The Far Side (85 page)

“Well, it seems to have taken the French government by surprise,” the mayor told her.  No one in Washington knows what to think and neither do I.”

“This is really going to upset Andie,” Kris said sadly.  “The Far Side doors were the pinnacle of her heart’s desire -- although the fusor was a good idea as well.  No matter whose idea the nuke was, it’s another coffin nail in the concept of travel off-world.”

“Is it possible here?” the mayor asked, clearly worried.

“Possible?  I’d have to say yes.  The critters we faced in Chicago probably used their most effective chemical and biological weapons.  I’m told that we’d have been seriously ill if we were insects,” Kris told her.  “But in this case, I think it’s unlikely.”

A black Hummer pulled up and Jon Bullman got out.  “You heard about France?” he asked straight away.

“Yes,” Kurt told him.

“The word I’m getting is that the other side slipped a package through the door after it had been open for a while.  The French were monitoring the door remotely, and feeding the transmission back to an installation near Paris.

“They said that they hadn’t seen anyone in the first hour or so, but that they were clearly in an industrial area.  Maybe they didn’t see anyone, but someone saw them.

“They had the door open about three hours, then something obscured the camera from the other side, then something heavy came through the door and then -- kablooie!”

Kris sighed.  “After Chicago, Andie broke her hand, slamming it into a rock out of frustration.  She told me that she wasn’t going to tell Linda about a dream she had, but that night she was lying in the infirmary, drifting in and out of consciousness, heavily sedated.

“She described it as a bad dream, a nightmare.  She envisioned us as the Tengri.  We opened the door to Arvala and started putting soldiers through.  We put thousands through the door in a few hours, and then waited while they checked out the local area.

“We killed any of the local people that we saw; we captured Arvala, we conquered the whole continent.  Then we started in on the others, around the world.  It was our goal to enslave the entire planet -- and there was no one who could stop us, because they didn’t have the technology to even slow us down.

“Since then, Andie has redoubled her efforts to share technology with the Arvalans.”

“And this has what to do with us here?” the mayor asked.

“Well, it’s true that if we can make peaceful contact with another race, we might learn some great new technology.  But if they are like the Arvalans, the temptation to just take over would be great.  People like the Tengri, far from our cultural norms, would be an ever greater temptation.

“Andie said the only rational thing to do if we find a Far Side door on Earth that’s not ours is to nuke it.  Someone could be on the other side is as far ahead of us as we are the Tengri or the Arvalans -- with the morality of the Tengri.  If we couldn’t bomb the door into infinity, as quickly as possible, we could lose the planet.”

Kris looked around.  “Each and every time we open a door we are going to be faced with the temptation of exploiting a primitive culture -- or facing someone equally far ahead of us.  All it would take, Andie told me, is one door open to the wrong place and we could end up kicked off of our home world.”

“That’s a little bleak,” Kurt said.

“A little?” the Seattle mayor said sarcastically.  “What about our situation?”

“Unknowable,” Kris said with alacrity.  “Odds are that we can safely open the door.  After that, the odds diminish rapidly.  If I was this young man, I’d be building a great pyramid on the site.  Until it was solid stone, I’d have a half-dozen men with automatic weapons on standby, and if the gate formed, they’d start shooting.

“That would dissuade us; slow us down,” Kurt took over.  “We could call up some automatic weapons that we could automate and start shooting back.  At some point, they’d either bury the site or run out of bullets.  Since it doesn’t sound like the other side is very high tech, their gun platforms are going to be people.  We kill dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands...”

“Thousands?” the mayor asked, startled.

“Thousands,” Kurt told her.  “Think Dr. Frankenstein, only in reverse, where the villagers fight to the death to defend the man they know from the ‘outsiders.’”

He met the mayor’s eyes.  “Eventually you could get through, but there would be no telling how many people you would have killed on the other side.  If you kill a bunch of them, don’t expect a welcoming party.  Instead, people will be lying in wait; shooting from cover... it would be a nightmare.  You’d lose a lot of people yourself, no matter what.  Dozens, maybe more.”

“Unacceptable,” the mayor said flatly.

“Which is why we asked earlier about how many lives you are willing to spend on this!” Kris said roughly.

“Not a one.  If there’s any resistance, I’ll order the house razed and a solid concrete cube created where the fusor is, to prevent it from being used again.”

* * *

The Far Side door had barely opened when the first bullets came through.  Then a bundle of burning faggots, then more gunfire.  Kris turned it off.

Everyone in the control center looked at each other.  Kris was the first to speak.  “I did this in Chicago -- I asked the parents of two of the missing young men, how many lives they were willing to risk.  They refused to answer.  At the time, I thought it was a rather cowardly answer.  Now I realize it was the only rational answer -- who among us could make that choice reasonably?  It has to be the people with the experience of what things are like.  Madame Mayor, we should dismantle the fusor and start the concrete.”

The mayor nodded sadly.  “At least we only lost one person this time and he wanted to go.”

Kris shook her head.  “A sociopath in a primitive culture will forever have to walk a tightrope.  They don’t do psychoanalysis.  They have the end of pointy sticks or ropes to treat deviant behavior.  We’ll never know what happened to him, but I think you can console yourselves that that he’s not likely to live to a ripe old age.”

Kris, Kurt, and the rest of them gathered up their equipment, while policemen went in with instructions on removing the fusor.  Lunchtime was mellow, and Kurt made a suggestion.  “I know it’s relatively early yet, but it’s Seattle time.  It’s already late afternoon back in Vermont.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d like to spend today not being jet-lagged.  We can get up early tomorrow and return then.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Kris told him.  “I’m...” she shook her head.  “I’m not sure of anything just now.”

Everyone agreed and they retired to their rooms.  Kris was sharing hers with Erica Mirableu, who pointedly sat down a few feet from Kris, later.  Kris had been reading a textbook, and she looked up.

“I don’t know how to say this in a way that won’t sound bad, Kris.

“I like you, I really do.  You are a woman all of us can look up to and wish to emulate.  But you’re a huge distraction; from late night meetings to a continual curiosity about what you’re doing.

“Normally I’m a straight A student.  If I don’t get my head on straight I could be on academic probation at the end of the semester.  This trip was a vanity; I hoped I would be inspired and motivated and instead I’m more depressed than I’ve ever been in my life.  This is my future on the line here; I’m sorry, but I’m going to ask for another roommate when the term ends.”

Kris nodded at her.  “I understand.  I certainly understand depression of late.  I have no idea how Andie is going to react when she hears of what happened in France.  She’s up in Arvala now, getting her ducks in a row to build a railroad.  I hope that someone brings a pillow that she can punch when they give her the news.

“As for me -- don’t worry about me.  I’m the black-haired golden girl who can do no wrong.  Worse, I’ve been distracted from my studies but most of the subject matter consists of things we covered in high school.  To be honest, I’m not sure anymore if it’s worth it.  If anything’s worth it.

“The most glorious adventure that my mind can imagine is travel to other planets.  Instead of glory and adventure, it’s ashes.  Death, death, death, everywhere I look, people die.”  Kris laughed bitterly.  “It’s like all the other intelligent species out there really are just like us; small men with small minds and tiny imaginations and filled with loathing and distrust for anyone or anything different.”

“I wish things were different,” Erica told her.  “I really do.  I wouldn’t mind going to this Arvala place that you talk about.  It sounds like it’s the kind of place you want to explore.”

Kris snorted.  “I know what Andie’s doing.  She’s burying herself in a place where she can work full time as hard as she can for the rest of her life and make a huge difference.  Every day she’s there, she’s going to make it a better place.  She has a vision of the Arvalans and us, striding forward into a rational future, doing great and wonderful things.  Making the universe safe for democracy.”

Erica nodded.  “She is like someone who eats sausage -- but who never has a desire to see what it’s like in the sausage factory.”

“I wouldn’t be that harsh -- although she may be turning into an ostrich.”

The two laughed.  The room phone rang, and Erica, closest answered it.  After a second, she handed it to Kris.  Kris talked a few moments, and then put the phone down.

“That sounded like Mayor Koga,” Erica observed.

“It is the mayor.  It turns out she keeps a suite in this hotel; she wants me to come up and have dinner with her.”

Erica nodded, and Kris went to freshen up and then left.

When Erica awoke the next morning, she found Kris sitting at the table in the main room of their suite, working on a laptop.  “You didn’t come back last night,” Erica said evenly.

“No, I came back this morning.”

Erica couldn’t help notice that this morning there was a sparkle in Kris’ eyes that hadn’t been there the day before.

“The mayor offered me a job.”  Kris giggled, very much unlike her.  “It would have involved another career change.  I’m going to stick with what I’ve got for now.”  She gestured at the laptop. “I’m just working on my report for General Briggs.”

“He asked me to prepare one as well.  I did it last night.”

“If I have a failing,” Kris told her, “it’s that I’m not willing to give up on something easily.  I don’t know if I’m beating a dead horse, because I’m pretty sure the General’s project to build fusors in Northfield is deader than a doornail.  But I hate to give up on a dream that big without a fight.”

“I think you’re right about the fusors,” Erica told Kris.  “It was going to be a tough sell when you were talking about the government dropping bombs on a runaway fusor.  Now we’re talking about the possibility of the other side sending a bomb through.”

“You realize,” Kris told her, “that the only thing stopping them from sending a really big bomb through -- one that might make a sizeable hole in the planet -- is because the door isn’t large enough that they can fit a big bomb through?”

“Still, it would be large enough to do the job.”

“That it would.  I don’t want to give up on the stars, Erica.  We can’t do that; we just can’t.  But we can’t risk everyone on the planet every time we open a door either.”

“A conundrum,” Erica said mildly.

“With an inherent solution,” Kris riposted.  “Don’t open the doors on Earth.  Put them in high orbit, operate them remotely until we find someplace interesting, and then send people.  If we take our time, if we’re careful, we can do it.”

“Won’t being up there in space, whizzing around the earth every little while, mess it up?  I mean, you’ve said that the doors are sensitive to location, change it a few inches and you go someplace different.”

“Except the Earth is whizzing around the sun, just like a satellite whizzes around the Earth.  And the sun is whizzing through the galaxy, and the galaxy is zipping through the universe.  There’s a reason the theory people have had zero success in figuring things out.”

“I guess!  I can see now why you don’t need to study so much, and why you’re so good as a consultant.  You understand things.”

Kris shrugged.  “I don’t understand people very well.  I’ve never understood my mother at all.  Andie fit right in with the Arvalans.  I’m not sure what I did different, but while Andie impresses them, they walk around in awe of me.”

“Like I said, you understand things at a fundamental level.  It’s a priceless gift, Kris.”  Erica paused.  “I’m not trying to be nosy, Kris, really I’m not.  But was the mayor offering you a political job?”

“Yes,” Kris answered simply.  “I really wish we could change the subject.”

“My lips are zipped!  Let me get a shower and we can go down for breakfast.”

Chapter 32 :: Working Things Through

It was a very diverse group at the conference table.  Andie Schulz sat next to Linda Walsh, and Hank Martindale and Dick Haines sat on Andie’s other side.  Also on that side of the table were Helen Boyle and Jon Bullman.

Kurt Sandusky and Kris Boyle were on the other side of the table with Captain Stone and Ezra Lawson.  General Briggs sat at one end of the table, while his wife sat at the other.

General Briggs spoke first.  “Nominally, I don’t bring marital problems to the table.  Last night I told Marjorie that I was suspending Norwich’s fusor project.  I have since learned what ‘having your ears boxed’ means.”

Kris smiled slightly, but didn’t say anything.  She was concerned that Andie didn’t seem to react at all.

“The Norwich fusor program is suspended,” he told them.  “Period.  Maybe later it can be revived, but I cannot, in all conscience, either expose my students or the people of Northfield to the observed hazards of such experiments.

“Kris Boyle wishes to speak.”

Kris cleared her throat.  “The results of opening a Far Side door range from none, to possible threats to people in the room, to possible threats to the entire human race.  That’s if we open such doors on Earth.  It is my recommendation that 1) exploration by fusor is too important to ignore, but 2) there is no reason to do it on Earth.  I recommend that such research be moved off-world, into Earth orbit.  Clearly, there is an existential risk even out there, and obviously none of us want to be responsible for threats to the entire human race.

“This will cost a wee bit more than we’ve budgeted.  I suspect we need to go back to the drawing board,” Kris concluded.

Andie looked at her with a hostile expression.  “I thought it was the government that wanted to shut us down.”

Jon Bullman cleared his throat.  “I speak for the government, which has finally realized that I’m not the advocate for their position that they thought I was.

“I conferred at great length with President Mitchell yesterday.  He offers the following: the full support of the government for the Arvala Far Side connection.  They will no longer interfere in any way with operations in Arvala -- they do, however, wish to be kept informed of any significant changes in current practice.  I told the President that I didn’t see any problems with that.”

“And what about what happened in France?” Andie asked, cynically.

“What happened in France, happened in France,” Mr. Bullman told them.  “There is no evidence that the Arvalans or the Tengri would even understand what we mean by ‘fission bomb.’

“NASA, you understand, has been eyeing the Big Moon with gleeful eyes.  It is, according to the lasers, not even fifty thousand miles distant and is clearly a planet-sized, inhabited body.  True, you need to reach the 6.8 mile per second escape velocity of Arvala, but we have a lot of rockets that can do that.”

He paused.  “Not, mind you, that even one will fit through the Far Side door.”

Everyone else at the table laughed.

“For now, the government is regrouping.  They do not want to see additional doors open, but they wish us to continue to consult with them if there are issues on Arvala.  The new President has swept with a new broom to a previously unheard of depth.  One of the things that has changed is that he is willing to defer to the people in this room about Far Side operations, and as he said, and I quote, ‘Not withstanding Ms. Schulz’s youth...’ he’ll defer to you, Andie, in regards to matters on Arvala.”

General Briggs waved at Kris.  “And the last rescue mission?”

“A failure in most respects.  We could not recover the person that Seattle wanted, and neither could they.”  Kris went on to explain what they’d done to secure the house and then what had been done when they’d received weapons fire through the door after they opened it.

When it was clear that Kris was done, Kurt Sandusky added, “The person actively hindered us.  There was nothing any of us could have done at that point, except kill innocents.  Kris was quite correct in calling off the operation.”

General Briggs nodded.  “I concur and I reflected that in my report to my Board and to my officers, faculty and staff, expressing my full faith in Kris Boyle and Kurt Sandusky.

“There is no doubt that we have come to a significant branch in our planning.  Pure research on Earth has become too problematic.  There is no way to be sure if we’re opening a Far Side door to a safe place -- or not.  We have to take the research off-world.  It is too important to give up entirely.”

He steepled his fingers and gave Andie a side-long glance.  “Now, Andie, I know we’ve never met and never talked, but I wish to ask a favor of you.”

“Within reason,” Andie told him.  “But before you ask, I want to say a few words.  Actually, I want Linda to say a few words and then I’ll have my turn.  You can have a turn in a bit.  Linda.”  She nodded to her friend to begin.

Linda Walsh spoke up immediately.  “Some of the best minds in the world have been engaged trying to figure out how Far Side doors work, what they do, and what controls them.  So far, the effort is nearly a complete bust.  Objectively, we see the Far Side doors form; we know that, given the right conditions, one can go through them to a place at considerable remove from Earth.

“When the first researchers failed, that spurred both wider and deeper effort.  Theorists do love a challenge!

“We don’t know where the Far Side doors lead.  That’s a simple statement of fact.  We can’t be sure if we’re in this galaxy or this universe.  We can’t be sure if we’re in the present, the past, or the future.  At the one off-world operating base we’ve set up, observations have not found any ties to any known object that we can see from Earth.

“A number of us got together and gathered a great deal of basic laboratory equipment and went to Arvala to take the pulse of that universe.  It was thought that if the physical constants there were different from those found here, we would at least know we were in a different universe.

“However, the measurements are, within the accuracy limits of the equipment, the same on Arvala as they are on Earth.  It is possible that everything has been offset to a degree that gives the same result, but really -- if everything we can measure is the same, what’s the difference?

“We do not know the nature of the interface.  However that is about the one thing we may have gotten something of a handle on.  Radiation does not go through a Far Side door.  Nothing in the nature of a wave or a field.  Magnetic fields on one side aren’t detectable on the other.  You can shine lights, beam radio and microwaves, x-rays, or even sound waves -- none of it goes through.  Molecules pass through just fine.  You can run a wire between here and there and send current to the other side, and the wire produces electrical phenomena just as it would here.  You can pass an electromagnet through a Far Side door, and the electromagnet works on both sides -- although you’d never know it from measuring field strength on just one side as it goes from place to place.

“We have discovered by observation that the Far Side door to Arvala is moving in relation to Arvala, but not in relation to the fusor location here.  We’re not sure why, but it’s moving about a millimeter every two weeks, in the direction of the fusor.  We do not have any idea of how much displacement is too much, although things will get interesting in four years, when the interface will start intersecting the cave wall.

“Our best guess is that this is a quantum effect of some sort.  The theory that best explains what’s happening is that the fusor creates a quantum entanglement between the two locations.  What that means is anyone’s guess.  We need to open a number of Far Side doors that we can do empirical experiments with.  Which, as things stand now, isn’t possible.  Andie, your turn.”

Andie was blunt.  “Some of you may have noticed that I’ve cleaned up my language.  Trust me; the same old Andie is still inside my brain, humming away, working on problems.

“Kris talks about taking fusors into space.  That’s a crock.  Well, it’s a crock in the short term.   The International Space Station has cost tens of billions of dollars, and it was constructed in an orbit that’s too low, really.  It might be possible to move it, I suppose, but the fact remains that it would be both a) difficult, and b) impossibly expensive, because the Space Shuttle can’t reach a high orbit... and now the Shuttle has been retired.

“I have another way.  It involves a tad more risk, but I think the risk is manageable.

“I realize that the Star Gate TV series is fiction.  That said, they did spend a few minutes on problem-solving as it applied to their universe.  When they found that things might come through the Star Gate that they didn’t want coming through, they built an ‘iris’ that they could open and close to keep the planet safe.

“I have asked Linda and some others to research such a device.  We can build our own ‘Far Side door door.’”

Kris snickered and some of the others around the table grinned.

“We build it of tungsten carbide and insert it in a Far Side door so that it’s half way through.  We have holes in it that we can open so that we can push probes or cameras through.  Small sizes, some holes maybe a half inch in diameter.  We get gas samples, we take temperature and gravity readings -- we measure things like radiation as well.  Once we can be reasonably sure that we can’t see anything dangerous, we can open larger holes and send more sophisticated instruments through.

“We would have the door wired so that if it was subjected to intense heat or radiation, we could instantly turn off the fusor.  The risk at that point would be an event on the other side that could impact this side.  To be blunt, a nuclear weapon detonated on the other side of such a Far Side door would have the potential to come through to this side.  None of the radiation, but hot gasses and blast effects would be able to come through.  We’ve looked at it, and we think only about ten percent of such an explosion could ‘leak’ through to this side.”  She grinned.  “Whoever set off the bomb would get the other ninety percent on their side.  It might make them more amenable to discussion.”

“Obviously ten percent of a multi-megaton explosion is still a serious problem.

“So, I have my own modest proposal.  We can put the fusor down deep, in a mine, thousands of feet underground.  We can have remote access and physical access if we need to.  We’ve exploded any number of nuclear weapons below ground, and while there have been some leaks, from a deep enough mine we can keep that to a minimum.

“The question is -- why would we want to take even than much risk?

“And my answer is the same as what motivated the characters in the TV series.  Other countries are going to do this; some with adequate safeguards and some without.  We can’t afford not to have our own program of exploration.  We have no idea how many Far Side doors have been opened so far...”

Jon Bullman interrupted her.  “The CIA has investigated a number of countries who are working on Far Side doors.  Chicago stalled a number of projects around the world.  France has put its program on hold.  However, before France, most countries of the world had fusor projects.  Andie is right -- the President has been casting around for a way to do this.  The mine idea is head and shoulders better than anything I’ve heard before.”

Kris spoke up.  “You do realize, Andie, that the first time you find an interesting place in your underground fusor lab, that you will have to stop working on any other Far Side doors there -- or risk losing your interesting place and anyone who is on the other side or working physically on site?  You will have a very expensive access to one planet.  But other than that, I don’t see anything wrong with your idea.”

Andie looked around the room.  “I could live with myself if I just had access to Arvala.  I don’t think the human race could live comfortably with itself if we had the ability to go to so many new and varied places -- but were too afraid to do so.”

“I’ll communicate this to the President as soon as we’re done here, Andie,” Jon Bullman told her.  “The new President realizes that he has a particularly difficult task.  The previous administration has left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.  The only reason it didn’t destroy the former President’s party is that the average person thinks a Republican would have done the same thing.

“I won’t get into the politics, but the President wants to stop the corruption that has been building in our government.  He will, I’m sure, welcome your idea as a possibility.”

“Thank you all for listening to me,” Andie said gravely.

“My turn again?” General Briggs asked, and everyone laughed.

He started into his own proposal.

“It was my hope that Norwich could build a generation of leaders who could deal with Far Side doors.  So far, our best people have managed a string of goose-eggs; not because of anything they’ve done wrong -- they have, in fact, performed magnificently.  The problems appear to be intractable -- at the very least, they frequently don’t have happy outcomes for those involved.

“I can’t keep teaching failure to my cadets.  Miss Schulz, what I would like is to send a few cadets to Arvala.  Ideally they should be squired around, shown what’s there and returned.  Safely, I should hope.”