Nemesis (25 page)

“Of course not. She’s a very sensible— Why do you ask these questions? You know that she makes no claims that aren’t—”

“That aren’t substantiated. I know. She never boasted about her perceptivity. It was more or less forced out of her by circumstance.”

“Yes, but what is the purpose of all this?”

Genarr kept on, quietly. “Has she ever laid claim to having strange intuitive powers? Has she ever expressed herself as certain that something, some particular something, was sure to happen, or was sure not to happen, for no reason other than that she was certain?”

“No, of course not. She clings to evidence. She doesn’t make wild claims without evidence.”

“Yet in one respect, perhaps
only
in one respect, she does. She is certain that the Plague cannot touch her. She claims that she experienced this utter confidence, this certainty that Erythro cannot harm her, even on Rotor, and that it grew stronger when she reached the Dome. She is quite determined—
completely
determined—to remain here.”

Insigna’s eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth. She made an inarticulate sound and then said, “In that case—” and remained staring at him.

“Yes,” Genarr said in sudden alarm.

“Don’t you see it? Isn’t this the Plague striking? Her personality is changing. Her mind is being affected.”

Genarr sat frozen at the thought for a moment, then he
said, “No, it can’t be. In all the cases of Plague, nothing like this has been detected. This is not the Plague.”

“Her mind is different from those of others. It would be affected differently.”

“No,” said Genarr desperately. “I can’t believe that. I won’t believe that. I believe that if Marlene says she is certain she is immune, that she
is
immune, and that her immunity will help us solve the puzzle of the Plague.”

Insigna’s face whitened. “Is that why you want her here on Erythro, Siever? To use her as a tool against the Plague?”

“No. I don’t want her here only to use her. Nevertheless, she wants to stay and she may
be
a tool, quite apart from whether we want her to be one or not.”

“And just because she wants to remain on Erythro, you are willing to allow her to do so? Just because she wants to stay out of some perverse desire she can’t explain and in which you and I can see no reason or logic. You seriously think she should be allowed to remain here merely because she wishes to? Do you dare tell me that?”

Genarr said with an effort, “As a matter of fact, I am tempted in that direction.”

“It is easy for you to be tempted. She is not your child. She is
my
child. She is the only—”

“I know,” said Genarr. “She is the only thing you have left of—Crile. Don’t stare at me like that. I know that you have never overcome your loss. I understand how you feel.” He said this last softly, gently, and looked as if he wanted to reach out and touch Insigna’s bowed head.

“Just the same, Eugenia, if Marlene really wants to explore Erythro, I think nothing will stop her from doing so in the end. And if she is absolutely convinced that the Plague will not touch her mind, perhaps that mental attitude will prevent it from doing so. Marlene’s aggressive sanity and confidence may be her mental immune mechanism.”

Insigna snapped her head up, her eyes smoldering. “You are speaking nonsense, and you have no right to give in to this sudden streak of romanticism in a mere child. She is a stranger to you. You do not love her.”

“She is no stranger to me and I
do
love her. More
important, I
admire
her. Love would not give me that depth of confidence that would permit the risk, but admiration would. Think about it.” And they sat there, staring at each other.

Kattimoro Tanayama, with his accustomed tenacity, lived out the year he had been allotted, and was well into another year before his long battle was over. When the time came, he left the field of battle without a word or sign, so that the instruments recorded death before any onlooker could see it had come.

It made little stir on Earth and none at all in the Settlements, for the Old Man had always done his work outside the public eye and had been all the stronger for it. It was those who dealt with him who knew his power, and those who most depended on his strength and policy who were the most relieved to see him go.

The news reached Tessa Wendel early, by the special channel set up between her headquarters and World City. Somehow, the fact that it had been expected for months did not ease the shock.

What would happen now? Who would succeed Tanayama and what changes would be made? She had been speculating on the matter for a long time, but it was only now that the questions seemed to have real meaning. Obviously, despite everything, Wendel (and perhaps all who were involved) had not really expected the Old Man to die.

She turned for comfort to Crile Fisher. Wendel was realistic enough to know that it was not her now clearly middle-aged body (in less than two months, she would be reaching an incredible fifty) that held Fisher. He was forty-three now and the bloom of youth had become somewhat overblown there, too, but it wasn’t as obvious in a man. In any case, he was held, and she could still make herself feel that it was
she
who held him, figuratively,
especially on those occasions when she held him, literally.

She said to Fisher, “Well, now what?”

Fisher said, “It’s no surprise, Tessa. It should have happened before this.”

“Granted, but it’s happened now. It was his blind determination that kept this project going. Now what?”

Fisher said, “As long as he was alive, you were eager for him to die. Now you are concerned. But I don’t think you need worry. The project will continue. Something this size has a life of its own and it can’t be stopped.”

“Have you ever tried to calculate how much this has cost, Crile? There’ll be a new Director of the Terrestrial Board of Inquiry and the Global Congress will certainly pick someone they can control. There’ll be no new Tanayama before whom they must all cower—not in the foreseeable future. And then they’ll look at their budget and, without Tanayama’s gnarled hand covering it, they will see it is meters deep in red ink, and they’ll want to cut it back.”

“How can they? They’ve spent so much already. Are they to stop with nothing to show for it? That would really be a fiasco.”

“They can blame it on Tanayama. ‘He was a madman,’ they’ll say, ‘an egomaniac, driven by an obsession’—all of which is true to a considerable extent, as we both know—and now they, who were not responsible for any of this, can return Earth to sanity and abandon something the planet can’t really afford.”

Fisher smiled. “Tessa, my love, your penetration of the manner of political thinking is probably par for a first-class hyperspatialist genius. The Director of the Office is—in theory, and in public perception—an appointed official of narrow powers who is supposedly under the thorough control of the President-General and the Global Congress. These supposedly powerful officials, who are elected, cannot make it plain that Tanayama ruled them all and had them cowering in corners, afraid to let their hearts beat without his permission. They would reveal themselves to be cowards and incapable weaklings, and they would risk losing their positions at the next election. They will have to continue the project. They will make cosmetic cuts only.”

“How can you be so sure?” muttered Wendel.

“Long experience at watching elected officialdom, Tessa. Besides, if we stop short, we’re just inviting all the Settlements to get it before we do—to move out into deep space and leave us behind the way Rotor did.”

“Oh? How will they do that?”

“Given their knowledge of hyper-assistance, wouldn’t you say that an advance to superluminal flight is inevitable?”

Wendel looked at Fisher sardonically. “Crile, my love, your penetration of hyperspatialism is probably par for a first-class wheedler of secrets. Is that what you think of my work? That it is an inevitable consequence of hyper-assistance? Haven’t you grasped the fact that hyper-assistance is a natural consequence of relativistic thinking? It still doesn’t allow travel faster than the speed of light. To move on to superluminal velocities requires a true leap in both thought and practice. It would not come naturally, and I have explained this to various people in the government. They complained about the slowness and the expense, and I had to explain the difficulties. They’ll remember this now and they won’t be afraid to stop us at this point. I can’t whip them onward by suddenly telling them that we may be outraced.”

Fisher shook his head. “Of course you can tell them that. And they’ll believe you, too, because it will be true. We can be easily overtaken.”

“Haven’t you listened to what I’ve said?”

“I have, but you’re leaving something out. Allow a little for common sense, especially from someone you’ve just called a first-class wheedler of secrets.”

“What are you talking about, Crile?”

“This vast leap from hyper-assistance to superluminal flight is only a vast leap if one begins at the beginning, as you did. The Settlements, however, are not beginning at the beginning. Do you really think they know nothing at all about our project, about Hyper City? Do you think that I and my Earthly colleagues are the only wheedlers of secrets in the Solar System? The Settlers have their wheedlers, who work just as hard as we do and just as effectively. For one thing, they’ve known
you
were on Earth almost from the day you arrived here.”

“What if they knew?”

“Just this. Do you think they don’t have computers that will tell them you have written and published papers in the field? Do you think they don’t have access to those papers? Do you think they haven’t read them painstakingly and carefully and that they haven’t found out you think that superluminal speeds are theoretically possible?”

Wendel bit her lip and said, “Well—”

“Yes, think about it. When you wrote your thoughts on superluminal velocity, you were merely speculating. You were virtually a minority of one in thinking it might be possible. No one took it seriously. But now you come to Earth and you stay there. You suddenly drop from sight and do not return to Adelia. They may not know all the details of what you’re doing, for security on this project has been as tight as Tanayama’s paranoia could make it. Still, the mere fact that you’ve disappeared is suggestive and there can’t be any possible doubt, in the light of what you’ve published, as to what you’re working on.”

“Something like Hyper City can’t be kept a total secret. The incredible sums of money being invested must leave a noticeable trace. So every Settlement is scrabbling for odds and ends they may be able to convert into bits of knowledge. And every bit gives them hints that will enable them to progress much more quickly than you were able to. You tell them all that, Tessa, if any question arises over ending the project. We can and
will
be overtaken in the race if we stop running. That thought will keep the new people as fired-up over the matter as ever Tanayama was, and it all has the merit of being true.”

Wendel was silent for a considerable time while Fisher watched her carefully.

“You’re right, my dear wheedler of secrets,” she said at last. “I made a mistake in thoughtlessly considering you a lover rather than an adviser.”

“Why should the two necessarily be mutually exclusive?” asked Fisher.

“Although,” said Wendel, “I know very well that you have your own motivations in this.”

“What does that matter,” said Fisher, “even if it’s true, provided mine run parallel with yours?”

A delegation of Congressmen eventually arrived, along with Igor Koropatsky, the new Director of the Terrestrial Board of Inquiry. He had been in subordinate positions at the Office for years, so he was not completely unknown to Tessa Wendel.

He was a quiet man, with smooth, thinning gray hair, a rather bulbous nose, a comfortable double chin, who looked well-fed and good-natured. He was shrewd undoubtedly, but he obviously lacked Tanayama’s almost diseased intensity. At a full kilometer, you could see that.

Congressmen were with him, of course, as though to show that this successor was their property and under their control. They must surely be hoping it would stay that way. Tanayama had been a long and bitter lesson.

No one suggested that the project be ended. Rather, the concern was that it be hastened—if possible. Wendel’s cautious attempt to stress the possibility that the Settlements might overtake Earth, or be hot on its heels, was accepted without demur, almost dismissed as obvious on the face of it.

Koropatsky, who was allowed to be spokesman and to take the responsibility, said, “Dr. Wendel, I do not ask for a long, formal tour of Hyper City. I have been here before, and it is more important that I spend some time reorganizing the Office. I mean no disrespect to my distinguished predecessor, but any shifting of an important administrative body from one person to another requires a great deal of reorganization, especially if the predecessor’s tenure has been a lengthy one. Now I am not, by nature, a formal man. Let us, therefore, speak freely and informally, and I will ask some questions which I hope you will answer in a way that a man of my own modest attainments in science will have no trouble in understanding.”

Wendel nodded. “I will do my best, Director.”

“Good. When do you expect to have a superluminal starship in operation?”

“You must realize, Director, that this is an essentially unanswerable question. We are at the mercy of unforeseen difficulties and accidents.”

“Assume only reasonable difficulties and no accidents.”

“In that case, since we have completed the science and need only the engineering, if we are fortunate we will have a ship in three years, perhaps.”

“You will be ready in 2236, in other words.”

“Certainly not sooner.”

“How many persons will it carry?”

“Five to seven, perhaps.”

“How far will it go?”

“As far as we wish, Director. That is the beauty of superluminal velocity. Because we are passing through hyperspace, where the ordinary laws of physics do not apply, not even the conservation of energy, it costs no more effort to go a thousand light-years than to go one.”