Probability Sun (6 page)

All the same, Capelo had, after less than twenty-four hours aboard, already caused Kaufman to move outside the rules. Kaufman wondered how many more times the physicist would do so, and how far he, Kaufman, was actually prepared to go on behalf of Thomas Capelo.

FIVE

ABOARD THE
ALAN B. SHEPARD

T
here it is,” Capelo said, “the most fried object in a thousand star systems. We who are already dead salute you.”

“There wasn’t any life on it anyway,” Hal Albemarle said.

“Do we know that? Do you know that? Are you holding out on us, Hal? Give, give, share the wisdom of the ages.”

Albemarle glared. Kaufman, gathered with the rest of his team on the observation deck of the
Alan B. Shepard,
suppressed an impatient twinge. The relationship between Capelo and Albemarle had not improved since their first encounter, and neither one bothered to hide his dislike. Fortunately, Albemarle and Commander Grafton seemed to be the only ones that challenged Capelo’s sharp mockery. Rosalind Singh indulged it; Ann Sikorski tolerated it; Dieter Gruber was oblivious of it.

Gruber was the only one missing from the preliminary survey of Nimitri, sixth planet from the star in the World System. The geologist had taken ill the day after boarding. Ship’s doctor determined that Gruber had contracted a virus, one of the nasty mutated strains appearing so frequently on Earth; that the virus was laterally transmitted; and that nobody on the
Alan B. Shepard
possessed immunity. Immediately she slapped Gruber into quarantine, where he remained, querulous at being able to participate only virtually in the project team’s discussions.

The ship had journeyed at top speed from Mars to Space Tunnel #1, and then through several more clustered tunnels to reach this remote system at the far edge of the galaxy. After emerging from the system’s only tunnel, #438, the
Alan B. Shepard
took another three days to reach orbit around Nimitri, a bleak, frozen, atmosphereless globe that was the closest planet to Space Tunnel #438. Long before their arrival in the star system, Commander Grafton had turned over the observation deck to the project team, who had set up their data-ports there. Now Capelo, Albemarle, and Rosalind Singh studied the displays, which coordinated data from the ship’s normal sensors from those added to her for this expedition, and from the two probes sent down to the surface.

Rosalind said, “Radioactivity is twenty-nine times what would be predicted. Spectography results … high concentrations of iridium, platinum, thorium, moderately high amounts of uranium … Hal, run an Auberjois test on that data, please.”

Capelo said, “Looks like Syree Johnson called it.”

“I told you so!” crowed the voice of Gruber, following the proceedings from quarantine.

Dr. Singh said, “Hal?”

Albemarle said, “The numbers correlate. A huge leap in the rate of decay occurred two-point-one E-years ago, and no rate change since.”

Marbet said, “For us non-physicists, what does that mean?”

“It means,” Rosalind Singh said in her precise voice, “that what Dr. Johnson said in her preliminary report fits the facts as they exist now. It’s at least possible that her ‘wave effect’ hit Nimitri and caused its massive radioactivity by destabilizing the nucleus of every element above atomic number seventy-five. In other words, the probability that each nucleus would emit a radioactive particle increased enormously. Of course, that doesn’t provide the cause of the phenomenon.”

Gruber’s voice said, “The moon they towed to the tunnel was the cause!” at the same moment that Capelo said, “That’s why I love you, Roz. You keep us honest. No prematurely ejaculated conclusions for you, no matter what Gruber says
in absentia
. But I’ll bet my nonexistent soul that our sneezing geologist is right. Ol’ Syree’s wave effect was real, and it hit Nimitri, and it rolled on outward to hit World. Had to.”

“Ja!” Gruber said.

Kaufman said, “Much weakened? Did it obey the inverse-square law?”

Albemarle said, “No way to tell until we take measurements on the rest of the system and compare them with the initial data from the
Zeus
.”

Kaufman nodded. He was surprised at how interested he was in the answer.

Marbet said to him quietly, “Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?”

“To me, yes. To you?”

“Not the science,” she admitted. “But the team interactions certainly are.”

Again he wondered what she saw. He’d avoided asking her; her mission here wasn’t with the humans.

“Lyle,” she said, as the others became involved in some debate about mathematics, not one word of which was intelligible to Kaufman, “we’re now in the World System. Don’t you think it’s time you told me about this Faller I’m supposed to be presented with?”

“Not yet,” Kaufman said, “because so far there’s nothing to tell. The moment there is, I’ll put you in the data chain, Marbet. I promise.”

“All right.” She went back to watching the mathematical debate.

Kaufman didn’t know whether to feel piqued or pleased. She seemed to have no interest in him apart from her mission here. Or was it just that she trusted him to communicate anything important without her having to press?

He studied the curve of her brown throat, pure and strong. In profile like this, the startlingly high, sharp cheekbone made a clean plane below one emerald eye. Soft auburn curls clustered over her small ear. On the lobe was a jade earring. She looked as precise as if she were carved, and yet the flesh on that perfect genemod throat moved in and out with the breath of warm life.

Lyle Kaufman suddenly hoped she hadn’t caught him staring.

Albemarle finally said huffily, “Well, naturally, if you think that, there’s no point in arguing.”

“That’s true,” Capelo said, “because whatever I think must be right. I came eighty thousand light years for no other purpose than to be right when you’re wrong. I live for the pleasure of flattening stupid mathematical theories, and you’re supplying me with food and drink. Isn’t that right, Roz?”

“You are correct on this one mathematical point,” Dr. Singh said, “but no, you are not always right. Now leave Hal alone, Tom, so he can do the analysis I’ve requested of him.”

“You sound just like my daughter,” Capelo said, “ordering me around. I’m surrounded by bossy women. Lyle, remind them who’s in charge here.”

“I am,” Kaufman said mildly, and was rewarded by Marbet’s turning to him with her amused, full-lipped smile.

“Dinner, sir,” announced a serving cart, entering with a full, fragrant tray. And that was another problem. Except for sleep, the team now pretty much lived on the observation deck, working and talking and eating there. They had all been invited to take their meals in the wardroom, but this had not worked out very well. The officers of the
Alan B. Shepard
were the usual mixed lot off-duty, ranging from the sophisticated, music-loving executive officer to the communications officer, who had the foulest sense of humor Kaufman, during a long Army career, had ever encountered. Despite the differences among them, they were all Navy officers, military men and women first. They found Tom Capelo just too weird, and the presence of his little girls too inhibiting. Marbet Grant clearly unnerved them. Everyone knew who she Was. Kaufman saw the officers gazing at her sideways when they thought she wouldn’t notice, and he knew they were wondering what she noticed about them that they would rather keep hidden. Most of them didn’t meet her eyes.

So a few days out from Earth, the project team had begun having its meals brought to the observation deck. Hal Albemarle dined in the wardroom occasionally, when he couldn’t stand Capelo any more. But Albemarle was always drawn back, afraid of missing something important. Kaufman felt the same way, but he scrupulously divided his meals between the wardroom and his fractious team.

Two days later they went into orbit around the star system’s next planet, another lifeless rock. At the same time, Dieter Gruber was released from quarantine. Kaufman was glad to see him. Gruber’s enthusiasm for the project and his obliviousness of social tension were equally welcome.

*   *   *

The fifth planet from the system’s star also proved to be highly radioactive. In fact, it was just exactly as radioactive as Nimitri.

“Run the data again,” Capelo said flatly.

“I already ran it twice!” Albemarle retorted.

“Then run it three times.”

Albemarle did. It came up the same.

Rosalind Singh said thoughtfully, “So the wave effect did not obey the inverse-square law. Interesting.”

“More than that!” Dieter Gruber said. The big man was so excited he could not stay still. He prowled the observation deck like a huge golden cat, stopping every few minutes to stare at the dead planet rotating beyond the viewport. Gray and airless, it looked much like a smaller Nimitri.

Kaufman wanted to be sure he understood. Only the five of them were on deck. Capelo, Singh, Gruber, and Albemarle were scientists. He was not. He said, “Does that mean that when the artifact that the
Zeus
was towing exploded, or was shot down, it gave out a different kind of wave than Syree Johnson reported finding when she examined the thing in orbit?”

Rosalind Singh said patiently, “Yes, Lyle. Or, rather, not different in effect, because the data showed that all three times, the wave destabilized atoms with an atomic number above seventy-five. It happened in orbit, it happened at Nimitri, it happened here. But when Dr. Johnson deliberately activated the artifact in orbit, she did so at the lowest setting. It was marked in primes with the addition of the integer ‘one,’ you know, the way the space-tunnels are. On that occasion, the wave obeyed the inverse-square law. The data from her, the shuttle, and various orbital sensors are quite definite about that.

“But when that same artifact ‘blew,’ it apparently set off a much stronger wave, perhaps at the strongest setting, and that wave does
not
seem to have obeyed the inverse-square law. It affected this planet just as strongly as it affected Nimitri, although they are fifty-six million kilometers apart.”

Kaufman said, “So … does that mean it would have hit World just as strongly?”

“Yes!” crowed Gruber. “And yet World did not go radioactive! That was because of the buried artifact! It was at the exact moment of explosion that the artifact reacted! The exact moment, with no delay for light-speed! Because they are entangled!”

“You cannot know that yet, Dieter,” Rosalind Singh said mildly.

“No? What other theories do you have, Dr. Singh?”

“I won’t have any theories until I can include the fall-off as well.”

Kaufman said, “And fall-off is…”

“It describes how an effect weakens until it’s undetectable. It must fade away with distance eventually, or it would affect the entire universe. We launched probes in the opposite direction from the planets, you remember, and they show a very abrupt fall-off of radiation at about six billion kilometers from the star. That’s a very strange decay. We have no equations that can account for it.”

“We will get them,” said Dieter, the optimist. His blue eyes sparkled.

Kaufman turned to study Capelo, who appeared oblivious of the entire conversation. He paced, thinking, his dark thin face taut with concentration. Seeing Capelo like that, Kaufman realized how different the man looked when he was thinking deeply. For the moment, all bitterness and mockery had vanished from his face. It left Capelo looking both younger and, curiously, more mature, capable of intense mental exploration from which he would not be distracted. There was something impressive in his constantly moving figure. Even Albemarle did not interrupt.

Gruber said, softly for him, to Kaufman, “You will see when we dig up the buried artifact, Colonel. It, too, alters probability. Like the exploded artifact altered the probability of any given atom going radioactive at any given time. The brain, too, is a probability field, and the buried one affects brains. I know, I felt it. You will see.”

Kaufman had studied carefully this part of Gruber’s report. It was the part that had made High Command dismiss Gruber as a crackpot. The buried artifact, according to the geologist, affected the release of neurotransmitters in the brain, and, by existing on the planet for eons, had affected the mental evolution of the natives. More alarmingly, it had affected the brains of the human research team when they entered caves too close to the buried object.

With such a claim, it had been all too easy to ridicule Gruber’s entire story. Yes, his brain
had
been affected. He’d been gassed by some hallucinogen, said one military doctor after another, or brainwashed by natives, or sent over the edge by some psychotropic he’d eaten.

Kaufman had spent days poring over data cubes about the brain, trying to evaluate Gruber’s claim. Yes, there was a probability component to the release of neurotransmitters in the brain. For reasons no one understood, transmitters were not released each and every time an electrical impulse traveled along a brain nerve. The release rate varied from 17 percent to 62 percent, depending on the kind of nerve—
even though the electrical impulse in each case was the exact same voltage
. A single atom triggered or did not trigger the release of packets of transmitters. Whenever single atoms were involved, of course, you got quantum effects … and that brought in probability.

Looked at that way, Gruber’s theory made sense.

But no one had ever defined, measured, or created a “probability field.” It was a blue-sky concept. And even assuming such a thing existed, the idea of one that could be controlled violated practically every known idea of physics. At least, the level of physics that Kaufman could understand. On the other hand, so did the space tunnels, and they clearly existed. On the third hand, so did Tom Capelo’s ideas on probability, which some considered as crazy as Gruber’s. Capelo, however, was a figure not easily dismissed.

As Kaufman understood contemporary physics, subatomic particles, however they were referred to, were not actually particles but tiny vibrating threads. That had been conclusively proven by the great Elisar Yeovil in 2041, building on work stretching back almost a century. All “particle” properties—charge, spin, mass—arose from differences in vibrational patterns of the fundamental threads. Spacetime was a rich fabric of threads twisting and vibrating throughout its four familiar dimensions and the six less familiar, tiny, curled-up dimensions that adjoined length, breadth, and height at every point in the universe.