The Spheres of Heaven

23: EXPLANATIONS AND PROBLEMS

Bony had met Elke Siry less than an hour ago, but already he had formed his impressions. The scientist was naturally shy to the point of appearing antisocial — he could relate to that — yet she could not bear to sit by and hear wrong deductions being made from hard data. As a result, she had become the leader of the meeting.

General Dag Korin, who was already a known name to Bony, didn’t seem to mind. He acted almost as the blond scientist’s protector, encouraging her to speak and give her opinions. As a result the whole group had clustered around her and paid close attention to her words. The Angel sat with its roots deep in a great pot of dark soil dragged in by Chan Dalton and Deb Bisson from the garden of the Hero’s Return. The Pipe-Rilla hovered high above it, with Tinkers clustered around her lower part. The humans, except for Chan Dalton somewhat uneasy with the recently arrived aliens, sat well away from them.

“Most of us seem to have ideas as to what’s happened to us,” Elke was saying.

Wrong, thought Bony, most of us have no idea at all.

But he did not speak, and Elke Siry went on, “Before we start to speculate, let’s look at what we know for sure. Four different ships set out for the Geyser Swirl. Each one expected to emerge in open space — more than that, we saw no way that they could emerge to anything other than open space, because of the safeguards built into a Link transition.

“Each of us arrived in water, on a planetary surface. It should have been impossible but it happened, not once but four times. Beyond the planet, according to the observations of the two unmanned orbiters that we sent out, is a region of space that looks nothing like the Geyser Swirl. Instead of dust clouds and normal stars, we see strange dimly glowing circles. We assume that they are spheres of some kind, but note that this is an assumption. So far as real knowledge is concerned, they could be circles painted on the sky.”

Dag Korin said, “But—” then paused and shook his head.

“No, General, I don’t think they are, either.” On anyone else’s face the slight relaxation of Elke’s tight mouth would have been a smile. “I merely point out the difference between knowledge and assumption. What else do we know ? Well, we know that the gravity field of this planet is abnormally small for its size. So small, the interior must be made of something less dense than ordinary water. But if that were the case, the heavy-water ocean should have sunk toward the planetary center. So let’s call that a paradox, with no explanation.

“Also, we know from observations made by orbiters and by some of our party, that the primary star around which this planet revolves is a blue giant. We also know, again from the experience of some here, that there is life in this ocean. The bubble people are not only alive, they appear to be intelligent.

“These two facts together, the short life span of a blue giant star and the long time needed for living things to develop on a planet around it, give some of us problems. But those problems arise from our trust in our own scientific ideas. According to standard astrophysical theories, blue giant stars must run through their stellar lives very fast, in millions of years rather than billions. So Limbo can’t be more than a few tens of millions of years old, at most. But according to our biological theories, the development of life requires a much longer time scale. It needs at least hundreds of millions of years to evolve from its primordial forms, and maybe billions of years to produce multicelled complex beings with intelligence. So we have two of our basic scientific theories, and they seem to be incompatible with each other.”

More than anyone else in the fire control room, Tully O’Toole seemed at ease with Elke Siry. He was sitting closest to her, and he rubbed at his stubbled chin and said, “I burned my brains with Paradox, and maybe that’s my problem. But I don’t get it. Two theories sound like one too many. Why should we believe in any?”

That produced an actual smile on Elke’s thin face. “I’m not saying we pick a theory at all at this point. I’m just listing the things we know, and the things we don’t know but tend to assume. Let me keep going, and see where it leads. We know, from direct chemical tests, that the liquid of the ocean into which we fell is water. But it’s not the form of water we’re most familiar with, H2O, which forms the bulk of the oceans of Earth and the water-ice of much of the rest of the solar system. This ocean is D2O, deuterium oxide or heavy water. Heavy water occurs naturally in the solar system, but it’s only one six-thousandth as common as ordinary water. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

She looked at the circle of faces. Dag Korin shrugged, and the others, taking their lead from Chan Dalton, shook their heads.

Elke said firmly, “Well, I do. And so should you. Deuterium is a stable alternate form of hydrogen, with a neutron in the nucleus as well as a proton. They don’t turn into each other. And the relative proportions of the amounts of each were defined in the first few minutes of the universe, soon after the Big Bang started the whole thing going. Now, I know what you’re going to say” — no one other than Elke showed signs of saying anything — “the Big Bang is a theory, too, and because it’s a theory we don’t know that the proportions of hydrogen to deuterium have to be fixed at six thousand to one. I can’t disagree with that, but I’ll say only this: if we’re going to throw the idea of the Big Bang overboard, we won’t have much left of current astrophysics and cosmology. I’m going to make the case for keeping the Big Bang, but before I do that I want to point out one other thing that we know.

“This one concerns times. The Angel pointed this out to me, so I can’t take credit for it. Let’s examine the dates when each of our four ships made the Link transition that was supposed to carry it to the Geyser Swirl. I don’t need to go into detail. It’s enough to say that it took time to decide to send another expedition when a previous one failed to come back. Months went by between the Link entry times of the Pipe-Rilla and Tinker expedition, the Angel expedition, and the first and second human expedition. These are known facts.”

Bony caught Liddy’s eye. No one was tactless enough to say that the efforts of the Mood Indigo had been undertaken without the approval or permission of the aliens of the Stellar Group, and also spectacularly unsuccessful. Friday’s failure to return strongly suggested that he and his ship had been destroyed in the storm.

“Now consider our arrival times, here on Limbo,” Elke said. “Again, we’re dealing with facts, and not theories. Our ships arrived in the correct sequence, corresponding to the order in which they made the Link transitions; but they arrived no more than a day or two after each other. Link transitions are supposed to be instantaneous. Again, that’s a theory, but it’s a theory supported by many thousands of cases, with no counterexamples to suggest anything different.”

Elke paused. “I think I’ve covered everything that’s relevant. Oh, no, one other thing, and again it’s a fact. The Link in the Geyser Swirl isn’t one that we knew was there before. In fact, until recently every member of the Stellar Group would have sworn that there was no Link transition point anywhere in the Swirl. We didn’t make it, and we know of no one else who might have done so. Add that fact in to everything else, and what have you got?”

She glanced from one member of the group to the next. Everyone remained silent, although the Angel was waving its upper fronds.

“I don’t think we have anything,” Tully said at last. “Unless you count a bunch of contradictions and impossibilities as something.”

“I think we do.” Elke turned to the Angel. “Would you like to explain, or shall I?”

The fronds dipped in her direction, and the synthesized voice from deep within the Angel said, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.Please, continue.”

“All right. I’m going to throw an assumption at you. Better take a deep breath, because it’s a big one. On the other hand, it seems to explain everything else. Here it is: the Link entry point in the Geyser Swirl is different from any that we know, and it doesn’t perform the usual type of transition. A ship that transfers to it does not emerge in the Swirl. Instead, the ship undergoes a second transition to somewhere else.

“ And” — she continued before anyone could object or comment — “that somewhere else is not anywhere in our own universe. It is in a different cosmos, call it a parallel universe if you like. That’s why the safeguards against emerging where there is matter didn’t work. And that’s where we are now.”

Someone, it sounded to Bony like Danny Casement, muttered, “A long way from home,” and Chrissie Winger said softly, “I don’t like this. Come on, somebody, give me a nicer explanation.”

“If you can think of a better explanation,” Elke said, “I’d be more than happy to hear it. But see what my one assumption explains. First, a different universe is likely to have different basic physical constants. Not too different from what we know; in fact things in both universes have to be very close or we wouldn’t be able to survive here at all. The very fact that we’re sitting talking means that any changes have to be small. But small changes are enough. Minor differences in the physical constants during the first minutes of the universe give big differences in the relative amounts of hydrogen and deuterium. I speculate that almost all water in this entire universe will be heavy water, in order to have a planet with heavy-water oceans. The same differences, later on, affect the rate of stellar evolution. A blue giant star doesn’t burn up so fast, and planets around it have time enough to develop life, and even intelligent life. The strange globes in the night sky are alternate forms of stars, things which can form here but which can’t form in our own universe. That would suggest a difference in the basic gravitational constant, which would also help explain Limbo’s low gravity but large size.

“Now, we might be able to talk away everything I’ve said, but there’s one fact above all else that convinces me that we’re in a different universe. That’s the times. The intervals between the times when our ships entered the Link transition points in our universe, and the interval between our emergence into the ocean here, don’t match. We’re in a universe where not only the physical laws are different. The time rates in the two universes are not the same. A couple of months pass back home, while only a day passes here.” Elke turned to the Angel. “You did the calculations. What did the relative rate come out to be?”

The Angel had sunk lower and seemed to be luxuriating in the presence of the rich soil at its base. It roused itself and mumbled, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying. To be more specific, and to three-figure accuracy, time is passing on this world 61.2 times as fast as standard time on Earth, Sellora, or other worlds of the Stellar Group.”

Elke had seen the scowl on Dag Korin’s face, and added, “In practical terms, General, the Angel is saying that two months will pass on Earth for every standard day that we remain here on Limbo. Our friends back home will already be worried about us. They’ll be wondering why we haven’t returned from the Geyser Swirl.”

“Well, dammit, I’m ahead of them.” The General was still scowling. “I want to know more than that. Maybe I’m simpleminded, Dr. Siry, and certainly I’m old, but I don’t give a tinker’s cuss about deuterium and time rates and all that science crap. The way I see it, we were sent here with a job to do. We had to find out what happened to the other expeditions that came before us. Well, we’ve done that, and more. Except for Friday Indigo, who it sounds like went off and killed himself in the storm, we have everybody from all the expeditions accounted for and here on this ship. So my question is this: How and when can we go home?”

“I’d like to know that, too, but you’re asking the wrong person.” Elke turned to Chan Dalton. “What’s the condition of the ship?”

“I’m not sure, but I suspect that it stinks.” Chan didn’t really want the attention on him. He had listened to Elke Siry with mixed feelings. On the one hand, what she said cleared up an awful lot of mysteries. On the other hand, the news that you’d been thrown into some different universe had all sorts of other implications. What else might be different here? Would a ship’s drive work, even if you could get it out of the water?

But first things first. He went on, “When we arrived we had to shed our external shielding to slow our descent. That worked and we were able to make a soft landing on the seabed, though apparently it smashed the pinnaces beyond repair. The whole ship isn’t in good shape, and I doubt it can ever make a Link transition. Many of our displays report abnormal status.” He nodded toward Bony. “The Bun’s the one to tell us what condition we’re in, and make the fix-ups if they can be made. Unless one of the other ships might be a better choice?”

“Forget it.” Bony didn’t know the condition of the Hero’s Return , but Chan’s question was still one that he could answer. “The Finder , the ship that Vow-of-Silence and Eager Seeker used to come here, was on its last legs when we left it. By now it’s a dead hulk. The Angel’s ship, the Minister of Grace , was swept into deep water by the storm, and we haven’t been able to contact it. And although we don’t know where Friday Indigo took the Mood Indigo , he hasn’t responded to any of our ships’ signals. His own ship is well made but it doesn’t have the structural strength of this one. If he went too deep, the hull would implode. Up near the surface, the storm might have smashed it to pieces.”

Chan nodded. “So it’s this ship, or nothing. How long will it be, Bun, before you can tell us where we stand?”

“Give me half a day and I’ll give you a first guess.” Bony hesitated. “Look, is it really this ship or nothing?”

“What other options do we have?”

“I’m not sure. But somebody made the Link entry point, here on Limbo. It’s a Link like none we’ve ever seen before, located at a sea-air interface instead of out in space. We know it wasn’t the bubble people who built it, they lack the technology. We know it wasn’t any member of the Stellar Group, because the whole design is different. But there is someone else on this planet, and they are land dwellers. Also, they have technology. When we were ashore, Liddy and I saw one of their flying machines.”

“Did you meet them?” Dag Korin asked.

“No. The aircraft flew over us, and gave no sign that it knew we were there. But if we can contact whoever made it, and if we can communicate with them, and if they are friendly and they will cooperate by lending us one of their machines and let us use it to travel through the Link entry point, then we won’t have to rely on this ship at all.”

Dag Korin raised shaggy white eyebrows. “Young man, do you realize how many conditions you just hung together in one sentence? But you’re quite right. We need more than one string to our bow, and if the only answer is to find and strong-arm another bunch of aliens to get ourselves home, that’s what we’ll do. You concentrate on the condition of the Hero’s Return , and the rest of us will think about ways to go ashore and meet the other aliens. One question, though. Do you have any idea whereabouts on land the other aliens might be?”

“No. But if they’re users of the Link, you’d expect them to have a base of operations not too far away from it. That means within maybe a hundred kilometers of where we are now.” Bony turned to Elke Siry. “You said something about orbiters that look down at the planet, as well as looking up at the sky.”

“Quite right. Two of them, launched as soon as storm conditions permitted. They’ve been returning images ever since, surveying the surface of the planet.”

“How good are their instruments? Would they see enough detail to pick out a town or a spaceport?”

“Easily. At their survey altitude they can observe something as small as twenty meters across.”

Dag Korin interrupted. “But they haven’t done it, have they? Doesn’t that suggest there’s no spaceport or settlement to be found on the surface?”

Elke Siry gave him a withering look. “Please, General. You should know better.” While the others waited for Dag Korin to explode, she calmly continued, “The orbiters are making survey observations and returning billions of bits of data a second to be stored in this ship’s data banks. But data are not the same as information. Before you can get the answers you want, you have to ask the right question.”

Dag Korin nodded meekly — confirming everyone’s view that the old General had a soft spot for Elke Siry. “And what, my dear, would the right question be?”

“We have to specify a description of what we mean by a settlement or a spaceport, and how it would look to the instruments on board the orbiters. And then we have to instruct the ship’s computer to go through all the data received from the orbiters, searching for matches to our description.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“But I would.” Elke leaned over the control panel in front of her. “To begin with, may I bring the ship’s computer in as a participant to the meeting? I need to specify a recognition template for settlements and spaceports, but I notice that the computer has not been present so far.”

“That’s my doing. I locked it out of control room activities, with instructions to interrupt only if there was immediate danger to the ship. Wait just a minute, though.” Dag Korin held up a hand and addressed the whole group. “I hate today’s womb-to-tomb style, in which every word you ever say can be dragged back and thrown in your face. Does anyone want to say something off the record? Remember, once the computer is in the loop, everything you say will go into the data banks.”

“I wish to speak.” Vow-of-Silence held up a thin forelimb. The Pipe-Rilla had so far been remarkably quiet. She stretched her long body forward, toward Dag Korin. “Sir, I am concerned about two things. First, the term `General.’ It was used several times by Dr. Siry in addressing you. Is that merely an honorific, or are you a `general’ in the military sense?”

Korin bristled. “Is there any other sense? What do you think I am, a general store? I’m a military general, and I’m proud of it.”

“Indeed. Then my second question has added weight. In discussing what should be done to make it possible for us to return home, you used the phrase, `strong-arm another bunch of aliens.’ Were you advocating the use of violence?”

“Hmm. Well, not exactly. I just meant—”

“Because if you had any such intention, I wish to make it clear that neither I, nor any other member of the Stellar Group, will sanction such action. There must be no violence. There are always better alternatives to violence.”

“I’m sure there are.” But Dag Korin’s frown and jutted jaw added a silent, Like hell.

“With that understanding, I have no further comments and I suggest that the ship’s computer should join this meeting.”

“Everyone else agree?”

“Ready to roll.” The Angel waved sedately.

“All right. Elke?”

She nodded and touched a pad sequence on the console in front of her. “Gamma-D, prepare to receive recognition templates prior to a search of the data banks received as orbiter survey data. I’m going to draw them.”

UNDERSTOOD, WE ARE READY.

“Just one second.” This time it was Chan Dalton. “I’m as keen to get home as anyone, and I don’t want to hold this up. But before you start describing what the computer should look for, can’t we have a quick status report? Even if it’s not an emergency, I’d like to know if there’s been any significant change in the ship’s condition.”

“That makes good sense.” Dag Korin ignored Elke’s impatient gesture. “Find out where you are before you decide where you’re going, always a sound policy. All right, Gamma-D. Let’s hear how things stand.”

MANY ONBOARD FUNCTIONS ARE SUFFERING A SLOW ALTHOUGH AS YET NON-DANGEROUS DEGRADATION. IT WOULD BE ADVISABLE TO MOVE TO A MORE TYPICAL AMBIENT ENVIRONMENT.

“In other words,” Liddy whispered to Bony, “don’t stay underwater longer that you have to. For this we need a computer?”

“Shh!”

THE DEFENSIVE SHIELDS ARE LOST, AND THEY REMAIN IRREPLACEABLE WITHOUT A VISIT TO A MAJOR FLEET REFURBISHING CENTER. THERE IS MINOR HULL DAMAGE THAT DECREASES THE LEVEL OF TOLERABLE STRESSES UNDER ACCELERATED FLIGHT. A LIMIT OF TWO GEES SHOULD BE OBSERVED IN OPEN SPACE IN THE VICINITY OF A LINK TRANSITION POINT.

“Two gees in open space, near a Link point,” Dag Korin growled. “Don’t you wish!”

THERE IS NO OTHER DAMAGE TO THE SHIP ITSELF. HOWEVER, SOME COLLATERAL EQUIPMENT HAS SUFFERED FAILURE.

“What do you mean, collateral equipment?” Chan Dalton had been studying a new schematic of the Hero’s Return that highlighted any problem area. “Everything here looks fine to me.”

THE SCHEMATIC THAT YOU HAVE IS OF THE SHIP ITSELF, WHERE THERE ARE NO MAJOR FAILURES. WE REFER TO COLLATERAL EQUIPMENT IN THE FORM OF THE TWO OBSERVATION SATELLITES THAT WE LAUNCHED.

“Oh, no,” Elke groaned. “We didn’t get data from them? Gamma-D, I was relying on them to allow a ground search.”

THAT WILL STILL BE POSSIBLE. MANY DATA WERE RETURNED, ENOUGH TO PROVIDE A COMPLETE SCAN OF THE WHOLE PLANET. HOWEVER, APPROXIMATELY TWO HOURS AGO THE SATELLITES FAILED.

“Both of them?” Elke’s thin eyebrows rose. “Are you sure that it’s not a problem with our onboard receiving equipment?”

THAT WAS OF COURSE CHECKED, AND IT IS IN PERFECT WORKING ORDER. ALSO, THE TWO OBSERVING SATELLITES DID NOT FAIL SIMULTANEOUSLY. THE FIRST FAILED TWO AND A QUARTER HOURS AGO, THE SECOND TWENTY MINUTES LATER.

“Radiation belts?” Elke said, more to herself than the computer. “Solar flare?”

WE RULE OUT BOTH THOSE POSSIBILITIES. COMPUTING THE TRAJECTORIES OF THE SATELLITES WITH RESPECT TO THE ROTATING PLANET, WE DISCOVERED THAT BOTH FAILED WHEN THEY WERE OVER THE SAME POINT OF THE PLANETARY SURFACE. THE PROBABILITY OF SUCH A FAILURE OCCURRING AS A RESULT OF NATURAL CAUSES IS NEGLIGIBLY SMALL. WE CONCLUDE THAT THE TWO OBSERVING SATELLITES FAILED AS A RESULT OF DELIBERATE DESTRUCTIVE ACTION UNDERTAKEN FROM THE SURFACE OF THE PLANET.

“Shot down, by God! Blown apart by bloody aliens.” Dag Korin glared at Vow-of-Silence, as though daring the Pipe-Rilla to challenge his statement, but when he spoke again it was accusingly to the computer. “Gamma-D, why the devil didn’t you tell us about this as soon as it happened?”

WE WERE INSTRUCTED TO INTERRUPT YOUR MEETING ONLY IF THERE WAS IMMEDIATE DANGER TO THE SHIP. WE JUDGED THAT WAS NOT THE CASE.

“Not immediate, maybe. But soon. Well, it was my fault more than yours.” Korin slouched down in his seat. “Gamma-D, do you know the point on the surface where the whatever-it-is that destroyed our observing satellites came from?”

YES. TO REFINE THAT ANSWER, WE HAVE COMPUTED A LOCATION OF MAXIMUM PROBABILITY FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE DESTRUCTIVE ACTION. IT LIES FORTY-SIX KILOMETERS FROM THE SHIP’S PRESENT LOCATION. SHOULD WE DISPLAY IT?

“Damn right you should.” Korin watched as an image of Limbo’s whole hemisphere appeared on the screen, then zoomed in until one point of the surface showed highlighted by a flashing spark of light. “Well, I think we’ve answered one question and saved Elke some work. The job of finding an alien spaceport, settlement, military base or whatever has been done for us. We know where they are. And we know what they do. They shoot first, and later they ask questions. The question is, what do we do now?”