"How d'you mean?" Morelli asked.
"Well, usually they're talking about paranormal phenomena . . . things outside known science. But this isn't like that—it's all based on things we know about and understand."
"It achieves the same sort of effect, though," Aub broke in.
"Which is my whole point," Clifford declared. "It's just another example of the kind of thing that's happened over and over again through history." Two pairs of eyes looked back at him blankly. "Every day," he explained, "we take it for granted that we can do things that people five hundred years ago dreamed about, but could only think of in terms of magic. We can fly through the air, stare into magic mirrors, and watch things going on in other places. . . . We can even talk to people all over the world. . . ." Clifford opened his hands expressively. "We've made all those things happen, but we've used methods of doing it that people from way back could never have imagined."
"Yeah, I'm with you," Aub said, nodding. "Because they had no idea about electronics and the like."
"Yes, that's what I'm getting at," Clifford told him. "They imagined flying and talked about levitation, because they couldn't see in advance the kind of engineering needed to make the idea work."
"Okay," Morelli agreed. "You're saying that people made the mistake of imagining telepathy, thinking it had to be some kind of magic. Now that the effects they talked about are actually starting to happen, it turns out you don't need anything magic to do it—just a couple of BIACs."
"That's exactly it, Al," Clifford confirmed. "Talking about something paranormal is just a way of discussing something you don't properly understand . . . yet. The operative word is 'yet.' In the end, the idea all becomes part of what's normal. Nobody thinks now that there's anything mysterious about talking across country by Infonet. And effectively, this is no different, except that the talking uses a BIAC instead of a regular Infonet terminal."
"Well . . . I guess that doesn't leave much over outside orthodox science," Aub mused after reflecting for a while. "I guess maybe that's what everything we do is about—turning paradox into orthodox."
Chapter 17
Through Zimmermann, the ISF astronomers at Joliot-Curie had been kept updated on developments at Sudbury. Excited by the way in which k-theory had accounted successfully for the observed distribution of the three-degree cosmic background radiation, a group of them had begun reappraising other outstanding problems in the light of the new theory. This led to their formulating a new system of k-conservation principles and enabled them to explain at last, among other things, why the amount of conventional radiation produced in the vicinity of the Cygnus X-1 black hole was larger than classical quantum theory predicted it should be.
Essentially, the new conservation principles stated that when matter/energy 'vanished' out of normal space to exist totally in hi-space, as happened when a particle annihilated or matter fell into a black hole, then an equivalent amount of energy had to reappear in normal space somewhere. Calculation showed that this 'return energy' would appear in a distribution pattern that gave the greatest intensity in the immediate vicinity of the point at which the original annihilation had taken place, but which fell away exponentially all the way to infinity. This led to the remarkable conclusion that when matter annihilated, say in Cygnus X-l, or in Morelli's 58 GRASER, energy reappeared instantaneously at every point in the universe as a direct consequence of the event. The amount of return energy that would appear, for example, somewhere in the middle of the Andromeda Galaxy as a result of one gram of matter being consumed in the GRASER in Massachusetts would thus be immeasurably and unimaginably small; nevertheless, mathematically at least, it would be there.
All this was really another way of stating Clifford's laws of hi-wave propagation, which showed that the hi-radiation produced by any event of creation or annihilation would manifest itself instantaneously all through space, the intensity decreasing sharply with distance. Indeed, the equations describing the two processes were soon shown to be mathematically identical. What the astronomers had done was to compute the amount of conventional radiation that would be produced at every point in space by the process of hi-particle interactions. When this quantity was integrated across the whole volume of the universe, the result showed that the total amount of energy produced throughout this volume equaled the amount originally destroyed. Hence the new conservation laws followed.
It was just as well that it worked out this way. The rate of destruction of mass sustained in the GRASER was far higher than that attained in the largest H-bomb. Only a tiny proportion of its energy equivalent was delivered back into normal space within the reactor sphere however, the rest being distributed across billions of cubic light-years of space. Had it been otherwise, they would easily have blown Massachusetts off the map the instant they switched on.
The pattern of return energy therefore explained the observed radiation from Cygnus X-1. When Clifford examined the forms of the equations derived by the scientists on Luna, he discovered that they included terms which made allowance for the distribution of matter in the surrounding volume of the universe—terms which he had neglected in his own treatment of the problem. Using the more comprehensive equations, he recalculated the radiation that should be expected from an artificial black hole in the GRASER—the quantity that had previously contradicted both his own predictions and those based on classical quantum theory and the Hawking Effect. This time it came out right. K-theory, it appeared, was well on its way to being fully validated.
In the course of all this experimentation, Clifford developed a regular working relationship with the astronomers and cosmologists at Joliot-Curie, and together they began to explore some of the deeper implications of the theory that Clifford had not thought very much more about since his days at ACRE. From the Japanese model of quasars, it was evident that these objects were the scenes of mass annihilation on a truly phenomenal scale. According to the new conservation principles, the energy equivalent of the mass being destroyed ought to be returned into normal space, most of it being concentrated around the quasars and the rest of it diffusely scattered everywhere else. Throughout the 'everywhere else,' therefore, there ought to exist a steady background flux of particle creations attributable to distant quasars. But all the annihilations taking place inside the ordinary masses and black holes scattered throughout the universe would, by the conservation principles, contribute to this background flux as well. Thus there were three known mechanisms for destroying mass: quasars, black holes, and spontaneous annihilations, most of which took place inside masses. Also, there was one known mechanism for creating it: the universal background of spontaneous creations. The crucial question was, did the two balance?
It was important to know this because the very fabric of spacetime itself—the lo-domain aspects of Clifford's k-functions—came into the equations. It was possible for one of these two quantities to exceed the other without violating the conservation principles provided that the volume of the universe adjusted to compensate and maintain a constant average density. In other words, in a universe heavily populated by quasars, the rate of mass annihilation implied would be too large for return energy alone to provide the balancing mechanism, and space itself would grow to accommodate the excess. The expansion of the universe followed directly from k-theory, and came about as a consequence of an earlier cosmic epoch of quasar formation.
So, was the universe still expanding? Nobody knew because all the data that told of the fact—red shifts of distant galaxies, for example—came from millions of years in the past. Were there quasars still there now? Again, nobody knew, for the same reason. Could the balance be tested? How many black holes were there in sample volumes of the universe? Nobody knew. But the new science of k-astronomy enthusiastically anticipated by Aub and Morelli promised a means of answering all these questions.
What fascinated the cosmologists—and began to infect Clifford as well the more he talked with them—was the prospect of a new and revolutionary cosm
ological model. It was purely hypothetical at that stage, but somebody on Luna had suggested that if the quasars had ceased to exist now, and if the expansion had stopped as a consequence, and if creations turned out to predominate in the balance, a new epoch of quasar formation might be induced. This gave rise to a new picture of cosmology in which phases of quasar formation and expansion alternated with phases of galaxy manufacture . . . for ever. Thus the notion of a continuous "Wave Model" of the universe was born, superseding, if it could be proved, both the Steady State and the Big Bang models. It required neither the singularity in the laws of physics that characterized Big Bang and about which a number of leading physicists still felt uneasy, nor for the universe to appear the same at all times, as was required by Steady State but which observation had shown to be manifestly untrue.
All in all, there was a lot of exciting work already lined up waiting for Mark II.
But as Mark II neared completion and the first tests of its subsystems commenced, world events cast a deepening shadow over the project. Anti-West policies intensified in South America, threatening closure of the Panama Canal, and the Urals border war escalated to include the use of massed tanks and ground-attack aircraft as regular features. The long-drawn-out civil war in Burma finally died out as the revolutionary factions effected a shaky compromise and took over the country, while the exhausted remnants of the rightwing government forces retreated to seek sanctuary in neighboring India. Soon India itself became the object of renewed border pressures from both east and west as Chinese and Afrabs resurrected long-standing grievances. Hong Kong, having been reduced to a state of economic impotence and famine by a systematic stranglehold of sanctions and blockade, was taken over uncontested. Within three days, China announced its claim for Taiwan.
* * *
"Yeah, I know it's a pain, Brad, but that's the way it is," Morelli said across his desk. "It'll only take, say, a day at most. Get a couple of the team to give you a hand with it."
"But . . ." Clifford waved the wad of forms that Morelli had given him in front of him. "What is all this crap? I haven't got a spare day. . . ." He glanced down at the schedule sheet attached to the front. "Inventory of Capital Equipment Advanced . . . Projected Purchase Breakdown . . . Accumulated Maintenance Debits . . ." Clifford looked up imploringly. "We've never had anything like this before. What's going on all of a sudden?"
Morelli sighed and scratched the side of his nose.
"I suppose Washington is trying to bring it to our attention that they've poured a lot of hardware into this place and it's costing them a lot of bucks," he said. "I think maybe it's a little reminder that they haven't seen much in the way of results yet . . . you know how they work—subtly."
"This won't help get results," Clifford fumed. "It'll just soak up time." He halted for a second, then continued. "Who says we're not getting results, anyway? We've solved the secondary-radiation problem . . . untangled the cosmic background problem . . . postulated new k-conservation principles. That's what I call results."
"I know," Morelli agreed, holding up a hand. "But it's not what they call results. Remember, we sold them on supercommunications and superradar and all kinds of other superstuff? That's what they're waiting to see."
"Aw, but hell . . ."
"I know what you're gonna say, Brad, but don't say it." Morelli placed his hands down in a gesture of finality. "They're paying for the tunes, and I guess we have to play. Fill it in as they ask and keep it short, okay? Like I said, get some people to help you and I bet you can clear it up in half a day."
"Bureaucrats!" Clifford snorted to himself as he closed the door behind him and began walking down the corridor. Washington, it appeared, was not wildly excited about quasar distributions or Wave Models of the universe.
* * *
"Next Thursday, I'm afraid," Peter Hughes said to Morelli as they were walking across the grounds of the Institute away from the GRASER building. "They really didn't leave me any choice."
"Thursday?" Morelli looked dubious. "Brad will be pretty mad about that. He was planning to devote the whole of Thursday to checking out the BIAC interface to Mark II."
"He'll have to postpone that, then," Hughes said. "Sorry, Al, but our friends in Washington were adamant."
"But hell . . ." Morelli protested. "Why a progress review meeting . . . and all day at that? The team is perfectly capable of reviewing its own progress, and they can do it in half an hour. Brad and Aub spent four hours last week preparing that progress report for Washington. Wasn't it good enough for them or something?"
Hughes threw his arms wide open in front of him as he walked and sighed. "I don't know, Al. They said it wasn't detailed enough. They say they need to send some of their people here to go right through the whole project . . . from top to bottom. As I said—I didn't have much choice about it."
Morelli shook his head apprehensively.
"Brad'll be pretty mad," he repeated.
* * *
"Aub's not bothered about it," Clifford told Sarah later on that night. "He's only interested in getting his Mark II up and running and keeping the funds flowing in to do it. He said we shouldn't waste time on any of that nonsense but should just keep feeding back whatever fiction's needed to shut them up."
"That's not your way though, is it," Sarah said, stating the fact rather than asking the question. He shook his head slowly, looking deeply worried for the first time in months.
"No, it's not," he said. "I don't like deception. But there's something more than that. It's ACRE closing in all over again . . . I can feel it."
Chapter 18
"No, I'm serious, Aub. One of the doctors at the hospital was telling me yesterday—first aid, casualty evacuation, and precautions against fallout and radiation hazards. They're working out the details of the courses now. Within three months they'll be compulsory in every school in the state and in every company that employs more than twenty people in one place. You wait and see." Sarah spoke as she set three places on the dining-room table. Aub, perched precariously on a stool at the breakfast counter and sipping from a can of Coke, watched her from the kitchen.
"Back to the Boy Scouts, eh," he said. "Reckon we'll get badges to put on our shirts too?"
"I don't think it's funny. It proves things must be getting bad. I heard on the news this afternoon that somebody exploded a tactical nuke in an arms factory somewhere just outside Calcutta. Nearly two thousand dead. What kind of people do things like that?"
"Yeah, I heard about it. Head cases. Seems to be the in-thing."
Sarah placed the napkins and glanced at the clock. "Six twenty-five. I'd have thought Brad would be back by now. What was it you said he was doing?"
"He got tied up with Al and a coupla guys from Washington who are trying to hustle things. I managed to duck out of it."
"Oh, dear. That probably means he'll be in a bad mood again." She stepped back to survey her handiwork, then walked round into the kitchen to inspect the bubbling pan of beef stroganoff. "He seems to get awfully moody these days, Aub. Are things really getting so bad?"
Aub pivoted round on the stool to face her, his mouth jerking momentarily downward at the corners beneath his beard.
"Yeah, he gets pretty upset about it, I guess. He's into some theoretical thing with Zim's people that he wants to spend all of his time on, especially now we've got the Mark II machine running. Trouble is, the brass is getting impatient for its ironmongery. They figure that since they paid the check for most of it, they oughta be getting a bigger slice of the action."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"Me?" Aub shrugged. "I guess I can just ride along with it. If I have to come up with a few ideas here and there to keep things smooth, that's okay. I'll get in enough of my own thing too. Brad's problem is he's too much of a purist. He has to have it all his own way or nothing. Y'see, he's got these principles he feels strongly about . . . whether science dictates politics or the other way round. If it looks like things are going in what
he figures is the wrong way, he won't have any part of it." Aub shrugged again and sighed. "He oughta remember the ice ball."
"You don't think he'll get restless again, do you?" Sarah asked apprehensively.
"Restless? You mean take another walk?"
"Yes."
Aub pursed his lips for a few seconds. "Well . . . to be honest about it, if things get much worse . . . maybe."
"That's my Brad," Sarah sounded resigned but with no hint of bitterness. "I'd just grown to like this house too. Oh, well, what does it say in the book of Ruth . . . Whither thou goest I will go . . ."
"Huh?"
"Doesn't matter. Here—I'll take that can."
"Thanks. You know something . . ."
The house shook and a noise like thunder echoed up the stairs as the front door slammed. Elephantine footsteps pounded in the entrance level below.
"Oh, jeez," Aub murmured.
"Is that you, sweetness?" Sarah called. No reply.
A minute later Clifford appeared in the door of the dining room, glowering. He mumbled perfunctory greetings, stamped across to the bar and began pouring himself a large measure of Scotch. Sarah emerged from the kitchen and walked over to stand just behind him. He turned, glass in hand, to find her confronting him with hands on hips and lips pouted expectantly. He scowled back at her for a few seconds, then emitted a sigh of exasperation, grinned, and kissed her lightly.
"Hi."
"Should think so too," she said, and marched back into the kitchen.
Aub smirked through the serving hatch. "Man . . . wait till I tell the guys about this."
"You shut up if you don't want to end up eating at McDonald's." Clifford inclined his head in the direction of the bar. "Want a drink?"
"Cheers. Rye and dry."
Clifford turned to the bar once more as plates began appearing. Aub ambled round into the dining room and transferred them from the counter to the table. A few seconds later Sarah followed.
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