MacRoscope (17 page)

Ivo recalled the loss of intestinal control of the victims and realized how hard such a notion would strike a finicky girl like Afra. “I seem to be immune,” he said. “At least, I can avoid it successfully. And I did win the privilege. If you will show me how to operate the controls—”

This time Afra seemed relieved. “I’ll instruct you. I’ll have to operate blind, but it should work. Here, I’ll turn off the main screen; you use the helmet.”

And she set him up in the control chair and fastened the equipment upon him, placing the heavy goggles over his eyes. Ivo wished there were more than sheer practicality in the operation, but knew there was not; it was more efficient for her to do these things for him than to direct him through it, this first time.

“Your left hand controls the computer directives. Here, I’ll put you on the ten-key complex.” Her hand took his and carried it to a buttoned surface like that of an adding machine. This was not the same control he had seen Brad employ, he was sure. Alternate inputs? A junior set for the novice? The goggles cut off all outside vision, so he, not she, was “blind.”

“We have a number of important locations precoded,” she continued. “You should memorize them, if you’re going to do this regularly, but right now I’ll give them to you. These will place you on Earth, the Luna bases, any of the artificial satellites or the macroscope station — the torus.” She spieled off numbers, and he obediently pressed the buttons. Twice he miskeyed and had to start over; the third time she placed her hand over his and depressed his fingers for him in the proper order and places. Her digits were soft and cool and firm — as he imagined the rest of her body to be.

Light flared into his eyes. He was a hundred yards from the torus, looking down at it from sunside, blinded by the reflection from its metal plates.

“The next coding is for semimanual control,” she said. “You can’t possibly keep the celestial motions aligned, but you can override portions of the computer’s automatic correction and drift a little.” She directed him through the necessary numeric instruction. “Now you can apply your right hand. Drive it as you would a car — but remember it is three-dimensional.” He felt the mounted ball, its surface actually sandpaper-rough for perfect traction. “Tilt for direction of motion, twist for orientation. Be careful — this is where the destroyer sometimes intrudes. You have to stick to fringe reception — which is more than adequate, at this range. Now set your drift toward the torus; don’t worry, you’ll pass right through the walls. You’ll have to practice a bit to get it down…”

Ivo tilted and twisted — and was rewarded by a dizzying tailspin in which the intolerable blaze of Sol scorched across his eyeballs every three seconds.

“Not so much!” she cautioned after the fact. It was a lesson that would not have to be repeated.

He reduced his efforts and began to slide toward the station, twitching the direction of his gaze to cover it properly. The computer, he thought, must perform a tremendous task, for surely a completely different flow of macrons would be required for each change in direction — yet the transition was smooth. Probably at distances of many light-years such versatility diminished, until a view from the far side of the galaxy would be one direction only, take it or leave it.

It was beginning to work for him, and it gave him a feeling of power.

There was an odor.

“No, that’s my job,” Afra said, calling out to someone else. “You keep practicing, Ivo; I think you have the general idea. Try to work your way inside. I’ll be back in a moment.”

The smell and the sound told him: nature had summoned Brad, and Afra had a job of cleaning up and changing to do. He had to admit she had grit.

He thought of the right-hand control as a flute, and though there was no particular resemblance, control was suddenly easier. Now he could draw on his other talent, that peculiar digital dexterity and sense of tone musicians possessed. He shot through the wall of the torus, schooling himself not to wince, and stopped within the first hall. He reoriented, and was sure he was maintaining spatial stability, but the hall was tilting over steadily. He corrected — and lost it again.

Then he realized: the station was spinning, of course! He had to compensate not only for its motions in space, but for its internal rotation. He had to perform, in effect, a continuing spiral, matching velocities with whatever portion of the station he chose to view. An intricate adjustment, indeed!

He mastered it, driving his viewpoint around as though it were a racing car upon a treacherous track. Then he oriented for a “walk” along the hall. A twist superimposed upon the other adjustments, and he was facing the way he wanted; a tilt, and he was trotting down the hall toward Kovonov’s office.

The Russian was playing solitary sprouts. “If only I could talk to you, Kov!” Ivo exclaimed. “Just to ask you where that UN ship is, if there is one…”

“In Russian?” He jumped, but of course Kovonov had not spoken. Afra was back, her tone deceptively sweet.

Ivo felt the slow flush move up his face to the goggles and knew she was seeing it also, but he kept a steady image of the office. There had to be some way to make contact, and he was sure Kovonov was the key. The man had been too knowledgeable, too familiar with the necessary problems — perhaps because he had rehearsed this voyage himself. If anyone could communicate, across this barrier so much greater than that of language—

He concentrated on the board before the Russian. A vital message had been communicated through this board not so long ago, and perhaps another waited. Meanwhile, this was practice of another sort, since he had discovered in the course of his adjustments that size, too, could be directly controlled. Such adaptations would necessarily become more and more precise as the range increased, in future forays, and he felt he ought to have it down pat. This fine-tuning became an art; it was hardly accident that his musical ability was telling.

“What are you doing?” Afra demanded.

Ivo stifled an irritable reply. Surely she realized how delicate—

“Reexamining the portents, you might say,” Groton said, and Ivo realized with relief that Afra’s question had been directed at the older man.

“Your damned astrology tomes!” she exclaimed. “Your wife brought texts on art and music, but
you
had to bring—”

“Better than the pretty clothing
you
packed,” Groton replied, his tone showing his unperturbed smile. But the argument was on. Tension had to seek its sublimations.

And control came. Smoothly Ivo brought the focus down upon the sprouts-board, keeping it clear, magnifying the picture, until the dotted lines and loops loomed enormously across his field of vision. He centered on a single dot, making it swell up as though it were a planet. The illusion captured him, as illusions did; he was coming in for a landing, spaceship balanced. Time for the braking rockets…

“Doesn’t it seem just the merest trifle ridiculous to twiddle with squiggles on paper while there is so much of importance going on?” Afra inquired, and again Ivo had to confine a guilty start.

“I would prefer to call it the interpretation of the nuances of a horoscope,” Groton said calmly. He was better equipped, temperamentally, to fence with her than Ivo was. Beatryx must have gone back to the supply compartment, since she was not present to break this up. “I hardly consider it ridiculous to explore our situation and resources with the best instruments available. There is, as you point out, much of importance going on.”

“Are you seriously trying to equate the use of the macroscope with your occult hobby?”

“I do not consider astrology to be in any sense ‘occult,’ if by that term you mean to imply anything fantastic or magical or unscientific. In the sense that both are tools of immense complexity and potency, yes, I would equate astrology with the macroscope.”

“Let me get this quite straight. You make a representation of the constellations — only those within the narrow belt of the zodiac, ignoring the rest of the sky — and planets — those of Sol’s system exclusively — as they appear in Earth’s sky at the moment of a person’s birth… and from that mishmash you claim to be able to predict his entire life including accidents and acts of God, so that you can tell him — for a suitable fee — to watch out for trouble on a given day or to invest in a certain stock — and yet you claim there is nothing supernatural or at least unethical about this procedure?”

“What you describe is undoubtedly supernatural and possibly of dubious ethics, but it
isn’t
astrology. You are attributing erroneous claims to this science, then blaming it because it does not and can not make good on them.”

“Exactly what is your definition of astrology, then?”

“I can hardly define it in a sentence, Afra.”

“Try.” Did she think she had him?

“The doctrine of Microcosm and Macrocosm — that is, the concept of the individual as the cosmos in miniature, while the greater universe is total man in his real being.”

The dot-planet broke up into swirls and blobs. He was too close; the resolution of the chalk was not that fine. Soon he would have to center on one section of it, then on a subsection, and so on into the microcosm…

Doctrine of microcosm…

“A microscope!” he said, finding it excruciatingly funny. For the macroscope
was
, in this case, a microscope. An astonishingly versatile instrument. Could it be that each dot in a game of sprouts had its own gravitic aura that set up macronic ripples for him to pick up? Talk of sensitivity!

“What?” Afra sounded angry.

Oops. “Nothing.” Carefully, he reversed the action, and the scattered chalk coalesced. Now he was taking off from the planet, watching it reform into a distant dot that became a mere point of light against the black background of space. The other lines appeared, marking constellations of the night sky. Could Groton analyze them astrologically?

“All right,” Afra said. “Score one for you. You put me off again. But this time I’m not going to let you slip out of an honest discussion. I want to have your specific rationale for this foolishness.”

Nothing like handing him loaded dice, Ivo thought wryly — but he, too, was curious.

“Well, it is evident that there are certain objects in the universe,” Groton said gamely, “and that they are in constant motion, relative to Earth and to each other. That’s one reason we require the assistance of a computer to orient the macroscope. These masses, and their respective movements, interrelate considerably. That is, the sun carries its family of planets along with it and forces them into particular orbits, while the planets affect their satellites and even distort the orbits of other planets.”

“That is not precisely the way modern theory describes the situation, but for the sake of argument we’ll accept it. So granted. The Solar system interacts.” She sounded impatient, eager for the kill.

“Similarly, there are a number of human beings and other creatures on the Earth, and they relate to each other and interact in an almost impenetrably complex pattern. We merely draw a parallel to the apparent motions of the—”

“Now we come to it. Mars makes men warlike?”

“No! There is no causal connection. In astrology the Earth is considered to be the center of the universe, and the individual’s place of birth is the center of his chart. This is not at all contrary to astronomy, incidentally; it is just a modification of viewpoint, for our convenience.”

Just as, Ivo thought, he was now performing all kinds of clever manipulations to make his macroscopic viewpoint stable. It would be impossible to accomplish anything if he tried to orient on galactic or even Solar “rest.” The center of the universe had to be where the observer was.

He was now paying more attention to the dialogue than to the semiautomatic refinements of macroscopic control, but was jolted back to business. His image was gone! Had he lost touch?

No — Kovonov had merely removed the board. How easy to forget reality, to become involved, to begin to believe in one’s fancies, and to see the monster hand of the image as the hand of God, drawing away the firmament. He had to guard against personification; it could unhinge him.

He adjusted the image so as to watch Kovonov, life-sized. The man looked about almost furtively, then drew from his desk drawer a card. He set this on the table.

There was print on it. Skillfully now, Ivo centered on that print, clarified it, read it. It was not Russian!

S D P S

A message for him! Kovonov
was
trying to communicate!

After a minute the Russian put the card away and replaced the board. He resumed his sprouts doodling.

Could that be all? Where was the rest of it?

“So you claim the positions of the planets in the sky at the moment of my birth determine my fate, despite anything I might have to say about it.”

“By no means. I merely want you to concede the possibility of a relation between the configuration of the heavens at any particular moment and that of human affairs. It doesn’t have to be a
causal
relation, or even a consistent one. Just a relation.”

“You bastard,” she said without rancor, “you’ve got me halfway into your camp already.”

Bastard?
Ivo thought. Was this the innocent girl who had blushed so delicately at the very mention of S D P S? He certainly was seeing another side of her now.

“Of
course
there’s a relation!” she continued irately. “There’s a relation between a grain of sand at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and my grandfather’s gold tooth. But it is hardly significant — and if it were, what proof do you have that your astrology can clarify it, when science can not?”

“Astrology
is
a science. It is built upon the scientific method and endures by it. The discipline is as rigorous as any you can name.”

“Geometry.”

“All right. How do you ‘prove’ the basic theorems of geometry?”

“Such as A = ½ BH, for a triangle? You’re the engineer. There must be a dozen ways to—”

“One will suffice. You’re thinking of making constructs and demonstrating that your One-times-Base-times-Height figure is the sum of congruent pairs of right-angle triangles, or something like that, correct? But how do you prove congruence? Don’t tell me angle-side-angle or side-side-side; I want to know how, in the ultimate definition, you prove your proofs. What is your true basis?”