Dark as Day (35 page)

But Alex saw a rare opportunity to come out a hero with his own family. “You are going to be away from Pandora for at least several weeks. In your absence, it would be easy for Ligon Industries to set up their operations center for helium-three mining from Saturn’s atmosphere at the other end of Pandora—so far away, you would never be aware of its presence. And the whole
Starseed-Two
project won’t be of long duration—it can’t be, without substantial penalty clauses. If we guaranteed that the installation would be done in your absence, with guarantees that nothing would affect the Bat Cave …”

Bat nodded, and for one moment Alex dared to hope they might have a deal. But then Bat said, “It is premature for any such discussion. I do not yet know where the Puzzle Masters will assemble, and already you have me off on Ganymede. Perhaps something can be arranged—if and when my own movements are more defined.” He waved a slab-like hand, dismissing the subject. “Enough of that speculation. I have explained to you the reason for my interest in aliens. What is the basis for your own?—I sensed more enthusiasm for that topic than for any other subject we have mentioned.”

Alex shook his head. “My interest is complicated and relates to my work on predictive models. It would take time and computer access to explain.”

“Time, apparently, is available in ample measure.” Bat waved his hand again, this time at the displays which showed all external communications still blocked. “Why are you interested in aliens? And why might the computers be relevant?”

Alex was hesitant at first. How much, if anything, did the other know of computer modeling? He began slowly, giving the sort of general explanation that would suffice for upper management, until Bat scowled and said, “
Details
, please, root and branch. Generality and vagueness are the refuge of scoundrels, politicians and bureaucrats.”

Put that way …

Alex began to describe his work at a deeper level, encouraged by Bat’s close attention and occasional nods. When he reached the tricky subject of the predicted extinction of humanity, and the dependence of that on exogenous variables, Bat blinked and nodded.

“I, too, have had intimations of approaching catastrophe throughout the solar system. The evidence I have seen is tenuous, but it suggests disaster much closer than a century away. Did your program take account of the possible effect of new weapons left over from the Great War?”

Alex shook his head. “I didn’t include them, because I have never heard of any such thing.”

“Very well. There are two other anomalous factors that you might wish to take into consideration. First, a small group of genetically modified humans was created as a by-product of the Great War. So far as I know, they live quiet and productive lives, but their possible impact on future events cannot be discounted.”

“I know about them, and I’ve run the model with and without their presence. The results do not changed significantly.”

“Very good. Then there was a group of humans of apparent great longevity, near-immortals who were active on Ganymede but vanished a generation ago. Nothing has been seen of them since, and it was conjectured that they chose to remove themselves to the far reaches of the outer system. However, they also might be significant to the future.”

Alex nodded. “I knew of them, too, and I ran the model both ways, with and without them. They also made no difference.”

“Then for the moment I have no other suggestions.” Bat glanced again at the display of blocked communications. “Let us return to the question of the effect of aliens. Can you describe how their presence affected your predictive model results?”

“I can do a lot better than describe.” Alex fumbled in his travel bag and produced the data cube. “I can show. Here are all the programs and the results. We can—oh, no, I guess we can’t. With access to outside communication blocked, we can’t get to the Seine. My models really suck up computer resources.”

“Such resources, fortunately, are available.” Bat looked smug. “Long before the Seine was activated, I foresaw dangers and difficulty in ensuring the privacy of my work. To be honest, one of my principal concerns was other members of the Puzzle Network. Cheating on a puzzle is by no means forbidden, including infiltration of another’s databases. For that reason I established an independent computer capability here on Pandora. I call it the Keep. It is fully disjoint from all aspects of the Seine, and I would be surprised if your model is unable to run on it.”

Alex was dubious. “When I said my model eats computer time and resources, I really meant it.”

Bat inclined his massive head. “I do not doubt you. I merely say, try, and see. One of us, I suspect, will be surprised.”

* * *

Bat had been referring to computer resources. Alex, as the runs proceeded, was astonished for quite other reasons.

The computer capacity available within the Keep was everything that Bat had suggested, with far more power than had been accessible to Alex prior to the arrival of the Seine. The predictive model ran fast, even at a high degree of detail. The cause of Alex’s amazement, however, lay elsewhere.

He began by repeating the series of runs in which an alien influence was assumed to be at work in the solar system, sometime in the next half century. He duplicated exactly the runs that he had already made, and was not surprised to find exactly comparable results.

“You see, everything remains stable,” he said to Bat. “No storage overflow, no solar system collapse, no end to humanity.”

“A comforting conclusion, since in that time frame we might reasonably hope to be present ourselves.”

“Right. But now see what happens when I make the same runs, and don’t introduce any alien influence as a variable.”

Again, it was an exact repeat of earlier runs that Alex had made. He sat back and waited for the instabilities to creep in, slowly at first and then catastrophically after half a century. He was so convinced of what he would see that he did not pay full attention to the results. Only when the time marker reached 2188, with a human population steadily growing and all variables within reasonable ranges, did he jerk up straight in his chair.

“That can’t be right!”

“No?” Bat had also been relaxing, watching the near-hypnotic march of numbers and graphics across the displays. He leaned forward, frowning. “Forgive me if I appear a little lacking in perception, but I fail to see any anomalies.”

“That’s what’s wrong with it.”

Bat, mysteriously, said, “The dog in the night?”

Alex ignored that and pointed to the year, now 2190, and the display of population, which was approaching twelve billion. “It never did that before. Without an alien influence as an exogenous variable, the model always reached a crisis point about 2140. Population never rose beyond a maximum value of ten billion.”

“There is a simple explanation.” Bat sounded unimpressed. “Either you had a problem with the model in your earlier runs, or you have one now.”

“You don’t understand. It’s the
same model
. I simply downloaded a copy before I left Ganymede. It must be your computer. It’s not powerful enough to run my model.”

“Never.” All signs of boredom in Bat vanished. “The Keep contains resources more powerful than any Ganymede facility.”

“You said you don’t have access to the Seine when you’re running in this mode.”

“That is true, but not relevant. If it is simply computer speed that concerns you, the computers in the Keep should be more than adequate. Were you drawing on the Seine for other elements of the computation?”

“I’m sure I was. But I don’t see any way it could change the model results. Are you suggesting that
the Seine itself
might destabilize my predictive model results?”

“At first sight, I agree that sounds like a preposterous notion. But what do we really know of the Seine, and how it operates? Have you run your model sufficiently?”

“Sufficiently to confuse me totally.”

“Then with your permission, I will determine the external situation.” Bat touched half a dozen points on the console. “Hm. Incoming signals remain inaccessible. However, that is no bad thing … I must think …”

Bat closed his eyes and turned into an obsidian statue. Alex stared at the vast figure, motionless on the padded seat, and declined to interrupt. He had plenty to occupy his own mind. He turned his attention again to the display. It had advanced another twenty years. Every parameter showed reasonable values. According to his model, humanity was doing fine a hundred years from now.

The
Seine
as a factor? That raised a whole new series of questions. The Seine had access to every data bank in the System. It could and would use whatever information the model called for. But at the level of sophistication and complexity of the predictive model, there was no way that any human could hope to track the entirety of data in use—not even for one day of prediction, never mind a century.

So where did that leave Alex? He had stuck his neck way out, assuring everyone from Kate all the way up to Magrit Knudsen that with the Seine his predictive model would give correct results. All he needed was adequate computational power. But there was a built-in assumption: the
only
thing that the Seine was supposed to do was compute. The results of a model should not depend on the computer on which it was run. However, since the Seine also had the power to bring in System-wide data sets which the
computer
deemed relevant to the computation, then the exact reproduction of any results could not be guaranteed. What data might the Seine possess to indicate that a solar system future without alien presence was unstable and doomed to human extinction, while a future containing an alien presence was stable? And why did the Keep’s computer, aliens or no aliens, predict a future without a fatal collapse?

Alex was as capable of deep introspection as Bat. When a subdued beep came from the communication terminal, both men ignored it.

The beep came again, and again. At last an irate voice overrode the standard query signal and said, “Hello, Pandora. This is Atlas Station Security, calling Pandora. Are you receiving us? Hello, Pandora. Are you receiving this message?”

And then, in a fainter off-mike tone, “I think they’re all asleep or unconscious. I wonder if they even know they were jammed?”

Bat scowled, opened his eyes, and replied, “We are neither asleep nor unconscious. We are
thinking
—a phenomenon possibly outside your experience.”

“Oh, it’s you again. Well, you might
think
that a little appreciation would be in order for what we’ve done for you. We’ve arrested the wacko in the ship who was jamming your com lines.”

“Do you have an identification and a motive?”

“Not yet. He’s acting like a big hero and won’t say a word, and we don’t have a return yet for the ship’s I/D. It’s a Ganymede registration, though. Do you have anyone on Ganymede who dislikes you?”

“Numerous people.”

“Surprise, surprise. Do you have any idea who this one might be?”

Bat looked hard at Alex. “No.”

“Let us know if you want to press charges. We’ve got this fellow’s ship in tow, and we’re on our way. You have a waiting message stream whenever you decide to stop
thinking. Au revoir
, my ingrate friend.”

“He seems to know you rather well,” Alex said, then realized that might not be the most diplomatic of remarks.

Bat shrugged. “This is not my first encounter with the militants who call themselves the Atlas security force. Their main aim in life seems to be to protect me and the Bat Cave from physical assault, preferably by shooting at something. I have pointed out, many times, that this facility is more secure than their own base on Atlas. Although superficially rational, they appear incapable of learning this fact. No matter. Let us see what we missed in the past few hours.” He touched the console, and surveyed the list of incoming messages. “All of them can, I feel, wait—with the exception of this one.”

Another dab at the console. Three short sentences appeared on a small screen.
Meeting place, Ganymede, Level 147, Sector 291. Individual work stations established. Start date pending schedule from Philip Beston
.

Bat sighed. “As I thought. It will be necessary to leave the Bat Cave for awhile.”

“And go to Ganymede? Is that the message from the Puzzle Group?”

“It is. And almost certainly, Attoboy sent it. It bears his laconic trademark. I will decipher it later.”

“It seems straightforward enough.”

“It would not be from Attoboy if it lacked a hidden message within the clear text.”

“Maybe to tell you when the meeting begins?”

“I think not. I take his final sentence at face value.”

“Can we meet again when you arrive at Ganymede?”

That produced Bat’s longest hesitation so far. At last he said, “Your predictive model is new and intriguing, and it offers mysteries of inconsistency which so far I am unable to resolve. My instincts suggest that such a resolution could have far-reaching consequences. Certainly, this belongs on the four-sigma list.”

Bat paused, studying Alex as though the two men were just being introduced. The shaved black head nodded a few millimeters. “Before your arrival I had heard much about the Ligon family; all of it was, I am sorry to say, highly negative. You fail to fit my preconceptions. You have a genuine interest in and talent for intellectual problems. I would not find the prospect of another meeting, when I am on Ganymede, intolerable.”

One step at a time
. Alex told himself that he had agreed to come here only because the family had pushed him, and he had never expected to succeed. Now when he returned to Ganymede he could report to Prosper Ligon and the others that, despite insane interference from Cousin Hector, he had made real progress. Rustum Battachariya had agreed to meet with Alex again—on Ganymede!

Magrit Knudsen was not there to provide Alex with a more striking evaluation of the situation. An agreement to meet again was the highest accolade that Bat ever offered to anyone. Alex had engaged Bat’s attention in the most powerful way possible: he had provided a puzzle too subtle and intricate to be solved at once.