Probability Sun (20 page)

All this took most of the day. When he was finished, Kaufman went outside. The sun was just setting. He walked to the edge of the patrolled perimeter, and by then it was dusk. Three moons shone, one of them the small, close one—he’d forgotten its name—that moved so fast it looked retrograde in the sky. There were no clouds. The air had the lively, faintly sweet smell peculiar to World; maybe it came from the superabundance of flowers. Kaufman thought of Voratur’s magnificent, carefully tended gardens. Of the well-ordered Voratur household, everyone accepting his place and none of those places wretched or abused. Of Worlders’ pleasure in their fully shared rituals, where priest and rich merchant danced beside gardener and chamberpot cleaner. Shared reality.

Kaufman stared into the sweet-smelling dark a very long time.

*   *   *

When he arrived back at the meadow site, where the scientists and techs had camped all night, he found everything ready for the first test of the artifact. He’d almost missed it.

“Why are you so far ahead of schedule? And why wasn’t I told?” Kaufman demanded.

“We tried to comlink you; you were in the tunnels,” Rosalind Singh said. “It was a quick decision, Lyle, caused by the loss of an orbital probe. A meteor took it out. So we had to recalibrate to use a different probe, and it will be in position much sooner.”

“I see,” Kaufman said. Why did they need an orbital probe?

“Put on this s-suit,” she said, and so he did.

At least he understood the planned first test. The radiation maps and geologic computer sims had showed, or seemed to show, that setting prime one was a directed beam destabilizer, operant outside of a “dead-eye” area directly surrounding the artifact. The project team had taken detailed radiation readings of a cliff face across the meadow from the artifact, beyond the “eye.” Then they rotated the artifact so that setting prime one was in direct line with the cliff face. Robots were set to simultaneously depress both nipples in prime setting one, at whatever force was necessary to get a reaction.

Kaufman said, “What if the cliff face is too far away for the beam to reach?”

Capelo glanced at him impatiently. In his s-suit, helmet on, he reminded Kaufman of a thin hopping insect. “Then we set up closer targets, which we’ll do anyway to verify the inverse-square law attribute.”

“Of course,” Kaufman said.

Rosalind added kindly, “Elevation and horizon curvature mean that if the beam has deep penetration and very long range, it will pass through the cliff and then encounter nothing but space. Nothing else on World will be affected.”

“I see.”

“More—the timing has been determined exactly, so that if the beam travels at light speed, and if it does go through the cliff, and if it does have a very long range, it will hit an orbital probe. The probe will send back radiation measurements. But we don’t expect that to happen, because we think the directed beam has a short effective range.”

“All right,” Capelo said. “Three, two, one … now!”

Kaufman saw nothing—no shaft of light shooting out from the artifact, no sudden explosion on the cliff face. But the sensors and displays in front of the scientists went crazy.

“Got it!” Albemarle shouted. “Got the son-of-a-bitch, by God!”

Capelo didn’t even answer with sarcasm. The four scientists immediately fell into excited chatter, most of which was gibberish to Kaufman. Capelo was running equations on his handheld. Rosalind captained her large equipment, re-running the tests she had done yesterday. Kaufman waited patiently.

This time it was Gruber who remembered him. “It
is
a directed beam destabilizer, Lyle, just as we think. A narrow conical beam following the inverse square law. The close rock is fried. The sensors in the cliff face show the beam reaches that far, but weakly, although with no loss of effect from passing through the first rock. A meter into the cliff there is no effect at all, and also none on the orbital probe.”

“So as a weapon,” Kaufman said, “it has a very limited range.”

Clearly Gruber had forgotten the beam was being considered as a weapon. He was caught up in pure discovery. “Ja, ja, limited range. And not acting instantaneously. You can see from the displays—see?—that the radiation does not emit instantly. There is a time lag, and a rise, and a faster fall.”

Kaufman could see no such thing from the jumble of data before him. He considered the information carefully. Gruber jumped back into the argumentative chaos of the scientists.

Rosalind Singh was easier to distract from her data; she and her techs stood in front of more incomprehensible displays. She actually looked up as Kaufman approached. He said, “Is there any change in what you’re measuring, as a result of the test?”

“None.” She looked at him shrewdly. “Did any of those bloody sods tell you what I’m measuring?”

He smiled at her uncharacteristic language. She was just as excited as any of them. “No.”

“Then I will. We know that the inside of the artifact is mostly hollow. But there are unidentifiable structures somehow suspended inside in an extremely complex but partial manner, without direct connection to each other. These structures seem stable. They also seem to be without any mass, which seems impossible.

“The mathematical analyses describe the suspensions as a … a sort of complicated web. Each curve folds back on itself many times, a sort of multidimensional fractal. Computer breakdown further suggests a strange attractor—do you know what that is, Lyle?”

“No.”

“A region in which all sufficiently dose trajectories are attracted in the limit, but in which arbitrarily close points over time became exponentially separated.” Rosalind looked as if she realized this was no help, but didn’t stop to explain. “The Hausdorff dimension of the suggested fractal is one point two. That’s the same dimension as the galactic filling of the universe.”

“What does it all indicate?” Kaufman asked.

“We haven’t the faintest idea.”

“None?”

“None. This is science so different from our own that we are in pitch black. We are, as Darwin famously said, like dogs speculating on the mind of Newton. All I can tell you is that my measurements today after the test are the same as those yesterday before the test, and that both match the measurements Syree Johnson made on the first artifact. Adjusting for scale, of course.”

“Do you think moving the artifact into space will alter those measurements?”

“The first artifact was found in space. The natives thought it was a moon.”

Which, was no more definite an answer than any of the others had been.

The team spent the rest of the day confirming their data about setting prime one. Capelo assured him that they wouldn’t be ready to test setting prime two until the next day, and that they wouldn’t start without him. Kaufman didn’t put much faith in Capelo’s assurances; the physicist looked more and more like a grasshopper, thin and brown and hopping with inhuman impulses. In the heat of science, Capelo was quite capable of forgetting that Kaufman existed.

He felt a twinge of unmistakable envy.

Rosalind Singh also assured him that they would not test setting prime two without him. Rosalind he believed. So Kaufman again started back to base camp. Ann was bringing the nine Worlders back down this afternoon and he wanted to be there when the shuttle landed.

SIXTEEN

ABOARD THE
ALAN B. SHEPARD

T
he “sky” of the big room brightened, and Enli realized it was “morning.” Whatever that might mean on a metal flying boat in space. She didn’t think she had slept at all.

Sitting up, she studied her fellow Worlders. Four lay asleep. Pek Voratur, on the pallet in the corner, sat with a fixed expression that frightened her a little. His fleshy oiled face was gray as rain clouds. She approached tentatively; he neither moved nor spoke.

“Pek Voratur?”

Nothing.

“Pek Voratur!”

Slowly his head swiveled, his eyes focused. “Enli?”

“Yes.” She took his hand, marveling at her boldness. This was the richest trader on World. But at the moment he reminded her of her small nephew, Fentil, scared from a bad fall while climbing high in a tree.

“Enli … what has happened?”

She considered what to say. On the next pallet Asto Pek Valifin, cook’s assistant, listened intently.

“I think, Pek Voratur … I think reality has shifted up this high in space.”

“Highness does not shift reality. It is shared on the mountain villages of Caulily and deep in mines of Neerit. My agents have told me so.”

“Yes. But we are much higher than the mountains of Caulily. We are off World, you know.” She hesitated, unsure of how much to say. “Shared reality happens in our brains, you know.”

“The brain is the home of the soul, by the blooming of the First Flower.” He said it eagerly, seizing on the familiar. Enli had a sudden inspiration.

“Yes. And when the First Flower came down from Obri and unfolded her petals to create World, she created our souls. Our brains. And our shared reality. But now we are away from the World she unfolded for us. So reality is different.”

“Reality is reality! As well say that a stone is a flower!”

“Reality is different away from World,” Enli repeated. “World was unfolded by the First Flower. This place was not.”

She watched him consider this. It made sense to him … as much as anything here could.

He said, “Then if reality is different away from the gift of the First Flower, what is this reality here?”

“It is not shared.”

The listening Pek Valifin abruptly sat up on her pallet. “That is not possible!”

“It is so,” Enli said. “We are each alone in our reality here.” But that far, she saw, neither of them could yet go.

Pek Voratur had recovered himself. He was naturally a bold man, a great trader. He said to Enli, with all the tentativeness of a child testing the strength of sand houses, “I am Pek Malinorit, who keeps the pel house in Gofkit Jemloe.”

Enli understood. “No. You are not.”

They looked at each other. No head pain at the differences in their words. No head pain at Voratur’s saying what was not so. No head pain in Enli’s hearing it.

“Aaaiiieeeeee!” the cook’s assistant wailed. “We are unreal! We can never join our ancestors in peace and flowers!”

Ann Pek Sikorski suddenly crouched beside the terrified woman, holding her, addressing the entire room. “You are
not
unreal. Reality has shifted here. Enli understands. Say again what you said to Pek Voratur, Enli.”

How did Pek Sikorski know what Enli had said? Pek Sikorski had not—Enli was certain of this—been in the room then. She had entered later, and yet she knew what Enli had said to Pek Voratur. Enli felt no head pain over knowing this.

Enli said loudly, “When the First Flower came down from Obri and unfolded her petals to create World, she created our souls. Our brains. And our shared reality. But now we are away from the World she unfolded for us. So reality is different. World was unfolded by the First Flower. This place was not. In this place, away from the gift of the First Flower, reality is not shared.”

“Say it again,” Pek Sikorski said.

Enli repeated her words. She saw them bewilder everyone. Then make sense to everyone. Then bewilder them again, although this time without as much panic.

Was that not a kind of shared reality, too?

*   *   *

For many hours, people were afraid to do anything. They sat on their pallets. They ate the food Pek Sikorski brought, thanking her timidly. Occasionally someone exchanged a remark with someone else, commonplace remarks that spoke of what was clearly held in common: “The flying boat does not feel like it’s moving.” “The light comes from everywhere and nowhere.” “Tomorrow the Terrans will take us back to World.”

Finally, Pek Voratur stood. His face glistened, but his eyes in their folds of flesh were determined. “Pek Sikorski!” he called.

She had told them to simply call her name if they wanted her. Immediately a door opened and she was there. “Yes, Pek Voratur?”

“We have come very far to this flying boat of yours. We…” he faltered, went on, “…
I
would like to see more of it.”

“No!” cried the nervous gardener. “We must stay together.”

Pek Voratur’s hands trembled. “I would like to see more of the flying boat.”

Pek Sikorski looked surprised. “More? I … it isn’t…”

“There are trading bargains to be planted,” Pek Voratur said.

“Let me … let me talk to the head of the flying boat household. I will be back very soon.”

Into the silence of her departure Pek Voratur said, “Who will go with me to see more of the flying boat?”

No one answered.

“Who wishes to smell the blooms of this … this different … reality?” He got the words out, face still glistening with sweat, hands still trembling.

The cook’s assistant lay back on her pallet and pulled the blankets over her head.

“I will go,” said someone Enli had hardly noticed, the youngest of the eight Worlders, barely out of childfur. She wore the tunic of an unskilled cleaner, a short girl with lank brown neckfur and a too-round skull. But her black eyes sparkled.

“And I,” said Enli. Where did the girl get her courage? Enli herself had had so much time with the Terrans, so much time to grasp the idea of many unshared realities, an idea as slippery and odorous as fish. Yet here was this girl, with her eyes sparkling.

“I have forgotten your name,” Voratur said.

“Essa Pek Criltifor.”

“Anyone else?” said Voratur, too loudly. No one spoke. A woman put her hand to her head, wonderingly, as if she could not believe there was no head pain. Probably, Enli thought, she could not.

Pek Sikorski returned. “Come with me, Pek Voratur. And anyone else … Yes, Enli and … Essa? Come with me.”

She led them through the door, into the corridor Enli remembered from last night. It was very ugly: all straight lines and dull metal. They went through another door into a room so small that Enli thought there must be some mistake. This was an empty storage shed.