MacRoscope (20 page)

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.

Gentle hands steadied his head and wiped his face with a wonderfully cool sponge. A woman’s touch, and it was good; he could imagine nothing so sure, so comforting.

For a moment he savored the attention, dreaming of recovery from devastation, of marriage. Then he opened his eyes.

It was Beatryx. “He’s awake,” she murmured.

The others seemed to materialize as she spoke. He saw Harold Groton’s anxious, homely face, and Afra’s careful glance of assessment.

“No, I’m not brain-burned,” he said.

“Thank God!” Afra said.

“What happened?” Groton asked at the same time.

“Now don’t go jumping on him like that,” Beatryx chided them. “He needs a chance to rest. His forehead is hot.” And she brushed his face expertly with the sponge again.

Her analysis might be simplistic, he thought, but his forehead
was
hot, and he was tired with a fatigue that extended deep into the psyche. Gratefully, he fell asleep.

Hours later he was ready to talk to them. “How close is the UN ship?”

“The optic spots the manned one about a day behind us,” Groton said. “We don’t have more than twenty-five hours before it comes within effective laser range.”

Ivo remembered. The laser itself could reach them anywhere in near-space, but could not be properly aimed unless coordinated by an instrument as precise as the macroscope. So it became essentially a short-range weapon, against a maneuvering target, good only for a few thousand miles. “Good. I mean, I think that gives us enough time.”

“You — you have the solution?” The dawning of hope on Afra’s face was a blessed thing to watch.

“Solution?” he repeated, finding it unreasonably funny. “Yes. Something very like it. But first I’ll have to explain what happened.”

“Ivo, I don’t want to rush you,” Groton said, “but if we don’t get away from that UN ship soon—”

“I’m sorry, but I do have to explain first. There is some danger, and if I — well, one of you would have to take over the scope.”

“Suddenly I get your message,” Groton said. “What
did
happen? Afra came screaming to us about the mind-destroyer, and we were afraid — anyway, I’m certainly glad it wasn’t so. But you certainly were out of it for a while.”

“No — I was
in
it. I was fighting to protect myself against the destroyer by — well, no need to go into that just now. I almost had it, but I — slipped, mentally, and got drawn in too close. I thought that was the end, and I couldn’t even resist, but I was lucky. I still had orbital velocity, and it spun me through the corona and out the other side.”

“I don’t see—”

“
I
do, Harold,” Afra said. “Think of it as an analogy. A planetoid plunging into the sun. The important thing is that he skirted the destroyer and only got stunned for a while.”

“Yes, physically. Not mentally, if that makes sense. And beyond it — I guess you’d call it the galactic society.”

“You saw who sent the killer signal?” Groton.

“No. That’s a separate channel, if that’s the word. It’s all done in concept, but one is superimposed upon another, and you have to learn to separate them. Once you isolate the destroyer, the rest is all there for the taking.”

“Other concepts?” Afra.

“Other programs. They’re like radio stations, only all on the same band, and all using similar symbolic languages. You have to fasten on a particular trademark, otherwise only the strongest comes through, and that’s the destroyer.”

“I follow.” Groton. “It’s like five people all talking at once, and it’s all a jumble except for the loudest voice, unless you pay attention to just one. Then the others seem to tune out, though you can still hear them.”

“That’s it. Only there are more than five, and you really have to concentrate. But you can pick up any one you want, once you get the feel for it.”

“How many are there?” Afra.

“I don’t know. I think it’s several thousand. It’s hard to judge.”

They looked at him.

“One for each civilized species, you see.”

“Several
thousand
stations?” Afra, still hardly crediting it. “Whatever do they broadcast?”

“Information. Science, philosophy, economics, art — anything they can put into the universal symbology. Everything anybody knows — it’s all there for the taking. An educational library.”

“But
why
?” Afra. “What do they get out of it, when nobody can pick it up?”

“I’m not clear yet on the dating system, but my impression is that most of these predate the destroyer. At least, they don’t mention it, and they’re from very far away. The other side of the galaxy. So if it took fifteen thousand years for the destroyer to reach us, these others are taking twenty thousand, or fifty thousand. Maybe the local ones shut down when the destroyer started up, but we won’t know for thousands of years.”

“That bothers me too.” Afra. “Thousands of years before any other species receives their broadcasts, even if the destroyer is not considered. Far too long for any meaningful exchange between cultures.”

“Even
millions of
years.” Ivo. He was still organizing the enormous amount of information he had acquired. “They’re all carefully identified. As I said, I don’t follow the time/place coordinates exactly, though I think I’ll nail that down next time; but the framework is such that some have to be that far. One, anyway; I discovered it because it was different from the others. Smoother — I don’t know how to put it, but there was something impressive about it. Like caviar in the middle of fish eggs—”

“Millions of years!” Afra, still balking at the notion. “That would have to be an extragalactic source, and the macroscope doesn’t reach—”

Ivo shrugged. “Maybe the rules are different, for broadcasts. As I make it, that’s one of the most important stations, for our purposes anyway, and it is about three million light-years away. That’s the main one I listened to. It — but I guess I said that.”

“I removed the helmet and goggles the moment you passed out,” Afra said as though debating with him. “How much did you have
time
for?”

“Time isn’t a factor. Not in reception, anyway. Not for survey. It’s — relative. Like light, only—”

“Ah,” Groton said, not appalled at the concepts as Afra seemed to be. “The analogy I used earlier. Light approaches the observer at the same velocity by his observation, no matter how fast or in what direction he is moving relative to the light source. Michelson-Morely—”

“Something like that. I absorbed a lot in one jolt, then had to sort it out afterwards. I’ll have to go in again to get the details, but at least I know what I’m looking for.”

“What
are
you looking for?” Afra asked. “
Is
there something that will help us right now?”

“Yes. Apparently it’s a common problem. Surviving strong acceleration, I mean. This extragalactic station has it all spelled out, but it’s pretty complicated.”

“I still don’t see
why
,” Afra said petulantly. She was less impressive when frustrated, becoming almost childlike. “It doesn’t make sense to send out a program when you know you’ll be dead long before it can be answered. Three million years! The entire culture, even the memory of the species must be gone by now!”

“
That’s
why,” Ivo said. “The memory
isn’t
gone, because everyone who picks up the program will know immediately how great that species was. It’s like publishing a book — even paying for it yourself, vanity publishing. If it’s a good book, if the author really has something to say, people will read it and like it and remember him for years after he is dead.”

“Or making a popular record,” Groton agreed. “
When
it is recorded is much less important than how much it moves the listener.”

“But there’ll never be any feedback!” Afra protested.

“It isn’t
for
feedback. Not that kind. These civilizations are publishing for posterity. They don’t need to worry about greatness in their own time or stellar system; they know what they have. But greatness for the ages, measured against the competition of the universe — that’s something that only the broadcasting can achieve for them. It’s their way of proving that they have not evolved in vain. They have left the universe richer than they found it.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” she said dubiously.

“Maybe you have to be an artist at heart to feel it,” Ivo said. “I’d like nothing better than to leave a monument like that after me. Knowledge — what better way can you imagine than that?”

“I’m no artist,” Groton said, “but I feel it. Sometimes I am sick at heart, to think that when I pass from this existence no one besides my immediate acquaintances will miss me. That I will die without having made my mark.” Ivo nodded agreement.

“Whatever for?” Beatryx asked, sounding a little like Afra. “There is nothing wrong with your life, and you don’t need friends after you’re gone.”

“Must be a sexual difference, too,” Groton remarked, not put out. “Every so often my wife pops up with something I never suspected she’d say. I wonder, in this case, whether it is because men are generally the active ones, while women are passive? A woman doesn’t feel the need to
do
anything.” Both women glared at him.

“Whatever it is, it extends to culture too,” Ivo said. The joint distaff gaze turned on him. “The space-cultures,” he explained quickly. “At least, the ones that advertise. It’s as impressive a display as I have ever dreamed of.”

“But can it get us away from that UN laser?” Afra’s mind never seemed to stray far from practicalities.

“Yes. Several stations carry high-acceleration adaptors. But the intergalactic program has the only one we can use now. We don’t have facilities for the others.”

“One is enough,” Afra said.

“But it’s rough. It’s biological.”

“Suspended animation? I suppose if we were frozen or immersed in protective fluid—”

“We don’t have a proper freezer, or refrigerated storage tanks,” Groton said. “We can’t just hand bodies out the airlock for presto stasis. And who would bring us all out of it, when the time came? Though I suppose I could adapt a timer, or set the computer to tap the first shoulder.”

“No freezing, no tanks,” Ivo said. “No fancy equipment. All it takes is a little time and a clean basin.”

Afra looked at him suspiciously, but did not comment.

“What are you going to do — melt us down?” Groton.

“Yes.”

“That was intended to be humorous, son.”

“It’s still the truth. We’ll all have to melt down into protoplasm. In that state we can survive about as much acceleration as Joseph can deliver, for as long as we need. You see, the trouble with our present bodies is that we have a skeletal structure, and functioning organs, and all kinds of processes that can be fouled up by a simple gravitic overload. In a stable situation there is no substitute for our present form, of course: I’m not denigrating it. But as protoplasm we are almost invulnerable, because there isn’t any substantial structure beyond the molecular, or at least beyond the cellular. Liquid can take almost anything.”

“Except pouring or splashing or boiling or polluting,” Afra said distastefully.

“Methinks the cure is worse than the UN,” Groton mumbled. “I don’t frankly fancy myself as a bowl of cream or soft pudding.”

“I said it was rough. But the technique is guaranteed.”

“By a culture three million years defunct?” Afra asked.

“I’m not sure it’s dead, or that far away. It might be one million — or six.”

“That makes me feel ever so much better!”

“Well, I guess it’s take it or leave it,” Ivo said. “I’ll have to show it to you in the macroscope, then you can decide. That’s the only way you can be keyed in to the technique. I can’t explain it.”

“Now we have to brave the destroyer too,” Afra said. “All in a day’s work, I suppose.”

“Hold on here,” Groton said. “Are you serious? About us dissolving into jelly? I just can’t quite buy that, fogyish as I may be.”

“I’m serious. Its advantage over the other processes is that it eliminates complicated equipment. Any creature can do it, once shown how, and guided by the program. All you need is a secure container for the fluid, so it doesn’t leak away or get contaminated, as Afra pointed out. Otherwise, it’s completely biologic.”

“Very neat, I admit,” Afra said tightly. “How about a demonstration?”

“I’ll be happy to run through it for you. But I think you should learn the tuning-in technique first, just in case. I mean, how to find the station and avoid the destroyer.”

“If it doesn’t work, we hardly need the information!” Afra pointed out.

“Exactly how are we going to get around the destroyer impulse,” Groton asked. “Individually or en masse?”

“I — know the route, now. I can lead you to the station one at a time, and bypass the destroyer, if you let me — do the driving. I can’t explain how, but I know I can do it.”

Groton and Afra both shook their heads, not trusting it. They might differ on astrology, but they had lived with the knowledge of the destroyer longer than he had, and shared a deep distrust of it.

“I will go with you,” Beatryx said suddenly. “I know you can do it, Ivo.”

“No!” Groton exclaimed immediately.

Beatryx looked at him, unfazed. “But I’m not in danger from it, am I? If I get caught it won’t touch me; and if I don’t, it will prove Ivo knows the way.”

Groton and Afra exchanged helpless glances. She was right, and showed a common sense that shamed them both — but a surprising courage underlay it.

Brad had said something about a normal IQ being no dishonor. Brad had known.

Groton looked tense and uncomfortable as Beatryx donned a duplicate helmet and set of goggles, but he didn’t interfere. It was evident to Ivo that mild as Beatryx was, when she put her foot down, it was down to stay.

He took her in, sliding delicately around the destroyer with less of the prior horror and finishing at the surface of the galactic stream of communications.

“Oh, Ivo,” she exclaimed, her voice passing back into the physical world and making a V-turn to reach him down his azimuth. “I see it, I see it! Like a giant rainbow stretching across all the stars. What a wonderful thing!”