Year's Best SF 8

by David G. Hartwell

  “Were we too loud for you?” Hank asked, stroking her hair. “We’re sorry, we’ll be quiet.”

  He stood up, lifting his daughter into the air. Julia stepped over to plant a kiss on her cheek, then glanced up apologetically at Hank. He smiled at his wife, nodded, and carried Sally off to bed.

  Hank ran a final check of his computer model while the dozen bird people nestled in for the presentation. He had first considered making a physical model, but the only string he could find on the island was his hammock, and he wasn’t ready to sacrifice it just yet. Instead, he had had to dredge up his old programming skills for the proper 3-D rendering.

  “Everyone ready?” he asked the crowd. Julia nodded in reply, then winked at him. Sally sat next to her mother, peeking inside a Tupperware container at her pet lava lizard, Darwin.

  “OK,” Hank began. “This is a molecular view of one section of the Line. The original design.” The lattice appeared on the screen behind him, blue and red lines arrayed in a webbed cylinder.

  “Each one of these lines is a single-wall buckytube, and together they form this larger cylinder called a fiber. The blue strands are the primaries, where all the strain is carried. But you’ll notice that there are more secondary red tubes than blue ones. That’s because if there’s a point failure…”

  Now a virtual pair of scissors appeared and snipped one of the blue strands. The fiber stretched only slightly as two red lines snapped into place to take up the slack. “Redundancy. And I’m only showing you the tubes and the fibers. These fibers are woven into what’s known as a bundle, and in turn the bundles form the backbone of the Line itself. Each level of complexity has both primary and secondary strands, and the redundancy gives the Line an expected 700- year lifetime.”

  “Only 695 to go,” muttered the penguin expert.

  “Or maybe not,” Hank retorted. “Which is the whole point. The redundancy assumes that the secondary fibers maintain their structure, even when they’re not in use.”

  Now the 3-D graphics zoomed in on a spherical-fullerene intersection where two red lines crossed a blue. At this resolution the lines were no longer 1-dimensional; now each buckytube appeared as an actual cylinder, composed of a geometrical spiral of dots.

  “Each one of these dots is a carbon atom,” Hank explained. “And as I said, this is the original design. A full quantum analysis was performed on this design, to make sure that the secondary fibers wouldn’t degrade, even without full tension. The entire simulation series took 19 months to run on ASCI Platinum. And then they changed the design.”

  Hank hit a button on the computer and now the spherical intersections shifted ever so slightly. “This was what they actually built, shaving ten months off construction. Very subtle change—only two carbon atoms have moved per intersection. But the orbital pattern is different enough to require an entirely new calculation.

  “Now, there are public documents which refer to a new calculation, but nothing about it was ever published. And it only took 6 months from the design change to the final ratification. It all points to someone doing a half-assed perturbative analysis using the old design as a starting point, and passing it off as the real thing.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Fernando from the front row. “This has something to do with magnetic fields?”

  Hank sighed. Apparently the nanotech details were lost on this crowd. Still, it was good practice for later.

  “It’s possible,” Hank said, “although I can’t say for sure. The concern is that the new design might be susceptible to topology shifts like this.” He hit his last animation cue, and one of the secondary tubes slipped. The structure didn’t break, but one row of carbon atoms slipped relative to another, leaving the red tube with a different spiral pattern than the others.

  “This weakens the fiber, and if it happened throughout the line, might shorten its lifetime considerably. A side effect would be that these shifted tubes can become electrically conducting, and perhaps generate their own magnetic fields. And once currents start flowing through them, all the calculations are going to be way off. It might even accelerate the slipping process.”

  Julia spoke up. “I’m sure Hank’s on to something. We’ve seen what’s happening to the migration patterns.”

  Hank flipped off the projector as the bird people started chattering among themselves. Only Fernando got to his feet and approached him, a worried look on his face.

  “Tell me, son. If you’re right…. They’re going to have to shut down the Line for a while?”

  “At the very least.”

  Fernando’s old eyes sparkled mischievously. “Well, I can tell you, you’ll have a lot of support from the people in this room. But you’re going to have a hell of a time getting anyone on Isabela to listen to you.”

  “That’s the nice thing about the scientific process,” Hank said with a grin. “After I make the claim, the evidence will prove me right or wrong.”

  Fernando shook his head sadly. “I’ve played this game for many years, son. This isn’t about evidence, or even science. Be careful.”

  “Don’t worry, Fernando. I think I can handle this.”

  “I hope so,” the old man replied, turning back to converse with the rest of the crowd. “I hope so.”

  A week later, Hank finally managed to contact an actual Tethercorp employee over the net. It was still before dawn on the Galápagos, but by now he had resorted to calling the London office.

  The man on his computer screen didn’t look like a scientist; probably a mid-level bureaucrat. No matter. Hank would start with this guy and work his way up the chain.

  The bureaucrat held a printout of Hank’s report up to the camera. “Is this yours?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m a nanotech engineer from—”

  “I’m having trouble filing this one,” the man interrupted. “The bulk of it looks like it should go into Harmless Crackpot, but this first paragraph reads more like a Bomb Threat. Could you clarify your position for me?”

  Hank was livid, but forced himself to speak slowly and deliberately. “Could you please tell me, then, what is the proper channel for scientists to present—”

  “Harmless Crackpot, then. Thank you.” The picture flickered off.

  “Jesus!” Hank stomped outside and stared out into Darwin’s Bay. A cruise ship was heading out to sea, stirring up a brilliant wake of bioluminescence. He waited for the anger to subside, raising his gaze from the lights below to the stars above. Topside Station, gateway to the solar system, was visible directly overhead. It was brighter even than Venus. Hank’s neck began to ache, but staring upward was better than being hunched over the computer.

  “You can do this,” said Julia from behind him.

  Hank turned around, startled. “What?” he snapped.

  “You can do this. Don’t give up so easily.”

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “But you’re not doing what you need to do, either.”

  Hank clenched his fists. “I’m perfectly able to do this by myself.”

  “I don’t get it.” Julia raised her hands in confusion. “What’s so terrible about contacting your old colleagues? What do you still think you’re running from?”

  “I didn’t run. I gave up my job to be with you and Sally.”

  “Dammit, Hank, you’re not going to make me feel guilty about your decision! You were the one who proved we couldn’t live apart.”

  Hank shut up for a moment, biting off the snappy reply which came to mind. Yes, he had had an affair, but weren’t they supposed to be beyond that?

  “What do you want from me?” he said at last. “I’m doing science again, OK? I’m working. So now you’re asking me to go dump the problem on Vargas’ lap, let the real scientists solve the problem?”

  Julia shook her head. “That’s not the issue and you know it. You haven’t contacted these people in three years. Are you afraid of them? What do you imagine they think of you?” She stepped forward to wrap her arms a
round him, and he didn’t fight her off.

  “Just that…”he began. “Just that I washed out, couldn’t handle the job. I think Vargas is the only one who really knew why I left.”

  “Then show them what you’re capable of. Show them what you’ve found. If they really think you’re a shabby scientist, then prove them wrong.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  They held each other, silently, as dawn crept into the sky.

  In the end, Hank had resorted to an old-fashioned email.

  An actual conversation would have been too awkward, he decided, but writing a letter hadn’t been as painful as he’d thought. He’d picked the two colleagues who had been closest to him—not counting Vargas, of course—and sent them each a three-page summary of his findings. And now, only 24 hours later, he was startled to have already received a reply.

  Hank; good to hear from you. How are Sally and Julia? Finally became a mother myself last year—twin girls; see the pics.

  Interesting problem you’ve run across. I don’t know any Tethercorp techs personally, but I think Vargas does. Mind if I ask him? I know you two didn’t part on the best of terms, so let me know.

  Still, no one will authorize a serious theory effort unless you come up with some decent evidence. Bird migration? Don’t think that will fly around here, so to speak. Can’t they measure the Line conductivity from the base station?

  Let me know if you come up with some real proof. I’ll see what I can do in the meanwhile.

  —Abby

  Moments later Hank was banging out a quick response, warning Abby not to bring Vargas into this. But he paused before sending it, thought for a few minutes, and finally erased the request.

  Perhaps it was time. After what had happened, he knew that Luis Vargas would prefer never to hear from his traitorous friend ever again. But Julia was right; it was time to stop running. Yes, it would probably be better to contact Luis directly. But it would be hard. And it would be so easy to just let events take their course, to let Abby make contact for him.

  Julia had been able to put the affair behind her. Hopefully Luis and Paula had done the same, had been able to move on with their lives.

  There was even the outside chance that Luis didn’t hate him quite so much as he deserved to.

  “You seem frustrated,” said Julia.

  Hank sat up straight, startled by the interruption. “That’s an understatement.” He glanced back down at the computer screen. “I can’t figure out how to measure it. Not for less than ten million, anyway. If only we could afford a fleet of custom microcopters.”

  “How to measure the magnetic field, you mean? Too bad it’s not a biology problem, or we could use my extra grant money. Still, it can’t be that hard to pull off. After all, the albatross figured it out.”

  Hank snickered. “The goddamn albatross. If only that were enough evidence…. I’m realizing that we hard scien tists don’t give animals a lot of credit.”

  “Maybe if they came down to Genovesa, saw the birds for themselves—”

  “No,” said Hank. “It doesn’t mean anything to them. They want to see hard data, not birds.”

  Julia frowned. “But birds are hard data.”

  “Not to an engineer, darling.”

  “Hmmpf.”

  Hank returned his attention to the screen, which was currently displaying an image of Base Station, where the Line lifted its cargo off the Earth’s surface. It was situated at the saddle point on an east-west ridge connecting Mt. Wolf and Mt. Ecuador, overlooking the ocean to the north and the south. The area surrounding the Station was covered with metal warehouses, transformers, and power cables, which meant that a ground-based measurement of the B-field would be worse than useless. He had to get up off the ground, away from all other possible currents. Against that requirement he had to contend with a strictly enforced no-fly zone within a 50 km radius of the Line, not to mention his shoestring budget.

  “Julia, just how am I going to get my hands on safe, cheap, airborne magnetic field detectors? I need dozens, more likely thousands, if we want to take a temporal snapshot.”

  After a moment of silence, Julia burst into laughter. “These islands are filled with exactly what you need! Too bad you engineers don’t trust them…” She laughed some more.

  Hank turned to look at her again. “What? Birds?”

  “You said it. Safe, cheap, airborne, magnetic field detectors.”

  Hank started to laugh himself, but quickly grew serious again. What was it that Fernando had said the other night? Something about…

  He shot to his feet, grabbed his surprised wife by the shoulders and planted a kiss directly onto her lips. “Julia, my dear. You are a genius.”

  “If you think I’m going to kiss you back before you tell me what you’re thinking…”

  Hank smiled. “I think this idea’s worth more than a kiss.”

  “Well, then…” She gazed at him mischievously for a moment, and then grabbed his hands and led Hank toward the bedroom. “It had better be good,” she said.

  It was.

  The high-rises of Puerto Villamil shimmered beyond the scorched tarmac. Hank felt Julia clasp his hand tightly as the passenger jet slowed to a halt and they waited for the passengers to disembark.

  Hank recognized Abby first, followed by Jackson and Nigel. The three of them had agreed to come down to Isabela to see the demonstration for themselves.

  They had already cleared customs in Guayaquil, and the once-enforced agricultural inspection had been abandoned years ago, so there was almost no delay. Hank and Julia met them on the tarmac.

  The greetings had just begun when another familiar face appeared in the crowd of arrivals. Hank forced himself to keep smiling when the recognition flooded through him. It was Luis Vargas.

  Luis wasn’t smiling himself. He nodded briskly to Hank and Julia, then turned to introduce the two men who flanked him.

  “Robert, Ali,” said Luis. “Please meet Hank Sadler. And this is his wife, Julia.” Luis nodded to them again. “Nice to see you both together. Robert and Ali here work for Tethercorp.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Hank, shaking hands. He turned to Luis, trying not to show his nervousness. “It’s good to see you again. I’m glad you came.”

  Luis nodded a third time, then walked past him to join the others. Julia and Hank raised eyebrows at each other before turning to follow.

  Puerto Villamil sat on the southern edge of Isabela, sixty-some miles below the equator. Sporting the only airport on the island, it hosted the largest population in the Galápagos, even beating out Base City up at the northern port.

  The chartered van was waiting in its assigned spot, and the eight of them piled in with minimal conversation. Hank found himself sitting in the front row, directly in front of Luis, which he found somewhat disconcerting.

  “How’s traffic today?” Julia asked the driver. He responded in Spanish, and the two of them commenced to hold an unintelligible conversation. The interaction didn’t seem to slow his driving, though; within minutes they were on the tollway, zooming up the eastern side of the island.

  After an uneventful half-hour, the tollway cut west across the Perry Isthmus, just south of Mt. Darwin. Hank wondered what the mountain’s namesake would think of the island if he could see it now. Only five weeks of the Beagle’s five-year journey had been spent in the Galápagos, but Isabela had been one of the islands visited. Today, few endemic species remained. Mt. Darwin was covered with invasive California sage scrub, and the foothills beyond the tollway fence were littered with the detritus of civilization: bars, fuel cell stations, minimalls, strip clubs, and miles upon miles of warehouses and storage space.

  Hank removed his gaze from the window as he became aware of an uncomfortable lull in the small talk. Up until now, Julia had carried the conversation with the other passengers, restricting her questions to general pleasantries and gently touching on the outlines of everyone’s
life for the last three years. But she hadn’t really spoken with Luis Vargas. Now she swiveled around in her seat to face him, and Hank held his breath, hoping she would keep things civil.

  “And how have you been, Luis? How’s Paula?”

  Hank’s eyes bulged, but he didn’t move a muscle, didn’t turn to look at either of them. Why would she say something like that? Was she just trying to prove that she had moved beyond the affair? Or was she trying to evoke an outburst from Luis? Either way, she should have known better than to bring up Paula.

  “We’re divorced, actually,” came Luis’ reply.

  An ominous silence passed before Julia spoke. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Ah,” said Luis, “it was probably all for the best.”

  Hank’s mind spun, but his body remained planted. The affair had triggered a divorce? He suddenly needed to know more. How soon had it ended? Where had Paula gone? What feelings must Luis have for him after Hank had so thoroughly ruined his life?

  Finally Hank turned and locked eyes with his old friend. Luis looked almost relaxed. Almost.

  “I’m really sorry to hear that, too,” Hank heard himself say.

  Luis didn’t break eye contact. “It was all for the best,” he said again.

  Hank turned back to the front and gratefully heard Julia bring up a new topic: the now-extirpated giant tortoise population of Isabela.

  All for the best? Luis had been devastated by the news, by the betrayal. Was this just a show of bravado in front of everyone else? Or had Luis really managed to convince himself that he didn’t love Paula after all?

  Lost in his thoughts, Hank didn’t speak for the remainder of the journey.

  The Line scarred the sky like a rent in the space-time fabric. Hank stared upward through the glass ceiling of the observation deck, but no cars were visible. The Line just hung above them, motionless.

  The two Tethercorp employees were busy introducing themselves to the Base Station staff. Hank got the distinct impression that these two—what were their names again?—were not exactly upper-level managers at Tethercorp. It appeared that neither of them had ever been Up.