Probability Sun (27 page)

Roughly he pushed Enli out of the way. She was wearing a neckfur ornament Pek Voratur had given her. He spied it and grabbed it off her, pulling her neckfur so hard it hurt.

Her head pained.

So, she saw, did his. He dropped the ornament, clutched his head, and staggered away. In a corner of the garden, he was sick.

Enli leaned against the wall, gasping. It was back. Shared reality was back. How? Had the Terrans brought the manufactured object back? Why? And what would happen now?

*   *   *

Fifty thousand kilometers above them, Capelo said, “Now.”

From the bridge the exec’s voice repeated the command to the gunnery officer: “Commence firing.”

A proton beam flashed from the
Alan B. Shepard
to the planet. It was aimed at a site in the Neury Mountains kilometers away from where the artifact again resided. A weak beam, to be sure, but it should have resulted in blowing up a lot of rock. Sensors had been affixed to the site, to surrounding mountains, to low-orbit probes, to the artifact itself. Kaufman leaned toward the displays.

“Nothing,” Rosalind Singh said. “Hal?”

“Nothing.”

From the bridge came the exec’s voice, “Colonel Kaufman, the beam did not hit. Disappearance of the beam matches disappearances recorded during failed attacks on Faller ships equipped with their beam-disrupter shield.” The words were formal, but the exec’s voice betrayed his excitement. They had the equivalent of the enemy defense.

Kaufman said into his comlink, “Dieter? Report in.”

Gruber, on the surface, said, “Nothing! I could stand right on the target and not be touched! It is the shield, Tom, as you said. It protects the entire planet!”

“We don’t know that yet,” Capelo said. “Bridge, fire on increased strength.”

“Commence firing,” said the exec.

No response on the planetary sensors, orbital sensors, bridge equipment. Gruber witnessed nothing. My God, Kaufman thought, we’ve got it. The shield that protects the Faller ships, at a setting that protects a planet. That protected World from the wave-effect that killed Syree Johnson and fried Nimitri. We’ve got it.

“We haven’t got it yet,” Capelo said.

They spent the next two days firing on the planet. The ship fired every weapon it had, in varying strengths. It fired at the same side of the planet as the artifact, and at the opposite side, and at both poles. Each time the effect was exactly the same: nothing. The planet wasn’t touched, and the beam disappeared as if it had never existed.

On the third day, they dropped a nuclear bomb over the great northern sea. Internal sensors indicated that the detonator fired and the chain reaction began. But no energy was released. Nothing happened.

There came to Kaufman a piece of some ancient religion he couldn’t identify, or maybe it was a piece of the physics history he’d read so much of:
“I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds.”
No, he thought. No. We have become the savior of worlds, or at least of Earth. An entire planet. He felt himself smiling.

Savior of Worlds.

*   *   *

They threw a party. Everyone came, scientists and techs and officers. Even Grafton showed up, reserved but pleasant to everyone but Kaufman, whom he avoided. Kaufman understood. Marbet was still in the brig, and the POW was still secured in his cell, but Grafton wasn’t sure what Kaufman would try next. Neither was Kaufman. He’d told everyone that Marbet was in quarantine with a newly detected version of the Ballinger retrovirus.

He made the obligatory toasts to his team, to the ship, to the unknown vanished master race that had left them both the artifact and the space tunnels. It turned out to be a wonderful party. There were only two unhappy people at it, and they both left early.

Dieter Gruber had not been able to persuade his wife to rejoin the team aboard ship. He would say only that she was still doing research. Gruber drank too much and then retired to his quarters to argue again with Ann by comlink.

The other grim face was Capelo’s. Kaufman, who had fences to mend there anyway, waited until Capelo stood alone in a corner. He didn’t have to wait long; Capelo was not enough of an addition to the party that people lingered near him.

“Tom. How is your little girl? Have her nightmares stopped?”

“No. They’re worse.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But I also want to congratulate you on your brilliant scientific work. This is an amazing find for us.”

Capelo looked at him bleakly. “Do you really think it’s amazing, Lyle? In fact, do you really think it’s science? All we’ve done is find a black box and try various things to see how it reacts. We still haven’t the faintest idea of why. I have no theory, no equations, no models, not even a single worthwhile insight. Somehow I don’t think Einstein, Bohr, or Yeovil feel threatened.”

Kaufman refused to pick up the gauntlet. “I wanted to ask you something about that. What we have now for the artifact is this: setting prime one: a local weapon. Prime two: a local shield. Prime three: a wider-scale local weapon. Prime five: a planetary shield. Do you think prime seven will be a weapon, following the pattern?”

“Yes. I think setting prime seven will fry an entire planet through destabilizing the strong force.”

“And settings prime eleven and prime thirteen?”

“If the pattern holds, prime eleven might protect an entire star system. Prime thirteen will fry an entire star system, like Syree Johnson’s artifact fried this one. Except for World.”

Capelo said it so quietly that Kaufman felt chilled.
Fry an entire star system … I am become Shiva …

“Of course,” Capelo said bleakly, “this is all theory. We can’t test setting prime thirteen at all, unless you plan on destroying a spare star system somewhere. Lyle, what are you soldiers planning on doing with this thing? The Fallers have beam-disrupter shields on more than one of their ships, so obviously they’ve been more successful than I have at figuring out how it works, at least enough to build more. You’ve only got one. Do you set it up to protect Sol system? Do you take it to the Faller home star and set it off at setting prime thirteen, untested, in hopes it will cause their entire star system to irradiate itself?”

“That’s not for me to decide,” Kaufman said.

“Right. So you’ve got no opinion at all, soldiers obey orders not think them through, nobody here but us chickens.”

“Tom-”

“
I
have an opinion. Take the artifact to their home star and blow the entire system and every bastard Faller in it.”

Kaufman realized, for the first time, that Capelo had been either drinking or doing fizzies. The physicist undoubtedly believed what he was saying, but under other circumstances he might not have said it. Or not said it like that.

Capelo seemed, belatedly, to realize this. “Excuse me if I find this celebration a little flat. I’m going to read my daughters a bedtime story.” He left.

Kaufman stood alone, sipping his drink. Capelo still puzzled him. So much tenderness in the man toward his tiresome little girls, so much raw ability, so much clear-sightedness on some things. And so much blindness on others, along with so much anger and bitterness. Tom Capelo was a man full of too much.

More practically, Capelo regarded himself as the only one capable of seeing the implications of his team’s work. But it was Capelo who couldn’t see far enough. The Fallers already had an artifact like this one, plus facsimiles of at least setting prime two. They could theoretically do everything Capelo had mentioned, including fry the entire Sol system. So why hadn’t they?

No answer. Unless it lay locked up in the Faller prisoner. If so, Kaufman had disabled Marbet, their only key, and Grafton would make sure she stayed disabled. Kaufman’s mistake, and a very bad one.
I am become
 …

Two of the techs, laughing with drunken high spirits, made their stumbling way toward Kaufman. He put on a welcoming smile.

TWENTY-TWO

GOFKIT JEMLOE

E
nli sat outside the village of Gofkit Jemloe, on a hard rock in the gathering twilight, and listened to Pek Sikorski talk on her comlink to Pek Gruber. Enli didn’t want to listen. She rose to leave, but Pek Sikorski grasped her wrist and pulled on it, so Enli sat again and stared into the gathering darkness.

It was a beautiful sunset, the red and gold sky seeming to sweeten the air as much as the tiny wild mittib under her feet. She could see the villagers gathered on the green, between the still-glowing embers of the communal cookfires. Children chased each other, weaving among the adults. It almost looked like any evening in Gofkit Jemloe. The difference lay in the way the adults stood in huddles instead of dancing, the reluctant way the huddles changed members, the overly frenzied shouts of the underdisciplined children.

“I asked you how long, Dieter … Don’t lie to me, please. I can bear anything but that.”

On the far end of the comlink, somewhere in the red-and-gold sky, Pek Gruber answered. Enli couldn’t distinguish his words.

Pek Sikorski said, “You’ve finished all the testing you can do while the artifact is back down here, haven’t you? Or else you’re close to it. When do you lift it off-World again?”

More indistinguishable words, and Pek Sikorski’s tense body went still.

Enli watched a figure detach itself from the huddles on the green and stride toward them.

“No,” Pek Sikorski said, very low, “I will not. Leave without me. There has to be somebody here to explain to these poor people … Don’t try to feed me that shit, Dieter! I won’t help you murder this civilization! I won’t!”

The figure resolved itself into Soshaf Pek Derilin. No, not Derilin—among the great households, it was becoming fashionable for the oldest son to take his father’s name, not his mother’s. A shift in reality. Pek Voratur, dressed in a magnificent tunic embroidered with flowers, carried a lantern. His bright silky neckfur rippled in a night breeze. A handsome man, Enli thought impersonally, and her heart hurt all over again. Calin …

Pek Sikorski said, “Never. Good-bye, Dieter.” She broke the link. Immediately the comlink rang again with its peculiar mechanical noise, so unlike a real bell. Pek Sikorski did something that made the ringing stop.

“May your gardens bloom forever, Pek Sikorski, Pek Brimmidin,” the young Pek Voratur said. He held out an orange blossom.

“May your ancestors rejoice in your flowers,” Enli said, when it became apparent that Pek Sikorski was not going to speak. The Terran’s face looked, to Enli, like someone dead: skin even paler than usual, temples tight, eyes flat. Enli saw despair, but she knew Soshaf Pek Voratur did not. Not without creased skull ridges, drooping neckfur, folds of skin around dark eyes. Pek Voratur was not experienced enough with Terrans to see Pek Sikorski’s despair, and so was saved the head pain that now pierced Enli. Reality was not shared among the three of them, but only she knew it.

Pek Voratur said to Pek Sikorski, “My father asks the gift of talk with you, Pek.”

She looked at him in sorrow and pain. He didn’t see it. And that’s the way it will be soon for all of us, Enli thought, when the Terrans again lift the artifact into the sky. None of us will know what others feel.

“I will come,” Pek Sikorski said listlessly. Pek Voratur smiled and lifted his lantern against the growing dark. Inside its glass, the small deep pan of oil sent up a sudden flame. Then it went out. While Pek Voratur struggled to light it again, Enli whispered to Pek Sikorski.

“When will they take shared reality away again?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

“There,” Pek Voratur said with satisfaction, “it’s lit. Just follow me, Peks.”

On the green the dancing had resumed, but it was tentative, fearful. Enli could feel the difference. But at least it was shared tentativeness, shared fear. She turned her head away and followed Soshaf Pek Voratur in silence.

*   *   *

“No,” Hadjil Pek Voratur said. “Not again. You told me two days ago to summon sunflashers and tell all of World how shared reality had left us forever. And now it is back! If the sunflashers had done as I asked, I would have been called a fool, and rightly so. Perhaps I would even have been thought of as a man who does not share reality. I will not summon the sunflashers again.”

“You must,” Pek Sikorski said. “Pek Voratur … shared reality is going to leave us again. Tomorrow. This time it will not return. The … the
telescope
on our metal flying boat saw the great gift of the First Flower, the living rock. It started to die, briefly regained strength—you have seen plants do that, and dying people! And now it is dying again, and shared reality will cease.”

“So you said last time,” Voratur said. His round shiny face quivered beneath his creased skull ridges. “Not again. No.”

Soshaf Pek Voratur said quietly, “Father…”

Voratur turned to him. “Yes?”

“We could have the fleet move a little way off shore. Let the agents choose the best men to stay aboard, and give the others the night away. You could tell the agents by comlink.” After a moment he added, “When shared reality left a two day ago, someone smashed the front gate and someone stole several gold goblets.”

“It will not happen again,” Voratur told his son.

“No, Father.”

“I will tell the ship agents. Pek Sikorski, Pek Brimmidin, may your blossoms perfume your heart.”

They were dismissed. Enli said, “May your flowers gladden the souls of your ancestors.”

Back in Enli’s room, Pek Sikorski said, “You felt no head pain at Voratur’s change of mind.”

“No,” Enli said, puzzled. She tried to see what Pek Sikorski meant, and failed.

“Because to the three of you, what Soshaf suggested wasn’t a change of mind, was it? You all knew he would not believe that shared reality will go away again, but that he would also protect his trading ships in case it did.”

“Of course,” Enli said. “Isn’t that what anyone would do?”

“Shared reality,” Pek Sikorski said sadly. “Enli…”

“What?”

“I want you to take my comlink. Here. Hide it someplace. Unlike the links we gave Pek Voratur, it will reach the flying ship anywhere in your star system. If anything happens to me in the next fiveday … if I die somehow … I want you to link with Pek Kaufman and tell him what’s happening on World. Will you do that for me, Enli?”