Delta Pavonis (11 page)

"They'll say I'm different, all right. I'm not the school kid they remember." She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. "Do you really think you're going to learn anything that way?"

"No, I really don't trust that sort of subjective data. It's just that there's little else to go on."

"You know what, Doc? Unless you find real physical evidence of imperfect transmission or reassembly or whatever, I don't think we're ever going to know. If we can't even agree on what constitutes a human being, how can we tell if there's been change?"

Sirglinde looked at her with new appraisal. "You've grown a bit less superficial than when I first met you. You're less experience-centered and more into the nature of things."

"I hadn't thought about it, but I suppose you're right. The thought that I may have killed myself fourteen times is sobering."

"Don't despair just yet. I have a suspicion that you're still the same person."

"I hope you can back that up. If the transporter works the way you think, I'm remade from a different set of elementary particles each time my wave-pattern is replicated, right?"

"Yes, but elementary particles don't have self-identity. Even without going through anything as exotic as a transporter, your body is constantly replacing old material with new. It isn't instantaneous, but there probably isn't an elementary particle in my body that was there a couple of years ago. Does that mean I'm not who I was? It happens over and over again throughout everyone's life."

"Keep telling me that. I need it."

"I'm kicking around another concept as well. It may require a whole new category combining physics and the life sciences even to explore, but I feel"—uncharacteristically, she paused, her usual relentless confidence faltering—"I hate to use a word like 'feel,' but the breakthrough discoveries usually involve as much intuition as conscious deduction."

"Go right ahead," Dierdre said avidly. "I promise not to pick at your logic."

"All right, that's fair. I feel that the fact the transmission is instantaneous has something to do with it. The time element here, or rather the lack of it, may be essential. Whatever is happening in this process takes place within this universe and, while there's a displacement of matter, there is no measurable instant of time when your consciousness mind does not exist. Do you follow me?"

Dierdre nodded so hard she almost sprained her neck. "Right! No time lapse, no new me, just the old me in a different place!"

"Mind you, I'm way out on a theoretical limb here. It's too new and untested even to call a theory, but my intuitive hypotheses have proven out before, more often than not."

"I admit I'm not exactly objective, but it sounds great to me. I'll buy it for lack of anything more hopeful."

"Enough of that." Sieglinde leaned back, her eyes half-shut, and for once Dierdre could see how tired she was. It occurred to her that, despite appearances, Sieglinde had to be close to a hundred, not a terribly advanced age as things were now, but nobody that age should be expected to put in the kind of hours Sieglinde did. Her eyes opened wide and she was back to normal. "Tomorrow I begin testing inside the cave. I want you to be my personal assistant. Report to the cave mouth at 0600 tomorrow."

"You're the boss," Dierdre said happily, looking forward to a break from construction work. She stood. "Can I tell the others about this new theory of yours?"

"As long as you emphasize that it's highly tentative. And I'm not going to make any public comment on it until I have more evidence. The media types have no patience with anything tentative. Tell them your wildest speculations and they'll report it as gospel. I've fallen into that trap before and came out looking like a fool. Now run along."

Dierdre ran out, her spirits rising for the first time in many days.

"It looks like rock, but it isn't." They were going over the floor, sides and roof of the tunnel.

"How can you tell?" Dierdre asked. If there was one planetary feature Island Worlders knew about, it was rock. Living and working in hollowed-out asteroids made them connoisseurs.

"The chemistry isn't right. Molecular structure indicates a metamorphic rock formed under high pressure, but crystalline structure indicates extreme low-pressure formation. It's rock of a sort, but it isn't natural."

"I can't say I'm really surprised. I guess we could make artificial rock if we needed it. We already know the aliens were way ahead of us in applied science,"

Sieglinde held one of her devices within a centimeter of one of the walls, near the roof, and swept it slowly from right to left. "Correct. What I'm really interested in is what's behind these walls. The instrumentation has to be here someplace. Here and in the transport chamber. I have a minor mystery to solve here in the tunnel, and a great big one in the chamber."

"I'd say there are a lot more than two mysteries," Dierdre said. She had her bush shirt off and wore just her thin singlet above her belt. In the tunnel she was safe from sun and biting insects, and she intended to be comfortable. Her dense, black hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was sweating slightly as she lugged a case of Sieglinde's instruments. Most of them were of Sieglinde's own design and manufacture. They were small and compact, but there seemed to be about a thousand of them in the case.

"Lots. But I'm going to tackle the easiest one first. To wit: why do no animals come in this cave, which would make an ideal den?"

"Hell, Sims asked that question on the first trip we all took together, and he has as much imagination as a turnip. We figured some sort of force shield."

"Why doesn't it keep us out?"

"Body chemistry, maybe?" Dierdre hazarded.

"Unlikely. Those creatures out there are genetically Earth animals. Their internal chemistry is identical to ours."

Sieglinde stuck the instrument she had been using back into the case and took out another and began to scan the ceiling. Dierdre pondered the problem for a while.

"Listen, Doc," she said at length, "how about we try this: let's catch an animal from nearby. One of the primitive mammals we've seen might be best: it'll be easier to read its reaction. That's an Earth animal born here. Have some others sent over from the mainland. We're now pretty sure they're from other planets, too. Have a cat brought down from the orbitals. That's a nonintelligent Earth animal that's not from these islands. See if they'll come in here. If they won't, see what happens when we carry them in."

Sieglinde looked at her for a while. "What an elegant idea. What would you conclude if all of them, including the cat, are repelled by the cave?"

"That maybe the shield is specific for something other than species or chemistry or origin. Maybe it's intelligence."

"If they can remote-read intelligence, I'll give up and admit they're smarter than me. But your experiment's a good one. I'll see you get credit for it when I publish my study. It would be perfect if we also had some alien animals from a different planet, but we'll go with what we've got. Go back to the lab and send for what we need, on my authority. Tell Forrest to detail some people to find a few local animals. All animals to be delivered as soon as possible. We can't use them right away. First they'll have to get over the panic of capture and transportation. Tell the orbitals to send some rats and rabbits, too. Cats are temperamental, so we'll need a wider sampling. Go."

Dierdre dashed out. That was what she liked about Sieglinde. No stalling or hesitation. Plus, she would instantly delegate authority to her most junior assistant. Dierdre found that it was fun to boss around the higher-ups. She wondered if that meant she was lacking in potential for genuine leadership positions, since she got such a kick out of pretending like this.

The first person she ran into was Forrest. She told him what they needed and he nodded glumly. After their brief moment of glory, things had settled down to boring routine. "Sure, I'll send a few people out. Hell, I might take charge myself. There's not enough for us to do here. We should be out exploring."

"Don't despair, you're not going to die of old age here. This is just until Sieglinde's through with us. When this is over, we'll have it made. Even if Survey won't have us, there are plenty of independent outfits that will. I've had dozens of offers."

Forrest scratched in his beard, which needed trimming. "So've I. But damn it, I wanted to make Survey my career."

"Be patient, they'll come around. Look at Derek Kuroda. He's been in trouble more times than he can count, but they always get over it and give him an important position."

"That's because they have so much trouble keeping their best people. Everyone wants to go independent after a while."

"Then maybe Survey isn't such a great career," she said, exasperated. "What do you want? Glory or security? To go up the ladder in Survey you have to be a team player. As it happens, most of us in this nine-ball outfit aren't made to be team players."

"Eight-ball," he corrected. "The expression was eight-ball."

"Just one digit off. Nobody remembers where it comes from, anyway. Don't go all pedantic on me. If . . ." She broke off as a formation of three shuttles shrieked overhead, carrying Survey detail teams engaged in exploring every square millimeter of the archipelago. The sky had been full of them for days. They both looked up enviously. Dierdre sighed. "Yeah," she admitted, "I wish I was out combing the boonies, too. Come on, let's see what kind of nonlethal wildlife we can scare up."

Three days later they had their menagerie assembled. There were a dozen creatures brought in from various parts of the planet, some vaguely crustacean, insectile or reptilian, but most with no Terrestrial equivalents. Team Red had brought in a couple of very small dinosaurs, a feathered lizard-bird, and three primitive, opossum-like mammals. From the ships, there were white rats, rabbits, monkeys and cats. Survey had insisted on using only animals guaranteed sterile, in case any got loose in the ecosystem.

Besides Team Red, there were a number of scientists from Survey; others had come down from orbit for the occasion. A sizable holo crew was in place, both to record the occasion and to transmit it live to the various scientists, institutions and interested individuals. After the initial furor, public interest had waned, and now most laymen awaited official word on the new marvel.

Sieglinde emerged from the cave, trailed by a couple of assistants. These had arrived the day before with several decidedly odd-looking remote handlers. These were spindly robot devices, rolling on four spoked wheels. At the front of each was a pedestal topped with swiveling holo sensors and recorders. Just below the sensor case, each had a pair of jointed, telescoping arms which terminated, ridiculously, in a pair of plastic-fleshed hands so realistic they might have been cut from a cadaver. Between the wheels was slung a simple, woven-wire basket. They looked nothing at all like the sleek robot servitors used in space and at the better-equipped ground facilities. They looked cobbled together from spare parts for a specific purpose, which was exactly the case.

As usual, Sieglinde began without preamble. "In order to economize on time and resources, we're embarking on several simultaneous experiments. These little buggers with the ghastly-looking hands," she gestured to the uncomplaining robots, "will make the transition from this cave to its ice-age analogue as many times as necessary. That's why the hands. We know that human hands will work on the controls, so why change a winning combination?"

She pointed to the mini-zoo before the cave. "Before, during and after the transitions, we will be conducting the Jamail Experiment, named for Miss Jamail, who dreamed it up." Dierdre beamed with pride, while some of her peers glowered enviously. "The point of this experiment will be to determine why the local animals seem never to have entered these caves. Something keeps them out, and I've a suspicion that when we find out what it is, we'll also learn what keeps the various creatures that inhabit this planet confined to their specific habitats when there are no visible barriers."

"Dr. Kornfeld," said a tall, shaven-headed man in a Ciano Institute coverall, "if you haven't yet heard, the oceanographic team has just turned in its preliminary report. It seems that the invisible barriers hold true for the oceans as well. You know those creatures we've been calling whales? They really are whales. We've found many species that've been extinct on Earth for more than a century. They migrate along a strip of ocean to the west of this archipelago. Their area runs north and south for thousands of kilometers. They don't seem to cross over to the eastern side of the island, where big seagoing dinosaurs have been found. The oceanic reptiles apparently are not migratory."

"Thank you, Dr. Mahler. It's more evidence, if we need it, that this whole planet is a vast artifact, a zoo-laboratory consisting of artificial rather than natural environments in order to maintain what seem to be incredibly stable ecologies."

A science reporter for one of the holo networks spoke up. "The robots are designed to carry things. What will they be taking through?"

"First, they'll just go through unloaded, to determine that the hands work and that they remain functional after transition. Then, they'll take computers through. These will be running detailed, very complicated programs in synch with other computers on planet and in orbit. If there are imperfections in the transmission process, they should show up instantly as discrepancies in the programs. After that, we'll send animals through. Unlike our daring explorers here, we can dissect the animals."

"Will you be sending humans through?" the reporter asked.

"Absolutely not! Not until we know more about how this thing works. We've had plenty of well-meaning but suicidal volunteers, but since we already have Team Red, we've no need of them."

"After the first transmissions from here," she went on, "my assistants at the other end will send robots through the transporters in the ice-age chamber. There are six besides the one that connects with this cage. Those robots will be equipped with high-powered transmitters to allow us to locate their transporter sites. They are programmed to wait for instructions from orbit. If none are received, they are to record their surroundings for several minutes, then seek to return the way they came."