Analog SFF, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He turned his body and brushed himself against her. “I can warm you up a bit more. Doing it with people watching slides easy, here.” He took her other hand and rubbed it. “Uh, you don't mind do you?” he asked.

  She didn't mind it, she realized, any more than she needed it. Her mind was far elsewhere, fragmented in time and space. She was in her room, three quarters of a century ago, simulating solar systems while other kids went swimming. She was watching the data come in from the black hole they were making, a dozen years from now. She was skimming over endless fields of solar arrays last week, drinking in the power to make it. She was listening, then and now, to her father telling her to pay attention to other people's ideas and not act as if she knew everything. She was with Brad in Lillehammer, a long time ago and now with this urgent young man beside her whose attentions she did not, in some existential sense, mind at all; they just were. Her whole life was of one cloth.

  His hand caressed her cool skin and she didn't mind.

  But she had better pretend she did mind, or things could slide down the slippery slope of major embarrassment. She pushed him back and laughed. “Give me another year or two to get used to the idea. Meanwhile, the impactor launch will be excitement enough."

  Sasha's eyes went wide. “The old man give the okay?"

  Hilda shook her head. “I'm going to talk to Lobov and see if I can convince him to help us persuade Dad."

  "Terry's in Lobov's class—thinks his ice is clear."

  "Which means?” The metaphor didn't ring a bell with Hilda; as familiar as the colony on New Antarctica was, it was different, too. Her mother had never been topless in public, that she knew of, let alone totally naked. But there was not one swimsuit in sight. She'd been away.

  "He can see all the way to the bottom of things—real deep."

  "And Terry is?” Always check the quality of the data...

  "One of Jennreh Poi's cocks,” Sasha said, as if that explained something.

  "Students?” Hilda asked.

  "Huh? Oh sure. Terry's a grinder. He's talking about going back to Earth to study under Dr. Kokos. The First Causes guy."

  Despite the warm male body next to her, Hilda shivered. “Sasha, I don't think it's a good idea to mix religion and physics, but it's even worse to mix them and not be honest about what you are doing. This Jennreh ... is she a lover of yours?"

  "No such luck. She's an artist, Kama Sutra and all."

  Hilda looked at him. “I didn't really mean to pry. Everything is so much more open than before. It's just not a big part of my life."

  "Sex?” He looked incredulous.

  "That. Not a big part of my life."

  Hilda felt his hand leave her skin. “Damn, why had she said that” was written all over his face. “Look,” she said, “Jennreh and Terry, do they talk about Lobov? What he says in class?"

  Sasha pulled back to the moment. “Some. Uh, they are into something they call ‘intuitional science.’”

  Hilda looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

  "It's the idea that the broad sweep of things must first make sense at some higher intuitive level so that if you're really in tune you can just, uh, understand the fundamentals of what's going on and the details, equations, and math aren't really as important. Dr. Lobov kind of smiles at that and makes them work quantitative problems anyway. But Terry says Dr. Lobov has a lot of questions about the assumptions behind things, like he's not sure the standard model is right."

  "Anything about the BHP?"

  "Terry said Lobov said the BHP isn't necessary for science unless it shows the theory is wrong. But if it can show the theory was wrong, it shouldn't be done because it would be unsafe. Uh, that's kind of complex.” Sasha sighed and frowned. “If you want to talk to Terry, I guess I could set that up. But watch out for his come-on."

  Hilda looked into Sasha's brown, pleading puppy eyes and placed a quick kiss on his cheek. She sighed. “There's not much time, so I'm going to have to go with what I've got. Thanks for giving me an idea of, uh, how clear Lobov's ice is."

  Sasha smiled. “That's okay.” He hesitated, but only for a moment. “Uh, do you want me? Even a little bit? Or am I acting like a complete idiot?"

  Hilda laughed. “What would your mother think?"

  Sasha rolled his eyes. “I think she'd be relieved. She keeps trying to fix me up and it keeps not working."

  "Oh? Why is that?” Hilda instantly berated herself for teasing. She needed Naomi's goodwill, and her guess was the mother doted on the son.

  "I guess I don't have the timing right. Like with you now. Or like when a girl wants to do stuff, maybe, and I keep talking. That kind of stuff."

  Hilda put an arm around him and kissed him again on the cheek. Why not, she thought. It would be an act of grace, she smiled to herself and reached her fingers out as if to touch Sasha one more time. She stopped herself and let the water cool her down. First things first, she told herself.

  "Can you meet me tonight? After my meeting with Lobov?"

  "You ... Really?"

  "Really! In my room in Hadley's Hotel. About 3130?"

  "Yeah. Sure. I mean if you really..."

  Hilda put a finger on his lips, then, with as much dignity as she could muster, stood up and walked to her towel on the beach.

  * * * *

  Dr. Lobov was disarmingly friendly and ebullient as he ushered her into his simply furnished, open office area overlooking Dome 4's central park. He was tall, with wide shoulders and deep blue eyes. Hilda noted he wore a jet-black jumpsuit, unrelieved except for a polished silver cross within a circle, decorating his belt buckle.

  It might, Hilda thought, be an Earth symbol, or a Christian symbol, or just a design.

  "Wotan tells me you might consider joining our faculty!"

  Hilda smiled. Young people moved in and out of the area freely, except for a serious young man with a dark goatee sitting in a lounge chair in a corner, staring off into space. Having been there, Hilda knew he was likely working his virtual rear end off in some simulation that only he could see.

  "I haven't taught in years, but as long as I'm here...” She shrugged.

  "We'll have thirty-two incoming major students next year. We really should have two introductory sessions. You know how we do it here?"

  Hilda shook her head.

  "The whole class meets once a week and just talks about concepts and ideas.” Lobov waved an arm in the air. “The programs take the students through at their own pace, and alert us if someone is having trouble. Then we have appointments to help them through."

  Hilda nodded. “I did my undergraduate work on a starship that way. The captain helped me at first, but I'm afraid I got ahead of him a bit. I took my degree exam after deceleration, did my senior orals, and graduated the first week I was on the Farm."

  "The Farm?"

  "Stanford."

  Lobov smiled and shook his head. “Well, it certainly seems to work okay. But here, we mentor."

  "I'm sure it helps, and I do look forward to talking with students again. I haven't had any experience with undergraduates, though..."

  "You'll love it! Fresh minds ready to be shown the way!"

  Hilda laughed, then brought up what she came for. “Dr. Lobov, I need your help. Are you aware of the political problems the Black Hole Project has had on Earth?"

  Lobov frowned immediately and nodded gravely. “Not everyone here feels we are ready for it, either."

  She gave him a wry smile. “I'm very sure that the delay message was a covert product of the opposition and does not reflect the views of the leadership of the BHP, nor the position of the government. I need to convince Father of that. I know you think highly of Dr. Kokos, and the reason given for the delay seems to follow from his work."

  He nodded. “Yes, so it seems. But I think there is a ‘but’ to this, no?” He flashed a quick smile.

  Hilda sighed. “If we look at Kokos's paper with Sun and Kreshkov in 2102, the threshold they calculate for what the
y call a ‘seeded inflationary fluctuation’ is three orders of magnitude higher than what the BHP can generate. So this isn't really consistent with Kokos, either. I've put the work up under my name and Kokos's. I'd like you to take a look at it."

  He frowned more deeply and waved at his wall screen, which promptly displayed the equations. He studied them, nodding, then shook his head. “When we are so close to the cutting edge of what we know, maybe three orders of magnitude is not so much.” He rubbed his chin slowly. “I will have to look at this more carefully. It has, you will appreciate, been some time..."

  Any undergraduate at Stanford, Hilda thought, would have had no trouble with what she had given him. Trouble was, she needed this man's help. She deftly disguised her shock with a smile.

  "Of course, Dr. Lobov."

  He nodded. “There may be something to it, but what your people back in the Solar System...” He raised a hand. “Peace. I acknowledge that you think the change did not come from your people. But the argument itself is in the scope of the broad, intuitional thrust of Kokos's work, the modeling details..."

  Hilda could contain herself no longer. “Dr. Lobov, that's a fourth power in the denominator! To reduce the triggering threshold by three orders of magnitude, the Johanssen quintessence multiplier field would have to be twelve orders of magnitude higher!” Not that there was any evidence for any such “quintessence multiplier field” in the first place. She bit her tongue on that because it was one of Dr. Kokos's pet hypotheses. One did not win a physicist's support by attacking the pet hypotheses of his mentor.

  "Do we know that it is not?"

  "I think we do. A QMF that high would produce billions of little universes at every gamma ray burst! That clearly doesn't happen!"

  Lobov shook his head. “I'm not sure ... I ... I'm just not sure.” He smiled weakly. “Perhaps, you ... we ... are missing something obvious. QMF seeding is such an elegant, clear solution to the first-cause problem that it feels right."

  "But I'm not asking you to give up QMF, just to recognize that, quantitatively, it can't apply to the BHP."

  Lobov sighed. “I'll have to study it more. You do raise some interesting points."

  "Will you say that much to Father?"

  He shrugged and grinned. “That would not be so much backtracking for me. I have never claimed certainty about the universe-seeding concern, only that it was defensible in light of the first-cause principles—qualitatively, of course. Well, now!” He brightened as if a storm cloud had passed. “Can I at least talk you into a seminar series next year? On the famous Kremer's limit?"

  By that time, she realized, the impactor would be launched and the last pusher pellets en route to it. Suddenly, she appreciated that her role in the Black Hole Project would be over. She would be just one of many investigators at the end of a fire hose of data—most of which would be of more interest to engineers and relativicists than someone whose specialty was ultradense matter.

  She was home. She had a new life ahead of her. It was time to start thinking of that.

  "Of course,” she said. “Let's talk about the schedule after you've got your new class settled in."

  Lobov laughed. “Speaking of which, the day has moved on a bit, hasn't it?"

  Hilda smiled and nodded as she rose. It was approaching 3000. The student with the beard was still sitting in the chair as she left. As she turned to wave from the door, her eye happened to fall on an old-fashioned 2D image hanging in a frame on Lobov's wall. She turned quickly and walked away so Lobov would not see the shock on her face. It had to be fifty years old, at least. Lobov had been on New Antarctica for some thirty-eight years. A lot of time for things to change by some standards, less by others.

  The picture was of Lobov with two men and a woman in a residence, probably on Earth—Earth, because the other people in the picture were Torsten Ried and his older brother Lars, leader of the anti-BHP Consolidationist Alliance.

  * * * *

  Hilda wasted no time leaving the building. Once outside, she called Wotan, then rushed toward his place in Dome 3. Short dim-red lights illuminated the darkened evening pathways. Brilliant stars of the Southern Cross and Eta Carina overhead provided enough light to make out the various features of the landscape. Someone briefly opened a door across the lake from her and the brilliance of that little bit of artificial light hurt her eyes. She blinked hard and saw the reflection of Scorpius on the still lake, remembering that, as a child, she had imagined it a sea monster about to emerge and devour her. The air was crisp; New Antarcticans had always enjoyed a vigorous diurnal temperature change. Alas, this was no time for her to tarry, with two appointments yet for the long local evening.

  As she neared the passageway connecting Dome 2 with Dome 3, she heard footsteps behind her and turned. A dark, unrecognizable shadow was right behind her.

  "Dr. Kremer,” the person said. It was a man, by his voice—a cold, flat, unwavering voice.

  "Yes? Who are you?"

  "I am a warning. The impactor launch will be delayed. The message will be obeyed."

  Suddenly, the night seemed chillier.

  "The message is a fraud,” she said. Quickly she touched the net and asked it to record what she heard and saw.

  "We are not concerned with who the message comes from, only that it is obeyed, and that you do nothing to subvert your father's direction that it be obeyed."

  "He hasn't given that direction."

  The figure began walking away. It was real enough. She could hear the crunch of sand under his feet. No, that could be faked, if needed. Should she chase it? Run in the other direction? Or keep her composure as if nothing had happened? She decided on the last, and began walking briskly to Wotan's home. On the way, she queried the net and found that the voice was untraceable. What was she dealing with?

  Wotan had a glass of wine waiting for her and was not in the mood to talk about the BHP. Rather, he talked about the growing colony and how, in a few decades, people would walk around on New Antarctica in shirtsleeves, and the only ice would be near the poles or on the tops of mountains.

  "Then,” he mused, “maybe I will move to Bee and start all over again. I will have to build a whole planet there, do you know? It will not be a big one—maybe the size of Luna. If they let me, that is."

  "But you're..."

  "I'm not in charge there. It is a separate star, no? There are only a few people living there, but they decide their own things. Maybe they will surprise me! They are building their own starport—did you know?"

  Hilda shook her head.

  Wotan laughed. “It will be a long time before a starship stops there that does not come here first, but it is a symbol for them. Everyone gets to dream, no?"

  "Father, we need to talk about the Black Hole Project schedule."

  Wotan frowned.

  "If we do not launch our impactor on schedule..."

  "I am all for launching the impactor on schedule. The question is whose schedule? Yours, or the one the project sent you?"

  "They didn't send that."

  "Hildy, who else would have?"

  "The Consolidationists. Lars Ried and his crew. Lobov knows them—he has a picture of the Ried brothers hanging up in his office."

  Wotan shook his head again. “Now we have conspiracy theories!"

  "Backed by the fact that the message cites physics that are wrong."

  Wotan kept shaking his head. “I have only your opinion for that, against that of every other physicist in the system."

  She couldn't believe what she was hearing. “Have you polled them? How many have you talked to?"

  Wotan's face clouded as if he were going to yell at her the way he had when she'd been late for family outings or forgotten her housekeeping chores. Surprisingly, he said nothing, and his features softened.

  "I forget sometimes that you are not who you were, Hildy. You have been around the block some and have a right to your thoughts. Please remember, however, I have been around much more than you, and
I must make the decision. Absent any proof other than what only physicists can quarrel about, I have to take the message as valid. If I were to do otherwise...” He shook his head. “There are people here who think I have been leader too long. What I do must be understandable, or I lose the support."

  Hilda saw her dream begin to crumble before her eyes, all because of this stubborn old man who could not see, who would not think.

  No, that wasn't fair. She was the only one who knew, the only one in the whole damn planetary system who knew. For everyone else, it was politics, dueling experts, and belief. Very well, what political argument could she make?

  "Father, you know that verse from the Havalmal? Cattle die, kinsmen die, so oneself must likewise die..."

  "...but what dies not is what is said, the doom that lies on each man's head," Wotan finished.

  "If you are the cause of the BHP failing, what will history have to say about you, down through eternity?"

  "Not good, I grant, if you continue to oppose me, Hildy. If we are both wrong together, then neither of us will hurt too badly. If we both insist on being right in opposite ways, then only one of us will be right, and the other will suffer."

  "There is time yet."

  "Ja, there is time. Do you know there is enough open water now that plankton may survive? Maybe next month we will seed the equatorial sea!"

  So, Hilda thought, wryly. When it gets uncomfortable, Wotan changes the subject. They still had not had a good talk about her mother.

  * * * *

  Hilda reached the door of her room feeling drained, betrayed, hopeless, and on the verge of tears. As the nineteenth-century style door swung open, she saw Sasha was waiting for her in a T-shirt and running shorts. “Sasha! How..."

  "It's a small town, Dr. uh, Hilda. The desk clerk is Holly Wu's aunt. She let me in. Uh, if this is a bad time..."

  They had a date. A million years ago, she'd made a date with him for 3130 and it was almost 3200.

  "Looks like you had a bad meeting,” Sasha said, worry written on his face.

  Hilda smiled wryly. “It did not go well, but we're still alive for the time being. Why? Do I look like I just got out of a three-gee simulator?"