Inherit the Stars Page 9

  Finally, nobody claimed to have proved conclusively that the world on the maps wasn't Earth. Admittedly it didn't look like Earth, and attempts to derive the modern distribution of terrestrial continents from the land areas on the maps had met with no success at all. But the planet's gravity hadn't been all that much different. Maybe the surface of Earth had undergone far greater changes over the last fifty thousand years than had been previously thought? Furthermore, Danchekker's arguments still carried a lot of weight, and any theory that discounted them would have an awful lot of explaining to do. But by that time, most of the scientists working on the project had reached a stage where nothing would have surprised them any more, anyway.

  "Got your message. Came straight over." Hunt announced as Lyn Garland ushered him into Caldwell's office. Caldwell nodded toward one of the chairs opposite his desk, and Hunt sat down. Caldwell glanced at Lyn, who was still standing by the door.

  "It's okay," he said. She left, closing the door behind her.

  Caldwell fixed Hunt with an expressionless stare for a few seconds, at the same time drumming his fingers on the desk. "You've seen a lot of the setup here during the past few months. What do you think of it?"

  Hunt shrugged. The answer was obvious.

  "I like it. Exciting things happen around here."

  "You like exciting things happening, huh?" The executive director nodded, half to himself. He remained thoughtful for what seemed a long time. "Well, you've only seen part of what goes on. Most people have no idea how big UNSA is these days. All the things you see around here—the labs, the installations, the launch areas—that's just the backup. Our main business is up front." He gestured toward the photographs adorning one of the walls. "We have people right now exploring the Martian deserts, flying probes down through the clouds on Venus, and walking on the moons of Jupiter. In the deep-space units in California, they're designing ships that will make Vegas and even the Jupiter Mission ships look like paddleboats. Photon-drive robot probes that will make the first jump to the stars—some seven miles long! Think of it—seven miles long!"

  Hunt did his best to react in the appropriate manner. The problem was, he wasn't sure what manner was appropriate. Caldwell never said or did anything without a reason. The reason for this turn of conversation was far from obvious.

  "And that's only the beginning," Caldwell went on. "After that, men will follow the robots. Then—who knows? This is the biggest thing the human race has ever embarked on: USA, US Europe, Canada, the Soviets, the Australians—they're all in on it together. Where does a thing like that go once it starts moving, huh? Where does it stop?"

  For the first time since his arrival at Houston, Hunt detected a hint of emotion in the American's voice. He nodded slowly, though still not comprehending.

  "You didn't drag me here to give me a UNSA commercial," he said.

  "No, I didn't," Caldwell agreed. "I dragged you over because it's time we had a serious talk. I know enough about you to know how the wheels go round inside your head. You are made out of the same stuff as the guys who are making all the things happen out there." He sat back in his chair and held Hunt's gaze with a direct stare. "I want you to quit messing around at IDCC and come over to us."

  The statement caught Hunt like a right hook.

  "What . . . ! To Navcomms!"

  "Correct. Let's not play games. You're the kind of person we need, and we can give you the things you need. I know I don't have to make a big speech to explain myself."

  Hunt's initial surprise lasted perhaps half a second. Already the computer in his head was churning out answers. Caldwell had been building toward this and testing him out for weeks. So, that was why he had moved in Navcomms engineers to take over running the scope. Had the thought been in his mind as long ago as that? Already Hunt had no doubt what the outcome of the interview would be. However, the rules of the game demanded that the set questions be posed and answered before anything final could be pronounced. Instinctively he reached for his cigarette case, but Caldwell preempted him and slid his cigar box across the desk.

  "You seem pretty confident you've got what I need," Hunt said as he selected a Havana. "I'm not sure even I know what that is."

  "Don't you . . . ? Or is it that you just don't like talking about it?" Caldwell stopped to light his own cigar. He puffed until satisfied, then continued: "New Cross to the Journal of the Royal Society, solo. Some achievement." He made a gesture of approval. "We like self-starters over here—sorta . . . traditional. What made you do it?" He didn't wait for a reply. "First electronics, then mathematics . . . after that nuclear physics, later on nucleonics. What's next Dr. Hunt? Where do you go from there?" He settled back and exhaled a cloud of smoke while Hunt considered the question.

  Hunt raised his eyebrows in mild admiration. "You seem to have been doing your homework," he said.

  Caldwell didn't answer directly but asked, simply, "How was your uncle in Lagos when you visited him on vacation last year? Did he prefer the weather to Worcester, England? Seen much of Mike from Cambridge lately? I doubt it—he joined UNSA; he's been at Hellas Two on Mars for the last eight months. Want me to go on?"

  Hunt was too mature to feel indignant; besides, he liked to see a professional in action. He smiled faintly.

  "Ten out of ten."

  At once Caldwell's mood became deadly serious. He leaned forward and spread his elbows on the desk.

  "I'll tell you where you go from here, Dr. Hunt," he said. "Out—out to the stars! We're on our way to the stars over here! It started when Danchekker's fish first crawled up out of the mud. The urge that made them do it is the same as the one that's driven you all your life. You've gone inside the atom as far as you can go; there's only one way left now—out. That's what UNSA has to offer that you can't refuse."

  There was nothing Hunt could add. Two futures lay spread out before him: One led back to Metadyne, the other beckoned onward toward infinity. He was as incapable of choosing the first as his species was of returning to the depths of the sea.

  "What's your side of the deal, then?" he asked after some reflection.

  "You mean, what do you have that we need?"

  "Yes."

  "We need the way your brain works. You can think sideways. You see problems from different angles that nobody else uses. That's what I need to bust open this Charlie business. Everybody argues so much because they're making assumptions that seem obvious but that they shouldn't be making. It takes a special kind of mind to figure out what's wrong when things that anybody with common sense can see are true turn out to be not true. I think you're the guy."

  The compliments made Hunt feel slightly uncomfortable. He decided to move things along. "What do you have in mind?"

  "Well, the guys we have at present are top grade inside their own specialties," Caldwell replied. "Don't get me wrong, these people are good—but I'd like them to concentrate on doing the things they're best at. However, aside from all that, I need someone with an unspecialized, and therefore impartial, outlook to coordinate the findings of the specialists and integrate them into an overall picture. If you like, I need people like Danchekker to paint the pieces of the puzzle, but I need someone like you to fit the pieces together. You've been doing a bit of that, unofficially, for quite a while anyway; I'm saying, 'Let's make it official.'"

  "How about the organization?" Hunt asked.

  "I've thought about that. I don't want to alienate any of our senior people by subordinating them or any of their staffs to some new whiz kid. That's only good politics. Anyhow, I don't think you'd want it that way."

  Hunt shook his head to show his agreement.

  "So," Caldwell resumed, "what I figure is, the various departments and sections will continue to function as they do at present. Our relationship with outfits outside Navcomms will remain unaffected. However, all the conclusions that everybody has reached so far, and new findings as they turn up, will be referred to a centralized coordinating section—that's you. Your job will
be to fit the bits together, as I said earlier. You'd build up your own staff as time goes on and the work load increases. You'd be able to request any particular items of information you find you need from the specialist functions; that way you'd be defining some of their objectives. As for your objectives, they're already spelled out: Find out who these Charlie people were, where they came from, and what happened to them. You report directly to me and get the whole problem off my back. I've got enough on my schedule without worrying about corpses." Caldwell threw out an arm to show that he was finished. "Well, what do you say?"

  Hunt had to smile within himself. As Caldwell had said, there was really nothing to think about. He took a long breath and turned both hands upward. "As you said—an offer I can't refuse."

  "So, you're in?"

  "I'm in."

  "Welcome aboard, then." Caldwell looked pleased. "This calls for a drink." He produced a flask and glasses from somewhere behind the desk. He poured the whiskey and passed a glass to his newest employee.

  "When do you want it to start?" Hunt asked after a moment.

  "Well, you probably need a couple of months or so to sort out the formalities with IDCC. But why wait for formalities? You're on loan here from IDCC anyway and under my direction for the duration; also, we're paying for you. So what's wrong with tomorrow morning?"

  "Christ!"

  Caldwell's manner at once became brisk and businesslike.

  "I'll allocate offices for you in this building. Rob Gray takes full charge of scope operations and keeps the engineers I've assigned to him as his permanent staff for as long as he's in Houston. That frees you totally. By the end of this week I want estimates of what you think you'll need in the way of clerical and secretarial staff, technical personnel, equipment, furniture, lab space, and computer facilities.

  "By this time next week, I want you to have a presentation ready for a meeting of section and department heads that I'm going to call, to tell them how you see yourself and them working together. Make it tactful. I won't issue any official notification of these changes until after the meeting, when everybody knows what's going on. Don't talk about it until then, except to myself and Lyn.

  "Your outfit will be designated Special Assignment Group L, and your position, will be section head, Group L. The post is classed as 'Executive, grade four, civilian,' within the Space Arm. It carries all the appropriate benefits of free use of UNSA vehicles and aircraft, access to restricted files up to category three, and standard issues of clothing and accessories for duties overseas or off-planet. All that is in the Executive Staff Manual; details of reporting structures, admin procedures, and that kind of thing are in the UNSA Corporate Policy Guide. Lyn will get you copies.

  "You'll have to get in touch with the federal authorities in Houston regarding permanent residence in the USA; Lyn knows the right people. Arrange transfer of your personal belongings from England at your own convenience and charge it to Navcomms. We'll help out finding you somewhere to live, but in the meantime stay on at the Ocean."

  Hunt had the fleeting thought that had Caldwell been born three thousand years previously, Rome might well have been built in a day.

  "What's your current salary?" Caldwell asked.

  "Twenty-five thousand European dollars."

  "We'll make it thirty."

  Hunt nodded mutely.

  Caldwell paused and checked mentally for anything he might have overlooked. Finding nothing, he sat back and raised his glass. "Cheers, then, Vic."

  It was the first time he had addressed Hunt informally.

  "Cheers."

  "To the stars."

  "To the stars."

  A low roar from a point outside the city reached the room. They glanced toward the window to see a column of light climbing into the blue as a Vega lifted off from a distant launch pad. A quiet surge of excitement welled up in Hunt's veins as he took in the sight. It was a symbol of the ultimate expression of man's outward urge, and he was about to become part of it.

  Chapter Ten

  Demands for the services of Special Assignment Group L commenced as soon as the new unit officially went into operation, and they continued to increase rapidly in the weeks that followed. By the end of a month Hunt was swamped and forced to take on extra people at a faster rate than he had intended. Originally his idea had been to keep going with a skeleton staff for a while, at least until he formed a better idea of what was required. When Caldwell first announced the establishment of the new group, there had been one or two instances of petty jealousy and resentment, but the attitude that prevailed in the end was that Hunt had contributed several worthwhile ideas, and it seemed only sensible to get him in on the team permanently. After a while, even the dissenters grudgingly began to concede that things seemed to run more smoothly with Group L around. Some of them eventually did a complete about-face and became enthusiastic supporters of the scheme, as they came to appreciate that the communication channels to Hunt's people worked in bidirectional mode, and for every bit of data they fed in, ten bits came back in the other direction. As the oil thus added to Caldwell's jigsaw-puzzle-solving machine began to prove effective, the machine shifted fully into top gear, and suddenly pieces started fitting together.

  The mathematics section was still working on the equations and formulas found in the books. Since mathematical relationships would remain true irrespective of the conventions used to express them, their interpretation was a far less arbitrary affair than that of deciphering the Lunarian language. The mathematicians had been stimulated by the discovery of the mass conversion table. They turned their attention to the other tables contained in the same book and soon found one that listed many commonly used physical and mathematical constants. From it they quickly picked out pi as well as e, the base of natural logarithms, and one or two more, but they still didn't understand the system of units well enough to evaluate the majority.

  Another set of tables turned out to be simple trigonometric functions; these were easily recognized once the cartographers had provided the units of circular measure. The headings of the columns of these tables gave the Lunarian symbols for sine, cosine, tangent, and the like. Once these were known, many of the mathematical expressions elsewhere started making more sense; some of them fell out immediately as familiar trigonometric relationships. These in turn helped establish the conventions used to denote normal arithmetic operations and that of exponentiation, which led to the identification of the equations of mechanical motion. Nobody was surprised when these equations revealed that Lunarian scientists had deduced the same laws as Newton. The mathematicians progressed to tables of elementary first integrals and standard forms of low-order differential equations. On later pages were expressions which they suspected might describe systems of resonance and damped oscillations. Here again, the uncertainty over units presented a problem; expressions of this type would be in a standard form that could apply equally well to electrical, mechanical, thermal, or many other types of physical phenomena. Until they knew more about Lunarian units, they could not be sure precisely what these equations meant, even if they succeeded in interpreting them mathematically.

  Hunt remembered having noticed that many of the electrical subassemblies from Charlie's backpack had small metal labels mounted adjacent to plugs, sockets, and other input-output connections. He speculated that some of the symbols engraved on these labels might represent ratings in units of voltage, current, power, frequency, and so on. he spent a day in the electronics labs, produced a full report on these markings, and passed it on to Mathematics. Nobody had thought to tell them about it sooner.

  The electronic technicians located the battery in the wrist unit from Tycho, took it to pieces, and with the assistance of an electrochemist from another department, worked out the voltage it had been designed to produce. Linguistics translated the markings on the casing, and that gave a figure for the Lunarian unit for electrical voltage. Well, it was a start.

  Professors Danchekker and Schorn were i
n charge of the biological side of the research. Perhaps surprisingly, Danchekker exhibited no reluctance to cooperate with Group L and kept them fully updated with a regular flow of information. This was more the result of his deeply rooted sense of propriety than of any change of heart. He was a formalist, and if this procedure was what the formalities of the arrangement required, he would adhere to it rigidly. His refusal to budge one inch from his uncompromising views regarding the origins of the Lunarians, however, was total.

  As promised, Schorn had set up investigations to determine the length of Charlie's natural day from studies of body chemistry and cell metabolism, but he was running into trouble. He was getting results, all right, but the results made no sense. Some tests gave a figure of twenty-four hours, which meant that Charlie could be from Earth; some gave thirty-five hours, which meant he couldn't be; and other tests came up with figures in between. Thus, if the aggregate of these results meant anything at all, it indicated that Charlie came from a score of different places all at the same time. Either it was crazy, or there was something wrong with the methods used, or there was more to the matter than they thought.