Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330)

by Mitchell, Laura Remson

  “Sanger, you said? I don’t see any.... Oh, there it is. The gentleman changed the name to Barnard. They’re in the Ultramarine Room. The hologuide will show you the way.”

  He pressed several more keys, and a holographic projection of a female Merchant Fleet officer appeared before them.

  “This way,” the officer said with a smile, and beckoned them to follow.

  The simulacrum led them down a hallway to a bright, deep-blue door before which floated three-dimensional holographic letters that spelled out the name “BARNARD.” The guide appeared to press a touchpad on the door, though Keith realized that it was all part of the computer-controlled pattern of the hologuide’s movements: An electronic relay was programmed to open the door at the precise instant when the guide seemed to touch the pad. The effect was remarkably convincing, though.

  “Enjoy your evening,” the guide said sweetly as she turned and headed back toward the front desk.

  Keith was still admiring the guide’s receding figure, shaking his head at the persuasiveness of the illusion, when a sudden gasp and Rayna’s desperate grip on his arm caused him to turn his head and follow her across the threshold. It was a mistake. As the door slid shut behind them, he felt his knees grow weak, and he clapped a handkerchief to his mouth. Someone should have warned them about this! What kind of arrogant astro-brain would order up a spaceborne environment without even warning his guests?

  “Vince, I told you this would happen!” Aurora complained. “They’re not used to it! Come on, now. At least adjust the gravity simulator!”

  The tall, thick-lipped man wearing the dress uniform of the Merchant Fleet grinned mischievously.

  “See what’ll happen if you stay Earth-bound too long, Aurora? Just goes to prove what I been sayin’. Either use it or lose it. Time for you to get back into the Fleet before you get like these two!”

  Aurora looked aggravated but said nothing as a laughing Vince Barnard adjusted a control beneath the black acrylic tabletop. Slowly, Rayna and Keith raised their heads and staggered forward. Even with the gravity simulator reset to Earth-normal, the holopainted asteroids, stars and distant nebulae that surrounded them made their heads spin. Rayna looked down, carefully trying to make her way to one of the vacant seats at the table, but the illusion of walking through open space—of floating high above the surface of an asteroid suspended below her feet—played havoc with her sense of balance. Keith was just as disoriented.

  “Here, Rayna,” Aurora offered, rising from her seat and striding confidently toward the newcomers, “take my hand.”

  Rayna grasped Aurora’s hand gratefully. By focusing his attention on the path Rayna’s feet traced against the background of stars and planetoids superimposed on what he knew must be the floor, Keith managed to follow them to the table. He heaved a sigh of relief and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief as he sank onto a cushioned chair.

  “Rayna, Keith.... I’m so sorry about this—”

  “Aah, don’t worry about it, Aurora!” Barnard said, slapping Keith sharply on the shoulder. “These two may be Earth-bound, but they’re friends of yours. I bet they’re good sports. You didn’t mind too much, did you? I mean, you’re not a couple of tight-assed robbies who don’t know how to have fun, are ya?”

  Keith and Rayna exchanged glances, and Aurora rolled her eyes.

  “Some place, this Eduardo’s,” Barnard continued. “Never been here before myself, but I’ve heard lots about it. Never would’ve believed they could come so close to what it feels like out in space.” He looked about him appreciatively. “Pal of mine came here once. Said they put him right on Mars! Not bad, since we never even colonized Mars for real. Wonder where they get the pictures.”

  “I told you before,” said an obviously irritated Aurora. “None of this is photographic. The visual effects are like holopaintings, only without any frames to cut off the three-dimensional images. The sounds and smells are computer-generated simulations.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. You told me.”

  “I’m afraid we brought this particular environment-generator disk in ourselves,” Aurora said to Keith and Rayna. “Vince insisted on a space environment that would be like the asteroid run, where we served together in the Fleet. He even arranged for the hologuide to be in the form of a Fleet officer. Kind of romantic, actually.”

  Barnard grinned and reached for Aurora’s hand, but she deftly managed to avoid his touch.

  “Unfortunately, the only space environments they had on file here were set for other planets and even other galaxies. (You know, there’s really no limit to the environments you can create with holopainting and sensory simulators.)”

  Keith glanced at Barnard, who was watching Aurora with adoring eyes. The guy might have the social graces of a mutant elephant, Keith thought, but he’s sure crazy about that woman.

  “Anyway,” Aurora was saying, “they said they couldn’t do anything for us on such short notice. We’d have to wait at least a week to get a custom-designed environment. So I told Vince I’d see if I could get an Asteroid Belt environmental disk myself. I told him I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea, since neither of you two had ever been off-planet, but.... Well, you know. I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”

  “You don’t have to keep apologizing,” Barnard told her with a friendly smile. “They’re not hurt. In fact, it probably did them some good to get a little taste of what us merchanters go through!”

  Aurora shook her head in displeasure but said nothing. For a while, the four of them sat quietly amid the awe-inspiring spectacle of space.

  “It’s all right now, Aurora,” Keith finally said. “Really it is. As a matter of fact, I find this environment intriguing. How realistic is it?”

  “Damned close,” Barnard said brightly. “O’ course, nothing’s quite like actually being there. Right, Aurora?”

  Aurora smiled weakly.

  “Where did you find the disk?” Rayna asked.

  “Oh, I knew Rafe had just finished making one for his next exhibition, and—” A sudden chill descended on the room, and Barnard’s eyes blazed.

  “Rafe!” he boomed, rocketing from his chair. “You mean that softheaded, granite-footed idiot you were with last night?” His narrow gaze focused suspiciously on Aurora’s impassive face. “Is he the guy you left the Fleet to shack up with?”

  “Sit down, Vince,” she urged, tugging on Barnard’s sleeve. “Rafe’s an artist. That’s how he makes his living. Ask Rayna. He did a holopainting for her.”

  “That’s right,” Rayna responded quickly in a soothing voice.

  Keith’s mind raced. He hadn’t expected things to turn ugly this soon. He was wondering how to defuse this potential explosion when he suddenly realized that his efforts weren’t needed. He ran his right index finger along the side of his nose and tried to hide smile on his lips. Rayna had the situation well in hand. She had adopted her most detached, professorial tone and was now expounding on the art of holopainting.

  “Actually, the process is quite fascinating,” she said. “The artist uses a standard computer art program in combination with an interference-pattern simulator. Some holopaintings, like mine, are hooked up to a real-time clock to reflect the passage of time. Makes me feel like I’m living in a house overlooking the beach instead of an apartment in the city! All the information about light intensity, shadows and so on are programmed into the computer when the holopainting is made so that—”

  “Computers!” Barnard snorted more in disgust than anger as he dropped back onto his chair. “Computers and robbies. They’re for woms. They keep the weak sisters in charge of the rest of us.” He blinked and leaned forward, brow furrowed with determination.

  “Out in space, though,” he asserted, “boy, out there, it’s a whole different story! Out in space, there’s no room for weaklings and cowards. In space, a man’s got to be a man!” He gestured broadly at the astronomical scene that surrounded them and smiled in self-satisfaction.

 
Puzzled, Rayna frowned and looked at the merchanter.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “I don’t understand. Don’t you use computers for navigation on merchant ships? And to monitor your fuel mix? And to maintain your life-support systems?”

  “Well...uh...I—”

  “Sure we do,” Aurora volunteered. “What do you have against computers all of a sudden, Vince?”

  Barnard wore the frustrated look of a man who had long ago been persuaded to a particular point of view but could no longer remember the arguments that had convinced him.

  “Aw, forget it,” he said. “Let’s get something to eat. I’m hungry enough to eat a whole squawker!”

  Aurora turned to Keith and Rayna. “A squawker’s a sort of cross between a chicken and a turkey that’s been bred to thrive in the colonial domes on the various asteroids,” Aurora explained. “Squawkers are very big and have a high proportion of meat to bone, fat and other waste. For most merchanters, a home-cooked dinner of roast squawker is a high point of the whole trip.”

  “Yeah,” complained Barnard. “About the only high point. Those rock-farmers sit up there being waited on hand and foot by robbies while us merchanters get packed into the smallest possible crew space to make more room for their supplies on the trip up and for stuff like their damned Nitinol wire in the shipments back to Earth. We might be in the colonies six weeks and maybe we get invited to eat with the bowl-squatters twice. The rest of the time, everything’s strictly business, and we get stuck with standard-issue space rations instead of squawker to eat.”

  “You sound pretty angry,” Keith said.

  “You bet I am. And I’m not the only one. You just wait till word gets out about the Nitinol!”

  Keith looked at the big man in surprise. “Why? What’s wrong with the Nitinol?”

  Barnard’s eyes locked onto Keith’s, then took quick measure of Rayna and Aurora. Suddenly, the merchanter seemed tense and withdrawn.

  “Aah, never mind. Just don’t be surprised if colony-lovers like that Althea Milgrom start catching a lot of heat pretty soon!”

  “Vince, what in the world are you carrying on about?” Aurora asked.

  “I said to forget it!” Barnard’s expression was hard and distrusting. Despite the coolness of the room, beads of perspiration dotted his face.

  Suddenly, an area of star-spattered blackness vanished to reveal the white-walled corridor that connected the Ultramarine Room with the rest of Eduardo’s. A man wearing the uniform of a Merchant Fleet lieutenant marched authoritatively into the room, leaving two enlisted men guarding the outer doorway.

  “Emergency alert,” the lieutenant announced to Barnard, ignoring the presence of the others. “All Merchant Fleet leaves are hereby canceled. You will report back to base immediately.”

  The color drained from Barnard’s face, and he stared dumbly at the officer.

  “I—I just wanted to have dinner with an old friend,” Barnard finally said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. The newcomer’s steely blue eyes targeted Barnard like those of a tiger stalking its prey. “Come on, Hank, I—”

  “All leaves are hereby canceled,” the lieutenant repeated in a low, threatening voice as he tapped the insignia of rank on his uniform.

  Barnard swallowed and rose from his seat.

  “Sorry, Aurora,” he said. “Maybe another time.” He worked his way around the table and headed for the door, which remained open.

  The officer waited until Barnard had crossed the threshold into the hall before turning to the others: “This emergency is top secret,” he told them. “I presume I can count on your discretion.” Then he pivoted and followed Barnard down the corridor, pausing only to close the door to the Ultramarine Room.

  ***

  Keith and the two women regarded each other in stunned silence. “What was all that about?” he wondered aloud.

  Aurora shook her head slowly. “I don’t know,” she said, “but something’s not right.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Rayna.

  The taller woman pursed her lips and tapped them with a forefinger.

  “I’m not quite sure,” she said. “It’s just that...I guess I’m relieved that we won’t have to walk on eggshells around Vince for the rest of the evening, but.... Well, for one thing, it’s pretty rare to have an emergency that would require cancellation of all Merchant Fleet leaves. Last time that happened, there had been a series of big earthquakes in China, and Fleet was put in charge of getting emergency supplies into the disaster area. The Trans-Mat facilities were all out, so we had to use special air shuttles and parachute the stuff in, just like in the late 20th Century. But by time that happened, everybody had already heard about the earthquakes. You can’t keep something that big secret for long. Have you heard of anything remotely resembling a disaster today?”

  Keith shook his head. “No,” he said, “and here’s another thing. There was something odd about the way Barnard reacted to that lieutenant. It wasn’t just respect for rank. It was fear. Barnard was scared clear out of those gaudy merchanter boots of his! I suppose it might just be some personal thing between the two of them, but it sure seemed wrong.”

  “I noticed that, too,” Rayna commented. “Vince seemed to know the lieutenant. He called him by name at one point—‘Hank’ I think he said. Not ‘Sir.’ Not ‘Lieutenant.’ Just ‘Hank’.”

  Aurora nodded. “That’s right, come to think of it. He did. But that doesn’t bother me as much as the uniform.”

  “What do you mean?” Keith asked.

  “The lieutenant’s uniform,” she repeated. “I didn’t get a close look at the enlisted men, but the lieutenant was wearing a patch that identified his unit as the 3C/4A—the Third Circuit, Fourth Asteroid Belt Run.”

  “Yes?”

  “That unit was disbanded just after I left Fleet. A friend of mine used to be in the 3C/4A. There was a big stink involving a merchant crew that tried to pull an extortion scam on some colonists. The guilty parties were identified and dealt with, and the other members of the circuit were reassigned to other units. Then, in order to eliminate the stain on the Fleet’s record for integrity, they wiped the 3C/4A off the active-service ledger.”

  She looked from Rayna to Keith and back again. “The lieutenant was wearing a uniform with the patch of a nonexistent unit.”

  Chapter 13: Nitinol in the News

  Rayna yawned, arched her body in a cat-like stretch, and nuzzled her pillow. It had been a rough few months. The students in her summer enrichment seminars—usually a pleasure to teach—didn’t seem to respond to anything she said or did. Relations with her parents were still strained, and, until a week ago, Keith had been virtually out of her life since the day she asked him to investigate her adoption. At least her current break between summer and fall sessions gave her a chance to sleep late on weekdays. Better enjoy that luxury while you have the chance, lady, she told herself, rolling over with an extravagant sweep of her arm.

  “Ouch! Watch that!”

  Rayna turned, startled by the resonant voice. Recognizing the source of the deep baritone, she smiled and bent to kiss the tip of Keith’s nose. “Sorry, darling,” she said. “But don’t worry. I don’t think it’s broken.”

  “Find that funny, do you?” He grinned menacingly and pulled her toward him. She laughed and started to push him away. Then, abruptly, she reversed direction, pressing against him and kissing him with a hunger that surprised them both considering all their energetic lovemaking of the night before.

  “God!” she said breathlessly, “I’ve missed you!”

  Keith looked at her earnestly. In his eyes was something she had never seen before, an intensity that told her more than his words could possibly say. “I didn’t think I could miss anyone the way I missed you, Ray.” Tenderly, he took her in his arms and kissed her once more.

  ***

  At last they walked into the living room, taking the windows off “opaque” status. Drenched in the golden glow that po
ured through her patio door, Rayna felt as glorious as the day was bright. She didn’t know what had caused last night’s sudden change in Keith’s manner toward her after days of polite but strictly businesslike conduct. She knew only that during those days, the painful memory of her last visit to Keith’s apartment had dimmed, and now, for the first time in a long while, she was completely free of the gloom that had become her unwelcome and nearly constant chaperone.

  It was nearly noon, and they were hungry for more than one another.

  “I can order up anything you want by Trans-Mat,” Rayna said, “or we can go primitive, and I’ll just whip up some scrambled eggs. I’m very good with scrambled eggs.”

  “Eggs it is,” said Keith. “Can I do anything to help?”

  “Well, you can set the table, if you—”

  The CompuNews buzzer cut Rayna off in mid-sentence.

  “You even have that world-watch sentinel operating when you’re on vacation?” Keith asked.

  Rayna grinned impishly. “Until yesterday, I didn’t have much else to occupy my time.” She winked and blew him a kiss, then walked to the CompuNews nook and shut off the alarm. “Seriously, though,” she called over her shoulder, “I wanted to monitor anything that might have a bearing on that trend analysis I showed you the other day. I’ll take it off alert status.

  “Oh my God!” she gasped.

  “What’s wrong?” Keith asked, following Rayna to the nook. “What happened?”

  She stepped aside and let him read the screen:

  A SHIPMENT OF VALUABLE NITINOL WIRE APPARENTLY IS BEING HELD FOR RANSOM BY DISSIDENT COLONISTS IN THE R-4 SECTOR OF THE ASTEROID BELT. THE WIRE IS VITALLY NEEDED TO ACTIVATE THE NEW POWER-GENERATING STATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN BUILT TO REPLACE UNSAFE AND/OR OUTMODED NUCLEAR AND FOSSIL-FUEL PLANTS ON EARTH.

  ACCORDING TO MERCHANT FLEET ADM. ETHAN O. RENSSELAER, THE FLEET HAS JUST LEARNED FROM RETURNING MERCHANT CREWS OF AN ALLEGED PLOT TO EXTORT HIGHER PAYMENTS FOR THE COLONY-PRODUCED WIRE. SEVERAL CREWS HAVE REPORTED BEING FORCED BY COLONIAL ROBOTS TO DIVERT NITINOL WIRE SHIPMENTS TO A SPACE-BORNE TRANS-MAT STATION. PRESUMABLY, THE WIRE WAS THEN TRANSPORTED ELSEWHERE FOR SAFEKEEPING.