Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330) (21 page)

She looked from Rayna to Keith and
back again. “The lieutenant was wearing a uniform with the patch of
a nonexistent unit.”

 
Rayna yawned, arched her body in
a cat-like stretch, and nuzzled her pillow. It had been a rough few
months. The students in her summer enrichment seminars—usually a
pleasure to teach—didn’t seem to respond to anything she said or
did. Relations with her parents were still strained, and, until a
week ago, Keith had been virtually out of her life since the day
she asked him to investigate her adoption. At least her current
break between summer and fall sessions gave her a chance to sleep
late on weekdays. Better enjoy that luxury while you have the
chance, lady, she told herself, rolling over with an extravagant
sweep of her arm.

“Ouch!  Watch that!”

Rayna turned, startled by the resonant
voice. Recognizing the source of the deep baritone, she smiled and
bent to kiss the tip of Keith’s nose. “Sorry, darling,” she said.
“But don’t worry. I don’t think it’s broken.”

“Find that funny, do you?”  He
grinned menacingly and pulled her toward him. She laughed and
started to push him away. Then, abruptly, she reversed direction,
pressing against him and kissing him with a hunger that surprised
them both considering all their energetic lovemaking of the night
before.

“God!” she said breathlessly, “I’ve
missed you!”

Keith looked at her earnestly. In his
eyes was something she had never seen before, an intensity that
told her more than his words could possibly say. “I didn’t think I
could miss anyone the way I missed you, Ray.”  Tenderly, he
took her in his arms and kissed her once more.

***

At last they walked into the living
room, taking the windows off “opaque” status. Drenched in the
golden glow that poured through her patio door, Rayna felt as
glorious as the day was bright. She didn’t know what had caused
last night’s sudden change in Keith’s manner toward her after days
of polite but strictly businesslike conduct. She knew only that
during those days, the painful memory of her last visit to Keith’s
apartment had dimmed, and now, for the first time in a long while,
she was completely free of the gloom that had become her unwelcome
and nearly constant chaperone.

It was nearly noon, and they were
hungry for more than one another.

“I can order up anything you want by
Trans-Mat,” Rayna said, “or we can go primitive, and I’ll just whip
up some scrambled eggs. I’m very good with scrambled
eggs.”

“Eggs it is,” said Keith. “Can I do
anything to help?”

“Well, you can set the table, if
you—”

The CompuNews buzzer cut Rayna off in
mid-sentence.

“You even have that world-watch
sentinel operating when you’re on vacation?” Keith
asked.

Rayna grinned impishly. “Until
yesterday, I didn’t have much else to occupy my time.”  She
winked and blew him a kiss, then walked to the CompuNews nook and
shut off the alarm. “Seriously, though,” she called over her
shoulder, “I wanted to monitor anything that might have a bearing
on that trend analysis I showed you the other day. I’ll take it off
alert status.

“Oh my God!” she gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Keith asked, following
Rayna to the nook. “What happened?”

She stepped aside and let him read the
screen:

A SHIPMENT OF VALUABLE NITINOL
WIRE APPARENTLY IS BEING HELD FOR RANSOM BY DISSIDENT COLONISTS IN
THE R-4 SECTOR OF THE ASTEROID BELT. THE WIRE IS VITALLY NEEDED TO
ACTIVATE THE NEW POWER-GENERATING STATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN BUILT TO
REPLACE UNSAFE AND/OR OUTMODED NUCLEAR AND FOSSIL-FUEL PLANTS ON
EARTH.

ACCORDING TO MERCHANT FLEET ADM.
ETHAN O. RENSSELAER, THE FLEET HAS JUST LEARNED FROM RETURNING
MERCHANT CREWS OF AN ALLEGED PLOT TO EXTORT HIGHER PAYMENTS FOR THE
COLONY-PRODUCED WIRE. SEVERAL CREWS HAVE REPORTED BEING FORCED BY
COLONIAL ROBOTS TO DIVERT NITINOL WIRE SHIPMENTS TO A SPACE-BORNE
TRANS-MAT STATION. PRESUMABLY, THE WIRE WAS THEN TRANSPORTED
ELSEWHERE FOR SAFEKEEPING.

THE FIRST REPORTS OF THESE
DIVERSIONS WERE RECEIVED AT FLEET HEADQUARTERS FOUR DAYS AGO,
RENSSELAER SAID, BUT THE INFORMATION WAS KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
PENDING EFFORTS TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY WITH THE COLONIES AND
QUIETLY RESOLVE ANY MISUNDERSTANDING. SO FAR, HOWEVER,
EARTH
’
S ATTEMPTS TO CONTACT THE COLONIES
AND CORRECT POSSIBLE ERRORS IN THE ROBOTS
’
PROGRAMMING HAVE BEEN ANSWERED ONLY BY A BLUNT STATEMENT DEMANDING
TRIPLE PAYMENT FOR THE DIVERTED WIRE AND FOR ALL FUTURE NITINOL
SHIPMENTS.

“Good Lord!” said Keith with a shake
of his head. “Your trend-analysis program ought to have some fun
with this one!”

“Yeah,” Rayna responded morosely.
“Some fun…. Say, do you think this might have anything to do
with the emergency that Fleet lieutenant was talking about when he
charged into our room at Eduardo’s?”

Keith was slow to respond. “Hmmm. I
don’t know....” 

“What is it?  You look like a man
who’s forgotten how to open his own front door.”

“I’m not quite sure, Ray. Something
about this bothers me.”

Rayna grunted. “I’m not surprised.
This isn’t just another case of petty vandalism. I have a hunch
it’s going to have bigger repercussions than we realize. Some of
our old power plants—the ones they’ve been replacing with
Nitinol-based systems—are just accidents waiting to
happen.”

Keith shook his head. “No, it’s more
than that. There’s something else. Something I can’t quite recall,
something I—”

“Well, well,” Rayna interrupted,
pointing at a bulletin that had just flashed onto the screen.
“Rensselaer’s going  to make a statement in a few minutes.
Full holovision coverage and everything.”

After instructing CompuNews to resume
its world-watch alert status, Rayna proceeded to a low cabinet that
rested beneath the holopainting on the wall across from her sofa.
At the touch of a button, the cabinet’s doors slid open, and she
set the HV receiving unit to project the news conference into her
living room.

“All ready,” she said.

A barely audible click and a soft hum
announced the imminence of the broadcast. Keith and Rayna moved to
the sofa and watched as a dais took three-dimensional shape in the
middle of the room. A ruggedly handsome man with a thick,
meticulously trimmed mustache and probing gray eyes stood stiffly
behind a woodstone lectern. He wore the gold-braided uniform of a
full Merchant Fleet admiral.

The man looked about, as if awaiting a
signal to proceed, then cleared his throat.

“I think we’re ready now,” he said,
nodding to the others seated on the dais. He turned to face the HV
image-converters, and Rayna once again shivered at the illusion of
finding a total stranger standing in the middle of her living
room.

“Members of the press,” the man behind
the lectern began in a calm, authoritative voice, “ladies and
gentlemen of the holovision audience, I am Admiral Ethan Rensselaer
of the United Earth Merchant Fleet. As part of my duties, I have
the ultimate responsibility for staffing and scheduling merchant
runs to and from the Asteroid Belt’s Sectors R-1 through
R-5.

“As you may already know, a problem
has developed in our R-4 Sector. Nitinol wire scheduled for
delivery to Earth has been diverted to an unknown destination,
apparently by colonial robots. The shipments in question were
intended for the new AG-7 generating station in the northeastern
United States and for expansion of an existing station in Zimbabwe.
At this time, we don’t know whether this is a case of robot
malfunction, an extremist act committed by a few disgruntled miners
and wire workers, or part of a general breakdown in trade relations
with the colonies.”

The admiral paused to sip some water
from a glass on the lectern.

“The perpetrators of this act are
demanding an increase in Earth payments for Nitinol wire in the
amount of 300 per cent.”

A cacophony of voices competed for the
speaker’s attention as the hands of eager questioners shot into the
air, the arms cleanly severed by the edge of the holovision
projection field.

Adm. Rensselaer raised his palms and
inclined his head in a familiar, almost fatherly, calming
gesture.

“One at a time, please,” he said. “I’m
here to answer your questions. We all are.”  He indicated the
two men and one woman seated on the dais with him. “But please let
us make our presentations first. We want you to get your answers in
context, not in isolated pieces that won’t mean much to
you.”

This guy has a way about him, Rayna
thought, admiring Rensselaer’s self-confident bearing and his
square-jawed good looks. If he ever gets tired of life in the
Merchant Fleet, he’ll probably make it as a politician.

“Before I say anymore,” Rensselaer
continued, “I’d better introduce our experts.”  The admiral
turned his side to the audience and gestured toward the others on
the platform. “Dr. Jonas Edgerton of Nitinol Development, Ltd., in
London; Dr. Ruth Karlen of NiPoCo’s Pittsburgh office, and,
finally, Mr. Armand Misrahi of the United Nations’ Commission on
Energy and the Environment.”

The three officials successively
acknowledged their introductions with curt nods and somber
expressions.

“Dr. Edgerton,” said the admiral,
“will you and Dr. Karlen kindly demonstrate for the press and the
holovision audience just how Nitinol works.”

Edgerton, a pale, thin man with wispy
brown hair, rose slowly, his eyes fixed on the dark-skinned Karlen
as she scraped her chair out of the way and reached for a large
black case that rested on the floor behind Misrahi. At the edge of
the HV projection field, Rayna noticed, two assistants were moving
a long, narrow table into view. Edgerton helped his colleague move
the black case to the table. Karlen nodded at the Englishman, who
nervously straightened the lapels of his unfashionable jacket and
walked to the lectern.

“As you may know,” he said hoarsely,
“Nitinol is a blend of nickel and titanium. It has been called the
‘memory metal’ for reasons that will soon be apparent to
you.”

Edgerton waited as Karlen and the
assistants finished setting up the equipment stored in the black
case. Then he returned to the table.

“This is a simple Nitinol engine,
based on an early prototype,” Edgerton explained, tapping an
odd-looking contraption that consisted of a rectangular frame with
a large cylinder across its width at each end. Wire loops ran
lengthwise across the frame, connecting each of the cylinders with
a central hub that bisected the length of the frame. The rod
forming the hub extended beyond the frame’s width and was mounted
on supports so that the bottom cylinder was suspended about six
inches above the table on which the apparatus sat. Hose-like tubes
were connected to the ends of the hub.

“These wires,” he indicated, “are made
of Nitinol. It’s wire like this, which we need for generating
stations, that was diverted to the Trans-Mat relay station. Dr.
Karlen?”

“As some of you may remember,” 
Karlen began in a voice that was at once melodic and businesslike,
“my firm’s name, NiPoCo, is an acronym for Nitinol Power Company.
We’ve been working with this material for many years, and over
those years, it’s become more and more of a factor in meeting the
world’s energy needs. Still, to most people, Nitinol is just a word
vaguely associated with electric power. Very few understand how it
produces energy.” 

The NiPoCo scientist reached for a
coil of wire that rested on the table about two feet from a beaker
of water that was being heated by a Bunsen burner.

“Like most of our Nitinol wire, this
was made in the colonies,” she said, displaying the wire to her
audience and then replacing it on the table, taking care to avoid
the Bunsen burner.

“Until we began colonizing the
asteroids, Nitinol technology was very limited. Although it had
some definite uses, like cooling systems for electronic equipment
and computers, we couldn’t get enough pure nickel and titanium—or a
cheap enough manufacturing process—to produce the amount of wire
needed for widespread application of Nitinol to power generation.
That meant replacement of older power plants had to wait, even
though there was mounting evidence that some of those plants posed
serious environmental risks.”

“You ever see Nitinol wire before?”
Keith asked.

Rayna shook her head. “It’s one of
those things you hear about sometimes but just take for
granted.”

Keith grunted and watched as the
presentation continued.

“Now, as you probably know,” Karlen
said, “several of our colonized asteroids contain large deposits of
pure nickel and titanium. Furthermore, colonial life-domes can be
set up to include a perfect environment for low-cost production not
only of the nickel-titanium alloy but also of the Nitinol wire
itself. Ever since we began getting our Nitinol wire from the
colonies, we’ve been able to start phasing out the old
plants.” 

She lifted the wire coil
again.