Macroscope

CHAPTER 4

The crew was already at work; Kovonov’s terse instruction had evidently been sufficient. It was amazing how much could be accomplished on an unofficial basis. Nobody had to admit to complicity in the theft, and he was sure the UN would have an impossibly difficult time making a case against anyone staying behind. How would they, for example, prove that the storeroom attendant had knowingly accepted Afra’s doped offering?

On the other hand, that same theft might solve the UN problem. If they intended to close down the macroscope — well, that had already been accomplished for them. There could be a great public hue, but minor private sorrow.

How extravagantly his conjecture fluctuated! One moment he was sure disaster stalked the station personnel; the next, that all was well. But he would not need to conjecture. He could watch the whole show on the macroscope!

The rocket’s snout fitted into a matching cavity in the bottom of the scope’s housing, so that docking was possible without fouling the guy lines. He was sure that depression had not been there before; the crew must have removed the covering plates. Probably it was crowded inside, too, with that metal intruding, but it was a neat travel arrangement.

The assembled package resembled a massive mushroom, with stubby rootlets and a relatively small spherical head. The fifty-foot diameter of the macroscope housing bulged beyond the thirty-three-foot-thick rocket, but was smaller in overall volume. Even so, it hardly seemed large enough to hold the complex equipment necessary — but of course the computers were miniaturized, using laser memory and other remarkable techniques. Presumably the unit would take off at right angles to the doughnut, breaking the ties, then maneuver to head in the right direction.

What was the right direction? He had no idea. Space was vast… yet where could Joseph go, where could he hide, where the telescopes of Earth could not locate him, the missiles seek him out? The immense honor of the task seemed to have less desirable ramifications.

Ivo drifted across to the scene of activity. Men were still busy, but the task appeared to be virtually complete. No one paid attention to him — a deliberate and necessary slight, he realized. He could anticipate the coming dialogue:

UN: What happened to the macroscope? PERSONNEL: We didn’t see anything. Must’ve been that new fellow, the one Dr. Carpenter brought in. We were just shaping it up for a shift in orbit—

And Dr. Carpenter would not be in condition to answer questions.

As a matter of fact, their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Senator Borland’s demise would run into the same blank end. Only two people had shared the experience that killed him; one was absent in mind, the other would be absent in body. Perhaps the alien signal was to blame for both? Kovonov would remark upon the strangeness of the thief’s prior actions: barging into an innocent recreational session, removing the station emblem from its pedestal, poking around the premises. There would be the recording of his voice, as he intruded into the Russian’s study: expressing confusion. Obviously that terrible session with the destroyer had killed one, stupefied the second, and thrown the third into a borderline aberration that prompted him to abscond with the scope.

It was not the place in history Ivo would have selected for himself, but it was necessary. The macroscope had to be saved from the UN repercussion, and it was better that a person like Ivo Archer bear the onus than one like Dr. Kovonov. Even through the language barrier, Ivo had come to appreciate the qualities of the man.

He landed on the head of the mushroom and made his way to the lock. No workmen, coincidentally, were facing in his direction. The coincidence held for the several minutes it took him to reach the lock and figure out its mode of operation. It seemed it could be opened from the outside, with the proper tool — and such a tool had been forgotten nearby. It was stuck to the metal hull, held there by its magnetism. An insertion, a twist; the mechanism clicked over, and the lock came open with no wasteful outrush of air. He climbed inside and shut himself in.

Groton was waiting for him. “Everything clear? We want to be ready to move as soon as the crew finishes. I don’t know how rapidly the UN ship will get here.”

“They seem to be finished outside, if that’s what you mean.”

Groton put on earphones. “Ivo’s here,” he said into the intercom. “Give us two minutes to strap down, then cut loose, girls.”

Ivo could not hear the reply, but he had been reassured of one thing: Afra was coming along. He had known she had to come, yet doubted it too. To go to space with her…

They tied down on either side of the mighty nose cone that transfixed the center compartment. There was a port set in its side for direct admission to Joseph, but this remained sealed.

The framework shuddered; then they were smitten by the power of the atomic rocket. At triple-gravity acceleration, the macroscope tore free of its moorings.

Five grueling minutes later the drive cut off and they were in blessed free-fall again. “We’re on our way,” Groton said soberly. “Let’s confer with the pilot.” He unstrapped and jostled around to the hatch in the nose of Joseph.

It opened, and a helmeted figure emerged, clumsy and drifting upward (according to Ivo’s orientation) in the confined absence of gravity. Groton held on to the deck with his toes hooked into a handhold and offered a steadying arm. It was Beatryx.

A second figure floated through: Afra. “I think we’d better put him in here,” she said. “He doesn’t need to move about…”

“Him?” Ivo asked.

She trained those beautiful eyes upon him: “Brad. I couldn’t leave him behind, of course.”

Paradise lost! Yet with the keen disappointment came the relief of something else as well: guilt. The dead man was here to look after his own.

And Brad had been Ivo’s friend, too.

They got the limp body set up in a nook formed by outthrusts of inscrutable equipment. Ivo, entering Joseph, found stacked, tied crates: the plentiful supplies whose loading Afra had supervised. They seemed to have planned this theft carefully.

The immediate chores accomplished, they clung to handholds (the magnetic shoes had been discarded with the suits) and stared at each other. Carefully planned? It seemed that no one had looked beyond this point. The break had been made, almost incredibly; what next?

Afra stepped into the breach. “Obviously we have two objectives: keep clear of the UN, and pick up Schön. We should be able to do the first as long as we keep moving away from Earth — but we can’t accomplish the second without coming in close to Earth. That’s our problem.”

“That’s assuming Schön is on Earth,” Groton said.

Afra closed on Ivo. “Is Schön on Earth?”

“No.”

“Wonderful! We’ll have much less trouble reaching him in space, though it won’t be easy even so. The moon station wouldn’t really be much of an improvement, but one of the asteroid units… Where is he?”

“I am not free to tell you.”

Afra’s mercurial temper showed. “Now look, Ivo. We have gone to a good deal of trouble, not to mention banishment, to make it possible for you to summon Schön and bring him to the macroscope. You can’t simply—”

“Excuse me,” Groton said. “We know Ivo isn’t trying to be obstructive. Let’s give him a chance to explain what he means.”

Ivo found this approach no more acceptable than the other. “I can’t explain. Schön isn’t — well, I’m just not certain yet that we need him.”

Afra became deadly quiet. “You mean you won’t bring him?”

“I guess that’s what I mean.”

Her righteous wrath magnified. “And all by yourself you’re going to hide Joseph and operate the macroscope and get medical help for—”

This time it was Beatryx who broke in. “I think I have a letter for someone,” she said. “I found it in the chute, but everything was in such a hurry—”

Groton took it from her. “Could be an unofficial farewell from someone.” He looked at the address. “An arrow?”

“An arrow!” Afra was suddenly interested. “That’s from Schön!”

Ivo took it and opened it, not happily. It was obvious that Schön was at least partially aware of recent events, and that surely meant trouble.

The paper within contained no words, just a diagram. The others clustered around to look at it.

“A pitchfork,” Beatryx said, concerned because she had delivered the message. “What does it mean?”

“I hesitate to point this out—” Groton began.

“Let me think!” Afra said. “I’ve been through this before. Schön doesn’t like to communicate directly for some reason, but what he has to say is bound to be important.” She took the paper and floated off by herself, concentrating.

Groton produced his notebook and wrote something down. “Schön must know where we are and what we’re doing,” he said. “Could this be a hint where to find him?”

“It isn’t that easy,” Ivo said.

“Neptune!” Afra exclaimed. “That’s the symbol for Neptune!”

“God of the sea — and more,” Groton said, holding out his paper. Upon it, Ivo saw now, was the word NEPTUNE. Groton had known, waiting only for Afra’s confirmation.

“The planet,” she said. “That’s the trident. All the planets have their symbols. Mars is the spear and shield of the god of war; Venus is the goddess’s hand-mirror. So this is Neptune.”

“Your interpretation is interesting,” Groton said, privately amused about something. “But remember, those symbols do have other connotations.”

“Male and female, of course,” Afra said. “But Neptune is unmistakable.”

Groton did not push the matter, but Ivo was sure he had been driving at something else.

“Even Earth?” Beatryx inquired, catching up to an earlier comment.

“That’s an upside-down Venus symbol. I don’t remember them all, but I am sure of Neptune.”

Groton was still entertained. “I agree. It is Neptune. But I repeat: is this to be taken as an indication of location, or is it something more subtle?”

“Isn’t Neptune very far away?” Beatryx asked.

“Ridiculous!” Afra said hotly, ignoring the other woman. “No ship has gone there yet.”

“Not to mention the problem of delivering the letter here,” Groton added.

“Something is wrong. We have misread the signal.”

“I wonder,” Groton said. “What was that earlier contact you mentioned that you had with Schön? Was it like this?”

“No. It—” She turned abruptly to Ivo. “What poem? Which poet?”

Thus, in delayed fashion, she had come at it. He had foolishly told her that the earlier message represented a line of poetry with which he was familiar, and she had not forgotten. Could he stave off her assault?

“American. It was just Schön’s way of telling me that he knew what was up. Of telling you actually, since I couldn’t read it.”

“That much was obvious. Name the poet and piece.”

“I don’t see that that is relevant to—”

“An American poet, you said. Prominent?”

“Yes, but—”

“Born what century? Seventeenth?”

“No. Why do you—”

“Eighteenth?”

“No.” She would not be denied.

“Nineteenth?”

“Yes, but—”

“Whitman?”

“No.”

“Frost? Sandburg?”

“No.”

“But male?”

“Yes.”

“Eliot? Pound? Archibald MacLeish?”

“No.” He remained helpless before her intensity.

“Ransom? Wallace Stevens? Cummings? Hart Crane?”

“I hate to break in,” Groton said, “but we do have more pressing—”

She pointed her manicured finger at Ivo. “Vachel Lindsay!”

“The UN may be on our tail,” Groton said. “If we don’t make our decision soon, we could lose it by default.”

“All right!” she snapped, returning to him. “First, reconnaissance. We have to know whether there is pursuit yet, and of what type, so we can take evasive action. Once we’re safe, we can start running down Schön. I’m convinced our sprout-winner here is hiding something important. Once we get that, we’ll have a better notion what Schön is doing, and where.”

“I appreciate your ruthlessness,” Groton said dryly. “Where do we go from here?”

Ivo was immensely relieved to have the subject change. Afra was correct: he was hiding something important. “How will we know where the UN is? Don’t we have to keep radio silence, or something?”

She only glanced disparagingly at him. How else, he realized then, but with the macroscope itself?

“Trying to run down a single ship with this equipment is like aiming the atomic cannon at no-see-em gnats,” Groton observed.

“The torus will know,” Afra said. “We’ll have to watch it — the teletype, maybe, to monitor incoming messages. Or we can simply blast off now in any direction and outrun whatever pursuit forms.”

“Not,” Groton said succinctly, “a robot.”

She straightened, startled. “All right. I’ll get on the scope. We’d better know the worst.”

“Can you stay off the haunted frequency?”

“Calculated risk. With practice—”

“With practice like that, we’ll have two casualties aboard to clean up.”

Ivo recalled the loss of intestinal control of the victims and realized how hard such a notion would strike a finicky girl like Afra. “I seem to be immune,” he said. “At least, I can avoid it successfully. And I did win the privilege. If you will show me how to operate the controls—”

This time Afra seemed relieved. “I’ll instruct you. I’ll have to operate blind, but it should work. Here, I’ll turn off the main screen; you use the helmet.”

And she set him up in the control chair and fastened the equipment upon him, placing the heavy goggles over his eyes. Ivo wished there were more than sheer practicality in the operation, but knew there was not; it was more efficient for her to do these things for him than to direct him through it, this first time.

“Your left hand controls the computer directives. Here, I’ll put you on the ten-key complex.” Her hand took his and carried it to a buttoned surface like that of an adding machine. This was not the same control he had seen Brad employ, he was sure. Alternate inputs? A junior set for the novice? The goggles cut off all outside vision, so he, not she, was “blind.”

“We have a number of important locations precoded,” she continued. “You should memorize them, if you’re going to do this regularly, but right now I’ll give them to you. These will place you on Earth, the Luna bases, any of the artificial satellites or the macroscope station — the torus.” She spieled off numbers, and he obediently pressed the buttons. Twice he miskeyed and had to start over; the third time she placed her hand over his and depressed his fingers for him in the proper order and places. Her digits were soft and cool and firm — as he imagined the rest of her body to be.

Light flared into his eyes. He was a hundred yards from the torus, looking down at it from sunside, blinded by the reflection from its metal plates.

“The next coding is for semimanual control,” she said. “You can’t possibly keep the celestial motions aligned, but you can override portions of the computer’s automatic correction and drift a little.” She directed him through the necessary numeric instruction. “Now you can apply your right hand. Drive it as you would a car — but remember it is three-dimensional.” He felt the mounted ball, its surface actually sandpaper-rough for perfect traction. “Tilt for direction of motion, twist for orientation. Be careful — this is where the destroyer sometimes intrudes. You have to stick to fringe reception — which is more than adequate, at this range. Now set your drift toward the torus; don’t worry, you’ll pass right through the walls. You’ll have to practice a bit to get it down…”

Ivo tilted and twisted — and was rewarded by a dizzying tailspin in which the intolerable blaze of Sol scorched across his eyeballs every three seconds.

“Not so much!” she cautioned after the fact. It was a lesson that would not have to be repeated.

He reduced his efforts and began to slide toward the station, twitching the direction of his gaze to cover it properly. The computer, he thought, must perform a tremendous task, for surely a completely different flow of macrons would be required for each change in direction — yet the transition was smooth. Probably at distances of many light-years such versatility diminished, until a view from the far side of the galaxy would be one direction only, take it or leave it.

It was beginning to work for him, and it gave him a feeling of power.

There was an odor.

“No, that’s my job,” Afra said, calling out to someone else. “You keep practicing, Ivo; I think you have the general idea. Try to work your way inside. I’ll be back in a moment.”

The smell and the sound told him: nature had summoned Brad, and Afra had a job of cleaning up and changing to do. He had to admit she had grit.

He thought of the right-hand control as a flute, and though there was no particular resemblance, control was suddenly easier. Now he could draw on his other talent, that peculiar digital dexterity and sense of tone musicians possessed. He shot through the wall of the torus, schooling himself not to wince, and stopped within the first hall. He reoriented, and was sure he was maintaining spatial stability, but the hall was tilting over steadily. He corrected — and lost it again.

Then he realized: the station was spinning, of course! He had to compensate not only for its motions in space, but for its internal rotation. He had to perform, in effect, a continuing spiral, matching velocities with whatever portion of the station he chose to view. An intricate adjustment, indeed!

He mastered it, driving his viewpoint around as though it were a racing car upon a treacherous track. Then he oriented for a “walk” along the hall. A twist superimposed upon the other adjustments, and he was facing the way he wanted; a tilt, and he was trotting down the hall toward Kovonov’s office.

The Russian was playing solitary sprouts. “If only I could talk to you, Kov!” Ivo exclaimed. “Just to ask you where that UN ship is, if there is one…”

“In Russian?” He jumped, but of course Kovonov had not spoken. Afra was back, her tone deceptively sweet.

Ivo felt the slow flush move up his face to the goggles and knew she was seeing it also, but he kept a steady image of the office. There had to be some way to make contact, and he was sure Kovonov was the key. The man had been too knowledgeable, too familiar with the necessary problems — perhaps because he had rehearsed this voyage himself. If anyone could communicate, across this barrier so much greater than that of language—

He concentrated on the board before the Russian. A vital message had been communicated through this board not so long ago, and perhaps another waited. Meanwhile, this was practice of another sort, since he had discovered in the course of his adjustments that size, too, could be directly controlled. Such adaptations would necessarily become more and more precise as the range increased, in future forays, and he felt he ought to have it down pat. This fine-tuning became an art; it was hardly accident that his musical ability was telling.

“What are you doing?” Afra demanded.

Ivo stifled an irritable reply. Surely she realized how delicate—

“Reexamining the portents, you might say,” Groton said, and Ivo realized with relief that Afra’s question had been directed at the older man.

“Your damned astrology tomes!” she exclaimed. “Your wife brought texts on art and music, but you had to bring—”

“Better than the pretty clothing you packed,” Groton replied, his tone showing his unperturbed smile. But the argument was on. Tension had to seek its sublimations.

And control came. Smoothly Ivo brought the focus down upon the sprouts-board, keeping it clear, magnifying the picture, until the dotted lines and loops loomed enormously across his field of vision. He centered on a single dot, making it swell up as though it were a planet. The illusion captured him, as illusions did; he was coming in for a landing, spaceship balanced. Time for the braking rockets…

“Doesn’t it seem just the merest trifle ridiculous to twiddle with squiggles on paper while there is so much of importance going on?” Afra inquired, and again Ivo had to confine a guilty start.

“I would prefer to call it the interpretation of the nuances of a horoscope,” Groton said calmly. He was better equipped, temperamentally, to fence with her than Ivo was. Beatryx must have gone back to the supply compartment, since she was not present to break this up. “I hardly consider it ridiculous to explore our situation and resources with the best instruments available. There is, as you point out, much of importance going on.”

“Are you seriously trying to equate the use of the macroscope with your occult hobby?”

“I do not consider astrology to be in any sense ‘occult,’ if by that term you mean to imply anything fantastic or magical or unscientific. In the sense that both are tools of immense complexity and potency, yes, I would equate astrology with the macroscope.”

“Let me get this quite straight. You make a representation of the constellations — only those within the narrow belt of the zodiac, ignoring the rest of the sky — and planets — those of Sol’s system exclusively — as they appear in Earth’s sky at the moment of a person’s birth… and from that mishmash you claim to be able to predict his entire life including accidents and acts of God, so that you can tell him — for a suitable fee — to watch out for trouble on a given day or to invest in a certain stock — and yet you claim there is nothing supernatural or at least unethical about this procedure?”

“What you describe is undoubtedly supernatural and possibly of dubious ethics, but it isn’t astrology. You are attributing erroneous claims to this science, then blaming it because it does not and can not make good on them.”

“Exactly what is your definition of astrology, then?”

“I can hardly define it in a sentence, Afra.”

“Try.” Did she think she had him?

“The doctrine of Microcosm and Macrocosm — that is, the concept of the individual as the cosmos in miniature, while the greater universe is total man in his real being.”

The dot-planet broke up into swirls and blobs. He was too close; the resolution of the chalk was not that fine. Soon he would have to center on one section of it, then on a subsection, and so on into the microcosm…

Doctrine of microcosm…

“A microscope!” he said, finding it excruciatingly funny. For the macroscope was, in this case, a microscope. An astonishingly versatile instrument. Could it be that each dot in a game of sprouts had its own gravitic aura that set up macronic ripples for him to pick up? Talk of sensitivity!

“What?” Afra sounded angry.

Oops. “Nothing.” Carefully, he reversed the action, and the scattered chalk coalesced. Now he was taking off from the planet, watching it reform into a distant dot that became a mere point of light against the black background of space. The other lines appeared, marking constellations of the night sky. Could Groton analyze them astrologically?

“All right,” Afra said. “Score one for you. You put me off again. But this time I’m not going to let you slip out of an honest discussion. I want to have your specific rationale for this foolishness.”

Nothing like handing him loaded dice, Ivo thought wryly — but he, too, was curious.

“Well, it is evident that there are certain objects in the universe,” Groton said gamely, “and that they are in constant motion, relative to Earth and to each other. That’s one reason we require the assistance of a computer to orient the macroscope. These masses, and their respective movements, interrelate considerably. That is, the sun carries its family of planets along with it and forces them into particular orbits, while the planets affect their satellites and even distort the orbits of other planets.”

“That is not precisely the way modern theory describes the situation, but for the sake of argument we’ll accept it. So granted. The Solar system interacts.” She sounded impatient, eager for the kill.

“Similarly, there are a number of human beings and other creatures on the Earth, and they relate to each other and interact in an almost impenetrably complex pattern. We merely draw a parallel to the apparent motions of the—”

“Now we come to it. Mars makes men warlike?”

“No! There is no causal connection. In astrology the Earth is considered to be the center of the universe, and the individual’s place of birth is the center of his chart. This is not at all contrary to astronomy, incidentally; it is just a modification of viewpoint, for our convenience.”

Just as, Ivo thought, he was now performing all kinds of clever manipulations to make his macroscopic viewpoint stable. It would be impossible to accomplish anything if he tried to orient on galactic or even Solar “rest.” The center of the universe had to be where the observer was.

He was now paying more attention to the dialogue than to the semiautomatic refinements of macroscopic control, but was jolted back to business. His image was gone! Had he lost touch?

No — Kovonov had merely removed the board. How easy to forget reality, to become involved, to begin to believe in one’s fancies, and to see the monster hand of the image as the hand of God, drawing away the firmament. He had to guard against personification; it could unhinge him.

He adjusted the image so as to watch Kovonov, life-sized. The man looked about almost furtively, then drew from his desk drawer a card. He set this on the table.

There was print on it. Skillfully now, Ivo centered on that print, clarified it, read it. It was not Russian!

S D P S

A message for him! Kovonov was trying to communicate!

After a minute the Russian put the card away and replaced the board. He resumed his sprouts doodling.

Could that be all? Where was the rest of it?

“So you claim the positions of the planets in the sky at the moment of my birth determine my fate, despite anything I might have to say about it.”

“By no means. I merely want you to concede the possibility of a relation between the configuration of the heavens at any particular moment and that of human affairs. It doesn’t have to be a causal relation, or even a consistent one. Just a relation.”

“You bastard,” she said without rancor, “you’ve got me halfway into your camp already.”

Bastard? Ivo thought. Was this the innocent girl who had blushed so delicately at the very mention of S D P S? He certainly was seeing another side of her now.

“Of course there’s a relation!” she continued irately. “There’s a relation between a grain of sand at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and my grandfather’s gold tooth. But it is hardly significant — and if it were, what proof do you have that your astrology can clarify it, when science can not?”

“Astrology is a science. It is built upon the scientific method and endures by it. The discipline is as rigorous as any you can name.”

“Geometry.”

“All right. How do you ‘prove’ the basic theorems of geometry?”

“Such as A = ½ BH, for a triangle? You’re the engineer. There must be a dozen ways to—”

“One will suffice. You’re thinking of making constructs and demonstrating that your One-times-Base-times-Height figure is the sum of congruent pairs of right-angle triangles, or something like that, correct? But how do you prove congruence? Don’t tell me angle-side-angle or side-side-side; I want to know how, in the ultimate definition, you prove your proofs. What is your true basis?”

“Well, you can’t have a strictly geometrical proof for the initial theorem, of course. You have to start with one assumption, then build logically from that. So we assume that if one angle between two measured sides is fixed, the entire triangle is fixed. It works perfectly consistently.”

“But what if it’s wrong?”

“It isn’t wrong. You can measure triangles full-time for a lifetime, and you’ll never find an exception.”

“Suppose I transfer side-angle-side from a flat surface to a torus?”

She almost spluttered. “You have to match surfaces. You know that.”

It seemed to Ivo that Groton had just scored another point, but for some reason the man didn’t follow it up.

“So experience is your guideline, then,” Groton said.

“Yes.”

“That’s the basis for astrology, too.”

“Experience? That the position of Mars determines man’s fate?”

“That the zodiacal configuration at a person’s birth indicates certain things about his circumstance and personality. Astrologers have been making observations and refining their techniques for many centuries — it is one of the most ancient of disciplines — until today the science is as close to accuracy as it has ever been. There is still much to learn, just as there is about geometry, but it is experience and not guesswork that modifies our application. I do not claim that the stars or planets determine your fate; I do suggest that your life is circumscribed by complex factors and influences, in much the same way as the motions of the planets and stars are circumscribed, and that the complex of your life and the complex of the universe may run in a parallel course. Astrology attempts to draw useful parallels between these two admittedly diverse areas, since what is obscure in one realm may be apparent in the other. In this way it may be possible to clarify aspects of your life that may not otherwise be properly understood. The one correspondence we can fix with any degree of certainty is the moment of birth, so we must use that as the starting point for the individual — but that is all it is. A starting point, just as your side-angle-side measurement is a possible starting point for the entire science of geometry. The difference is that astrology does not attempt to determine facts, since these are things you may ascertain for yourself. It reveals nothing that is hidden. Instead it facilitates the measure and judgment of what is actually encountered in experience.”

Ivo remembered the Senator’s distinction between truth and meaning in philosophy.

“That sounds closer to psychology than astronomy,” Afra said.

“It should. The relation between astronomy and astrology is entirely superficial. We depend upon the astronomers for measurements of planetary motions and such, but after that we part company. The metaphysical opinions of astronomers have no bearing on astrology; these gentlemen are simply not competent in that area, however competent they may be in their own field, that I admit they have mastered with a skill they have not even thought of applying to astrology. A good astrologer doesn’t need a telescope; he does need a sound grasp of practical psychology.”

Ivo had been watching Kovonov all this time, but there had been no other sign. It was time to get advice. “I hate to interrupt,” he said, “but I seem to be stalled.”

Afra came over. “I’m sorry. I let fantasy distract me and forgot all about you. What is it?”

Ivo described what had taken place in the torus.

“Obviously he is referring to the statuette,” she said.

It was amazing how stupid she could make him feel, how quickly. He dollied the image through the wall and down the hall to the common room.

The S D P S was gone, of course, but the pedestal remained. Upon it was a sheet of paper. An anonymous message, he realized, that could implicate no one. It was printed in teletype caps:

CRAFT ALERTED. PROCEEDING FROM MOONBASE THIS DATE 1300 TORUS TIME. ARMED. ACCELERATE WHEN ADVISED. URGENT.

“Oh, God, they are on our tail!” Afra snapped. “And here I’ve been wasting precious time on—”

“Armed?”

“That means a ship-mounted laser. Supposed to be top secret, but we all knew about it.”

“So there has been some poop-scooping.”

“In self-defense. Space is supposed to be free of weapons, and the UN enforces that — but Brad was suspicious of a UN-sponsored industrial complex on the moon. Ruinously inefficient location, with all supplies ferried up from Earth. So we peeked. Presumably it’s for good use — to keep the peace — but the UN is building a fleet that is very like an incipient armada. That space-borne laser is dangerous at indefinite range — as we may discover first-hand if we don’t behave.”

“Why don’t they burn us now, then? They must have us spotted.”

“Because they want to preserve the macroscope. You can be sure that if they officially dismantle it, there will be an unofficial remantling. An insidious group has obtained control of the UN space arm, or will obtain it; again, we only know because we… scooped. A fleet of ships and the macroscope — that’s about as real as power gets. That could have been what Borland was really investigating. He had the nose for that sort of thing.”

“And they would want to keep their laser secret,” Groton put in. “If they use it, everyone will know, and that will be sticky.”

“And because the only equipment precise enough to aim a beam that narrow accurately for that range is right here with us,” Afra said. “They’ll have to get pretty close before they can be sure of us with one burst, particularly if we’re maneuvering.”

Ivo was fazed by such political reality. “Why don’t they just broadcast an ultimatum to us?”

“And admit to the world that somebody has snitched the macroscope from under their nose? They can certainly keep that secret if we can. Can you maintain contact with the station under acceleration?”

“You mean, if we take off and… if there’s a computer setting for it,” Ivo said. “Doesn’t it keep track of any changes in our location, and compensate?”

“Naturally. It’s been doing it right along while you practiced. Otherwise every one of the coded locations would be off by the distance we are from the torus. But under actual acceleration there would be drift because of the change in our orientation. Is your hand steady enough to compensate?”

“I can try,” Ivo said.

She strapped him down while he held the focus. “We’ll have to employ intermittent bursts, and change our own orientation erratically,” she said. “That way they won’t ever be quite sure where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?” Groton inquired.

“Neptune,” Ivo said, but it wasn’t funny.

“What’s two billion, eight hundred million miles among friends?” Afra said, and that wasn’t funny either. Ivo was sure it would be years before they could get to such a planet on an economy orbit. The 1977 probe of the four gas giants, after all, was still less than halfway out.

“We may be able to fool them for a little while — a few hours, say — but will it change the end?” Ivo asked her.

“No. Unless we undertake sustained acceleration, the advantage is with them. They have to catch up eventually.”

Ivo still had the focus on the printed warning in the station common room. “Oh-oh,” he said. “Somebody is changing the sign.”

A technician, seeming to move carelessly, picked up the first sheet with a gloved hand and deposited another. Ivo read it off:

ROBOT BEING FITTED. ACCELERATE IMMEDIATELY. URGENT.

“I’ll get on it,” Groton said. “One G until we think of something better.” Ivo heard him scrambling through the lock.

“Why can’t we set course for — well, Neptune, since it’s vacant and far out — and keep clear of them that way? It might take a little time, but at least we’d be safe until we could figure out something better.”

“You’re right,” Afra said sourly. “At a million miles per hour, direct route, we could make it within four months. At a steady one-gravity acceleration we could achieve that velocity in, oh, half a day. We have supplies for the five of us for a good year.”

Weight hit them as Groton cut in the drive. They were on their way — somewhere.

Ivo, still on the scope, lost the focus, but was able to bring it back by diligent corrective twists. The computer was on the job, holding to the coded location, but it didn’t care what way up the picture was, and it was evident that the loaded weight of the ship threw the calculations off a trifle. The computer was not using the macroscope; it was judging by thrust and vector to estimate the changes and corroborating by telescopic observations. Trace corrections were necessary.

“What’s wrong with that idea, then?” he asked, trying not to sound plaintive.

“First, that robot can take more acceleration than we can, since it has no fallible human flesh to hinder it. It would catch us enroute if the regular ship didn’t. Second, we might get a little hungry, if we did get away, after that year.”

“Oh.” That stupid feeling was threatening to become chronic. “Couldn’t we, er, grow some more food? Refine natural resources or sprout whole grain — I saw bags of—”

“On Neptune?”

He didn’t press the point. “We could come back within the year. The situation could change in that time. Politically.”

“I suppose it could, and we could. That leaves only the problem of outrunning the robot ship.”

“Oh.” He kept forgetting that. “Wait a minute! I thought Joseph was a special vehicle. An atomic heat-shield, or something. Brad told me—”

“We are traveling in verbal circles,” she said. “Joseph can probably deliver enough thrust to fire us off, even burdened with the weight of the macroscope housing, at a sustained ten gravities. No problem there. The robot would run out of chemical fuel in a hurry trying to match that.”

“How long would it take to reach Neptune at ten G’s?”

She was silent a moment, and he knew she was working it out with a slide rule. This, at least, was one problem she couldn’t do quickly in her head or answer from memory, and he refrained from reminding her that he could.

“Assuming turnover at mid-point for deceleration, with constant impetus, top velocity of thirteen thousand, two hundred miles per second — ouch! That’s one fourteenth light-speed! — we could make the trip in just five days.”

“Why not?” he asked, satisfied.

“No reason worthy of mention. Of course, we’d all be dead long before we arrived, if that’s any disadvantage.”

“Dead?”

“Did you fancy surviving at a sustained ten G’s?”

Ivo thought about weighing over three quarters of a ton for five days without letup. Power, he decided, was not everything. And of course he should have known that; she had already stated that problem, though it hadn’t sunk in before. He’d been thinking minutes, not days, for that acceleration.

“You have too many nays for my yeas,” he told her. “Suppose we take off at a steady one G in the general direction of Neptune. How long will it take that UN cruiser to catch us?”

“That depends. The manned one is our immediate problem. If it orients immediately and projects for interception, it could rendezvous within two days. If it takes a more conservative approach, to economize on fuel and allow for our possible maneuvering, it would take longer. Since they’ll know fuel is not a problem for us, the latter course is more likely. They wouldn’t want to damage the macroscope. They would try to keep us occupied until the robot was functional, which might be several more days.”

“How would they know about our drive? I thought that was Brad’s private project.”

“Nothing is that private — not from the organization footing the bill. But spectroscopic analysis of our drive emission would remove any doubts they might harbor. That would make them more cautious about closing with us, but it wouldn’t stall them very long. They’d be even more determined to capture us intact, for the sake of that heat-shield.” She paused. “We might bluff them a while, though. We’ll be heading into the sun, and if we threatened to lock suicidally on that—”

“But Neptune is farther out than we are. We’d be headed away from the sun.”

“Not when Neptune’s in conjunction.”

“Conjunction?”

“The opposite side of the sun from Earth.”

“I thought that was opposition.”

“Brother!” she said in exasperation. Then: “Exactly what, if anything, were you thinking of using those two or more days of freedom for?”

He refrained from making a cute answer. “The macroscope.”

“I had the distinct impression you were already occupied in some such capacity. One does live and learn.”

“I meant the programmed aspect”

“Oh.” It was her turn to feel stupid. It set her back only momentarily. “It seems to me that our problem is fairly well defined. We can’t expect to outmaneuver or outrun the UN pair of ships, nor are we in a position to build any fancy equipment to discommode them. Surely you don’t expect to adapt the mind-destroyer impulse as a personal weapon?”

“No. But I’m convinced there is galactic information on that channel, if only we could get past the barrier. No one has ever looked beyond that opening sequence.” Was there anything beyond, he wondered abruptly, or did it merely repeat endlessly?

“No,” she said, her voice subdued. He knew she was thinking of Brad again. “Ivo — do you really think you should — touch that?”

It was the first genuinely personal concern she had shown for him, and he valued it immensely, “It doesn’t hurt me. We already know that.”

“It hasn’t hurt you — yet. What possible thing could you learn worth the risk?”

“I don’t know.” That was the irony of it. He had no evidence there was anything to find. “But if there is any help for us, that’s where it has to be. They — the galactics, whatever they are — must be hiding something. Otherwise why have such a program at all? They can’t really be trying to destroy us, because this is a self-damping thing. I mean, a little of it warns you off, just as it did for the probs. But the discouragement would really be more effective if there were no signal at all. The signal itself is proof there is something to look for. It is tantalizing. It’s as though — well, interference.” He hoped.

“Interference!” she said, seeing it. “To prevent someone else’s program from getting through!”

“That’s the way I figure it. Must be something pretty valuable, to warrant all that trouble.”

“Yes. But it could be something philosophic or long-range. We need an immediate remedy. Something impossible, like an inertial nullifier or instantaneous transport — and that simply isn’t going to happen.”

“I thought I’d give it a try.”

Thus they oriented on Neptune, economy route. It was as good a long-range destination as any. As the vessel turned and began its steady drive toward the sun — actually a cometlike ellipse that would carry it within the orbit of Mercury and out again into space — Ivo gave it his try. He did not need to be concerned about the irregular shifts and pauses in acceleration (designed to confuse the pursuit) because the destroyer was everywhere, always in focus.

No, the alien signal was not difficult to locate. He knew its frequency — or, more aptly, its quality — and it was easier to drift into it than to avoid it. But he felt the perspiration on his body as he aligned the great receptor and allowed the pattern to develop. It was death he was toying with: the potential death of his mind, and perhaps with it, his body.

It came: the same devastating series whose terminus abolished intellect. The pictures built rapidly into symbolic concepts, the concepts into meaning…

Why did it always hit in sequence? Even if it were a recorded, endlessly repeating program, one would expect to pick it up randomly, beginning in the middle or at the end as often as at the introduction. How could it act on the recipient in the ordered manner it did, no matter when he peeked?

He broke the contact with a convulsion of the fingers that threw him far into the static of fringe reception and waited a few seconds. Then he approached again.

The sequence picked up at the beginning, but not as it had been before. This was even faster, spinning through constructions at the maximum rate he could assimilate them. It was as though it were a review of familiar material — as indeed it was.

Startled, he broke again, glad that at least his prior experience had given him the strength to cut it off in mid-showing. Could it be adjusted to him, personally? A signal fifteen thousand years in the transition? The notion was ridiculous!

He reconnected — and the review was so swift as to be perfunctory. Then, as he reached the point at which he had cut it off the first time, it slowed, and a more sedate series resumed. This was, however, still faster than the version he had seen at the station.

Once more he broke, alarmed by the implication as much as by the deadly series. This was not, could not be a recording in any normal sense. It was more like a — a programmed text. A series of lessons embodying their own feedback so that the pupil could constantly check himself and rethink his errors. Inanimate, yet governed by the capability of the student. Such a text was the closest approach of the printed word to an animate teacher, just as a programmed machine-instructor approached sentience without consciousness. It was the student’s burgeoning comprehension of the material that animated the machine or text and gave the illusion of awareness.

Strange that this had not occurred to him before! Yet it was implicit in the groundwork for the program. One had to comprehend the distinction between—

What a mind-expanding thing this was! Already the concepts of the program were spilling over into his human framework. The concepts were real, they were relevant, to himself and to the universe. Philosophy, psychology — even astrology were assuming new significance for him, as he fitted their postulates into his increasing comprehension.

“Afra,” he said, closing his eyes to the fascinating sequence.

She was there. “Yes, Ivo.”

“Is it possible to — to say something in such a way that it — that all possible—”

“That it applies to many situations?” she suggested, trying to help him.

“No. To all situations. I mean, so it is true no matter how you use it. True for a person, true for a rock, true for a smell, true for an idea—”

“Figuratively, perhaps. ‘Good’ might apply to all of these, or ‘unusual.’ But those are subjective values—”

“Yes! Involving the student. But objective too, so that everyone agrees. Everyone who understands.”

“I’m not sure I follow you, Ivo. It is impossible to have complete agreement while retaining individuality. The two are contradictory.”

“Not — personality. In learning framework. In comprehension. So anyone who understands — this — can understand anything. By applying the guidelines. A — a programmed mind, I think.”

“That almost sounds like the Unified Field Theory extended to cover psychology.”

“I don’t know. What does—”

“Albert Einstein’s lifework. He spent his last twenty-five years trying to reduce the physical laws of the universe to a unified formulation. In this way gravity, magnetism and atomic interactions could all be derived as special cases of the basic statement. The practical applications of such a system would be immense.”

“So that the theorems of one could be adapted to any other?”

“I believe so, if you thought of it that way.”

“Like adapting astronomy to human psychology? And to music and art and love?”

“I really don’t—” Once more the pause that portended trouble. “Are you taking up Harold’s line?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is, the macroscope has it.”

“The Unified Field? Are you sure?”

“The whole thing. The set of concepts that apply to our entire experience, whoever or whatever we are.”

She pondered before answering. “That might be the key to the universe, Ivo.”

“No. It’s the mind-destroyer concept. I don’t quite follow it all yet, but a few more runthroughs—”

“Stop!” she cried. “Stay away from that!”

Was the anguish in her voice for him, or for the fate of the macroscope if he should fail? “I don’t mean that I’ll ride it to the… end. Just far enough to—”

“Just far enough to get hooked. Find some other way. Circle around it. Leapfrog it.”

“I can’t. I have to comprehend before I can go on. Otherwise I won’t be able to apply those advanced concepts.”

“Advanced con — Mindlessness!”

“I see it now. Things our species has never dreamed of. Concepts that supersede our realities. But I have to nullify this — this destructive aspect first, or I can never move on.”

“Ivo, you can’t control a fire by cooking yourself in it. You have to handle it remotely, never actually touching. The — the others tried to bathe in it—”

“I don’t think the information has to destroy. It’s many-faceted. If I can come at the right angle—”

“Ivo,” she said persuasively, and her voice gave him adolescent shivers. “Ivo, did you have to comprehend the mathematical theory of the sprouts game before you could win the tournament?”

“No. That’s — I just see the right course a step at a time, like a road through a forest, and I win. I don’t know anything about the math, really.”

“Then why do you feel you have to comprehend the destroyer? Isn’t it enough to know what to avoid and to pass it by, a step at a time? Think of it as a bad move, Ivo. A tantalizing but losing strategy. Skip it and go on to the next.”

He thought about it. “I suppose I could do that.”

“Just hold off the comprehension. Blind yourself to the fire. Shield your mind so that you can get beyond it.”

“Yes, I think I can. But everything I pick up on that basis — it will be like wiring a radio together from a diagram, without knowing anything about its principle of operation. Connect Lead A to Terminal B. It isn’t true knowledge.”

“Not many of us have true knowledge, Ivo. One of the things about civilization is that it is far too complex for every person to master every trade. We must skim the surface of things, we must turn dials, we must memorize procedures without thinking — we exist upon derivatives, yet it is enough. We have to accept the fact that none of us will ever or can ever grasp more than a tiny fraction of the knowledge and nature of our culture. It isn’t necessary to comprehend — just to accept.”

Again he marveled. Was this the sharp-tongued woman who had so recently bickered sarcastically with Groton? Which facet reflected the essence of her?

But all he said was: “Schön could comprehend.”

“You resent him, I know — just as I sometimes resented Brad. But such feelings are pointless. Each of us has to accept his place in the scheme of life, or the entire structure will collapse. Each of us has to be like Sandburg’s nail.”

“Whose nail?”

“The great nail that holds the skyscraper together. It seems a lowly task, but it is just as important as that of the pinnacle.”

“So I’m as important as Schön?”

“Of course, Ivo.”

“Even though Schön might bring Brad back, while I certainly can’t?”

There was no sound from her, and he was immediately sorry he had said it.

After what seemed like a very long time she spoke. “I’m sorry. I was mouthing platitudes. I’m not as objective as my preachments.”

He had liked the platitude better than the fact. “I’ll — I think I can get some of the information. Whatever it is. Without understanding it. I’ll try, anyway.”

“Thank you, Ivo.”

But she made him take a break then, while she saw about changing Brad’s soiled clothing again and feeding him: with a spoon, as with a baby. “I can do that,” Beatryx offered, but Afra would not give up the task.

Then the four of them ate: cold concentrates from the supplies. It was a somber occasion, since no one expected any real breakthrough via the macroscope and Brad’s presence morbidly illustrated the danger in trying. The flight from the torus had been a spectacular gesture, but unrealistic. How could they physically escape from physical pursuit, however much theory they might attain? Their equipment could do it, but not their frail bodies.

Ivo, rested, took up the goggles and controls once more. He knew he had some exceedingly intricate maneuvering to do, because the mind-destroyer was a monstrous sun drawing him into its inferno. He had to approach it, and skirt it, and travel beyond — without getting burned.

In much the same fashion, the group of them had to approach and skirt the sun, on the way to Neptune, while avoiding the opposite menace of the UN pursuit. Another common denominator.

The symbolic patterns formed, leaping through the deadly sequence. Now if only he could follow their import without committing himself to the full denouement—

If he could only, somehow, find a way to survive a sustained ten gravities acceleration, so that they could outrun the robot—

To obtain the answer without absorbing the meaning. To use the voltage without being electrocuted. To remain selectively ignorant. To draw the honey without getting stung.

Again and again he broke the contact, feeling too great a comprehension. The progression was so logical! Every step widened his horizons, prepared him for the one ahead, and induced a savage taste for completion. It was a siren call, luring him in though he knew it was disaster… Yet he was gaining on it, developing, if not an immunity, a resistive callus in his brain. Each approach brought him farther without plumbing the uncontrolled depths. The trick was to keep control of his own reception, to keep it braked, not let the alien program take over entirely. He was becoming automatically blind to key portions, building a barrier—

And it had him. The immense gravity of that conceptual body caught him before he could break again and drew him into itself irresistibly. He knew too much! He had skirted too close, become too familiar, so that his slower intelligence had overcome the cognitive inhibition. He could not draw back from the pyre of that denouement.

Down, unable anymore to resist…

And the universe exploded.

That act of friendship had been enough: he survived, when he would have died. It was as though he had passed through purgatory and been exonerated after almost succumbing; his vision of Hell was behind him.

Though not at all well, he left the ship and set off for home on foot. It was a long walk from the Virginia coast to Macon, Georgia. He arrived March 15, 1865, to spend three months convalescing from St. Anthony’s. Fire.

And in that time of personal recovery from the physical misery of headaches, vomiting, chills and fever, his emotions suffered blows as well. Macon fell to the Union army under General Wilson on April 20, and too soon thereafter President Jefferson Davis himself was taken in the same vicinity. Hope dwindled and expired; the war was lost.

Gussie Lamar, the girl he loved, married a wealthy older man. True, Ginna Hankins remained, but somehow his passion for her had abated. The seemingly carefree days of youth were gone; the war had done for youth.

He wrote poetry through the pain in his joints, and knew even as he applied it tediously to paper that it was not good to express his distress in such fashion. Poetry, like music, reflected beauty, and with his hot reddened skin and swollen and blistered flesh he could feel little affinity for beauty. Unable to work constructively, he boarded for a time at Wesleyan College.

He recovered — but not completely. The consumption had taken hold upon his lung and ravaged it, never to let go entirely. It tightened its cruel grip when he attempted to tutor again, forcing him to give that up also, though he was desperately in need of the money. At last he joined his brother as bookkeeper at the Exchange Hotel, and gained a satisfactory if mundane livelihood.

Reconstruction was upon the land. Unjust laws and corrupt government fomented civic stagnation. Law had largely broken down. The phenomenal expectations of a nation had degenerated into apathy and despair.

Yet gradually his personal fortune improved. The New York literary weekly, Round Table, printed some of his poetry and encouraged him, giving him literary success of a sort. And in the spring of 1867 the Rev. R. J. Scott, editor of Scott’s Monthly, checked into the hotel. This was an opportunity not to be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Scott liked the manuscript.

Yet it was his brother Clifford who actually succeeded as a novelist. The publisher that rejected his own novel brought out Clifford’s Thorn Fruit in 1867. That was a wonderful thing, and he was glad for his brother — but how he longed for some similar success!

He refused, as ever, to give up. Despite his health, he journeyed to New York, where a wealthy cousin provided help. He searched the city for a publisher.

His novel reflected his burning desire to say it all, to convey the whole of his mind and ideal to the reader. It was a kind of spiritual autobiography… and no one was interested.

Finally he subsidized its publication himself, though he could ill afford the expense. It was the only way.

He met another long-time friend, Mary Day, and that which had not bloomed before did so now.

On December 19, 1867, they were married.