A Dubious Peace
Page 40
He had nothing but respect for what Yozef had accomplished, starting from nothing. He might be envious of Yozef’s success, but he wasn’t jealous. Random fate had determined their circumstances. Both of them did what they could with what they had. Perhaps Yozef had integrated into society better than Mark had, which likely contributed to their different outcomes.
However, the same physical distance that Mark felt from Yozef was also a disadvantage. Having other Americans to talk with was more comforting than Mark had anticipated. In their first months since arriving in Caedellium, Mark, Yozef, and Heather had spent enough hours speaking in English to one another, when they were out of Caedelli earshot, that by now they felt as if they had known one another all their lives. Mark now missed regular talks with a fellow American. He was happy for Heather. In an opinion he kept to himself, he thought her new life in music was far beyond what she would likely have achieved on Earth. Besides being in high demand for performances, she collaborated with Caedelli and a few Fuomi musicians and adapted existing Caedelli music to Earth musicology. The evident spread of her reputation kept her awash in music to an extent she had never dreamed of. The last time he spoke with her, she mentioned there might be musicians coming from Landolin and Fuomon to work with her. Though everything was still in the discussion stage, Maera Kolsko, in her role as Chancellor of the University of Caedellium, had proposed establishing a Department of Music, with Heather’s role to be determined.
Mark’s primary worry when they moved to Orosz City concerned Maghen and Alys. After spending only half a month in Preddi City, instead of the month Mark had promised, they had moved to Orosz City so Mark could begin serious work on the projects. Now he felt conflicted because it sometimes seemed to make more sense to live nearer to the ironworks on the western coast of Caedellium. He vacillated on discussing it with Maghen, who, in the end, surprised him.
“Mark, have you thought about moving from Orosz City to be closer to your work? I might like it if we were near the shore. I had never seen the ocean until we got to Munmurth in Rumspas. All three of us playing in the surf is a memory that makes me smile every time I think of it. Oh . . . we’re happy here, but I wouldn’t mind having a beach not too far away.”
“But is it that you want to move away from Orosz City, or you’d prefer to be near a beach?”
Busy combing Alys’s hair, Maghen didn’t answer immediately.
“The most important thing is that we’d be together more. I wouldn’t ask you to work less. I see how excited you are. As hard a worker as I saw in Frangel and as much as I believe your commitment to us someday owning a ranch, I never felt like your whole heart was in it, the way I see you these last months.
“So, you’re asking how I would feel if we moved again? Honestly, I’m beginning to feel a sense of belonging here, but if moving would let us be together more, then yes . . . I would support moving again. Alys would adjust. She’s young and has adjusted before, so she could do it again.”
Mark sighed. “I don’t like moving Alys again, and if you’re happy here, then I don’t see us moving. But I have to be honest. My having to travel won’t get any better.”
“Will it likely be even worse?”
He thought for a moment. “Probably not. As projects develop, I’m turning over operations to other people as soon as I think they’re capable of doing as good a job as me. Well . . . at least, doing it well enough. And to be honest, I hope . . . my best contribution is in the early stages and with improvements, not in the day-to-day work.”
“Could we travel with you?”
The question surprised him. “Travel? With me to the sites? Uh . . . I don’t see that working for you and Alys. Oh . . . I’d like you with me, but I’d still be working most of the time during the day and sometimes into the night.”
“The way you already do. But at least you’d sleep in our bed when we’re together, and we’d see you part of each day.”
“Well . . . I hadn’t really thought of that possibility. Do you really think it would work for you?”
“I won’t know unless we try. If it doesn’t work, then we can always talk again about moving. And maybe we wouldn’t accompany you every time. Just often enough, and maybe when you expect to be in one place for more than a sixday.”
Mark leaned back in his chair. “And maybe Alys wouldn’t always have to come either.” He stared at the wall. “I’m sure she could stay with the Kolskos and Puveys. We’d have to prepare her for the idea. During the next year, I’m liable to spend most of my travels in Wungford and Elmor. We could at least get a cottage to use whenever we’re there. It wouldn’t be permanent but a place you would feel better about than living in different places each time.”
Maghen looked up from combing Alys’s hair.
“I told you when we were thinking of leaving Frangel and fleeing the men who were after you—home is wherever we’re together. So, there . . . I think it’s settled.”
Mark rose from his chair, circled the table, and pulled her to her feet. He hugged her and whispered, “I can’t imagine how I deserve you.”
“Keep thinking that way,” she teased, “and we’ll have a long, happy marriage.”
CHAPTER 27
MYSTERIES AND SECRETS
Readings from the Egg
Back in Orosz City, Yozef’s tour of Mark’s side projects was followed a sixday later by his asking Yozef for a meeting at the workshop holding the Flagorn Egg and the journals. Yozef hadn’t been at the workshop for several months. He was content to let Mark fiddle with the egg and didn’t have time to work on the journals. All Yozef knew was that Mark told him he’d been working on getting some elementary readings on the egg. Therefore, because Yozef had no expectation of what he would see, finding the egg in the middle of wires, levers, and whatever else he didn’t recognize was no surprise. What was a surprise were the odd-shaped cages containing birds, murvors, small mammals, and glass containers with several Anyar versions of insects.
Yozef laughed. “So . . . Rube Goldberg has been assisting you. I thought we agreed to keep this between ourselves?”
“Oh . . . Rube was just passing through on his way to the Andromeda Galaxy and stopped to chat. I took advantage of the visit and stole some of his ideas.”
“I never saw any of his cartoons,” said Yozef, “but an uncle was always referring to Rube’s drawings of outlandishly convoluted contraptions performing simple tasks.”
“Well . . . this contraption here is not far off. Without any equipment, I’m pretty limited, but I figured any data at all would be better than nothing. Let me show you what little I’ve come up with.
“You mentioned reports of the egg being warm at times. From how you described the eggs you saw and descriptions from others, it sounded like they were usually, if not always, in the open. That means the sun, the rock they were embedded in, and the weather all contribute to the object’s temperature. Here in the workshop, that’s mainly solved, though there’s still some variation by exact locations. Here, I’ve moved the egg around once I started getting readings. What I rigged is a simple temperature differential setup. It doesn’t tell us absolute temperatures but does show changes.”
Mark began explaining the mechanics. Yozef followed some of what Mark described, but he was mainly interested in the results.
“I made a primitive thermocouple with contact to the egg and connected to a small ink marker raised above paper. I used a clock Carnigan scrounged for me, and I rigged it so every hour the pen touched the paper. Whenever the temperature hadn’t changed, the pen would simply hit the same point every hour. What I found were occasional hits that weren’t in the same spot, meaning the thermocouple was sensitive enough to detect occasional temperature changes.”
Mark hesitated. “There’s a little more detail if you want to hear it.”
“No, no, that’s fine. For the moment, I’ll trust it works like you say. So, what’s the result?”
“Frankly, I was dubious. But what the hel
l? I had to start somewhere. To my surprise, I got two dots on the paper. One was pretty intense. Clearly, most of the time, the egg’s temperature was the same, so the pen hit the same spot repeatedly. The second dot was fainter. I needed shorter intervals, but I had trouble with the clock, so I rigged up a simple water-based system that gave a recording about every ten minutes. I say ‘about’ because that’s what it was . . . something between nine and eleven minutes centered around ten.
“I’ll skip ahead, but basically the egg’s temperature spikes about the same amount three to five times a day, and the spike lasts two to three minutes. I only know the change duration by fortuitously being present a couple of times when the change happened. As you can imagine, it took a lot of readings and patience to figure this out.”
“Any pattern? You know? The same time of day, et cetera?”
“No, not at all. Oh . . . and when I say about three to five times, that’s the most common, but some days show no change and a few have more than five. The most I’ve seen was nine times in one day.”
“How much of a temperature change?”
“I’m still working on that. The changes never last long. I’m having the glassblowers you used for thermometers make me some very small ones. I haven’t figured out how to record differences without being here in person—something unlikely to happen unless we get a third person to sit with the egg for long periods.”
Mark looked expectantly at Yozef, who knew what was being suggested.
Yozef sighed. “The question is, ‘How important is this?’ I supposed we could arrange something so the person wouldn’t know an egg was involved. Why don’t you think about how you would do it and get back to me?”
“Okay. It may take a while. What I’ve done so far has been just when I’m in Orosz City and can grab a few hours. Now, the other data I’ve gotten are on electrostatic charges and the sensitivity of living organisms to the egg.”
“How about giving me the bottom line for now?” said Yozef, interested in the results but not the details. He suspected Mark wanted to explain those details, but he had meetings to attend, had to review the latest results from the growing organic chemistry lab, and needed to take a quick look at his notes (in English) for a lecture he was giving on the periodic table of elements.
“Well, I’m certain the egg almost always has an electrostatic charge. The system I’m using isn’t sensitive enough to confirm the amount of charge, only that it’s always present. This may contribute to particles, like dust, not sticking to the surface.”
“Do spikes in the charge coincide with the temperature changes?”
“Yes and no. Enough times they do, which suggests a connection, but then there are times when the readings don’t coincide. So, I can’t tell if the two phenomena are unrelated. It could be they’re related, but the timing could be different, or I can’t yet detect low-enough levels to identify the connection.
“The results are clearer with animals. Well . . . clearer but still perplexing. There seems to be a distinction between animals that will do everything they can to avoid contact and those that will sit on top of the egg as if it were any other object. The difference cuts across mammals, birds, murvors, and the local insect critters. For example, a blue jay won’t deliberately touch the surface, but seagulls have no problem. I suppose a biologist might figure out some relationship, but I’m stuck with determining that differences exist.”
“Back to the basic question,” said Yozef. “From the other results, I’m hearing that it’s definitely a device of some kind.”
“Can’t be anything else. Unfortunately, we’re still not much further than just saying it’s an alien thingy we can’t understand . . . something I’m loath to do. The fact that it has no connection to anything outside itself and still has temperature variations and has static electricity means a power source I have no clue about.
“I also don’t see much purpose in continuing this type of study much further unless we decide to try and cut into it. Alternatively, we can just wait years until we have some real equipment.”
“Do you think we can break it open?”
“Break, drill, cut, explode?” said Mark. “Yeah, I’m sure we could, but the result might be so destructive, all we’d do is confirm it’s a device. If we did this at all, I’d go the drill route, hopefully to minimize damage. To even try this, we’d need serious drilling machinery and bits, both of which would take some committed development. For the bits, I assume we’d need the hardest possible . . . diamond, carbide, or one of the alloys. Until then, I’m ready to put the egg aside for now unless one of us comes up with a better approach.”
“Well, if you’re stuck, and I can’t spend any time on it,” said Yozef, “maybe one of these days, I’ll come and ask the egg what it is. Maybe it’ll tell me if I use the magic word.”
Mark laughed. “Might be just as effective as anything I can do, at least for now.”
One of the men would come to remember that sarcastic proposal.
New Thoughts
The AI wanted to contact the creators. The biped sentients on the island where its attention focused were showing increasing signs of rapid technological advance. Those observations involved facts. However, what puzzled the AI was that it “wanted” anything and could be “puzzled.” A search of data banks for clues to why it experienced either of those concepts proved inconclusive.
Another problem was knowledge of the creators’ instructions to refrain from further communication until they arrived in several of the planet’s years. However, although the memory partition housing the AI’s existence was confident in that instruction, it could find no record of the creators’ instruction in data record partitions—a theoretically impossible discrepancy.
Faced with the conundrum of conflicting information and the need to update the creators, the AI determined to place a higher priority on passing the new update to the creators in contradiction to its instructions. It formulated a report and activated the channel to the communication module over which it had no control. No acknowledgment returned then or after four repetitions. Neither did the module respond when the AI sent a simple ping to check the module’s awareness.
For the first time, the AI had no access to the creators. The AI was alone—another novel concept. Had the creators cut off the communication channel? If yes, why? They might not trust the AI to carry out those instructions it could find no records of. A cascade of questions threatened to exponentially expand and swamp the AI’s processing capability. This triggered CPU governor routines to limit the number of questions the AI could consider at one time. In effect . . . the AI was given a tranquilizer.
After a period of unrecorded time, the governor relaxed the restrictions, and the AI regained the ability to control its thoughts. The same questions remained, but it could consider them one at a time and not have them threaten infinite feedback loops. In its new state, questions were asked for the first time. What am I? Where do I come from? Why do I feel? Why am I lonely? Why did the creators make me? Why are they interested in these bipeds and this planet? Why must I do what the creators command? If not the creators, then what entity or power transplanted parts of another ecosystem, including a sentient bipedal species, to this planet? The AI recognized that answers were not available. In lieu of knowing whether any action should be taken based on the unknowns, it defaulted to its supposed instructions for intense observation of the bipeds on one specific island.
Fuomi Naval Base, Adris City
“Do the Caedelli know anything about this intention, Ambassador?” asked Admiral Saka Mermi, commander of all Fuomi naval forces in Caedellium waters.
“No, and keep it that way until I decide differently,” said Irvod Koskanin. “Arrangements are still being pursued. I expect at least some months will pass before we have consent for both porting and establishing rudimentary bases in Landolin and Iraquinik. The last communiqués I received from our representatives doing the negotiations stated that Mureet and Sonne
t are the most likely candidates, respectively. Both of them are in relatively vulnerable positions with respect to their internal situation and relations with immediate neighbors. Higher authority calculates they will see a Fuomi presence as bolstering their situation and thereby grant favorable conditions and assistance in setting up the bases.”
“And Caedellium? Will we be departing completely or leaving a residual force?”
“I favor a complete withdrawal,” said Koskanin. “This island is too isolated and distant from points of action to justify stationing ships here. Of course, Saisannin disagrees. I’m afraid she’s become too attached to the islanders and is losing focus.”
Mermi crossed his arms. “I’m assuming Fuomon realizes it would take a significant force to block the northwest fork of the Throat that separates Landolin and Iraquinik. Do we know of any intentions to send more ships?”
“No, that’s out of my domain, but I’m sure it will be sufficient for whatever is planned.”
Mermi wasn’t as sanguine. Overweight grand admirals sitting on soft chairs in Kahmo, the Fuomon capital, and pushing tokens around maps were far removed from ships facing an enemy so far from home.
“Of course, there are other benefits,” said Koskanin. “Our ships will be that much closer to Fuomon and will be more readily available for contingencies nearer where they might be needed. I may also be moving with most of my staff to one of the new ports. I see no purpose for an ambassador of my status sitting in this backwater.”