Hidden Variables (31 page)

Greer was still on his knees on the floor, rummaging desperately through the briefcase. His face was sweaty. "The car. If it won't fit in here, it
has
to be in the car. You bastard, you armed it before you got out and came up here." His eyes glared with sudden triumph. "You missed one thing, Wenziger, something you didn't count on.
I don't need you to disarm that bomb.
I had three years with disposal and security. I can take it apart in ten seconds."

He threw the briefcase to the floor, jumped to his feet and rushed from the room.

"And you know, General, you missed one thing, too." Wenziger's tone was quiet and conversational, as though the other man were still in the room with him. "I couldn't shoot you, but you confused ruthlessness and courage. I have read Clausewitz—yes, and Machiavelli, too, in the original languages. You and I differ in the uses that we would make of power, that's all."

He lifted the bottle and took a leisurely sip of beer.

* * *

It was hot in the car, eighty-five degrees or more. Normally a long drive was pleasant, it gave plenty of time for unhurried thought and calculation, but this time there was too much else to think about.

How much had Wenziger been keeping to himself? There had been disturbing undertones in their last conversation, a suggestion that crude tests were the way to go.

He peered ahead at the long incline, shimmering in the heat. Not more than a mile to go, if the sketch map were right. Laurance Nissom was almost at the brow of the hill when the valley ahead of him lit with a glow that eclipsed the sun.

AFTERWORD: HIDDEN VARIABLE.

"I was having dinner with the Astronomer Royal, and he said that Eddington . . ."

It's a nice way to begin the conversation but it needs to be put in context. I was a summer student at the Royal Observatory, one of a dozen or more, and he invited
all
of us to dinner—once each. "He" at the time was Astronomer Royal Richard van der Riet Woolley, later Sir Richard Woolley, and it is my secret opinion that he tolerated summer students not for their value as workers, which was marginal, but for their usefulness as country dancers.

That too needs to be put in context. When the Royal Greenwich Observatory moved from Greenwich, where it had been since 1675, to Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex, there were far more women workers than men, mostly doing calculations for the production of the Nautical Almanac. Actually, there were a fair number of males, but they tended to be senior astronomers and were not the types to be readily persuaded by the AR to leap about in country dancing. Whereas the women, thanks to sexual discrimination or what-have-you, had duller jobs and were ready for evening frivolity. But they had to have male partners, and that's where students came in useful. Once a week we all had a rousing session of dancing. I have long since forgotten the wavelength of the Lyman Alpha line, but if pressed I might well be able to dance a round of
Gathering Peascods
or
Sir Roger de Coverley.

And between dances, before and after dances, and on non-dancing evenings, we would hear personal anecdotes from Woolley's youth about the distant stars of twentieth century astronomy, of Hubble and Baade, Oort, Milne, Hoyle and Struve . And we would hear first-hand accounts of the arguments between Sir James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington at the monthly meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society. Eddington was a superb mathematician, and he had an unmatched and almost infallible physical intuition about the way that a star or galaxy would behave. But Jeans was a superb mathematician, too, perhaps even a better one—and in debate he was quicker and more persuasive than Eddington. So as we heard it, Eddington was usually right, but it was Jeans who mostly won the verbal arguments.

I feel much more at home writing than giving speeches, so I have had a soft spot for Eddington ever since those days at the Royal Observatory. It is unfortunate that this story happens to quote a case—a very rare case—where his theories were wrong.

A CERTAIN PLACE IN HISTORY

"This is really rather nasty. Why did you let it go so long without attention? You should have come in for treatment weeks ago."

The dentist who was working on my ripely abscessed upper molar had a habit, common to his profession, of trying to conduct a conversation with a patient whose mouth was wedged open like a yawning hippopotamus. An accurate answer to his question would take twenty minutes and involve—at a minimum—mushrooms, space warps, high finance, aliens, the asteroid belt and my personal reputation. I rolled my eyes and said "Aa-gn-hng-aa," or words to that effect. The answer seemed to satisfy him and he turned the conversation to local politics.

It really isn't easy to know where to begin. With the aliens? According to common myth, it isn't really possible to hate an alien. If and when we meet up with some, the argument goes, we should get on with them very well. Our hatred is reserved for our own kind. I happen to know that idea is wrong. No human has ever met a Kaneelian, we don't know where or how they live, or even what size and shape they are. But they cost me a million credits, they gave me the worst three days of my life, and they may make the name 'Henry Carver' go down in history as a big joke. I have a strong and personal hatred of Kaneelians, the whole wretched species.

That's obviously the wrong place to begin. I get carried away. Let me begin, objectively, with the tooth.

It was a left upper molar that had been filled a couple of times already, and it was beginning to give me trouble again. Two hundred years ago, in the bad old days before medical science was perfected, a tooth was pulled out when it gave trouble. It is now possible, thanks to partially effective nerve-regeneration techniques, for the same tooth to cause periodic anguish for a good fifty years, with enormous associated cost. The ache was getting bad enough for me to consider and put off a visit to the dentist when I had a videophone call from Izzy Roberson.

Izzy was always worth talking to. An old friend of my partner, Waldo Burmeister, he had suggested some profitable deals for us in the past, and wasn't a man to waste your time with small stuff.

"Got something good for you, Henry," Izzy's cheerful image began. "Know what agaricus campestris is?" He was a tiny, bouncy man, hopping up and down as usual in front of the screen. He had a great fondness for tall women, who loomed high above him and always made me think of the old story of the midget and the showgirl.

I groped vaguely after law-school Latin. "Campestris. Something-or-other of the fields?"

"Not bad, Henry, not bad at all. Agaricus campestris—it's mushrooms, meadow mushrooms. Hold on a second, I'm going to put the scrambler on."

The screen became random color for a second, then cleared again as the unit on my phone picked up the coded unscrambler.

"Safe to talk now," he went on. "Henry, we want you to be a front man. We're all set to develop a mushroom monopoly. If we pull this off, you'll get all the commissions."

A mushroom monopoly sounded about as valuable as a corner in yak-wool hats. Cut off the supply of meadow mushrooms, and it seemed to me that people would happily eat something else. I mentioned this to Izzy.

"Henry, don't you ever look at the science sections? They don't grow the damn things for eating, they use them to extract the transplant catalysts. There are only three companies in the business, and my clients now control two of them. We want the third, but we have to work through an intermediary."

I understood that easily enough. Laws on monopolies were getting stricter all the time. It was a situation I'd been involved in before and I knew the main limiting factors.

"How much of the stock do you need, Izzy? Where's it traded, and what do I use for money?"

"It trades right here, on the Tycho City Board. If we can get twenty-seven percent of the voting stock, we'll have clear control. We already bought eight percent through a holding company and we've been promised votes on another eleven percent on a trade-for-favors base. We want you to get the other eight percent any way you can."

"Expenses?"

"Sure. But you only get the commissions if you buy us all we need. Finish with seven percent and you get nothing. Here are the credit number and stockholder positions you'll need to do the buying."

I pressed 'Record' and he flashed me a stock I.D. list and a fourteen-digit code on the Tycho City Central Bank.

"One other thing, Henry. We've got a deadline. Midnight, U.T., twelve days from now. Think you can make it?"

It would be tight, maybe, but it should be possible. I thought for a moment, then nodded just as the door behind Izzy opened and a tall blonde walked in. He glanced around, waved a quick farewell to me and cut the connection on the tableau of Snow White and Happy. I was glad to see him go so I could get started at once. I forgot my nagging tooth and began to check the stock prices.

If you've ever been involved in a quiet stock purchase, you know there are two main factors: A low profile, and fast action. If people think there is a take-over in the wind, they get greedy and hold on to what they have. The last percent always costs the most. And if you don't do it fast enough, the professional market analysts will move when they see a lot of quick transactions in a quiet stock, and start buying against you on a speculative basis.

After eight days, I had things moving along nicely. Six percent of the stock I needed was committed to a forward buy, held for three days, and I was expecting a call or a visit on the remaining two percent. I sat in my Tycho City apartment, one ear tuned to the phone and the other to the door chime. Visions of sugarplums danced in my head, and when the door rang, I leaped to answer it.

I've become used to some unusual intermediaries in financial deals, but the man who ducked his head in through the doorway was the strangest yet. Huge, straw-haired, jutting-jawed, steely eyed—you can supply the other adjectives yourself. It added up to the cliche hero of a space opera. He came in, looked at me, past me, and around the apartment. Finally he shrugged slightly and looked at me again.

"Henry Carver?" There was surprise in his voice.

"Yes. You're from Securities Investment?"

He made himself at home on my couch. "Never heard of them. Look, let me make sure there's no mistake. Are you Henry Carver, the man who worked with Gerald Mattin on the development of the Mattin Link?"

Hospitality and politeness have their limits. Anyway, that episode with the Mattin Link is not one of my favorite memories. "I don't know who you are, or what you're doing here. But I have an important business visit due any minute now. If you are not from Securities Investment, I'm afraid I must ask you to leave at once."

"Sorry, Mr. Carver. I can't do that." He fished in his coverall pocket and pulled out a mag strip I.D. "Check that out, then let's talk."

He was depressingly sure of himself. I fed the strip through the phone connection and watched the I.D. appear on the screen: Imre Munsen, Special Investigator, United Space Federation; authorized to commandeer the use of equipment, services and personnel for Level Four System Emergencies; classification of current assignment (you've guessed it): Level Four.

"Now you know who I am, Mr. Carver. Before we go on, I have to be sure that I know who you are. Are you in fact the man who worked on the original Mattin Link—the man who survived those first experiments?"

"I am, but that was a long time ago. I don't know anything about the Links they have nowadays."

"That's all right. We need help from someone with a fresh mind, not tied to current theory. First, I must swear you to strictest secrecy. A situation of unprecedented danger to the human race has arisen. If you reveal what I tell you to a third party, you will be guilty of endangering the public welfare and will be charged accordingly. You know the penalties."

I did indeed. Anything the court chose to inflict. It was rather like the old military court-martial. No appeals, and the prosecutors, jury and judge were all the same people. My stomach began a rumble of anticipatory fear.

"Mr. Carver," Munsen went on, "it will be simplest if you listen to me first without asking questions. I have studied your file, so I know your capability and pattern of rapid response. But hear me out, please, before you begin."

What was the man talking about? I wondered what was in the file. And what about my business appointment? Munsen had better get on with it and go away quickly. There were a million credits waiting for me—if I could conclude my mushroom stock purchases in time. I decided to let him have his say, then tell him at once that I couldn't help.

It's best if I summarize what he said to me. Munsen was just the sort of starry-eyed, deep-chested idiot he looked. Patriotic, fearless, decisive, clean-living—we seemed to have absolutely nothing in common, the two of us. His explanation was full of irrelevant stirring speeches about our future, and the need for all of us to give our utmost to human advancement. It was enough to make a rational man sick.

Six weeks earlier, as Munsen told it, a party of six had chartered a space yacht for a scenic tour of the inner Solar System. Milton Kaneely, the holovision star, had made the rental. Three men and three women were on board—and with Milton Kaneely, for 'scenic tour' you could safely read 'drunken orgy.' They had careered randomly around the Moon and off past Mars into the asteroid belt. Blundering along there, they had landed on a rock fragment less than a kilometer long—and stumbled across the first evidence of an alien race. On the asteroid, in a big rock chamber, sat the space warp. Kaneely and friends didn't know it was a space warp—or even that they had found evidence of aliens. They thought they'd found an unmanned USF Navy station. They sent a joking message back to Tycho City, complaining about the lack of a station emergency grog supply, and rocketed off for Chryse City.

The USF Communications Group would have written the call off as a joke, except that on the way to Chryse City the Kaneely party had encountered another asteroid—this time at a relative velocity of five kilometers a second. The accident, so far as anyone could tell, had nothing to do with their earlier landing, but the investigation group had taken a look at that asteroid too, to make their report complete. They found the space warp. Not knowing quite what it was, they were still smart enough to recognize it as an alien artifact. That was when Imre Munsen had been called in.