As on a Darkling Plain

by Ben Bova

Richards’ grin dropped into open-mouthed shock.

  “Hey, look, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Stuff it. Now I’m going to have to move heaven and earth just to keep this work alive.”

  “Honest, Sid, if I...”

  Lee glanced at Marlene, then back to Richards.

  “Listen. If I have to ship you out of here to placate that ass, that’s just what I’m going to do.”

  “Now wait a minute...” Richards was starting to get red-faced.

  “I just want to let you know where it stands,” Lee said. “You’ve screwed up royally. Now I’ve got to make good on a threat I’ve been holding over Peary... and I don’t know if it’ll work.”

  “What do you mean?” Marlene asked.

  “I’ve got to call Earthside, the general chairman.”

  “O’Banion?” Richards asked.

  “Right.”

  Lee didn’t notice Marlene’s little gasp of surprise, nor the sudden look of fear that flickered in her eyes.

  The general chairman sat dozing in his contour chair. His private office was small and bare, utilitarian; a vast contrast to the sumptuous office that the public saw, ornate with the trappings of power. And responsibility.

  The communicator on his desk chimed softly. He opened his eyes. “Yes, what is it?”

  “Sir,” a woman’s voice replied, “there’s a call from the Titan station requesting your personal attention. From a Dr. Sidney Lee.”

  Lee? Lee. The name was somehow familiar. The general chairman frowned with concentration as he tried to remember. At moments like these, he looked his hundred-plus years, despite all the plastics and hormones of the meditechs. His hair was dead white, his face lined, eyes vague and sometimes drifting. And on his throat were two jagged scars, now nearly hidden by wrinkles, that he had refused to have removed when his artificials gills had been taken out.

  “Lee,” he muttered. He touched a button on his desk and the viewscreen on the far wall began to glow.

  “Dr. Sidney Lee,” the general chairman said to the computer behind the screen. “Full personnel file.”

  Almost immediately the screen showed Lee’s picture and history: birth, education, marriage, divorce, assignment to Titan, mental breakdown, recovery, the Sirius mission, reassignment to Titan. A whole life in a half-dozen succinct lines.

  “There is a personal comment on the file, sir,” the computer said, in a warm feminine voice.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Lee, Sidney: cross-reference Ettinger, Marlene.”

  The general chairman nodded. “Yes, I know. I remember.”

  The viewscreen faded.

  He turned to the communicator again. “Tell Dr. Lee that I can’t be disturbed. Have Majeski take his call; tell him to be polite but noncommittal. Then tell Majeski to see me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He flicked the communicator off. They’re together on Titan now. The two of them. Still young. The two of them.

  Suddenly he was laughing, a wheezing private cackle, laughing to himself and thinking, What would Osawa and the rest of the opposition think if they knew why I’ve battled so hard to stay in power for so long? What would they think?

  Then he found himself staring at the computer viewscreen. For a moment he thought of asking for the file on Marlene. But he didn’t need it. Even with the screen blank he could see her face as clearly as ever.

  Weeks passed. Without word from the general chairman, without authority to trace the circuitry of the machines, the scientists on Titan went back to meaningless humdrum. Peary bustled about and noisily let everyone know that he was arranging a series of tours from Earth, so that everyone from schoolchildren to religious pontiffs could see the works of the Others.

  Lee stared at the bleak towers and the bleaker men, trying to use the little knowledge they had to theorize the meaning of the machines. The blind men and the elephant, he thought.

  He was having coffee in the cafeteria one afternoon when Richards came up and sat across the table from him.

  The physicist was wearing his see-what-I’ve-done grin once again.

  “Still sore at me?” he asked boyishly.

  Lee tried to smile back but he knew it didn’t come out well. “No, I guess not,” he lied.

  “Look, Kulaki’s on to something. It might turn out to be a dead end, but... well, listen. When we were making the gravitational measurements at the power core, there were occasional fluctuations in the measurement. Just tiny flicks. We thought they were random flukes in the instruments, so we didn’t bother mentioning them. But the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. Sure, there’s always noise in a measurement... but there are reasons for it.”

  Lee made a noncommittal sound.

  “So we reran all the data tapes on the measurements we made down there, and sure enough, those fluctuations happen way too often to be instrumental noise. No particular pattern to them, but they show up too much to be accidental.”

  “What does it mean?” Lee asked.

  Richards hunched forward, propping his elbows on the table. “Kulkai thinks the machines are broadcasting gravity waves.”

  “Gravity waves?”

  “Yep. I know it sounds a little weird, but it might explain why nobody’s ever been able to find any signal being beamed from the buildings, even though the towers sure look like an antenna system of some kind. We’ve always looked for electromagnetic radiation. But if the tower’s broadcasting gravity waves...”

  “But why? What’s the purpose?”

  The physicist shrugged. “One thing at a time. We just might have a line on what all that machinery is doing.”

  Nodding, Lee admitted, “You just might, at that.”

  “Okay then,” Richards said, “you’re the boss. What do you want to do about this idea?”

  “Check it out, obviously. How the hell do you measure gravity waves, anyway?”

  “It can be done. But if we’re going to make any sense out of this, we ought to check it out in space—see where the radiation is being sent and how far into space it goes.”

  “Can you do that?”

  Richards shrugged. “It’ll be a bitch of a job. The measurements have to be damned sensitive and precise. And it’ll be expensive.”

  With a sardonic grin, Lee said, “I get the point. I’ll have to tackle Peary again.... Well, at least we won’t be touching his precious machines. Maybe he’ll be glad to get a few of us off-planet.”

  Richards winced, and Lee realized what a projection he had just made.

  After ten days of discussing, debating, and occasionally violent shouting matches, the scientific staff agreed on a plan for measuring the gravitational waves being beamed by the machines. Lee took a three-page digest of the plan to Peary. The final page had the cost numbers on it.

  Peary looked aghast at the cost.

  “That’s more than our annual budget!”

  “I know,” Lee said. “It’s about what this first round of tourist visits is going to cost.”

  “Too expensive. Earthside will never approve it. I wouldn’t even have the nerve to ask them.”

  “But it’s the most important stride forward in our understanding that we’ve ever made.”

  “If it works.”

  “It will.”

  Peary scratched at his beard. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “You can ask the Council to let us use the money they’ve already allocated for the tourists...”

  “What? Never! That’s all set up, I’m not going to ruin all my plans.”

  “And I’m not going to let you spend that money on nonsense when there’s useful work to be done!” Lee snapped.

  “Oh no?” Peary chuckled. “Then why don’t you put in another call to your good friend the general chairman? Maybe he’ll answer your first call at the same time.”

  Lee got up and stormed out of the director’s office.

  It was late that same night. Lee was sitting up on his bed,
too tense to sleep, too tired to work. His mind kept churning thoughts, faces, voices, over and again, useless fragments of memories parading in random order.

  The door chime sounded. Frowning, Lee pulled on a zipsuit as the chime went off again. He padded barefoot to the door and opened it.

  Marlene.

  “I heard about your talk with Peary,” she said, without preliminaries.

  He ushered her into the living room, shut the door behind her.

  She stood before him, tall and lovely and very grave. “Sid, O’Banion won’t answer you. He won’t see you or talk to you.”

  Her voice was so strong, so certain.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Robert O’Banion, the general chairman... the one who was on the first Jupiter mission. He’s not going to answer your call. Not ever.”

  Lee stared at her. Then, stepping slowly away from the door, he said, “I think we’d better sit down.”

  So they sat together on the couch and she told him about Bob O’Banion. She spoke softly, calmly, hardly a hint of emotion in her voice. But her eyes showed it, her deep brown eyes and her hands, clenching as she spoke.

  And when she was finished, all he could say was, “My God, I’ve screwed up your whole life, haven’t I?”

  For an answer she threw her arms around his neck and they were together again. At least for a little while.

  The general chairman was at home when her call came through. It was early morning. He usually rose early, had a breakfast of juice and concentrates, and then went through as much of the day’s paperwork as possible before his ceremonial duties captured him. I still work harder at a hundred and fifteen than Osawa does at sixty.

  He was at breakfast when the viewscreen at his elbow chimed. He turned to it, and the secretary told him who was calling. He had expected it, but it still took him so much by surprise that he sucked in his breath for a moment and could not speak. Clearing his throat, he said:

  “All right. Put her on.”

  He turned the communicator off. It would be an hour and twenty-some minutes before his decision to talk to her could reach Titan, even at the speed of light. And an equal time before her face and voice could come to him.

  O’Banion touched the communicator switch again and said to the secretary, “Cancel everything for today. I’m not feeling well.”

  “I’ll send Dr. Mor—”

  “No. Just cancel and express my apologies.”

  The secretary still looked concerned. “Yes, sir. I’ll cancel all engagements and calls.”

  “Except the one from Titan. I’ll take that one here when it comes in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He was in the garden when the call came through. The general chairman was constrained to live near Messina, where the world government had built its capital. But O’Banion’s garden was a desert blossoming, not the semi tropical lushness of the Mediterranean. He had cactus and moonflowers set into bare dry soil; no ponds or sprinklers or hint of water. Certainly no aquatic life of any kind anywhere near him. A high wall with an acoustic barrier kept the nearby sea out of sight and sound.

  The communicator chimed from the house, so he walked back through the garden slowly, with the careful steps of an old man. He settled himself in a contour chair next to the open garden doors, with the warm Sicilian sunlight baking him. Like a lizard, he always thought.

  Her face took form on the viewscreen as he sat down. She had hardly changed at all from his last memory of her: auburn hair still long and flowing, those soul-deep eyes, stubborn chin and finely chiseled bone structure, skin meant for caressing.

  And that maddening serious expression on her face, as if there could be something in this world more important than loving her.

  “Bob, the secretary who set up this call said we’d be talking in private. I wondered when Sid first tried to reach you if you’d remember me at all. The fact that you haven’t answered him, yet you’re listening to me, means that you do remember after all.”

  You know damned well I could never forget you.

  “If it makes any difference to you, I’m still in the same boat I was in the last time we saw each other. I love him, Bob. I wish I didn’t, but I do. And he loves me, I know he does, but he’s possessed by those machines. They’ve become an obsession with him—he’s using them to keep a protective wall around himself, focusing all his feelings on the machines so that he won’t have to risk getting hurt by people again. I’ve hurt him, and so have other people. So he uses the machines to keep from getting hurt again. It’s... No, that’s not why I’m calling.”

  She pushed a wisp of hair back from her face. “Bob, I really don’t know much about you now, or how you feel about everything, except that you refused to take Sid’s call and you’ve accepted mine. I hope that doesn’t mean you’re angry at him... or at me. We need your help. Not just Sid, or me, but everybody here on Titan. The whole human race, really. You’re the only one who can help us. We’ve got to learn to understand those machines. You know that. You’ve given your whole life to it.”

  That’s what everyone believes. How noble of me.

  “But, if you turn him down, you’ll be killing him. He’s fought so hard, he’s been holding onto himself for so long, if you defeat him it’ll be the end of him. It will destroy him, and me too.”

  What is that to me?

  “Please listen to him, Bob. He needs your help. We all need your help. I think perhaps we can find out what the machines are doing, and why... but you’re the only man who can let us accomplish it. If you don’t help us, then the Others win, and we lose. You, Sid, me... all of us.”

  Abruptly the picture shut off.

  The secretary came on the screen immediately. “The transmission seems to have been cut off from Titan, sir.”

  “Yes, it’s all right.” She didn’t want me to see her crying.

  He sat there in the sun, an ancient man still simmering with the memories of youth, feeling robbed, feeling angry, feeling... what? Love? At your age? He almost laughed at himself.

  The secretary was still on the screen. “Sir, will there be an answer? Should I try to get them back?”

  “No,” he said. Then, “Wait, I have an answer. Private line, for Dr. Ettinger only. Personal and confidential.”

  “Yes, sir.” The secretary’s face vanished and the screen went pearl-white.

  “Marlene: I’ve spent the better part of a century waiting for this moment. I’ve loved you and hated you at the same time for all these years. I suppose, in a way, you’ve been responsible for my career in political power. In my most private dreams, I’ve longed for the day when you knelt at my feet. Now it’s come. And I’m starting to feel like some foolish character playing the role of an evil nobleman in an Italian grand opera.

  “There’s no enjoyment in a revenge that waits so long. Still, there’s a part of me that wants to take that revenge. So we’ll strike a compromise; a bargain. I’ll give Lee what he wants as far as those buildings are concerned. But you must leave Titan and return to Earth. I want you here, in Messina, close to me. I’ll find a position on the scientific staff here for you. I want to see you in the flesh. And I want you to see me.

  “In case you’re wondering, the doctors tell me that sexual stimulation is bad for my heart. Even plastic hearts have limits to them. But there are clinical techniques for initiating pregnancy. If you’re willing to live up to that side of the bargain, I’ll approve Lee’s plans.”

  Hating himself, he touched the Off switch of the communicator.

  Marlene didn’t tell Lee about the bargain, only that O’Banion would talk to him.

  Within a week, the plan was approved. Richards and Kulaki started requisitioning the equipment they’d need. Half the scientific staff on Titan began to help him, and fresh recruits began arriving from Earth. Peary scowled and cowered and watched his tourist deal evaporate before his eyes.

  Before a second week was out, Richards ran a jury-rigged experiment out
on the ice fields near the edge of the tidal sea and came back triumphantly. His equipment had detected gravitational waves, sharply focused in a narrow beam, coming from the direction of the tower.

  “The machines are broadcasting gravitational energy,” Richards said, smiling hugely with success. “They’re beaming it inward through the solar system. Toward Earth!”

  “But why?” asked Lee.

  That’s when the reaction started to set in. So they knew what the machines were doing. But what was the reason for it? There as no discernible effect on Earth. Dropping a penny off a skyscraper roof released more energy than the gravitational pulses from the machines seemed to be emitting.

  We’re like children, Lee thought, trying to put together a stereo transceiver from an assembly kit.

  All the pieces are here, but we don’t know how to get them together in the proper way.

  He officiated through a desultory meeting of the scientific staff, where Richards’ well-known results were officially reported and plans for the spacecraft measurements at various points between Saturn and Earth were discussed.

  At the end of the meeting, Lee stood up at his place at the head of the table and said with an enthusiasm he really didn’t feel:

  “Considering where we were just a few months ago—and for many, many years before that—I think Marty and Gene Kulaki have made an enormous contribution. I’ve recommended them for the World Science Award.”

  The scientists around the table really applauded that. Kulaki looked surprised and slightly embarrassed. Richards looked pleased and nodded an acknowledgment of their applause.

  And Lee smiled to himself. You’ll be spending a year or more inside a spacecraft lab, friend. Hope you enjoy your fame.

  As he was leaving the conference room, Donald Childe, the short, waspish mathematician, approached him.

  “I’ve been talking over an idea with Petkovitch,” he said. “It might be nothing more than a mathematical exercise, but on the other hand...”

  “What is it?” Lee asked. They were out in the corridor now, walking slowly toward the living quarters area.

  “Well, we found out about the power core because of its gravitational anomaly: the mascon effect,” Childe said in his flat New England twang. “We found the mascon effect because it perturbed the orbits of the communications satellites we’ve got going around Titan. Those orbits have been tracked continuously for damn near a century. They ought to show another perturbation—an infinitesimal one, maybe—for every time the machines send out a pulse of energy. If we can plot those perturbations, we can see what kind of pattern the machines have been working on for the past century.”