The Ganymede Club

by Charles Sheffield

  "And it's not surprising if you understand anything about probabilities," Bryce went on. "You know, when I—Danny Clay back then—ran the Indian Joe casino, we made a killing out of the gambler's belief in 'special luck.' With fair tables and no cheating, there's no such thing as a run guaranteed to last beyond the hand you just played. Of course, if there's one chance in five that you win each time, there's a one-in-twenty-five chance that you'll hit lucky two in a row, and a one-in-ten-million chance that somebody will win ten times in a row. It happens, it's bound to happen, the laws of chance guarantee it. But when somebody wins ten in a row, that's when they start to think they're so hot they can't lose. That's when they—and their friends—start to lay really big stakes on the next hand. And that's when the house cleans up."

  It occurred to Lola, listening in disbelief, that males truly were an alien species. While she was struggling with the idea of a subgroup of humanity that was blessed or cursed with the gift of extreme longevity, the other three had wandered off quite happily to a completely different subject. They were mad, every one of them.

  "Three thousand years!" she exploded. "Nobody lives three thousand years. It's preposterous."

  Bat turned to her calmly. "It is admittedly implausible. But when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable—"

  "There has to be a better explanation."

  "Perhaps. I invite you to provide one. And in your cerebrations, consider these additional facts. First, from certain hints provided by Security officials, I deduce that all living heirs of the original Saturn expedition have now suddenly vanished. Their escape routes must have long been planned, and it would not be surprising if they remain out of sight for what is—by our ephemeral standards—a very long time. Years or even decades may mean little to them."

  "If they hide away, how will we find them?" asked Spook.

  "We won't," said Bryce. "It's Security's job now. They have ten thousand times our resources."

  "Second," Bat went on, as though no one else had spoken, "although no part of the body of Joss Cayuga remained intact after the Weland's impact with the surfa'ce of Lysithea, the investigating team from Security discovered certain organic crystals in the debris. Anomalous, and not susceptible of exact reconstruction. The secret of the symbiote, if we can call it that, vanished with Joss Cayuga."

  "Three thousand years." Bryce spoke in thoughtful tones. "Waiting for all of us, perhaps, somewhere near Saturn."

  "That is the problem. Somewhere." Bat stared up at the ceiling as though he could see through it. "The Saturn system—rings and moons and planet itself—is enormous. We have little idea where the expedition went, since I feel sure that any records we do possess have been falsified. Might I suggest, to anyone eavesdropping at this moment, that here we have a problem well suited to the members of the Puzzle Network."

  "And a toughie," added Spook. "Since we don't have a place to start. Not even a toehold."

  Lola sighed. Maybe they were going to get to more important matters—in their own good time. But there was nothing to stop her from trying to move them along. "I can suggest a toehold. It may not appeal to you three, because it's not so much logical as psychological."

  "The battles within the Puzzle Network are mainly psychological," Bat said. "How can you make me head off along the wrong line of logic? How can I simulate your thought processes? Solution often begins with the recognition of misdirection."

  "Then consider this. Your secret club, if it exists, doesn't just want to remain secret. It is obsessed with remaining secret. Do you realize that if they hadn't been fixated on death and mortality, they would be quite safe today, and Alicia Rios and Joss Cayuga would still be alive? So would Jinx Barker. No one needed to investigate Bryce's survival from what seemed like certain death on Mars. No one needed to try to kill him, or me. The Club's weak spot is its own obsessive fear of discovery."

  Bat and Spook looked at each other. "Could be," said Spook at last. "Hey, Lola, what's happening to you? You're starting to have actual ideas."

  "It's like a gambler," Bryce added. "An obsessive gambler is sure to lose, for one simple reason: He doesn't fold even when he knows he ought to. He keeps going when the odds are against him. He can't help himself."

  Lola saw her opportunity. "But from what you said, sometimes he does win—that's what chance is all about. Cayuga could have won. Jinx Barker didn't kill me, but he came awfully close. Cayuga missed me by just a few hours in my office. And I still don't understand why he didn't get me on the way to Lysithea. Why am I alive, and he's dead? What happened during that final approach?"

  "You still don't know?" Bryce waved his hand toward Bat. "Take a bow, maestro. You deserve it. And you, Lola, you should thank him."

  "Fine. Thanks a lot, Bat. But thanks for what? I don't know what you did."

  "From most points of view, very little." Bat ruefully rubbed the stubble on the back of his shaven head. "My opportunities to influence events were highly limited. But I can certainly offer you my logic. Consider the situation. I was convinced that Joss Cayuga planned to kill you. I could not get a message through to warn you of that danger, since any attempt was blocked by the Lysithean communications computer, presumably under orders from Cayuga. Spook and Bryce could not catch up with you. Despite our best efforts they would arrive too late. Your ship, like Joss Cayuga's ship, was directed on its approach by a Lysithean control computer. I proved, by repeated trials, that I could not gain command of that computer—given a month or two, perhaps I might do it, but I had only hours. The computers of which I have the most knowledge and to which I have best access are naturally the ones closest to me, here on Ganymede.

  "That was the framework of facts within which I had to operate. To them I was forced to add conjecture: If you could survive long enough for Spook and Bryce to reach you, your chances for survival would then improve considerably. In other words, my primary concern had to be to keep you alive until you had arrived at the docking facility at Lysithea.

  "So far, everything is logical and straightforward. The next step was neither. I had to do what every Puzzle Network Master strives to do constantly. I had to simulate within my own mind the mental processes of my adversary. Unless I could think as Joss Cayuga thought, I could not hope to defeat him.

  "So how would Joss Cayuga, eager to destroy Lola Belman, see the situation? I knew already that he had allowed you to leave Ganymede, without another attempt to kill you.

  "Why? The obvious answer was that I, Joss Cayuga, was feeling the heat on Ganymede. Cayuga dared not run the risk of being caught doing new murder, or being associated with old murder. Much better to kill you far away, perhaps on Lysithea, where everything was under tight control. But even here, Cayuga could see a problem. The report of your death on Lysithea would certainly arouse Security interest because Jinx Barker died in your office. They would send representatives and examine the interior of Lysithea in too much detail. From his point of view, there was a far better answer: kill you when you were well away from Ganymede, but before you reached the Lysithea interior. In other words, dispose of you on the journey.

  "And how would I, as Joss Cayuga, go about that?

  "This is where I—Rustum Battachariya—had my biggest problem. The journey from Ganymede to Lysithea seemed a time of greatest risk, but I had no information suggesting how Joss Cayuga might choose to kill you. All I could do was rule out certain ways on logical grounds. For example, he might ram your ship with his, but no one in his right mind would do that because it would kill both of you. He could plant a bomb on the Dimbula, but it is practically impossible to do so without leaving material evidence. He could order your drive to full acceleration, zooming you off to the far reaches of the solar system. However, if he did so, there was always a chance that Security would be able to track you and even rescue you. He had just one option that seemed to me both simple and foolproof; he could fly your ship on a collision trajectory with Lysithea.

  "Given all o
f this, you can see why I (as Cayuga) had little choice but to do exactly what I did."

  Bat paused as though he had now explained everything. Lola knew exactly why he had stopped—to make her ask—but she could not help herself: "But what did you do?"

  "Why, I went to the Ganymede data banks, where all ships' registry and ID information is held. I simply swapped two files, the ship ID codes for the Dimbula and the Weland. Then I patched in a command that sent the information to the Lysithean computer, together with an urgent request that a file update be made immediately. No computer decision can ever be better than the data provided to it. Once the update was performed, so far as the control computer was concerned, the Dimbula would be the Weland, and the Weland the Dimbula. I knew it would cause a few confused seconds when the change was installed, with the computer sending drive commands to redirect each ship to the other's landing site. But that was a small price to pay. The main thing was, if I had everything wrong and Joss Cayuga had no deadly notions in his head, nothing bad would happen to anyone. Your ships would simply be redirected to the landing site originally planned for the other. If on the other hand he did have murderous intent toward you and your ship, then that intent would instead be visited upon him. As it was. That cloud of hot vapor on the surface of Lysithea was supposed to be composed of Lola Belman."

  "Pretty neat, eh?" said Spook, as Lola shuddered.

  "Actually, quite masterly," added Bryce. "I finally believe you, Bat—you manipulate the outer-system transportation net better than anyone alive."

  "Or dead." Bat was not strong on false modesty. "However, in this case I cannot take much credit. As I say, there was a negligible suite of options. What did I do? Regrettably, I did the only thing that I could think of."

  He rose from the spidery couch and stared at it with distaste. Its lower support strut was bowed noticeably in the middle.

  "You've ruined it," Spook said.

  "Let us hope so. The popular view of Security as a modern inquisition is now in large part confirmed. I propose to seek a more congenial setting."

  He headed for the door and squeezed on through. Spook, scurrying along five steps behind him, suddenly paused. He turned and slowly made his way back to Lola and Bryce. "You know, I get the feeling that he doesn't want company."

  Lola stared at him in astonishment. Spook had read Bat's feelings for himself, without even a hint from her. Maybe there was a possibility, just a faint one, that Spook was going to grow up and be human.

  "Come on." She took him by the elbow. "I don't hold Bat's low opinion of Security, but I suggest that we all follow his lead. There has to be a more congenial setting."

  26

  The drugs were starting to lose their effectiveness. The patient still sat in the chair, but the telemetry feeds no longer provided inputs to the computer models. It was a perfectly ordinary ending to a haldane session.

  Except that both haldane and patient knew that this one was different.

  "It's the final session," Lola said. "You don't need a haldane any more. Integration of memories is going to take place at its own speed. It would be irresponsible of me to try to hurry that."

  "I wondered." Danny Clay sat up in the chair and removed the electrodes and sensor cups without consulting Lola. "How long will it take?"

  "I don't know. I suspect that the only people able to answer that question died in the war."

  "Any suggestions as to what I ought to do while I'm waiting? I mean, I'm starting to feel like Danny Clay, but sometimes I still wonder who I am and where I am. Should I be back in the Sanctuary for War Victims?"

  "That's the last place you want to be. You're not sick, and you're not a victim. You need to be surrounded by normal people." Lola hesitated. "I have a suggestion, but you may think it ridiculous."

  "Try me. A lot of things have been ridiculous recently."

  "I learned a good deal about you in our sessions together. Danny Clay had a fascination with probability and statistics, and he calculated odds as easily as other people breathe. He was channeled into gambling and crime because he saw it as the only escape from the gutter—the street-corner numbers game, and then the casino. But as Bryce Sonnenberg, you have a clean start. You have the chance to do anything you want. I think you should go back to being a mathematician. See how far you can take it."

  "Lola, I'm getting on for sixty years old. Mathematics is a young man's game."

  "You didn't worry about your age when you thought you were just Bryce Sonnenberg. Anyway, you didn't let me finish. Be a mathematician, but with a difference. Offer yourself to a medical facility as a test subject."

  "You want me to be a guinea pig?"

  "I don't think of it that way. At the moment you are a unique case, an older brain in a young body. But there will be others. The treatment you had will be repeated. You provide a unique source of valuable medical data."

  "The experiments are illegal."

  "Legal or illegal, people will do it. Weren't they illegal when you signed up? Do you think a detail like that is going to stop them? You saw the interest with even a rumor about humans living for three thousand years. No one mentions risks."

  "Or side effects. You saw the coverage of the first Saturn expedition. Jason Cayuga and Athene Rios and the rest of them, so young and cheerful and full of fun. By the time they died they were cold-blooded killers without a scrap of feeling for anyone. Not even for their own kind." He hooked the electrodes he was holding onto the chair back and swung his feet around and onto the floor. "If that's what symbiosis does, you can have my share."

  He did not sound quite convincing. It occurred to Lola that he was not the only one who had aged a lot in a short time. She could read the motives and actions of others as never before—and without the aid of drugs or machinery. She knew, for instance, that Danny/Bryce was not going to take her advice and return to mathematics.

  "You have it wrong," she said. "It wasn't an alien invasion of their bodies that changed Jason Cayuga and Athene Rios. The change was in their minds, at the prospect of thousands of years of additional life. Maybe even immortality, because in another three thousand years technology may advance enough to make death an option. You or I or anyone would change if someone came along and offered the same package. We'd covet the prospect of all those years. Once we thought we had them, we'd do anything to keep them."

  Danny Clay shrugged.

  "Or to get them," Lola added. "If we saw the slightest chance that they might be available. You asked me what you ought to do. You didn't tell me what you want to do. But you've already made up your mind, haven't you?"

  He squirmed in his seat. "I guess I have."

  "You knew before you even came here for this session."

  "Yes." He shrugged. "Can't fool a haldane, can I? But you know me, I've lived my whole life playing the odds. How could I stop playing them now?"

  "You've lost me."

  "It's that word you used: 'immortality.' It's like a bet with an infinite payout. Any gambler has to make it. An investment of some time now, for the possible gain of an infinite time in the future . . ."

  "That's known as Pascal's wager—he used it to argue that you should live well and believe in God while you were alive, even if there was only a tiny chance that God existed. Because the payoff was an infinite time in Paradise."

  "I wouldn't know about that. All I know is that out there, somewhere in the Saturn system"—he waved his hand vaguely up toward the ceiling—"we may find our own bet with an infinite payoff. I have to look for it."

  "So why did you come to see me today? You knew what you were going to do, and you knew I couldn't change your mind."

  "I thought I might change yours. I thought you might like to join me."

  There was a moment—a brief one—of temptation, then Lola shook her head. "That's not for me. I'm a haldane. My problems are here and now. Looking for longevity at the edge of the solar system is Security's job."

  "I'll be working with Security. They've seen
Bat's data, and they've listened to his logic. They don't quite buy it."

  "But even so, they feel they can't afford to ignore it?"

  "That's right." As he stood up, Lola detected on his face a look that she thought she might be seeing a lot in the years ahead. There was a questing, yearning gleam in his eyes.

  "Pascal's wager," he said. "We may find something out there, or we may not. I'm not sure. But I'm sure of one thing: I have to look."

  27

  Beyond Jupiter the solar system moves at a different tempo. In the time that it takes Saturn and its attendant train of satellites to travel once around the Sun, Earth has made a dizzying thirty revolutions. If an Earth human lives for a century, should not a dweller in the Saturn system endure for millennia?

  But the pulse of Saturn was changing. Its natural period had been disturbed. The tireless and energetic mayfly humans were all ready to swarm outward, assisted by their self-replicating machines. In another century or less they would have overrun Saturn, colonizing every one of its major and minor satellites.

  The danger had been recognized since the time of the first Saturn expedition. At the time, little could be done. Now it could.

  Simone Munzer stood alone on the surface of Helene. After the violent death of Cayuga the decision of the surviving Club members had been unanimous: Long-term safety could not be found in the inner system, or at Jupiter or Saturn. It did not even lie at Uranus or Neptune. The short-lived humans would be all over those outposts in the next hundred years. It was necessary to go beyond. Far beyond, to where the risk of death became vanishingly small. And they should go at once.

  Every other member of the Club was already in position, lying in hibernation deep within the tunnels. The drive units were poised, ready to thrust. It was Simone's task to perform the final check and survey.

  She looked sunward. If the solar furnace were diminished, compared with its brightness from Jupiter's distance, what would it look like from Helene when another fifty years had passed? Assuming that everything went as planned, Sol would be no more than one of many bright stars. Even a puny acceleration of a millionth of a gee had a huge effect when it continued for a sufficient time.