The End of the Matter (24 page)

“A diffusion scan won’t penetrate the material.” Truzenzuzex’s gaze moved from one readout to the next. “Still no evidence of any movement relative to the planet below or to our ship. Nor is the artifact emitting any radiation—at least, not any variety this vessel is equipped to detect. And there is no connection of any sort to the surface below.” He turned from the controls and regarded them thoughtfully. One truhand rubbed idly at his lower mandibles.

“This exceptionally unexceptional ghost from the Hur’rikku past
must
be the weapon. We have Ab’s one significant, if colloquial, reference to it. We have the fact that it
is
here, in the safest place to store a powerful weapon in this system. Yet it persists in maintaining a pose of innocence. What we have observed on the Hur’rikku world does not prepare me to accept this as a deception. I confess I do not know how to proceed to prove it is otherwise.”

“How is it supposed to work?” Hasboga edged closer to the curving main viewport, beyond which the device drifted. “Not that I care how big an explosion it makes, you understand.”

Tse-Mallory did not smile. “We don’t know that it explodes.”

“Well, does whatever it’s supposed to do. But I’d like to have a closer look at those inscriptions on it.”

“You may have your chance,” said Truzenzuzex. “We may have to decipher them in order to learn how the device operates. Certainly the mechanism has not manifested itself to us.”

“The inscriptions might not be instructions,” Flinx pointed out prosaically. “They might simply say ‘This ultimate weapon manufactured by H’pel’s Ultimate Weapons, Inc.’, or something like that.”

A valentine-shaped head swiveled to face him. “We’d best hope otherwise, Flinx.”

Tse-Mallory indicated agreement. “I feel like a Neanderthal cornered by a Smilodon. Someone has just handed me Mr. September’s Mark Twenty and I have ten seconds to figure out how to use it. Probably I’d end up employing it as a club.” He gestured at the floating enigma. Lights from the
Teacher’s
ports shone eerily on the dull-colored surface. “If we aren’t careful, we’re liable to end up like that Neanderthal, looking dumbly down the barrel of a Hur’rikku weapon while we pound on its trigger. We’d better be careful which of those protrusions and indentations on its surface we stick our manipulative digits into. I’d much rather learn how to activate the device from a distance. However,” he added, without evident concern for his personal safety, “if someone has to jump up and down on it to make it go off, that is what we’ll do.

“But we won’t do it here, where it will do no good. First we must convey the device to the present location of the rogue.” He turned his gaze on Flinx. “There’s a planetless binary system in the path of the rogue. We should reach that spatial vicinity at the same time as or slightly after the rogue if we depart from here now and drive at maximum velocity for rendezvous. We will have the rare opportunity to observe the influence of a massive collapsar on another stellar object. We will also see,” he said, directing his words subtly to Isili Hasboga, “what will happen to the suns of Carmague-Collangatta and Twosky Bright if our research turns out to have been incorrect.”

“Suppose that’s the case.” Hasboga looked subdued. “What will you do then?”

Tse-Mallory smiled very slightly. “Then Tru and I will go hunting down the next best legend.” He glanced back to Flinx. “I think there is ample room. The cargo hold is standard?”

Flinx nodded. “The
Teacher
was modeled on a small freighter. I haven’t had any occasion to handle freight”—another small lie—“but there’s no reason why the hold shouldn’t be functional.” He indicated the Hur’rikku artifact filling the port. “The ship’s hold should be able to contain several objects that size.”

The
Teacher’s
attitude was altered so that the great cargo doors in its tail were facing the object. Flinx operated the hatches and watched telltales indicate that the huge metal panels were performing properly.

The hold was little more than a vast open sphere within which all kinds of cargo could be stored at null g. At present the cavernous space was empty. There would be plenty of room for the Hur’rikku device.

Gradually Flinx activated the posigravity tractor beams, used for manipulating large cargo. Every muscle in his body was a touch tenser than usual. No one knew if the powerful tractors would have an adverse effect on the artifact. Only instruments indicated when the tractors locked on, however. The artifact remained as quiescent as before.

“Slide it into the ship, Flinx,” said Tse-Mallory, watching different sensors. “Slowly.”

Through the use of rear-facing tridees they were able to see the artifact. Tse-Mallory looked up, smiled, and nodded with a touch of impatience. Several minutes had passed.

“It’s all right, Flinx. You can bring it in now.”

Flinx glanced up from the controls, confusion and uncertainty mixing in his expression. “Bran, that’s what I’ve been trying to do. The tractors are set on maximum pull—but the thing’s not budging.”

Chapter Thirteen

Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory checked instrumentation, confirmed that the ship’s cargo handlers were operating properly. Everything read normal, performed efficiently—yet the artifact refused to enter the
Teacher.
Flinx had an idea, which Tse-Mallory quashed.

“Why don’t we just back the ship around the object?”

“No good, Flinx,” Tse-Mallory explained. “If the tractors can’t move the object, then I’m not sure it will move along with the ship. Try again.”

Flinx did so, then tried a third time, each time at a different setting, using the four tractors in differing configurations.

Hasboga looked awed. “It hasn’t moved a centimeter.” She stared at the screens.

“Young feller-me-lad?” September looked from the screens over to the control console. “What’s your manipulation capacity?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand tons, dead-weight mass, per tractor. I’ve tried employing them along the same axis, one million tons of pulling power. No good—it doesn’t move.”

September looked thoughtful as he stroked his chin. “Even if that artifact is unusually dense stuff, I don’t imagine it weighing anywhere near that much.”

“ ‘Unusually dense’ leaves a great deal of room for variation, Mr. September,” said Truzenzuzex. “The duralloy this vessel is made of is composed of exceptionally dense metals.” A truhand fluttered in the direction of the screens showing the device. “That object may be composed of super-dense material.”

“Maybe it’s as dense as the collapsar,” ventured Hasboga.

Truzenzuzex stifled a laugh; the woman was not a physicist. “If that were so, then our device would weigh as much as several galaxies. I think that unlikely. We will have to find something more powerful to pull with.”

“Or push with,” Flinx murmured.

Truzenzuzex made a sound indicative of agreement mixed with hesitancy. “There are other ways to employ a KK field.”

“I see what you’re thinking, you two.” Tse-Mallory looked doubtful and not a little worried. “I don’t know. It’s risky, very risky.”

“But worth trying.” Flinx was sure it would work. “Instead of trying to pull the device, we’ll position the
Teacher
behind it, line up on course, and push with the field.”

“Why not just pull it with the field?” Hasboga asked.

“No,” Tse-Mallory replied, “we have to try to push. A Kurita-Kinoshita field is spherical when formed, but when you pass light-speed it becomes teardrop-shaped. The tip of the drop extends only to include that solid matter which is firmly connected to the field projector, meaning the ship. It’s possible, but if the field contracted sufficiently, and it should at the speed we’ll be traveling, then we could lose the artifact.”

“We are much more certain of retaining control of it if it is riding in the front bulge of the field.” Truzenzuzex was gesturing with all four truhands and foothands now. “Assuming that the field exerts sufficient pressure to move it, which is by no means certain.”

“We could lose the artifact that way also, Tru.”

“That is so, ship-brother,” the philosoph conceded. “But can you think of anything else to try?”

“No. No.” Tse-Mallory had to admit there was nothing else to do but try it.

“I’m not sure I understand your worry, Bran,” Flinx confessed.

Truzenzuzex tried to explain, although spatial physics was not his area of expertise either. “Even in the leading bulge of the sun mass, the Kurita-Kinoshita field is narrow, Flinx. The higher the speed, the flatter and more angular the bulge. If we should misjudge slightly coming out of Kurita-Kinoshita space, space-plus—or improperly form the field—then all or part of the Hur’rikku artifact could emerge into normal space while we are still in space-plus. The result would be either partial disintegration of the object or, if it drops whole into normal space, its loss. We would continue to travel at plus-light-speed velocity, while the artifact would be kicked out at an angle from our present course into normal space, at a speed of several . . . well, before we could so much as twitch an antenna, let alone slow speed or reverse direction or both, the artifact would have long vanished. Our chances of relocating it in free space would border on the infinitesimal.”

Flinx looked crushed. “Maybe we’d better try something else, then.”

But it was the querulous Tse-Mallory who objected to that idea. “No, Flinx. Tru is right. We have to try pushing with the KK field.” His eyes wandered to the waiting artifact. “Even if it is resting in a stasis field, no stasis field can resist the pressure of a KK drive.”

“You left out one thing,” September interrupted. “Known. No known stasis field can resist a KK.”

Flinx edged the
Teacher
around until the great curving disk of the field projector was properly positioned with regard to the floating artifact. Truzenzuzex had the computer check all positional calculations four times to make certain the field would engulf the Hur’rikku device from precisely the required distance.

“All clear here,” said Tse-Mallory, looking up briefly from the readouts he was monitoring. “Engage the drive, Flinx.”

Within the immensely complex instrumentation of the ship, Flinx’s subsequent instructions were computer-conveyed to the appropriate sections. A diffuse sphere of radiant purple energy began to form in front of the
Teacher’s
projector. No one in the ship’s piloting chamber could see the field begin to take shape. It was hidden in front of the projecting disk. So was the Hur’rikku artifact. But the field appeared in the form of changing readouts and shifting dials on the chamber’s instruments.

Very slowly, the
Teacher
began to accelerate out of the Cannachanna system. It passed through the space where the alien device had been floating. Since it was no longer there, it was proper to assume that the artifact was now perilously ensconced slightly forward of the KK field’s gravitational nexus.

Muted congratulations mixed with expressions of relief on board the ship. “It’s got to be there,” Flinx confirmed after an instrument check. “We’re using twice the power to accelerate half as fast as normal. The ship is handling the load all right, though.”

Tse-Mallory lapsed into thought, pleased but puzzled. “I thought that once the artifact was moved, the stasis field would either collapse or be left behind. Yet if Flinx is correct, Tru, the stasis field is traveling with the device.”

“There may be no stasis field involved. Our first guess, involving super-dense construction, may be the correct one. There is also a type of stasis field that is not really a stasis field in the way we know it. A theoretical state of matter that is called FCI, fixed cosmic inertia.” His mandibles moved idly, nibbling at one another. “I wonder, I wonder. Such a state of matter has been postulated but not proven mathematically. Not yet. An FCI object would
appear
to be motionless, Bran. Yet what one would see would not be the object itself, but only its most recent manifestation. The real object would consist of undetectable but very real energy built up within the object itself. The object moves, or seems to, with us. But the energy it has built up trails behind it.”

“Tru,” a bewildered Flinx, interrupted, “you’re leaving me behind, too.”

“Briefly, Flinx,” the philosoph explained, “what we may have ahead of us is an object that appears to move but in reality is motionless—the universe shifts around it. If we could
move
it, it would release its true inertial energy.” He shook his head. “I still do not understand how that could be sufficient to affect a collapsar.” He moved to a computer terminal. “I have work to do, gentlesirs.”

Straining to move something which Truzenzuzex insisted wasn’t really moving, the
Teacher
raced out of the long-dead system, carrying them at maximum speed back through the Blight. Flinx tried with every instrument on board to detect the trail of energy which Tru hypothesized the Hur’rikku device was leaving behind it. He found nothing.

However, if what Tru suspected was correct, then the artifact had been building up FCI force for over a half million years. Trying to imagine what such power could do (if indeed it existed) if released in one small place simultaneously left Flinx a little dizzy.

So instead he found a small ball, and he and Pip played a lot of catch.

What no one had yet detected, since it had taken great care not to be detected, was another ship, which had arrived in the system of Cannachanna shortly behind them. Instead of following them to the world of the Hur’rikku, it had been content to remain just behind the horizon of the gas giant, concealed by that protosun’s energy fields and extensive tenebrous atmosphere.

It had remained there, monitoring their activity without rest. While its occupants had to take care not to be observed, a caution which somewhat inhibited the efficiency of their surveillance, they were still able to track the
Teacher’s
hasty departure and plot its course.

As soon as the
Teacher
passed into space-plus, this small but very fast craft sped at engine-warping velocity to a thinly populated world on the fringes of the Commonwealth. There it made contact with a mining colony which was as efficient in its true function as it was at its geological deception.

By now the
Teacher
was many parsecs distant. That did not matter to the crew of the small vessel. In conveying their information to the inhabitants of the station, they had accomplished their assigned task.

The beings who had piloted that ship and who ran the purported mining station below were neither human nor thranx. They had longish mouths filled with sharp, pointed teeth, and expressions which conveyed their utter contempt for anything not like themselves, Their skins were hard, shiny, and scaly, the minds beneath crested skulls active and devious.

Carefully scattered throughout the Commonwealth were others of their kind, some disguised surgically to resemble men. (None were disguised to look like thranx, for these were a bipedal, two-armed folk, in no way insectoid. Their blood, unlike that of Earthly reptiles, was warm. And though they preferred a warm, dry climate, they now moved vigorously about the cold world they occupied.

There were several functional mine shafts around the station. The AAnn occupied this borderline world by treaty with the Commonwealth, so appearances were important. The mine shaft beneath the station itself contained, not valuable mineral deposits, but a subatomic-particle acceleration communicator, known more commonly as a deep-space beam.

Metamorphosed into a stream of charmed positively charged quarks, a message could be flashed from accelerator to accelerator, world to world, at dizzying speed, far faster than a restricted tridee beam. A tridee beam employed high-speed leptons to carry its messages. Tridee leptons and Kurita-Kinoshita sun fields traveled through space-plus. But the less-than-perceptible quarks moved through something so esoteric it could not be properly described, and so had been labeled null-space, or space-minus.

At each successive receiving station the positively charged charmed quarks were carefully redirected and reaccelerated to their next destination. Eventually they would reach an ultimate destination. Instead of being reaccelerated there, the unstoppable beam would be read by a subelementary-particle counter and its message deciphered. Only another counter lying directly in the path of the message could intercept it, and the chances of that ever happening were as remote as the region where such beams eventually ended up. Only an enormous vessel, not smaller than a dreadnought, was large enough to contain a deep-space-beam station.

So the
Teacher
raced on, oblivious to the fact that its probable destination had been guessed. Its inhabitants were of mixed emotions. But no matter what each individual wished for in the way of an eventual destination, all hoped that their journey would soon meet with success.

Months later, they finally arrived in the vicinity of the Velvet Dam. A swirling blackness, the dark nebula hid everything behind it from view of any humanx-occupied world.

“That is what the rogue will be coming through in less than nineteen years, on collision course with the sun of Twosky Bright.” Tse-Mallory studied the shuddery emptiness coolly. “Unless we do something to stop it. It will announce itself to general and amateur astronomers then because of the hole it will leave behind as it sucks in gas and particles from the nebula.”

Flinx stared at the vast black brush stroke through which only a few large suns shone faintly and tried to imagine it with a hole cut out of its middle. The scale of the danger they were soon to confront was beginning to be appreciated. It was one thing to talk about a collapsar, another thing entirely to confront it.

Under Tse-Mallory’s instructions, the
Teacher
altered its course slightly for the last time, to rendezvous with the predicted position of the binary system and the onrushing collapsar. The Hur’rikku artifact remained in position ahead of the field center.

September compared their feat thus far to a seal swimming the Atlantic Ocean with a ball balanced on its nose. Flinx knew what the Atlantic Ocean was—it was one of Terra’s three major bodies of water. But a seal?

“It looks kind of like a Largessian, young feller-me-lad,” the giant informed him. “Only smaller, without hands, and with a smaller head.”

That description enabled Flinx to conjur a picture, though it was difficult to imagine one of the lazy natives of Largess swimming an ocean while balancing anything on its nose.

Days passed, and the ship gradually decellerated under the two scientist’s careful supervision. They could still drop the device in a trillion cubic kilometers of empty space. Having successfully brought it this far, neither man nor thranx was prepared to risk losing it. Finally they slowed to a point where everyone experienced a brief instant of somewhere-elseness and nausea. The
Teacher
had returned to normal space.

Ahead of them should be the twin-sun system newly catalogued as RNGC 11,432 and 11,433. Everyone hurried to the fore observation port, in the observation-piloting blister, as the ship was positioned to provide them with a view.