Nemesis (26 page)

The Director stirred uneasily. “I am not a physicist, but I find it difficult to accept an environment without constraints. Are there not things you cannot do?”

“There are constraints. We need a vacuum and a gravitational intensity below a certain point if we are to make the transition into and out of hyperspace. We will, with experience, undoubtedly find additional restraints which might have to be determined through test flights. The results might necessitate further delays.”

“Once you have the ship, where will the first flight take you?”

“It might seem prudent to allow the first trip to go no farther than the planet Pluto, for instance, but that might well be considered an unbearable waste of time. Once we have the technology with which to visit the stars, the temptation to actually visit one would be overwhelming.”

“Such as the Neighbor Star?”

“That would the logical goal. Ex-Director Tanayama wanted that visited, but I must point out that there are other stars far more interesting. Sirius is only four times as far away and it would give us a chance to observe a white dwarf star at close range.”

“Dr. Wendel, I think that the Neighbor Star must be the goal, though not necessarily for Tanayama’s reasons. Suppose you travel far out to some other star—any other star—and return. How would you prove that you had indeed been in the neighborhood of another star?”

Wendel looked startled. “Prove? I don’t understand you?”

“I mean, how would you counter accusations that the supposed flight was actually a fake.”

“A
fake?
” Wendel rose furiously to her feet. “That is insulting.”

Koropatsky’s voice suddenly grew dominating. “Sit down, Dr. Wendel. You are being accused of nothing. I am trying to foresee a situation and to guard against it. Humanity moved into space almost three centuries ago. It is a not-altogether-forgotten episode in history and my subdivision of the globe remembers it particularly well. When the first satellites went up in those dim days of terrestrial confinement, there were those who insisted everything presented by those satellites were fakes. The first photographs of the far side of the Moon were accused of having been faked. Even the first pictures of Earth from space were called fakes by some few who believed the Earth was flat. Now if Earth claims to have superluminal flight, we may run into similar trouble.”

“Why, Director? Why should anyone think we would lie about a thing like that?”

“My dear Dr. Wendel, you are naïve. For over three centuries, Albert Einstein has been the demigod who invented cosmology. People, for generation after generation, have grown used to the concept of the speed of light as an absolute limit. They will not readily give it up. Even the principle of causality—and one can’t think of anything more basic than that cause must precede effect—seems violated. That’s one thing.

“Another, Dr. Wendel, is that the Settlements might find it politically useful to convince their peoples, and Earthmen, too, that we are lying. It will confuse us, involve us in polemics, waste our time, and give them more of a chance to catch up. So I ask you: Is there a simple proof that any flight you might make would be a truly legitimate one?”

Wendel said icily, “Director, we would permit scientists to inspect our ship once we return. We will undertake to explain the techniques used—”

“No no no. Please. Don’t go any further. That would only convince scientists as knowledgeable as yourself.”

“Well then, when we come back we will have photographs
of the sky and the nearer stars will be positioned slightly differently with respect to each other. From the change in relative positions, it will be possible to calculate exactly where we were relative to the Sun.”

“Also just for scientists. Completely unconvincing to the average person.”

“We’ll have close-up pictures of whatever star we visit. It will be quite different from our Sun in every respect.”

“But this sort of thing is done in every trivial holovision program dealing with interstellar travel. It is the small change of the science fiction epic. It would be no more than a ‘Captain Galaxy’ program.”

“In that case,” said Wendel with teeth-clenching exasperation, “I don’t know of any way. If people will not believe, then they will not believe. It is a problem you must handle. I am only a scientist.”

“Now now, Doctor. Keep your temper, please. When Columbus returned from his first trip across the ocean seven and a half centuries ago, no one accused him of fakery. Why? Because he brought back with him native people from the new shores he had visited.”

“Very good, but the chance of finding life-bearing worlds and bringing back specimens is very small.”

“Perhaps not. Rotor, you know, is believed to have discovered the Neighbor Star with their Far Probe and to have left the Solar System soon after that. Since they never returned, it is possible that they traveled to the Neighbor Star and remained there and, in fact, are still there.”

“So Director Tanayama believed. However, the trip, with hyper-assistance, would have taken over two years. It may be that through accident, through scientific failure, through psychological problems, they never completed the trip. That, too, would account for their never returning.”

“Nevertheless,” said Koropatsky, quietly insistent, “they may have arrived.”

“Even if they have arrived, they are likely to have simply gone into orbit around the star, in the certain absence of any habitable world. In isolation, the psychological strains, which didn’t stop them en route, would stop them then, and it is likely there is now only a dead Settlement whirling the Neighbor Star forever.”

“Then you now see that it must be the goal because once you’re there, you will seek out Rotor, alive or dead. Either way, you must bring back something unmistakably Rotorian and it would then be very easy for everyone to believe that you had indeed gone out to the stars and come back.” He smiled broadly. “Even
I
would believe it, and that would answer my question as to how you would prove that you had made a superluminal trip. That will be your mission, then, and for that, never fear, Earth will continue to find you the money and resources and workers you will need.”

And when after a dinner during which technical points were not raised, Koropatsky said to Wendel, in the friendliest possible tone, but with more than a hint of ice beneath, “Just the same, remember that you have only three years to do it in. At the
most
.”

“So my clever ploy wasn’t really needed,” said Crile Fisher with a slight air of regret.

“No. They were determined to continue without the threat of being overtaken. The only thing that bothered them, and it was something that never seemed to bother Tanayama, was this matter of having to battle possible cases of fakery. I suppose Tanayama just wanted to destroy Rotor. As long as that was done, the world could yell ‘Fake’ all it wanted.”

“They wouldn’t. He would have had the ship bring back something to show
him
that Rotor was destroyed. That would prove it to the world, too. What kind of fellow is the new Director?”

“Quite the reverse of Tanayama. He seems soft, almost apologetic, but I have a feeling that the Global Congress is going to find him just as hard to handle as Tanayama was. He has to settle into his job, that’s all.”

“From what you’ve told me about the conversation, he seems more sensible than Tanayama.”

“Yes, but it still steams me—that suggestion of fakery. Imagine thinking spaceflights would be faked. It’s probably the result of Earthmen having no feel for space. No feel at all. It’s you people having this endless world and,
except in a microscopic fraction of cases, never leaving it.”

Fisher smiled. “Well, I’m one of the microscopic fraction that has left it. Often. And you’re a Settler. So neither one of us is planetbound.”

“That’s right,” said Wendel, shooting him a sidelong glance. “Sometimes I think you don’t remember that I’m a Settler.”

“Believe me, I never forget it. I don’t go about muttering to myself, ‘Tessa is a Settler! Tessa is a Settler!’ but, at all times, I know you are.”

“Does anyone else, though?” She waved her hand around as though to include an indefinite surrounding volume. “Here is Hyper City under unimaginably tight security and why? Against the Settlers. The whole point is to get out there with practical superluminal flight before the Settlers can even get started. And who is in complete charge of the project? A Settler.”

“Is this the first time you’ve thought of that in the five years you’ve been on the project?”

“No, but I think of it periodically. I just don’t understand it. Aren’t they afraid to trust me?”

Fisher laughed. “Not really. You’re a scientist.”

“So?”

“So scientists are considered mercenaries without ties to any one society. Give a scientist a fascinating problem and all the money, equipment, and help that he or she needs to tackle that problem, and that scientist wouldn’t care who the source of support was. Be truthful— You care neither for Earth, nor Adelia, nor for the Settlements as a whole, nor even for humanity as a whole. You just want to work out the details of superluminal flight, and you have no loyalties beyond that.”

Wendel said haughtily, “That’s a stereotype, and not every scientist will fit it.
I
may not fit it.”

“I’m sure they realize that, too, so that you are probably under constant surveillance, Tessa. Some of your closest associates probably have, as an important aspect of their work, the constant monitoring of your activities, and the constant reporting to the government.”

“You’re not referring to yourself, I hope.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought that I might be
remaining near you entirely in my role as wheedler of secrets.”

“As a matter of fact, the idea has occurred to me—now and then.”

“But it’s
not
my job. I suspect that I’m too close to you to be trusted. In fact, I’m quite sure that I’m reported on, too, and that my activity is carefully weighed. As long as I keep you happy—”

“You’re a cold-blooded person, Crile. How can you find humor in something like that?”

“There’s no humor there. I’m trying to be realistic. If you ever tire of me, I lose my function. An unhappy Tessa may be an unproductive Tessa, so I will be suddenly gotten out of your hair and the way will be smoothed for my successor. After all, your contentment is worth far more to them than mine is, and I recognize that it is only sensible that that be the case. You see my realism?”

Whereupon Wendel reached out suddenly to stroke Crile’s cheek. “Don’t worry. I think I’ve grown too used to you to tire of you now. In the hot blood of my youth, I could grow bored with my men and discard them, but now—”

“It’s too much of an effort, eh?”

“If you choose to think of it that way. I might also finally be in love—in my way.”

“I understand your meaning. Love in cool blood can be restful. But I suspect this is not the proper moment to prove it. You’ll have to chew over this exchange with Koropatsky first, and get that poisonous feeling about fakery out of your system.”

“I’ll get over that someday. But there’s another thing. I told you a little while ago about Earthpeople having no feel for space.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, here’s an example. Koropatsky has no feeling—no feeling at all—for the sheer size of space. He talked about going to the Neighbor Star and finding Rotor. Now how is that to be done? Every once in a while, we spot an asteroid and lose it before we can calculate its orbit. Do you know how long it takes to relocate that lost asteroid, even with all our modern devices and instruments? Years sometimes. Space is large, even in the near vicinity of a star, and Rotor is small.”

“Yes, but we search for one asteroid among a hundred thousand. Rotor, on the other hand, will be the only object of its kind near the Neighbor Star.”

“Who told you that? Even if the Neighbor Star doesn’t have a planetary system in our sense, it is extremely unlikely that it won’t be surrounded by debris of one sort or another.”

“But it would be dead debris, like our dead asteroids. Since Rotor will be a functioning Settlement, it will be emitting a wide range of radiation, and that should be easy to detect.”

“
If
Rotor is a functioning Settlement. What if it isn’t? Then it’s just another asteroid and finding it may prove an enormous task. We may not succeed at all in any reasonable period of time.”

Fisher could not keep his face from falling into lines of misery.

Wendel made a small sound and moved closer to him, placing an arm around his unresponsive shoulder. “Oh, my dear, you
know
the situation. You must face it.”

Fisher said in a choked voice, “I know. But they
may
have survived. Isn’t that true?”

“They may,” said Wendel with a slightly synthetic lilt to her voice, “and if they have, so much the better for us. As you pointed out, it would then be easy to locate them through their radiational output. And more than that—”

“Yes?”

“Koropatsky wants us to bring back something that will prove we encountered Rotor, feeling that would be the best evidence that we had indeed been in deep space and returned, covering several light-years in, at most, a few months. Except— What exactly could we bring back that would be convincing? Suppose we find some drifting bits of metal or concrete. Not any bit will do. A lump of metal with nothing to identify it as Rotorian would be something we might well have taken with us. Even if we manage to find a piece that is characteristic of Rotor—some artifact that could only exist on a Settlement—it might be considered a fake.

“If, however, Rotor were a working, living Settlement, we might be able to persuade some Rotorian to come back with us. A Rotorian can be identified as one. Fingerprints,
retinal patterns, DNA analysis. There may even be people on other Settlements, or on Earth, who would be able to recognize the particular Rotorian we bring back. Koropatsky hinted heavily that we do this. He pointed out that Columbus, returning from his first voyage, brought Native Americans with him.