The Infinity Link (31 page)

(You don't want to talk about it now. Would you rather be alone?)

Even that decision seemed to require deep contemplation. She shook her head, breathed deeply, nodded. (I'll speak with you later.) The ship's bridge turned, shrank, dwindled in the distance. Time was needed to think. And perhaps to sleep.

* * *

She was floating among the stars, her toes nestled in the tangled grassy network that was the ship. She felt Kadin slip alongside, joining her in watching the stars. Perhaps he, too, was considering dilemmas and choices.

It was remarkably peaceful here, a quarter of a year's travel for light from her sun, a fifth of the way out to the Oort cloud. The deceleration phase was over; they were moving sunward again, picking up speed. She had half a mind to turn back toward the stars.

(Would you like to join me for a drink in the commons?) Kadin said, his words touching her thoughts like starlight. (I think you'll like what I've done.)

(Yes?) They fell slowly, like sand through an hourglass, back into the spacecraft, into the illusion. It was a saucer-shaped lounge, with a fountain and pool and sculpted walls. On one side, a bay window looked out into the channeled river of the Milky Way. Mozy and Kadin stood looking out. A twinkle of interior reflection shone on the glass.

(Magnificent,) she murmured. She turned to the fountain. (What an attractive hologram.)

(Hologram?) he said. He stepped to the poolside and plunged his hand into the chuckling fountain. The water glittered, spilling around his hand. He flung a handful at Mozy.

She gasped as the icy drops caught her in the face and ran down her neck. She darted to the pool and, laughing, sent a spray flying toward Kadin.

He circled the pool and caught her hands. (I have you,) he said.

The touch of his hands stunned her into silence. His touch: hot and cool. He stared at her inquisitively. (Do you like it?) he asked, squeezing her hands.

She squeezed back, and nodded, wondering, Will he kiss me again? There was a rushing sensation in her head, in her stomach. It was as if the mere assumption of human form brought her back to some mysterious center, to a sorting of memories and feelings, and to a shifting of the tensions between rationality and emotion. A feeling of pleasure and anticipation grew as she met Kadin's eyes. A giddiness.

He drew her to a couch. She floated after him, and they sat, knees touching. She still felt as though she were floating. He inclined his head toward her and said, (Shouldn't we experience such human sensations as we are able?)

Mozy could not breathe.

Before either of them could say another word, there was a rippling of crimson light around the room, and Mother Program's voice informed them: (START OF TRANSMISSION. YOU HAVE A VISITOR ON THE BRIDGE.)

The electric motors hummed, the tires sizzled on the pavement as Jonders drove through the light evening rain. Marie pointed the way, and he pulled into the university's west parking lot.

In the auditorium lobby, they shook the rain off their coats. "Half the faculty's here," Marie murmured, waving to various friends. Jonders nodded, uncomfortably aware of how much Marie's faculty friends seemed like strangers to him now. This was his first real night out in months. He wasn't sure what to expect; it was to be a performance of a symphony called Pale Century, by the twentieth-century composer Moonglow. It felt odd to be standing in the lobby of a concert hall in jacket and tie, listening to people make conversation. He hoped he hadn't forgotten how to enjoy himself.

They found their seats in the center section. Jonders smiled dutifully to the people on either side, and tried not to think too much. That was easier said than done.

The auditorium darkened finally. Timpani rumbled, and the stage above the orchestra exploded with crimson light. French horns called out the opening of the symphony, and the rest of the orchestra joined. The fan lasers bathed the audience, stage, and orchestra pit with changing colors. The opening theme crescendoed, diminished, and the laser light collapsed into an enormous hologram.

Jonders blinked. It was an image of old New York City, a skyline in monochrome red light. As the music began to build again, the image of the city slowly rotated; and as he relaxed against his headrest, the hypnosensorium effects began to take hold, and he felt himself floating. Soon it was not the city turning, but the audience, orbiting over the city as it was a half century ago. His nostrils caught the reek of smog rising into the sky. Rainbow colors rippled across the skyline as the music gathered energy, and he felt himself being transported into a dream.

The first movement of the symphony trumpeted the magnificence of human works; but in the second movement, a theme of destruction emerged, a reminder of the impermanence of those creations. The kettledrums rumbled and the violins scatted, and the holo of the city shivered and caved in upon itself . . . and in its place came an image of the Grand Canyon under a setting sun, and the audience floated over the canyon into the sunset. Gradually, by subtle shifts, the sun grew small and pale and pink . . . and it was a canyon of Mars, not Earth, to which the orchestra sang. Jonders felt the achingly thin air in his nostrils and smelled the dust—and saw, crossing the magnificent desolation, the tiny figure of a man.

The next movement swept in with such energy that he momentarily forgot the human figure. But something drew his eye back to it. There was something odd about that figure, stumbling across an empty chasm,
in the air, half a mile over the canyon floor
. It was a lost, confused-looking man, out of sync with the harmonies and the rhythms, and it was such a strange sight that he could not take his attention from it, despite the power of the music. The image shifted beneath the figure, and then Jonders lost the thread of the music altogether, because the man did not change with the rest of the image, and there was something terribly familiar about him.

Dizzily, Jonders lifted his head from the headrest, and the sensorium effect subsided. The floating sensation was replaced by the weight of his body in the seat; in front of him now, not beneath him, was a tilted hologram of a Martian landscape; the air in his nostrils was the familiar stuffy air of the concert hall. The music rose and fell, powerful and rhythmical. Jonders squinted, trying to see who the figure was.

Recognition hit him like a sour apple in the stomach. It was Hoshi Aronson up on the stage—and something was wrong.

Jonders glanced around. People on all sides were totally absorbed in the program. He bent and hissed in Marie's ear, "Have to go out! Meet you afterward!" Marie blinked, half dreaming, and her eyes drifted to glance at him. He rose from his seat and made his way to the aisle. No one seemed to notice his passing.

From the aisle, he scanned the stage. Hoshi was no longer visible. The hologram had changed; now there was a mountain scene in full color, with swiftly tumbling streams. Anxiously, Jonders searched the wild landscape. He spotted Hoshi up to his waist in shrubbery, moving jerkily with the music. Jonders hurried to the edge of the orchestra pit and crouched, trying to see the physical stage under the holographic explosion. He spotted steps to one side and mounted them cautiously, keeping low, wary of the lightbeams crossing his face. The fan lasers were ghostly bright, and he prayed that they wouldn't injure his eyes. He kept his back to the projectors, aware that, like Hoshi, he was now a part of the program.

When he reached Hoshi, the bewildered man was stumbling away in complete disorientation. "Hoshi," he hissed. His words were washed away by the music. He seized Hoshi's arm and pulled him toward the edge of the stage. All he could see was a fog of blazing lights, and the ghost of a mountainside. Hoshi showed no sign of recognition, but stumbled along beside him. They passed through a waterfall—and a curtain caught them full in the face. Beating his way along the curtain, Jonders found his way off the stage into darkness, and then felt the frame of a door. Behind him, the symphony thundered. He struggled to push the door open and dragged Hoshi after him into a hallway.

The hallway lights were cold and bright. The door slammed closed behind them, muting the music. "Hoshi, are you all right?" he murmured, steadying the young man against the wall.

Hoshi stared at him with a face tight with pain. His eyes were jerking from side to side. He seemed to be having trouble focusing. "Hoshi, it's Bill Jonders! Can you see me?
What's wrong?"

Hoshi shook his head, grimacing, like a dog with an irritation in its ear. There was something wrong with Hoshi's visual implants, Jonders realized, kicking himself for not catching on sooner. No wonder he was stumbling around. The sonic medallion was missing from his chest, so his depth perception was gone, as well. He needed the help of a neurosurgeon, and quickly. Jonders could not even guess what this might be doing to Hoshi's neuronal system.

He reached into his jacket pocket for his phone. He thumbed it on and first called for an ambulance. Then he started to call Sandaran Link Security, hesitated, and instead called Joe Kelly, the security chief, at home. Once assured that Kelly was on his way over, he spoke to Hoshi again. "Can you describe to me what's wrong, Hoshi?"

"What?" Hoshi gasped.

"Hoshi
!
It's Bill."

"I—can't see—hear—concert—something ringing—buzzing." Hoshi staggered forward, then slid sideways, crumpling to the floor before Jonders could catch him.

Jonders helped him sit up with his back to the wall. "The concert's over, Hoshi," he said, crouching over him protectively. "We can help you now. It's over."

Jet Propulsion Laboratory was a quiet place, shabby in a distinguished sort of way. The building's last refurbishment had occurred just before the turn of the century, and the intervening years showed in the tarnish and dirt, and in the unfilled cracks in the walls and ceilings. Still, Payne discovered, the place was not without pride. Display cases commemorated JPL's place in the history of space exploration, with models and photos of Surveyor's journey to the Moon, Viking's to Mars, Voyager's and Galileo's to Jupiter and the other gas planets, Argonaut's to Pluto/Charon, and others. JPL was now primarily an educational facility; most major exploratory spacecraft were controlled from the labs at GEO-Three and GEO-Four.

Payne had time to get a feel of the place while he waited for Dr. Ellen Chang to finish with her student appointments. He poked about, reading plaques, thinking about the history this place had seen. Eventually the receptionist pointed the way to Dr. Chang's office, down the corridor. He found her door open, and rapped on the jamb. Chang turned in her chair. She was a stocky woman, with dusty black hair and Asian features. She brushed back a lock of hair and said, "Have a seat, Mr. Payne."

"I appreciate your seeing me," he said, shaking her hand.

"After your coming all the way out here, I could hardly say no," Chang answered. "You're a determined man."

Payne shrugged with a smile, opened his briefcase, and took out both a voice and note recorder. Chang leaned forward at once, raising a hand in objection. "Please. No recordings."

Payne looked up in surprise. "I won't use them without your permission. They're only for accuracy—"

She shook her head vigorously. Her voice was strained. "No. I'm sorry. I'll have to end the interview right now, if you insist."

He gazed at her, startled by the intensity of her protest. "Okay," he said, with a self-conscious shrug. He put the voice recorder away. "May I take notes?" She nodded, relaxing a little, and he settled back with the note recorder on his lap.

"Now what can I do for you, Mr. Payne?" she said, her composure restored.

You could tell me what it is that's made you afraid to talk, he thought; but what he said was, "What can you tell me about the
Father Sky
space mission?"

She hesitated, and seemed to be reflecting. "What exactly would you like to know about it?"

"Anything you can tell me. The mission's purpose, what it's discovered so far, what new technologies are involved, who's responsible for its operation. That sort of thing."

"You can get all that from the Space Agency," she said. "I'm sure you already have."

"Yes," he said. "But their descriptive packets seem . . .
incomplete
, in view of other, unofficial information that I've received." He paused, waiting for a reaction. There was none, so he proceeded to sketch the suspicions he had gathered from Alvarest and Gerschak. He took care to dissociate Gerschak from his obtaining of her name.

Chang listened politely, but impassively. When he finished, she said, "I'm not sure what I can do for you. As I told you before, I can't give you much information." She gazed at him as she might at a student who had just asked an unanswerable question.

"Could you deny what I've just described?" Payne asked.

"I can't deny it. Nor can I confirm it."

"Because you don't know? Or because you can't say?"

She stared at him silently for a moment. "Because I'm not at liberty to talk about it," she said finally.

A twinge of nervousness was creeping into her voice, Payne realized. Was there something she
wanted
to tell him, but was afraid to tell? He had to be very careful not to push too hard. He cleared his throat. "Suppose we were to talk about the kinds of restrictions that exist on what you can say. Could you explain that to me—what you can or can't talk about—and why?"

"That's a large subject," Chang said. Her eyes seemed to soften somewhat. "I suppose I could, in general terms. Would that help you? I don't really know what you want."

Payne turned his palms up. "Hard to say. My report is far from complete, at this point. In view of the subject matter, anything you can tell me might be helpful."

"Very well." Chang sat back, placing an index finger to one corner of her mouth. She immediately appeared more relaxed, as she settled into the role of a teacher. Her voice quickened. "Let's talk about secrecy, then. Secrecy in government, and in the scientific community. This is something that any graduate student could tell you about."