Red Tide

by Larry Niven

  “Well, yeah,” he said, surprised that she sounded surprised. “A virus is no more than a parasite. These things apparently operate without a host. What’s the light converter, gold leaf over selenium? I know it’s not silicon.” In atmosphere, one of those wore out before it could generate enough power to make another.

  She shook her head. “The surface has a thin layer of iridium, and its texture is chaotically pitted. Funnels light inside and keeps it there. Whatever converts light to power is internal.”

  Sam touched the patch he’d pointed at. It was no warmer than the metal near it. “Does a damn good job, too,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “No waste heat. Not even from conducting the power to areas that aren’t close to a socket. And those wires have to be thin. Superconductor?”

  Marjorie opened her mouth, furrowed her brow, and said, “I don’t think so. People would be stripping it off everything.” She touched a window, and it turned out to be a screen. She typed rapidly on the bottom half for a while, then said, “Those are silicon. Not the metallic form; chemically bonded together, and held in place by linked organic side chains. The electron clouds of silicon atoms blur together, so a charge applied to one can be drawn off any connected silicon atom.”

  “And the side chains insulate the silicon from air. I remember that about silicon. Not exactly superconduction, more like static. Nobody ever got it to work on a large scale, it reverts to the crystal state. This lifeform sounds like the only application.”

  “There’s nanomachinery,” she said.

  “Life is nanomachinery. What worries me now is what happened to whoever made this stuff.” He felt himself getting lighter. “We’re slowing down.”

  “Almost there. Need a bag for low gravity?”

  “No, I’m lucky that way.”

  “Okay.” She shut off the screen, and the window view reappeared. Then it disappeared again, as they entered the hub.

  Her question drew his attention to his stomach. “Where’s the nearest place to get something to eat?” he said. “Just cell fuel isn’t going to make it.”

  “How long since you ate last?—I do not believe I just said that,” she said, as all the other guides grinned at her. She looked unhappy.

  Sam sympathized with her. “About fifteen subjective hours,” he said. “I could really go for some popcorn,” he added, in a deliberate attempt to divert everyone’s minds.

  He was successful beyond his wildest dreams. Every one of the guides glared at him, and one said, “You creep.”

  “Uh,” Sam said.

  “There’s no maize here,” said Marjorie. “The chup won’t allow it.”

  “Allergies?”

  “Cheapskates. Turns out it causes all kinds of medical problems. The worst are probably kidney stones and compulsive eating.”

  Sam shook his head violently. “Are we talking about the same thing?”

  The guide who’d called him a creep said, “Giant grain glomerule, one to three hands long, seeds usually yellow, unusually juicy for a grain. Sorry I was rude. From your expression you feel just the way I do about it. Joseph Abagnale, Junior. Call me Jayjay.” He was a big husky guy with blond hair and skin about the shade of Sam’s. He stuck out his hand.

  Sam took it. “Sam Watt.” He knew that name, but he was so jazzed up he couldn’t place it at first.

  Jayjay held very still and studied him from head to foot with lightning speed. “I will be goddamned,” he said. “You really are—I was the first person after you to take the Long Jump.”

  He was clearly one of those people who can pronounce capitals, and that made the difference. Sam snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “You were the Technologist candidate for President! I voted for you,” he said.

  “That was you?” said Jayjay, smiling faintly.

  Sam nodded, scowled, and made a few abortive gestures in an attempt to express his exasperation. “People don’t listen,” he finally got out.

  “Hence my departure. You know, a certain amount of coincidence crops up all the time here, but I like this one.” He studied Sam’s face for a moment, then added, “You’re capable of killing someone. I strongly urge you to avoid the Resistance. They have an awful lot of argumentative people with no sensible plan, and I came close to killing one guy myself.”

  “I don’t think I’d kill anybody,” Sam said, shocked.

  Jayjay shrugged. “Hold that thought. I’ve been wrong about people occasionally. But if I had a crack at getting some popcorn, I wouldn’t want to be held accountable for what I’d do.”

  “How long have you been here?” Sam said.

  “Be ninety years in September,” said Jayjay. When Sam goggled at him, he grinned and said, “If you think you feel better now, just wait three weeks. Genetic reboot has some amazing effects.”

  “He’s already manifested some,” said Marjorie, and guides and newbies alike all grinned. “More than usual so soon,” she added, and the guides all looked at Sam.

  “Hey, how about those Knicks?” said Sam.

  The only one who laughed was Jayjay, but since the rest looked baffled Sam counted it as a success.

  Then he was distracted. They had gotten through the barrier, which had been the original hull of the station, and were in the hub itself.

  Everybody got out of the elevator.

  After a few seconds, Jayjay said, “Now, while they’re looking up, we quickly steal all their stuff.” Sam ignored him. A few seconds later, Jayjay said, “He’s the real thing.”

  “I know,” said Marjorie.

  That got Sam’s attention, and he looked at them by turns. “What?”

  “You’re the only one who kept looking up,” said Jayjay. “What do you think?”

  “I think Marjorie finds it crowded because her ancestors had the place to themselves for so long,” Sam said, looking up again.

  There was just enough gravity to notice, and judging by what he took to be man-width curved ramps coming down, the core shaft was at least five hundred yards above them. It took up a third of the field of view, more or less, which made it about that big across, and it had faint noises coming from it.

  “Industry?” he said.

  “Sure. People who kept doing industry on Earth after space travel must have been crazy,” Marjorie told him. “Lots easier in microgravity. And safer.”

  “Bit of a commute before JumpShift, but I see your point,” Sam said. There were fine details on the shaft, which he took to be pipes and cables and … the supports for the conveyor system. Partway around the curve of the deck, he saw an oblong polished gray object come out of the wall from the direction of the receiver tube. He’d seen pictures of oil tankers. It looked about that big.

  He was not at all sanguine about seeing it fitting itself into a collection of looped cables. Evidently they were not going to be traveling inside the core.

  “Has there ever been a cable failure?” he said.

  “Never,” said Marjorie. “But if you’ll look at the hull, you’ll see—”

  “It’s self-transmitting! Where does it take us?”

  “It doesn’t. There are booths on top, and when a falling car is empty it goes straight to a drop cage around Titan. At least, it will if there’s ever a tube failure. Oh my God, did you think it hung from the cables the whole trip?” She grew wide-eyed, but managed to keep from actually laughing.

  There was one other European-pink newcomer, a very old one: he was next to bald, had thick glasses on and some kind of powered exoskeleton around the lower half of his body, and his skin had more age spots than spaces between them. He had been working his way over to them for a couple of minutes, and now said, “You didn’t notice some of the details up there are refracting light?” He pointed. “Clear tubes.”

  “I’m kind of nearsighted.”

  “And you were going anyway? You must have about six balls. Theodore Kyle.” He held out a hand to shake.

  “Sam Watt.”

  “Recognized
you.” Theodore’s voice dropped for a moment. “Work it, kid—so this place started out as your idea?” he added in normal volume. “Thanks. Saved the human race, in which I take a proprietary interest.” There was nothing wrong with his upper-body strength; his handshake encased without compression, as if he were holding a small frightened animal to keep it from falling. Theodore showed some of the wasting of extreme age, but Sam had the distinct impression that Theodore could have tossed him over his shoulder onto a hatrack.

  “You know, you seem familiar too,” Sam said.

  “Nah, I’m just sociable—I’m kidding.” In a rasping voice Theodore said, “‘Spyin’ on me with rays, I tole ’em, millennium hand and shrimp!’” As Sam’s jaw dropped with recognition, Theodore grinned and added, “I had a long career doing voice work for animation, until the KS stopped helping. Took off rather than spend all my money on a funeral and inheritance taxes. Turns out you can take it with you.” He got out a perfectly-normal-looking credit card. “I even have some left after paying for my rescue and medical bills.”

  Sam was jolted. Of course there’d be bills. But nobody was nagging yet—“What in the world did you bring that they can’t make here?”

  “Mint copies of every comic book scripted by Alfred Bester.”

  Sam just gaped. He was in the presence of Genius. Of course someone would have thought of all the famous big-name comics; there were probably multiple sets of the complete run of, say, Batman. Then he said, “How did you transport them?”

  “In the back of a Marsbuggy. Got a nice piece of change for it, too. Vintage and all that. I had to assume the receiver wouldn’t have air in it, so I took everything I wanted in one go. How’s your heart?”

  “Still under warranty when I left.”

  “Oh, you had one grown? Good, that’ll help when you get the bill.”

  “What’s the economic setup?” Sam said.

  “Radical,” said Theodore with great gravity. “Arbitrary tokens of symbolic value are awarded to you, based on the benefit you’ve provided to everyone else in the world put together, in their collective opinion of its value. It’s called money.”

  Sam blinked, snorted, and was starting to laugh when another newcomer came forward and said, “That’s not how money actually works.”

  “It’s not how it’s treated,” Theodore said over his shoulder, “but it is precisely what it actually is.”

  The man behind him smiled smugly and said, “I’m an economist.”

  He was going to say more, but Theodore had turned and knocked him out. The man was still in the air, receding, as Theodore turned back and said, “I owe Clint Eastwood’s estate a penny. One of his movies included the fact that if you hit someone hard enough to turn his head all the way to the side, there’s an off switch. Saddest story I ever saw. Wouldn’t have missed it, though. Your credit’s definitely good here, in case you’re worried.”

  The economist’s guide had run after her charge, and while fetching him back called out, “What the hell did you hit him for?”

  Theodore turned. “I grew up during the Seventy Years’ War. I know what happens to a society where people listen to economists. You keep him quiet, I’ve had experience whipping up an angry mob.”

  “We should head for the transport,” said Marjorie, in an inspired diversion.

  They did that. On the way, Theodore stayed by Sam, having apparently adopted him. Sam didn’t mind, since it made him The Kid, which was a change he liked. “That was a hell of a punch,” Sam said.

  “I’m horribly strong,” Theodore said. “Spent over a century holding myself up with canes before the folks here gave me the walker.” He rapped the exoskeleton, then held out his hands. Their relaxed state was curled. “It’s a loaner. I’ll be able to give it back in about two weeks. Already been here a week, getting fitted. I like this place.”

  “Me too,” said Sam. “Don’t know what an obsolete engineer is going to do to pay the bills, though.” He was remembering what his new heart had cost. It had cleaned out most of his assets. (Socialized medicine would have been much cheaper; without the profit motive for medical researchers, all he’d have needed was a funeral.)

  “Need a loan?”

  Sam recalled something from Mark Twain. “I’d rather have the friend than the money,” he said. “Something will turn up. After all, I did.”

  “Fair enough. You were sent by mistake? You still look kind of worn, so I’d guess you’re fresh out of the box. No convalescence.”

  “Yeah.”

  And it all came crashing in on him. Sam stopped walking, felt the stinging inside his nose, and found himself fighting not to cry. If not for the negligible gravity he’d have folded up on the deck.

  Theodore said, “Yup, new,” put Sam over his shoulder, and kept walking.

  “I’ll be okay,” Sam said. “I’ll get over it.”

  “Good,” said Theodore, and kept walking without putting Sam down.

  “I just need something to eat.”

  “That’s right, you haven’t had anything in a hundred and sixty-one centuries,” Theodore said.

  And he leaned forward.

  Later, Sam was never quite able to piece together the events of the next minute or so to his own satisfaction. The contributing elements were the fact of being carried by someone who liked him, low gravity, a floor that curved upward, and leg braces that Sam later learned had been adapted from a spacesuit designed for emergency work under high thrust. Sam recalled moving very fast, occasionally getting quite far from the deck, and a new (and receding) female voice shouting, “Theodore, stop that, you’re top-heavy!”

  Sam found himself set neatly on the deck, not far from another elevator, as Theodore flipped completely over him. He turned in time to see Theodore doing a couple more flips as he came to a stop, using them to lose momentum. Theodore bounded back in one go, grinned, and said, “One of the things that made me really popular with the studios was I learn fast. I’ve been practicing with these all week.”

  “Not all week,” said a chubby Oriental woman in red coveralls as she caught up. “God dammit, you loon, you’re worse than a kitten. Don’t give me the eyes!” she added as Theodore turned to her.

  Theodore picked her up and kissed her.

  The rest of the crowd had caught up by the time he put her back down. “No fair,” she said, looking and sounding dazed.

  “You never said a word about the tongue,” Theodore said.

  “Shut up,” she said, without any great conviction.

  “Sam, this is Natalya Vasquez. She’s my keeper. The chup may be mommies from hell, but they are bloody astounding matchmakers. They’re the ones who choose who a newcomer gets for orientation. Which is damned generous when you consider they don’t approve of the procedure. Any chup you’d want to talk with is female. They run everything. The males are bigger and may tactfully be described as thick, and are pretty much kept around for reproduction and heavy lifting.”

  “Oh. Just like us, then.”

  Theodore laughed, nodded, and said, “Only more so.”

  Another group was approaching the elevator from the other direction, and it included a chup. This one was wearing white, and there was something in her movements that made her seem less instantly confrontational than Davoost.

  Still armed and armored, though. She was holding something like a thick phone in one hand, studying the screen, and appeared to be chewing with her mouth open. Sam had begun wondering if that signified annoyance when he became distracted by the approach of an oversized camper. It looked like the kind people used to build from discarded freight cars.

  As he stared, a speaker on the front said, “You guys want a ride?”

  Everybody in the group with the chup looked at the chup. She swallowed air and said, “Go ahead,” and almost everybody moved over to their left. Three headed for the other side; Sam reckoned that two were Japanese, and the third must be from Canada or the UK. The main camper door was on the driver’s right, th
ough.

  “People with kids go in the back section,” said the driver, who then saw that nobody had any along. “Okay, people who don’t mind kids go in the back section.” With everyone aboard, the camper’s forward population went from about ten to about thirty, with only one pair going through the door into the back. Sounded like a party in there. The chup with them sat quietly in a corner. There were still plenty of unoccupied seats. The driver just drove straight onto the elevator, which took them up to the deck of the barge.

  The people in the front, at least, were mostly Caucasian. It made sense if they all knew each other.

  Some of the people in the camper were playing a fantasy wargame, though they at least looked like grownups. (Sam, who at eleven had designed a diode tube that required neither a heated filament nor beta-emitter cathode doping, had never seen the attraction of roleplaying games. Reality had his full attention.) A plush and portly round-headed calico cat (black, brown, and fawn) was walking around on the table and hitting players up for contributions.

  Sam was still feeling rocky and had never seen a calico cat in those colors, so he went over to have a look at her. She came up to him, inspected his hand when offered, and stood on her back legs to prop herself up and inspect his face. He picked her up, and the players all went quiet and looked at them. “What?” he said.

  “Chocolate Chip never lets anyone pick her up,” said the only one with multiple screens, presumably the ref. He spoke without emphasis and showed no expression, and Sam got the impression he was waiting for something extreme to happen.

  What happened was, the cat hit Sam in the chin with her head.

  As one, the players exhaled and went back to what they were doing.

  Sam sat in a nearby seat and began scratching places that were difficult to reach. He noticed a little of the conversation: “Okay, we can pick any champion with a well-known literary source?”

  “Yes, except Achilles, he’s on the other side.”

  “You—Fine. Parley.”

  “About what?”