The Boy Who Would Live Forever

I

Being chef to thousands, does take time. Some of my special meal orders had been backing up while I was visiting with Thermocline, so my first job was getting out several hundred of them. There was a ceviche of Moreton Bay bugtails for an old lady nostalgic for Australia, some dried cod with leeks and milk for a couple of former Italians, and I hadn't filled Thermocline's order, either. I got busy on them all.

Over the next few seconds or so these orders of my clients kept me busy. I wasn't simply "kept" busy, either, because the demands of the Core's rapidly increasing populations of human immigrants, along with the much smaller but very discerning number of Heechee sophisticates, grew almost exponentially.

That, of course, didn't mean that I had forgotten what Thermocline had told me. I can't pretend that I was actually preparing threat estimates and making contingency plans. I wish I could, but in fact I was giving the consideration of Thermocline's information no more than ten percent of my capacity.

All the same, it was not a total surprise when a queer green flash appeared on all of my screens at once, along with the beginnings of a deep roaring sound.

I knew what that sound was. It was the beginning of what would have-

been a shrill, high-pitched squeal for the organics, downshifted for machine-stored persons to a basso-profundo rumble. It was, in fact, the Heechee alarm system doing its work.

There is no point in acting before you know what action is required. I went on with my work, but I took the precaution of turning a lot of the new ethnic requests over to my sous-chefs. African, for instance. There had been few Africans on the Wheel, and most of them preferred French cuisine or American hamburgers. Now we were asked for peanut lamb stew and the codfish in pureed tomato they called thu djen, along with the dessert thiaky and ginger root juice as a beverage. I had never made any of those meals before, but naturally the recipes were in my datastore. The subroutines could handle that, and if any of the fish dishes arrived filleted in spite of the fact that Africans preferred their fish on the bone, and if all the rice grains hadn't been properly broken up before cooking, they would simply have to live with it.

The opening siren of the Heechee warning had just descended to the neighborhood of middle C—for the organics, that is; for us now a sub-audible thump-thump-thump—when abruptly all of my screens at once began showing the same picture. It was what I took to be a satellite of some kind—there was a big gas giant in the background. I had just time to wonder why this quite ordinary scene was being displayed when suddenly it changed. The satellite wasn't a satellite anymore. It was a cloud, rapidly expanding. Why or how I could not have said, but it was clearly the total disruption of that chunk of featureless rock.

So I was not surprised when my private communicator called to me in Thermocline's voice. "Please join with me as soon as possible for a conference. Serious events have occurred."

II

Thermocline had changed his surround quite a lot since I had seen it last. Most of the half-dozen or so assorted chairs and perches that now furnished it were already occupied. There was Thermocline himself, looking completely unflustered although the thump-thump was still going on. Next to him was a female Heechee I had never seen before, then a human male (of course, I'm talking about simulations in every case; no organics were present.) I hadn't met the human male, either, but I knew who he was. His name was Sigfrid von Shrink, and he was a subset of the Robinette Broadhead shipmind who was known as Albert Einstein. Next to von Shrink was Gelle-Klara Moynlin's shipmind, Hypatia of Alexandria. Then, as I watched, an older human woman unknown to me popped into existence and took a seat, giving a nod to Hypatia.

She was evidently the last one expected, because then Thermocline said, "I thank you all for coming. I presume that all of you know who Wan Enrique Santos-Smith is, and also that you have all heard the accelerated version of his organic-time communication—" as we certainly had, and in fact were still hearing, at low volume, the organic-time drone as a background sound in Thermocline's surround. "He had transmitted it to the Stored Minds, in electronic-time mode, which is what was forwarded to you."

His lookplates were still cycling their alarm colors while the continuing thud-thud of the organic-time message had dropped still more in frequency. Just then the nearest of the screens erased its alarm colors. As the murky colors on the plate paled, a human face looked out at us.

I had seen Wan only once, long ago, but there was no doubt that the face on the screen was his. Improvements had been made, however. Now that he was no longer organic his skin was less sallow, his hair less wild. But the sneer was the same.

As Wan was finishing his threats, Hypatia was on her feet. "Thermocline! What the hell is he talking about? Do you guys have some kind of weapon you didn't tell us about?"

I will say for Thermocline that he kept his temper. He let Hypatia go on for quite a while, and he just sat there and took it. The thing that struck me as curious, though, was that Hypatia was the only person in the room reacting so violently. I had expected Sigfrid to chime in, but he didn't move and the look on his face was not so much angry as mournful.

Which told me that the news about the weapon hadn't surprised him at all. I tucked that fact away in my datastore, in case I ever needed to be reminded that Sigfrid von Shrink didn't usually put all his cards on the table.

Either Hypatia wore herself out, at last, or some sign from Sigfrid discouraged her from going on. Then Sigfrid was placatory. "Perhaps it would be better if we didn't try to assign blame at this time," he suggested. "But let me clarify a point, Thermocline. Am I correct in believing that you and the Stored Minds regard this as a serious threat?"

Thermocline looked judicious. "We do," he said.

"The word Wan used was 'explode.' He didn't simply mean to fire some sort of bomb at the star, did he?"

"Of course not. What the device does is nullify gravity. With no gravitational attraction to hold it together, the star will fly apart.... Hypatia?"

She was leaning forward, ready to speak again though not, this time, with reproachful invective. "I asked Dr. Ibarruru here just to help us understand things like this; she's an astronomer and astrophysicist. Dr. Ibarruru? Can you tell us if such a thing could happen?"

The striking elderly woman did not hesitate. "Given a device such as Thermocline describes, certainly. The star will expand at a major fraction of the speed of light. In a very short time it will become a cloud of gas."

Thermocline looked disgruntled. "This human person may well have studied astronomy, but what can she tell us about matters here in the Core?"

Hypatia gave him a hostile smirk. "Everything, Thermocline. Shortly after coming here she became machine-stored, and has been studying the Core stars ever since. Also—you probably should be informed of this— she is an old friend of Klara's. They worked together in studying a certain supernova, and Klara has complete confidence in her." She nodded as though that settled the matter, and perhaps it did.

Not for Thermocline, though. He seemed faintly put out. "I am sure this human woman is well qualified," he said, not sounding sure at all, "but I also have asked an astronomical expert to join us here. Burnish? Do you concur?"

The other male Heechee flipped his wrists in assent. "I do, Thermocline."

"And can you tell us what star Wan was talking about?"

"I think so. It's probably the one called Planetless Very Large White Very Hot Star. It's what Dr. Ibarruru—" he gave a polite nod in her direction "—would call a young type-O star. We only brought one like it into the Core."

"And is it dangerous?"

His expression answered that, but he made it explicit. "My best-case estimate is that the release of gravity on Planetless Very Large White Very Hot Star would cause the loss of between ten and forty-four million lives, with another thirty to two hundred million suffering injury, property loss or severe environmental damage. It could be even worse."

That's when I raised my hand. Hypatia looked at me, one eyebrow lifted inquiringly. "Marcus, do you have a question?"

"I do indeed. This star's name tells us that it has no planets. Why would decohering it harm any other system?"

Hypatia looked at the female human astronomer, who sighed. "There we get into stellar physics. You know, I am sure, that the fusion processes which light a star take place at its center. The energy produced there is in the form of photons, and they are not immediately released to space. A star's interior is quite dense. Each photon is reflected by matter many times on its way to the surface, where it can be radiated into space. The time it takes for this journey is of the order of a million years."

She went on talking, but I had stopped listening because her meaning was clear. A million years' worth of energy, released in a matter of minutes, perhaps seconds.

I stopped her. "Thank you," I said. "There is only one real other question. What we are going to do to prevent it?" I was looking at Thermocline.

He gave a serious nod of his squared-off head. "Nothing," he said.

III

Since I am a reasonable being, I didn't shout at him. I didn't have to; others were already doing so, especially Sigfrid and the astronomers, all of whom were telling him he was making a mistake. Perhaps that is why I was the one he turned to. "Yes, Marc?" he said courteously. "Did you have something you wished to say?"

"Of course I do, Thermocline. It's simple. We have to locate the spacecraft Wan's message came from and destroy it."

He raised his bony hand. "Please, Marc. The Stored Minds have in fact already triangulated the source of his transmission. Unfortunately there is no detectable ship at that point."

That was surprising. "That's impossible. At least there should be ship-wakes—I know sorting them out might be difficult, because they persist for long periods, but they should give some indication."

He was waving those long fingers at me again. "Also done, Marcus. There is no detectable shipwake that could represent a conventional spacecraft at that point."

"Ah," I said. When he used the word "conventional" he gave the answer. "Wan's machine-stored, so he doesn't require a full-sized ship. A messenger torpedo would do."

"Exactly, Marc," he said, all but beaming at me. "Accordingly, let me summarize. We can take no action to protect the protohumans as long as Wan's threat is viable. We can do nothing about Wan as long as we can't locate him, nor do we have any weapons to deal with him if we did—"

It was my turn to interrupt. "We don't need conventional weapons. We could simply ram his torpedo."

He gave me a reproving sigh. "But not without giving him plenty of time to carry out his threat. Which the Stored Minds have determined we cannot afford to do."

Hypatia had been silent for a long time. Now she spoke up. "Then what are you going to do, Thermocline?"

This time the reproachful look went to her. "But I have answered that already, Hypatia. The Stored Minds have announced their decision. We will allow Wan to abduct the primitives. After that there is no reason to fear. As the Stored Minds have informed us, no sentient being would commit a violent crime after his demands were met. So we need do nothing."

For most of the company, that ended the matter. Not for me. I said (but only to myself, not aloud), "Dear old friend Thermocline, you still don't know humans very well."