Probability Space (20 page)

The two women faced each other. Marbet said, “Essa can’t survive off-planet. This is all she’s known. Why are you doing this?”

“Look at the Sensitive being,” Magdalena jeered. “How do you know Essa can’t adapt off-planet? She wants to go. Are you saying the engineered superwoman should make decisions for the poor inferior backward alien? Very colonialist of you, I must say.”

“You’re only taking her to make Lyle and me uncomfortable,” Marbet said. “It’s in every line of you.”

“Why don’t you ask Essa?” Magdalena said sweetly. “When she wakes up, of course … places, Rory. Let’s blow. Better strap in, Sensitive.”

“Lyle—”

“There’s nothing I can do,” Kaufman said, knowing that if Marbet hadn’t been so upset, she would never have made him admit it aloud. He didn’t look at Marbet as he strapped himself in.

Magdalena piloted. During the lift, through the atmosphere, no one spoke. Essa slept through the entire flight. Kaufman watched World fall away beneath him. Green, lush, and … what? Doomed, he would have said a week ago, and writhed now at his hubris. He was not the destroyer of worlds. Not even the rescuer of fellow human castaways. Ann, Dieter, and World all managed their existences very well without him.

And yet he had changed the directions of those existences. So he was neither destroyer not savior nor neutral force, but something more elusive. More ambiguous, less clear. He, Lyle Kaufman, who had prized the unambiguous clarity of following military orders, while remaining emotionally untouched by those orders.

Not now. Any of it.

Lyle Kaufman gazed down, and watched the beautiful planet dwindle, and hoped to God to never see or set foot on World again.

*   *   *

Magdalena’s ship was as big as a
Thor
-class vessel. Crew of thirty, Lyle decided professionally. Suspicious attachments fore and aft; this ship was armed with a lot more weapons than any civilian liner should be. Her name, Kaufman noted wryly, was the
Sans Merci
.

“‘Palely loitering,’ indeed,” Marbet muttered sourly. Kaufman didn’t know what she meant, and didn’t ask.

As soon as the shuttle had docked, Magdalena disappeared. To call the
Murasaki
, Kaufman guessed. As far as he knew, the warship was still in orbit around the tunnel, still inexplicably. Magdalena must have gotten ship permission to enter the star system. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here.

Two years ago, Colonel Ethan McChesney, SADC Intelligence, had been in charge of the
Murasaki
. McChesney, who had reported directly to Stefanak, had headed the Special Projects group that brought a live Faller to a SADN warship. The only live Faller humans had ever captured, which Marbet had slowly, painfully, learned to communicate with, until it was killed.

Was McChesney still aboard the
Murasaki
? Why was the warship still here? And who did Magdalena know to enable her to come and go with impunity—it was exactly the right word—past the
Murasaki
?

Whoever it was, the shift in power in Lowell City must have affected his or her standing. Not to mention the standing of Magdalena herself, well-known “friend” to the late Sullivan Stefanak. No wonder Magdalena looked concerned.

However, she looked much less concerned when she reappeared on the observation deck two-and-a-half hours later. Kaufman and a very silent Marbet had been given tiny quarters with four bunks. Kaufman had dumped Essa in one of them … better the alien girl stayed with Marbet, who could at least talk to her, than at the mercy of Magdalena, self-proclaimedly
“Sans Merci.”
The room opened off a corridor leading to Magdalena’s stateroom, her bodyguards’ flanking rooms, a galley separate from the crew’s mess or officers’ wardroom, and, at the end of the corridor, the observation deck, filled with comfortable furniture and with a spectacular view of stars. Magdalena’s personal domain.

She entered the observation deck briskly. Kaufman and Marbet had been talking in low voices, and even Kaufman knew that nothing they said mattered as much as what they didn’t say. Marbet was disappointed in him: for allowing Magdalena to bring Essa, for leaving World on Magdalena’s ship instead of their own, for his confused sense of what he was doing now. Look for Tom? Where? How? Three months ago, he had said there was no point in looking for Tom.

Ah, but that was when I thought I had a purpose for being on World
, Kaufman didn’t say. What was his purpose in looking for Tom Capelo?

What was his purpose if he didn’t look for Tom?

“You’re all right,” Magdalena said, with her mocking smile. The blue of her coverall darkened her eyes to sapphire. “McChesney will pass us through the tunnel without boarding. He’ll never know you two are my highly illegal passengers.”

“And then what?” Marbet said evenly.

To Kaufman’s surprise, Magdalena answered her. “McChesney won’t know anything about the political situation, not this far out at the rat’s ass end of the galaxy. We go through the tunnel to Caligula space. It’s military, I know people there. Pierce hasn’t had time to change the commands at remote outposts, at least I hope not. But everybody will be very stirred up. A few people I know may be in considerable danger. It may be possible to arrange … deals.”

Her smile was intended for Kaufman, he knew, the ex-soldier. He put deliberate amusement into his voice. “Magdalena, I hope you’re not implying that I don’t know there is corruption in Stefanak’s military. That assumption would be beneath you.”

“And you, Lyle. But you may not know how much corruption. Always clean, weren’t you? Like McChesney. And always loyal to Sullivan, too.”

It was the first time Kaufman had ever heard anyone use General Stefanak’s first name. He didn’t ask why McChesney, if he was so clean, was dealing with Magdalena at all. He didn’t really want to know the answer.

Marbet said, “The war with the Fallers doesn’t concern you at all, does it? Except as a source of profit.”

“It’s a dirty universe, Sensitive.”

Light footsteps ran down the corridor. The next moment, Essa, still in her gaudy celebration tunic, burst onto the observation deck. She saw the dear wall of stars against black space, with World a blue-green dwindling orb in one corner. The alien girl stopped dead.

Marbet rose swiftly. “Essa, don’t be frightened. We—”

Essa said something in rapid World. Kaufman remembered that she had been in space once before, among the nine aliens Ann had brought up to the
Alan B. Shepard
.

Marbet answered soothingly in World, reassuring.

“Space!” Essa said in English. She threw herself at Magdalena’s feet, looking up adoringly, her black eyes bright as stars and her skull ridges so crinkled that her head looked like a prune.

It appeared that Kaufman had been wrong again. Essa did not look frightened or displaced.

“Space! Essa!” she said, and Magdalena looked mockingly at Marbet and laughed.

SIXTEEN

AT SPACE TUNNEL #438

I
t took Magdalena’s ship four days to reach the tunnel. That was at an acceleration of nearly two gees, which made everyone uncomfortable. People stayed still in their chairs a lot, except for Essa.

She was all over the spacious ship. An irate officer dragged her onto the observation deck by one skinny arm. “This alien was in the engine room!” Kaufman refused to say he was sorry. Essa wasn’t his responsibility.

Somehow, she was Marbet’s. Marbet spent hours with Essa every day, teaching her English. “She’s very intelligent, Lyle, but one of the least fearful people I’ve ever seen. She isn’t scared of anything unless it’s physically threatening her life at that very moment. She’s terribly vulnerable. What are we going to do with her?”

“I didn’t think we were going to do anything with her. Magdalena is.”

Marbet said quietly, “You know that’s not true. It would be criminal to leave a child like that with Magdalena.”

“Marbet, when we return to Sol I won’t know if my false passport had been discovered. I don’t know if I’m subject to criminal charges. I don’t know where we’re going to live, or how I’m going to earn a living. Do you really think it’s fair to saddle me with an alien child?”

“No, I don’t. But as Magdalena so helpfully pointed out, it’s a dirty universe. We’ve got her.” Marbet paused. “Or at least,
I
do.”

Kaufman didn’t like the implications of that. “Are you saying that when we get back to Mars, or Luna, or wherever, we’re not going to be together?”

“I’m not saying that, no, I
am
saying that you need to make some decisions, and you’re not making them. You’re just drifting, and it’s turning you jumpy and unpleasant. At least find something to do with yourself on ship, Lyle.” She turned and left. Kaufman could hear Essa calling for her from the observation deck.

Kaufman knocked on Magdalena’s stateroom door. Rory, the older bodyguard, lounged in a chair outside. Kaufman ignored him.

“Yes?”

“It’s Lyle Kaufman. May I come in?”

The door’s e-lock clicked.

Her cabin was large and lavish. Rory followed him in. Magdalena lay on the enormous bed, listening to a music cube. She wore a coverall the intense blue of her eyes, and her black hair was loose on the pillow. Damn it, she was older than he by at least ten years, maybe fifteen, she should not have this effect on him. Nor know it. Marbet was right; he wasn’t balanced.

He said testily, “I want to ask if I can have unrestricted access to your ship’s library, and if you regularly download scientific journals into it.”

She studied him. “Why?”

“I want to read the physics journals for the last six months, if you have them.”

“Can you understand physics journals, Lyle?” She smiled.

He kept his voice even. At least, unlike Marbet, she couldn’t deduce his thoughts from minute changes in body language. “Not most of the math. But there are abstracts and conclusions, and there are journals that translate breaking events for the educated laymen.”

“What events do you think are breaking?”

“I don’t know. That’s the point. But if you want me to help you find Tom—and Laslo—I need to know as much about who took him as possible, and why. Maybe it’s connected to something he was working on.”

She frowned. “I’m sure the police and the reporters thought of that already.”

“Probably. But I’d like to look anyway.”
For something to occupy myself with
, he didn’t say aloud.

“All right. I’ll instruct the system to let you in. It’s retina-keyed. But, Lyle … just so you know. There’s nothing personal in the ship’s library. In case you thought you’d break some firewalls.”

“I’m not interested in your personal files,” he snapped, and regretted snapping. It gave her a small victory. He made himself say, “Thank you,” and was disturbed all over again by the mocking smile she gave him in return.

Damn her.

*   *   *

Kaufman couldn’t use the terminal in his room; Marbet spent too much time there, teaching Essa English while lying on her bunk (which, because of Essa, was pointedly not “their” bunk). The acceleration was harder on Marbet than anyone else. She’d lived for years on Luna; she’d spent six months on Mars; World had point-nine Earth’s gravity. She spent much of her time lying down. Kaufman, energetic by temperament, was irritated by her constant horizontal position. It seemed lazy. He knew this was unfair.

The only other terminal available to Kaufman was on the observation deck. Magdalena had purchased the most comprehensive commercial packet available, automatically fed to her system as soon as the packet arrived in whatever area of space she happened to be occupying. The
Sans Merci
had apparently passed through Space Tunnel #438 in August, so the library included journals and commentary through then. Kaufman sat in a comfortable chair, heavy hands on the armrests, and talked to the computer for the next three days, trying to follow Tom Capelo’s thoughts through his published papers.

Kaufman was not trained in physics. But he had always been fascinated by it. And because he had been there when Tom formulated his great breakthrough about probability, Kaufman had followed the evolution of that theory ever since. The theory’s evolution, the resistance it met, the confirmations made by other scientists, the objections and loopholes—all the give and take of scientific discourse.

Actually, the entire Solar System had been fascinated by Dr. Thomas Capelo’s theory, even those who didn’t know a proton from a protein. The theory, people knew, somehow had produced the disrupter beams that let Faller ships shrug off human particle-beam weapons. Even more important, it somehow had produced the Protector Artifact that kept the enemy from frying the Solar System.

That last, Kaufman knew, wasn’t accurate. The artifact worked whether humans understood the science behind it or not. Capelo had explained why it worked, but that fact had been far less interesting to the Solar Alliance Defense Council than the fact that it did work. Soldiers were neither physicists nor engineers. They had wanted Capelo to discover what each setting on the artifact did. He had done that. But he had also discovered why.

As Kaufman understood it, Capelo had justified, both in a model and mathematically, the existence of a particle he’d named a “probon.” Each probon, like all fundamental particles, was made of tiny vibrating threads, and each was a smear of probabilities. It existed at the quantum level, in the seething roiling frenzy that is the quantum world, in which particles are constantly deflected, constantly breaking apart and reforming, constantly erupting from the energy of the vacuum and disappearing again.

The probon was a messenger particle, just as gravitons were messenger particles for gravity and gluons for the strong force. The message the probon carried, the force it transmitted, was probability. In the universe as human physics knew it, probability decreed that the path an object took
was
the average of all paths, the path resulting from wave function amplitudes squared, the path that gravity-warped-by-mass made into the path of least resistance. Mass told space how to curve; space told mass how to move.