Nemesis
Chapter 34. Close

76
'Perfect,' said Tessa Wendel. 'Perfect, perfect, perfect.' She made a gesture as though she were nailing something to the wall, firmly and hard. 'Perfect.'
Crile Fisher knew what she was talking about. Twice, in two different directions, they had passed through hyperspace. Twice Crile had watched the pattern of stars change somewhat. Twice he had searched out the Sun, finding it a bit dimmer the first time, a bit brighter the second. He was beginning to feel like an old hyperspatial knockabout.
He said, 'The Sun isn't bothering us, I take it.'
'Oh, it is, but in a perfectly calculable way, so that the physical interference is a psychological pleasure - if you know what I mean.'
Fisher said, playing the devil's advocate, 'The Sun's pretty far away, you know. The gravitational effect must be pretty close to zero.'
'Certainly,' said Wendel, 'but pretty close to zero isn't zero. The effect is measurable. Twice we passed through hyperspace, with the virtual path first approaching the Sun obliquely and then receding at another angle. Wu did the calculations beforehand, and the path we took fit those calculations to all the decimal points we could reasonably ask. The man's a genius. He weaves shortcuts into the computer program in a fashion you wouldn't believe.'
'I'm sure,' murmured Fisher.
'So there's no question now, Crile. We can be at the Neighbor Star by tomorrow. By today - if we're really in a hurry. Not very close, of course. We may have to coast inward toward the star for a reasonable period of time, as a precautionary measure. Besides, we don't know the mass of the Neighbor Star with sufficient precision to take too many chances on a really close approach. We don't want to be hurled off unexpectedly and have to work our way back.' She shook her head admiringly, 'That Wu. I'm so pleased with him, I can't begin to describe it.'
Fisher said cautiously, 'Are you sure you don't feel a little annoyed?'
'Annoyed? Why?' She stared at Fisher in surprise, then said, 'Do you think I ought to be jealous?'
'Well, I don't know. Is there a chance that Chao-Li Wu will get the credit for working out superluminal flight - I mean, the true details of it - and that you'll be forgotten, or remembered only as a forerunner?'
'No, not at all, Crile. It's nice of you to worry on my behalf, but matters are secure. My work is recorded in full detail. The basic mathematics of superluminal flight are mine. The engineering details I have also contributed to, although others will get the major credit for designing the ship, and should. What Wu has done has been to add a correction factor to the basic equations. Highly important, of course, and we can now see that superluminal flight wouldn't be practical without it, but it's just the icing on the cake. The cake is still mine.'
'Fine. If you're sure of that, I'm happy.'
'As a matter of fact, Crile, I'm hoping Wu will now take the lead in developing superluminal flight. The fact is, I'm past my best years - scientifically, that is. Only scientifically, Crile.'
Fisher grinned. 'I know that.'
'But scientifically, I am over the hill. The work I've done has been the mining of the concepts I had when I was a graduate student. It's been a matter of about twenty-five years of drawing conclusions, and I've gone about as far as I can go. What's needed are brand-new concepts, entirely new thoughts, a branching off into uncharted territory. I can't do that any more.'
'Come, Tessa, don't underrate yourself.'
'That's never been one of my faults, Crile. New thoughts are what we need youth for. It's not just young brains that young people have, it's new brains. Wu has a genome that has never appeared in humanity before. He's had experiences that are crucially his - no-one else's. He can have new thoughts. Of course, he bases them on what I have done before him, and he owes a great deal to my teaching. He's a student of mine, Crile, a child of my intellect. All that he does well reflects well on me. Jealous of him? I glory in him. What's the matter, Crile? You don't look happy.'
'I'm happy if you are, Tessa, no matter how I look. The trouble is that I have the feeling you're feeding me the theory of scientific advance. Weren't there cases in the history of science, as in everything else, where jealousy existed, and where teachers detested their students for surpassing them?'
'Certainly. I could quote you half a dozen notorious cases right off the top of my head, but those are rare exceptions and the fact is that I don't feel that way right now. I don't say that it isn't conceivable that I may at some time lose patience with Wu and the Universe, but it isn't happening at the moment, and I intend to savor this moment while it- Oh, now what?'
She pushed the 'Receive' contact and Merry Blankowitz's young face appeared trimensionally in the transmitter.
'Captain,' she said hesitantly. 'We're having a discussion out here and I wonder if we can consult you.'
'Is something wrong with the flight?'
'No, Captain. It's just a discussion over strategy.'
'I see. Well, you needn't file in here. I'll come out to the engine room.'
Wendel blanked out the face.
Fisher muttered, 'Blankowitz doesn't usually sound that serious. What's bugging them, do you suppose?'
'I'm not going to speculate. I'll go out there and find out.' And she motioned Fisher to follow.
77
There were the three of them, sitting in the engine room, all of them with seats carefully on the floor, despite the fact that they were under zero-gravity at the moment. They might just as well have been sitting each on a different wall, but that would have detracted from the seriousness of the situation, and it would have shown disrespect for the office of Captain, besides. There was a complex system of etiquette that had long been developed for zero-gravity.
Wendel did not like zero-gravity and if she had wanted to push her Captain's privileges, she could have insisted on the ship being in rotation at all times to produce a centrifugal effect that would have produced some feeling of gravity. She knew perfectly well that computing a flight path was easier when the ship was at rest, both translationally and rotationally, with respect to the Universe as a whole, but calculating it under constant rotational velocity didn't raise the difficulty to too high a level.
Nevertheless, to insist on such motion would have been disrespectful to the person at the computer. Etiquette again.
Tessa Wendel took her seat, and Crile Fisher could not help but notice (with a secret, ingrown smile) that she lurched slightly. For all her Settlement background, she had clearly never gotten her space legs. He himself (and there was another secret smile - of satisfaction, this time), for all that he was an Earthrnan, could move about in zero-gravity as though he were born to it.
Chao-Li Wu took a deep breath. He had a broad face - the type that looked like it belonged with a short body, but he was taller than average, when he stood up. His hair was dark and perfectly straight and his eyes were markedly narrow.
He said softly, 'Captain.'
Wendel said, 'What is it, Chao-Li? If you tell me some problem has developed in the programming, I may be tempted to choke you.'
'No problem, Captain. No problem at all. In fact, there is such an absence of problems that it strikes me that we're through and should go back to Earth. I would like to suggest that.'
'Back to Earth?' Wendel had paused before she said that, had taken the time to look a little stupefied. 'Why? We haven't accomplished our task yet.'
'I think we have, Captain,' said Wu, his face growing expressionless. 'We just didn't know what our task was, to begin with. We have worked out a practical system of superluminal flight, and we didn't have that when we left Earth.'
'I know that, but what of it?'
'And we don't have any means of communication with Earth. If we go on now to the Neighbor Star and if something happens to us, if something goes wrong, Earth will not have practical superluminal flight and there is no telling when they will. This could have a serious affect on Earth's evacuation as the Neighbor Star approaches. I feel that it is important that we go back and explain what we've learned.'
Wendel had listened gravely. 'I see. And you, Jarlow, what are your views on this?'
Henry Jarlow was tall and blond and dour. There was a settled melancholy on his face that gave a totally wrong impression of his character, and his long fingers (which had nothing apparently delicate about them) were magic when they worked with the interior of computers or with almost any instrument on board.
He said, 'I think Wu makes sense, frankly. If we had superluminal communication, we'd get the information back to Earth that way and go on. What would happen to us after that would be of no importance except to us. As it is, we can't sit on the gravitational correction.'
'And you, Blankowitz?' asked Wendel quietly.
Merry Blankowitz stirred uneasily. She was a small young woman and her long dark hair was cut straight across, just over her eyebrows. Between that and the delicacy of her bone structure and her quick, nervous movements, she looked like a miniature Cleopatra.
She said, 'I don't really know. I don't have very definite feelings about this, but the men seem to have talked me into it. Don't you think it's important to get the information to Earth? We've worked out crucial effects on this trip and we need more and better ships, with computers designed to take the gravitational correction into account. We'll be able to make a single transition between the Solar System and the Neighbor Star and do it under stronger gravitational intensities so that we can start closer to the Sun and end closer to the Neighbor Star and not have to spend weeks of coasting at both ends. It seems to me that Earth has to know about this.'
Wendel said, 'I see. The whole point seems to me to be whether it wouldn't be wise to get the information of the gravitational correction back to Earth right now. Wu, is that really as essential as you make it appear? You didn't get the idea for the correction here on the ship. It seems to me that you discussed it with me months ago.' She thought a moment. 'Almost a year ago.'
'We didn't really discuss it, Captain. You were impatient with me, as I recall, and wouldn't really listen.'
'Yes, I've admitted I was mistaken. But you did write it down. I told you to make up a formal report and that I would go over it when I had time.' She held up a hand. 'I know I never had time to go over it, and I don't even recall if I received it, but I imagine, Wu, that you - being you - would have prepared the report in some detail, and with all the reasoning and mathematics anyone could want. Didn't you do that, Wu, and isn't that report in the records?'
Wu's lips seemed to tighten, but his tone of voice did not alter in any way. 'Yes, I prepared the report, but it was just speculation, and I don't suppose anyone else will pay any attention to it - any more than you did, Captain.'
'Why not? Not everyone is as stupid as I am, Wu.'
'Even if they paid attention, it would still be nothing more than speculation. When we go back, we will be able to present proof.'
'Once the speculation exists, someone will get the proof. You know how science works.'
Wu said in a slow and significant tone, 'Someone.'
'Now we have the nature of your concern, Wu. You're not worried that Earth won't obtain a practical method of superluminal flight. You are worried that they will, but that the credit will not be yours. Isn't that right?'
'Captain, there's nothing wrong with that. A scientist has every right to be concerned over matters of priority.'
Wendel positively smoldered. 'Have you forgotten that I am the Captain of this ship and make the decisions?'
'I haven't forgotten that,' said Wu, 'but this is not a sailing vessel of the eighteenth century. We are all scientists, primarily, and we must make decisions in some sort of democratic fashion. If the majority wishes to return-'
'Wait,' said Fisher sharply, 'before this continues, do you mind if I say something? I'm the only one who hasn't spoken and if we're going to be democratic, I would like to take my turn on the floor. May I, Captain?'
'Go ahead,' said Wendel, her right hand clenching and unclenching as though it just longed to grab someone by the throat.
Fisher said, 'Just about seven and a half centuries ago, Christopher Columbus sailed westward from Spain and, eventually, discovered America, though he himself never knew that that was what he had done. En route, he made the discovery that the deviation of the magnetic compass from the true north, the so-called "magnetic declination", changed with longitude. This was an important finding and was, in fact, the first purely scientific discovery made in the course of a sea voyage.
'Now, how many know that Columbus discovered the variation of magnetic declination? Virtually no-one. How many know that Columbus discovered America? Virtually everyone. So suppose that Columbus, on discovering the variation, decided, midway, to go home and make the glad announcement to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, preserving his priority as the discoverer of the phenomenon? That discovery might conceivably have been greeted with interest and the monarchs might eventually have sent out another expedition headed, let us say, by Amerigo Vespucci, who would then have reached America. In that case, who would remember that Columbus had made some sort of discovery about the compass? Virtually no-one. Who would remember that Vespucci had discovered America? Virtually everyone.
'So do you really want to go back? The discovery of the gravitational correction will, I assure you, be remembered by a few as a small side effect of superluminal travel. But the crew of the next expedition that will actually reach the Neighbor Star, will be hailed as the first to reach a star by superluminal flight. You three, even you, Wu, will scarcely be worth a footnote.
'You might think that, as a reward for this great discovery that Wu has made, it will be you that will be sent out on a second expedition, but I'm afraid not. You see, Igor Koropatsky, who is the Director of the Terrestrial Board of Inquiry and who is waiting for us back on Earth, is particularly interested in information on the Neighbor Star and its planetary system. He will explode like Krakatoa when he finds out that we were within reach of it and turned back. And of course, Captain Wendel will be forced to explain that you three had mutinied, which is an extremely serious offense, even if we are not an eighteenth-century sailing vessel. Far from going out on the next expedition, you will never see the inside of a laboratory again. Count on it. What you may see, despite your scientific eminence, is the inside of a jail. Don't underestimate Koropatsky's fury.
'So think about it, you three. On to the Neighbor Star? Or back home?'
There was a silence. For a while, no-one said anything.
'Well,' said Wendel harshly, 'I think that Fisher has explained the situation very clearly. Doesn't any one have anything to say?'
Blankowitz said in a low voice, 'Actually, I never thought it through. I think we ought to go on.'
Jarlow grunted. 'I think so, too.'
Wendel said, 'What about you, Chao-Li Wu?'
Wu shrugged. 'I wouldn't stand against the rest.'
'I'm glad to hear that. This incident is forgotten as far as the Earth authorities will be concerned, but there had better be no repetition, no further action of any kind that could be considered mutinous.'
78
Back in their own quarters, Fisher said, 'You don't mind, I hope, that I interfered. I was afraid you would explode to no effect.'
'No, it was good. I wouldn't have thought of the Columbus analogy, which was perfect. Thank you, Crile.' She took his hand and squeezed it.
He smiled briefly. 'I had to justify my presence on board ship somehow.'
'You more than justified it. And you have no idea how disgusted I was, to have Wu act as he did when I had just finished telling you how happy I was over his findings, and over the credit he would get. I was feeling noble over my willingness to share credit, over the ethics of scientific research that gives to each his fair due, and then he puts his private pride ahead of the project.'
'We're all human, Tessa.'
'I know. And seeing that the man's interior has its ethical dark spots doesn't alter the fact that he has a scientific mind that is fearfully sharp.'
'I'm afraid I'd have to admit that my own arguments were based on private desires rather than the public good, so to speak. I want to go to the Neighbor Star for reasons that have nothing to do with the project.'
'I understand that. I am still grateful.' It embarrassed Fisher that there were tears in her eyes and that she had to blink them away.
He kissed her.
79
It was just a star, too faint yet to stand out in any way. In fact, Crile Fisher would have lost it were it not for the fact that he had punched in the network that zeroed in on it in concentric circles and radii.
'It looks disappointingly like a star, doesn't it?' said Fisher, his face taking on the moroseness it seemed to have when he let it fall into its natural lines.
Merry Blankowitz, who was the only one with him at the observation panel, said, 'That's all it is, Crile. A star.'
'I mean it looks like a faint star - and we're so close.'
'Close in a manner of speaking. We're still a tenth of a light-year away, which is not really close. It's just that the Captain's cautious. I'd have dragged the Superluminal in a lot closer. I wish we were a lot closer right now. I can hardly wait.'
'Before this last transition, you were set to go home, Merry.'
'Not really. They just talked me into it. Once you made your little speech, I felt like a complete jackass. I took it for granted that if we returned, we'd all go back a second time, but, of course, you really clarified the situation. Oh, but I want to use the ND so badly.'
Fisher knew what the ND was. It was the neuronic detector. He felt the stirring himself. To detect intelligence would be to know they had come upon something that was infinitely more important than all metals, rocks, ices and vapors they could otherwise discover.
He said hesitantly, 'Can you tell at this distance?'
She shook her head. 'No. We'd have to be a lot closer. And we can't just coast in from this distance. It would take us about a year. Once the Captain is satisfied with what we can find out about the Neighbor Star from here, we'll make another transition. What I expect is that in two days at the most, we'll be within a couple of astronomic units of the Neighbor Star, and then I can start making observations and be useful. It's a drag feeling like a deadweight.'
'Yes,' said Fisher dryly, 'I know.'
A look of concern crossed Blankowitz's face. 'I'm sorry, Crile. I wasn't referring to you.'
'You might as well have been. I might not be of any use no matter how close we come to the Neighbor Star.'
'You will be useful if we detect intelligence. You'll be able to talk to them. You're a Rotorian, and we'll need that.'
Fisher smiled grimly. 'A Rotorian for just a few years.'
'That's enough, isn't it?'
'We'll see.' He changed the subject deliberately. 'Are you sure the neuronic detector will work?'
'Absolutely sure. We could follow any Settlement in orbit just by its radiation of plexons.'
'What are plexons, Merry?'
'Just a name I made up, for the photon-complex characteristic of mammalian brains. We could detect horses, you know, if we're not too far away, but we can detect human brains in masses at astronomic distances.'
'Why plexons?'
'From "complexity". Someday - you'll see - someday they're going to be working on plexons not just to detect life but to study the intimate functioning of the brain. I've made up a name for that, too - "plexophysiology". Or maybe "plexoneuronics".'
Fisher said, 'Do you consider names important?'
'Yes, indeed. It gives you a way of speaking concisely. You don't have to say, "that field of science that involves the relationship of this and that." You just say "plexoneuronics" - yes, that sounds better. It's a shortcut. It saves your thinking time for more important subjects. Besides-' She hesitated.
'Besides? Yes?'
The words came in a rush. 'If I make up a name and it sticks, that alone would get me a footnote in the history of science. You know, "The word 'plexon' was first introduced by Merrilee Augina Blankowitz in 2237 on the occasion of the pioneer faster-than-light flight of the Superluminal." I'm not likely to be mentioned anywhere else, or for any other reason, and I'll settle for that.'
Fisher said, 'What if you detect your plexons, Merry, and there are no human beings present?'
'You mean alien life? That would be even more exciting than detecting people. But there's not much chance, really. We've been disappointed over and over again. We thought there might be at least primitive forms of life on the Moon, on Mars, on Callisto, on Titan. It never came to anything. People have speculated on all kinds of weird life - living galaxies, living dust clouds, life on the surface of a neutron star, all sorts of things. There's no evidence for any of it. No, if I detect anything, it will be human life. I'm convinced of that.'
'Wouldn't you be detecting the plexons emitted by the five people on the ship? Wouldn't we drown out anything we can spot at millions of kilometers of distance?'
'That is a complication, Crile. We have to balance the ND so that we five are canceled out and it has to be delicately done. Even a little leakage would wipe out anything we could detect elsewhere. Someday, Crile, automated NDs will be sent through hyperspace to all sorts of places to detect plexons. There'll be no human beings in their vicinity and that alone would make them at least a couple of orders of magnitude more sensitive than anything we can do now, with ourselves hanging around and having to be allowed for. We'll find out where intelligence exists long before we approach anyplace ourselves.'
Chao-Li Wu made his appearance. He looked at Fisher with a touch of distaste and said indifferently, 'How's the Neighbor Star?'
Blankowitz said, 'Nothing much at this distance.'
'Well, we'll probably be making another transition tomorrow or the next day, and then we'll see.'
Blankowitz said, 'It will be exciting, won't it?'
Wu said, 'It will be - if we find the Rotorians.' He glanced at Fisher. 'But will we?'
If that were a question directed to Fisher, he did not respond to it. He merely stared at Wu expressionlessly.
Will we? Fisher thought.
The long wait would be over soon.