Orbit 8 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  “Why is it,” he said, “every time something pops I wind up having the breakfast I used to have when I was a boy? You suppose there’s an element of regression there?”

  “I certainly hope so. I’d hate to think it was some deep, undefined craving. Do you really think you ought to look at that now?” Wilburn had picked up a morning English-language newspaper.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I know I’m going to get the most severe castigation of my career. I’m sort of looking forward to how imaginative the press will be.” He began to read.

  When his eggs were ready he put down the paper and said, “Yes, they’re in full cry. The editors, the seers and columnists say they have been fully aware that things haven’t been going right with the Weather Congress for several months, but they were just waiting to see if I would get going and do my job.”

  Harriet said, “Well, you know, and I know, and your friends know the truth. Eat your eggs, dear.”

  He ate his eggs. He sipped coffee when he was done, read through another paper, then went out into the soft Sicilian air, stepped on a walk and rode awhile. He got off and walked for a mile as was his custom, but a slight numbness crept into his legs, so he finished the trip on the slidewalk. He entered the Great Hall and went straight to his office through the private door.

  Before he closed the door, Tongareva was there. Wilburn said, “Just the man I wanted to see. Come in, Gardner.”

  On his way to a seat, Tongareva started talking. “I have been reflecting on the events. I think we are caught up in some kind of world hysteria. I think the people have resented the Congress and the Council the way a small boy resents his authoritative father, and now they have found an excuse to let off steam. On top of that, elections are coming. I think we must be very careful.”

  Wilburn sank into his chair, ignoring the flashing lights on his phones and visuals. “Did you hear about that rained-out picnic in Texas?”

  Tongareva nodded, a shade of a smile on his face. “That must have been the granddaddy of all rained-out picnics. The Texan knew just what to do to make an international issue out of it.”

  “The way he told it to me, itwas an international issue. He led me to believe that everyone of any international importance was at that picnic, except you and me. Well, let me call Greenberg to see if he’s found out what’s gone haywire here. Please stay with me, Gardner.”

  Greenberg took the call in his office, with Upton and Hiromaka. “The information I have for you is incomplete, Mr. President. In fact, I hope it is so incomplete as to be incorrect. But you see, twelve hours is not really enough—”

  “What are you trying to say, Dr. Greenberg?”

  Greenberg glanced at Upton, took a deep breath and said, “A detailed check of all the procedures, all the mathematical models, all the parameters used here, shows that no error has been made and that our mathematical fit matches the prediction. This would indicate that the error was elsewhere. So we got in touch with Base Lieutenant Commander Markov; Hechmer and Eden are on vacation. We told Markov what we were doing and asked him to check out his results, too. We have his results now, and at least preliminarily, neither he nor we can find any fault with his operations. In short, the Weather Bureau on the Sun accomplished each of its missions within tolerance. There’s no error there either.” Greenberg stopped and rubbed his face.

  Wilburn asked gently, “What is your conclusion?”

  Greenberg said, “Well, since the data were used and applied as correctly as we know how, and since the theory checks out as well as ever—”

  He fell silent. After a moment Wilburn said, “Well?”

  Greenberg looked straight at him and said, “The trouble might be in the Sun itself. The Sun is changing, and our theories are no longer as valid as they used to be.”

  Wilburn’s breath caught, and he felt his body grow cold. He understood what Greenberg had said, but he did not immediately allow the full thought to enter his mind. He held it in front of him where it could not really frighten him, where it hung like a rotted piece of meat that would have to be eaten eventually, but not now. No one spoke or moved in either office. Greenberg and Tongareva did not want to force the swallowing, and so they waited. Finally, Wilburn took it in.

  He sat back and groaned, and then stood up and paced out of range of the viewer. Greenberg sat and waited. Then he heard Wilburn’s voice asking, “If what you say is true, our whole system of weather control is faulty. Is that right?”

  “Yes, if it proves out,” said Greenberg.

  “Our entire culture, our entire civilization, the world over, is built on weather control. It is the primary fact of life for every living being. If our ability to control weather is destroyed, our world will be destroyed. We go back to sectionalism, predatory individualism. The one factor that ties all men everywhere together would disappear. The only thing left—chaos.”

  No one answered him, and for another full minute they were all silent.

  Wilburn came back and sat down at his desk. He said to Greenberg, “I have to think. How much time will you need to verify your findings so far?”

  “Another twelve hours. The European computer net is on it now, and we are in the process of bringing in the United States net and the Asian net simultaneously. Both of them will be on line in an hour. I might say this is the most intensive effort the Advisors have ever made, and it is causing talk already. There will be no secrets about our findings when we finally get them.”

  “I understand. I have twelve hours to think of something, and I am going to assume you will confirm what you’ve already found; that’s the worst result I can think of, so I’ll get ready to face it.” The snap was coming back to Wilburn’s voice. “If anything comes up along the way that makes you change your mind, let me know immediately. And thanks for the effort, Dr. Greenberg.”

  * * * *

  Wilburn looked around his office. The men gathered there did not look happy, and several of them, his political enemies, were frowning. Yet Wilburn needed them all. This was the group that served as a kind of unofficial executive for the entire Council. But it was a difficult group to work with, primarily because they represented such diverse interests.

  Councilman Maitland said, “I am afraid, President Wilburn, that you have brought the Council to its lowest point of public esteem that I can remember.”

  Barstow reared up. “Now just a minute here. How do you—”

  Wilburn waved a hand. “It’s all right, Arthur. We all agree we have an enormous problem. I called this meeting to ask this group to think about what we do now.”

  Barstow sat back and nodded. The others were quiet, and then Tongareva said, “You give the impression that you have a plan to solve our present crisis, Jonathan. Are you ready to discuss it?”

  “Yes. Although it isn’t much of a plan, really.” He leaned forward. “We have been this route before. We are confronted with a scientific crisis. The Sun is changing. Our weather control is no longer as accurate, and we may have other dangers we don’t even know about yet. The Advisors tell me that these unexpected changes in the Sun might be serious, far more so than our failure to control weather accurately. We don’t know what’s happening. So here we go again, but this time I’m afraid we will have to mount the largest and most expensive research program the world has ever seen. It is already possible to tell that the answers won’t be easy to get. The Weather Bureau has not seen any changes at all, so the Advisors think things must be happening deep inside the Sun. We’ve never been able to go deep, so the first scientific order of business will be to solve that one.”

  “Costs, Jonathan?” It was Du Bois, always a worrier about other people’s money.

  “Enormous, Georges. This is why we will have to be so careful. The tax burden will be the largest we’ve ever asked our people to bear. But unless someone can think of another program, I think we’ll have to sell it.”

  Barstow said, “Do you mind if I talk to Greenberg? I want to be able to ass
ure my constituents that I’ve looked into this personally.”

  “I hope everyone here will do that, and more. Please talk to any person you want, scientific or not, on any possible solutions he may have. Let’s adjourn now and meet here in twenty-four hours to thrash it out.”

  Tongareva stayed, as Wilburn knew he would. He said, “Who’s going to head up the program?”

  Wilburn looked at him and smiled. “Need you ask? Aren’t Dr. Jefferson Potter and Senior Boatmaster James Eden the ones to do the job?”

  * * * *

  Greenberg seemed upset. “Look, with all due respect to you two, I don’t think you see the ramifications of the problem. First”—he counted on his fingers—”the trouble appears to lie deep within the Sun. Second, we don’t have a vehicle that can penetrate deeper than about two miles; in fact, Jim”—he looked at Eden—”no one has ever equaled that depth you reached some years ago on that Anderson problem. Third, we can’t even take measurements at those depths. Fourth, our theories of occurrences at those depths have never been proved out.” He dropped his hands. “We are probably in a worse position than we were when we first approached the problem of Sun control as a means of weather control.”

  Potter and Eden stared reflectively at Greenberg. Then Potter said, “You know, he’s just given us an overall breakdown.” Greenberg wondered what he was talking about, then realized that Potter was talking to Eden.

  Eden said, still looking at Greenberg, “Yes, and he’s the man in the best position to make the judgment so far. Four main groups along those lines, with good cross liaison. He’s come up with a great way to start out, at least.”

  Potter said, “Four scientific administrators, each with a cabinet of a dozen or so people with assigned responsibilities. Each of the four groups places its own R&D and hires its own people.”

  Eden said, “Each cabinet has a member responsible for cross liaison with the other groups. In fact, each cabinet member has sole responsibility for an assigned area. He’ll have his own staff to help administer his group.”

  It was Potter’s turn again. “Any overlapping can be minimized by frequent meetings of the big four. Ought to work. Now let’s see. All the problems come together on the Sun, so I guess that’s where you ought to be. I’ll stay here to keep things on the track. We can get together every month or so if necessary. How’s that sound to you, Bob?”

  Greenberg had caught the drift of the discussion and had been following it, fascinated. He nodded. “Sounds fine to me. Where do the Advisors come into this?”

  “Seems to me you should be standing by for any extraordinary computing problems, of which there will be plenty. Don’t forget you will also have the day-to-day work going on as usual. You had better increase your staff here, don’t you think?”

  Greenberg nodded. “Yes, but I can see some problems in getting enough scientific personnel to do all the work on the overall project. Well wind up with one of our groups bidding against another.”

  “Bound to happen. We’ll try to keep it to a minimum.”

  Potter said, “All right. I’ll get on the horn and well start the ball rolling. Wilburn ought to be explaining things to everybody right about now.”

  * * * *

  Only two of the two hundred councilmen were absent, and Wilburn knew those two were in the hospital. Furthermore, the councilmen sat on the edge of their seats, listening intently to the voices booming over their desk speakers. Wilburn looked down impassively from his desk, but he was deeply shaken. The debate had gone on for three hours with no interruptions for any reason, and the opposition to the proposed research program was surprisingly strong. What was worse, the mood of the Council was emotional to a degree Wilburn had never seen before. Even Councilman Reardon of 35-50 E 30-45 N, normally a cool speaker, ended his five minutes with his voice broken and quavering. Wilburn frantically tried to think of a way to break the spell, to interject somehow a rational appeal. But he could not prevent the councilmen from obtaining their five minutes to speak. Many of them were so carried away with what they were saying that they did not see the thirty-second warning light on their desks, and they were cut off in mid-sentence by the sergeant at arms when their five minutes were up, left sobbing at a dead microphone.

  Wilburn quietly turned to his desk, checked his directory, and dialed the desk of the next speaker, Francisco Espaiyat, 60-75 W 15-30 N. “Frank,” he said, “you getting ready to speak?”

  “I certainly am, Wilburn. I’ve come up with some reasons that haven’t been mentioned yet, so I hope to do some good here. You got any particular suggestions?”

  Wilburn hesitated. “Yes, I have, Frank, but I don’t know whether to ask you to do it or not. See what you think. When you come on, simply state that you are in favor of the program, and then leave the rest of your time empty. Give us four minutes and fifty-five seconds of golden silence for a little somber reflection along with a quick trip to the bathroom. I don’t like to ask you to give up your speaking time, but nobody yet has got through to these hotheads. What do you think?”

  Espaiyat thought about it and then said slowly, “I don’t know if it will work, Jonathan, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

  Three minutes later, when the sergeant at arms announced the speech of Councilman Espaiyat, the Council was startled to hear, “I speak in favor of the program, but I hereby devote the balance of my time to rest and relief from this interminable speechmaking.” Espaiyat got up and started down the aisle. Immediately Wilburn got up and went out the door nearest him. After a moment’s looking around the chamber in puzzlement, every other councilman suddenly got up and headed for a door, and as they pressed out to the corridors, some of them began to laugh. A low chant of “Yay, Espaiyat” started up from a few members and quickly spread over the entire chamber and up to the galleries, which were also emptying.

  When they poured back to their desks a few minutes later, the spell was broken. Men and women chatted and called to one another. The next speaker, Madame Iwanowski, 45-60 E 45-60 N, spoke against the program, but she tried to marshal some facts. She yielded after two minutes twenty-eight seconds. The crisis had passed. Other speakers disgorged their thoughts, but the tenor of the speeches was only mildly argumentative, for the sake of the constituency back home. In half an hour the question was called and the vote taken. The tabulation flashed on the great board. A small cheer broke out from the floor and gallery. The vote was 133 for, 65 against. Wilburn sat impassively, staring out over the floor, ignoring the numbness that had come back in his legs. They had the required two-thirds vote, but it was much, much too close. On a project of this size he needed all the support in the Council he could get, but about one-third of the group was against him. He sighed. This would not do. There were hard times ahead. If this program didn’t work out, he saw clearly who the scapegoat would be. For the first time a President of the Weather Congress would not so much step down as be thrown out. Well, that was politics. Harriet would be waiting for him when it was over, and they could always take up a pleasurable retirement. Key West, now, there was a place he had always loved, and perhaps the same had come to— He caught himself and straightened his shoulders. No time for retirement thoughts yet. There was work to be done. He headed for his office to call Greenberg.

  * * * *

  “The trouble is,” Senior Boatmaster James Eden said matter-of-factly, “the film of carbon vapor begins to collapse at these pressures. The rate of carbon consumption goes up, the sessile effect dissipates, and the boat itself is consumed.”

  “Very interesting,” said Dr. John Plant. “Now don’t you think we ought to get the hell out of here before you demonstrate the point?”

  Eden nodded and said into the intercom, “Up. Forty degrees. Now.” He fingered the keys and took the boat up to within five hundred yards of the surface before he leveled off. He said to Plant, “Don’t wash it out, though. Those limitations I just mentioned will allow these boats to be consumed, but there may be a way around them.”<
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  “I don’t know what they could be. Those limitations seem pretty fundamental to me. I think we need a whole new approach to get down to the center. We’ll never do it with this kind of equipment.”

  Eden shook his head and said, “I never thought I’d be sitting in a sessile boat on the Sun and hear someone say it was obsolete. Look here. The carbon toruses that surround the boat act as a mirror. They absorb all the radiation from infrared down to the hard stuff to a depth of a fraction of a millimeter and then reflect it with an efficiency of ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine eight. That’s the turnaround effect we’ve been telling you about. Carbon vaporization protects against the balance of the radiation, and the power difference is supplied by our internal reactors. So look. If we can increase the efficiency of the turnaround effect by a factor of a few thousand, we could cope with the increased temperatures and radiative effects at great depths. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, just how do you—”

  “We can still balance out the gravitational force by channeling additional power to the bottom toruses, to take advantage of the radiative pressure on the bottom of the boat. Right?”