Nemesis

16. Hyperspace

Adelia was a pleasant Settlement, much more pleasant than Rotor had been.

Crile Fisher had now been on six Settlements other than Rotor and all had been more pleasant than Rotor. (Fisher paused momentarily to go over the list of names and sighed. There were seven, not six. He was losing track. Perhaps it was all getting to be too much for him.)

Whatever the number, Adelia was the most pleasant Settlement Crile had visited. Not perhaps physically. Rotor had been an older Settlement, one that had managed to work itself into an assembly of traditions, so to speak. There was an efficiency about it, a sense of each person knowing his place exactly, being satisfied with it, and working away at it successfully.

Of course, Tessa was here on Adelia - Tessa Anita Wendel. Crile had not pursued matters there yet, perhaps because Tanayama's characterization of him as irresistible to women had shaken him. However much it might have been meant as humor (or as sarcasm), it forced him, almost against his will, to go slowly. Producing a fiasco would seem doubly bad in the eyes of someone who believed him, however insincerely, to have a way with women.

It was two weeks after Fisher had settled himself into the Settlement before he managed to see her. It was always a source of wonder to him that on any Settlement one could always manage to arrange to get a view of anyone. Not all his experience had accustomed him to the smallness of a Settlement, to the fewness of its population, to the manner in which everyone knew everyone else in his or her social circle - everyone else - and almost everyone else outside that circle, too.

When he did see her, however, Tessa Wendel turned out to be rather impressive. Tanayama's description of her as middle-aged and as twice-divorced - the quirk of his aged lips as he said so, as though he were knowingly setting Fisher an unpleasant task - had built a picture in Fisher's mind of a harsh woman, hard-faced, with a nervous twitch, perhaps, and an attitude toward men that was either cynical or hungry.

Tessa did not seem at all like this from the moderate distance at which he first saw her. She was almost as tall as he was and brunette, with her hair sleeked down. She looked quite alert and she smiled easily - he could tell that. Her clothes were refreshingly simple, as though she went out of her way to eschew ornament. She had kept herself slim and her figure was still surprisingly youthful.

Fisher found himself wondering why she was twice-divorced. He was ready to assume that she had tired of the men, rather than the other way around, even though common sense told him that incompatibility could strike against all odds.

It was necessary to be at some social function at which she would also be present. His being an Earthman interposed a small difficulty, but there were people on every Settlement who were, to some extent or other, in Earth's pay. One of them would surely see to it that Fisher would be ‘launched’, to use the term most Settlements applied to the ritual.

The time came, then, when he and Wendel were facing each other and she gazed at him thoughtfully, her eyes making a slow sweep downward, then upward again, followed by the inevitable, ‘You're from Earth, aren't you, Mr Fisher.’

‘Yes, I am, Dr Wendel. And I regret that exceedingly - if it offends you.’

‘It doesn't offend me. I presume you've been decontaminated.’

‘Indeed. To death, just about.’

‘And why have you dared the decontamination process in order to come here?’

And Fisher said, without staring at her too directly, but keen to detect the effect, ‘Because I was told that Adelian women were particularly beautiful.’

‘And now, I suppose, you will go back and deny the rumor.’

‘On the contrary, it has just been confirmed.’

She said, ‘You're a fetcher, you know that?’

Fisher didn't know what a ‘fetcher’ was in Adelian slang, but Wendel was smiling, and Fisher decided the first exchange had gone well.

Was it because he was irresistible? He suddenly remembered that he had never tried to be irresistible to Eugenia. He had merely wanted a way of being launched into the difficult Rotorian society.

The Adelian society was not so difficult, Fisher decided, but he had better not belabor his irresistibility.

Yet to himself, he smiled sadly.

A month later, Fisher and Wendel were sufficiently at ease with each other to spend some time together in a low-G gym. Fisher had almost enjoyed the workout - but only almost, because he had never grown sufficiently acclimated to gymnastics at low-G to avoid a certain amount of space sickness. On Rotor, there had been less attention to such things, and he had usually been excluded from them because he was not a native Rotorian. (That was not legal, but custom often has a habit of being stronger than legality.)

They took an elevator to a higher-G level, and Fisher felt his stomach settling down. Both he and Wendel were wearing a minimum of clothing, and he had the feeling that she was as aware of his body as he was of hers.

After their showers, they had both robed and retired to one of the Privacies, where they could order a small meal.

Wendel said, ‘You're not bad at low-G for an Earth-man, Crile. Are you enjoying yourself on Adelia?’

‘You know I am, Tessa. An Earthman can never get entirely used to a small world, but your presence would overbalance a great many disadvantages.’

‘Yes. That's exactly what a fetcher would say. How does Adelia compare to Rotor?’

‘To Rotor?’

‘Or to the other Settlements you've been on? I can name them all, Crile.’

Fisher felt discomfited. ‘What did you do? Investigate me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Am I that interesting?’

‘I find anyone interesting who is clearly going out of his way to be interested in me. I want to know why. Excluding the possibility of sex, of course. That's taken as a given.’

‘Why am I interested in you, then?’

‘Suppose you tell me. Why were you on Rotor? You were there long enough to get married and have a child and then you got off in a hurry before it scooted away. Were you afraid of being stuck on Rotor all your life? Didn't you like it there?’

Fisher had gone from feeling discomfited to feeling harassed. He said, ‘Actually, I didn't like Rotor very much because they didn't like me - Earthmen, that is. And you're right. I didn't want to be stuck there as a second-class citizen all my life. Other Settlements are easier on us. Adelia is.’

‘Rotor had a secret, though, that it was trying to keep from Earth, didn't it?’ Wendel's eyes seemed to glitter with amusement.

‘A secret? You mean, I suppose, hyper-assistance.’

‘Yes, I suppose that is what I mean. And I suppose that that was what you were after.’

‘I?’

‘Yes, of course you. Did you get it? I mean, that's why you married a Rotorian scientist, wasn't it?’ She rested her face on her two fists, elbows on the table, and leaned toward him.

Fisher shook his head, and said guardedly, ‘She never said a word to me about hyper-assistance. You're all wrong about me.’

Wendel ignored his remark, and said, ‘And now you want to get it from me. How do you plan to do that? Are you going to marry me?’

‘Would I get it from you if I married you?’

‘No.’

‘Then marriage seems to be out of the question, doesn't it?’

‘Too bad,’ said Wendel, smiling.

Fisher said, ‘Are you asking me these questions because you're a hyperspatialist?’

‘Where were you told that that was what I was? Back on Earth, before you came here?’

‘You're listed in the Adelian Roster.’

‘Ah, you've investigated me, too. What a curious pair we are. Did you notice that I was listed as a theoretical physicist?’

‘It also lists your papers, and when quite a few of the titles have the word “hyperspatial”, it makes you sound like a hyperspatialist to me.’

‘Yes, but I'm a theoretical physicist just the same, so I approach the whole matter of hyperspatialism in a theoretical way. I've never tried to put it into practice.’

‘But Rotor did. Did that bother you? I wonder. After all, someone on Rotor got ahead of you.’

‘Why should it bother me? The theory is interesting, but the application isn't. If you were to read more of my papers than the titles, you would discover that I say, quite flatly, that hyper-assistance isn't worth the effort.’

‘Rotorians were able to get a vessel far into space and studied the stars.’

‘You're talking about the Far Probe. That enabled Rotor to get parallax measurements for a number of comparatively distant stars, but is that worth the expense they went to? How far did the Far Probe go? Just a few light-months. That's not really very far. As far as the Galaxy is concerned, the Far Probe's extreme position and that of Earth and the imaginary line that can be drawn between them all amounts to a point in space.’

‘They did more than send out the Far Probe,’ said Fisher. ‘The entire Settlement left.’

‘They certainly did. That was in '22, so they've been gone six years now. And all we know is that they left.’

‘Isn't that enough?’

‘Of course not. Where did they go? Are they still alive? Can they still be alive? Human beings have never been isolated on a Settlement. They have always had Earth in the vicinity, and other Settlements, too. Can a few tens of thousands of human beings survive, alone in the Universe, on a small Settlement? We have no idea if that is a psychological possibility. My guess is that it isn't.’

‘I imagine their purpose would be to find a world they could live on. They wouldn't remain on a Settlement.’

‘Come, what world will they find? They've been gone six years. There are exactly two stars they could have reached by now since hyper-assistance can only move them at an average speed equal to that of light. That's Alpha Centauri, a three-star system, four-point-three light-years away, one of the three being a red dwarf. Then there's Barnard's star, a single red dwarf, five-point-nine light-years away. Four stars: a Sun-like star, a near-Sun-like star, and two red dwarfs. The two Sun-likes are part of a moderately close binary and therefore unlikely to have an Earth-like planet in stable orbit. Where do they go next? They won't make it, Crile. I'm sorry. I know that your wife and child were on Rotor, but they won't make it.’

Fisher kept calm. He knew something she didn't. He knew about the Neighbor Star - but that was a red dwarf, too.

He said, ‘Then you think that interstellar flight is impossible?’

‘In a practical sense, yes, if hyper-assistance is all there is.’

Fisher said, ‘You make it sound as though hyper-assistance isn't all there is, Tessa.’

‘It may be all there is. It wasn't long ago when we thought that even that much was impossible and to go further yet-Still, we can at least dream of true hyperspatial flight and true superluminal velocities. If we could go as quickly as we wished for as long as we wished, then the Galaxy, perhaps the Universe, would become one large Solar System, so to speak, and we could have it all.’

‘That's a nice dream, but is it possible?’

‘We've had three All-Settlement Conferences on the matter since Rotor's flight.’

‘Just All-Settlement? What about Earth?’

‘There were Earth observers present, but Earth is not a physicists' paradise these days.’

‘What conclusions did the conference reach?’

Wendel smiled. ‘You're not a physicist.’

‘Leave out the hard parts. I'm curious.’

She merely smiled at him.

Fisher clenched his fist on the table before him. ‘Forget this theory of yours that I'm some sort of secret agent after your information. I have a child out there somewhere, Tessa. You say she's probably dead. What if she's alive? Is there a chance-’

Wendel's smile disappeared. ‘I'm sorry. I did not think of that. But be practical. Finding a Settlement somewhere in a volume of space that is represented by a sphere that, at the present time, is six light-years in radius and is growing ever larger with time is an impossible task. It took us over a century to find the tenth planet, and that was enormously larger than Rotor and a much smaller volume of space had to be combed.’

Fisher said, ‘Hope springs eternal. Is true hyperspatial flight possible? You can say yes or no.’

‘Most say no - if you want the truth. There may be a few who say they can't say, but they tend to mumble.’

‘Does anyone say yes right out loud?’

‘One person that I know of does. I do.’

‘You think it's possible?’ said Fisher with an astonishment he did not have to fake. ‘Do you say that openly, or is it something you tell yourself in the dark of the night?’

‘I've published on the subject. One of those articles you only read the title of. No-one dares agree with me, of course, and I've been wrong before, but I think I'm right now.’

‘Why do the others all think you're wrong?’

‘That's the hard part. It's a matter of interpretation. Hyper-assistance on the Rotorian model, the techniques of which are by now understood in the Settlements generally, by the way, depends on the fact that the product of the ratio of ship speed to light speed, multiplied by time, is a constant, where the ratio of ship speed to light speed is greater than one.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That means that when you go faster than light, the faster you go, the shorter the time you can maintain the speed, and the longer the time you must go more slowly than light before you can get a boost over it again. The result is that, in the end, your average speed over a particular distance is no greater than the speed of light.’

‘Well?’

‘That makes it sound as though the uncertainty principle is involved, and the uncertainty principle, all of us are convinced, can't be fooled with. If the uncertainty principle is involved, then true hyperspatial flight would seem to be theoretically impossible, and most physicists have come down on that side of the argument, while the rest of them waffle. My view, however, is that what's involved merely seems like the uncertainty principle but isn't, and that true hyperspatial flight is, therefore, not eliminated.’

‘Can the matter be settled?’

‘Probably not,’ said Wendel, shaking her head. ‘The Settlements are definitely not interested in wandering off with mere hyper-assistance. No-one is going to repeat the Rotorian experiment and voyage for years to probable death. On the other hand, neither is any Settlement going to invest an incredible amount of money, resources and effort in order to try to work out a technique that the vast majority of experts in the field are convinced is theoretically impossible.’

Fisher leaned forward, ‘Doesn't that bother you?’

‘Of course it bothers me. I'm a physicist and I'd like to prove that my view of the Universe is the correct one. However, I've got to accept the limits of the possible. It will take enormous sums and the Settlements will give me nothing.’

‘But, Tessa, even if the Settlements are not interested, Earth is - and to any amount.’

‘Really?’ Tessa smiled in what seemed mild amusement and she reached out to stroke Fisher's hair, slowly and sensually. ‘I thought we'd get to Earth eventually.’

Fisher seized Wendel's wrist and gently drew her hand away from his head. He said, ‘You've been telling me the truth about your opinions of hyperspatial flight, haven't you?’

‘Completely.’

He said, ‘Then Earth wants you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Earth wants hyperspatial flight, and you're the one important physicist who thinks it can be done.’

‘If you knew that, Crile, why the cross-examination?’

‘I didn't know it until you told me so. The only information I had been given was that you were the most brilliant physicist alive today.’

‘Oh, I am, I am,’ said Wendel mockingly. ‘And you were sent to get me?’

‘I was sent to persuade you.’

‘Persuade me to do what? To come to Earth? Overcrowded, filthy, impoverished, wracked by uncontrolled weather. What an enticing thought.’

‘Listen to me, Tessa. Earth is not all of a piece. It may have all those faults, but there are parts that are beautiful and peaceful and that is all you would see. You don't really know what Earth is like. You've never been there, have you?’

‘Never. I'm Adelian, born and bred. I have been to other Settlements, but I've never been to Earth, thank you.’

‘Then you can't know what Earth is like. You can't know what a large world is. A real world. You live here enclosed, in a toy box, with a few square kilometers of surface, with a handful of people. You're living in a miniature that you've used up long ago and that has nothing more to offer you. Earth, on the other hand, is over six hundred million square kilometers of surface. It is eight billion human beings. It is infinite variety - lots of it very bad, but lots of it very good.’

‘And all of it very poor. And you have no science.’

‘Because scientists - and with them science - have moved out to the Settlements. That's why we need you and others. Come back to Earth.’

‘I still don't see why.’

‘Because we have goals, ambitions, desires. The Settlements have only self-satisfaction.’

‘What good are all those goals and ambitions and desires? Physics is an expensive pursuit.’

‘And Earth's per capita wealth is low, I admit it. Individually, we are poor, but eight billion people, each contributing something out of poverty, can amass a vast sum. Our resources, misused as they are and have been, are still enormous, and we can find more money and more labor than all the Settlements together - if it is for something we feel an absolute need. I assure you that Earth feels an absolute need for hyperspatial flight. Come to Earth, Tessa, and you will be treated as that rarest of resources, a brilliant brain we must have - and the one thing we can't supply on our own.’

Wendel said, ‘I'm not at all sure that Adelia would be willing to let me go. It may be a self-satisfied Settlement, but it knows the value of brains, too.’

‘They can't object to your attending a scientific meeting on Earth.’

‘And once there, you mean, I needn't return?’

‘You will have no complaint with regard to treatment. You will be more comfortable there than you are here. Your every desire, your every wish- More than that, you can head the hyperspatial project and you will have an unlimited budget to devise tests of any kind, run experiments, make observations-’

‘Well! What a princely bribe you offer me!’

Fisher said earnestly, ‘Is there anything more you can ask for?’

‘I wonder,’ said Wendel. ‘Why were you sent? An attractive man like you? Were they expecting you to bring back an elderly female physicist - susceptible - frustrated - drawn by your body like a fish by a hook?’

‘I don't know what was in the mind of those who sent me, Tessa, but that was not in my mind. Not after one look at you. You are not elderly, as you well know. I don't for a minute believe that you are either susceptible or frustrated. Earth is offering you a physicist's dream. That has nothing to do with whether you are male or female, elderly or youthful.’

‘What a shame! Suppose I proved recalcitrant and didn't wish to go to Earth? What were you to do as a last measure of persuasion? Suppress your distaste for the process and make love to me?’

Wendel crossed her arms over her magnificent breasts and looked at him quizzically.

Fisher said carefully, choosing his words, ‘Again, I cannot say what was in the mind of those who sent me. Making love was not part of my explicit instructions, nor was it part of my intentions, though if it had been, I assure you that I would feel no distaste at the prospect. I felt, however, that you would see the advantages from a physicist's point of view and I would not denigrate you by supposing that you would need anything more.’

‘How wrong you are,’ said Wendel. ‘I see the advantages from a physicist's point of view, and I am anxious to accept the offer and to pursue the butterfly of hyperspatial flight down the corridors of the possible - but I do not wish to give up your best efforts at persuasion either. I want it all.’

‘But-’

‘In short, if you want me, you must pay me. Persuade me as though I were recalcitrant, as best as ever you can, or I won't go to Earth. Come, why do you suppose we are here in a Privacy? What do you think Privacies are for? Once we have exercised, showered, eaten a bit, drank a little, conversed, experienced some pleasure in all these things, there is opportunity to experience others. I insist. Persuade me to come to Earth.’

And at the touch of her finger, the light within the Privacy dimmed seductively.