The Mind Pool tmp-1

by Charles Sheffield

  But space around the planets is valuable. No one wants it filled with floating garbage, or cares to have random hazards in orbit around the Sun.

  Not when there are other options.

  The Lagrange points are local minima of the gravitational potential. They are places where no planet is present, but a body may still remain in stable orbit. Their positions were plotted centuries before humanity went to space. Within the solar system, the deepest and best-defined of them are the Trojan positions, trailing and leading Jupiter in its orbit by a sixth of a revolution. Space flotsam drifts here naturally, and stays for millennia.

  What Nature can do, Human can copy.

  Three hundred years before the visit of Luther Brachis, the trailing Jupiter Lagrange point had been designated by the United Space Federation as a system “indefinite storage facility.” For that, read “garbage dump.” Everything from spent reactors to disabled Von Neumanns had been towed there, to float slowly (but stably) around the slopes of the shallow gravitational valley.

  The Dump was computer-controlled. It had been that way for centuries, unattended by humans — until Luther Brachis took over as head of System Security, and began to lose men and women. To death, inevitably; murder and greed and sabotage still inhabited the system, and security work always carried risk. The incident on Cobweb Station was only the most recent. Brachis hated to lose his trained and dedicated guards. But it was part of the job. For the dead he could do nothing, and they could feel nothing.

  And for the living? The pain of injury was temporary. Limbs could be re-grown, hearts and eyes and livers replaced. It was done, routinely.

  But mental damage was another matter. Toxins and bullets and air loss could leave a body with normal function, and a ruined mind that hovered somewhere beyond the brink of humanity.

  Brachis had seen a dozen human wrecks in his first year as head of Security. He made a personal decision. The guards would remain on Security payroll — for life. They could not be long hidden from the accountants on any inhabited body, but no accountant had ever, in Brachis’ experience, paid a visit to the wasteland of the Sargasso Dump. He saw a melancholy symmetry in his act: the throwaway material of the system, forgotten by humanity, would be guarded by the throwaway people.

  The staff at Sargasso were Luther’s big secret. He could not protect them past the time of his own death, but they would be shielded until then. And he had never regretted the decision — although now, trying to coax the guard to rational response, he came close. “Phoebe Willard.” He tried again. “Remember her? Brown hair, not very tall, very pretty. She came here two days ago.” Brachis went to the control desk, and called another part of the Dump inventory to the screen. “These. See? She was working on these.”

  The guard stared. There was a slow dawning of something behind those troubled eyes. He nodded. Without speaking he closed his suit helmet, turned and left the control room. Brachis followed in his own suit, still unsure. In any other situation he would have been furious at the waste of time. Here anger was futile, except perhaps to focus his own concentration.

  Soon they were outside, twisting their way through a topsy-turvy array of debris. Brachis stared at the flotsam on all sides and re-evaluated the guard ahead of him. If the man knew where he was going, through such a tangled wilderness, then his mind was far from gone. Perhaps it was only that he could not speak, or interact with people.

  The guard halted and pointed. Brachis saw a huge green balloon, blotting out the stars ahead. It might be an air-bulb, where he would find Phoebe Willard working inside. Or it could be that the brain-damaged guard was offering random responses to questions.

  There was one way to find out. Brachis nodded his thanks and headed for the green sphere. Somewhere in that featureless facade there had to be an entry point. He found a layered sequence of four flexible flaps, and squeezed through into a lighted enclosure.

  Phoebe Willard had been at the Sargasso Dump for two days. Typically, in that time she had turned a house-sized open space into a working laboratory. A lattice of interlocking beams ran from one side of the air-bulb to the other. Fixed to lattice nodes, neat as any museum collection of butterflies, hung sixteen fused and shattered objects: the Morgan Constructs.

  It was possible to deduce their original shapes only by comparison of the whole set. This one had wing panels intact, but a head that was fused to a melted blob of grey. Another, two farther over, had no wings and no legs, but the upper half of the rounded top was intact. Not one was more than a third complete.

  Phoebe was working on a well-defined compound eye, removing it from a blunt head. She saw Brachis and nodded to him.

  He floated across to her side and opened his suit. “Any hope?”

  Are you kidding?” She gestured around her at the fragments. “The Cobweb Station guards should have posthumous medals. They blew this lot to hell and gone — except for the one you say got away.”

  “Nothing to be salvaged?”

  “I didn’t say that. This one” — Willard pointed the tool to the burnt mass she was working on — “doesn’t have weapons, or limbs, or working eyes. But I think there’s a fair sized chunk of brain intact. Maybe even most of it.”

  “Could it ever function again?”

  “Nope. Not in the way you were hoping.”

  “Then maybe we ought to quit.”

  “Don’t say that. I haven’t had so much fun in years. Livia Morgan was a genius. Half the time I can t tell what her circuits are trying to accomplish. But it’s a hell of a game trying.”

  “Phoebe, we’re not doing this for pleasure. Can you tell me one reason why we ought to go on?”

  “Because I’m getting results, Commander-man. I can’t build you one of these, now or ever. But give me another week in this hell-hole, and I’11 tell you a whole lot about how they work. That ought to be valuable when you people start chasing around the Perimeter.”

  “What you just said is secret information.”

  “Nuts. Everyone back at the shop knows it. Why do you think I agreed to come?”

  “To build me a detailed model of a Construct. One that functions and is safe to be around. That’s what I had in mind when I asked you.”

  “Bricks without straw, eh? Well, tough on you. It can’t be done.” Phoebe picked up a tiny fiber bundle inspection tube. “Give me a week, though, and if the half-wit zombies around here don’t get me I’l1 have something close to a general schematic for this Construct. It’s the only one with any working brain functions, and it’s one of the more sophisticated. But we won’t have details. Will that do you?”

  “It will have to.”

  “Then go away, and let me work.”

  Brachis reached out and took the inspection unit from Phoebe Willard’s hand. “I will. But not right now. You and I have an assignation.”

  “Why Luther! I thought that was all over long ago.”

  “Not that, Phoebe. More fun than that. We’re going to sit down at a formal dinner, you and me and the staff of the Dump — every last half-wit zombie of them. I promised. They’ve not had visitors for years. So we’re going. And we — you and me both — are going to sit, and smile, and pretend we enjoy it.”

  “Nuts! I’m not going near those brain-dead buzzards.”

  “Look at the date on your orders. It expires tonight. You want to stay and play games? You go to dinner with us.”

  “Blackmail!”

  “And you smile, Phoebe. Like this.” Luther Brachis grinned wide and hideous. “You can do it. Just imagine you’re the belle of the ball, all dressed up in a long gown, looking beautiful, and dancing…”

  “Bastard!”

  “…on my grave.”

  Chapter 4

  Earth was served by a single Link Exit point. Travelers stepped into the Link Chamber at the center of Ceres, and were at once spat out by the transfer system at a point close to Earth s equator. When Mondrian, Brachis, and Flammarion left the terminal they found themselves standing at
the foot of a gigantic dilapidated tower, reaching up to the sullen overcast of a tropical afternoon.

  Brachis craned his head back, following the silver-grey column until it vanished into the haze. What the devil is that?”

  “Don’t you recognize it?” Mondrian was for some reason in excellent spirits. “This is the foot of the old Beanstalk. Everything between Earth and space went up and down that for over two hundred years.’

  Luther Brachis stared at the ancient, beetle-backed cars, nestling in their cradles along the hundred-meter lower perimeter. “People, too? If they rode those things all the way to geosynch, the first spacers had real guts. But why do they still leave it around on Earth? It must mass a billion tons, and it looks like useless dead weight.”

  “It is — but don’t even suggest getting rid of it, not to people down here. They think it’s a precious historic relic, one of their most valued ancient monuments.” Mondrian spoke casually, but he was gazing off to the west with an experienced eye and an air of anticipation. There were woods a few hundred meters away, and he was watching the fronded crowns of individual trees. It was coming… coming… Now.

  A blustery equatorial breeze ruffled their hair and tugged at their clothing. Brachis and Flammarion gasped, while Flammarion glared wildly around him. “Lock failure! Where— where’s—” He slowly subsided.

  Mondrian was watching with quiet satisfaction. “Calm down, both of you. And you, Captain Flammarion, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You told me you’d been on Earth before.”

  “I have, sir. Sir, I thought—”

  “I know what you thought. But it’s not a pressure failure, or a collapsed lock. It s just wind — natural air movements. It happens all the time on Earth, so you’d better get used to it before the natives die laughing at you.”

  “Winds!” Luther Brachis’ broad face had turned rosy with fear or anger, but he had recovered much quicker than Kubo Flammarion. “Damn it, Mondrian. You planned that. You could have warned us easy enough — but you wanted your fun.”

  “No. I wanted to make a point. You can look down your nose at Earth and its people as much as you want to, but we have to watch out for surprises here — and that applies to me as well as you.”

  Mondrian was stepping forward, away from the link terminal towards an odd-looking throng or people clustered not far from the exit. The other two men followed him hesitantly. He was heading for a long covered ramp that led below ground. As they approached the crowd there was an urgent babble of voices. “Hottest little nippers on Earth … “Need a Fropper? Get you the best, at a good price” … “Trade crystals, high rate and no questions asked” … “Want to see a coronation — genuine royal family, forty-second generation” … “Like to visit a Needler lab? Top line products, never see them anywhere else.” They all spoke standard Solar, poorly pronounced.

  Most of the crowd, men and women, were half a head shorter even than Kubo Flammarion. Mondrian strode through them, scanning from side to side. The people he pushed out of the way wore brightly colored clothes, their purples, scarlets and pinks in striking contrast to the quiet black of Security uniforms. Mondrian brushed aside the grasping hands. He paid no attention to anyone, until he caught sight of a grinning, skeleton-thin man in a patchwork jacket of green and gold. He plowed through to the man’s side.

  “You a busker?”

  The skinny man grinned. “That’s me, squire, at your service. Welcome to the Big Marble. You want it, I got it. Tobacco, roley-poley, lulu juice. You name it, I’ll take you to it.”

  “Cut it, shut it. You know Tatty Snipes?” Mondrian’s question in low Earth-tongue interrupted the sales pitch.

  “Certainly do.” The busker faltered for a moment, taken aback by Mondrian’s use of his own argot. He began again, half-heartedly. “Paradox, slither, velocil — I can get em all. Want a guided tour of the Shambles? Never mind what the rule books say, I can find you — ”

  “Slot the chops. You find the Tat, bring her to me, right now. Cotton? And more of this when you got her.” Mondrian reached out his hand. There was the dull glow of a trade crystal before dirty fingers closed on it. The man looked at Mondrian respectfully.

  “Yessir. Right away, squire. Be back.” The skinny figure started to push off through the crowd, then checked himself and turned back. “Name’s Bester, sir — King Bester. I’ll be here with Tatty in half an hour. She’s just a couple of Links away.”

  Mondrian nodded. As Bester vanished along the below-ground ramp, he sauntered towards a solid bench planted a hundred yards away. A Sun-simulator stood just above it. After a look at each other, his two companions started after him.

  “He’s right at home here.” Flammarion’s voice and manner made it clear that he wasn’t. “Did you hear him chit-chat in their lingo? Earth-gobble — I couldn’t understand half of it.”

  Brachis nodded. He was staring around inquisitively. “I ought to have anticipated this. It s my own fault. I had all the information, and I didn’t use it.”

  “You knew Commander Mondrian spoke Earth-talk? How could you?”

  “Not exactly that.” Brachis brushed away the admiring hands that were trying to touch the glittering decorations on his chest. But I could have guessed that he might. Use your common sense, Captain. I’ve tracked Commander Mondrian’s movements for the past four years — just the way you’ve tracked mine. That’s what a Security department is for. And Mondrian’s records show that he s been coming to Earth an average of five times a year, ever since we started tracking. He knows this place well.”

  “But what’s he do down here?”

  Brachis shook his head. “1 don’t know — and if I did, I’m not sure I’d tell you. Not unless you’ve decided you want to work for me, instead of him. Come on.” When they reached Mondrian he was already sitting quietly on the bench, staring thoughtfully around him at the surrounding group of Madworlders. Once King Bester had been picked out by Mondrian, the rest of them had given up their importuning. Now they stood a few yards away, watching the three visitors with frank curiosity. They were nudging each other, grinning, and whispering comments in the old Earth languages.

  Flammarion sat down on the bench next to Mondrian. He stared suspiciously at the wooden seat, and at the flat surface beneath his feet. It was old, weathered brick, with half-inch spaces between the worn blocks. Tiny ants were hurrying out of the open cracks to explore the sides of the men’s boots. They showed most interest in Kubo Flammarion, drawn by the interesting smell of unwashed flesh. He shuffled his feet from side to side, keeping a wary eye on the energetic insects.

  Luther Brachis remained standing, his attention on the crowd. “This is all quite futile, Esro,” he said after another half-minute. “Just look at them. Can you really see any one of those cretins being accepted into a Stellar Group pursuit team? I mean, would you even consider one for your own security staff? We’re wasting our time.”

  Mondrian recognized the beginning of another skirmish. So far as the ambassadors were concerned it was all decided, with Luther Brachis reporting to Mondrian for everything that concerned the Anabasis. But the two men had not yet settled into their new relationship. Brachis was still responsible for Solar Security, and he had retained full control of that department. His power was undiminished.

  The two men had been equals and rivals for years. There had been a mutual understanding that one day there would be a final piece of infighting, in which one or the other would gain overall authority. Both Brachis and Mondrian had accepted that. What Mondrian knew Brachis would not accept, any more than he would have accepted it himself, was victory by arbitrary fiat — victory unrelated to (or inversely related to) performance.

  He listened quietly as Brachis continued: “Just look at them. Earthlings. No wonder Captain Flammarion is worried. Would you take responsibility for making something out of one of those idiots? I wouldn’t. They’re dirty, and ignorant, and inferior.”

  “Why don’t you come out and say it, Luther
? That you think my decision to bring us to Earth was crazy.”

  “Those are your words, not mine.”

  “But you think them. You underestimate the potentials of Earth. You forget that this was the stock of your own ancestors.”

  “Sure it was — half a millennium ago. And half a billion years before that, it was fishes. I’m talking about now. This is the dregs. That’s what you have left when the top quarter of each generation is skimmed off for seven hundred years and goes into space. It’s a flawed gene pool here. Look back over the past century. You won’t find any worthwhile talent that came from Earth.”

  “Have you attempted that exercise?”

  “I don’t need to. Brachis nodded at the crowd, who were watching open-mouthed. “Look at them. They don’t even know they’re being insulted. We’re wasting our time. I think we ought to get out of here right now.”

  He was needling hard — and finally he could see signs that it was working. Mondrian was staring away from him, over the heads of the crowd.

  “You underestimate the potential of the people of Earth, Luther. And you overestimate what’s needed for the Pursuit Teams. Not to mention the training programs that I’ve developed for Perimeter work over the past decade. If I didn’t think I could find what we need here, do you think I’d have brought you?” Mondrian turned at last to face Luther Brachis. “You could pick one of those — any one of those.” He pointed to the crowd. “And I could train your choice to be a successful Pursuit Team candidate.”

  “Would you wager on it?”

  “Certainly. Name the stakes.”

  “Nah.” Brachis snorted. “You’re stringing me along. You know you’re not risking anything, because not one of that lot would be eligible for training. They’re too old, or they’re bonded in some sort of contract, or they’d never pass the physical. See their hair and teeth. Show me somebody in the right age group, and healthy, and then tell me you’ll make the same wager.”

  “Here we are, squire!” The argument was interrupted by the sudden return of King Bester. The thin man called out from the edge of the crowd and began to push his way rapidly towards them. He was followed by a tall woman, easily visible above the other people. As they arrived at the bench Bester gave a grinning nod and held out his hand.