Lost Among the Stars

by Paul Di Filippo

  Barnaby had a drink in the bar while he awaited the arrival of Kiana’s capsule. The Sherpa Room and its attached hotel were shaped like a Tibetan vajra: essentially, a huge ornamental barbell.

  In a while, Barnaby was rewarded with a solid hug and kiss from the fragrant Kiana, who had stepped out of her capsule fresh and alluring as hothouse turbo-rose. Barnaby knew the evening would be perfect.

  And so their romantic experience was, until, midway through their dinner, every patron of the Sherpa Room received the same emergency phone alert.

  “Attention! The Tibetan portion of the hypertube network has been subject to a terrorist attack by the sinophile Chamdo Battle Group. They have introduced a carbyne-decohering agent into the system. Quarantine of the affected nodes to prevent global contamination is in effect.”

  Looking outside the restaurant, Barnaby was horrified to see the hyperloop connection suddenly dissolve into a sluice of black goop that stained the pristine snow and ice.

  Used to risking her life nightly at the circus, Kiana was nonetheless disturbed. “Barnaby, the authorities must have a thousand crises to respond to! Supplies here are limited. We can’t just sit forever. How will they ever rescue us?”

  Barnaby pondered the situation for a moment. He suddenly recalled the talks at Mitsubishi, about improved payload rates into space. Inspiration struck! Quickly he placed a few calls, then polled the patrons of the Sherpa Room for approval of his plan. A majority endorsed the scheme, and the rich clientele even ponied up enough funds to make the rescue operation self-sufficient.

  The guests in the restaurant and hotel, as well as the staff, had plenty of time to secure all the furnishings and to strap themselves in makeshift fashion into comfortable padded chairs. When all the preparations had been made, Barnaby and Kiana sat side by side on a loveseat, gazing up through the glass ceiling.

  “There it comes!” shouted several people at once.

  The titanic carbyne arm of the repositioned Mitsubishi Skyhook swung through the atmosphere in what seemed a lazy manner, although its tip was travelling at eight kilometers per second.

  Barnaby and Kiana found themselves instinctively holding their breath until the Skyhook engaged the barbell’s shaft and lofted the whole pressurized metallic glass structure off its unclamped supports and into space, towards an eventual return to sea-level safety, after a pleasant zero-gee interlude.

  The gee-forces were moderate enough to permit Barnaby and Kiana to embrace and kiss.

  “I promised you it would be the evening of a lifetime, didn’t I, darling?”

  Another wonderful instance of travel similar to my Colombian expedition was my participation in the Italian conference dubbed Sticcon. Again, as with my trip to Medellin, I was overwhelmed with the hospitality and fervor and literary passions of my host, Armando Corridore, and of the many, many other participants at the con. This kind of international camaraderie is what makes the field of SF/F/H so exemplary and heartening and supportive.

  Present at the con was the highly awarded Italian author and zine publisher Claudio Chillemi. We hit it off like brothers from different mothers, and Claudio was kind enough to conduct me and my mate Deborah on a tour of his native Sicily once the con was ended.

  Back in the USA, I knew I had to maintain this friendship. And what better way than by collaborating on a story. Claudio came up with the notion to center it around a counterfactual life of the physicist Ettore Majorana, and then was surprised to learn that I had already written a little fable about Majorana!

  Brothers from different mothers—what other explanation could there be?!?

  The Via Panisperna Boys in “Operation Harmony”

  [co-written with Claudio Chillemi]

  1. Slow Neutron Rag

  Guiding the battered Fiat Balilla saloon up the winding roads that climbed the slope of Mt. Etna, the short, stocky cabdriver snorted through his mustache from time to time in concentration, and mumbled in his Sicilian dialect: a tongue so familiar to, and yet so spiritually distant from, his passenger in the back seat.

  Ettore Majorana bundled his coat closer around himself in the unheated cab. It was at least ten degrees colder up here than by the Catanian shore.

  With a start, he realized it was now almost fifteen years since he had last set foot on the volcano. Yes, that summer of 1919, when he was still an adolescent, had marked his last summer on Sicily. His parents had always spent their summers in a rented house in the mountains. He remembered vividly and intensely—as he remembered everything—the large yellow patches of broom shrubs on the black and sharp lava background. Though the shrubs were dormant now, that much appeared unchanged, amidst so much else that had morphed and shifted in Majorana’s life, flowed and altered into unforeseen shapes that only hinted at what once had been held so dear.

  In an idle moment, to dispel his anxiety, Majorana activated the palm-sized iconoscope screen inset into the back of the driver’s seat. But the low-resolution images of war only depressed him further, and he toggled the screen dead.

  At the parking lot where the road ceased its ascent and began to drop down the other side of the volcano, there were only a few people on this chilly March day: some tourists, some tour guides, a dozen cars, a large bus. And creeping down in billows from the summit, or springing up like spirits from the fissures, the fog. A thin white mist that settled on the sharp black walls of lava like some peasant’s threadbare quilt.

  Majorana looked around and found his bearings. He took a folded sheet of paper out of his coat pocket and read its instructions for the hundredth time since receiving it two days ago.

  Meet me at the Silvestri craters hard by the Rifugio Sapienza lodge, at the center of the largest volcanic cone.

  That destination was a not inconsiderable trek. Best to set out now, while plenty of daylight remained.

  He began walking downwards on the rough, irregular path, trying not to fall. Through the fog, as if incredibly distant, he heard the receding voices of the tourists. Then a gentle, almost imperceptible breeze began pushing the vapor towards the south, as if guiding him.

  The message-bearer had contacted him the only way possible in Mussolini’s police state, when one wanted to remain off the panopticon screens of the authorities: a seemingly accidental jostle.

  Majorana had been strolling Catania’s center. Following the long-dreaded but still utterly unprecedented invasion of Czechoslovakia by Hitler’s troops on March 5, 1934, the first move in what threatened to be long and unrelenting continent-wide hostilities, Majorana had felt so dispirited that only a long-delayed return to his native region held the promise of reinvigorating him for his work. A stranger had bumped into him on the street, apologized, then hastened away. Only later, while having an espresso, did he discover the note in his pocket. Thinking it over, he could summon up the ghostly sensation of the alien hand creeping into his jacket.

  Majorana had now reached the shrouded lip of the biggest Silvestri Crater. He chafed his cold hands together, then started down the pebbly slope.

  Someone touched his right arm before he reached the appointed but diversionary spot at the bottom. A clever precaution! Suddenly the fog lifted and revealed a stranger. A man of about forty, he was wearing a gray pinstriped suit and a hat, and smoking a cigarette.

  “My name is Michael Succi. And you are Ettore Majorana.”

  Majorana assented. The man had a strong foreign accent with a slight lilt of the Neapolitan dialect. Majorana pegged him as a classic second-generation Italian-American.

  Succi handed Majorana a letter. The envelope’s inscription read:

  Ettore Majorana

  Hand over personally

  Majorana recognized the handwriting as that of Enrico Fermi.

  “He knew I was coming to Italy,” explained Succi, “and asked me to track you down.”

  “Very well, you may consider your mission complete.”

  At that moment, Majorana saw a small plant of broom at his feet. He loved the flo
wer, for its nature resembled his. As the broom took root in the hard stone of lava, friendship was the only feeling that could take root in his logical and mathematical mind.

  He tucked the missive safely into his coat pocket, then turned to leave.

  Succi called out, perplexed, “Aren’t you even going to read it?”

  “In due time,” Majorana replied, “when my mind is more composed.”

  2. Beryllium Cakewalk

  Majorana could remember everything. His mind held vast quantities of information. Perhaps this was his greatest talent, the ability to possess and juggle copious facts and impressions, to feel them afresh each time they were mentally handled. Truly an incredible memory. He had memories that went back to when he was eighteen months old, watching his mother dress him in a sailor outfit. Photographs existed to prove the occasion. But they had not dictated Majorana’s memories, since he had come upon them only as an adult, when an elderly aunt died.

  But even if his memory had been only average, he could never have forgotten Enrico Fermi, and his other comrades from Rome. “The Via Panisperna Boys,” they called each other, based on their common lodgings in that street. Warm and lively Roman evenings. The River Tiber flowing softly between the districts of the city while the Via Panisperna Boys strolled its banks. Endless discussions about the nature of the atom, and about music. The silly amateur band they had formed, so earnest, playing ragtime and Dixieland and Sicilian folksongs to impress the women who dropped in and out of the scene.

  But traditional instruments soon paled. Four physicists experimenting with sound. Majorana had built a kind of electric piano. It made such wails and moans that their poor ignorant landlady often came rushing up the stairs asking if there was a ghost in the apartment. Then there was Emilio Segrè with his modified electric guitar. The amplified strings of Segrè’s invention emitted ear-piercing sounds. Bruno Pontecorvo was their producer, mixing these abominations. Pontecorvo would connect all the instruments to a kind of huge valve box capable of selecting the highest and the lowest pitch of sounds, giving them texture and dynamism. He was so proud of his invention, that one day, during a conference at the University of Rome, he met Marconi and spoke to him about it. Marconi told him politely to “give up the music and resume your studies in theoretical physics, certainly more within your capabilities.”

  And then, of course, at the head of the pack, Enrico Fermi. His particular musical follies had been influenced by epistolary communication with a young American composer, Harry Partch, who had created his own instruments and 43-tone scale based on abstruse mathematical and physics theories. Fermi was particularly fond of the Adapted Viola and the Cloud-Chamber Bowls. Typical extravagances of Fermi’s brilliant mind.

  Seated now once more in a café near the waterfront of Catania, Fermi’s letter burning a hole in his pocket, Majorana thought so fondly of his mentor. Seven years older than Majorana, the man had been like a father to him. They had discussed everything from subatomic physics—with a particular focus on Einstein’s majestic, time-and-space-shattering theories produced during the Bern patent clerk’s annus mirabilis of 1885—to the weight of the soul. But he had not seen Fermi and the other VP Boys in too many years. Those crazy fascist laws, insane edicts about Jews and other undesirables, had driven all his pals away. Only Ettore Majorana had remained in their homeland. But why? He had no answer, except that he felt he was flying the flag of intellectual freedom in the face of willful ignorance and prejudice.

  And yet he could not extinguish some small resentment against his friends for taking the easy way out.

  Cursing himself for his quibbles and endless parsings of the past, Majorana dashed off the dregs of his wine, pulled Fermi’s letter out, ripped the envelope jaggedly open, and read.

  Dear Ettore,

  You are needed here in America. I have assembled all the Via Panisperna Boys around me, save for you. It is time for us to act. The wave of hatred and resentment that is spilling over Europe leaves us only one choice: do something to stop this madness.

  With this letter I am enclosing some of the relevant research conducted by Emilio, Bruno and I, as well as some other fine comrades. Just a hint, in case this letter should ever fall into the wrong hands, but you’ll understand immediately what it is about.

  We need to rediscover our swing, return to playing the same music, otherwise the world will exact a heavy toll from us and all that we hold dear.

  Enclosed you will find tickets for you from Palermo to Naples. But secretly, you will be met by a submarine in mid-voyage, whereupon you will be brought straight to America—assuming no German U-boats object!

  Everything is arranged. It’s time to get the band back together, my friend!

  Your comrade, Enrico

  Suddenly the whole day looked brighter, more intense. Without any intention, Majorana burst into an irrepressible laugh.

  3. Spectroscopic Ramble

  Majorana, holding a heavy suitcase, said goodbye to his mother. The fussy old woman replied absentmindedly. She was watching the news on the iconoscope in the living room. A truly great invention, the iconoscope, the last great invention of Marconi. And no wonder the Mussolini regime had encouraged the spread of that incredible instrument into every Italian home. In less than five years, everyone was watching the iconoscope—and the iconoscope watched everyone in return.

  Slightly injured by his mother’s inattention, Majorana made one last effort to secure her good wishes.

  “I might not see you for some time, Mother.”

  “Will you be tutoring during the semester break, then?”

  Majorana taught at the University of Naples, and his mother was used to seeing him come and go.

  “No, I plan on an extended trip beyond my teaching duties.”

  “Well, just don’t forget to wear your mutandoni, and you’ll be fine.”

  Majorana laughed. Mothers! Long underwear solved everything. He bent to kiss the top of her head, then left.

  Majorana had rented a car and driver to get to Palermo, the dusty center of Sicily. His thoughts kept him sufficient company as they rolled through the countryside. He was about to leave his beloved native Italy for the first time in his twenty-eight years of life. But in return, he’d meet again his old and dear friends. Such weighty reflections shortened his trip. He found himself, in fact, having arrived almost unconsciously in his cabin on board the ship to Naples, with Enrico’s letter in his hands and the sound of the ship’s whistle announcing the departure.

  Too anxious to sleep, he sat on his bed, his bag resting on his legs, and waited. The ship moved, and he enjoyed the slight rocking of the sea.

  Nearly three hours had passed before he heard a knock at the door.

  For a moment he confused the sound with the instinctive musical drumming of his fingers on the suitcase, as he sought to rehearse an old composition that Emilio Segrè had written for two beakers, bandoneón, castanets, and cowbells: “Physicist Foxtrot.” But then he realized there was someone outside his cabin. He got up from the bed and opened the door.

  No one.

  Just hasty footsteps retreating and a shadow slipping upstairs to the outside deck.

  A crescent moon was pinned to the sky. The smell of the sea was very strong, almost stunning. Cautiously carrying his invaluable luggage, Majorana reached the railing and looked down. White-tipped waves marched across the darker, somnolent waters.

  “Have a good trip, Professor Majorana.”

  A solid, irresistible, yet somehow friendly push sent Majorana over the low rail, along with his suitcase.

  But he never touched the water.

  Netting embraced him springily. He was safe and sound with his luggage.

  As the Naples-bound ship slipped gently away, a nearby voice cried from the darkness, “Quick! Give me your hand!”

  Majorana obeyed the command, was hoisted out of the fiber lattice and onto a metal deck, then whisked inside a submarine. Everything as in a dream.

  �
��I’m Captain Mongo,” said an informally outfitted African-American sailor almost two meters tall. Still feeling mired in a dream, Majorana shook the captain’s big hand. “I think you know Succi.”

  “Are those all your papers?” Succi said, pointing to Majorana’s suitcase.

  “Yes, I have all my notes with me.”

  “Wonderful. Fermi and the team need that research. He’s hit a roadblock in the development of the Harmonic Cannon that he hopes you can overcome.”

  “Harmonic Cannon?”

  “I can’t tell you more now. I’m not an expert in ‘Operation Harmony.’ But I do know that this device holds the promise of ending Hitler’s war before it spreads.”

  “I would give my life in that cause.”

  “Such a high price will not be necessary, we hope. Anyhow, here’s what happens next. Off the coast of Portogallo, we meet up with the USS Blaylock, which will take you to the USA. Then, your real work begins. Consider the next week or so a pleasure cruise, and just try to relax.”

  Majorana looked nervously about the cramped cabin. “Relax? With German U-boats prowling every cubic centimeter of these waters and out for our ‘traitorous’ blood?”

  Captain Mongo released a hearty laugh. “No goddamn Nazi bath toy is going to find us, or the Blaylock. Not with this little device onboard.”

  The captain affectionately patted an actively glowing screen whose sweeping arm of light appeared to register random objects of interest in its traveling arc.

  “Is that … sonar? I read something about a single experiment with the technology. Can it truly be perfected already?”

  “Welcome to the future, Professor,” Succi said with a laugh.

  4. Beta Decay Two-Step

  America was wonderful! The food, the music, the weather, the cities, the roads, the freedom of speech, the lush domestic appointments—and the women! (Not that the shy young professor had much time for the ladies these days, so busy was he with physics and with “breadboarding” new inventions.) Ettore Majorana had never seen such abundance, such an easygoing, unaffected way of living, without deference to stale tradition or sclerotic hierarchies. No wonder so much could be accomplished so swiftly.