Cosmic Tales - Adventures in Sol System

by T. K. F. Weisskopf

  Given McAndrew's reference to a private vessel, I expected that Abdi el-Fazool would arrive aboard some expensive space yacht. However, the ship that floated in to dock at the Institute was a tired-looking charter vessel. The umbilical between the ship and the Institute's airlock established itself, it seemed to me, unusually quickly.

  The lock began to open. As it did so a brown-skinned boy, small for eleven years and with short hair and dark-brown eyes, popped through the half-open hatch. He wore a red shirt and short tan pants, and carried a knapsack on his back. Almost before he was inside he was glancing about him, as though taking in everything with one rapid sweep. A crewman followed, more slowly, and fixed a dull eye on McAndrew.

  "Arthur Morton McAndrew?"

  "That's me."

  The crewman nodded and sighed heavily. "Abdi el-Fazool, delivered according to contract. All yours, and welcome to him."

  He thrust a yellow sheet into McAndrew's hand, backed away into the umbilical, and had the hatch closing before McAndrew and I had time to speak.

  Abdi looked up at Mac. "I could have flown that ship, you know, but he wouldn't let me try. He kept throwing me out of the control room." Then, without a pause, "My father says that you are the greatest scientist in the solar system but he's wrong about a lot of things. And you"—those alert brown eyes turned to me—"you must be Captain Jeanie Roker. You don't look like a spaceship captain. My father says that you're McAndrew's keeper. Is that true?"

  "I—"

  "Did you once take a circus troupe out to the prison colony on Titan, and the prisoners and circus performers got all mixed up with each other, and it was a horrible mess? It must have been really neat."

  "That's one word for it." I glanced at McAndrew. He had the dropped-jaw half-wit expression that often said he was deep in thought. This time, I didn't think so.

  "Abdi," I said, "if you like we can give you a tour of the Institute. We'll show you where you'll be staying until the expedition is ready to leave."

  "No need for that. On the way here, I downloaded complete plans of the Institute. To get to my room you go that way." He pointed up and to the left. "Before I go there, though, I want to have a good look round this place."

  "If you would like someone to come with you—"

  "No. More fun if I find things out for myself. Maybe I'll see you at dinner."

  And he was gone.

  I glared at McAndrew. No one would call him a man sensitive to nuances, but apparently he read something in my look.

  "Jeanie," he said anxiously, "this expedition is going to cost an awful lot of money, and Abdi is the key to getting it. If we don't take him along, his father won't come up with two cents. Fazool isn't much interested in science."

  "If you want my opinion, Fazool is much interested in having his son out of the way while they try to find another school that's fool enough to take him."

  I was wasting my breath. McAndrew went right on, "But with Fazool's support we can fly the Hoatzin out beyond the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt and the Kernel Ring. Without that support—and that means taking Abdi along—I don't have a prayer."

  "I suppose you have a good reason to want to be out beyond the Kernel Ring? It's not a place I'd choose for a vacation."

  He stared at me. Finally he decided that I was joking about the vacation part, and said, "Don't you want to know what's out there, Jeanie?"

  "Mostly nothing, I thought."

  "Aye, mostly nothing. But something strange, too. We seem to have discovered a region that's locally negentropic—a place with negative entropy. That's why we have to go out there, to make sure it's what it seems to be."

  I didn't scream, though I rather felt like it. If you want to pick one word in science that makes me uncomfortable, "entropy" will do fine. I have degrees in gravitational engineering and electrical engineering, and I know all the thermodynamic and information theory formulas. But still I don't have a satisfying feel for what entropy means.

  The glare that I gave McAndrew would have melted lead. "Correct me if I'm wrong," I said, "but haven't you often told me that the whole of life is negentropic? It builds up from a state of disorder, to one with a high degree of organization and order."

  "Quite right."

  "So aren't you, and I, and everyone at the Institute, and every living thing, negentropic by definition? We decrease entropy, because we turn disorder into order."

  "Aye. We are. But surely you understand how that's possible?" And, at my shake of the head, "Och!"—the strongest trace I could find in him of his Scots ancestry, other than an unyielding obstinacy. "Jeanie, entropy can decrease locally, of course it can. Don't you remember the laws of thermodynamics?"

  "I thought I did. Law Number One: energy is conserved. Law Number Two: in any closed system, energy always must proceed from an organized to a less organized form. In other words, entropy, which is a measure of the degree of disorganization of energy, must always increase."

  "There! You said it yourself. Just what I was -saying."

  "I did? It seems to me I said the exact opposite." As usual in a technical conversation with McAndrew, my head was beginning to spin and I was convinced that I would come out knowing less than when I went in. "Mac, I said that entropy must always increase."

  "In a closed system, Jeanie. You said that. In a closed system. You and me, we don't live in a closed system. We get energy from outside—from the Sun, from power kernels, from radioactivity."

  "So the Second Law of Thermodynamics is wrong?"

  "No!" McAndrew sounded horrified. "The Second Law of Thermodynamics, wrong? Never. It's the most important and best-established law we know. In physics, it's THE LAW. Do you know what Eddington said?"

  "No." I had the feeling I was about to find out.

  "He said." McAndrew paused, and his eyes went vacant. It's one of life's mysteries that a man who has trouble remembering what he ate for lunch can recall, verbatim, whole pages of text and thousands of formulae that he has not seen for thirty years. "Eddington said: 'The law that entropy always increases—the second law of thermodynamics—holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.' " McAndrew came back to life. "Jeanie, the second law of thermodynamics isn't just a law of physics. It's the law."

  "So it can't be violated. This place you want to go, out beyond the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt; is it receiving a flux of energy from somewhere outside, the way the rest of the solar system does from the Sun?"

  "No."

  "Is there a power kernel nearby, or radioactive materials?"

  "Not a sign of either."

  "Then, according to what you yourself just said, it can't be a region of negative entropy. Otherwise the second law of thermodynamics would be violated."

  "You might think so."

  "But you have some other explanation?"

  "Aye. I think I do." His face took on a furtive and secretive expression. I'd seen it many times before, and I wasn't sure how much more I would get out of him today. He didn't like to talk about his ideas when they were "half-cooked," as he put it.

  I took the initiative. "This place you want to go. How far away is it?"

  "It's local, well within the Sun's gravitational sphere of influence. About a twentieth of a light-year—the Hoatzin will take us there comfortably in sixteen days of shipboard time."

  "And there's a source of energy there, right? Energy coming in from nowhere?" I took a jump in the dark based on what Limperis and McAndrew had told me. "It's as though there's a hole in the universe."

  "More matter than energy, though of course the two are exactly equivalent. But then, you'd expect—" He stopped a
nd stared at me. "A hole. How did you know that?"

  "From Limperis. He's as excited about this as you are." I wasn't making the last part up. You couldn't read Limperis from his facial expressions, but it was a safe bet that he—along with all the Institute -scientists—couldn't wait to send an expedition to learn what was going on.

  To guarantee funding for a trip to a hole in the universe, they would agree for Abdi el-Fazool to be taken anywhere, at any time. In fact, if Fazool el-Fazool had made it a funding condition that his son had to be chopped up on arrival and baked in a pie, I would not take bets on the Institute's dinner menu.

  During the next few days I concluded that my worries had been excessive. We saw Abdi only at mealtimes, and then it was for the few minutes that it took him to wolf down his food and run.

  Also, the preparations for our outward flight proceeded at magical speed. Instruments that we needed were produced within an hour of my request. Equipment tests were done in record time, and ship's supplies seemed to appear almost before we asked for them. In my innocence, I patted myself on the back for my clearly defined and timely requests.

  I learned the truth on the day before our scheduled departure. Early that morning, Ulf Wenig and Emma Gowers paid me a visit. Wenig is the master of compressed matter stability, while Emma Gowers is the system's top expert on multiple kernel arrays. More relevant today than their impressive talents was their appearance. Wenig is small and slight, with a luxuriant and well-groomed black mustache. He is rather vain about his looks, and always well turned out. Emma Gowers dresses like a whore, but a high-class whore, with never a hair or a stocking seam out of place.

  This morning a rat had apparently been chewing on Wenig's moustache. His face was pale. His eyes, like Emma Gowers's, were bloodshot. She wore thick and patchy makeup, which, together with an ill-matched pink blouse and dark-green striped skirt, was enough to turn her into a clown. I considered, and rejected, the notion that the two had spent the night engaged in some novel and physically demanding form of vice.

  "Captain Roker," Wenig said. "We understand that the Hoatzin will depart tomorrow. However, we have heard that the ship is already fully equipped and tested. We are here to make a formal request. We would like you to advance your time of departure, and leave today."

  "Dr. Wenig, you know I can't do that. There have to be final inspections."

  "We know. The parties responsible for those inspections have all agreed to perform them today."

  "But why? What's the rush?"

  "Abdi el-Fazool, that's what the rush is."

  "Why? What has he done?"

  "What has he done?" Wenig's voice rose about two octaves. "You're asking me, what has he done?"

  "Steady, Ulf." Emma Gowers took over. "You ought to ask, what hasn't he done. My latest experiment, in which I use a linear array of kernels to reproduce results of classical diffraction: it's ruined, because that little bugger left a dead frog in the middle of the optical bench and nobody knew it was there until too late. It's not just the two of us, Captain Roker. Everybody at the Institute wants him gone. He's been into everything. It's not that we don't like kids—though right now, I'll admit that I hate the guts of anyone who's eleven years old."

  "That boy is a Child of Satan!" Seeming to realize that this statement called for justification, Wenig rushed on, "Two years of work, wasted! Because Abdi el-Fazool wondered what would happen if you turned off a compressed-matter field. He's lucky he wasn't killed."

  "We are unlucky that he wasn't killed." Emma Gowers ran her hands through her blond curls, adding to her raddled look. "Please, Jeanie, in the name of sanity and for everyone's sake, get that boy out of here."

  "I'll see what I can do."

  And I would; though it did occur to me that removing Abdi el-Fazool from the Institute would do -nothing for me or McAndrew. We were going to be stuck with him in the confined quarters of the Hoatzin for a sixteen-day outward trip; and, unless we were driven to execute him and dispose of the body, Abdi would also be with us during the sixteen-day return.

  I've flown the Hoatzin and the sister ships that use the McAndrew balanced drive so often that they no longer appear strange to me. Others, seeing one of the vessels for the first time, usually do a double-take. Abdi was no exception.

  "That thing?" he said. "We're supposed to fly in that? Where are the crew's quarters?"

  I could see his point. The object we were drifting toward was nothing like a conventional passenger or cargo ship. From a distance, all you could see was a flat plate like a big solid wheel, with a long axle protruding up from its center.

  "Look closely," I said. "See that thing like a little round bubble out near the far end of the axle shaft? That's the living quarters—all the living quarters,"

  From the blank look on Abdi's face I realized that I would have to go through the explanation of the way the ship worked. The disk was a hundred meters across, made of compressed matter and stabilized electromagnetically. It was not much more than a meter thick, but with a density of fifteen hundred tons per cubic centimeter the gravitational pull on nearby objects was formidable. A person sitting at the middle of the disk when the ship was at rest would feel a force of more than a hundred gees, enough to flatten any human. However, gravity as a force falls off rapidly with distance. A few hundred meters away, along the axis of the disk, the pull of the disk would be only one gee—a comfortable environment for the crew, sitting in the cramped sphere that constitutes the living quarters.

  Now start the drives. The drive units are all situated around the perimeter of the disk, and they accelerate everything in the direction away from the central column. Provided that you slide the sphere of the living quarters along the shaft toward the disk at the appropriate rate as the drive acceleration increases, the total force for anyone sitting within that capsule will remain at one gee. That's true whether the ship is accelerating at two gees, ten gees, or one hundred gees.

  The only physics involved is the equivalence principle, which states that a gravitational force cannot be locally distinguished from an acceleration. The idea is simple and even self-evident—provided that you happen to be McAndrew, who designed it. I understood it myself after the second explanation.

  I'll say this for Abdi: he was smart beyond his years. He understood the concept the first time around. And he asked a couple of good questions.

  "What would happen if the sphere with the living quarters got stuck and you couldn't slide back along the shaft?"

  "Been there, done that. You'd have to keep the drive turned on."

  "And accelerate forever?"

  "Unless you found a way to free the sphere. This isn't just theory, Abdi. It happened on one of the first tests."

  "Neat! Wish I'd been there. Hey! What happens if you leave the sphere when the ship's accelerating at a hundred gees?"

  "Nothing you would enjoy. If you leave on the side closer to the mass plate, gravity pulls you into it and squeezes you flat. Leave on the side away from the mass plate, and before you know what happened the ship's out of sight and you're alone in empty space. Don't even think of it, Abdi."

  "I won't. But then what's that for?"

  He was pointing to the little space pinnace, seated at the very end of the long central shaft.

  "That's only for use when the drive is off. The pinnace is at a fixed position on the end of the axle. When the drive is at maximum, it feels an acceleration of a hundred gees. Everything in the pinnace is designed to stand that, but you aren't. If you stayed inside it, you'd be killed. Squashed like a bug."

  "Squashed like a bug." Abdi repeated the words with relish. "Neat. But can I take a look at it now, while the drive is off?"

  I hesitated. I wanted a private chat with McAndrew, but I also didn't care for the idea of Abdi poking around inside the pinnace.

  While I was still dithering, McAndrew said gruffly, "All right, then. But I want you back here in half an hour, or I'll be there after you. You look, but you don't touch. Understa
nd?"

  "I understand."

  That should have been enough, but I remembered what Ulf Wenig and Emma Gowers had told me. I added, "Don't touch the controls or anything else on your visit to the pinnace. Do you hear me? For the time being, it's strictly hands off."

  "I hear you. And I heard McAndrew."

  "So do what you are told."

  "I always do what I'm told." Abdi sounded aggrieved at the very idea he might consider any other course of action. "And I don't do what I'm told not to do."

  It wasn't until much later that I realized the full significance of Abdi's reply. But I was still not totally convinced, so as Abdi headed off to the pinnace I turned to McAndrew.

  "Are you sure we can trust him?"

  "From everything I've heard, we can. The lad likes to be into everything, but if he's told something specific, the way we just did, then he'll follow instructions."

  It did cross my mind to wonder why Abdi had been kicked out of his school if he obeyed the rules so well, but a different question was on my mind.

  "Mac, you know how small the living quarters are here in the Hoatzin. I don't know much about Abdi, but I can already tell you one thing. He's a hyperactive child if ever there was one. He'll buzz around the living space like a wasp in a bottle. The trip out will take sixteen days. What are you planning to do with him while we're on the way?"

  The expression on McAndrew's face told me that he had never given it a moment's thought. To him, a sixteen-day trip was an opportunity to sit, stare at the cabin wall, and indulge in prolonged mental gymnastics. Finally he shrugged and looked at me hopelessly. "Do you think he might be interested in a course in statistical mechanics?"

  "Mac, he's eleven, for God's sake. Would you have been interested in a course in statistical mechanics when you were eleven? Oh, never mind, don't bother to answer that. I'll find a way to keep Abdi occupied. But when the time comes, I'll want my reward."

  "What reward?"