The Venus Belt (19 page)

“Whatcha doin’ refittin’ th’ old
Duckie,
Karyl?” Lucy inquired. “I’da thought she’d be sellin’ fer scrap.”

In my suitsereen, Karyl’s bearded image grimaced. “Practicing entrepr
e
neurship, Lucy. She’ll do fine, running stasified food to Titan. And it’s
Pr
o
metheus
,
unauthorized graffiti to the contrary.”

“Prometheus
,”
Koko mused, “wasn’t that supposed to be—”

“Th’ System’s first
starship
!”
snorted Lucy. “
There’s
a project Deejay an’ Ooloorie won’t do much braggin’ on. Got three-quarters into co
n
struction when a little problematic glitch they were
sure
of solvin’ failed t’unravel on schedule.”

Karyl chuckled. “They finally towed her out of Earth orbit, and she’s been squatting here gathering micropits ever since. Cost the backers a pretty piece of change. I picked her up for a song—and that a quarter-tone off key.”

Koko’s image was a portrait of chagrin. “Yeah. Uncle Olongo was one of those backers—now he’ll have to wait a few more years to reach the stars.”

“How come?” The little ship certainly looked unprepossessing, som
e
thing like an upended onion, loose cablery and stanchions sprouting from the top.

“Well,” began Lucy, and it was clear by her tone that she was unlimbe
r
ing for a lecture. I regretted the pair of innocent words that had started her. “Theoretically, Winnie,
two,
as they say, is a ridiculous nu
m
ber. Zero’s fine, an’ even
one
ain’t strainin’ things. But shucks, wherever there’s
two
of an
y
thing, there oughta be more—somewheres between
n
an’ infinity.”

“That’s interesting,” I lied. “Like Loch Ness monsters—there has to be a herd of them or nothing. But what’s that got to do with a used sta
r
ship?”

“
Unused
—that’s th’ point. Winnie, when the United States got disco
v
ered, it created problems: suddenly there was
two
universes—an’ there oug
h
ta be either
one
or some silly number with a lotta zeros. Get it?”

“I admit I’ve always wondered why they hadn’t discovered more alte
r
nate probability worlds. It’d be pretty interesting, wouldn’t it?”

“Now yer
talkin’. They
have
run across at least
one
more, an’ mighty strange, at that. See, in theory, all these universes laid out end t’end—accordin’ t’their well, sort of
likelihood
—oughta form a big multidimensio
n
al bell curve.
Statistics,
unnerstand?”

“Go on,” I dodged, hoping for something in the next few paragraphs I
did
unnerstand.

“Well, each universe got created when some event, major or m
i
nor—they don’t really know how big a change it takes—caused it t’diverge from th’ universe it started out identical with.”

“Sure. Like Gallatin winning the Whiskey Rebellion caused this u
n
iverse to diverge from the one Karyl and I were born in.”

“Or
losing
the Rebellion caused
yours
to diverge,” offered Koko.

Karyl laughed out loud.

“Whatever,” said Lucy, ducking a swell fight. “Anyhow, ‘way at th’ end of th’ curve, there’s this teensy little continuum where th’ very
first
event sorta fizzled out ‘fore it got started.”

“The Big Bang?” I asked, with sudden inspiration.

“
Little
Bang. Natcherly, the laws of physics are a mite different there, which makes that universe plumb easy t’detect with instruments. An’ that’s what Deejay an’ Ooloorie did.”

I thought about it. “Swell. So what happened then?”

“They built the
Prometheus
,”
Karyl answered.

“Persuaded my uncle and his friends to,” Koko corrected. “The idea’s that the Little Bang universe is so tiny—just a pinpoint, really—that trave
l
ing across it is easier than traveling across ours.”

“A few cosmologists’d swaller their gum t’hear that explanation, de
a
rie, but y’got th’ high points. Fer each location
here
,
there’s a theoretical corr
e
spondin’ one
there
.” Lucy drew a diagram in the crater dust, corrected it, corrected it again, and finally gave up, erasing it with her i
m
pellers. “Just go from point A— Earth, fer example—t’point A-prime in th’ Little Bang un
i
verse—”

“Via Broach?” I asked.

“Right,” said Karyl. “And since all points are
common
by geometric law in the Little Bang universe—”

“Yer
already
at point B-prime—say, th’ location correspondin’ t’Alpha Centauri...Who’s tellin’ this, Karyl, you guys or me?”

“Call it a cooperative venture, Lucy. Anyway, all you have to do is emerge at point B, and you’re already automatically where you want to go—
without traveling the invervening distance in our universe
.”

“I see what you mean—
hyperspace
. What went wrong?”

“Hy
po
space, more like,” said Lucy. “An’ since all them geometric points are common in th’ Little Bang universe,
there’s no way t’tell ‘em apart.
Y’might wind up ‘t Alpha Centauri—or y’might’s easy wind up over in th’ next ga
l
axy somewheres!”

“Or fifty thousand years in the future,” added Koko. “Works with time, too.”

“Hmm. That’s a problem, all right. And they never solved it?”

“Else we’d be havin’ this conversation on Beetlejuice XVII, or som
e
thin’, wouldn’t we?”

“We wouldn’t be having it at all,” I answered.

“Since we are,” Karyl said, changing the subject at long last, “how do you like Ceres so far? Oh-oh, you were heading back for home, last time I heard.”

I nodded. “It’ll be a while, now, with this solar-flare thing going on.”

He glanced around as if making sure he wasn’t overheard—a futile ge
s
ture over the radio. “
What
solar flare?” He tapped the indicators on his forearm accusingly. “There hasn’t been a whimper on
my
counter, or an
y
body else’s I know of. Win, I believe we’re being
hoaxed.
”

Lucy slid forward, exhaust gases from her impellers freezing instantly and drifting to the ground. “Whaddya mean,
hoaxed
?
This holdup’s got to’ve cost billions already. Nobody’d stand fer—”

“And likely to cost billions more before it’s over,” interrupted Karyl. He slapped the Guccione welder into his palm. “Why do you think I’m back to
this
?
Bonaventura
’s going nowhere, and taking my restaurant with it. Som
e
thing
big
is going on in the Belt, I wish I could find out what.”

“I don’t believe any of this,” said Lucy. She skimmed away and started gaining speed toward an empty area of the crater floor. “Port Piazzi, this here’s Lucy Kropotkin, puttin’ in fer clearance fer a semi-static test run. Call it twenty thousand feet.”

A new voice filtered through my suit receiver. “This is Port Piazzi, L
u
cy. Give us your transponder. Which ship are you in down there?” I scanned the walled horizon, trying to find the window in the cliff above us that was Port Piazzi’s ground control. Karyl saw me, pointed to a light high on a peak.

“I
am
my ship, dummy!” Lucy answered. “Can’tcha see me wavin‘ at ya?” She was well clear of us now, enveloped in a cloud of dust. Suddenly she lifted high above it, gathering momentum, growing tinier with di
s
tance. A moment later, she was almost out of sight. I stepped up the magnific
a
tion, and there she was, beginning to drift backward. Plummeting, she fina
l
ly checked her speed, alighting gently on the rocky floor from which she’d ta
k
en off.

“Well, as I live and breathe!” She skimmed up close to us and halted.

“Lucy, you haven’t drawn an honest breath in weeks!” I looked her co
n
ical volume up and down. “Do you call
that
living?”

“Beats th’ pox outa mosta the alternatives, Winnie. Karyl, you’re right. It’s safe as houses out there. Somebody’s pullin’ our leg. I’m gonna get to th’ bottom of this if it kills me all over again. Letcha know how it turns out, okay? An’ thanks fer th’ information.”

We waved good-bye to Karyl and followed Lucy, threading our way among the grounded flivvers until we reached a large white streamlined racy-looking specimen with a boat-shaped tail and chromium venturis. She pushed a series of buttons in a certain sequence and the starboard door swung open.

“Don’t stand out there all day, you two. I wanna pressurize th’ hull.” We ducked inside the tiny cabin, dogging the door behind us. Lucy folded the driver’s seat away and stood before the fancy woven-metal i
n
strument panel. There was a hiss, and then a rushing, rumbling sound. The indicators on my face-screen said it was safe to take my hat off.

Koko and I sat down as Lucy played with the wireless. “Hello, Navig
a
tion Rock? Lemme have th’ weather report.” She turned to me. “They’re one of Ceres’ natural moonlets, fifteen, mebbe twenty, thousand miles out.”

Bubbles floated upward past the pickup as a killer whale’s head swam into view. “This is Navigation Rock. Solar flux continues strong and e
r
ratic according to our instruments. I advise against departing any time within the next ninety-six hours unless you’re outbound and heavily shielded.”

“In your hat,” said Lucy. “Where you gettin’ yer skinny these days?”

The giant porpoise bobbed up and down, momentarily nonplussed. He’d probably never
had
a hat. “Why, from— Wait a moment, let me check.” Something mildly repulsive with a lot of arms drifted across the screen. Abruptly, the image faded.

Lucy waited patiently, then started pushing buttons again. “Hello, Nav
i
gation Rock, you still there?”

Silence.

“Somethin’ funny goin’ on—agin.” She readjusted her controls. “Hello, Port Piazzi, what th’ dung’s got into Navigation Rock?”

One of the rare orangutans who’d decided to join civilization a
p
peared on the console. “Hello, who am I speaking to?”

“Cord Ad Astra 4137—Lucy Kropotkin. Listen, I was talkin’ t’Navigation Rock just now, an’ they pooped out alluva sudden.”

The orang consulted his dials and knobs. “LOS, 4137, not even a carr
i
er. That’s unusual, they have at least a dozen relays. I’ll try another channel. Hello, Navigation Rock, Port Piazzi calling. Do you read me, Navigation Rock?”

Nothing.

“Just a minute, 4137.” There was a long pause while he conferred with an associate, another, even longer pause. Then, “I’m sorry, 4137, we’d send somebody up to look, but there’s the solar storm. We don’t seem to be able to raise any of their competition, either. Anything I can do for you while we check into it?”

“Sure, gimme their coordinates.”

”But, 4137, uh, Mrs. Kropotkin, it’s
dangerous
out there.”

“It’s gonna be a lot
more
dangerous down here without you give me those coordinates, pronto. Whaddya think I pay m’landing fees fer?”

“Very well, it’s a Free System.” He reeled off a list of numbers while Lucy programmed the Cord’s computers and cleared for takeoff. The flivver began to vibrate subtly.

“Hold onta yer helmets, kiddies!” She stabbed a button and the crater floor fell out from underneath us. Suddenly we were bathed in bright su
n
light. I cringed, thinking of the radiation sleeting through our bodies.

“Lucy, I thought you’d ordered extra shielding for this thing!”

“Wasn’t time, Winnie, but don’t you fret—lookit this gauge.” She pointed to the image of a dial on the screen. Whatever it was measuring, it wasn’t measuring much of it. “See there, hardly a worm-wiggle. We been hoaxed, right ‘nough, there
ain’t
no solar storm. Wait’ll Port Piazzi hears about this!” She started re-establishing contact.