The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (91 page)

He wondered then if he was going to insist on riding one of the cleaners … the way the six others had done.

Ing's shuffling, cautious footsteps brought him out of the anode backboard's shadow. He turned, saw a pencil line of glowing purple stretching away from him to the cathode twelve kilometers distant. He knew there actually was no purple glow, that what he saw was a visual simulation created on the one-way surface of his face-plate, a reaction to the beam's presence displayed there for his benefit alone.

Washington's voice in his speaker said: “Sono has you in Zone Yellow. Take it easy, Ing.”

Ing altered course to the right, studied the beam.

Intermittent breaks in the purple line betrayed the presence between himself and that lambent energy of the robot vacuum cleaners policing the perimeter, hanging on the sine lines of the beam field like porpoises gamboling on a bow wave.

“Transport's down,” Washington said. “We're phasing into a longthrow test. Ten-minute program.”

Ing nodded to himself, imagined Washington sitting there in the armored bubble of the control room, a giant, with a brooding face, eyes alert and glittering. Old Poss didn't want to believe it was the cleaners, that was sure. If it was the cleaners, someone was going to have to ride the wild goose. There'd be more deaths … more rides … until they tested out the new theory. It certainly was a helluva time for someone to come up with an anomaly
hole
in the angtrans math. But that's what someone back at one of the trans-time computers on Earth had done … and if he was right—then the problem had to be the cleaners.

Ing studied the shadow breaks in the beam—robotic torpedoes, sensor-trained to collect the tiniest debris. One of the shadows suddenly reached away from him in both directions until the entire beam was hidden. A cleaner was approaching him. Ing waited for it to identify the Authorized Intruder markings which it could
see
the same way he saw the beam.

The beam reappeared.

“Cleaner just looked you over,” Washington said. “You're getting in pretty close.”

Ing heard the worry in his friend's voice, said: “I'm all right long's I stay up here close to the board.”

He tried to picture in his mind then the cleaner lifting over him and returning to its station along the beam.

“I'm plotting you against the beam,” Washington said. “Your shadow width says you're approaching Zone Red. Don't crowd it, Ing. I'd rather not have to clean a fried troubleshooter out of there.”

“Hate to put you to all that extra work,” Ing said.

“Give yourself plenty of 'lash room.”

“I'm marking the beam thickness against my helment crosshairs, Poss. Relax.”

Ing advanced another two steps, sent his gaze traversing the beam's length, seeking the beginnings of the controlled whiplash which would
throw
the test message into angspace. The chained energy of the purple rope began to bend near its center far down the tube. It was an action visible only as a gentle flickering outward against the crosshairs of his faceplate.

He backed off four steps. The throw was a chancey thing when you were this close—and if interfering radiation ever touched that beam …

Ing crouched, sighted along the beam, waited for the throw. An experienced troubleshooter could tell more from the way the beam whipped than banks of instruments could reveal. Did it push out a double bow? Look for faulty field focus. Did it waver up and down? Possible misalignment of vertical hold. Did it split or spread into two loops? Synchronization problem.

But you had to be in here close and alert to that fractional margin between good seeing and
good night!
forever.

Cleaners began paying more attention to him in this close, but he planted himself with his AI markings visible to them, allowing them to fix his position and go on about their business.

To Ing's trained eye, cleaner action appeared more intense, faster than normal. That agreed with all the previous reports—unless a perimeter gap had admitted stray foreign particles, or perhaps tiny shades dislodged from the tube's walls by the pulse of the moon's own life.

Ing wondered then if there could be an overlooked hole in the fanatic quadruple-lock controls giving access to the tube. But they'd been sniffing along that line since the first sign of trouble. Not likely a hole would've escaped the inspectors. No—it was in here. And cleaner action
was
increased, a definite lift in tempo.

“Program condition?” Ing asked.

“Transmission's still Whorf positive, but we haven't found an angspace opening yet.”

“Time?”

“Eight minutes to program termination.”

“Cleaner action's way up,” Ing said. “What's the dirt count?”

A pause, then: “Normal.”

Ing shook his head. The monitor that kept constant count on the quantity of debris picked up by the cleaners shouldn't show normal in the face of this much activity.

“What's the word from Mare Nubium transmitter?” Ing asked.

“Still shut down and full of inspection equipment. Nothing to show for it at last report.”

“Imbrium?”

“Inspection teams are out and they expect to be back into test phase by 0900. You're not thinking of ordering
us
to shut down for a complete clean-out?”

“Not yet.”

“We've a budget to consider, too, Ing. Remember that.”

Huh!
Ing thought.
Not like Poss to worry about budget in this kind of an emergency. He's trying to tell me something?

What did the handbook say?
“The good troubleshooter is cost conscious, aware that down time and equipment replacement are factors of serious concern to the Haigh Company.”

Ing wondered then if he should order the tube opened for thorough inspection. But the Imbrium and Nubium tubes had revealed nothing and the decontamination time
was
costly. They were the older tubes, though—Nubium the first to be built
.
They were smaller than Nectaris, simpler locks. But their beams weren't getting through any better than the Nectaris tube with its behemoth size, greater safeguards.

“Stand by,” Washington said. “We're beginning to get whipcount on the program.”

In the abrupt silence, Ing saw the beam curl. The whiplash came down the twelve kilometers of tube curling like a purple wave, traveling the entire length in about two thousandths of a second. It was a thing so fast that the visual effect was of seeing it
after
it had happened.

Ing stood up, began analyzing what he had seen. The beam had appeared clean, pure—a perfect throw … except for one little flare near the far end and another about midway. Little flares. The after-image was needle shaped, rigid … pointed.

“How'd it look?” Washington asked.

“Clean,” Ing said. “Did we get through?”

“We're checking,” Washington said, then: “Limited contact. Very muddy. About thirty per cent … just about enough to tell us the container's still there and its contents seem to be alive.”

“Is it in orbit?”

“Seems to be. Can't be sure.”

“Give me the cleaner count,” Ing said.

A pause, then: “Damnation! We're down another two.”

“Exactly two?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Dunno yet. Do your instruments show beam deflections from hitting two cleaners? What's the energy sum?”

“Everyone thinks the cleaners are causing this,” Washington muttered. “I tell you they couldn't. They're fully phased
with
the beam, just add energy to it if they hit. They're
not
debris!”

“But does the beam really eat them?” Ing asked. “You saw the anomaly report.”

“Oh, Ing, let's not go into that again.” Washington's voice sounded tired, irritated.

The stubbornness of Washington's response confused Ing. This wasn't like the man at all. “Sure,” Ing said, “but what if they're going somewhere we can't see?”

“Come off that, Ing! You're as bad as all the others. If there's one place we know they're
not
going, that's into angspace. There isn't enough energy in the universe to put cleaner mass around the corner.”

“Unless that hole in our theories really exists,” Ing said. And he thought:
Poss is trying to tell me something. What? Why can't he come right out and say it?
He waited, wondering at an idea that nibbled at the edge of his mind—a concept … What was it? Some half-forgotten association …

“Here's the beam report,” Washington said. “Deflection shows only one being taken, but the energy sum's doubled all right. One balanced out the other. That happens.”

Ing studied the purple line, nodding to himself. The beam was almost the color of a scarf his wife had worn on their honeymoon. She'd been a good wife, Jennie—raising Lisa in Mars camps and blister pods, sticking with her man until the canned air and hard life had taken her.

The beam lay quiescent now with only the faintest auroral bleed off. Cleaner tempo was down. The test program still had a few minutes to go, but Ing doubted it'd produce another throw into angspace. You acquired an instinct for the transmission pulse after a while. You could sense when the beam was going to open its tiny signal window across the light-years.

“I saw both of those cleaners go,” Ing said. “They didn't seem to be torn apart or anything—just flared out.”

“Energy consumed,” Washington said.

“Maybe.”

Ing thought for a moment. A hunch was beginning to grow in him. He knew a way to test it. The question was: Would Poss go along with it? Hard to tell in his present mood. Ing wondered about his friend. Darkness, the isolation of this position within the tube gave voices from outside a disembodied quality.

“Poss, do me a favor,” Ing said. “Give me a straight 'lash-gram. No fancy stuff, just a demonstration throw. I want a clean ripple the length of the beam. Don't try for angspace, just lash it.”

“Have you popped your skull? Any lash can hit angspace. And you get one fleck of dust in that beam path…”

“We'd rip the sides off the tube; I know. But this is a clean beam, Poss. I can see it. I just want a little ripple.”

“Why?”

Can I tell him?
Ing wondered.

Ing decided to tell only part of the truth, said: “I want to clock the cleaner tempo during the program. Give me a debris monitor and a crossing count for each observation post. Have them focus on the cleaners, not on the beam.”

“Why?”

“You can see for yourself cleaner activity doesn't agree with the beam condition,” Ing said. “Something's wrong there—accumulated programming error or … I dunno. But I want some actual facts to go on—a physical count during a 'lash.”

“You're not going to get new data running a test that could be repeated in the laboratory.”

“This isn't a laboratory.”

Washington absorbed this, then: “Where would you be during the 'lash?”

He's going to do it,
Ing thought. He said: “I'll be close to the anode end here. 'Lash can't swing too wide here.”

“And if we damage the tube?”

Ing hesitated remembering that it was a friend out there, a friend with responsibilities. No telling who might be monitoring the conversation, though … and this test was vital to the idea nibbling at Ing's awareness.

“Humor me, Poss,” Ing said.

“Humor him,” Washington muttered. “All right, but this'd better not be humorous.”

“Wait 'till I'm in position,” Ing said. “A straight lash.”

He began working up the tube slope out of Zone Yellow into the Gray and then the White. Here, he turned, studied the beam. It was a thin purple ribbon stretching off left and right—shorter on the left toward the anode. The long reach of it going off toward the cathode some twelve kilometers to his right was a thin wisp of color broken by the flickering passage of cleaners.

“Any time,” Ing said.

He adjusted the suit rests against the tube's curve, pulled his arms into the barrel top, started the viewplate counter recording movement of the cleaners. Now came the hard part—waiting and watching. He had a sudden feeling of isolation then, wondering if he'd done the right thing. There was an element of burning bridges in this action.

If it isn't there, you can't study it,
Ing thought.

“You will take your work seriously,” he muttered. Ing smiled then, thinking of the tragicomic faces, the jowly board chairman he visualized behind the handbook's pronouncements. Nothing was left to chance—no task, no item of personal tidiness, no physical exercise. Ing considered himself an expert on handbooks. He owned one of the finest collections of them dating from ancient times down to the present. In moments of boredom he amused himself with choice quotes.

“Program going in,” Washington said. “I wish I knew what you hope to find by this.”

“I quote,” Ing said. “‘The objective worker makes as large a collection of data as possible and analyzes these in their entirety in relation to selected factors whose relationship to a questioned phenomenon is to be investigated.'”

“What the devil's that supposed to mean?” Washington demanded.

“Damned if I know,” Ing said, “but it's right out of the Haigh Handbook.” He cleared his throat. “What's the cleaner tempo from your stations?”

“Up a bit.”

“Give me a countdown on the 'lash.”

“No sign yet. There's … wait a minute! Here's some action—twenty-five … twenty seconds.”

Ing began counting under his breath.

Zero.

A progression of tiny flares began far off to his right, flickered past him with increasing brightness. They were a blur that left a glimmering afterimage. Sensors in his suit soles began reporting the fall of debris.