The Heart of the Comet

by David Brin

  Virginia ignored him.

  —We’ll never be able to go home, she thought, finishing her agonized complaint in her own mind.

  Dr Oakes spoke to the military man. “Now, Fidel. I’m sure Miss Herbert realizes how essential it is to be discreet about some of the implications of our upcoming actions. Morale is bad enough as it is.”

  “I’ll say,” Okudo stuttered. “I hear some crew are even feigning illness, trying every malingering trick in order to get back into the slots.”

  I didn’t know. Virginia ’s stomach felt queasy.

  Captain Cruz would have been more forthright with us. And nobody would have even considered letting him down by trying to run away into time.

  Bethany Oakes contemplated the holo tank moodily, giving Virginia her first real chance to look for herself at the big display.

  The region penetrated by tunnels was no larger than it had been a month ago, still taking up less than five percent of the volume of Halley Core, in a warren clustered around the north polar region. A few large chambers stood out, including three where the sleep slots lay buried. And this one, Central, amid a cluster of rooms barely a kilometer straight down from the tethered Edmund Halley.

  Thank heavens most of the hydroponics are still aboard the Edmund, Virginia thought. Safe from the native lifeforms we’ve inadvertently wakened down here. If the gunk or the bugs ever got into the main gardens, we’d likely starve in short order. As it is, we’ll probably be going hungry soon anyway, if we have to keep this many awake much longer.

  Nearly all the depicted tunnels and shafts were stained, the colors standing for different types of infestation. Only the four main chambers still shone antiseptic, uninvaded white—along with one path to the polar storage yards. And it had taken every UV lamp and half an eighty-year supply of disinfectants to keep just those areas clear.

  Most passages glimmered in some shade of green where the only known invader was some variety of the lichenlike growths popularly called gunk. Those routes still held air and heat. For all anyone could tell, they might even be perfectly safe. At least Saul thought they were. He had gone off more than once, heedless of supposed danger, in search of more samples to study.

  Maybe that’s one of the things that attracts me to him. Saul wasn’t brave in the flashy way, but in a manner that seemed to say “living day from day has always been a calculated risk.”

  Perhaps her love was analytically simple. For Saul did remind her of her father. Anson Herbert had possessed the same sad, gentle wisdom, had shown her more in his quiet strength than other men with all their flamboyant posturing.

  Virginia shook her head. Anson had been dead for two years, but she could almost hear him, telling her to quit daydreaming and get to work. There was problems to be solved, and always idiots trying to use hammers to fix clocks.

  Lopez was gesturing at the tunnels that had the worst infestations, especially along the ducts where heat flowed from the power plant. Purple, yellow, and red stains showed where more active Halleyforms had erupted, tearing tunnel seals, wreaking havoc on vital machines, and, occasionally, even reaching out with a poisonous grasp after a passing Earthman.

  “…Bigger surface mechs could patrol an expanded hallway, here, scraping and remelting the ice at intervals, sealing crevices and removing infested layers for disposal at the surface…”

  Virginia couldn’t believe she was hearing this. The plan was lunacy. It was a cumbersome scheme that ignored the seven decades ahead.

  “There are still other options to try,” she suggested. “Saul is working on a possible way—”

  Lopez sniffed loudly. “Lintz’s death ray, right?”

  Bethany Oakes nodded without turning her gaze from the map. “We can hope somebody comes up with something new, of course. But every conventional approach has failed. One thing is certain: If the infestation reaches the sleep slots, we are quite finished.”

  She looked at Virginia. “That is why we asked you to join us over here, not only to help convert surface mechs for the struggle below. You…”

  The older woman paused, blinking, as if trying to keep her train of thought. Virginia realized with shock that she must be on some sort of drug.

  “…You are the only real expert we have on that old subject…artificial intelligence. I am familiar with the traditional proofs, of course, that the real thing is impossible. But a very good, flexible simulant might be enough.” She sighed. “Anyway, we must grasp at any straw. Saul Lintz’s invention, and even robots capable of acting on their own.

  “We must come up with a way to make as many mechs as autonomous as possible… and soon. You see… we are losing men and women faster than we are unslotting them.”

  Virginia stared. She found she could say nothing at all.

  “This is a military secret, Herbert,” Major Lopez growled. “You tell anyone about this and I’ll have your Percell ass.”

  Virginia only shook her head, and let him take it to mean anything he wanted.

  A little later, by the refreshment center, she nursed a bulb of weak tea and wondered how she might even approach the nearly impossible tasks she had been assigned. It was ironic. I never thought anyone would ask me to work on machine intelligence.

  Under these circumstances, it seemed so very wrong to her.

  That was when the man she wanted least to encounter floated up next to her with a soft push of nubby legs.

  “Well, sweet machine lady.” Otis Sergeov grinned. “I suppose you have heard latest interesting developments, Earthside? Have you not?”

  “Go away, Otis,” she said levelly. “I don’t want to hear any more bad news right now, especially from you. What are you doing here, anyway? You’re hall crew.”

  The Russian Percell shrugged. His eyelids were still slightly blue-tinged and his cheeks chalky from his recent awakening from slot sleep.

  “I just stopped by to grab a look on way to Shaft Three. I go to help your lovers test their new machine to save the world.”

  Virginia looked up quickly. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know who I mean.” He winked. “Osborn and Lintz.”

  Sergeov held out a small slip of paper with her name scratched on the outside. She plucked it up with her fingertips and unfolded it to read the message. Virginia nodded.

  “So you’re going to help Carl and Saul test the new beamers. Is that it?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, then. Tell Saul I’ll arrange to send him the mechs he needs for the experiment. I’ll scrape them up somewhere.”

  Sergeov nodded. “Ah, ways to get around channels. I knew that he had influence with Secret Mistress of all Machines. I must learn his tricks.”

  Virginia shrugged. Sergeov had had a reason to seek her out. Now she only wanted his visit to end. “Is that all, Otis?”

  “Only one more thing. A personal curiosity. I did underrate you, Virginia. You may be Orthophile, but at least you chose the father—or uncle—of our race for shacking up with. He is still Ortho, but so is anybody over fifty, so if you are so kinky as to prefer old men, I guess you have no better choice, eh?”

  She glared at him. “You dirty-minded little.”

  “Wait until I get that old Hmmm? Will I then chance have?”

  Virginia ’s head whirled. The man said so many infuriating things, each deserving to be burnt down with scathing logic. Oh, why am I so compulsive? He’s not looking for an argument over semantics, he wants to get on my nerves, that’s all.

  “Fuck you, Otis,” she said at last.

  Sergeov blinked in momentary surprise, then he laughed. His head rocked back and he cried out in delight. “Said well! If only we had you on Earth, day before yesterday! You could have told them.”

  “Told who?”

  “Bastards in Geneva.”

  Virginia hesitated, feeling suddenly cold.

  “What’s happened on Earth?”

  “If you had more than time of day for your own kin, you would have
by now known,” Sergeov taunted her. “We have no one to talk to but each other now… now that Orthos blame us for the diseases.”

  “They do not…” Virginia closed her eyes and resolved not to be sidetracked. “Tell me what happened on Earth, Otis. Or this time I really will break your arm.”

  The Russian spacer nodded. His voice was suddenly subdued.

  “There was coup, Virginia. Hawaii is now under Arc of the Sun.”

  “What?” She stared. “But… But that’s impossible! How?”

  “Mercenaries from Philippines. Governor Ikeda dead. There is martial law.”

  “But the Thirty-second Amendment… the United States has to defend—”

  Sergeov shrugged. “Supreme Court of United States met in emergency session, Virginia… ruled that Hawaii, since 2026, is been semisovereign… I think that is proper phrase Means a de facto Arcist government is hokay—so long as it pays federal taxes on time, and keeps external-affairs-nose clean.

  “They have already the Percell School closed down. Shut down uplift-research institute and that big tidal-energy project. More is to come, for sure.”

  Sergeov came forward, one hand on a rail, breathing intensely. His voice was thick with sarcasm “Now you see? See why we could have yesterday used your eloquence back on Earth? The case was only six to three, decided. Surely if you had there been, you would have been able to convince them. Or at least could have told them fuck you right into their Ortho…”

  He stopped then, because Virginia had already stumbled out into the hallway, pat the hulking decontamination robot, ignoring its monotone request that she submit to its worthless sound-and-light treatment. She moved without destination. blinded by sudden tears, navigating purely by rote.

  CARL

  Things were getting bad.

  Carl drifted on a tether, waiting for Saul Lintz to show up. He was glad for the break.

  In the last few days he’d learned to take his rest where lie found it—in little cat naps and food breaks, using every slack moment to let his muscles forget about what he was putting them through. There wasn’t time to get mechs into place for most jobs, and a lot of it they couldn’t do anyway.

  Good old grunt work, Carl thought. Only it’s different if your life depends on it.

  In a way, he was glad he wasn’t running things. Major Lopez, who barely concealed his distrust of Percells, had all the headaches. Fine. Let him sweat.

  There weren’t enough hands to control the green gunk algae, much less the big forms. Bethany Oakes was busily unslotting people to help out, but that took time. He had heard things weren’t running well down there, either. Some unslotted ones were angry at being reawakened early, and then scared of catching the whatsits diseases running around.

  Not that he could blame them. He had a new guy on his crew, a husky Norwegian named Veerlan, and already the sniffles and coughing were starting. The man had been out only thirty-five hours, hardly even fit for heavy work yet.

  “Is the team ready?” Saul’s voice came to Carl out of a foggy blur. Saul landed stiffly on fiberthread nearby and hooked a line to a stay.

  “Ah… yeah. Not much of a team, though.”

  “How many?” Saul seemed alert and ready, even though long fatigue lines rutted his face. He carried a bulky machine strapped to his back.

  “Four.”

  “Including you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Um…I don’t know…it’s going to be pretty cumbersome.”

  “I’ll call mechs.”

  “I’ve already had Sergeov tell Virginia. She’ll send some as soon as possible.”

  Carl felt a hot spurt of irritation. “I’m in charge of mechs in this quadrant.”

  Saul’s mouth tightened. “Look, this is an emergency—”

  “I’ll call Virginia. This isn’t your lab, Lintz. I call the shots down here.”

  “All right, be my guest. Call.”

  “Well… yeah… I’ll patch through while we’re on the way.” Carl shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. “You’ve got the spec frequencies?”

  Saul tapped his vest pocket. “Right here. Took all night.”

  “This better work.”

  “I hope it will.”

  “Hope isn’t near good enough.”

  “I can’t guarantee—”

  “Listen, we’re down to a dozen, maybe fifteen able-bodied. They’re dropping faster than we can unslot ’em, I hear. I’m using men who’re groggy from work—like me—and women with noses running in their suits, coughing into tissues they’ve wadded under their chins. I mean…” He sucked in air, his eyes squeezed tight, expelled a tired breath. “It better work.”

  Saul nodded sympathetically. “Ley’s go then.”

  They met Jeffers and Sergeov and Lani in Shaft 3, where it had all started. The shaft was well lit so they could see to work, the phosphors glowing like regularly spaced advertisements along a dark highway that dwindled away into the yawning distance.

  The party hung like dots of color, each suit a different primary, against the pink fiberthread background. From a lateral tunnel came a large, asymmetric bulk, towed by mechs. Three extras trailed.

  —Virginia freed ’em up,—Jeffers said happily. —Makes it a whole lot easier for us now.—

  “Yeah,” Carl said. He felt irked that Saul had gotten mechs quickly, without Virginia even asking for approval. And he hadn’t had any mech backup this whole damned shift, until brilliant Saul Lintz and his miracle cure came on the scene. “About time.”

  I don’t suppose I’ll cry any if this doesn’t work, Carl thought, and then immediately rebuked himself. No, that’s stupid. You’re really getting worn down.

  Jeffers must have been just as tired, but he grinned and wisecracked as he wrestled gear toward the target area. His angular face gave no hint of how he felt about being awakened into hell.

  Both Jeffers and Sergeov still had shadowy slot eyes. Carl said to them, “Don’t bust your butts, guys. Easy does it.”

  They checked the mechs’ securing cables and pivoted the array to move up the center of the shaft. Telerobots had towed the microwave-digger assembly, minus its tripod mount, all the way down from the surface. Without its legs it lost its former spidery grace and became merely another lumpy machine, pipes and struts sticking out at odd angles.

  Ahead, the smooth surface of the tunnel was broken by purple strands jutting into the vacuum.

  —They’re not moving,—Lani said. Beneath her high, melodious voice there was an undercurrent of fatigue.

  —How long has the air been gone from this shaft?—Saul asked.

  —Days,—Jeffers answered.

  —And the temperature is down? Then the purples may be dormant.—

  —What’s ’at?—Jeffers asked fuzzily.

  Saul glanced at Carl questioningly, as if to ask, Is he groggy?

  Carl shook his head. We’re all tired, so what? We haven’t been sitting on our asses in a lab all this time.

  —The larger forms apparently were stimulated by leaking heat at the intersections,—Saul sent, —where the collar makes contact with the ice. But once they broke through, looking for more heat, they hit a bonanza. The air warmed them as it rushed out, and the forms kept growing—for a while. Now it’s almost as cold in here as the ice, so they’re dormant again. Mostly.

  —Uh-huh.—Jeffers stared straight ahead, somewhat blearily chewing at his lip, and Carl couldn’t be sure the man had understood any of it.

  “The purples will break in anywhere the gunk grows,” he said. “That means anyplace there’s heat or light or air.”

  They slowed, the mechs’ jets taking up the inertia of the microwave borer. Bulbous Halleyform organisms protruded into the shaft all around Tunnel 3E. In yellow-tinged phosphor light they seemed to be sweating a film of oily blue.

  —Beautiful, huh?—Jeffers sent sarcastically.

  —In a way,—Lani said somberly, taking him seriously. —So strange…—

&nb
sp; “Philosophy later,” Carl said. “We’ve got to kill it.”

  —No, I want a sample first.—Saul coasted over to the wall and smacked into it awkwardly. Carl grinned maliciously. Let Saul make his own mistakes. He wasn’t going to waste energy babying anybody, especially Lintz.

  —I have not seen them in this state. I had only reports to judge by.—

  Oh great. “You mean you don’t know you understand them?”

  —Oh, we’ve learned a lot. For instance, we now know that they aren’t really differentiated organisms at all, not like mammals or insects or earthworms. They’re more like jellyfish or slime molds… where different groups of independent cells take on specialized tasks for brief periods. I haven’t seen a phase like this before, but their fundamental chemistry could not change simply because they have a respite in their growth cycle.

  The bland professorial arrogance of it irked Carl. “Who says so? How come you’re so sure?”

  Saul pulled out a sample bottle. —General biological principles. The resonant frequencies of their long-chain molecules can’t change simply because their life rhythm slows.—

  Saul clipped a fragment from the nearest jutting growth and caught it in the bottle. He peered into the open cut, where darkening tissue oozed. —Remarkable. It exudes a film for protection against the loss of vapor to vacuum. Yet the film itself is a fluid that somehow doesn’t sublime.—

  “Hey, come on,” Carl called impatiently.

  —I suspect it’s a very high-surface-tension fluid Somehow it hinds to the surface, yet remains liquid enough to cover the plant entirely, compensating for injuries.—

  Saul clipped a section from another, then pushed off. —Done.—

  —Good! Let’s get the microwave oven ready for fried eggplant,—Jeffers said.

  Carl directed the mechs to focus the antennas on the plants. There would be side lobes that would lap onto the walls, but that couldn’t be helped. The trick—Saul’s idea—was to tune the microwave borer to the precise vibrational frequency of a molecule peculiar to the native forms so that a short burst would fry them without also heating the ice, nearby.