Sword of the Lamb (40 page)

He recognized, she knew, the signal in the change of her tone, but at first he didn’t move, still studying her with that solicitous interest.

At length, he said. “Thank you, Erica.”

“For what? My life story?”

“Yes.” Then he looked at his watch and rose. “But now I suppose you’re ready to delve further into
my
life story—at least as it applies to the workings of my mind.” A pause, then, “Will Val be assisting you today?”

A guarded question, but it was clear that he wasn’t anxious for Val Severin’s assistance, and that was unusual in the young men who passed through HS 1.

“No, not on this part of the screening.” Erica went to the console wall to set up the recording and mod-stim systems. He watched over her shoulder as she explained each operation. She’d have assuaged his curiosity under any circumstances, and she’d learned that it reduced his preconscious inhibitions when he knew exactly what to expect.

Finally, she said, “Well, now we’re ready to get to the workings of your mind. If you’ll just sit down and turn your chair this way.”

He started to comply, then hesitated, frowning.

“One more question, Erica—or, rather, a request. I’d like to find out more about Rich’s work here.”

It seemed natural enough; Alex had always been interested in Rich’s work. Yet she read a purpose behind it, something more than interest.

“Why?”

He responded with a self-conscious shrug. “I don’t know. Because it was Rich’s, I suppose.”

She let the evasion stand. “All his reports are in the memfiles. I’ll get you clearance later today.”

“Thank you.” He went to his chair and turned up his palms in mock helplessness. “Now—I’m at your mercy.”

She laughed. That would be the day the sun didn’t rise.

PERSONAL FILE: E. RADEK CASE NOTES: 27 JULY 3253

SUBJECT: ALEX RANSOM

Alex’s screening is progressing faster than I anticipated, considering his resistance to conditioning and aversion to drugs. He’s recovering physically, but still suffers insomnia. I’ve had some success under Level 2 conditioning in reaching the sources of his nightmares, but no success with Adrien Eliseer. A cathexis exists there, and I doubt it’s susceptible to manipulation short of Level 4, and I’m reluctant to attempt anything so drastic.

Despite this one negative factor, I’m entirely satisfied with his acceptability. However, my time with him may be limited now. The Phoenix has been struck twice by lightning in two unusual recruits; first Alex Ransom, and today a young man from another extreme of the Concord’s social spectrum—an Outsider. His name is Jael, and he comes to us from Helen. We have little background information, but Harv Vandyne of the Helen chapter recommended screening. I’ve decided to take Jael under personal supervision, too, at least for the analytic screening. Dr. Hamlin can begin the objective tests, which will give me more time with Alex.

“I have a double surprise for you today,” Erica said, looking back at Alex as they left the lift. “A reward of sorts after your grueling week in HS 1.”

He didn’t comment, perhaps because he was too intent on their destination. The door was only a few paces down the corridor; the door marked MATTER TRANSMITTER: TERMINAL 1. It was a small room dominated by a plasteel cubicle two meters in height, a meter and a half square. The side toward them was open, but the other sides and the roof were braced with dense, ominously humming metal coils. There was just enough room at one side of the chamber for the control console and the tech seated in front of it, a man of middle age who gave her a warm smile, and Alex a curious scrutiny.

She said, “Good afternoon, Chan. Are you clear to give us a ride to the surface?”

“The park? Sure, Dr. Radek.” He faced the console, his fingers moving deftly across the controls. “Just step into the chamber.”

They did, Alex still offering no comment, and as she expected, he was notably cool about his first MT trans. Outwardly, at least. Like the Second Gens, who had all but grown up with the MT and took it very much in stride. But to Erica, it would always seem something close to a miracle to stand in this humming box that seemed to vibrate with unfathomed power on a frequency almost beneath the range of her senses, then that curious inward jar—a sensation she’d never been able to define because it was so fleeting—and suddenly to find herself elsewhere, to feel the dispersive wind of that materialization.

The elsewhere now was the surface of the island, and the hum vanished to be replaced by the distant rumbling of surf, the MT chamber was replaced by a canopy of lacy foliage with a heavy, sweet scent, and the sunlight filtering through it was momentarily blinding.

Alex looked around a little dazedly, then sent her a slanted smile. “That’s . . . quite a surprise.”

She laughed and stepped down off the small platform and followed a narrow path that led them out of the foliage.

“Come, Alex. There’s more.”

They crossed an open area of dune netted with a low-growing, grayish plant with spidery tendrils. When they reached the crest of the dune, she stopped. Beyond a span of white beach, the sea lay before them, the sun glinting on the molten curves of the breakers, the white foam dancing jubilantly. She heard him catch his breath, but he didn’t speak, and she understood his silence. It was a vista that asked a little time, a little silence; a vista that was for Terrans poignantly connotative.

She knew some of the memories this sun-gleamed scene would call up for him. He would watch the people lounging on this beach, especially the children, and remember another beach on another planet; remember childhood days at the Woolf beach estate learning the water and sand secrets of the sea with Rich.

Erica always enjoyed introducing new members to the Society’s private spa, and inevitably she found herself seeing it through their eyes, and through the eye of memory, remembering her first taste of the alien, yet paradoxically familiar beauties of the Selamin Sea and Pollux’s surface. The light wind carried scents that were almost familiar, but still strange; the cloud-studded sky seemed a spring Terran sky, except for the pinkish cast and for the pale crescent of Castor in its “new moon” phase—too eerily large a moon for the Terran eye accustomed to Luna—and except for the beacon of Alpha Centauri B bright on the horizon. The flora of the island had a tropical look, but the wind was cool, although Fina was in its summer; a mild summer by Terran standards at this latitude, and Pollux’s twelve-degree axis tilt made seasonal changes almost imperceptible. She closed her eyes, listening. There were plants in the dense foliage behind them that sang in the wind, falling into delightful accidental harmonies, but that song wasn’t meant for human ears; it was a siren song to entice small, flying, insect-like creatures to their deaths.

She heard the distant shouts of children dancing with the waves and smiled. This area of the island was veined with paths and sprinkled with picnic areas, and it always seemed perilously foolhardy to new members. Fina was assumed to be uninhabited by the Concord, and these obvious signs of human existence
would
be dangerous except for the infrared and visual frequency camouflage screens. But, like all new members, Alex would come to understand that this apparent extravagance was a psychological necessity for human beings confined indefinitely to underground life.

Now he looked up at Castor’s crescent, then back to the sea.

“Do you ever get used to it? Everything seems so familiar until you take a close look or a deep breath.”

She laughed. “The oxygen ratio is lower than you’re accustomed to, and so is the gravity level, of course. No, you never get used to it. I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to adjust to a
really
alien environment.”

He turned, surveying the exotically forested slopes of Fina’s Mount Torbrek.

“How large is the island?”

“About ten kilometers long and five across. It’s a remnant of an old marine uplift, but most of the islands to the southwest are volcanic. There—” She pointed to her right. “See that plume of smoke on the horizon? That’s Orifel. It’s part of an archipelago stringing off the Comarg Peninsula. Pollux as a whole has more volcanism in progress than Terra. Makes for colorful sunsets.”

He smiled at that. “And earthquakes?”

“Yes, and tidal waves. But Fina—our community, I mean—was built to withstand disasters of that kind. At least as far as is humanly possible.” She pulled in a deep breath as the wind gusted off the breakers carrying a faint salt scent with it; that more than any other was closest to a Terran scent. Then she started down the bank to the beach. “Come, we may as well get some sand in our shoes.”

They began walking along the bank, Alex letting her determine their course. She chose to avoid the concentration of people near the water, preferring to maintain their privacy.

“We’re at midtide now,” she noted. “At high tide the beach is virtually nonexistent, and at low tide it’s a kilometer’s walk to the water.” Then she stopped, distracted by a movement in the surf off the farthest point of land. “Look, Alex—see those long-necked things out in the water?”

He followed the direction of her pointing finger toward a cluster of slender, weaving objects that with their bulbous ends always reminded her of small-headed, long-necked beasts. He frowned slightly, apparently impressed with the size of the organisms, if nothing else.

“What are they?”

“Now, here’s a bit of Terracentrism. They’re called kelp, and in fact they
are
closer to plants than animals. But they’re carnivorous. When I first saw them, I was convinced it was a herd of plesiosaurs, but in that I betray my own Terracentricity.”

She resumed her slow pace, and he walked along beside her, hands clasped loosely behind his back.

“Erica, how long are you going to put me off with Polluxian natural history?”

She sent him an oblique glance. “Aren’t you interested in your fellow inhabitants on the island?”

“Intrigued, but at the moment I’m more interested in what brought me within sight of them.”

They reached a pile of sea-worn boulders and she sat down on one, waiting for him to seat himself on another.

“The matter transmitter is a reality, Alex, and it will be our strongest lever on the Concord, as a weapon, a threat, and once we force the Directors to the bargaining table, as an offering.”

He was silent for a while, apparently fascinated with a spring-ball game going on near the water’s edge.

“I suppose information on the matter transmitter is restricted to full-fledged members.”

“Yes, but you
are
a full-fledged member now.”

He glanced at her, then shrugged. “Perhaps I need some sort of initiation rite to convince me of that.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a proper initiation rite. As for the MT, I’ll tell you what I can, but Andreas is the only one qualified to explain it fully.”

“I’m not interested in how it works. Physics isn’t my forte. I want to know its capabilities in practical terms—and its limitations.”

“Its capabilities are potentially enormous, but you’re right, there are limitations. We’re limited now in terms of equipment and energy. Still, we’ve had MTs in operation for fifteen years and can trans up to a ton, but we use it primarily for moving people. We have stationary terminals scattered around both Systems, and a return terminal can be established almost anywhere by carrying or leaving a homing device or ‘fix.’ ”

Alex smiled faintly. “That explains those stories about Phoenix agents vanishing into nothing.”

“Some of them, at least. Some SI agents can achieve nearly the same effect with disguise, but the MT has been quite useful in escape and rescue operations. Another limitation is the necessity of the fix. We can’t transmit to an ‘unfixed’ point; at least, not people. The coordinates could be off a fraction, and we’d trans someone into a wall or piece of furniture, which is highly fatal.”

He nodded. “But in transing something like explosives you wouldn’t have to be so concerned with exactness. How unwieldy is this homing device?”

“It’s very compact. Usually, two are embedded in the soles of the shoes. They’re shielded on the bottom and set up a conical field extending upward about two and a half meters. There’s some leeway within the field, but it’s a good idea to have your feet firmly under you when you trans.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “With more powerful energy sources, would there be any practical limit to what you could . . . trans?”

“No. Of course, no matter how you move an object, it takes a specified amount of energy to move it across a specified distance. The MT doesn’t reduce the basic energy requirement, but the movement is instantaneous, which saves the time spent on acceleration and deceleration for SynchShift. But more important, it means you don’t have to package the object to protect it from space vacuum, radiation, etc. A Selasid First Line freighter—empty—weighs about a thousand kilotons. Think how much energy you’d save if you didn’t have to move a package weighing that much with the goods.”

He smiled, and there was an introspective cast to it. “What about . . . moving objects beyond Centauri?”

“That’s Andreas’s real hope for the MT. The stars. He’s thinking in terms of exploration primarily, but the MT could also make colonization more feasible.” Then she sighed. “It’s one of those inventions that will change the course of history, Alex, and the face of civilization. I’m not really sure I’ll like all the changes. Of course, I won’t live to see all of them, and maybe it’s a sign of old age, but I’m rather glad of that.”

“Erica, old age is something you don’t have to worry about yet. But what about the MT for commercial transport?”

She smiled at that compliment and at the impatience that impelled the question so quickly on its heels.

“With more efficient energy sources—beamed solar power, for instance—the MT would be much cheaper than present modes of commercial transport. At least for distances over ten thousand kilometers. Under that, it’s either a luxury or an unavoidable necessity. That’s really something of a relief for us; it will have no appreciable effect on Robek’s Planetary Transystem franchises, and Robek is one of the liberal Houses we try to protect.”

“What do you mean by its having no appreciable effect?”

“I mean it won’t offer Robek any real competition. You see, we intend to offer the MT to the Concord in the bargaining process, but we’ll put a precondition on it. The MT will be controlled exclusively by an agency of the Concord; we won’t let it fall into the hands of any single House.”

A speculative pause, then, “That would put Orin Selasis in a very uncomfortable position. The MT
will
offer him real competition.”

“That’s been an important factor in our calculations.” She gave a short laugh. “And the MT won’t just make Selasis uncomfortable, it will bankrupt him.”

“But not yet. You aren’t ready to take this to the bargaining table yet.”

“No. We aren’t ready for the military confrontation that must preface negotiations, and beyond that, the MT has . . . other limitations.”

“What are they?”

“Well, we haven’t found a way of negating high-energy field interference. We can’t risk transing people within five meters of a shock screen, for instance. That’s a minor drawback, though; we usually manage to work around it.”

“And the
major
drawbacks?”

“There’s only one. The MT presently functions only within Einsteinian spatial limits. Andreas hasn’t worked out a way of tying it into Drakonian equations. I can’t explain the mathematics of it, but at this point transmissions fall under Einsteinian limits. A trans to Terra now would take four and a half years. That’s not only impractical, but the transing limit for organic life is a maximum of sixty seconds before cellular damage can occur. The negative effects aren’t cumulative, by the way, but when we trans people, we play it safe with a ten-second limit.”

Erica saw the slight sag of his shoulders.

“That does constitute a major problem.”

“It isn’t hopeless. Andreas Riis is a Drakonian physicist—the best since Orabu Drakon himself—and he has two more on his staff who may not be his equals, but they aren’t numbskulls: James Lyden and Caris Bruce. Andreas could get a breakthrough any day, or any year; these things can’t be scheduled. We can only push the program to the full extent of our resources. And hope.”

A sigh escaped him. “Hope. My alpha and omega. Have you any more surprises like the MT hidden away?”

“It’s the main attraction. We have a number of minor attractions—inventions and improvements on existing devices or processes. Enough for each of the Houses in the Court to be benefited by at least one. They’ll be part of the package we’ll offer if we can bring the Concord to the bargaining table. It’s quite an impressive list.”

“I’m sure it is, but you’d be hard pressed to equal the MT, both as a threat and an offering—
if
you can make it function within Drakonian spatial limits.”