Between the Stars (13 page)

"Excellent. As I was saying, I ran across the memoir of a very early cinema director, a man named DeMille. He relates how, during the screening of a new comedy—these screenings took place in small rooms before a small audience, perhaps the director alone—he became convinced it would be a fiasco. It failed to make him laugh. He was sick to think of all the money he had wasted on the project. Aides urged him to preview it in a theater anyway, and he did. To his great surprise, the audience roared with laughter throughout the film. To his greater surprise, so did he. It was then that he realized that
we almost never laugh alone!
From that time forward, he would only screen a comedy in a theater full of people.

"Thus it is always. We laugh harder at comedy, weep more copiously at pathos, cheer more fiercely with the hero's victory, shiver more violently at horror, when we are in the presence of others who feel the same emotions. Each spectator feeds and multiplies off the others. This mob feeling has been largely lost except in sports and street riots, which are often very similar events. It has been totally lost in political life. Until. With this rather sprawling and disjointed preamble—"

"No," Larsen hastened to assure him, "this has been fascinating and instructive."

"Thank you. Now, for the meat of the matter. What you are about to see is an actor giving a prepared speech in Mongolian. We chose that obscure language because, for demonstration purposes, it is not the content of the speech but the experience of the event that counts. Imagine General Shevket in place of the actor, giving a rousing speech that is of great interest to all listeners. Say, for instance, that he is raising them to a war frenzy."

The room faded once more. Then, as if dawn were swiftly spreading light over the scene, Larsen found himself seated in an immense auditorium, in a seat near the front row. The realism was astounding. He could hear the babble of conversation on all sides. He felt the breeze and he was certain that he could actually smell the people, the fresh-cut wood of the speaking platform, the viands people were munching as they waited.

Silence fell, then there was a blare of martial music. A uniformed man strode to the front of the podium and launched into a speech. His gestures were broad, and although Larsen could not understand the words, he felt the stirring force of the oration. Gradually, the people around him growled, cheered, waved fists in approbation, in anger—whatever emotion the orator wished to arouse in them. Subtly, the speaker seemed to grow taller with the passion of his speech, until he towered like a colossus above the crowd. People leapt to their feet, shouting and screaming. Helplessly, Larsen did the same, cheering along with the rest. In mid-cheer, he found himself in Shevket's study, with both men looking at him. Their expressions were sober, not mocking.

Pale and shaken, Larsen sat back into his chair. "My god!" He took out a handkerchief and mopped his sweaty face. "What is this thing?"

"It's the future," said Shevket.

"To be more precise," Norwich added, "it is a quantum leap in communication. This is to previous holography what holography was to television. Everyone who sees such a program will perceive himself in that seat near the front and below the orator, the most effective position. You saw your reaction to a stranger speaking a language you don't understand on a subject of which you are ignorant. Imagine a person and a speech more relevant."

"But," Larsen all but stammered, "how did I feel the breeze? And the smells!"

Norwich shook his head. "Imaginary. The aural and visual images were so realistic that your mind supplied the rest. I think that, at last, we have finally surpassed Chih' Chin Fu's mastery of the medium."

"That old wizard!" Shevket spat. "Do you suppose he could use something like this out there to whip up the population?"

"Most unlikely," Norwich said. "In the first place, the settlers in space are not accustomed to large numbers. They have entirely lost the instinct for mob behavior. Secondly, they're just too damned busy. The electronic media have become the lazy man's substitute for real life. There are damned few lazy people out there, General."

"What's to keep Carstairs from using this?" Larsen asked. "The mind boggles at the thought of a fifty-foot-high Anthony Carstairs whipping up the planet to skin us alive."

"Carstairs," Norwich told him, "is a most impressive man from close range. He has little presence before an audience. That is why he has always worked in the background, using a succession of public cat's-paws. Besides, my company has entered into a contract with the general and the Victory Party. For the next five years, the party has exclusive rights."

"A fat lot of good that will do if Carstairs decides to break the contract," Larsen said. "He can invoke planetary security, you know."

Shevket said coldly, "Let me take care of Carstairs. "

After Norwich had left, Larsen refreshed his drink and turned to the general, who was gazing out a window over his estate. "That was most impressive," said the Dane. "Perhaps the most impressive thing I've ever experienced, but I still have some questions."

"Ask them," said Shevket.

"Was this really the first pack of hungry young officers you've lured to your castle for purposes of seduction?"

Shevket gave one of his rare, musical laughs. "You mean, are you truly one of the party's inner circle? Did I invite you to the founding assembly? The answer is yes. Of course, there will be more. I will need many more military officers under my sway, and others in government, both local and global. But this is a start. From now on, these meetings will be all but continuous. But you, my friend, will be my right hand in this new order."

"In what position?" Larsen asked calmly.

"Chancellor. I shall be generalissimo. In the first years of the world-state, I expect to be fully occupied with war. Too many leaders of the past have come to grief trying to juggle military and political functions at the same time. As chancellor, you shall have supreme political power. You shall also have all those state and ceremonial functions that you enjoy and I find so tedious. I shall control the military, the intelligence, and the police. How does that strike you?"

It was a dizzying concept, but Larsen knew better than to show it. "It leaves you with the whip hand."

Shevket raised a hand, from which his horsewhip dangled. "As you can see, that is my right. What is your answer?"

"I accept."

"Splendid! Let's drink on it!" He poured them full glasses, the glasses clinked, and they drank.

Larsen lowered his glass. "Tell me something. Why Favre?"

Shevket grinned. "Doesn't look like a man of heroic action, does he?"

"No, but then, that's a pose. What astonishes me is that you want a poet in your organization at all."

"Ah, but he shall bring us the intelligentsia." Shevket went to a window and sat on its low bench.

"One would think the intelligentsia would be the last group to flock to our banner. I would anticipate their unremitting hostility."

Shevket waved a hand, causing the whip-thongs to sway. "They are sheep. Cesar's poems and recitals will extol the heroic spirit of the new man. Among the intelligentsia I shall be more than politically important. I shall be fashionable. Power is a subtle thing, Aage. Would it surprise you to know that, besides military and government people, I intend to cultivate fashion designers?"

"Nothing you do could surprise me at this point. Haute couture also has a place in the new order?"

"In its founding. People wear what they are told to by the fashion industry. I think that, should next season's designs feature a distinctly military look, a wholesome effect would result."

"This is most ingenious. Perhaps I've spent too much of my time in the corridors of power, among the movers and shakers. It seems that I've paid insufficient attention to the arts and to popular culture."

"I wish I could say that this is all of my devising, but I arrived at my plans by studying history. It was the poets and artists of the Italian Futurist movement that paved the way for the rise of the
fascisti
. Poets, artists, composers—they are romantic souls; they flock around a striking, dominant figure. Napoleon was surrounded by them."

"Some will protest," Larsen said. "They will lead demonstrations, marches, things like that."

"Very few. Mostly the young and untalented. The intelligentsia are great champions of liberty when it is fashionable and safe. I shall let it be known that it is most unsafe to defy me." He snapped the whip against his boot. "That is another symptom of our decadence. We have given these trivial people an importance they do not deserve. At one time, actors and other entertainers were not allowed to enter a respectable house through the front door. The proper employment of those persons is to flatter their betters. We shall reestablish that sensible state of affairs.

"As for the others, the literary types, the professors of the institutes of higher learning and such, they shall all fall into line. They fear force, and they all survive on government handouts. By proper manipulation of those two factors, we will bring them to heel."

"Obviously, this isn't something you just dreamt up. How long have you been planning this?"

"Since my days at military school. When I saw the mediocrity and incompetence not only of my contemporaries but of my superiors, I knew that the time was coming when a superior man could seize power by a bold stroke. I made it my business to learn not just the military arts but others as well: history, psychology—"

"Psychology? You must have attracted attention requesting such courses at a military academy."

"I didn't bother with the formal courses. Despite all the great heap of nonsensical drivel written and spoken about the human mind, the fact is that psychology is pitifully simple. Men respond reliably to certain basic stimuli. I know how to apply those stimuli. All the rest is tripe written to make a name for some drudge with a Ph.D."

"You haven't spoken of the industrialists yet. Earth First damaged them, but they are still there and they are still rich and powerful."

"What businessman doesn't love the prospect of a war? I shall have them eating out of my hand. I'll promise them prosperity, fat government contracts and booty from the conquered enemy. The economy has been a shambles for decades, so they know I can only improve things."

"But you can't trust them."

Shevket turned and glared at him. "Do you take me lot a simpleton? Of course I won't trust them. They are merchants. They make deals, they sell things. Given a good offer, they would sell us, too. These merchants lave gained prestige because of their wealth. Once they were despised, beneath a warriors notice. Soon it will be time to remind them of that."

"I can't fault your logic or your planning," Larsen mild, "but your timing seems odd. This is all very precipitate. Why have you chosen to move at this time, and move so swiftly?"

For the first time, Shevket showed a tiny crack in his façade of confidence. "It's the damned alien artifact. After all my planning, to have such a wild card dealt me! When I get my hands on it, I must be in a position to make the best use of it. I had intended to begin making my moves a year from now, after dealing with Carstairs. As it is, I must strike now, and strike fast."

He stood and placed his visored cap carefully on his leonine blond head. "Well, perhaps it's just as well. Fortune favors the bold, and there will be more satisfaction in a world won by storm than in power gained by tedious plotting.

"Come along now, let's go hunting. I'll show you how to lance a boar from horseback."

"You must resign yourself to my absence. I prefer to let others take care of killing the meat. As I said, I find horses dangerous and unsanitary. I prefer more conventional transportation."

"Until dinner, then," Shevket said, again with his superior smile.

"Good hunting, General."

As Shevket walked out, he muttered, "But what is that damned thing?"

TEN

"Hey, look at this," Derek was in Fu's ship,
Johann Gutenberg
. Its interior somewhat resembled a genie's palace. The furnishings were fabulous, but few of them were real. Fu's holographic wizardry had led him into some bizarre practices, not least of which was altering the appearance of nearly everything in his ship. Air filters looked like gothic gargoyles, an EVA suit was disguised as a Chinese temple guardian statue, a food synthesizer masqueraded as a Ming vase. A visitor had to touch almost everything to find out what it really was. Some of the furnishings did not exist at all.

"What is it?" Valentina asked. She was by now accepted grudgingly by Ulric and wholeheartedly by Derek, although had she been ugly he might have had his doubts.

"It's a holorally for the Victory party. They're moving fast down there. Fu's people on Luna picked this up and relayed it to us. Isn't it unbelievable? How can people be swayed by something as crude as this?"

She drifted over to him and settled cross-legged in a low-grav seat on the carpeted floor, which was rigged to look like a giant tiger skin. The holograph wall showed a crowd hailing Shevket as he harangued them in his native Turkish. A code in the corner of the projection identified the locale as a stadium in Istanbul.

"Earth is a crowded place," she said. "Wide open and crowded at the same time. It makes people's reactions different. People out here have little feel for mob mentality. Down there, they're used to getting feedback from the people closest to them."

"It's more than that," said Chih' Chin Fu, emerging through a holographic waterfall that screened his sleeping quarters. For some reason he had eschewed his customary Confucian scholar's robes and wore tweeds and puttees. He looked like an English country gentleman, except for his long white hair and beard and his three-inch fingernails. "It's a new technology, something that puts the viewer in the middle of the action with unbelievable fidelity and realism. It's a quantum leap beyond anything I've ever done. Several of my students have described it to me. They've gotten hold of a projection unit and it's being sent on, but it will be some weeks before it gets here from Luna." Derek had never seen the old man so agitated.

"It's probably just an area you never addressed," Derek said, diplomatically. "There was never any call for that sort of effect off-Earth."

"It still bothers me. I must be getting old, to let an entirely new technology be developed under my nose."

"Who do you think might be responsible?" Valentina said.

"Straight to the point as always, my dear. It wasn't any one person. These days, even I can't come up with any genuinely new devices on my own. Oh, I can come up with the concepts, but I have to assemble a team to develop the hardware. Let's see. Something this sophisticated, it would have to be Hololabs, S.A., or maybe Cheshire Labs. More like Cheshire." He stroked his wispy beard and cogitated. "I had a student once, who went to work for Cheshire. What was his name? Sandwich? Dunwich? No, oh, hell, what was it?"

"Norwich?" Valentina asked. "The ad man?"

"That's it!" Fu snapped his fingers, one of the few Earthie gestures he still retained. "Julian Norwich! Coldblooded little bastard. Learned everything I taught him faster than any other student I had, but I couldn't stand him."

"Why?" Derek asked.

"Because of his concept of the medium." Fu always talked about holography the way others talked about their religions. "He had no interest in how to use it to inform, to educate, to stimulate original thought. He only wanted to use it to manipulate. No wonder he ended up in advertising. He has the mind of—well, of a low-grade genius when it comes to using the medium. But he has the soul of a mouse. I'd be willing to bet he's the one behind this perversion. He has the technical know-how to accomplish it and he's just the type who'd suck up to the likes of Mehmet Shevket. If he's high up in Cheshire Labs, and I imagine he is by this time, he could have come up with this thing. It'd be his dream come true. Damn!"

"Why are you so incensed?" Derek asked. "I'd think the political implications here are a good deal more alarming than the technological ones."

"Oh, I agree," Fu said. "It's just that this is the first really revolutionary advance in holography in years, and it's potentially the greatest teaching tool ever invented, and what's it being used for? To whip up mindless enthusiasm for a tin-pot dictator! Makes me want to puke."

"How would you use it as a teaching device?" Valentina asked.

He smiled at her beatifically. "I wish I'd had more students like you." He turned to Derek furiously. "This woman knows how to ask the right questions. Why don't you?" He went on in a normal tone. "As nearly as I can figure it, this thing works by a coherent light reflection system of real complexity coupled with an advanced sound system. It may be nothing genuinely new, just immensely refined. If so, that means it's fairly compact and automatable, like all modern systems. Derek, I know you want to go into planetary exploration when we have interstellar flight. Suppose, before you were to set down on a planet, you sent in some probes using this technique? You could get a real feel for the planet, some orientation to overcome the initial confusion, before having to commit your poor mortal body to the dangers of the real environment. "

"Damn!" Derek said. "That would take a lot of the tension out of it."

"And I can guarantee you," Fu said, "that Norwich and his cohorts never let such a thought cross their minds. A million possibilities in this thing and they just want to use it to sell toilet paper or dictators or some other product."

A small dragon came flying through the room. Fu snatched it out of the air and began stroking it down the row of razor-edged spines that crested its back. It was his cat, equipped with a tiny holo unit that supplied the illusion, complete with scales, wings and fiery breath. It purred, emitting sparks and smoke.

Roseberry arrived, trailing a string of beer bulbs. "Well, that's the last of 'em off the place and good riddance." He referred to a load of schoolchildren he had just conducted through a tour of Ciano's lab. "It's all the same. The young don't have any appreciation of their heritage." He glared furiously and drew on a beer. Then a thought seemed to strike him. "Oh, by the way, Linde's come out of her lab. Looks like hell, but she has that look in her eye, the one she had when she whupped the antimatter problem back thirty years ago."

"Maybe now we'll find out what the egg is," Fu said. "Have they made any progress on Aeaea?"

"According to the latest reports, they haven't learned much. You know those people, though. They get as excited over their failures as other people do when they've accomplished something."

"You know what old Ugo used to say about them kind of people?" Roseberry asked.

"Yes," said Fu, "we know. Actually, it makes sense. Even a negative result is a result, and it tells you something you didn't know before."

"We got some other news from Aeaea," Valentina said. "A man who was probably Vladyka was there for a few days, masquerading as a lab assistant. He got away from them without much difficulty."

"Bunch of bunglers," Derek muttered.

"Don't be too hard on them," she advised. "He's a pro. They're amateurs. Their security system is designed to detect industrial spies out to plunder their research before their patents can be established. Vladyka plays a more serious game. He won't hesitate to kill if it will facilitate his job, or to use torture to get answers. I want to go over their reports in some detail. Aeaean security questioned a number of people who had contact with Vladyka, if that's who it was. I can probably pick up something they missed."

"What has Ulric learned about that Russian who tried to capture you?" Fu asked Derek.

"Not much. He turned him over to Avalonian security, and they wanted to be all civilized about the interrogation. He wouldn't talk for weeks, and when he did, all he said was he'd been out here for years when he got the order to capture the ellipsoid. Like Valentina, he figured that I'd found more than one."

"So the
Althing
now knows that we have one of the Rhea Objects."

"Avalonian security and the Security Committee have agreed to keep it secret for now," Derek said. "But they want results soon. The important thing the interrogation turned up was that his orders came from the Russian government. He's not working for any U.N. office, nor for Carstairs, nor for Larsen and Shevket."

Fu stroked his beard. "How peculiar. The Russians, of all people." The once mighty Soviet Union had long since fragmented into a dozen or more minor nations, its gargantuan socio-economic theories and practices thoroughly discredited. Its failure to overcome the capitalist West by the end of the twentieth century, its failure to deal with domestic problems, and the inefficiency of its attempts to export revolutions to the Third World nations caused its prestige to shrink as, one by one, the satellite nations, then the subject states, broke away from the alliance. The Islamic south merged with the populous Middle East and Persian Gulf bloc; the eastern European nations allied with the West or formed blocs of their own as political expediency dictated. The more Utopian visions of the early Marxists were co opted by the U.N., and later, by the Earth First Party.

"Ah, well," Fu said, "I suppose all once-great powers long for a return to center stage. The Americans have been moping about it for decades. Perhaps the Russians think the Rhea Objects could recoup their fortunes for them."

"They could well do just that." They turned at the voice and saw Sieglinde coming through the dragon's mouth that was actually a doorway. She looked terribly tired. "I've finally cracked what they are. If anyone else could do the same, it's important enough to restore any nation to the limelight. Or put whoever has it into a position to dictate whatever he pleases." There were dark rings beneath her eyes, and she looked years older than when she had undertaken the project.

"Aunt Sieglinde," Derek said, "you look terrible. Have a drink, relax, and then tell us all about it."

She nodded wordlessly, too tired even to acknowledge him by speech. In such low gravity, fatigue did not cause people to slump, but the signs were unmistakable anyway. Roseberry handed her one of her customary concoctions of Steinhäger and lime. It seemed to revive her a little as she floated to a sitting position on the floor.

"Okay," she said at last. "First the general, then we'll get to specifics. Number one, it's a power source for a starship, probably discarded like a used up battery."

"Hot damn!" Derek exulted. "That means I just won five hundred from François. He was betting it was a weapon."

She looked at him wearily. "Nephew, your grasp of cosmic matters is truly astounding. "

He looked abashed. "Sorry."

"To continue: I strongly suspect that these were power packs for small vessels, perhaps explorer craft. Most importantly, I believe I can duplicate them. With this technology, we can store and drain power such as we've only dreamed of. We can get the hell out of this system and visit many more within our own lifetimes."

"Fabulous!" Derek crowed.

Valentina was a good deal cooler. "That has been the aim of a great many scientists since the beginning of space flight. None of them have accomplished much. There are a good many who maintain that superluminal travel is an impossibility."

Sieglinde regained enough energy to shoot her a glare. "The same ones say superluminal communication is just as impossible. You've seen it demonstrated."

"And a wonderful accomplishment it is," said Fu. "Now, if you feel up to it, could you tell us what you have discovered about this amazing object? And bear in mind that we are not all accomplished physicists—certainly not of your caliber."

She smiled ruefully and sipped at her concoction. "Right. Thanks for reminding me. Here goes. The ellipsoid contains highly condensed matter that was originally a billion times denser. The envelope containing the matter is in effect a frozen form of the n-dimensional Ciano field that I've used for containing antimatter."

"Frozen?" Derek said. "How can you freeze—"

"Just bear with me," Sieglinde said. "We'll get into specifics later. I'll warn you that you'll need a good many more years of study to appreciate the details."

"We'll do our best," Derek said.

"There's nothing new about the Ciano field, of course. It's used in every antimatter drive these days. Nobody except me knows exactly how it's constructed, because of the tamper-proof seal placed
within
the finished product. The Aeaeans first produced antimatter engines commercially, and part of their fee was the use of my seal. They use it on their own products now.

"For some time now, I've been working on superluminal communication and superluminal transmission of matter through indeterminate n-dimensional space. Of late, some physicists have taken to calling it the Ciano-Kornfeld hyperspace."

"Often in tones of ironical skepticism," Fu added.

"What do they know? I'm right and they're wrong and I can prove it. You've already seen that I've been successful with superluminal communication, although it currently works only for a distance of several light hours. However, I've only been able to transmit matter through hyperspace within a Ciano field generator."

She sipped the last of her drink and Roseberry tossed her another bulb. "That's what I did with the ellipsoid. I placed it in a Ciano field generator—probably the largest in the solar system—and transmitted the matter in the core to a special container outside the ellipsoid but within the Ciano field. The dense matter was then at my disposal. The matter was in electron degeneracy; matter that dense had to be."

"I can't believe this!" Derek enthused. "The Aeaeans haven't been able to do anything with theirs in all this time with half the physicists in the solar system on the project."

She looked at him levelly. "That was the easy part. I got that done within twenty-four hours after you handed it to me. It only took a few more days to duplicate the ellipsoid."