Vectors (7 page)

No, of course I'm not going to translate it. If there is an increase in the sale of Latin dictionaries in the 1980's, I'll know part of the reason.

POWER FAILURE

The window had been wedged open at the bottom, about six inches. Outside, a great bed of lupins was attracting every bee in the area. Summer bird-songs and the smell of new-mown hay, slipping in through the open window, were an irresistible distraction, and the dark-haired ten-year old sitting at the desk near the back of the room had drifted off, deep in his own thoughts. The lesson went on, dryly analyzing sentence structure.

"Carl! Pay attention. I asked you to do the next example." The teacher was a slim, grey-haired woman in her late forties. Her tone was firm, but tolerant and good-humored. She had seen many children and understood the lure of blue skies and warm grass too well to be surprised by summer dreaming.

Startled, the boy looked down at his book. As he hesitated a triple chime sounded from the big television screen set above the center of the classroom podium.

The teacher looked at the wall clock. "Saved by the bell, eh, Carl? Close your books now, everyone." she said as the screen began to glow. "I'll be starting with you tomorrow, Carl—so make sure you know where we are by then."

The television screen was alive, and the voice from it cut into her final words.

"Science two, lesson twelve. Hello, children, Redman's blessing be on all of us. In today's lesson we will learn more about
atoms.
Yesterday we learned the basic fact, that all matter is made up of atoms. Perfectly hard, indivisible particles, so tiny that they cannot be seen, even with our best microscopes.

"Nothing smaller than an atom can ever exist. They are the building blocks from which everything in the world is made. Today we will talk about the way that atoms can combine to make other objects, called
molecules.
Here is a picture of a simple molecule, containing just three atoms . . ."

The teacher glanced again at the boy by the window. His day-dream had gone, and he was watching and listening with total absorption. She looked for a few moments longer, then took out the monthly Church report and made the first check in the red square on Carl Denning's file. The separation of sheep and goats had begun. Behind her on the screen Dalton's atomic theory and its consequences continued. Final truth, unarguable, blessed by the Church of Redman.

". . . discovered three hundred years ago, in 1807, by the great scientist Davy. Write down these formulae and memorize them tonight. Caustic soda: one atom of sodium, one atom of oxygen, and one atom of hydrogen. It is written like this . . ."

* * *

" ' . . . the world . . . hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; and we are here as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.'

"Matthew Arnold's despairing words have more truth now than when they were first written, a hundred and fifty years ago. What kind of world have we fashioned—where one fifth of the species we call
homo sapiens
choose suicide as preferable to life, where a fourth of the remainder are undergoing treatment for mental illness, where the rest need tranquillizing drugs to drag them from one day to the next?

" 'The world was not always thus; and, I assert, the world need not be thus. Happiness
is
possible, not for the few but for the many. Not by mysticism, but by the application of clearly defined procedures . . .'—from 'Fundamental Attitudes in Human Society, 1625 to 2025,' by Jahangir Redman."

* * *

At seventeen, Carl found life more enjoyable and interesting. With grammar lessons far in the past, school work was a constant stimulation. But sometimes, like today, it could also be bewildering.

There were no outside distractions as he struggled with his analysis, only a faint sound of the wind. Winter was in command, deep snow lay outside, and the windows were opaque with delicate patterns of ice crystals. Each year it was a little colder, the summers a little shorter. Carl had learned the reason in his classes on meteorology. The solar constant was down by a tiny amount and the earth had moved into a minor ice age, like the one in the seventeenth century. They had looked at the old Brueghel paintings of snowy European winters, and studied the centuries-long changes in solar activity.

The teachers had explained it in detail, history as a function of climatic change. Here, a small decrease in the sun's output had frozen out the Viking colonies in south-west Greenland, stopping the westward exploration and leaving a place in history for Columbus. Here, harsh winters had driven the Indian tribes south from the Dakotas, to a permanent resettlement in milder climes. Further back, a period of high solar activity and the existence of a land bridge across the Bering Strait had made possible the first migrations into North America.

The chill now was mainly psychological, the feeling of living in a bleak era. The growing season was shorter by five days than fifty years ago, but the prediction was for a steady increase in solar activity now, and warmer weather in another twenty years. There was no problem with power. Electricity was abundant and cheap, and the rare frosts helped to keep summer insect pests under control.

Carl's problems today did not concern the weather. He paced the corridor outside the lab, waiting for the free question period. At seventeen, he had reached full height but not weight, a tall, pale, intense youth, thin-limbed and angular. A beard, dark as his hair, had already progressed to the point where he shaved twice a week—secretly, to avoid the jibes of his class-mates. The Church's selection processes had brought Carl to this school after four previous screenings. He knew that his fellow-students were more inquisitive, quicker and less receptive to pat answers, but he had yet to correlate that with the Church edicts that each year decided his school.

"All right, Carl, what's the problem today?" Mr. Nielsen showed no trace of his Scandinavian ancestry. He was small, balding, hook-nosed and pointed-chinned, and his teaching matched his appearance—dry, precise, and brooking no argument. He had no time for uncertainty. The inside of his mind held no shades of grey, just black and white facts and an invincible confidence in their correctness.

"I'm having trouble understanding the recent work, sir. At least, I understand it in pieces, but I can't put them together."

Carl saw Nielsen's look of incomprehension. He knew he had to make this as clear as he could. "You see, last year we did Newton's laws and Newtonian dynamics, and that made perfect sense."

Mr. Nielsen raised his eyebrows. "I should hope so, Denning. It is, as I hope you realize, one of the great truths on which the wonderful edifice of modern science is erected."

His tone was critical and unsympathetic. Carl hurried on. "Yes, sir, and this year we did Maxwell's equations, and they made sense too. At least, I thought they did. Then yesterday I started to look at what happens if you accelerate something up to the speed of light—just keep on applying a constant force, and use Newton's second law of motion. The answers you get are ridiculous, if you believe that Maxwell's equations can be used to describe the behavior of light waves."

He stopped. Mr. Nielsen was frowning and shaking his head. "You are being caught in an old trap, Denning. Newton's laws and Maxwell's equations both form part of the eternal truths of the world. But the attempt to
combine
them, as you did, is a meaningless exercise. Why should you be able to do so?"

Carl flushed. "If they are all part of Nature, they must be consistent with each other, mustn't they?"

Nielsen smiled. "They are consistent, and fit God's great scheme. But there is no reason why you should be able to apply results from one to the other, as you seem to be trying to do." He settled back in his seat, then spoke again in kinder tones. "You see, Carl, truths may be distinct and absolute, standing in their own right. You must go and think about these things in more depth, until the relationship of our knowledge to the world we live in becomes more clear to you."

After Carl had left the room, dejected and thoroughly confused, Mr. Nielsen reached into his desk and took out the Church Manual. It was as he had thought. The situation called for a full report, in person. He put on boots, a heavy coat, scarf, gloves and hat, and prepared to slog uphill through the snow to the bleak Mission, outlined above against the gun-metal sky.

* * *

"Sound and video on. Mr. Nielsen, please give us your report."

The speaker was heavy-set and black-bearded, clad in the white uniform of the priesthood. He and his companion, a slight, fair-haired man, listened to the report, then asked detailed questions. Nielsen, his fingers too cold to unbutton his coat, and shivering in the unheated, stone-floored room, answered with chattering teeth. At last he was allowed to go, back into the harsh, gathering darkness of the late afternoon.

As he left, the fair-haired priest locked the door and rubbed his hands together. "Damn cold today, Jason. Get the infra-red on in here, before I freeze. Let's hope Nielsen doesn't get frostbite on the way back to the school."

His companion threw a wall switch and the radiant heaters concealed in the roof beams came on at once. "Don't worry about him," he replied. "Get me some coffee, and let's have some brandy in it. Though I must admit it would be a nuisance to have to replace Nielsen, he's so perfect for the job he does.
He's
convinced he's doing the most important job in the world. Anyway, Luis, what did you think of his report?"

The fair-haired Luis turned from the wall cupboards, holding two steaming mugs in one hand and a bottle in the other. "Denning's coming on fast, Jason. Too fast, if you ask me. We'll have to recruit him a year early, by the look of it. He's beginning to get a smell of relativistic effects, and we don't want him spreading any of those ideas around the town." He poured hefty shots of brandy into the two mugs. "He won't accept Nielsen's views for much longer."

Jason took one of the mugs and sipped it thoughtfully. "Pity, really. I'd like to have Denning finish this course before we take him—it's an awkward time to have to begin training him at the Center." He rubbed at his black beard with a powerful, square hand. "How about if we make sure he sees a burning?—that should keep him quiet for a while."

"None scheduled here for a few months. Hold on a minute, Jason." Luis went to the wall computer and keyed the event data service. "There's one two weeks from now in Lukon. That should be near enough–it's not more than forty miles north. We'll need to fix up a reason for Denning to be up there."

"Easy enough. We'll have him visit the science museum there and arrange for him to get stranded." He placed his mug back on the wall table. "Your turn to make the arrangements. And I'll bet you one thing, Luis. I bet we have to do something more about Denning before the year is over, burning or no burning. I've seen him, and I think he's moving fast enough to reject all the usual answers long before that. We'd better face it, Luis, Denning's a good deal smarter than either of us."

Luis scowled. "He's not eighteen yet. I'll take that bet. I don't think he's all that unusual."

As he spoke, the two men entered the elevator that carried them below ground level to the electronic heart of the Mission. They didn't give a second thought to Nielsen, still struggling back downhill to the school. Outside, the temperature was dropping steadily, already well below freezing and heading down for thirty below. The night was clear, with an ice halo circling the full moon. The radio messages from the Mission went out to the northern mountains, where Vega burned blue-white above the Lukon Pass, and on to the Processing Center beyond.

* * *

"Gone back to Briarsford? Already? But I was told to be here at five o'clock, for a five-thirty return." Carl held out the paper he was carrying.

The uniformed attendant shook his head. "Showing me the paper won't help. Four-thirty, the hovercraft leaves, every other day. There's no other way of getting there while the snow lasts. You're stuck here in Lukon until Monday, and that's something I can't change."

"But I've got no money, and nowhere to stay. I'll freeze to death, or starve."

The older man laughed. "We're not quite that barbaric here, you know. In Redman's name, what do you take us for? Mr. Nielsen asked me to keep an eye out for you, and you're to stay at the Church Hostel. It's about a mile from here, on the road past the big square. And here's a food voucher for you, compliments of Lukon. If I were you, I'd spend my time worrying about what they'll be saying to you when you get back there. Mr. Nielsen says it's the first time they've lost a boy in fifty visits to the Science Museum. How come you got separated from the rest?"

"I'm doing a special report on hydroelectric power for a school project. They left me off in the power section when the rest of them went on to the biology exhibits." Carl took the food voucher and slipped it into a pocket of his greatcoat. "That report was Mr. Nielsen's idea, anyway."

The attendant shrugged. "Mix-up somewhere, that's for sure. You'd better get over to the Hostel now, while it's not too cold. There's supposed to be a thaw tonight, but I don't feel any signs of it yet. Here, I'll point you the way."

Carl walked over the crackling, blackened ice that formed a mottled crust on the main street of Lukon. Old ice, proof of the long freeze. On either side the houses were stone-built and small, crouching back from the road and closed against the night. As he approached the main square he saw the first signs of activity. A crowd of men had gathered on the central, stone-flagged forum, where two priests of Redman stood by a dark, glistening heap. A white-haired man in a heavy robe was standing, head bowed, between them.

Carl's way to the Hostel was blocked, and he was curious to find out what was going on. He approached the edge of the crowd and moved beside a short, hooded figure who was a little to the rear of the rest of the group.

"What are they doing there?" he asked. "Has there been an accident?"