MacRoscope (29 page)

“Coasting on ninety-five,” Groton remarked. Ivo realized that the man had never had occasion to watch this particular maneuver before.

“We’re not exactly coasting. Faster this way than computing the exact coordinates of the camp. I wouldn’t try it on a distant target, though.” Something nagged him about Groton’s remark, but he was too preoccupied to place it.

Then they were in the dome. He slowed, feeling his way into the pyramid, and on toward the laboratory. There was a flash of Beatryx sitting nervously in the kitchen, and Groton grunted.
He does love her
, Ivo thought, finding that a revelation though he knew it had always been obvious.

At last he closed on Afra’s laboratory and brought the entire room into reasonably clear perspective. She was there, lying on a bunk; she had not yet started her… project. “We’re in time,” he said. “I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.”

“Good I can appreciate. Why bad?”

“Because we’re too far away to do anything if there’s trouble — and I guess there will be. All we can do from here is watch.”

Groton nodded thoughtfully. “You’re in love with her.”

The observation did not seem impertinent or out of place, now. “Since I saw her first. Brad introduced her — ‘Afra Glynn Summerfield’ — and I was — well, that was it.”

“Why would Brad do that?”

“Do what? It was our first meeting.”

“Make up a name. Didn’t you know?”

“You mean her name isn’t Afra? Or Summerfield? I don’t understand.”

“Isn’t
Glynn
. I don’t know what her middle name is, but it isn’t that. I believe it is a family designation, Jones or Smith or something.”

Ivo sat stricken. “Brad! He did it on purpose!”

“Did what?”

“The name, don’t you see? He set it up for me.”

“You’ve lost me, Ivo. You didn’t fall in love with a name, did you?”

Ivo’s gaze was anchored to Afra where she lay. He remembered the time she had lain in his hammock, tormented and lovely, so soon after the destroyer disaster. “You didn’t hear about me and Sidney Lanier? I told Beatryx, and you made that horoscope—”

“My wife is circumspect about personal information. She must have felt that the details were confidential. All she mentioned was that you admired Lanier’s poetry. Unfortunately I’m not familiar with his actual writings.”

“Oh. Well, I have this thing about the poet. I’ve studied his life and works, and anything that relates to him, and I react automatically to any reference—”

“Oh-oh. That key sentence I fed you, back at the dawn of time. That was—”

“A quotation from Lanier’s
The Symphony
— perhaps his greatest piece. The moment I heard that, I knew Brad wanted me, and that he was serious. There’s a special kind of — uh, brotherhood, between members of the project — peer-group compulsion, it’s called. It’s extremely strong, irresistible, maybe. I couldn’t question such a call.”

“Oh, yes — the children of the kibbutzim have that, too. And that name, what was it — ?”

“Glynn. From another major poem,
The Marshes of Glynn
.”

Groton strained to remember. “Didn’t we drive by — ?”

“The marshes of Glynn. In Georgia. Yes. The same ones Lanier drew his inspiration from. His poem was published anonymously at first, but it received such acclaim — anyway, that’s why I was in the area, instead of looking for some high-paying Northern position, the way many of the others did. I spent years running down his historic travels.”

“Like that, eh?”

“Like that, yes. And Brad understood that perfectly.”

“So he wasn’t just playing a game with names. He wanted you to fix on Afra. She’s even Georgian, like your marshes.”

“
Lanier
was Georgian. He fought in the War of the Rebellion — civil war, to you — Confederate.”

“I don’t understand Brad’s motivation. Afra says she and Brad were engaged to be married. Why would he want to stir up trouble like that?”

“Maybe because he wanted Schön that bad. He knew I wouldn’t walk out while Afra was around, and
she
wouldn’t walk out while
he
was around. He even — he even threw us together, just to make sure the virus took hold. Having her show me around the station… It doesn’t take much, with a girl like her. And I never caught on!”

“Love is blind.”

“Good and blind. It was all so obvious! Insurance, in case he lost out to the destroyer. Ivo pinned to Afra’s sleeve — and the only way I could get off it was to turn Schön loose.”

“You
can
call up Schön? When you decide?”

“I
can
. But I can’t put him down again, once I do.”

“And Schön wouldn’t give a damn about Afra?”

“Not a damn. Schön might be intrigued by someone on his own level, but Afra—”

“A moron. I can see why he got bored at the age of five. No one in the world he could — say! ‘My pawn is pinned!’ — could that have meant you and Afra? You can’t let go because then you’d lose her?”

Ivo thought about it. “It could. But I think that’s incidental. Love is nothing to Schön.”

“And not much to Brad, methinks. That’s as sinister a piece of handiwork as I’ve come across. Using his own fiancé—”

“That wasn’t the way
he
described their relation,” Ivo said dryly. “Still, that’s another reason I hesitate to uncork Schön. He’s totally unscrupulous. He could probably solve our problem with the alien signal, but—”

“But you can’t be sure which color the queen might see herself? I appreciate your caution more and more.”

Ivo appreciated the appreciation, after having kept his secret so long. His initial impression of Groton had been so negative — and so wrong. He had seen a fat white slob, when he should have seen his own prejudice. Now the man — not fat at all! — was his closest ally. In similar fashion he had come to appreciate the individual qualities of Beatryx, who demonstrated so plainly and in such contrast to Afra that there were other things besides intelligence and beauty. Afra—

Afra still slept or rested, her breathing even. “I guess it wasn’t as late as we thought. Maybe we should take turns watching, until something happens.”

“Good idea. I’ll snooze for a couple hours, then you can.” And Groton pushed off and floated in the air as though it were a mattress, utterly relaxed.

Ivo watched the laboratory. He felt a twinge of guilt for his snooping, but he was afraid to do otherwise. He did not want anything to happen to her. Brad’s trick had been obvious — in retrospect — but devastatingly effective. Afra had indeed captured Ivo’s imagination, and he felt a thrill every time he looked at her or thought about her. She
was
an impressive woman and she
was
from Georgia, whatever her faults might be. Call it foolishness, call it prejudice: he was committed for the duration.

Had Brad really been in love with her, or even, as he had put it, infatuated? Ivo doubted it now. He had allowed himself to forget how cynical Brad could be about human relations. Many of those raised in the project were like that. They tended to be strong on capability and weak on conscience, especially when dealing with the outside world, with Schön the logical extreme. They were independent, morally as well as intellectually and financially. To Brad the challenge had always been more important than the individual. Afra might simply have been the handiest entertainment available for off-hours at the station, intriguing as a classic WASP — and useful for special purposes, such as the tethering of Schön’s pawn. A Georgia girl for the Georgia historian.

If she should succeed in reviving Brad as the man she had known, that in itself might represent disaster. No doubt her current fever of activity had been brought about by guilt over her own prejudice. Brad was like Ivo: tainted. He had Negroid blood in his veins, melanin in his skin. If she lost him, she would convince herself that it was due to her rejection of his racial makeup.

Yet — bless her for that sensation of guilt! Was not that in essence conscience? Normal persons were held in bounds by limitations of pride and guilt; abnormal ones were defective in these qualities, and were thus dangerous to society. Even the subtle racism of the educated Southern white had its rules and restrictions; it was not inherently evil.

Schön, on the other hand, had neither intellectual nor ethical limitations. He had no guilt, no shame. He would be a terror.

Afra stirred. She stretched in a manner she would not have essayed in public and walked to the adjacent bathroom. This was not in the field of vision, and Ivo did not follow her. He was not, thanks to
his
guilt, a voyeur.

In a few minutes she emerged and walked to the counter. Electronic equipment was set up above it, and he saw that she had adjusted her extension-screen to aim straight down from head-height. She contemplated the transparent vat for ninety seconds, then stooped to manhandle out the basin from a lower compartment.

No doubt now: it was about to begin.

“Harold.”

Groton woke, windmilling his arms for a moment before adjusting to the free-fall state. They watched.

Afra opened the valve and let the thick liquid flow into the basin. She stood back, watching it. Ivo tried to imagine her thoughts, and could not. It was Bradley Carpenter that swirled into the container: her beloved.

“I don’t see any instruments,” Groton said. “If it’s surgery she has in mind—”

True. There was no special equipment in evidence. But if she had given up on that, what did she plan? Certainly she did not intend to nurse him indefinitely.

The protoplasm, freed from confinement and placed in a suitable environment, seemed to respond. It rippled and sparkled. Afra flushed the glass container out with water and allowed the rinse to pour into the basin too. And — the beam came on.

Here they were, using the macroscope to spy on her — yet the alien signal was able to transmit itself through the system simultaneously. This was a property Ivo had not known it had.

Once more the eye formed, the jellyfish, the pumping tunicate, the evolving vertebrate.

“You know,” Groton said, “there’s such a simple answer — if it works. What would happen if the process could be stopped a moment early? Just a tiny fraction of a lifetime—”

“So the destroyer never happened?” It
was
simple… too simple. Why hadn’t the galactic manual recommended it?

“She could be running him through once or twice, just to isolate the spot. To zero in on it. When she locates it — well, she must have something ready. He might be short some recent memories, but she could fill them in easily enough.”

The form continued to develop, achieving the air-breathing stage.

“Or,” Groton conjectured, “she might experiment with changes in the mixture. If it were possible to isolate the damaged cells in the fluid state and substitute healthy protoplasm—”

“But it would be protoplasm with some other lineup of chromosomes!” Ivo said. “And where would she get it?” Neither man cared to conjecture.

Afra trotted out a machine with pronged electrodes. Ivo remembered fetching the specifications for it from the macroscope, but had no comprehension of its purpose. Evidently Afra had studied its application more carefully. He saw now that the basin she was employing was metal, not plastic; it would conduct electric current.

“A jolt just before the destroyer,” Groton said. “To freeze the process right there—”

“But the melting occurred
after
the destroyer,” Ivo said, still namelessly disturbed. “The way the process works, every experience is part of the plasma. You can’t take it away by timing — not without shaking up the entire system, and that’s dangerous. I wouldn’t—”

“We’re about to find out,” Groton said. “Watch.” Somehow the four hours of the reconstitution had elapsed already. Helplessly, Ivo watched. Afra placed one electrode upon the rim of the basin and fastened it there; she laid the other, a disk, upon the metamorphosing head. Timing it apparently by intuition, she touched the power switch.

There was current. Ivo saw the figure in the vat stiffen. “Shock therapy?” Groton murmured. “That makes no sense to me.”

Afra cut off the power and removed the disk. She stepped back.

The figure, now recognizably Brad, ceased its evolution. The eyelids wavered, the chest expanded.

“Can she have done it?” Groton said disbelievingly.

“She’s done
something
. But I’m still afraid that destroyer experience is in him somewhere, waiting to take effect; Maybe after he’s been around a few hours or days—” Or was it his jealous hopes speaking?

“Oh-oh.”

There was certainly trouble. The shape in the basin, instead of coming fully alert, was changing again. “It’s regressing!” Ivo cried. “She didn’t stop it, she reversed it!”

“Then it should melt, shouldn’t it?”

“It isn’t melting!”

Whatever was happening, it was no part of the cycle they had seen before. The beam remained on, and Afra watched, hand to her mouth, helpless. The change accelerated.

The head swelled grotesquely, the legs shrank. The body drew into itself. Hands and feet became shapeless, then withdrew into mere points. The figure began to resemble a giant starfish, complete with suckers upon the lower surfaces of the projections.

And there it stopped, absolutely unhuman.

Afra screamed. Ivo could see her mouth open, lips pulled back harshly over the even white teeth, tongue elevated. He saw her chest pumping again and again, and could almost hear her desperate, ghastly sounds. She screamed until the spittle became pink.

In the basin, the star-shaped thing struggled and heaved. It raised a tentacle as if searching for something, then dropped it loosely over the edge. The beam was off now, further evidence that this was the end. For a moment the creature convulsed, almost raising its body from the bottom; then it shuddered into relaxation and the five limbs uncurled.

Slowly it changed color, becoming gray. It was dead.

Beatryx was weeding the garden: some shoots of wheat were coming up beside the tomato plants, and she was carefully extracting them without damage to either type of plant. The tediously preserved shoots would shortly be transplanted to the south forty — forty square feet of verdant field.

Ivo squatted down beside her but did not offer to help. This was her self-appointed task, and his unsolicited participation would constitute interference. Meaningful tasks were valuable. He noted that she had continued to shed weight; the round-faced matron was disconcertingly gone, replaced by the hollow-faced one. Material comfort did not automatically bring health and happiness, unfortunately.

“You know she’s taking it hard,” he said after a suitable delay.

“What can we do, Ivo? I hate to see it, but I just can’t think of any way to help.”

“As I make it, she’s having the reaction she suppressed when Brad lost out to the destroyer. She knew he was gone, then, but she refused to admit it. Now—”

“Now we have to take turns standing watch over her, treating her like a criminal. I don’t like it, Ivo.”

An understatement. Her whole body reflected her concern. Beatryx, physically, was in worse shape than Afra. “None of us do. But we don’t dare leave her alone.”

She lifted a blade of green and placed it tenderly in her basin of moist sand. “It’s terrible.”

“I wondered whether—” He paused, disturbed by the audacity of his idea. “Well, we
are
, as you say, already treating her like a criminal.”

“We have to do
something
,” she said.

“Maybe this is all wrong. That’s why I wanted to talk it over. I thought, well, if she feels guilty, we might give her a trial. Sort of bring out the evidence, one way or the other, and all take a look at it, and decide who was how guilty of what. Then it would be — decided.”

“Who would decide, Ivo?
I
couldn’t.”

“I don’t think I could, either. I’m not objective. But — you know him better than I do — I thought your husband might—”

“He’s fond of her, Ivo. He wouldn’t want to pass judgment on her.” There was no sign of jealousy in her manner, and Ivo knew she was not the type to conceal what she felt, in such an area. It told him something about her, something nice; but it told more about Groton.

“He’d have to agree, of course. But if it seemed a real trial would clear the air — make things all right again—”

Beatryx stiffened. “Look, Ivo! Look!”

Alarmed, suspecting mayhem or calamity, he followed her gaze. There was nothing.

“On that tomato leaf!” she whispered, trembling with excitement.

He looked, relieved that it was nothing important. “Looks perfectly healthy to me. But you’ll have to spray—”

Then he brought up short. “A bug!”

“A bug!” she repeated.

“It must have been a worm in the tomato,” he said. “I thought everything was sterilized.”

“Maybe we’ll have lots of bugs,” she said, excited. “Triton bugs. And flies and spiders and worms. Maybe they’ll get in the house and we’ll have to put up screens!”

It had been so long since they had seen any creature apart from the four members of the party that this was a signal discovery. “We are not alone,” he said. “It’s a good omen.”

“Do you think it’s warm enough here for it?” she inquired anxiously. “Should I bring it some food? What do they eat?”

Ivo smiled. “Nature knows best. I’m sure it’s sitting on its supper right now. If we leave it alone it will probably raise a family soon. But I’ll photograph a bug-book for you from the macroscope, so you can identify it.”

“Oh thank you!” she said sincerely.

He left her kneeling beside the plant. If there
were
such things as omens, this was surely a sign that the nadir for the Triton party had passed.

“A trial.” Groton considered it. “There may be something in that. Certainly something needs to be done. That girl is very near the edge.” If Beatryx had changed because of the stress of recent months, Groton had not. He seemed to have the most stable personality among them.

“I got the idea from something I remembered. A bit on animal psychology. A dog had strayed or got lost somehow — I don’t know the details — but after a few days his master got him back. The master was very glad to have him safe, but the dog just moped around the house, hardly eating or resting. Finally the man asked a veterinarian about the problem. The man said to roll up a newspaper and give the animal a good swat on the rear.”

“That wasn’t very helpful.”

“It cured the dog. It seemed the dog expected to be punished for getting lost, and couldn’t revert to normal until that punishment was over. He was just waiting for it, brooding, knowing things weren’t right until it came. One token swat, and that dog almost tore the house apart for joy. The slate was clean again, you see.”

“You suggest that a swat on the rear will cure Afra?”

“I don’t know. It can’t bring Brad back, of course, but the guilt—” Groton sat down. “You know, you’re right about the guilt. It has no outlet — we don’t
blame
her, really. But a trial? Well, hard to say what would do the job of expunging guilt…”

“You would have to make the decision. On her guilt, I mean. Weigh the evidence, institute appropriate punishment—”

“Yes, I suppose I would.”

Ivo could appreciate Groton’s unease. They were
all
guilty, by their prior inaction, as much as Afra by her action. Who were they to pass judgment upon her?

Groton opened the roll-top desk he had built for his study and drew out a sheet of paper. It was a circular chart divided into twelve pie-sections, with a smaller circle in the center. There were symbols all around the edge and in several of the segments, together with assorted numbers. Below the large circle were several geometrical drawings identified by further symbols.

“This is her horoscope. Suppose I explain some of it to you, and you tell me whether this thing we contemplate is wise.”

Ivo doubted that this particular tack would help, but he was becoming accustomed to Groton’s method of getting at a problem. If the astrological chart helped him to make up his mind (as Beatryx had once hinted), more power to it. He also remembered the coincidental insight of his own horoscope, that had pointed to Schön rather than to himself. That had been uncanny.

“Do you know what I mean by the houses, cardinal signs, alchemy of the elements, portmanteau analysis—”

“Say again, quarterspeed?”

Groton smiled. “Just testing. I didn’t want to insult you by oversimplifying. I’ll stick as much as I can to layman’s language — but I want you to understand that this
is
simplified, to the point where what I tell you is only approximately true.”

“Why can’t you just give me the summaries, as you did before?” Ivo did not want to say that a detailed technical lecture was something other than he had bargained for.

“Because that would be too much of
me
speaking. I need to show you enough of the principles so that you understand the essence of what the chart says, on your own. You may have a different opinion from mine, and your interpretation could help me to reach my own decision.”

Groton’s manner reminded him of Afra’s when she had insisted on the handling. The full meaning and validity of her request had not been clear to him until later; then he realized that her instinct had been sure. Groton evidently had reservations about this procedure, but was overruling them for some good reason. It would be wise to oblige. More and more, he was being made aware that his own views of things were often based on pitifully inadequate information.

“All right. One opinion on tap, for what it’s worth.”

Groton pointed to the chart. “Notice that this is in twelve segments. Actually, it is twenty-four segments: twelve superimposed on the other twelve, but for convenience we employ a single diagram. I have placed the identifiers around the rim, you see.”

“I recognize the numbers one through twelve; that’s about all.” He continued to study the obscure markings, however. “And Neptune! I couldn’t forget
that
symbol. There in the six-box.”

“That’s enough for a start. Let’s call that the top disk: the twelve houses, numbered counterclockwise. The houses, roughly, represent circumstance: the situation, the potentiality the individual has to work with. That’s not good or bad in itself; he may exploit it or not. But it’s there, much as the chessmen we discussed before are there, ready for the game.”

“Twelve different circumstances?”

“Yes. The first house represents identity, the second possessions, the third environment, and so on. That’s really an oversimplification—”

“You explained. Ballpark estimates.”

“Yes. Now the planets move through these houses, that are really segments of the celestial equator. Three-dimensional segments, to be sure, like those of an orange — but twelve of them make up the heavens about Earth.”

Ivo looked at the chart again. “So the center circle is Earth, and the outer one is the rest of the universe, carved up into twelve big houses, and we’re looking down at an orange sliced in half. Yes.”

“Close enough. The planets represent the particular ways in which the individual asserts himself. The sun in the first house means—”

“The sun? I thought you said planets.”

“We consider the sun and moon to be planets. It is best to set aside what you know about astronomy, for this; it has almost no genuine relation to astrology.”

“I begin to appreciate your sincerity. So the sun is a planet.”

“Viewed from Earth, they are all moving bodies, Sol and Luna no less than Venus or Pluto. They all have changing positions in the sky. We’re not revising astronomy; we are merely arranging our terms to suit our convenience. Technically, it is
astronomy
that did the revising; it was originally a subdivision of astrology, and all the early astronomers were primarily astrologers. There is no conflict.”

“I follow.”

“The sun indicates purpose, the moon feeling, Mars initiative, and so on. There are tables in the books that give all this, if you find it helps. So the sun in the first house puts the planet of purpose in the house of identity. A person with this configuration, according to one description, is determined to exalt his ego one way or another, and tries to dominate his immediate situation. That doesn’t mean he succeeds; this is merely his impulse. He may be bombastic rather than great.”

“You sound as if you have a reservation. Are there other descriptions for what sun-in-first means?”

“There are always differences in interpretation. But my reservation stems from the oversimplification. The whole chart must be considered, not just the sun, or unfortunate mistakes can be made. You see, one of our group has this particular placement.”

“Afra!”

“That’s what I mean. It
isn’t
Afra, as you can see by her chart; the first house is empty. It’s Beatryx.”

“I think I’m catching on. If a person is born when the sun is in one of these segments, that tells something about his personality — but only something, not everything. And I guess the sun
has
to be somewhere. What is the second house?”

“Possessions, among other things. Here, I’ll make out a list; that’s easiest, I think.”

“Oh yes. So the sun in the second house puts purpose in possessions. That man will be out to make money.”

“Or to achieve personal advantage some other way,” Groton said, not pausing in his listing. “You have the general idea. Again, there is no guarantee he’ll make a fortune — but he’ll probably try.”

“Where is the sun in my — in Schön’s horoscope?”

“The twelfth house. That’s confinement.”

“Purpose in confinement.” Ivo thought that over. “This begins to grow on me, I must admit.”

“Just remember that the sun, important as it is, can be outweighed by an opposing configuration elsewhere. And of course the entire horoscope represents probability, not certainty. Heredity is obviously a major influence. Leo is the sign of the lion, but a mouse born into Leo is still a mouse.”

“I’ll remember,” Ivo agreed, smiling. “A leonine Mickey.”

“Notice the position of the sun in Afra’s horoscope.”

Ivo studied the chart once more, finding it less confusing. “Is that the little circle with the dot inside? That’s in the ninth house. But that’s not the only thing there.”

“It certainly isn’t alone, and in certain respects this is a remarkable chart. But let’s ignore the others for the moment. The sun symbol goes near the rim, you see, followed by the ecliptic position in degrees and minutes, and on the inside is the zodiacal sign, which we’ll go into in a moment.”

“What does the ninth house stand for?”

“Understanding, consciousness, knowledge.”

“So Afra has purpose in understanding. That means she wants to know things — and if her heredity gives her high intelligence, she’ll come to know a great deal.”

“The text says: ‘The sun in the ninth house places the practical focus of life in a determination to exalt the ego through high standards and broadened interests. This position always encourages a conscious lean towards an intellectual understanding or a religious orientation. At his best the native is able to bring effective insights or genuine wisdom to every situation, and at his worst he is apt to meet all reality with a complacent intolerance or bigotry.’ ”