He Without Sin (26 page)

“Besides, it offers us an important opportunity to test the auxiliary acceleration system we will use ourselves when the time comes. Mr. Arwyn tells me that we are ready to witness the deployment of said capsule and the test of the double L. Is that right Mark?”

“You are correct, sir,” says Mark and he then talks quietly into his communicator.

“Before I get any questions, Mark, why is it called the double L system? I seemed to have missed that somewhere along the line.”

“What’s that? The double L? You know, if I could think quick enough I’d make something up, but I can’t. I think it’s the inventors’ initials or maybe the manufacturer’s designation.”

“Ok, never mind, it’s a homework assignment. In any case, Mark is going to take over now. Those who want to go with him, can. We will all meet back here at meal time.”

“This way,” says Mark so that all can hear. He speaks from his position near the back of the group and begins walking away toward one of the several narrow passages out of the base camp common area into the surrounding mountains.

“Follow me, those who want to see first the test, then the deployment.”

Mark stops near Table Rock, waits for those who have followed, and then, when he has everyone’s attention, points to a structure high up on a nearby peak.

“There are three of those,” he says. “They are on precision gimbals. Now, take a look at Porter up there.” He points and we see Porter high up in the sky in the solo flyer. He appears motionless. “I’m going to enable the three units and have each of them lock onto Porter. His flyer has been equipped not for acceleration, but for detecting and returning a beam normally used by each of the ground units for adaptive optics correction. Don’t worry about what that is; it’s just a way to cancel out atmospheric turbulence or non-uniformity so we get a steady and true beam. In our case, for this demo, the adaptive signal will be redirected to the exact middle of the three gimbaled units, which, by the way, is where we are standing right now.”

Mark fiddles with a comms unit which I recognize as not one of our standard-issue genie models.

“Listen up. Do not, repeat, do
not
look up at Porter again until I tell you it’s OK to do so. Alain, what did I say?”

Alain stops talking to Tracy and pays attention to Mark.

“The return beam won’t kill you but you will need someone to lead you around after if you look directly at it. Now, everyone watch the sender near the top of that peak.”

I look but for a few seconds nothing happens. Then the unit moves. And it moves quickly, pivoting gracefully, and then remains motionless.

“If you can all see these…” and Mark holds up two flat white sheets, blank. “Here Carol, push that button when I tell you.”

Mark hands the comms unit over and moves to a spot next to Table Rock whereon he puts one of the sheets.

“OK, now, Carol.” We watch the sheet and there appears a bluish-white nearly circular patch of light no bigger than the palm of a man’s hand, sparkling with a large number of tiny speckles. It reminds me of effects I have seen with lasers.

“This beam is coming from Porter up there, see?” And Mark passes the other sheet back and forth between Porter’s flyer and the first sheet a few times so we can see the spot disappear and reappear. “Carol, press that button again.”

She does but nothing happens to the image on the sheet.

“Now, we know the beam is over here,” Mark says, indicating the sheet on the rock, “so it’s safe to look up. First look at that sender on the peak.”

We do.

“Now look at Porter, and then back at the image down here.”

We see the unit near the mountain peak is moving—not as quickly as before, but it’s moving. Porter is moving too, executing rather large moves in three dimensions. Yet the image on the sheet is completely stable except for slight changes in its outline and the ever-present sparkling scintillation.

“It’s tracking him. Nearly perfectly. OK, third time for the button please, and then I will take that, Carol. Thanks.” He fiddles some more with the comms unit. “Watch up at the peak again.” We do and see the sender swivel again, this time pointing almost straight up.

“Demo over. The capsule David mentioned is in geosynchronous orbit right now and all three double L sender units are locked on it. When I give the go signal it will trigger its launch phase back towards home. These accel units will act in concert to give it a boost beyond what its own engine provides, the same as they will for us when it’s our turn. Questions?”

“The light’s gone—the beam we were watching.”

“Yes, right. That was for demo only. A test of tracking and stability. Think of that same beam, but now split into three, one sent to each of the ground units up on the mountains. And instead of coming from Porter in the solo flyer, it’s from the return capsule. In actual fact, there is nothing else for us to see here now. It’s happening, and it’s automatic, and we may as well head back. The senders are moving, tracking the capsule, but their movement is so slight that we can’t see it. Anything else?”

“Wait, so the capsule is on its way? You said it was in orbit, but now it’s heading straight home?” asks one of the assembled team.

“Straight home.”

“Hold on, chief,” interjects Grigor, “that’s not right. Not straight.”

“Alright, alright. Grigor is correct. Straight, as in ‘no stops before it’s picked up at the receiving end.’ The capsule started off in orbit before it received the initial thrust to get it headed on its way. The entire return path is a complex curve if you want to nitpick and as the capsule picks up speed it does become closer to a straight line.”

“But the gimbals here have a limit to how far they can rotate, so how…”

“Good one. Good question,” Mark interrupts. “You are correct, the three units will follow the target, but eventually the rotation of the planet puts them out of line-of-sight to it. They then wait until the line-of-sight is restored, re-lock, and continue to boost the ship, or capsule in this case. Most amazing to me, the impulses they provide do not decrease in power with distance; the beams they send remain compact and collimated to a fantastic degree. That’s the beauty of the system really.”

Carol asks, “Are we really going to leave these complex units here when we leave? Isn’t that a violation of mission policy?”

“As far as exact policy, you need to get with David. But I do know our safe and speedy return trumps almost anything else. As far as equipment, well, look around. I picked this area for our camp for a couple reasons. It’s isolated, inaccessible without pretty advanced technology and determination, and uninhabitable to a large degree. The units on the peaks up there have a life span of, say, a thousand of these years and when that’s over, they will tumble down in pieces. Now yes maybe someone will find pieces at the bottom of a ravine someday, but they won’t know what to make of it.”

I keep hearing talk of home, of going home. So far,
homesickness has not infected me. At the capsule
launch lunch meeting, David cautioned that we are
here for quite some time yet and all need to stay
safe and focused. He did, however, make one or
two changes in responsibility, from ground-based
tasks to departure-related tasks. More activity
specifically related to departure will help placate
those itching to go.

Carol remarked on David’s mood. She thinks it’s a
good sign and we are both relieved to see the
change. After seeing and hearing of Brachus’ and Lester’s latest hands-on manipulation, it would be
a good thing if he got more involved.

Carol thinks I should say something to David—
again—and that now may be the right time. Master Brachus has little to no regard for the
native population, the human population, here and
it’s time to do something about it, she says. I say
not again; give me a break. I don’t want to be the
Whistle Blower of Amara. She wonders if I could
get Mark or Dylan to join me to form a broader
front. I say no, no, no. First, I think David would
balk at something like that. It would seem like we
are ganging up on him, and that would be a correct
interpretation. Second, if anything is said to David,
I think it should be done only after he has seen
some of the goings-on personally. He may not need
me or anyone to prompt him after that. It would
take me out of having to say anything.

Our visits to the field are fascinating. These are real
people, primitive culturally, having little or no
technology, but real people nonethe-less. Their
primitive condition suffers from nothing that time
won’t solve. Some of the things we have seen are
heartbreaking: the sicknesses for which there is not
even a glimmer of a cure; the crippling injuries with
no hope of restoration; the high mortality rate,
short life spans, senseless slaughter—all of the
trials and tribulations that primitive societies must
endure. We see tragedies such as these, knowing
that even if we have solutions for them, which we
do—most of them anyway—it is not feasible to apply these solutions on a societal or global scale. There is simply no infrastructure to support it. None.

On the other hand, the various populations with
which we have mingled are very interesting. What
captures my imagination most is how they are
dealing with their ability to think and explore and
discover. The results of the recent, relatively
speaking, expansion of their memory and cognitive
abilities are visible everywhere: Language, written
and oral, is ubiquitous and increasingly complex;
tool making is exploding, including the making of
jewelry and other adornment; the use and
expansion of agriculture supports an ever more
rapidly increasing population.

Social, governmental, and moral aspects of their
development are weak however and I don’t know
why. Reading of the history of similar missions, I
find that this scenario has been discovered before
in populations similar to ours here. I can only guess
that the raw nature of their existence up until now
has instilled a sense of survival that is brutal first,
and incorporates other niceties second. If there was
some way to jump start them onto a more civilized
path—now that would be a feather in our cap, like
David said he wanted early on. Maybe this idea
could be used when approaching him…

In the Forest

“No. Absolutely not.”

“But, we need you. Where do you want this?” I ask, holding up some scrap wiring I think Mark can use.

“In the bin there. No, and that’s it. I would be as guilty as Wes in David’s eyes. Not gonna do it. Forget it. Besides, you’ve got enough without me adding anything. Here, toss this too,” Mark answers, handing me a dirty cloth.

“Toss it? In the same…?”

“Yeah, in the bin, in the bin.”

“I don’t think we do have enough. It’s all verbal. Unless… Look, can you arrange to have David see some of the things that we’ve seen? Get him out into the field? If he could witness some of the carnage…”

“No. And just so you know, I’ve solved my problem with that government job I may have mentioned earlier.

“How…?”

“Easy.” Mark grabs out a clean rag and putters while continuing to talk; mostly to himself, it seems. “Unless he knows how to work it without me, it’s over. And he doesn’t. Should be enough to set him up and payoff whoever got him this gig.”

“What? What did you say? You’re mumbling again.”

“Nothing. Never mind. I say too much. I’m old; I babble. Besides, I’m guessing at things.” Mark rubs his eyes, looks to his left at the patient golden girl assistant that he’s assembled. “What do you think, young lady?” he asks it, or her.

She brightens and flashes her ‘eyes’ but does not respond otherwise.

“One of her best features—she doesn’t talk,” he says to me with a grin. “Look, you don’t need me. Get David to go out with you to the field. Take him around. There’s plenty you could show him. If you explain it the right way, make it all touchy-feely, he will suggest going out himself. ‘See the results of his hard work’ and all that bull. You know how to do it.”

“Mark, listen. Think about it. If you know of something happening out there that would open his eyes, like you did for Carol and me, let me know.”

As I pass out of Mark’s work area, Porter is coming in holding a small box of what looks to me like used metal brackets and pieces of plastic.

“In the bin,” I say. “It all goes in the bin.”

______

We camp out in a remote area with Dylan. It’s a pleasant area, wooded but not densely so. The overhead canopy inhibits growth at the ground level. Evening has fallen and we have made a fire. In between conversation, the sound of the fire is all I can hear.

“I’ve got to say, I haven’t done this in forever,” I say, staring into the flickering flames. Their constant motion, changing shape and colors is mesmerizing. We three don’t say much for a long while. My focus is now on the surfaces of the logs at the base of the fire. These surfaces are checked with red lines against black and gray. Gray ash, I can understand, but it changes to black and back again to gray quickly in what must be waves of heat. The red lines glow brighter, with occasional sparks, as the fire crackles and sputters. In some areas the glowing orange-red of hot burning wood dominates, in others the glow is a deep, deep crimson. Dylan tends the fire and drops another log in, and a huge burst of sparks, yellow, orange, red, fly up in twisting patterns. “You’ve got the proximity alarm on, right?”