The World At The End Of Time Part 16

He was surrounded by a dozen cheerfully babbling children-sweet, obedient, charming . . .

Stupid.

No matter how much a parent loves his little ones, there comes a time when he wishes they would grow up . . . and Wan-To realized ruefully that he had made that impossible for his new flock. He was almost tempted to make a few more, with just a trifle trifle more of independence and aggressiveness . . . more of independence and aggressiveness . . .

But self-preservation always intervened.

Then he got his first real surprise.

One of his widespread Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky pairs reported peculiar behavior on the part of a star in its neighborhood. The thing had flared. flared.

Well, that in itself wasn't very interesting. Stars were flaring somewhere in his galaxy all the time; it was a thing that some stars did. But this one was different. Frighteningly Frighteningly different. It wasn't behaving in the normal fas.h.i.+on of any proper flare star, but very much the way Wan-To and his earlier family had caused in their jolly little war of brothers. It was what Earthly astronomers had briefly called a "Sorricaine-Mtiga object"- different. It wasn't behaving in the normal fas.h.i.+on of any proper flare star, but very much the way Wan-To and his earlier family had caused in their jolly little war of brothers. It was what Earthly astronomers had briefly called a "Sorricaine-Mtiga object"- And it was not natural.

For a moment Wan-To felt stark terror. Had some of the others survived and sought him out here? Had some of his new brood somehow, impossibly, managed to break through their programming? Was there a threat? threat?

If it was, it was not from any of his children. He queried each one of them, sternly, carefully, and their innocently wondering replies were convincing. "Oh, no, Wan-To, I I haven't destroyed any stars. How could I? I don't know haven't destroyed any stars. How could I? I don't know how." how." And, "We And, "We wouldn't wouldn't do anything like that, Wan-To, you wouldn't do anything like that, Wan-To, you wouldn't let let us." us."

Nevertheless another star flared.

The alternative possibility was even more frightening. Could one of that old crew of ingrates have followed him here? But there were no signs of it-none of any intelligence in any of the four hundred billion stars of his new galaxy. Not even a whisper of tachyon transmission, not anywhere.

As a last, baffled resort, it occurred to Wan-To to check some of the planets in systems near the flared stars . . . and what he then found was the most incredible thing of all.

There were artifacts artifacts there! On there! On planets! planets! There were planets where energy was being released, sometimes quite a lot of it, in forms and with modulations that were never natural! There were planets where energy was being released, sometimes quite a lot of it, in forms and with modulations that were never natural!

There was alien life in his galaxy, and it was made of solid matter. matter.

For the first time in many millions of years Wan-To thought of his lost doppel on the little planet he had sent speeding off into infinity. That had told him of solid-matter life, too, and he had dismissed it. But what was going on here was something else. These-creatures-were using quite high-order forces. If they could flare stars, then they knew how to manipulate the vector bosons that controlled gravity. And that meant that they might someday threaten Wan-To.

There was only one thing to do about that. Horrified, Wan-To did what any householder would do when he discovered loathsome pests in his backyard. It was a job for an exterminator.

It was only when Wan-To had made quite sure that none of those pesky little things survived that he thought of his lost doppel again. His good humor recovered, he thought with amus.e.m.e.nt of the way the doppel had tolerated them.

Well, if it had, Wan-To thought, it probably by now had learned the error of its ways.

But in fact the doppel hadn't.

It had been a long time for the doppel to be out of contact with Wan-To-not nearly as long, in its time-dilated frame of reference, as it had been for Wan-To himself, of course, but still long enough. It had been quite long enough for the doppel to realize, with a real sense of loss, that there weren't ever going to be any fresh orders from its master.

The doppel had no way of communicating with Wan-To's murderous rivals, either. Even if they hadn't been cut off by the relativistic effects of the system's all-but-light velocity just as Wan-To himself had, Five had no Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky mechanisms for reaching them anyway. Wan-To had made sure of that. In fact, there was not any intelligent being, anywhere within the range of the doppel's senses, at all-except for those few strange solid-matter creatures it had permitted to live (for a while) on the surface of its planet.

The doppel certainly had very little in common with such rude ent.i.ties. But they were there, there, and even a doppel can get lonesome. and even a doppel can get lonesome.

It was for that reason that Five had permitted the survivors among the creatures that fell out of the destroyed Ark Ark to reach the surface of Nebo without being annihilated. One of them, unfortunately, had gotten seriously broken when Five bashed its container, but there were three others. to reach the surface of Nebo without being annihilated. One of them, unfortunately, had gotten seriously broken when Five bashed its container, but there were three others.

In its first casual "glance" Five saw that there was nothing about the three surviving little monsters that const.i.tuted any kind of a threat. If they had been a little more technologically advanced-if they had carried with them any of that worrisome antimatter that the s.h.i.+p held, or any kind of weaponry more advanced than mere chemistry-then they would have died before they touched ground.

Five was not very intelligent, but it was smart enough to be a.s.sured that these things represented no danger at all.

Well, then, what did they represent?

When Five reported them to its master, Wan-To's response was not very helpful. Wan-To didn't tell it what to do about them. Wan-To left the matter discretionary.

So Five did what it was best equipped to do. It studied the things.

From the point of view of little Luo Fah, the first in the landing party whom Five chose to examine, that process was terrifying, agonizing, and fatal. Luo had hardly stepped out of the lander, mask pumping oxygen into her faceplate, pistol at the ready, when she was s.n.a.t.c.hed brutally into the air and-well-disa.s.sembled. The clothes, the gun, and the air mask were the first to go, as Five methodically dismantled its curious little specimen to see what it was all about. There was stark fear and a lot of pain as things were wrenched off her with little concern for what they did to her clutching fingers and resisting limbs. The next part was far worse, but fortunately for Luo she didn't feel it. She was dead by the time the interior of her body was opened up for study.

The other two in the team were luckier-for a while.

One specimen had been enough for Five to deduce, roughly, how these things worked. They had a chemical basis, it perceived. They required an influx of gases (it didn't call the process "breathing," but it understood the necessity from the distress Luo had exhibited when it took her mask away). So it determined simply to observe the others for a while.

Five was cautious, of course. When it detected electromagnetic radiation, definitely patterned in nonnatural ways, coming from something inside the lander it could not permit that-who knew what the purpose of it was? So it destroyed the lander's radio transmitter with one quick, controlled bolt. That was bad luck for the man who happened to be the one transmitting, because the blast burned his face quite horribly. But it wasn't quite as bad for Jake Lundy, because Five then perceived that it had to be more careful with these things.

Five did not exactly have emotions. What Five had was orders. They were the commandments written in stone. They could not be violated . . . but what a pity that they hadn't included instructions for dealing with these solid-matter creatures and their artifacts.

Five also had a good deal of resourcefulness. What it didn't know it was quite capable of trying to learn. It was always possible, it reasoned, that at some time Wan-To would call again and would want to be fully informed about these unexpected visitors.

So it permitted those two to live. They were fascinating to watch. Five was fascinated to observe, as the burn victim's wounds slowly began to heal, that they seemed to have some sort of built-in repair systems, like Five itself. (But then why hadn't the two earlier ones managed to put themselves back together?) As Five learned more and more about their needs it even provided them with the kinds of air they seemed to want-the kinds, at least, that they kept inside their vehicle. When it deduced they also needed water-by observing how carefully they measured it out to each other in captivity-it made them some water. When it discovered they needed "food"-which took quite a while longer, and the two survivors were cadaverous by the time Five got to that point-that was harder, but Five had of course long since investigated the chemistry of the things the specimens had eaten, and of the excrement they insisted on carrying outside and burying. It was no impossible task for Five to create a range of organic materials to offer them; and some, in fact, they did seem to be willing to "eat."

Unfortunately for Jake and his one surviving companion, that was pretty late in the game.

Five saw that things were going badly for its specimens. They were moving slower and more feebly. Sometimes they hardly moved at all for long periods. They spent a lot of time making sound vibrations to each other, but those slowed and became less frequent with time, too, as did their peculiar habit of, one at a time, making those same sound vibrations to a kind of metallic instrument. (Naturally Five investigated the instrument, but it seemed to do nothing more than make magnetic a.n.a.logues of those vibrations on a spool of metal ribbon, so it returned the thing to them only slightly damaged.) Five wondered why they didn't copy themselves, so as to have new, young beings of their sort to carry on for them. It thought that would be nice. That would provide a permanent stock of such playthings; Five could investigate them in detail, over a long period of time, offering them all kinds of challenges and rewards to see what they would do.

Disappointingly, the time came when the second of them stopped moving entirely, and as the body began to bloat Five reluctantly conceded that its specimens had died. And they hadn't ever copied themselves!

Five could not understand at all. It had never occurred to the doppel that they were both male.

A little while later-oh, a few hundred years-when the specimens were long dissolved into uninteresting dust, Five got another surprise.

When the doppel had not heard from Wan-To for all that time, because the relativistic s.h.i.+ft had decoupled its Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky pair, it began to wonder if it should not try some other kind of communication. Or, more important, whether Wan-To was trying to call it, say, by means of tachyons.

So it began listening more intently on the tachyon frequencies, then even on the unlikely electromagnetic ones. It heard nothing-nothing, at least, from any stellar source anywhere, except for the endless hiss of hydrogen and the chatter of carbon monoxide and the mutterings from all the other excited molecules in the stellar photospheres and gas clouds-nothing that was artificial. artificial.

Until it realized that there was, in fact, a quite definitely artifactual signal beginning to come in now and then on the radio frequencies. It closely resembled the one that had caused it to destroy the lander's radio-and it came from Five's own solar system.

In fact, it came from a planet. planet. That was astonis.h.i.+ng to Five. A human being would not have been more surprised if a tree had spoken to him. That was astonis.h.i.+ng to Five. A human being would not have been more surprised if a tree had spoken to him.

Of course, the doppel had no idea what messages were being conveyed by these bizarre signals, but once it had located their source it took a closer look in the optical frequencies, and what it saw gave it a start.

The hulk of the s.h.i.+p it had blasted was beginning to move under its own power again. It was being hijacked!

In that moment of discovery, Five came very close to again unleas.h.i.+ng the forces that had destroyed Ark in the first place. If it had been a human, its fingers would have been on the b.u.t.ton. Since Five was only a matter doppel it had no fingers; but the generators which produced the X-ray laser began to glow and build up to full power.

But they didn't fire.

Five withheld the command. It couldn't make up its mind what to do. If only Wan-To could be asked for instructions!

Fretfully Five ran over its instructions. There was nothing useful in them about solid-matter beings. All Five was ordered to do, really, was to s.n.a.t.c.h this group of stars out of its neighborhood and fly it away. It had done that. And it had no useful further instructions.

Five tried to do what its program had never intended it for; it tried to decide on its own if its instructions had some sort of built-in termination. The energies of the stars themselves kept pus.h.i.+ng them faster and faster, by always lesser increments of velocity, right up against that limiting velocity of light itself.

Should Five allow them to go on accelerating forever? Trying to accelerate, at least-the rate of acceleration was always dropping now, asymptotically to be sure, but converging toward c c itself. itself.

If not, when should Five stop it? If it stopped, what should it do then?

Five had no answers to those questions. It would have to use its own discretion, perhaps-but if it guessed wrong, Wan-To might be angry.

Five was desperate, but not desperate enough to risk that. Not yet.

CHAPTER 18.

Because the plan to revive Mayflower's Mayflower's MHD-microwave generators had originated with the Great Transporters, it was a Great Transporter woman named Tortee who was in charge. When Viktor and Reesa reported to her room she was waiting for them. Not patiently. MHD-microwave generators had originated with the Great Transporters, it was a Great Transporter woman named Tortee who was in charge. When Viktor and Reesa reported to her room she was waiting for them. Not patiently.

Tortee turned out to be incongruously fat, and that was astonis.h.i.+ng to Viktor. How could anyone get that much to eat in this mob of the underfed? She was lying back on a chaise longue, blankets wrapped over her plump legs, and she glared at them suspiciously. "Who are you? Where's that silly little b.i.t.c.h with the tea?" she demanded. "Never mind. Where were we? Oh, yes," she remembered, sounding spiteful, "what they want to do is to try to start up the orbiting power generator again. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Of course, Tortee," Reesa said, causing Viktor to look at her sharply. Her tone had been admiring and deferential. Even soapy.

"Well, it's a waste," Tortee grumbled. "What they want us to do is take the little bit of fuel that's left in Ark Ark and transfer it to and transfer it to Mayflower, Mayflower, turn it into electricity, beam it down. It's crazy." turn it into electricity, beam it down. It's crazy."

"I guess so," Viktor said slowly. Following his wife's lead, he was doing his best to be agreeable to the old woman-Reesa's eyes were on him, to remind him. Still, the plan didn't sound entirely crazy to him. It wasn't that different from what he had helped do a few hundred years before. But Tortee was the boss of the project that had got him off the s.h.i.+t detail, and he didn't want to argue with her-especially not here in her own room, with view screens and computer terminals all around her. Terminals meant data. data. He coveted that room-not least for its huge, wide bed. He coveted that room-not least for its huge, wide bed.

"No, that's really crazy," Tortee was insisting. "Think! We'd have to rebuild the rectenna in the first place; they tore that down long ago for the metal-and what would we have to tear down now for metal to rebuild it? Then there's the problem of transferring fuel from the engine acc.u.mulators in one s.h.i.+p to the generators in another. That's a lot harder than what you did back in the old days, Viktor. Then you only had to move the whole reserve fuel storage unit, right? And that was dangerous enough, but this means taking the drive drive apart. I've studied the plans. A million things can go wrong-and everything's a lot older now, so the chances of an accident are a lot worse." apart. I've studied the plans. A million things can go wrong-and everything's a lot older now, so the chances of an accident are a lot worse."

"Well, that's true enough," Reesa put in, looking warningly at Viktor. "I'm surprised the containment didn't give out already and blow the whole s.h.i.+p up."

"And then even if it succeeded," the old woman went on, "what would we have? Enough fuel for maybe ten years of power transmission, then we're back where we started. Total waste!"

"Terrible waste," Reesa agreed. waste," Reesa agreed.

"Oh, you don't know," Tortee said moodily. "You don't have any idea idea how much this is costing us-we don't have resources to spare here, you know! And meanwhile . . ." She looked around conspiratorially. "And meanwhile there's a perfectly good planet waiting out there for us, with plenty of warmth and water and air-" how much this is costing us-we don't have resources to spare here, you know! And meanwhile . . ." She looked around conspiratorially. "And meanwhile there's a perfectly good planet waiting out there for us, with plenty of warmth and water and air-"

Viktor cleared his throat. "You mean Nebo, I guess, is that right? But there's also something on Nebo that shoots at us, Tortee."

She glared at him dangerously. "Are you saying you don't support my project?" Viktor was silent. "Answer me! I thought I could trust you-you were one of those who went there, centuries ago!"

"That was a matter of scientific investigation," Viktor explained.

"Scientific investigation! You went there just because you were curious?" curious?"

"What better reason could there be?"

"Because Nebo is habitable habitable now!" Tortee cried. "At least, we think it may be-and this planet isn't, not any more. Viktor!" She studied him suspiciously for a moment. "Do you want to be back on the s.h.i.+t detail?" she demanded suddenly. now!" Tortee cried. "At least, we think it may be-and this planet isn't, not any more. Viktor!" She studied him suspiciously for a moment. "Do you want to be back on the s.h.i.+t detail?" she demanded suddenly.

"No, no, not at all!" Viktor said hastily. Reesa was giving him that look again, and he knew when to surrender. Still, he was beginning to suspect that the new a.s.signment might not altogether be a blessing. He might find himself wis.h.i.+ng he were back enjoying the comparatively relaxed conversation with the children in the mushroom cave, because he was beginning to be convinced that his new boss, Tortee, was a certifiable nut. "The only thing that's worrying me," he said, feeling his way, "is what are we going to do about the part of Nebo that shoots at us? Nebo's not exactly inviting inviting us to come down and start living there. It's been pretty good at keeping us out." us to come down and start living there. It's been pretty good at keeping us out."

"Anything worth having," Tortee said firmly, "is worth fighting for. I've thought all that out. We can patch Ark Ark with what's left of with what's left of Mayflower, Mayflower, then all we have to do is put in some weapons." then all we have to do is put in some weapons."

"But-" Viktor began, meaning to finish the sentence by stating the certain fact that neither he nor Reesa knew anything about installing weapons in a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p; he didn't get the chance. Reesa was in ahead of him.

"Right, Tortee. That's our first job," she said quickly. "We'll have to have help, of course; I expect there's somebody who can a.s.sist in designing rockets that can be launched from orbit. And we'll need to know what the targets are; you have survey tapes to show where the attacks came from, I guess?"

"Of course," the old woman said with pride. "I've had the instruments on Mayflower Mayflower surveying every inch of Nebo, and I have the readings Mirian brought down with you. I can pinpoint exactly where they fired on you. There were three places; I've got them marked. I'm sure we can deal with that, and-what is it, Viktor?" surveying every inch of Nebo, and I have the readings Mirian brought down with you. I can pinpoint exactly where they fired on you. There were three places; I've got them marked. I'm sure we can deal with that, and-what is it, Viktor?"

"The instruments," Viktor said. "What do they say about that bright thing you call the universe?"

The old woman looked at him silently for a dangerous moment. "What do you want to know that for?"

Viktor blinked at her. It wasn't that he couldn't answer the question; he simply could not understand why she asked it. "Why, because-because it's there, Tortee! That's what science is all about, isn't it? Trying to understand what's going on?"

"What science is about," Tortee proclaimed, "is making life better for everybody. That's what you should be thinking about. Not just theories. theories. Idle curiosity is the devil's work; your job is to make this project succeed!" Idle curiosity is the devil's work; your job is to make this project succeed!"

She was looking not only angry but definitely dissatisfied with Viktor Sorricaine now. Fortunately the door opened then and a little girl staggered in with a tray. Although it was heavy laden-a pot of steaming tea, a platter of cookies, and one of sliced bread with what looked like actual b.u.t.ter on it-there was only one cup. The girl quailed under the imprecations Tortee hurled at her and retreated as fast as she could, but the old woman was already greedily cramming sweet biscuits into her mouth.

"There is one other thing," Reesa said, while Tortee's mouth was full. Tortee didn't try to speak; she only raised an eyebrow at Reesa, still chewing.

"We should find a better place for us to live," Reesa explained. "It would be better if we could be near you-for the work I mean. And so if you could have them give us a room of our own here-"

"Impossible!" the woman sputtered, crumbs falling onto the tray on her lap. "The Peeps would never agree to it. Dear Freddy, woman! Don't you know how suspicious they are already? If we tried to move you in here they'd tell everybody that that just proved that the Greats were plotting to seize the s.h.i.+p for themselves-not that they aren't saying it already, of course."

"Oh, of course," Reesa said, nodding as though the woman's babbling made perfect sense. "Here, let me pour some more tea for you."

She gave Viktor a quick, meaningful glance which stirred him into action. He jumped gallantly forward to hold the tray while Reesa filled Tortee's cup. The old woman watched critically, a slice of b.u.t.tered bread ready in one hand, then seized the cup and sipped it cautiously.

"That's better," she said. "Now, what were we talking about?"

"You explained to us why it's impossible for us to move into this sector permanently," Reesa said. "You made it very clear thank you, Tortee. Still, I do have to come here every day to work with you, of course. I suppose that Viktor and I might have the use of some workroom together-so we could do our jobs without disturbing you?"

"Ha!" the old woman said. Her eyes were suddenly gleaming. "I thought that was what it was about. What kind of room did you have in mind for your jobs? One with a bed, maybe?"

"Nothing like that," Viktor said, instinctively trying to shut the door on this invasion of his privacy; but Reesa was also speaking.

"Exactly like that, if we possibly could, Tortee," she said sweetly. "I knew you would understand." like that, if we possibly could, Tortee," she said sweetly. "I knew you would understand."

"Ha," the old woman said again, eyeing them. Then she s.h.i.+fted her weight to a more comfortable position and grinned. "Why not? I'm going to work you harder than you've ever worked before, and I don't mind paying a little extra for good work. Is this room more or less what you had in mind? Because I'm going to report to the council this afternoon, and I'll be gone at least three hours."

She gazed at Reesa, who only smiled, nodding her head. The old woman licked crumbs off her fingers as she nodded back. Then she looked wistfully at her bed. "It won't do that old thing any harm to have somebody getting a little use out of it for a change-but I'm warning you! Be sure you change the sheets before I come back."

Tortee did not only have a private bedroom, she had a private bath. With their first pa.s.sion spent, Reesa's second priority was a hot soak in the shallow metal tub. Viktor lay relaxed against the pillows while he waited his turn, nibbling on the staling bread and b.u.t.ter Tortee had left behind, listening to the faint splas.h.i.+ng sounds from his wife's tub. Thoughtfully he considered his existence. Things had begun to look up a little, no doubt of that. It was certainly fine to be off the s.h.i.+t detail. It was even finer to have a job that made some sense for a person with his skills, and finer still to have had a nice warm bed to share with his nice, warm wife-in actual privacy!

There was no reason, really, why he should feel discontented. The funny thing was that, all the same, he did. They were both alive-and reasonably secure for at least the near future-but what, he asked himself, were they alive for?

It was as disconcerting for Viktor as it had been for Wan-To to step back and look at his life like that. It made him wonder what the point was.