Starburst

12

KNEFHAUSEN LIFTED HIS HEAD FROM THE LITTER OF PAPERS on his desk. He rubbed his eyes, sighing. He had given up smoking loyally at the same time as the President, but, like the President, he had taken it up again. It could kill you, yes. But it was a tension reducer, and he needed that. And what was wrong with something killing you? There were worse things than being killed, he thought as he lit his twenty-fifth cigarette of the day.

Looking at it any way you could, he told himself objec­tively, the past two or three years had been hard on him. It was wrong that this should be so. They should have been his very best! And indeed they had started so well, before they went so bad. Not as bad as those distant memories of childhood when everybody was so poor and Berlin was so cold and what warm clothes he had came from the Winterhilfe. By no means as hard as the end of the war. Nothing like as bad as those first years in South America, and then in the Middle East, in the time when even the lucky and famous ones, the von Brauns and the Ehrickes, were having trouble getting what was due them and a young calf like Knefhausen had to peel potatoes and run elevators to live. But harder and worse, surely, than a man at the summit of what one could not deny was a glorious career had any reason to expect.

And so unfairl The Alpha-Aleph project, fundamentally, was sound! He ground his teeth, thinking about it. It would work—no, by the Lord God, it was working, and it would make the world a different place. Future genera­tions would see!

But the future generations were not here yet, and in the present things were going not so well.

Reminded, he picked up the phone and buzzed his secretary. "Have you got through to the President yet?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Knefhausen. I've tried every ten minutes, just as you said."

"Ah," he grunted. "Yes, I see. No, wait. What calls have there been?"

Rustle of paper. "The news services, of course, asking about the rumors again. The man from CBS."

"No, no, I will not talk to press. Anyone else?"

"Senator Copley called, asking when you were going to answer the list of questions his committee sent you."

"I will give him an answer. I will give him the answer Gotz von Berlichingen gave to the Bishop of Bamberg."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Knefhausen, I didn't quite catch—"

"It does not matter. Anything else?"

"Just a long-distance call, from a Mr. Hauptmann. I have his number."

"Hauptmann?" The name was puzzlingly familiar. After a moment Knefhausen placed it. To be sure, the radio astronomer who had cooperated in the faked pictures from Briareus Twelve. Well, he had his orders to stay out of sight in Alabama and shut up. "No, that is not important. None of them are, and I do not wish to be disturbed for such nonsense. Continue as you were, Mrs. Ambrose. If the President is reached you are to put me on at once, but no other calls."

He hung up and returned to his desk.

He looked sadly and fondly at the papers. He had them all out of the locked file. The reports from the Constitution. His own messages to them, including the one in which he had confessed everything .and begged them to continue— without, confound them, even a response. His drafts of interpretation and comment, and more than a hundred footnoted items compiled by CapCom, his own staff, and half a dozen other agencies of government, to help untangle the meanings and implications of those ah, so cryptic sometimes! reports from space:

"Henle. Apparently refers to Paul Henle (note appended); probably the citation intended is his statement, There are certain symbolisms in which certain things cannot be said.' Conjecture that what is meant is that the English language is one of those symbolisms.

"Orange sherbet sundae. A classified experimental study was made of the material in Document Ref. No. CON-130, Para. 4. Chemical analysis and experimental testing have indicated that the recommended mixture of pharmaceuticals and other ingredients produce a hallucinogen-related substance of considerable strength and not wholly known properties. 100 subjects ingested the product or a placebo in a double-blind controlled test. Subjects receiving the actual substance report reactions significantly different from the placebo. Effects reported include feelings of immense competence and deepened understanding, as well as euphoria and sexual stimulation. However, data is entirely subjective. Attempts were made to verify claims by standard IQ, manipulative, and other tests, but the subjects did not cooperate well, and several have since absented themselves without leave from the testing establishment.

"Godelized language. A system of encoding any message of any kind as a single very large number. The message is first written out in clear language and then encoded as a product of prime bases and exponents. Each letter of the message is represented in order by the natural order of prime numbers—that is, the first letter is represented by the base 2, the second by the base 3, the third by the base 5, then by 7, 11, 13, 17, etc. The identity of the letter occupy­ing that position in the message is given by the exponent, simply: the exponent 1 meaning that the letter in that position is an A, the exponent 2 meaning that it is a B, 3 a C, 4 a D, up to 26 as the exponent for a Z. The message as a whole is then rendered as the product of all the bases and exponents. Examples. The word 'cab' can thus be represented as 2³ X3¹ X 5², or 600. (=8x3x25.) The name 'Abe' would be represented by the number 56,250, or 2¹ X 3² X 5⁵. (=2x9x3125.) A sentence like 'John lives.' would be represented by the product of the following terms: 2¹⁰ X 3^1S X5⁸ X 7" x 11° X 1312 X 17« X 1922 X 235 x 29« X 31²? (in which the exponent 0 has been reserved for a space and the exponent 27 has been arbitrarily assigned to indicated a full stop). As can be seen, the Godelized form of even a very short message involves a large number, although such numbers may be transmitted quite compactly in the form of a sum of bases and exponents. The quantity of information in the example transmitted by the crew of the Constitution is estimated to exceed that contained in a standard encyclopedia; no upward limit has yet been assigned.

"Farsight. The subject James Madison Barstow is known to have suffered from some nearsightedness in his early school years, apparently brought on by excessive reading, which he attempted to cure through eye exercises similar to the 'Bates method' (note appended). His vision at time of testing for the Alpha-Aleph project was optimal. Interviews with former associates indicate his continuing interest in increased visual acuity. Alternative explanation. There is some indication that the subject was also interested in paranormal phenomena, such as clairvoyance or prevision, and it is possible, though at present deemed unlikely, that his use of the term refers to 'looking ahead' in time."

And so on, and on.

Knefhausen gazed at the litter of papers lovingly and hopelessly, and passed his hand over his forehead. These kids! They were so marvelous . . . but so unruly . . . and so hard to understand. How wicked of them to have concealed their true accomplishments. The secret of hydrogen fusion! That alone would justify, more than justify, the entire project. But where was it? Locked in that number-­jumber gibberish! Knefhausen was not without appreciation of the elegance of the method. He, too, was capable of taking seriously a device of such luminous simplicity. Once the number was written out you had only to start by dividing it by 2 as many times as possible, and the number of times would give you the first letter. Then divide by the next prime, 3, and that number of times would give you the second letter. But the practical difficulties! The numbers became so quickly so large! Of course, they had at once started decrypting it. They were already up to such prime bases as 23,753 and now at each time the computers were taking longer and longer to print out a single character; soon it would be several minutes for each character, even hours, ultimately no doubt days! And what had they so far to show? A message of less than two thousand words in which this Flo Jackman was discussing chattily with herself where to begin! IBM's experts had undertaken to decrypt all of it, yes, to be sure, but would not commit themselves to a delivery time of less than twenty-five years. Twenty-five years. And meanwhile in that number was hidden probably the secret of hydrogen fusion (no doubt at the very end!), possibly many greater secrets, most certainly the key to Knefhausen's own well-being over the next few weeks. . . .

His phone rang.

He grabbed it and shouted into it at once: "Yes, Mr. President!"

He had been too quick. It was only his secretary. Her voice was shaking but determined.

"It's not the President, Dr. Knefhausen, but Senator Copley is on the wire and he says it is urgent. He says—"

"No!" shouted Knefhausen, and banged down the phone. He regretted the action even as he was doing it. Copley was very high, chairman of the Armed Forces Committee. He was not a man Knefhausen wished to have as an enemy, and he had indeed been very careful to make the Senator a friend over years of patient fence-building. But he could not speak to him, or to anyone else, while the President was not answering his calls. Copley's rank was high, but he was not in the direct hierarchical line over Knefhausen. When the top of that line refused to talk to him, Knefhausen was cut off from the world.

Fretfully Knefhausen pushed all these irritations aside and tried to concentrate on the daily state-of-the-nation briefing documents which, probably through some oversight, continued to reach him by guarded messenger every morning. The pressures on the President just now: They were enormous. It was not merely the Constitution matter which was troublesome, all the world was troublesome. The military position worsened every day, the cities were crippled with strikes, paralyzed by power blackouts and transportation breakdowns, and, always, each month the curve of violent crime and property damage writhed toward new highs. The world was on the point of explosion. And how terribly unfair! If only his project were allowed to come to its proper conclusion, what a new vista would open for all of mankind! But the President could not deal with all of this, and also with the terror of the cities, and also with the political conventions which were coming up. There was the need to get elected for a third term, and the need to get the law amended to make that possible. And was that possible with all these troubles? And if the President were not reelected, what?

And yes, Knefhausen admitted to himself, the worst political problem the President faced was the imminent loss of security on the Constitution. The rumors were growing. He had warned the President. It was unfortunate the President had not listened. He had said that a secret known to two people is compromised, and a secret known to more than two is no secret. But the President had insisted on disclosure to that ever-widening circle of high officials— sworn, of course, to secrecy, but what good was that?—and, of course, in spite of everything, there had been leaks. Fewer than one might have feared. More than one could stand.

It was terrible that the crew of the Constitution had discovered the deception so early, but that was bound to come. For the world to know it, that was a terribleness that threatened not only Knefhausen's position but also his very life! For what would become of him if the President withdrew even the limited protection he still enjoyed? A vagrant in the streets of the District of Columbia, a new convict in the seething hell of a federal prison?

He sighed, lit another cigarette, and touched the reports from the Constitution caressingly. Those beautiful kids! They could still make everything right, so wonderful . . .

Wonderful because it was he who had made them wonderful, he confessed to himself. He had invented the project. He had selected them as personnel from all the world. He had done things which he did not quite even yet reconcile himself to, to make sure that it was they and not some others who were on the crew. He had, above all, made assurance doubly sure by ensuring their loyalty in every way possible. Training. Discipline. Ties of affection and friendship— how many rock concerts he had sat through, with his teeth grinding while his face wore a sleepy smile, to make sure that they would regard him as a comrade! More reliable ties: loading their food supplies, their entertainment tapes, their programmed activities with every sort of advertising inducement, B-mod compulsion, psychological reinforcement he could invent or find, so that whatever else they did they would not fail to report back to Earth. Whatever else happened, there was that. Their reports were sparse and cryptic and even unwilling, but they still came. The data might be hard to untangle, but it would be there. For they could not help themselves! His commandments were stronger than God's; like Martin Luther, they must say Ich kann nicht anders, and come Pope or inquisition, they must stand by it. They would learn, and tell what they learned, and thus the investment would surely be repaid. . . .

The telephone!

He was talking before he had it even to his mouth. "Yes, yes! This is Dr. Knefhausen, yes!" he gabbled. Surely it must be the President now—

It was not.

"Knefhausen!" shouted the man on the other end. "Now, listen, I'll tell you what I told that bitch pig girl of yours, if I don't talk to you on the phone right now I'll have the Fourth Armored in there to arrest you and bring you to me in twenty minutes. So listen!"

Knefhausen recognized both the voice and die style. He drew a deep breath and forced himself to be calm. "Very well, Senator Copley," he said, "what is it?"

"The game is blown, boy! That's what it is! That boy of yours in Huntsville, what's his name, the astronomer, photographer, whatever—"

"Hauptmann?"

"That's him! Would you like to know where he is now, you dumb Kraut bastard?"

"Why, I suppose—I should think in Huntsville—"

"Wrong, boy! Your Kraut bastard friend claimed he didn't feel good and took some accrued sick time. Intelligence kept an eye on him up to a point, didn't stop him, wanted to see what he'd do. Well, they saw. They saw him leaving De Gaulle airport an hour ago in an Aeroflot plane. Put your big Kraut brain to work on that one, Knefhausen! He's defected. Now start figuring out what you're going to do about it, and it better be good!"

Knefhausen said something, he did not know what, and hung up the phone, he did not remember when. He stared glassily into space for a time.

Then he flicked the switch for his secretary and said, not listening to her stammering apologies, "That long-distance call that came from Hauptmann before, Mrs. Ambrose. You didn't say where it was from."

"It was an overseas call, Dr. Knefhausen. From Paris. You didn't give me a chance to—"

"Yes, yes. I understand. Thank you. Never mind." He hung up and sat back. He felt almost relieved. He had given Hauptmann a splendid position back on Earth with no duties, really, but what he chose for himself; it had not been enough. Very well. It was over. If Hauptmann had gone to Russia it could only be to tell them that the picture was faked and not only was there no planet for the astronauts to land on but it was not a mistake, even, actually a total fraud. So now it was all out of his hands. History would judge him now. The die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed.

So many literary allusions, he thought deprecatingly. Actually it was not the judgment of history that was immediately important but the judgment of certain real persons now alive and likely to respond badly. And they would judge him not so much by what might be or what should have been as by what was. He shivered in the chill of that judgment and reached for the telephone to try once more to call the President. But he was quite sure the President would not answer, then or ever again.