The Astral Mirror

by Ben Bova

  Most likely, what we’d see would not be the ship itself, but its exhaust plume, a huge, hot glob of ionized gas, which physicists call a plasma. The plasma would expand from the ship’s rocket nozzles to enormous dimensions in the hard vacuum of interstellar space. The plasma would be moving at speeds close to that of light, and so would show huge red shifts. And, unlike any natural heavenly body, the plasma exhaust might fluctuate unpredictably as the ship changed course or speed.

  Over the past two dozen years, the entire astronomical community has gone out of its head trying to figure out what the “quasi-stellar objects,” or quasars, might be.

  Quasars show enormous red shifts, amounting to speeds of close to 90 percent of the speed of light. Because of these red shifts, astronomers at first thought that the quasars were out at the farthest edges of the observable universe, and their red shifts are caused by the general expansion of the universe.

  But quasars twinkle! Some of them brighten and dim over the course of a year or two, others in several weeks or days. A few have been seen to change brightness within a few minutes.

  Partly because of this twinkling, many astronomers have leaned toward the idea that the quasars are relatively close by, perhaps not far from the Milky Way galaxy, perhaps actually within it. However, most of the evidence available points to the conclusion that the quasars are at least some distance outside the Milky Way, probably on the order of a hundred million light-years distant. This is still “local,” compared to the “cosmological” distances of billions of light-years that were originally assigned to them.

  The quasars are apparently composed of very hot gases, plasmas, that are strongly ionized at temperatures of some 30,000 degrees Kelvin. The actual size of the quasars is not yet known. If they’re cosmologically distant, then they must be close to the sizes of galaxies. But if they’re close to the Milky Way or even inside it, they could be as small as star clusters or even smaller.

  Neither cosmologists, astronomers, nor physicists have been able to explain what produces the titanic power output of the quasars. Their light and radiowave emissions are beyond anything that known natural physical processes can explain. Ordinary physical processes, such as the hydrogen fusion reactions that power the stars, just won’t fill the bill. Something else must be burning inside the quasars. A few scientists have suggested matter-antimatter reactions.

  Could the quasars be powered by fusion reactors of the type that we would build someday to drive starships? They would run much hotter than the fusion reactions that power the stars. Or might the quasars truly be driven by antimatter reactions?

  But if the quasars are starships, and what we’re seeing is part of the normal interstellar traffic of the Milky Way galaxy, how come all we see are red-shifted quasars? A red shift means the object is moving away from us. Why don’t we see any blue-shifted quasars, that is, starships heading toward us?

  Maybe we don’t see blue shifts because we’re out toward the galaxy’s edge, and most of the starship traffic is in the star-rich central regions. More likely, though, the answer is that such blue shifts would be very difficult to detect on Earth.

  The plasma of the quasars, whether they are the exhausts of starship rockets or not, are inherently very hot, and very blue in color—ranging into the ultraviolet. Most UV wavelengths don’t get through our atmosphere—the ozone layers up high in our atmosphere filter out almost all ultraviolet. Only a little UV gets through, and that’s what suntans us.

  The reason we can see any quasars at all is that their enormous red shifts move the ultraviolet radiation down into the wavelengths of visible light, which do penetrate our atmosphere quite nicely.

  Now, a blue-shifted quasar would have its light shifted the other way—from blue and ultraviolet into the far UV, X-ray, and gamma ray wavelengths. None of these wavelengths gets through our atmosphere. So blue-shifted quasars would be quite invisible to us—from the ground. Special ultraviolet detectors placed aboard some of our orbiting astronomical satellites, however, have picked up many, many UV objects that are entirely new to the ground-dwelling astronomers. Could they be blue-shifted quasars? Starships heading our way?

  And if they are, should we be doing something to attract their attention?

  The Perfect Warrior

  This story has two separate origins, which came together to form the novelet and, eventually, a full-sized novel.

  One origin was Myron R. Lewis, a friend and co-worker at the Avco Everett Research Laboratory, back in the 1960s. (Was it really twenty years ago? Gad!) Myron invented the Dueling Machine, and together we plotted out the story that became The Perfect Warrior. I did the writing, as I had on an earlier tale we had thrashed out together. Men of Good Will. 4 Little did either of us realize, back then, that we had “invented” a kind of video game; nor did we foresee that the room-filling gadgetry of the Dueling Machine could be shrunk down to desktop size within little more than a decade.

  v~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~v

  4See my story collection, Escape Plus.

  ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^

  The other source for this story was a nagging “What if?” question that had been preying on my mind for many, many years: What if Winston Churchill had been Prime Minister of Britain in 1938, rather than Neville Chamberlain? Could World War II have been averted if doughty old Winnie had been there to face up to Hitler, rather than the appeasing Chamberlain? The Perfect Warrior and, later, the novel it gave birth to, The Dueling Machine, are my attempt to answer that question.

  Dulaq rode the slide to the upper pedestrian level, stepped off, and walked over to the railing. The city stretched out all around him—broad avenues thronged with busy people, pedestrian walks, vehicle thoroughfares, air cars gliding between the gleaming, towering buildings.

  And somewhere in this vast city was the man he must kill. The man who would kill him, perhaps.

  It all seemed so real! The noise of the streets, the odors of the perfumed trees lining the walks, even the warmth of the reddish sun on his back as he scanned the scene before him.

  It is an illusion, Dulaq reminded himself. A clever, man-made hallucination. A figment of my own imagination amplified by a machine.

  But it seemed so very real.

  Real or not, he had to find Odal before the sun set. Find him and kill him. Those were the terms of the duel. He fingered the stubby, cylindrical stat-wand in his tunic pocket. That was the weapon that he had chosen, his weapon, his own invention. And this was the environment he had picked: his city, busy, noisy, crowded. The metropolis Dulaq had known and loved since childhood.

  Dulaq turned and glanced at the sun. It was halfway down toward the horizon. He had about three hours to find Odal. And when he did—kill or be killed.

  Of course no one is actually hurt. That is the beauty of the machine. It allows one to settle a score, to work out aggressive feelings, without either mental or physical harm.

  Dulaq shrugged. He was a roundish figure, moon-faced, slightly stoop-shouldered. He had work to do. Unpleasant work for a civilized man, but the future of the Acquataine Cluster and the entire alliance of neighboring star systems could well depend on the outcome of this electronically synthesized dream.

  He turned and walked down the elevated avenue, marveling at the sharp sensation of solidity that met each footstep on the paving. Children dashed by and rushed up to a toyshop window. Men of commerce strode along purposefully, but without missing a chance to eye the girls sauntering by.

  I must have a marvelous imagination. Dulaq smiled to himself.

  Then he thought of Odal, the blond, icy professional he was pitted against. Odal was an expert at all the weapons, a man of strength and cool precision, an emotionless tool in the hands of a ruthless politician. But how expert could he be with a stat-wand, when the first time he saw one was the moment before the duel began? And how well acquainted could he be with the metropolis, when he had spent most of his life in the military camps on the dreary planets of Ker
ak, sixty light-years from Acquatainia?

  No, Odal would be helpless and lost in this situation. He would attempt to hide among the throngs of people. All Dulaq had to do was to find him.

  The terms of the duel limited both men to the pedestrian walks of the commercial quarter of the city. Dulaq knew this area intimately, and he began a methodical search through the crowds for the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Odal.

  And he saw him! After only a few minutes of walking down the major thoroughfare, he spotted his opponent, strolling calmly along a cross walk, at the level below. Dulaq hurried down the ramp, worked his way through the crowd, and saw the man again, tall and blond, unmistakable. Dulaq edged along behind him quietly, easily. No disturbance. No pushing. Plenty of time. They walked down the street for a quarter-hour while the distance between them slowly shrank from fifty meters to five.

  Finally Dulaq was directly behind him, within arm’s reach. He grasped the stat-wand and pulled it from his tunic. With one quick motion he touched it to the base of the man’s skull and started to thumb the button that would release a killing bolt of energy.

  The man turned suddenly. It wasn’t Odal!

  Dulaq jerked back in surprise. It couldn’t be. He had seen his face. It was Odal... and yet this man was a stranger. Dulaq felt the man’s eyes on him as he turned and walked away quickly.

  A mistake, he told himself. You were overanxious. A good thing this is a hallucination, or the autopolice would be taking you in by now.

  And yet... he had been so certain that it was Odal.

  A chill shuddered through him. He looked up, and there was his antagonist, on the thoroughfare above, at the precise spot where he himself had been a few minutes earlier. Their eyes met, and Odal’s lips parted in a cold smile.

  Dulaq hurried up the ramp. Odal was gone by the time he reached the upper level. He couldn't have gotten far.

  Slowly, but very surely, Dulaq’s hallucination crumbled into a nightmare. He’d spot Odal in the crowd, only to have him melt away. He’d find him again, but when he’d get closer, it would turn out to be another stranger. He felt the chill of the duelist’s ice-blue eyes on him again and again, but when he turned there was no one there except the impersonal crowd.

  Odal’s face appeared again and again. Dulaq struggled through the throngs to find his opponent, only to have him vanish. The crowd seemed to be filled with tall blond men crisscrossing before Dulaq’s dismayed eyes.

  The shadows lengthened. The sun was setting. Dulaq could feel his heart pounding within him, and perspiration pouring from every square centimeter of his skin.

  There he is! Yes, that is him. Definitely, positively him! Dulaq pushed through the homeward-bound crowds toward the figure of a tall blond man leaning casually against the safety railing of the city’s main thoroughfare. It was Odal, the damned smiling confident Odal.

  Dulaq pulled the wand from his tunic and battled across the surging crowd to the spot where Odal stood motionless, hands in pockets, watching him dispassionately. Dulaq came within arm’s reach...

  “TIME, GENTLEMEN. TIME IS UP. THE DUEL IS ENDED.”

  The Acquataine Cluster was a rich jewel box of some three hundred stars, just outside the borders of the Terran Commonwealth. More than a thousand inhabited planets circled those stars. The capital planet—Acquatainia—held the Cluster’s largest city. In this city was the Cluster’s oldest university. And in the university stood the dueling machine.

  High above the floor of the antiseptic-white chamber that housed the dueling machine was a narrow gallery. Before the machine had been installed, the chamber had been a lecture hall in the university. Now the rows of students’ seats, the lecturer’s dais and rostrum were gone. The room held only the machine, a grotesque collection of consoles, control desks, power units, association circuits, and the two booths where the duelists sat.

  In the gallery—empty during ordinary duels—sat a privileged handful of newsmen.

  “Time limit’s up,” one of them said. “Dulaq didn’t get him.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t get Dulaq either.”

  The first one shrugged. “Now he’ll have to fight Odal on his terms.”

  “Wait, they’re coming out.”

  Down on the floor below, Dulaq and his opponent emerged from their enclosed booths.

  One of the newsmen whistled softly. “Look at Dulaq’s face... it’s positively gray.”

  “I’ve never seen the Prime Minister so shaken.”

  “And take a look at Kanus’ hired assassin.” The newsmen turned toward Odal, who stood before his booth, quietly chatting with his seconds.

  “Hmp. There’s a bucket of frozen ammonia for you.”

  “He’s enjoying this.”

  One of the newsmen stood up. “I’ve got a deadline to meet. Save my seat.”

  He made his way past the guarded door, down the rampway circling the outer wall of the building, to the portable tri-di camera unit that the Acquatainian government had permitted for the newsmen to make their reports.

  The newsman huddled with his technicians for a few minutes, then stepped before the camera.

  “Emile Dulaq, Prime Minister of the Acquataine Cluster and acknowledged leader of the coalition against Chancellor Kanus of the Kerak Worlds, has failed in the first part of his psychonic duel against Major Par Odal of Kerak. The two antagonists are now undergoing the routine medical and psychological checks before renewing their duel...”

  By the time the newsman returned to his gallery seat, the duel was almost ready to begin again.

  Dulaq stood in the midst of his group of advisers before the looming impersonality of the machine. Across the way, Odal remained with his two seconds.

  “You needn’t go through with the next phase of the duel immediately,” one of the Prime Minister’s advisers was saying. “Wait until tomorrow. Rest and calm yourself.”

  Dulaq’s round face puckered into a frown. He cocked an eye at the chief meditech, hovering on the edge of the little group.

  The meditech, one of the staff that ran the dueling machine, pointed out, “The Prime Minister has passed the examinations. He is capable, within the rules of the duel, of resuming.”

  “But he has the option of retiring for the day, doesn’t he?”

  “If Major Odal agrees.”

  Dulaq shook his head impatiently. “No. I shall go through with it. Now.”

  “But....”

  The Prime Minister’s expression hardened. His advisers lapsed into a respectful silence. The chief meditech ushered Dulaq back into his booth. On the other side of the machine, Odal glanced at the Acquatainians, grinned humorlessly, and strode into his own booth.

  Dulaq sat and tried to blank out his mind while the meditechs adjusted the neurocontacts to his head and torso. They finished and withdrew. He was alone in the booth now, looking at the dead-white walls, completely bare except for the large view screen before his eyes. The screen began to glow slightly, then brightened into a series of shifting colors. The colors merged and changed, swirling across his field of view. Dulaq felt himself being drawn into them, gradually, compellingly, completely immersed in them...

  The mists slowly vanished and Dulaq found himself standing on an immense and totally barren plain. Not a tree, not a blade of grass; nothing but bare, rocky ground stretching in all directions to the horizon and a disturbingly harsh yellow sky. He looked down at his feet and saw the weapon that Odal had chosen. A primitive club.

  With a sense of dread, Dulaq picked up the club and hefted it in his hand. He scanned the plain. Nothing. No hills or trees or bushes to hide in. No place to run to.

  And off on the horizon he could see a tall, lithe figure holding a similar club walking slowly and deliberately toward him.

  The press gallery was practically empty. The duel had more than an hour to run, and most of the newsmen were outside, broadcasting their hastily drawn guesses about Dulaq’s failure to win with his own choice of weapons and environment.

/>   Then a curious thing happened.

  On the master control panel of the dueling machine, a single light flashed red. The chief meditech blinked at it in surprise, then pressed a series of buttons on his board. More red lights appeared. The chief meditech reached out and flipped a single switch.

  One of the newsmen turned to his partner. “What’s going on down there?”

  “I think it’s all over... Yeah, look, they’re opening up the booths. Somebody’s scored a win.”

  “But who?”

  They watched intently while the other newsmen quickly filed back into the gallery.

  “There’s Odal. He looks happy.”

  “Guess that means...”

  “Good lord! Look at Dulaq!”

  More than two thousand light-years from Acquatainia was the star cluster called Carinae. Although it was an even greater distance away from Earth, Carinae was still well within the confines of the mammoth Terran Commonwealth. Dr. Leoh, inventor of the dueling machine, was lecturing at the Carinae University when the news of Dulaq’s duel reached him. An assistant professor perpetrated the unthinkable breach of interrupting the lecture to whisper the news in his ear.

  Leoh nodded grimly, hurriedly finished his lecture, and then accompanied the assistant professor to the university president’s office. They stood in silence as the slideway whisked them through the strolling students and blossoming greenery of the quietly busy campus.

  Leoh was balding and jowly, the oldest man at the university. The oldest man anyone in the university knew, for that matter. But his face was creased from a smile that was almost habitual, and his eyes were active and alert. He wasn’t smiling, though, as they left the slideway and entered the administration building.

  They rode the lift tube to the president’s office. Leoh asked the assistant professor as they stepped through the president’s open doorway, “You say he was in a state of catatonic shock when they removed him from the machine?”