The Genesis Machine Read online

  "That means all the bodies in the universe ought to decay away to nothing in time," Edwards pointed out. "They've had plenty of time, but there still seem to be plenty of them around."

  "Maybe they do decay away to nothing," Clifford said. "Don't forget that spontaneous creation is going on all the time all over the universe as well. That's an a awful lot of volume and it implies an awful lot of creation."

  "You mean a continuous process in which new bodies are formed out of interstellar matter by the known sequences of galactic and planetary evolution; the newly created particles provide a source to replenish the interstellar matter in turn."

  "Could be," Clifford agreed.

  At last Edwards had drawn Clifford into an area in which he was unable to give definite answers. He pressed the advantage.

  "But surely that requires some resurrection of the Continuous Creation Theory of cosmology. As we all know, that notion has been defunct for many years. The overwhelming weight of evidence unquestionably favors the Big Bang."

  Clifford spread his arms wide in an attitude of helplessness.

  "I know that. All I can say is, the mathematics works. I'm not an astronomer or a cosmologist. I'm not even an experimental scientist. I'm a theoretician. I don't know how conclusive the evidence for Big Bang is, or if there are alternative explanations for some parts. That's why I need to publish this paper. I need to attract the attention of specialists in other areas."

  The string of admissions gave Edwards the moment he was looking for, a moment of weakness that could be exploited. It was time to move in the hatchet man. He half-turned toward Corrigan.

  "What do you have to say, Miles?"

  Miles Corrigan's official title at ACRE was that of Liaison Director, a euphemism for watchdog. Aloof from the hierarchy of line managers who reported to Edwards, Corrigan took his orders directly from the Technical Coordination Bureau in Washington, an office of the Pentagon that provided a rationalizing interface between the Defense Department and the various centers of government-directed scientific research. Through the Bureau, the activities of practically all the nation's scientists were controlled and coordinated, both among themselves and with the activities of the other allies in the Western Democracies. The payer of pipers was firmly calling the tune.

  Corrigan's job was to make sure that the right things got done and got done on time; that was the publicized part anyway. The unpublicized part involved simply maintaining a political presence—a constant reminder that whatever things went on in the day-to-day world of ACRE, they were always part of and subordinate to the grand design of loftier and more distant architects. His brief was to watch for, track down, and exorcise "counterproductive influences," which meant wrong attitudes, uninformed opinions, and anything else of that nature that threatened to affect adversely or undermine the smooth attainment of the Establishment's assigned objectives. Corrigan could track a subversive rumor back to its source with all the skill and tenacity of an epidemiologist tracing an outbreak of typhoid to its prime carrier. To avoid any witch hunts, it was safer just to say the kind of things you were supposed to say, or at best, not to say the kind of things you weren't. The scientists at ACRE called him the Commissar.

  By temperament and background he was well qualified for the job. After walking through a first-class honors degree in law at Harvard, he had set up a lucrative practice in Washington, specializing in defending the cases of errant politicians—at which he had demonstrated a prodigious skill. In the course of a few years he had incurred the lifelong indebtedness of a long list of fixers and string-pullers—the only kind of friends that meant anything on his scale of values—and their tokens of gratitude soon added up to a permanent end to all of life's potential financial problems.

  He married the daughter of a senator who had made his first million in a series of clandestine arms deals that had involved the offloading of whole ship-loads of substandard ammunition on unsuspecting recipients in Burma and Malaysia—or so it was said. The allegations of the senator's involvement were never proved after becoming bogged down over a legal technicality. Miles Corrigan had seen to that.

  Through the influence of his father-in-law and the goodwill of a number of friends with the right contacts, he entered government service at the right level to further his ambitions. His assignment to ACRE represented the final stage of his grooming before he made his debut on the international political scene. He had made it while still in his prime and was all set to fly high.

  He took the cue, sensing a turkey being set up for the kill. When he spoke, his voice was icy and menacing, like the hiss of a cobra measuring its distance. "I'm not interested in k-spaces, hi-spaces, or any of the other buzz-phrases. If all this boils down to saying that you've got something that serves the national interest, then tell us about it. If you haven't, then why are you wasting our time?"

  He confronted Clifford with the sneering, unblinking stare that had destroyed innumerable confused and hostile witnesses. His eyes were mocking, inviting the scientist to court disaster if he dared; at the same time they were insistent, demanding an immediate reply. He caught Clifford completely unprepared.

  "But . . . that's not the point. This is . . ." Clifford was surprised to hear himself stumbling for the right word. Even as he spoke he realized he was on the wrong foot and walking straight into the trap, but it was too late. "We're talking about fundamental knowl—"

  "Will it help us kill Commies?" Corrigan cut him short.

  "No, but . . ."

  "Will it help stop Commies from killing us?"

  "No . . . I don't know . . . Maybe, someday . . ."

  "Then why are you fooling around with it? How much time and resources has all this stuff taken up? What effect has all this had on the work you're paid to be doing? Massey describes it as a hobby, but I don't believe it's quite as simple as that. I've checked the amount of computer usage you've logged over the past six months and I've checked the current status of the projects you're supposed to be working on. They're all way behind schedule. So, where's all the computer time going?"

  "I don't suppose Einstein had the A-bomb in mind when he developed special relativity," Clifford retorted, ducking the feint and walking straight into the uppercut.

  "Einstein!" Corrigan repeated the word for the benefit of the jury. "He's telling us he's another Einstein. Is that right, Dr. Clifford—you consider yourself to be on a par with Einstein?"

  "I didn't say anything of the kind, and you damn well know I didn't." Clifford had recovered sufficiently to return Corrigan's look with a glare that could only be described as murderous. He knew that he was being drawn on to Corrigan's home ground. Somehow he didn't really care much any more.

  "You're saying that we ought to allow you to dabble around with anything that takes your fancy and at whatever expense, simply in case you happen to hit upon something useful. Is that how we're supposed to preserve the security of the West? Doesn't the concept of organized professional objectivity mean anything to you people? How long do we have to protect you and the freedom that you're always talking about before you wake up to reality?"

  Edwards stared uncomfortably at the table, having joined Massey in abdication. It was all up to Corrigan now.

  "This isn't some kind of philosopher's utopia where anybody is owed the right to any living he chooses," Corrigan continued. "It's a dog-eat-dog jungle; the strong survive and the weak go to the wall. To stay strong we have to get our priorities straight. Your priorities are all screwed up. Now you're asking us to follow suit and compound the offense by approving it."

  He took a long, deep breath for effect. "No way. There's no way I'm going to tell Professor Edwards to give a carte blanche for even more time-wasting and misuse of funds and resources."

  Actually, Corrigan couldn't tell Edwards to do anything. His use of the word was deliberate, however, serving as a gentle reminder of his own power, if not authority, at ACRE. Edwards didn't argue the point. He knew that Corrigan's reports back to
the Bureau would have a lot to do with whether he ever moved on to become chief at ACRE or something similar, or whether he ended up running a backwater missile test range on the northern coast of Baffin Island.

  When the victim has been battered to a pulp and stripped of every shred of dignity, he becomes highly suggestible and will respond eagerly to even a slight gesture of friendship. Prison guards had been well versed in the technique throughout history. And Corrigan understood psychology well; he knew what made people tick all right.

  His tone softened a fraction. "Everyone's out of step except you, Dr. Clifford. We're all a team here, trying to do a good job. Why make it difficult? Once you make the effort to fit in, you might find that life's not really that bad.

  "Don't you feel you owe it to this country and all it stands for—the way of life we all believe in? Isn't it worth a few sacrifices to protect all that? Right now half the world out there is sitting and waiting for us to ease up for just one second so they can blow us all off the face of this planet. Are you just going to sit there and let it happen? Do you want them to come walking in here without having to lift a finger?" Corrigan finished on a note that oozed all-in-it-togetherness. "Or are you gonna join the team, do your share, and help us go out there and zap those bastards?"

  Clifford had turned white. Corrigan and his propaganda epitomized everything abhorrent in a world that was going insane. And now he was expecting to enlist Clifford in the ranks of the brainwashed millions who had toiled and bled and died believing that line ever since the world began. There would always be Corrigans to ride on the backs of the masses—for as long as there were willing backs to carry them. Clifford's voice fell to a whisper as he fought to control the anger that boiled inside, churning his stomach and bubbling up into the back of his throat like waves of nausea.

  "I'm not interested in zapping anybody, mister . . . not for you or for whatever you represent. Your system put me here; don't you tell me I'm screwed up now because I don't belong. Don't you tell me I owe anything to your system to help straighten out its mess. Save your garbage for the morons." Without waiting for a reply he got up and strode toward the door. Edwards and Massey remained silent, staring fixedly at the table. If Brad was flushing himself down the tubes, they weren't going to get caught in any of the backsplash.

  * * *

  Clifford, still shaking when he slammed the door of his office behind him five minutes later, began hammering a brief code into the keyboard of the desk terminal. At least he had tried the official channel. The outcome hadn't really been a surprise; that was why he had already prepared a long file in the data bank, ready for immediate transmission.

  A woman's face appeared on the screen. "Message Center. Can I help you?"

  "I need an immediate outgoing channel. The destination code is 090909-73785-21318."

  "Triple-09 prefix is extraterrestrial, sir—for the lunar bases."

  "I know."

  "I'm sorry, but those channels need special authorization from grade 5 or over. Do you have a clearance reference?"

  All the frustrations of the last half-hour boiled over. "Listen, damn it, and store this on file. This is absolutely top priority. I take full responsibility. I don't care if you need clearance from the President, the Pope, or God Almighty himself. GET ME THAT DAMN CHANNEL!"

  Chapter 3

  " . . . Proxima Centauri, 4.3 light-years away from us, has at least three planets of significant size, the largest of them having a mass of 0.0018 times that of the sun and an orbital period of 137 years. Slightly farther away, at 6.0 light-years, Barnard's Star again has at least three planetary companions, B1, B2, and B3, of masses 0.0011, 0.0008, and 0.0003, periods 26, 12, and 14.3 years respectively; we strongly suspect others as well. Beyond these systems, the stars Lalande 2115A, 61Cygni, and Kruger 60A, to name just three, also possess planets that have been positively observed and whose main properties have been accurately measured. In fact, more than thirty planets of stars other than our own sun are known to exist within a radius of twenty light-years from us."

  Professor Heinrich Zimmermann pointed out the last item on the list and then turned away from the three-dimensional model of the local regions of the galaxy to look directly into the camera. The camera trolley rolled noiselessly forward to close in on his tall, immaculately dressed figure, dignified by a lean, angular build and a crown of silvery hair.

  "Thus some of our work here at the Joliot-Curie Observatories on Lunar Farside has added immensely to our knowledge of the Sun's neighboring planetary systems. If these statistics are extrapolated to cover the whole galaxy, they indicate the existence of billions of planets. If only one in every thousand were to be similar to Earth in temperature and surface chemistry, we are still left with millions of worlds on which life as we know it could emerge. Furthermore, as you saw earlier, the emergence of life is not, as was once supposed, a billion-to-one freak occurrence; as the experiments of such scientists as Okoyaku and Skovensen have shown, it is virtually a certainty once the right conditions are established." He stepped aside to allow a zoom-in for a close-up of the model while he delivered his final words. "I will leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the implications of these statements. Despite the exciting things that we have seen in this program, it could be that the real excitement is yet to come."

  "Okay. Cut it there." The floor director's voice sounded from the wall of darkness behind the arc lights. "That was fine. Take a short break, but be ready for another take of the first part of sequence 5 in five minutes. Harry and Mike, don't go rushing off anyplace—I need to talk to you for a second."

  The lights dimmed and a hubbub of voices broke out on all sides. The floor around Zimmermann was transformed into an arena of bustling technicians. He paused to allow his eyes to readjust to the comparative gloom of normal lighting, acknowledged the thanks from the film team, and moved away from all the activity to stand by one of the dome's viewing ports. While he dabbed his forehead lightly with a pocket handkerchief, he stared silently out at the harsh, bleak landscape of the lunar surface.

  Beyond the litter of assorted engineering and latticework that marked the environs of the observatory complex and base, the soft, rolling dunes of ash-gray dust lay seared beneath the direct rays of lunar noon, pitted here and there by the ink-black shadow of the occasional crag or boulder. Above the featureless horizon, a million blazing jewels lay scattered on a carpet of velvet infinity. Joliot-Curie was without exception the loneliest center of human habitation in the universe. Here, shielded by the body of the Moon itself from Earth's incessant outpouring of electronic caterwauling, gigantic radio dishes listened for the whisperings that brought the secrets of the cosmos; unhampered by any atmosphere and all but free of the weight-induced distortions that had crippled their Earth-bound predecessors, enormous optical telescopes probed the very limits of the observable universe. The Joliot-Curie observatory complex was distant; it was isolated, but it was free—a surviving outpost of unfettered science where the pursuit of knowledge constituted its own ends.

  A shadow from behind him darkened the wall by the side of the viewing port. Zimmermann turned to find Gus Craymer standing there; Craymer was Assistant Producer of Exploding Horizons—the documentary they were making. Craymer peered past the professor to take in the scene from the outside and pulled a face.

  "How come you guys don't go nuts in this place?" he asked. Zimmermann followed his gaze, and then turned back smiling faintly.

  "Oh, you would be surprised, Mr. Craymer. The solitude and peace can be quite stimulating. It really depends on what you see when you look out there. Remember the rhyme about the two men and the prison bars? I wonder sometimes that you don't all go nuts on Earth."

  "You see stars, huh," Craymer grinned. "Literally." He indicated the far side of the room with a nod of his head. "There's coffee going over there if you'd like some." Zimmermann folded the handkerchief and replaced it in his breast pocket.

  "Thank you, no. I'll enjoy some in comfort
when we have completely finished. How near the end are we?"

  Craymer consulted the typed schedule that he was holding.

  "Well, there's some outside shooting to be done now that the Sun's at the right angle . . . some close-ups of instruments to go with the commentary we recorded yesterday. Lemme see now, where are your parts . . . ? Here we are—there's only one more shot that involves you and that's coming up right now. That'll be a retake of the beginning of sequence 5 . . . the one where you talk about radiation from black holes."

  "Ah, yes. Very good."

  Craymer closed the folder and turned to look out across the floor with Zimmermann.

  "I guess you'll be glad to get back to your work without this bedlam going on all the time," he said. "You've been very patient and cooperative while we've been here. I'd like you to know that all the people on the team appreciate it."

  "Quite the contrary, Mr. Craymer," Zimmermann replied. "It has been my pleasure. The public has paid for everything here, including my salary; they have a right to be kept informed of what we are doing and why. Besides, anything that popularizes the true nature of science is worth a little time and trouble, don't you think?"

  Craymer smiled ruefully as he recalled the problems that they had encountered with petty bureaucrats in Washington six months before, when they had tried to put a documentary together on spacecraft navigation and propulsion systems. In the end they'd had to abandon the project, since what was left after the censoring wouldn't have made a lesson fit for elementary-school students.