Bouncing Off the Moon

by David Gerrold

A HUNCH

  We didn't talk about Alexei. Not too much. There wasn't much that either Douglas or I could say—and whatever Mickey was feeling about his friend, he wasn't saying anything to either of us. I got the feeling he was as much angry at Alexei as he was grieving.

  After a little bit of discussion, we decided to go for thirty minutes at a time between rest breaks. It was mostly downhill, and we were getting our Luna legs now, and Mickey was worried about my air. He didn't say so, but he checked my readouts a lot. He wanted to get us to Prospector's Station quickly.

  For a while, we were moving through boulders, and then just rocks, and finally, we were back on hard rock and thin dust again. That was easiest. We were heading toward a landmark that Alexei and Mickey had identified as our halfway point.

  About fifty years ago, in the first days of serious Lunar exploration, the Colonization Authority put down thousands of surveying beacons all over the Lunar surface. These were nothing more than self-embedding spikes with reflectors on top. The reflectors were dimpled with hundreds of little right-angle corners so that any beam hitting them would be reflected straight back to its source.

  The length of time it took for a beam to return told you how far away you were. By triangulating on several reflectors, you could calculate your position almost to the centimeter. The reflectors also made it possible to make highly accurate surveillance maps of the Lunar surface. The geography of Luna was actually better known than that of Earth—because two-third's of Earth's geography was underwater.

  We were heading for one of those reflectors now. There was nothing else there, just the reflector. But three generations of Lunar explorers used the reflectors as opportunities to recalibrate their PITAs.

  The reflectors were also good for data storage, sort of. Anyone could point a beam at a reflector from just about anywhere, as long as they had line of sight.

  Suppose you're on Earth and you aim a beam at a Lunar reflector. Luna is 3.84E5 kilometers from Earth. The beam travels 384,000 kilometers one way, or 768,000 kilometers round-trip. That's 768,000,000 meters, 768,000,000,000 millimeters, 768,000,000,000,000 micrometers. 768,000,000,000,000,000 nanometers. Or … 7,680,000,000,000,000,000 angstroms. There are 10 angstroms in a nanometer.

  A blue laser, emitting at 4700 angstroms produces one wavelength every 470 nanometers. One wavelength every .47 micrometers. One wavelength every .00047 millimeters. One wavelength every .00000047 meters. 4.7E-7 meters.

  So if we divide 7,680 trillion angstroms by 4700, we get 1.634 trillion wavelengths between Earth and Luna. Round-trip. If I'd figured this right, if you used one wavelength per bit, you could put nearly 1.634 terabits on a round-trip beam. Or 204.25 gigabytes every three seconds. Not too bad. About 100 hours of music, recorded in hi-resolution mode.

  That sounded a little low to me. But I was figuring it in my head, and it was possible I'd screwed up the numbers. And I was using a blue laser because that was the only angstrom number I could remember. If you used an X-ray laser, you could multiply that by 10,000, and that would be 2,042 terabytes every three seconds. Which represents a much bigger music collection—about a million hours in hi-res. More if you played all the repeats.

  If you used 8 beams, each one a different wavelength, all synced together, you would send 8 times 2,042 terabytes—16½ petabytes round-tripping between Earth and Luna. Was that enough to hold the sum total of human knowledge? No, probably not. I'd heard somewhere that the human race had so many recording machines functioning, we were generating a couple thousand terabytes of information per day. So maybe the Lunar circuit was only big enough to hold a week's worth of global data. But if you threw out all the crap that wouldn't matter a week from now, 16½ petabyes was certainly enough storage to hold the most important information the human race needed.

  But the moon is only visible a few hours per day. So your connection only works as long as the moon is in the sky. On the other hand, if you're broadcasting from L4 or L5, you've got a permanent line-of-sight connection with Luna—and the farther away from Luna you get, the more data you can have in transit. As fast as it returns, you retransmit it. Round and round it goes and no piece of data is ever more than a few seconds away.

  There was a time—before I was born—when some folks thought that Lunar reflectors could be used to store the entire world's knowledge in a network of laser beams zipping around the solar system. But by the time the reflectors were in place, the cost of optical data cards was already in free fall, and it was obvious that using the reflectors for data storage was another one of those good ideas that was obsolete by the time the technology was ready. You could put 500 gigabytes in a credit card. You could put 500 terabytes in half a pack of playing cards. You could put it in your pocket. Or inside your robot monkey …

  Oh, hell. Memory wasn't about size anymore, it was about density. You could even put a few petabytes into a monkey if you packed them tight enough. Maybe even an exabyte or two. That should be enough to hold the sum total of human knowledge. Of course, those would be expensive. Petabyte bars were worth thousands. Exabytes were worth millions …

  Hm.

  But if you only wanted to smuggle 2,042 terabytes of information from the Earth to the moon, you didn't need to hire a courier and a bunch of decoys. You could go out in the backyard, lash your xaser to your telescope, point your telescope at the target, feed a signal into the beam, and fire away for a few seconds. Cheap, easy, impossible to intercept.

  Dad had bought two cards of used memory for the monkey—which would have seemed weird at the time, except Weird and I had been distracted by Stinky's near-headlong tumble into Barringer crater. Why would we need so much memory for a toy anyway? And what was in that memory? I hadn't had a chance to look at the cards closely, and I wasn't going to do it with anyone else around.

  What was it that had to be transported that couldn't be transmitted? Money? Codes? Information? No. All that could be phoned in. So it had to be something that couldn't or wouldn't travel by beam.

  There was only one thing I could think of … and it almost made sense. Maybe.

  Quantum computing couldn't be beamed. I didn't understand all the details of quantum computing, but it used optical processing. The internal lasers of the processing unit were split into multiple beams and parallel processed. Interference invalidated the process. You couldn't measure the beams, you couldn't look to see where they were—the minute you did that, you changed the data.

  You could beam the results of a quantum process, but if you transmitted the process itself, you created interference and invalidated the result. So all quantum computing was specifically linked to its hardware. You couldn't even guarantee that one quantum processor would exactly duplicate the results of another quantum processor. That had to do with chaos theory and fuzzy logic and the fact that quantum processors are affected by the time and place they're operating in. So quantum processors are best suited for weighted synaptic processing—lethetic intelligence engines.

  A trained intelligence engine was worth at least a quarter trillion dollars. Maybe more. Depending on the training. And you couldn't just pipe the training from one engine into the next, because quantum doesn't pipe. Each engine had to be specifically trained.

  According to Douglas, who was reporting what he read in Scientific American, they had finally gotten to the point where the intelligence engines could be trusted to train each other. I didn't understand the details. When Douglas started talking about forced coherency, congruent processing, and the fissioning of holographic personalities, my eyes glazed over. I finally had to tell him that if he was going to stay on our planet, he had to speak our language. What he did manage to get through to me was that there was a way of making two quantum processors marry each other so that their processing was temporarily synchronized—which meant that computers were finally moving from simulated sentience (which is what the monkey was) to actual sentience in a chip. Not that the average person would notice. Simulated sentience was good enough to fo
ol most folks.

  It didn't make sense that we might be carrying an actual IE unit in the monkey, those things were guarded like plutonium. Despite the fact that IE chips were always the McGuffin in every movie about high-tech robberies, it was impossible to steal one—because they guarded themselves. Anything interfering with their beams invalidated their processing—and every alarm in Saskatchewan would go off simultaneously.

  No, it was my hunch that we might be carrying one of the quantum synchronizers—some kind of industrial smuggling or something. We didn't have to understand what it was. All we had to do was deliver it.

  Only thing is—now that we had thoroughly screwed up Dad's travel plans … we had no idea where we were going or who we were supposed to deliver this thing to. Maybe the marshals trying to intercept us were working on behalf of the rightful owners. And maybe not. How would we know?

  Anyway, it was only a hunch. Probably, it was something more mundane—like a bunch of codes—if it was anything at all. Dad said it was a decoy, but what if it wasn't. What if the smugglers thought it would be safer for the decoy to carry the McGuffin?

  But even if the monkey had a quantum synchronizer or whatever inside, we'd have no way to tell just by looking at the outside of the card. And if there were some way to open it and look inside, that would be interference, and that would ruin it. So whatever it was, it was never going to be anything more than a hunch to me.

  But … maybe I should think about this hunch for a bit.

  Suppose we really were carrying something. It would have to be something extremely valuable, and the mule carrying it would have to be extremely stupid—I didn't like that part, but it made sense. A mule smart enough to know what he had would be smart enough to sell it to the highest bidder. The trick was to give it to someone who would be happy just to get a ticket offworld and who wouldn't fit the profile of a smuggler. Like a dad going to a colony with his kids. And the damn custody battle made it even better, not worse, because it was just the right kind of distraction. Smugglers didn't take their kids with them. Smugglers didn't have angry wives chasing them. And … if you had that kind of money to invest in that kind of mule, then you also had the kind of money to buy his way through customs or anywhere else.

  Wasn't it convenient that Mickey was there? And his mom, the lawyer? And Judge Griffith too? And what about Alexei? Was he part of that plan too? No, he couldn't be. He didn't fit in—or did he? Who was on which side?

  Or was I just being paranoid?

  Could I even be sure about what Douglas said he knew? No—don't go there, Chigger. That's really a shortcut to lunacy. Well, we were in the right place for it. That was for sure.

  Along about then, Mickey stopped us and came back to check my oxygen. "I thought so," he said. "I should have made you change tanks at our last break."

  "Huh?"

  "You've been muttering in my ears for the last three kilometers."

  "I'm fine. See?" I flipped the readout up so I could see it. It was flashing a pretty shade of red. "See?"

  "Yes, I see—that's very nice. Does the word hypoxia mean anything to you?"

  "She was Socrates' wife. I think."

  "Wrong." Mickey was fumbling with the front of my bubble. For some reason I couldn't focus clearly.

  "Hypoxia was queen of the Amazons," he said. "The Amazons lived in Scythia on the banks of the longest river in the world. They cut off their right breasts with scythes, so as not to interfere with their sword arms. Hercules killed Hypoxia at Troy for not checking her oxygen. Here, try to focus—" He clicked his air hose to the valve in the front of his bubble. Just like I had. An oxygen-jet.

  "Are we stopping somewhere?"

  "Yes, we're stopping right here." He pushed himself up close to me and hooked his bubble valve to mine. I couldn't see what he did next, but I started to hear a strange hissing sound. "I'm losing air, I think. I'm hissing."

  "Take a deep breath, Chigger. Again. Again. Again. Keep on breathing. That's good. Can you see me now? Look at my hand. How many fingers can you see?"

  I blinked. "All of them?"

  "Close enough. Look at your readout again."

  I looked. "It's flashing red." And then I started to get scared—

  "Relax. You're breathing on my air now. Pay attention. We're going to change tanks on your rebreather. If you can't do it, I'll do it for you. Take your hands out of your gloves and I'll reverse them inward and—"

  "I can do it." My hands were shaking and I felt suddenly weak and nauseous. "You do it."

  "Good boy. You know when to ask for help. Do you know how many people have died because they were too stupid or too proud to ask for help?"

  "No. How many?"

  "I don't know either. But it's a lot, I can tell you that."

  He had his hands inside my bubble now—it looked weird to see my gloves fiddling around at my belt, unclipping hoses and changing their connections. It reminded me of the way Doug used to button me up before taking me out to play. That didn't seem so long ago—but at the same time it seemed very far away. And now it was Mickey. He was acting just like a brother.

  "There. How do you feel?"

  "Fine."

  "Do you have a headache?"

  "Uh-uh." I touched my head to see if it was still there. My hand touched something else. A furry leg. "Is there a monkey sitting on my head?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Then I'm not delusional."

  "But no headache?"

  "No. If anything, I feel giddy. A little light-headed. Like I could fly away."

  "That's not good either." Mickey reached in and fiddled with the settings on my rebreather.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Just making some adjustments. This should do it. There." He pulled his hands out of my gloves and disconnected our two bubbles. We were separated again. He secured his rebreather tube and looked across at me. "All right, you good now?"

  "Yeah." I was fumbling my hands back into my gloves.

  "You sure? I've gotta go check Douglas and Bobby—"

  "I'm good." But I grabbed his hand anyway. "Mickey?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Thank you."

  He gave my hand a quick squeeze in return, then hurried across to Douglas.

  PAYING INTENTION

  After that, we were all a lot more careful.

  I finally got it what Mickey meant.

  It was about staying conscious. What some people called paying intention.

  Dad once tried to tell me about this music teacher he'd had—the one who said you couldn't be a musician if you didn't practice at least three hours a day. He used to tell Dad that an excuse was not equal to a result. What you said you wanted was irrelevant; what you actually accomplished demonstrated your real intentions.

  I never liked that discussion. It sounded like hard work to me and I couldn't see the reward in it. I always thought you should practice your music because you liked it, not because somebody said you had to. But I'd always listened politely, because it was always so important to Dad to give the Pay intention, this is how the world works! speech. It's not enough to pay attention, he would say, over and over. You have to pay i*n*t*e*n*t*i*o*n as well.

  And there was all the rest of it too: Volume is no substitute for brains. Better to keep your trap shut and be thought a fool than to shoot yourself in the foot while it's still in your mouth. Don't burn your bridges before your chickens are hatched.

  Every so often … I would realize he'd been right. He wasn't just talking to prove he knew better than me. This was one of those times. Well, why hadn't I paid intention when he'd told me about paying intention? Because … it's one of those stupid things you have to bump into yourself, and hope you survive long enough to make good use of the lesson.

  So I concentrated on every bounce, every hop, every skip—and wondered if this is what it had been like for Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, bouncing around on the moon and trying to collect rocks without killing himself.

  And every so oft
en, I cursed the monkey. I'd been assuming that the monkey was a good safety monitor. Obviously, it wasn't. It was supposed to beep or scream or run for help if a life was in danger—but it hadn't alerted me that I was running low on air. So obviously, it didn't include an oxygen meter—and it hadn't been paying any attention to my rate of breathing. I was already gasping for breath when Mickey figured out there was something wrong and came back to check my air. If it hadn't been for Stinky, I'd have junked the monkey right there. Except I was still wondering about those memory bars.

  "Look, there it is," said Mickey.

  We stopped to look. He pointed toward the horizon. It was hard to see. The dark slope downward was outlined with bright highlights—places where outcroppings stuck up into the sunlight, or worse, places where the shadows dipped away altogether, leaving patches of Lunar soil painted with a hard actinic glare. We had to squint to see anything. Even Stinky, who was still groggy from the tranquilizer, stuck his head out of Douglas's poncho and demanded to know what we were looking at.

  "It's hard to make out—" Mickey admitted. "Look for a reddish glow."

  "Oh, I've got it," said Douglas. "Chigger, can you see it?"

  "No—" The brightness made my eyes water. We were looking at a vast downhill slope, and the horizon was farther away than I had gotten used to. And there was a lot of sunlight being reflected back at us. And … I didn't want to say it aloud, but there was something moving out there.

  But if there was something there, I had to tell them. And if there wasn't anything there and I was seeing things, then I had to say something about that too. Didn't I?

  "Mickey?"

  "Yes, Chigger?"

  "Are there mirages on the moon?"

  "Well, not mirages. Not like on Earth. You need an atmosphere for those kinds of mirages. But sometimes you get optical illusions. Or even psychological illusions. Your eyes will play tricks on you. Or your mind. Why? Do you see something?"

  "I thought I did."

  "Where?"

  "Just to the left of the reflector. Something black, running and bouncing across the bright part. Didn't you see it?"