Dark as Day

30

Contrary to widespread opinion, Bat was not a misogynist. True, he did not enjoy the company of women, but neither did he care for that of men. He tolerated the presence of a select few humans; beyond that he saw no need to venture.

Nor was he unsympathetic to youth. His own adolescence had been a period of extreme trauma in which he felt at war with the rest of the universe, so he was sympathetic to anyone who had recently endured the same travail.

The glare with which he greeted the young woman who entered his cubicle therefore had nothing to do with gender or age. It was late at night, he was awaiting the arrival of Alex Ligon, and a closed door should be enough to guarantee privacy. In addition, he had been interrupted while pursuing a difficult and abstract line of thought on the SETI problem.

The intruder was saved from Bat’s righteous wrath not by anything she said, but by what she did. As she came in she stared at the brown crockpot. Her glance finally moved to the seated figure, but Bat had caught her expression long before that.

He recognized that look and sympathized with it. The new-comer was hungry, starved-wolf hungry. Such a need excused almost every form of improper behavior.

Moreover, its satisfaction must not be delayed by the conventional niceties of formal introduction. Bat waved a hand toward the food stand. “Bowls are on the lower rack. Help yourself. Eat, and enjoy.”

The woman nodded and grabbed the ladle, but she stared round-eyed at Bat as she filled a bowl with herb risotto. Thirty years of rude stares had accustomed him to such a reaction. He said, “When you have taken as much food as you want, I request that you leave. I am expecting a visitor, and you are greatly disturbing my work.”

The woman mumbled something unintelligible through a mouthful of hot rice, but rather than leaving she swallowed and said, “I’m sorry I came in without asking. Are you Megachirops — the Great Bat?”

“That is my name within the Puzzle Network. This section is dedicated to Puzzle Network activities. Others are not supposed to be here.”

Still she did not move, except to continue gobbling the result of Bat’s culinary labors so fast that he knew she could not possibly savor the delicate balance of flavors. Finally she paused between mouthfuls to say, “This tastes wonderful. It’s saving my life. My name is Milly Wu.”

“Of the Wu-Beston anomaly?” Her presence in the analysis center at last made sense.

“That’s right.”

“Then you have a message waiting for you. It came in a few minutes ago from the Argus Station at Jovian L-4. It contains a privacy tag, which means that it can only be read using a cubicle code.” Bat saw no reason to add that privacy tags were no challenge, he had read the message, and the sender had cagily offered no details except to request a return call. He went on, “But then is no cubicle set aside for Milly Wu, and no cubicle code.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I gave you my name but not my Puzzle Network name. I go by Atropos, and I’m in Cubicle Twelve.”

Few things in the System impressed Bat. When one did he took care not to let it show. This was Milly Wu, discoverer of the Wu-Beston anomaly. And she was Atropos, a journeyman triple champion in the Network. Such talent could be expelled from the room, but not precipitately.

He asked a polite question, expecting a negative answer. “You must have arrived only recently. Are you making progress in deciphering elements of the SETI signal?”

Her response made Bat feel that he had made an awful mistake. She crashed the bowl down half-empty on the stand and exclaimed, “Yes! Yes!”

Now she was going to stay and spout rubbish at him when he should be working. He became convinced of that as she babbled on. “I believe I’ve found something, an interpretation that I’ve not seen in any other analysis. I started work in Section Fourteen — you know the twenty-seven section mapping of the whole anomaly? Of course you do, you probably created it. Anyway, it’s the same place where I first noticed the existence of a signal, out at the Argus Station. But today I had the advantage of the interpretive suggestions that you and the others have made, so I was able to start with a knowledge of the integers and arithmetic operations. It took me forever — that’s why I blundered in here looking for something to eat — but finally I began to put a few pieces together.” She advanced to stand by his console. “Mind if I use your displays?”

Bat had not invited Milly Wu to talk about her work, nor did he now give approval for her to use the equipment in his cubicle. That did not stop her. She continued to speak, rapidly and intensely, and threw images on the screen at such a dizzying speed that for the first minute Bat was constantly about to interrupt and eject her. Then he found himself concentrating, just to keep up with the stream of information. After that, intellectual interest took over.

By the time that she delineated the signal sections that provided formulas for simple chemical compounds, Bat was persuaded. He nodded and said, “Yes, that result is new. And it is elegant.”

Bat employed his own vocabulary for describing the work of others. Interesting meant dull, fascinating indicated that the result possessed some minor interest, while remarkable was equivalent to Wolfgang Pauli’s, This theory is so bad it’s not even wrong. The word elegant, which he had just used, was reserved for cases where Bat was impressed.

There was visible proof of that fact, had Milly known how to read it. Just before she came into the room, Bat had filled a large bowl with peel-less, seedless oranges. He had intended to eat his way through them as he worked. When Milly concluded, the bowl sat cradled on his belly, ignored and still full.

Bat now took an orange, popped it whole into his mouth, and placed the bowl on the desk in front of him. It was logical to continue the discussion, pointing out to Milly how her work dove-tailed with some of his own thoughts on deciphering other elements of the signal; but other matters were going to intrude. Alex Ligon was already late, and although his message had been terse and guarded, it implied final results from Bengt Suomi and the Ligon Industries’ team of scientists.

Milly knew nothing of any of this. She read Bat’s scowl differently. She said, “Thank you for the food and thank you for listening,” and started toward the door.

“One moment.” Bat held up a pudgy hand. “I would like to pursue your ideas further, but in the near-term I am otherwise engaged. If you would be free to return…”

“Tomorrow?” Milly’s face showed mixed feelings of pleasure and disappointment. She had done something new — even elegant. Food and drink had restored her, so that she was in no mood for sleep. And she had a chance that might never be repeated, an opportunity to work one-on-one with a leading Master of the Puzzle Network.

But Bat was frowning and shaking his close-cropped round head. “I was not thinking of tomorrow. I had in mind, say, one hour from now. If you were to return then, my other meeting should be concluded.”

Milly nodded. “One hour. If you become free before then I will be in Cubicle Twelve.”

And she was gone.

Bat nodded approval. It was nice to deal with someone who knew how to make up her mind. Milly Wu’s results were indeed elegant. However, they added to a strange suspicion that had been stirring for days in the base of his brain.

Bat settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. He sensed that the world-lines were converging, and each one might require hard thought. It was one of those rare occasions when he envied Mord’s capability for parallel processing.

The waiting message was, as Milly had expected, from Jack Beston. She made sure that the cubicle door was closed, invoked her own code, and was met by Jack’s green-eyed glare. His excited tone matched his expression. “Milly, I’m delayed at L-4. I have no idea how long I must stay here. Call on a tight security circuit and insist on talking to me. I’ll explain.” Problems at Argus Station? But Jack sounded more pleased than alarmed. Milly asked for a secure line and waited impatiently as it was established. When the connection was completed, to her annoyance the face that appeared on the display was not Jack. It was Zetter, looking, as usual, ready to cook and eat her own grandmother. Except that now her thin face wore an expression of ill-disguised triumph.

“Yes?”

“I’m returning a call. I need to speak with the Ogre.”

“He is unavailable.”

“Station security can reach him at any time. You know that better than anyone. That’s you. I don’t think Jack Beston would like to hear that I tried to reach him, and you blocked my call.”

It was a power struggle, pure and simple, the kind of thing that Milly loathed. Zetter glared hatred out of the display, then vanished.

Milly watched the clock. In less than thirty seconds Jack’s face appeared.

He greeted her with, “Anyone with you?”

“I’m alone, in a secure environment.”

“Good. Let’s hope that the Bastard can’t tap into a secure line. I believe that this time he’s made a big mistake.”

“How?”

“He made a deal with the Puzzle Network when he didn’t need to. Milly, I have good news.” Jack glanced from side to side, as though even in his own station he worried about being overheard. “We’re starting to crack the signal. Not all the signal, of course, and only partial results where we have them at all. But Pat Tankard and Simon Bitters are making progress. The whole job will still take years, but we’re beating the Bastard. We’re moving ahead of him.”

“Are you sure? Do you have an information pipeline into Odin Station?”

“Not a reliable one. Zetter still has hopes, though.” Jack was frowning. “What’s your problem, Milly? I thought the news would make you ecstatic. We’ve always agreed that detection is good and verification is better, but until you have interpretation you’re not even halfway up the mountain.”

“I haven’t changed my mind. But Jack” — when had she started to call him Jack, rather than sir or Mr. Beston, or even the Ogre? — “it’s not happening only on Argus Station. The Puzzle Network group here is making progress, too. My guess is that your brother’s team is moving along just as quickly. All of us overestimated the difficulty of making some initial sense out of part of the signal.”

Jack’s scowl turned him back into his usual Ogre self. “Don’t kid yourself, Milly. The Bastard’s team are idiots, nothing but trained monkeys. If they have any results, it’s because they are taking them from the Puzzle Network. What has your group found so far?”

That was a tricky question. Milly was working for Jack Beston and the Argus Station, but she felt honor-bound to abide by the rules posted at the Puzzle Network: Nothing that we receive from Odin Station should be sent anywhere else. It may be shared internally, but must be treated as privileged information.

She could not be sure what information, other than the raw signal, the Puzzle Network had received from Philip Beston. Perhaps the fundamentals of signal partitions and the mathematical basics had originated at Odin Station. Milly didn’t share Jack’s wishful thinking that his brother had assembled a team of incompetents.

The one safe area was her own results. Bat had assured her that they were new, which meant they could not have originated in the Bastard’s analysis center.

She provided a quick review of what she had found. Jack’s frequent interruptions for clarification gave her a new appreciation for Megachirops. Her explanations to him had been a hurried and muddled first attempt, yet he had grasped methods and results without asking a single question. As she spoke she heard a loud bang on the door, which she ignored.

When she finished, Jack shook his head. “Interesting, but nothing at all like what we have. Not in the same part of the signal, not in the same area of knowledge. Remember we once talked of using the biological approach, coding the nucleotide bases of DNA?”

“We did. I was skeptical, because it would require that alien evolution follow the same biochemical pattern as ours. But I’ve seen the same suggestion of biological coding made here by a Puzzle Network Master.”

Milly felt a twinge of conscience as she said that — the final comment strayed beyond her own work — but she was reassured when Jack replied, “We’ve gone farther than a suggestion. Pat Tankard and Simon Bitters took some old work of Arnold Rudolph on quaternary codes. They applied it to a forty-million-bit chunk of signal between two sections that we feel sure are image format. The idea was to see if binary digit pairs might match nucleotide bases. Of course, there’s no way of knowing in advance which of the four nucleotide bases corresponds to any particular pair of binary numbers. So Tankard and Bitters took every possible combination of two zeroes and ones. For each case they scanned the whole signal section, looking to see if any recognizable sequence came up again and again. And it did. For one base-to-binary-pair assignment, a ten-letter sequence, GGGCAGGACG, cropped up again and again. It’s used in basic gene-swapping, and it’s present with slight variations in everything from bacteria to humans. This region of the SETI signal is riddled with it. Do you see what this means, Milly?”

She did, very clearly. “The aliens who sent the message are close to us in chemistry and structure. If we have the GACT code, we can look for and read out whole-organism genetic profiles.”

“You bet. And then we may be able to make them! We have the information to build alien life forms, not just learn about them. Now you see why I’m not on my way to Ganymede. We’re on a round-the-clock schedule here, and I’ve got to stay and keep everybody hustling.”

“Do you want me to come back?” Milly was excited, but a little hesitant. She did not share Jack’s total confidence in what the Argus Station crew had done. Every puzzle had an infinite number of wrong answers in addition to the single correct one.

“No. You’re making headway and there are plenty of problems to go round. I told you, all our work has been in one small part of the data, a small fraction of one percent of the whole signal that we’ve started to call the biology site. There must be others — math sites, physics sites, chemistry sites like the one you found, maybe even language sites.

“You stay there, Milly, we go all out — and we leave the Bastard standing!”

Jack vanished from the display, as much of a driven whirlwind as ever. Milly cut the connection before Zetter could reappear for another turf war. She sat down in the cubicle’s sole chair and stared at nothing.

No matter how you looked at it, the Argus Station team had accomplished something of great potential significance. Now the question arose, what was Milly going to do with the information? In principle, the only restriction on her was that she should not give Odin Station data to anyone, especially to Argus Station. What about the other way round? If she followed her natural instincts for open transfer of information, she would tell the Puzzle Network about the Argus Station results. That, in turn, would surely lead to Philip Beston finding out what his brother had accomplished.

But was that a bad thing? The potential gains for everyone were so great, everything from faster-than-light travel to vacuum energy to extended lifespan, it seemed criminal to lock away important results in secret boxes.

Milly made a decision. Her loyalty had to be to the human species, not to any single member or group. She headed along the corridor to Bat’s cubicle. He had said one hour, but in her current mental state time meant nothing. It might have been a full hour, or it could have been only ten minutes.

In any case, if he didn’t want her he could ask her to leave. She had lived through that once tonight already.

A worse situation would be if the expected visitor happened to still be there. Milly was willing to tell Bat about the Argus Station developments, but she could not make such an announcement to a stranger.

She came to Bat’s cubicle, stepped close, and placed her ear against the crack of the door.

Not a sound. Good.

This time at least she would knock.

Milly rapped on the hard plastic, swung the door open, and marched in.

Alex was late. He had been delayed, then delayed, then delayed again. The worst thing was, he couldn’t complain. He knew what was going on and he could even sympathize with it. He had been the cause of similar delays himself, many times. There was always the urge to perform one last test, check one more item of data, add another explanatory comment…

He hoped he didn’t look like Bengt Suomi when he was doing it. The chief scientist of Ligon Industries was dark-haired and dark-complexioned, an extremely tall man with a permanent stoop. He was supremely competent and supremely thorough, but his saturnine countenance suggested that he had never laughed in his whole life. Every result that he had approved for release to Bat appeared to cause him intestinal agony. Twice he had seemed ready to hand over the file, twice he had pulled it back and gone off to verify some small point with one of his staff.

The third time that he had appeared, Alex grabbed the file from Suomi’s hands, whipped up the associated data cube, and ran. He ignored the anxious cry “… but the units of the magnetic field…” that followed him out of the room.

Now he felt like the White Rabbit, scurrying along the endless warren of corridors and tunnels leading to the Puzzle Network’s Command Center. He was late, he was late, and it totally fit his ideas of Puzzle Network members that they had chosen a site on Ganymede that could be found only by negotiating a labyrinth. It had been easier to reach the Bat Cave on Pandora. One thing was certain, there must be an alternate route to this destination. The tunnels were in places so narrow that Bat would have to be greased and fired from a cannon to pass through them.

He was at least half an hour late. He had tried to call ahead on his wrist unit, and typical of Bat there had been no answer. Alex arrived at what should be the final door, hurried through, and found himself in a narrow deserted corridor. The floor was covered by a thick sound-deadening carpet. This was the place, it had to be because it fit Bat’s description — but where was Bat? Alex saw a dozen blue doors, every one closed.

That was all right. No one in his right mind would be here at this hour. That left Bat. Alex went along, banging on each door as he came to it until he heard a deep-voiced, “Yo? Enter.”

Alex’s first impression was of an unlit empty room. Bat, swaddled in black clothing and with a black hood around his head, formed a mound of darkness on a padded seat like the one he had occupied in the Bat Cave.

Alex decided to beat Bat to it. “I’m very late. I’m sorry, but there were last minute changes.”

“The time was not wasted.” Bat held out a hand. “The results, if you please. I assume that you have them?”

“I do, but I’m afraid that you will be disappointed. Bengt Suomi’s team performed two hundred and eighty-seven distinct tests on the nodules taken from Sebastian Birch’s body.” Alex gave Bat the data cube and the sheaf of papers. “I gather you’ve been over many of the early results already with Bengt Suomi. He found only one thing in these latest batch of tests that qualifies in his mind as inexplicable. He doubts that it is significant.”

The grunt could have been anything, disappointment or disagreement. Bat said only, “A judgment as to significance depends on what a person hopes or expects to find. I beg your indulgence while I examine these results in detail.”

Alex glanced at his watch. Bat might function well without sleep, but Alex didn’t. The discussions of predictive models went on and on, every day, and Mischa Glaub was a poor sleeper. He tended to call meetings at an early hour when he was in his worst mood and other people were groggy from low blood sugar and lack of caffeine. He admitted — even boasted — that this gave him a psychological advantage. Glaub had another session scheduled for tomorrow morning, which Alex and Kate were obliged to attend.

Alex said, “Let me tell you about the one thing they found that Bengt Suomi considers new and peculiar. It will save time.”

Bat raised a magisterial arm. “Just as likely, it will lead me to ignore other relevant information. Time spent in study is not wasted.” He reached forward and inserted the data cube. “They also serve who only stand and wait. I say again, please indulge me.”

Alex glanced around him. Bat’s oversized seat took up half the cubicle. The rest was displays, desk, control console, food stand, and a portable stove. The room offered no space for a second chair, in the unlikely event that Bat would have tolerated one.

Wait, maybe, but stand, no.

Alex settled on the floor, back against a wall and legs stretched out in front of him. From where he was sitting Bat rose up as solid and steady as a black mountain. Occasionally a sheet of paper was discarded from the sheaf and fluttered to the floor. Occasionally Alex saw the whites of Bat’s eyes, prominent in the coal-black face as they glanced from page to display and back.

Ten minutes passed, and the floor was littered with discarded sheets. Alex moved to a more comfortable position. As he did so he heard a grunt — concern, surprise? He looked up. Bat’s eyes had closed.

It was far into the night, but surely the man couldn’t have fallen asleep? Alex drew his legs in close to his body. He was starting to stand up when he heard a sound outside. The cubicle door opened. Its edge gave him a sharp blow on the right knee and the young woman who entered almost fell over him.

Alex scrambled to his feet and they stood staring at each other.

“Who—” the woman said.

“I have it!” The words that interrupted her came from Bat. He had emerged from his apparent stupor and was suddenly energized. “Bengt Suomi is right. It is curious indeed, and it provides the question if not the answer.”

Alex looked at the woman and said, “I’m Alex Ligon.” She said, “Milly Wu.”

Bat waved his arms at both of them. “No time for that now. This has enormous potential importance.”

The woman said, “What about work on the SETI signal?” and Alex knew why her name sounded familiar.

“For the moment that is superseded.” Bat turned to Alex. “Even now, we must be thorough. I am ready to hear a summary of what the Ligon team considered important in their tests.”

Alex hesitated and glanced at Milly Wu. She shook her head and said, “I don’t understand one word of this. You might as well go ahead.”

Alex considered his answer. Bat was a devil for precision. “They didn’t say they considered that anything was important. They reported that one test gave unusual results.”

“Exactly. An excellent answer. Continue.”

“Ninety-four tests involved the chemical properties of the spherical nodules.”

“A waste of time and effort. Any salient results would surely involve the nodules’ structure, which would be destroyed by chemical tests.”

“Bengt Suomi took very seriously your request that they supplement your list with suggestions of their own. You asked that the team perform as complete a range of tests as possible.”

Bat bowed his head. “I did indeed, and I stand corrected. Bengt Suomi was right to proceed as he did. Continue.”

“Suomi happened to agree with your conclusion — after he saw the results. The chemical tests gave nothing. Then there were the structural microscopic tests, concentrated on geometry and mechanical properties rather than physical or chemical ones. They confirmed that although the nodules appear superficially as perfect spheres, they have a distinctive microstructure. Each one contains tunnels running radially in toward the center. The tunnels are minute, though wide enough to permit the passage of gas molecules. The team could not imagine any physical effect that might depend on such a structure. Bengt Suomi describes that result as interesting, but not informative.”

“An admirably cautious statement.”

“The remaining tests involve physics. The nodules are stable over a wide range of temperatures, pressures, and fields. Radiation and particle bombardment affect them little, except for lattice dislocation effects at high energy levels. Electric and magnetic influences appear unimportant, even with intense fields. There was just one test result that no one could explain. The nodules act as a catalyst in inducing phase transitions of certain gases.”

Bat was nodding. “That is indeed the anomalous test result. Phase transitions, moreover, for gases which do not exist in free form within the human body.”

“Apparently. Suomi found that the catalytic effect was the strongest — the phase transition is almost instantaneous — for free hydrogen. The effect weakens rapidly for heavier gases.” Alex was tempted to add, all this effort, and you’re saying you agree exactly with Bengt Suomi’s conclusions?

But Bat was not looking at Alex or at Milly Wu. He was staring at the display, which showed a magnified view of one spherical nodule. The dark pupils of his eyes had dilated against their luminous whites. He said, very slowly, “So we have the results I requested, and they prompt but do not answer the key question: Why would anyone place such anomalous structures inside the body of Sebastian Birch — a place where those structures are unable to exercise the only effect of which they seem capable?”

The question had not been addressed to Milly Wu, but she said, “Maybe as a protection? Maybe the nodules absorb free gases that shouldn’t be there.”

“I think not. According to these results, the gases are not absorbed by the nodules. They merely induce an instantaneous phase change, from a gaseous to a far denser liquid form. Therefore…” Bat did not complete his sentence. He puffed out his fat cheeks, frowned, and turned to Alex. “Do you know the exact location of the research quarantine facility where Sebastian Birch is being held?”

“I can find out.” A call to Karolus would provide that information, but Alex was pretty sure his uncle would not want his name mentioned.

“Do so. And then I have another request. It is possible that I am overreacting, but I would like you to go to that facility and locate Sebastian Birch.”

“I don’t think they’ll let me in.”

“You underestimate the power of the Ligon name. It commands authority. Once you find Birch, remain with him. Do not permit him to leave your presence, even for a moment.” Bat rose, an imposing presence that filled the room. “I will explain this later, but go at once, and quickly. Do not leave the research complex. I will join you there as soon as possible. Before you leave, tell me: will the link on these pages allow me to contact Bengt Suomi at any time and place?”

“It ought to reach him wherever he is. But it’s the middle of the night.”

“I am not unaware of that fact.”

Milly said to Bat, “It sounds like your meeting with me is off.”

“No. It is, I hope, merely postponed. Go with Alex Ligon, and help him if help is needed. You and I can meet tomorrow — if there is a tomorrow.”

He turned to the communications unit, ignoring the other two as though they had already left.

As they headed away along darkened corridors, Milly said, “What’s this all about?”

“I don’t know.” Which was the exact truth, but Alex felt compelled to add, “Although I have no idea what’s going on, I do know one thing. Magrit Knudsen is way up in the Ganymede power structure, and she was Rustum Battachariya’s boss for over ten years. She says that although he often understates, or refuses to say anything at all, he never exaggerates. I think we ought to hurry.”