial. Present the issue in our language instead of theirs. Weight it that way. The public's not scared enough yet."

  Torsten stifled a moment of irritation with Lars for telling him his own business—and worse, being right about it. He just nodded.

  “Torsten, my committee is hearing rumors that the BHP is carrying on some secret experiments, even more dangerous than the Ten-Ten. We're not ready to go public with that, so it's off the record."

  “Funny thing,” Anna said. “The same things have been going around my production set. The studio is owned by Wu-Lake Ltd.; one of their divisions is the prime contractor on the experiment instrumentation—the stuff that's supposed to take quarter-nanosecond pictures of the Ten-Ten experiment until it gets vaporized."

  Torsten laughed. “I've looked, and there's nothing there. I couldn't..."

  “Sounds like you have two independent sources, Torsten,” Lars said.

  Was Lars crazy? The sources were hardly independent. “You want me to go with that?"

  Lars settled back against his chair and made himself comfortable. “Torsten, there's a time for objectivity, but this election is about pulling in all the resources of our family to help win. It's not about individual pride, status, and reputation. No, this is about our people and what we can give back to them, what we can give back to our world. This election is about much greater issues than making governmental policies and keeping the constituency happy. It could be about saving humanity itself. We need to sell people on the idea that the public experiment is only the tip of the iceberg, that things are happening in the Black Hole Project that could destroy everyone if we don't expose this Ten-Ten experiment."

  Torsten was silent for a while, contemplating his place in the family and the overall scheme of things. He had no choice. “Okay, you want a make-or-break issue to pull out of the hat just before the election? For that, timing is as important as content. You don't want to give them time to refute. Mark Twain said that a lie can get halfway around the world before truth has even put its boots on. We have to time it so the boots come on after the election."