The Best of Michael Swanwick (8 page)

Louise Chang, a vaguely highly placed administrator, blossomed in the center of the image cluster. “Welcome,” she said, and explained the rules of the debate. “The winner will be decided by acclaim,” she said, “with half the vote being human and half alien. Please remember not to base your vote on racial chauvinism, but on the strengths of the arguments and now well they are presented.” Cheyney’s hand brushed casually across her nipples; they stiffened. The hand lingered. “The debate will begin with the gentleman representing the aliens presenting his thesis.”

The image flickered as the spider waved several arms. “Thank you, Ms. Chairman. I argue that I should survive. My culture is superior because of our technological advancement. Three examples. Humans have used translation travel only briefly, yet we have used it for sixteens of garble. Our black-hole technology is superior. And our garble has garble for the duration of our society.”

“Thank you. The gentleman representing humanity?”

“Thank you, Ms. Chairman.” Dominguez adjusted an armlet. Cheyney leaned back and let Abigail rest against him. Her head fit comfortably against his shoulder. “My argument is that technology is neither the sole nor most important measure of a culture. By these standards dolphins would be considered brute animals. The aesthetic considerations—the arts, theology, and the tradition of philosophy—are of greater import. As I shall endeavor to prove.”

“He’s chosen the wrong tactic,” Cheyney whispered in Abigail’s ear. “That must have come across as pure garble to the spiders.”

“Thank you. Mr. Girard?”

Paul’s image expanded. He theatrically swigged from a small flask and hoisted it high in the air. “Alcohol! There’s the greatest achievement of the human race!” Abigail snorted. Cheyney laughed out loud. “But I hold that neither Mr. Dominguez nor the distinguished spider deserves to live, because of the disregard both cultures have for sentient life.” Abigail looked at Cheyney, who shrugged. “As I shall endeavor to prove.” His image dwindled.

Chang said, “The arguments will now proceed, beginning with the distinguished alien.”

The spider and then Dominguez ran through their arguments, and to Abigail they seemed markedly lackluster. She didn’t give them her full attention, because Cheyney’s hands were moving most interestingly across unexpected parts of her body. He might not be too bright, but he was certainly good at some things. She nuzzled her face into his neck, gave him a small peck, returned her attention to the debate.

Paul blossomed again. He juggled something in his palm, held his hand open to reveal three ball bearings. “When I was a kid I used to short out the school module and sneak up to the axis room to play marbles.” Abigail smiled, remembering similar stunts she had played. “For the sake of those of us who are spiders, I’ll explain that marbles is a game played in free-fall for the purpose of developing coordination and spatial perception. You make a six-armed star of marbles in the center…”

One of the bearings fell from his hand, bounced noisily, and disappeared as it rolled out of camera range. “Well, obviously it can’t be played here. But the point is that when you shoot the marble just right, it hits the end of one arm and its kinetic energy is transferred from marble to marble along that arm. So that the shooter stops and the marble at the far end of the arm flies away.” Cheyney was stroking her absently now, engrossed in the argument.

“Now, we plan to send a courier into Ginungagap and out the spiders’ back hole. At least, that’s what we say we’re going to do.

“But what exits from a black hole is not necessarily the same as what went into its partner hole. We throw an electron into Ginungagap and another one pops out elsewhere. It’s identical. It’s a direct causal relationship. But it’s like the marbles—they’re identical to each other and have the same kinetic force. It’s simply not the same electron.”

Cheyney’s hand was still, motionless. Abigail prodded him gently, touching his inner thigh. “Anyone who’s interested can see the equations. Now, when we send messages, this doesn’t matter. The message is important, not the medium. However, when we send a human being in…what emerges from the other hole will be cell for cell, gene for gene, atom for atom identical.
But it will not be the same person
.” He paused for a beat, smiled.

“I submit, then, that this is murder. And further, that by conspiring to commit murder, both the spider and human races display absolute disregard for intelligent life. In short, no one on the raft deserves to live. And I rest my case.”

“Mr. Girard!” Dominguez objected, even before his image was restored to full size. “The simplest mathematical proof is an identity: that A equals A. Are you trying to deny this?”

Paul held up the two ball bearings he had left. “These marbles are identical too. But they are not the same marble.”

“We know the phenomenon you speak of,” the spider said. “It is as if garble the black hole bulges out simultaneously. There is no violation of continuity. The two entities are the same. There is no death.”

Abigail pulled Cheyney down, so that they were both lying on their sides, still able to watch the images. “So long as you happen to be the second marble and not the first,” Paul said. Abigail tentatively licked Cheyney’s ear.

“He’s right,” Cheyney murmured.

“No, he’s not,” Abigail retorted. She bit his earlobe.

“You mean that?”

“Of course I mean that. He’s confusing semantics with reality.” She engrossed herself in a study of the back of his neck.

“Okay.”

Abigail suddenly sensed that she was missing something. “Why do you ask?” She struggled into a sitting position. Cheyney followed.

“No particular reason.” Cheyney’s hands began touching her again. But Abigail was sure something had been slipped past her.

They caressed each other lightly, while the debate dragged to an end. Not paying much attention, Abigail voted for Dominguez and Cheyney voted for Paul. As a result of a nearly undivided spider vote, the spider won. “I told you Dominguez was taking the wrong approach.” Cheyney said. He hopped off the hammock. Look, I’ve got to see somebody about something. I’ll be right back.”

“You’re not leaving
now
?” Abigail protested, dumbfounded. The door irised shut.

Angry and hurt, she leapt down, determined to follow him. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so insulted.

Cheyney didn’t try to be evasive; it apparently did not occur to him that she might follow. Abigail stalked him down a corridor, up an inramp, and to a door that irised open for him. She recognized that door.

Thoughtfully, she squatted on her heels behind an untrimmed boxwood and waited. A minute later, Garble wandered by, saw her, and demanded attention. “Scat!” she hissed. He butted his head against her knee. “Then be silent, at least.” She scooped him up. His expression was smug.

The door irised open and Cheyney exited, whistling. Abigail waiteduntil he was gone, stood, went to the door, and entered. Fish dartedbetween long fronds under a transparent floor. It was an austere room, almost featureless. Abigail looked, but did not see a hammock.

“So Cheyney’s working for you now,” she said coldly. Paul looked up from a corner keyout.

“As a matter of fact, I’ve just signed him to permanent contract in the crewroom. He’s bright enough. A bit green. Ought to do well.”

“Then you admit that you put him up to grilling me about your puerile argument in the debate?” Garble struggled in her arms. She juggled him into a more comfortable position. “And that you staged the argument for my benefit in the first place?”

“Ah,” Paul said. “I knew the training was going somewhere. You’ve become very wary in an extremely short time.”

“Don’t evade the question.”

“I needed your honest reaction,” Paul said. “Not the answer you would have given me, knowing your chances of crossing Ginungagap rode on it.”

Garble made an angry noise. “You tell him Garble!” she said. “That goes double for me.” She stepped out the door. “You lost the debate,” she snapped.

Long after the door had irised shut, she could feel Paul’s amused smile burning into her back.

***

Two days after she returned to kick Cheyney out of her hammock for the final time, Abigail was called to the crewroom. “Dry run,” Paul said. “Attendance is mandatory,” and cut off.

They crewroom was crowded with technicians, triple the number of keyouts. Small knots of them clustered before the screens, watching. Paul waved her to him.

“There,” he motioned to one screen. “That’s Clotho—the platform we built for the transmission device. It’s a hundred kilometers off. I wanted more, but Dominguez overruled me. The device that’ll unravel you and dump you down Ginungagap is that doohickey in the center.” He tapped a keyout, and the platform zoomed up to fill the screen. It was covered by a clear transparent bubble. Inside, a spacesuited figure was placing something into a machine that looked like nothing so much as a giant armor-clad clamshell.

“That’s Garble,” she said indignantly.

“Complain to Dominguez. I wanted a baboon.”

The clamshell device closed. The spacesuited tech left in his tug, and alphanumerics flickered, indicating the device was in operation. As they watched, the spider-designed machinery immobilized Gable, transformed his molecules into one long continuous polymer chain, and spun it out in an invisible opening at near-light speed. The water in his body was separated out, piped away, and preserved. The electrolyte balances were recorded and simultaneously transmitted in a parallel stream of electrons. It would reach the spider receiver along with the lead end of the cat-polymer, to be used in the reconstruction.

Thirty seconds passed. Now Garble was only partially in Clotho. The polymer chain, invisible and incredibly long, was passing into Ginungagap. On the far side the spiders were beginning to knit it up.

It all was going well.

Ninety-two seconds after they flashed on, the alphanumerics stopped twinkling on the screen. Garble was gone from Clotho. The clamshell opened, and the remote cameras showed it to be empty. A cheer arose.

Somebody boosted Dominguez atop a keyout. Intercom cameras swivelled to follow. He wavered fractionally, said “My friends,” and launched into a speech. Abigail didn’t listen.

Paul’s hand fell on her shoulder. It was the first time he had touched her since their initial meeting. “He’s only a scientist,” he said. “He had no idea how close you are to that cat.”

“Look, I
asked
to go. I knew the risks. But Garble’s just an animal; he wasn’t given the choice.”

Paul groped for words. “In a way, this is what your training has been about; the reason you’re going across instead of someone like Dominguez. He projects his own reactions onto other people. If—”

Then, seeing that she wasn’t listening, he said, “Anyway, you’ll have a cat to play with in a few hours. They’re only keeping him long enough to test out the life-support systems.”

***

There was a festive air to the second gathering. The spiders reported that Garble had translated flawlessly. A brief visual display showed him stalking about Clotho’s sister platform, irritable but apparently unharmed.

“There,” somebody said. The screen indicated that the receiver net had taken in the running end of the cat’s polymer chain. They waited a minute and a half, and the operation was over.

It was like a conjuring trick: the clamshell closed on emptiness. Water was piped in. Then it opened and Garble floated over its center, quietly licking one paw.

Abigail smiled at the homeliness of it. “Welcome back, Garble,” she said quietly. “I’ll get the guys in Bio to brew up some cream for you.”

Paul’s eyes flicked in her direction. They lingered for no time at all, long enough to file away another datum for future use, and then his attention was elsewhere. She waited until his back was turned and stuck out her tongue at him.

The tug docked with Clotho, and a technician floated in. She removed her helmet self-consciously, aware of her audience. One hand extended, she bobbed toward the cat, calling softly.

“Get that jerk on the line,” Paul snapped. “I want her helmet back on. That’s sloppy. That’s real—”

And in that instant Garble sprang.

Garble was a black-and-white streak that flashed past the astonished tech, though the airlock, and into the open tug. The cat pounced on the pilot panel. Its forearms hit the controls. The hatch slammed shut, and the tug’s motors burst into life.

Crewroom techs grabbed wildly at their keyouts. The tech on Clotho frantically tried to fit her helmet back on. And the tug took off, blasting away half the protective dome and all the platform’s air.

The screens showed a dozen different scenes, lenses shifting from close to distant and back. “Cheyney,” Paul said quietly. Dominguez was frozen, looking bewildered. “Take it out.”

“It’s coming right at us!” somebody shouted.

Cheyney’s fingers flicked: rap-tap-rap.

A bright nuclear flower blossomed.

There was silence, dead and complete, in the crewroom.
I’m missing something
, Abigail thought.
We just blew up five percent of our tug fleet to kill a cat
.

“
Pull
that transmitter!” Paul strode through the crewroom, scattering orders. “Nothing goes out! You, you, and you”—he yanked techs away from their keyouts—“
off
those things. I want the whole goddamned net shut
down
.”

“Paul…” an operator said.

“Keep on receiving.” He didn’t bother to look. “Whatever they want to send. Dump it all in storage and don’t merge any of it with our data until we’ve gone over it.”

Alone and useless in the center of the room, Dominguez stuttered. “What—what happened?”

“You blind idiot!” Paul turned on him viciously. “Your precious aliens have just made their first hostile move. The cat that came back was nothing like the one we sent. They made changes. They retransmitted it with instructions wetwired into its brain.”

“But why would they want to steal a tug?”