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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Elissa was the last to arrive at the meeting. As she hurried into the long conference room to take her seat she glanced around the table, and was struck at once by the odd seating arrangement. Judith Niles sat alone at the head of the table, head bowed forward and her eyes on the control console built into the table in front of her. Sy Day sat to her immediate right, and Peron next to him, with an empty chair between them. Peron looked a little uncomfortable, while Sy was obviously a million miles away, absorbed by some private concern. Wolfgang Gibbs and Charlene Bloom occupied seats on the opposite side of the table. They were sitting close together, well away from the rest. Wolfgang was scowling and chewing moodily at a finger nail, while Charlene Bloom glanced from one person to another with rapidly blinking eyes. Elissa looked at her closely. Extreme nervousness? It certainly appeared that way, but for no obvious reason. And the whole room was unnaturally quiet, without the normal casual chit-chat that preceded even a serious meeting. The atmosphere was glacial and tense.

Elissa paused, still standing. She had a choice. Sit opposite Sy, and thus be between Wolfgang and the Director? Or next to Sy and Peron; or at the other end of the table, facing Judith Niles. She headed to sit next to Sy, then on some obscure impulse changed her mind and went to the end chair directly opposite the Director. Judith Niles raised her head. Elissa underwent a brief scrutiny from those intense eyes, then the Director nodded briefly in greeting. She seemed as remote and preoccupied as Sy.

"To business," Judith Niles said at last. "I gather that Sy Day briefed both of you on our meeting and conversation?"

Peron and Elissa looked at each other. "In detail," said Elissa. She waited for Peron, but he did not speak. "However, we still have questions," she went on.

Judith Niles nodded. "I am sure you do. Perhaps it is best if you first listen to what I propose. That may answer many of your questions. If not, we will consider them later."

Her words were couched as a suggestion, but her tone of voice showed she expected no argument. No one replied. Wolfgang ducked his head and seemed to be studying the granular plastic table top, rendered a soft continuous blur by the oddities of S-space optics. Charlene looked expectantly around the table at the others, then back to the Director.

"It is interesting that the arrival here of the three of you should coincide with a decision point in my own thinking," went on Judith Niles. "Although I could argue that your presence in Gulf City precipitated that point. By now you know something of our history. For fifteen thousand Earth years, research work has continued here without a break: monitoring messages from the Kermel Objects; developing new techniques for slowing of consciousness, designed to make us better able to match the Kermel transmission rates; and making many attempts at direct communication with them. Failed attempts, I should add. But we have had some successes. We are assured now of the extreme age of the Kermels; we have learned how to present signals received from them reliably, as one, two, or three dimensional arrays; we have confirmed by independent methods that the changes in stellar types in this spiral arm of our galaxy are real; and finally, we are beginning to see hints of methods to slow subjective experience rates even further, beyond those of T-state.

"These are all major advances. Yet you do not need me to point out that they will all be of no value unless we can learn how to inhibit the stellarforming of G type stars. We face the possibility of greatly extended life spans, with no place to live except far from our home stars. If that happens, we will face the extinction of all our planetary colonies. And that is an intolerable thought, even if we forget recruitment needs from normal space to S-space.

"Before you arrived, the senior staff of Gulf City, and in particular Wolfgang, Charlene and I, had worried long and hard about the slowness of our progress. I decided some time ago that the pace of our efforts had to be picked up—by whatever methods. This is an absolute necessity. And to accomplish it, I resolved to take an unprecedented step. You, the three of you, are central to that step."

Elissa and Peron looked at each other in surprise, then both turned to Sy. He was unmoved, his usual cool self.

"Hear me out," went on Judith Niles. "Why you? Because you have not yet become locked into our existing ways of thinking about the problem. We must find totally new avenues, create new thought patterns, and explore different options; but we cannot do that. We are too wedded to our existing exploration, and too fixed in the pattern of past analyses. Stay here for a few months, and you will have the same problem. That is why I propose a change at once, before you harden into our ways and ideas.

"What I am suggesting is revolutionary. I propose to establish a completely new facility, similar to Gulf City but in a separate location. It will have independent management, and independent research staff. The preferred location is eighteen light-years from here, and almost twelve light-years from Sol. It does not have quite the same degree of isolation from interference as this site, but signals received here from Kermel Objects will naturally be available to the new facility. There will be cooperation, but strictly limited interchange of information. We cannot afford to inhibit each other's research.

"And now, here is my specific proposal: you three are invited to go to that facility, with the best support that we can offer from anywhere in our network of colonies and stations. You will not merely be participants in the facility's research; you will direct it, setting priorities and allocating resources."

She smiled. "I am sure you feel suspicious. Why would I, without taking leave of my senses, entrust a huge new undertaking to three near-strangers? I will tell you why. Your performance to date has been highly impressive, but my real reason is far more compelling: we are becoming desperate here. Something must be done, and something new has to be tried."

She looked along the table. "You are silent. I am not surprised. I would be silent also. But when you have questions, I will do my best to answer all of them."

Sy did not move. He had been nodding his head a tiny fraction as she spoke, but now he was motionless. Wolfgang and Charlene were looking at Peron and Elissa, and avoiding Judith Niles' eye. Charlene seemed more tense than ever.

"Why us?" said Peron at last. "Why didn't you do it with the last group of people to find their way to Gulf City?"

"For two reasons. First, I did not feel they could do it—I feel that you can. And second, I had not yet reached my own flashpoint. Now I feel a great need for action. Our present approach is too slow. We must have at least two facilities working in parallel."

Peron looked at each participant in turn, taking his time. Finally he turned again to Judith Niles. "When do you propose this would begin?"

She smiled with her mouth, but her eyes remained tense. "I am now about to fail one test of a good manipulator. Take it, if you will, as evidence of the depth of my concern on this issue. The process for creating the second facility has already begun. A station from Sol is on the way to form the facility's nucleus, and other equipment is in shipment from three Sector Headquarters. If you agree, it will be ready for operation as soon as you arrive there. I hope that you will begin your journey at once. You can become familiar with details of equipment on the way there."

Peron nodded. "And what experiments would we do?"

"You will tell us that—remember, too much direction from here and the second facility becomes useless." She smiled again, and this time there was humor there. "Talk to Wolfgang and Charlene, if you want to know how much it costs me to remove myself from the direction of the new effort. All my working life I have insisted in hands-on knowledge of any experiments under my control. Now I am promising to turn my back on you."

Judith Niles touched the controls on the table top, and the room began to darken. Behind her, panels in front of the display slid open, and a flickering pattern showed on the screen.

"You will need time to make a decision. I expect that, but I urge you to minimize that time. The most important job in human civilization is waiting for you. And for that reason, I do not hesitate to use unfair tactics of persuasion. I have one more argument to present to you. If you are the people that I believe you to be, it cannot fail to sway your opinions.

"A few days ago we received at Gulf City a video message from one of our Sector Headquarters, out near the planet of Paradise. It was sent via Earth, and addressed to you. It appears to be in clear form—though I know your penchant for hiding coded messages in with clear ones. The clear message is quite enough. Watch closely."

The screen behind Judith Niles showed the image of a man. He was a stranger to Elissa, gray-bearded and balding, with a prominent nose, pale gray eyes, and a craggy, lined face. A faint scar ran across his forehead, diagonally from the upper right to his left eyebrow. He grinned, looked directly into the camera, and raised his hand in greeting.

"Hello again. Greetings from Paradise—or near it."

Elissa heard Peron grunt, at the same moment as she felt her own rush of recognition. There could be no mistaking that strained, husky voice and precise diction.

"It's Kallen!" said Peron. "My God, Sy, that's Kallen."

"Yes, quite right," said the face on the screen, exactly as though he could somehow hear the comments in the conference room. He grinned again. "This is Kallen, the one and only. Long time no see. But now get ready for a bigger shock."

The camera field of view slowly panned across from him to a large photograph, then zoomed in to take a close-up of a group of eight people. In the foreground, sitting cross-legged on cushions, were two teenage girls. Behind them, on a bench, were two men and two women in early middle age. An elderly couple stood at the back in the center of the picture. The old man was white-haired and stooped, with heavy shoulders and a substantial paunch. The woman, also white-haired, was thin and wiry. Everyone was smiling.

"More greetings," said Kallen's thin voice. "And also a farewell. From Lum and Rosanne, their children, and their oldest grandchildren. There are four little ones, not in the picture. They are all still living on Paradise at the time I send you this message. When you receive it, they expect to be long dead." He shrugged. "Sorry, friends, I know we told you that we'd follow you to Earth in a few S-days. As you can see, it didn't quite work out that way.

"I expect that this will take a while to reach you. I know you're not on Earth, even though this message will be routed that way. But I've heard more than you might think about what you've been doing. Sy will tell you that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light, but let me tell him that doesn't apply to rumors. There are great rumors about you three, and what you did to Sol's data bases and computer network—I wish I'd been there to help cheat the system. Don't give up on me, though. I expect that I'll see the three of you eventually.

"Rosanne and Lum asked me to give you their love, and to tell you not to grieve on their behalf. I pass that message, and agree with the sentiment." Kallen smiled. "I suspect that you are feeling horrified with the way that Lum and Rosanne look in this picture, and probably horrified also with the way that I look. But don't make the mistake of feeling sorry for them, or for me. Their lives have been the most rewarding of anyone I know. They lived happy, and they are happy now. And if you think of us as old people, remember that we think of you as children. Smart children, sure, and we love you like our own sons and daughters; but still children. Don't confuse calendar time and experience. While two or three hundred Pentecost years flash by in a month of S-space, you don't get the knowledge of life that comes with that many years of living. You all have a lot of real living to do.

"I promised Lum and Rosanne that I would tell you what happened here. I'm back in S-space, in orbit around Paradise. I've been here for twenty-five Earth years. But I couldn't persuade them to join me. Sy, do you remember the arguments we had, after Planetfest was over, on the strongest force in the universe? Well, I can tell you now, it's not gravitation, or the force governing hadronic interactions. It's a force unique to living organisms. When Lum and Rosanne went down to Paradise, it was a frightening world, where all the humans had died. They wanted to stay there long enough to study the problem thoroughly. And after a few months, Rosanne became pregnant. They wanted the baby, but they knew they couldn't raise a child in S-space. And the idea of leaving their children was unthinkable to them. They stayed, to raise the family. That's the strongest force. After a while I joined them, down on the surface. I was there when each of the children was born.

"We were trying to find out what had killed off the previous colony on Paradise, and we had the best possible incentive. Unless we found an answer, we could go the same way, along with the children.

"I won't bore you with details. It took nearly thirty years, and we felt like giving up a dozen times. But we found the answer. Paradise has a benign protozoan parasitic life form, part of the intestinal flora and fauna that help the animals there to digest cellulose. It usually stays in the alimentary canal, but a few organisms make their way into the blood stream. No problem. The animals remain healthy, and don't even know the bugs are there. The colonists found that the organisms were inside them soon after they arrived, but all the tests showed that they were just as harmless to humans as they were to the native animals. Paradise has a wonderful climate, and fertile soils. The human colony was doing fine, thriving and growing. Then one day they decided it would be less effort to import food synthesizers, and make most of their food rather than growing it.

"And since humans can't digest cellulose, the synthetic foods didn't contain it. An alternative indigestible material was used to provide food bulk. Most inhabitants of Paradise, including everyone in the cities, turned to use of the synthetics. Still everything seemed to be going well, and they were all in good health. But the internal parasites were suddenly deprived of food, and when that happened many of them migrated out of the alimentary canal and into the bloodstream. They starved and died there. Those deaths seemed to produce no ill-effects on the human hosts—they weren't even aware of it. But one of the decomposition by-products of the parasites has a structure very similar to a human neurotransmitter. So far as we can tell, human intelligence all over Paradise dropped, fifty to a hundred points, from normal range to sub-moron. And it happened quickly. The city dwellers became ferocious animals, not smart enough to operate their own signalling system and call for advice and assistance. And they turned on the few people outside the towns, and killed them as they found them. By the time the next ship touched down on Paradise, it could find no survivors. And since the cause of the problem was still unknown, the ship did not stay long.

"Well, I've said enough to make my point. Paradise is a safe, habitable planet again. I helped a little, but it was really Lum and Rosanne who cracked the problem, and pointed out the simple solution: adequate cellulose in the diet. And that's related to the message that they want to send to you. Back on Pentecost, and later when we were looking at the Fifty Worlds, we had long debates on the usefulness of our lives. Lum and Rosanne feel they found the answer. They wouldn't put it this way, but they saved a world. Don't waste your life on small problems, they say. Find the biggest challenge that you can, the hardest one, the most frustrating one, and hit it with everything you've got."

Kallen paused. "See, I've changed, too. Thirty years ago, the speech I've just given was a month's supply of words. But I'm finished. I told you not to grieve for Rosanne and Lum. I meant it. If you ever have the satisfaction of finding a problem as big as the one they found, and solving it, you'll have answered our old question about the meaning of our lives."

Kallen's face went solemn, and he looked into the screen for a long time without speaking. "I'd like to see you all again," he said at last. "But the odd thing is, I know exactly what you look like. You won't have changed a bit since we said goodbye at the Cass system Sector Headquarters. Whereas I . . ." He shrugged, and ran his hand across his balding head. "Goodbye, old friends, and good luck. Seek the highest, whatever you do."

The picture on the screen dissolved to a formless flicker of white, then that too faded to leave the room in darkness.

"Bless them," said Judith Niles softly. "I never knew Lum and Rosanne, but I grieve with you to know that they are dead. They were just the minds and spirits that we need for our problems here. Seek the highest, the hardest, the most frustrating. If you wanted a one-line description of the Kermel Objects and stellarforming, those all apply. I wish we had Rosanne and Lum with us, but there will be others. Kallen may find his way here. He said as much, and from what I have heard of him from Paradise Station, he'll be hard to stop once he makes up his mind to get here."

"Impossible to stop," said Peron softly. "I just wish he were here with us now."

"But he is not." The lights in the conference room slowly came back to normal intensity, and Judith Niles gave her full attention to Elissa and Peron. She looked from one to the other, meeting their eyes. "You heard your friends. I don't see how you can resist that message. They saved a world. You have a chance to save every planet that can support human life. Don't you feel as though they could have been speaking to you about the exact problem we have here, and telling you to undertake it?"

Elissa looked around her. Sy was nodding. She realized that his decision had been made before he heard the message from Kallen—perhaps before this meeting began. She turned to Peron. He was wavering, half-persuaded but still uncomfortable. Elissa was on her own.

"NO!" The word seemed to burst from her, surprising her with its force and intensity. "No, that's not the answer. You're missing the point."

There was a ghastly silence. Everyone looked at her in astonishment—even Peron, and she had hoped that he would understand at once.

"Can't you see it?" she went on. "You've missed the real significance of their message."

"I very much doubt it," said Judith Niles curtly. Her face was calm, but the scars were prominent on her forehead. "It was clear enough. Work on major problems, and do not let yourselves be distracted with trivia."

"Yes, certainly—tackle big subjects, there's no question about that. But look behind the message, at the facts. The problem on Paradise had been known for five thousand Earth years, and no one had come near a solution. Until our friends came along, people were studying it from S-space, and that gave only a couple of S-years of effort. Now look at our situation. We have a hundred thousand Earth-years to learn how to control the changes in stellar types. In that much time, the human race should be able to solve anything, any problem you care to mention. But not if you work in S-space. That moves at a snail's-pace, two thousand times too slow, when we need fast action."

"But the messages from the Kermel Objects are absolutely vital." Judith Niles was leaning back, a perplexed look on her face. "They're inaccessible from normal space."

"So somebody must be in S-space or T-state to receive them. But the analysis of those messages must go as fast as possible. That means we must be in normal space. You have to change your system, change it completely. Tell the planet-dwellers the problem, and make them the key to its solution. That's the real significance of the message from Kallen and the others, the part you've been ignoring."

Elissa leaned forward across the table, her full attention on Judith Niles. "You want us to work on the central problem? I'd love to, there's nothing in the universe that I'd like better. But in normal space. I know I may never see the solution if we do it this way. But I'll take my chances, because I feel sure that my descendants will find the answer, maybe a thousand Earth-years after I'm dead. That's enough to make it all worthwhile."

She looked at Peron, and drew encouragement from his expression. He was nodding vigorously, his earlier uncertainty gone.

"I agree completely with Elissa," he said. "Though I didn't see it until she pointed it out. Let's go ahead just as you suggest, and set up your second facility. But in normal space, not S-space. You'll feed us the best information you can collect in Gulf City, as you get it. We'll be turning that to new theories, two thousand times as fast as you could ever do it in S-space."

Judith Niles had listened closely. Now she was frowning and shaking her head. "It sounds good. But it would never work. Both of you, listen to what else your friend Kallen said. You lack experience. It will take many years to acquire it. You need interaction with us, here in Gulf City, but you could never gain the benefit of our experience if you were in normal space and we stayed in S-space. The information exchange problems are enormous. I said I would leave you free to undertake experiments in the second facility, but you would still have access to us, to talk to and exchange ideas." Again she shook her head. "What you propose sounds good, but it wouldn't work."

"I agree with Elissa," said Wolfgang Gibbs suddenly from the other side of the table. He stopped, as though amazed at his own outburst. When he continued he addressed his words to Judith Niles, but he kept his eyes on Elissa and Peron, as though drawing support from them. "She's right. We'll be able to progress thousands of times as fast in normal space as in S-space—not to mention T-state, and you know that's my own special baby. I've worried the problem for months and years, wondering how to make better progress. But I never thought of two facilities, one in S-space and one in normal space. To us, used to the way things are here, normal space is almost unthinkable. Shorter life span, planet-grubbing, probably never seeing a solution. But I bet it will work."

He paused, hesitated, looked at Charlene and Elissa, then at Judith Niles. His face was pale, but there was only conviction in his voice. "Your point about experience is a valid one. There is no substitute for years of practical experience of our work here. But I have that. If you go ahead and set up a second facility, in normal space, then I volunteer to go to that facility."

"Wolfgang!" said Charlene Bloom. The word came from her unbidden. She bit her lip, and looked down. They were revealing too much—too much new hope in his voice, and too much raw pain in her own.

Judith Niles was sitting bolt upright in her chair. Elissa's support had come from the place she least expected it. "And you, Charlene?" she said calmly. "Since we all appear to have formed our opinions by now."

Peron looked at the Director and marvelled. Like Sy, she appeared able to move instantly from one position to another, and be ready at once for the next stage of discussion. It was as though her analysis of Elissa's and Peron's remarks had been performed automatically, subconsciously, needing no time for assimilation and full reflection.

"I'll stay here," Charlene said after a few seconds. She turned to look at Wolfgang, and her voice was despairing. "My work is here, in Gulf City. I couldn't do it in another facility. But Wolfgang, if you go—who could do your work on T-state?"

Judith Niles looked at Sy, who gave a fractional nod of his head. "We have a volunteer for that," she said. "Sy is keen to explore T-state—and beyond. So now . . ."

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes again. "Now comes the difficult question. You are proposing a radically different approach. Am I persuaded that it will work?"

"Wrong question," said Peron.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. "True. I stand corrected. We cannot know in advance what will work, and what will fail. The right question, then: do I think a second facility in normal space has a better chance to succeed than one in S-space? The answer: maybe. Just maybe. I thought of many options, but I never seriously considered the Mayfly solution."

"You can't afford not to try it," said Peron. "Even if you reject it, we'll attempt it."

"I know. Bad position for a boss, right?" She smiled, then turned to Wolfgang. "And do you know what you are volunteering for? We can give you an extended life span in normal space, but you will still be dead in less than one S-year."

"Give me credit for something, JN." Wolfgang's moment of defiance had brought him a new confidence. "I know exactly what I'm offering to do. I'll go to normal space, and I expect that I'll die there. So what? I saw that message from Paradise, too. And now I think about it, I never really wanted to live forever. I just want to live for something. Sy can do my work here at least as well as I can, probably a damned sight better. Let's get on with it, I say."

He did not wait for an answer from Judith Niles. Instead he turned to Charlene and took her hand in his. The room went silent, with everyone watching closely. Charlene's mind flashed across the centuries, to the time back on Earth when Wolfgang had horrified her by secretly stroking her thigh in JN's presence. But this time she did not flinch when Wolfgang touched her gently on the shoulder. Her vision was clouded with tears. She moved to meet him when he leaned forward to kiss her, and put her arms around his neck. The final words had not been spoken, but she knew that the decision was already made.

The departure for a second facility could not happen immediately. She and Wolfgang would see each other many times before there was another parting, formal and final.

But this moment was unique. This was their first goodbye.

 

 

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