James P. Hogan (31 page)

The door of the room opened and Olga came in. She had tied her orange hair high and was carrying some books and a sheaf of papers, which she set down on the desk behind Paula’s chair. “Still busy, I see,” she said. “I talked to Stefan and got the things you said you wanted to read. Here they are.”

Paula turned her chair away from the screen. “Thanks.”

“How are things going?”

“Oh… more complicated than we expected, but interesting. How much longer before the Zamork bus leaves?”

“About an hour. Why? Do you want to take the later one again? I’m sure it can be arranged.”

“Yes.”

Olga smiled. “A prisoner applying for overtime. Whoever heard of anything like it?”

“I feel like a person again.”

“I was only teasing. I understand.” She nodded at the screen. “Are you on the track of what went wrong in test tank three?”

“I think so. The green algae blooms support the fish as food and produce oxygen. Also, they detoxify some of the harmful gases, such as ammonia. The problem with the way it’s set up is that the system won’t produce a dense algae population, no matter what you do. So it pollutes itself through oxygen starvation.”

“Any idea why?”

“The macrophytic plants that they put in as purifiers upstream to oxygenate the shell-bacterial filters also produce an antibiotic that interferes with the reproduction cycle of the algae,” Paula said. “But it would be difficult to eliminate them, since they supply feed for the White Chinese Amur fish. So we need some way to break down the antibiotic. Bigheaded carp cause blue-green algae to predominate, whereas Silver Chinese carp, which are phytoplankton eaters, produce a shift toward diatom algae,” She sighed. “The whole ecology changes completely with even a slight shift in fish-species composition. In other words, the way they’re trying to do it doesn’t have enough resilience against change. It’s too sensitive. It needs more negative feedback.” Olga looked impressed. “Did you work all this out?” “No, I picked it up from the biologists. I’m just helping out with, the software.”

Olga moved round the desk and sat down in the chair on the far side. “This kind of thing really interests you, doesn’t it,” she said. “Biology?”

“Not that, so much. I know you’re a physicist.” Paula leaned her chair back and stretched out a leg to rest her foot on the edge of the console. “Evolution interests me – not in the biological sense especially, but the way order and complexity emerge out of chaos, generally.”

“That’s what I mean: the underlying processes common to all of science.” Olga seemed to be trying to say that science, the common search for truth, was something that united people of all races and nationalities. They adhered to the same standards of ethics and intellectual honesty, and spoke the same language. Deception – especially self-deception – was the only enemy, and it was the enemy of all of them.

Paula looked across the desk and met the Russian woman’s questioning look. “Yes, exactly,” she said. In other words, they were both on the same side of something that had nothing to do with flags or frontiers. She looked around the room and up at the ceiling, shrugged, and sighed, Olga nodded her head, acknowledging that there was nothing more they could safely say just there and then. But Paula sensed that Olga had accomplished what she’d come in for.

They met again later that evening back at Zamork, on the gray beach fringing the reservoir. The strip-suns overhead were fading in simulated dusk, and other figures were out, making the best of the brief evening that would persist until the perimeter lights were switched on. A cool breeze was coming across the water, Olga turned up the collar of the coat she was wearing over her tunic, and they began walking slowly along the water’s edge toward where the beach ended at the hull wall.

“Would it come as any great surprise to you to learn that I might have had my own reasons for agreeing to help you that day back in the infirmary?” Olga asked.

At the time, Paula had been too overwrought with her own circumstances, and later too relieved to know she would be escaping from them, to think about it. But since settling in to her new status, she had wondered. “No, it wouldn’t,” she answered honestly.

“I have no interest in political ideologies,” Olga went on. “They are nothing but medieval religion and superstition, hiding behind different slogans. Their purpose is the same: to control the minds of people through dogmatism and manipulation. Neither system respects truth, freedom, or any form of independent thinking, or tolerates opposing opinions. The inquisitors of Galileo were no more interested in the way the Earth moves than American creationists care about the true origins of life on this planet. The real issue in both cases is that of traditional, unquestioned authority being challenged.”

“But with science it’s different,” Paula completed. “Okay, we see eye to eye on all that. So, where is this leading?”

“Along with others, I came to the conclusion that the ethic and rationality of the scientific approach to understanding reality could help form the basis of a saner world,” Olga replied. “But Neanderthal political systems stood in the way – particularly the ones like ours that suppress free expression, which is essential if anything better is to evolve. So I became politically active as a dissident, and upset a lot of people in the process. To cut a long story short, I ended up losing my academic titles, being arrested, and eventually getting shipped up here.”

Paula nodded, “So?”

“The dissidents that I worked with are still active back there,” Olga said. “Most of them are the kind of people that we have talked about –
our
kind of people: scientists, intellectuals, and thinkers who believe in the possibility of a safer, more civilized world based on reason and honesty.” They had neared the point where the wall of the outer hull rose sheer at the water’s edge. Behind them, the ground above the beach rose steeply to become the hill forming the valley side, lined with the huts of the special VIP’s. They stopped, and Olga turned to face Paula directly. “Many others were arrested over the years. We could never find out what had happened to them. But when I came to Zamork, I found many of them up here, alive and well.”

“Go on,” Paula said, still not seeing any connection with herself.

Olga’s voice dropped instinctively, even though they were alone. “I managed to establish a way of communicating with somebody down there.”

“To Earth?”

“Yes. I was able to send information about the people who were up here – there were colleagues down there who could make good use of such information, besides friends and relatives who needed to be told. And more than that. With early notification of the new arrivals up here, our people down in Russia knew who else was at risk – the KGB works in predictable patterns. Many were smuggled out of the country in good time. The KGB was going insane trying to discover where the information was coming from.”

“Well, that’s great, but why are you telling me all this?” Paula said.

“The channel was cut, due to an accident. I need a communications specialist to restore it. Now I’m asking you to help me.”

So
that
was what had caught Olga’s interest in the infirmary. Now it all fitted together. They turned and began retracing their steps slowly along the beach. Lights were coming on around the perimeter and along the wire barrier twenty yards out in the water. “How did it work?” Paula asked.

“Does that mean you will help?”

“I don’t know at this stage if I can. You’ll have to tell me more about it.”

“I once had a lover who was a university professor,” Olga replied. “Let’s call him Ivan. Oh, it wasn’t so terribly serious – he was formerly a Navy man, and quite active with the ladies from Archangel to Vladivostok, I suspect, But whatever, we found that we shared certain values, and we remained good friends even after the passionate stage wore off.”

“What kind of professor is he?”

“Was – communications engineering. But now he’s at a research establishment in Siberia. It also happens to be the groundstation that handles the main communications link from
Valentina Tereshkova
” Olga turned her head to glance at Paula as they walked. “Now do you see?”

Paula stopped walking, and her eyes narrowed. Olga waited. “The place you’ve got me into at Turgenev… that’s no coincidence either, is it?” Paula said slowly. “It’s practically next door to the Communications Center.”

“You catch on fast,” Olga murmured. They resumed walking. Olga continued, “I assume you’re familiar with the random-number streams that are used as fillers between messages on secure channels as routine procedure.”

Paula saw the implication immediately. “You piggybacked on the beam, using the gaps.”

“Right.”

“How?”

“Ivan smuggled a specially programmed electronic chip up to me via a flight-deck officer on one of the transporters. It was designed to replace the random-number generator in the encoding processor of the primary Earthside commlink, inside the Communications Center. The way it worked was, first I’d plug the chip into a BV-Fifteen and preload it with the message text that I wanted to send – I could do that myself anywhere. Then a certain insider whose name doesn’t matter would switch the chip inside the Communications Center for me, and the message was transmitted automatically.”

“Okay, I get it.” Paula nodded. The BV-15 was a standard Soviet general-purpose computer, used as a net terminal or stand-alone system and found all over
Tereshkova
. There were two of them in the graphics lab where Paula worked. “So what went wrong?”

“There was an equipment fault that caused a power surge and blew up the chip,” Olga replied simply. “I still have my contact inside the Communications Center, The procedure should still work. But we no longer have the hardware.”

“And you want me to program a new chip,” Paula concluded.

“Exactly. I have specifications of the BV-Fifteen program for loading the chip, and I can get documentation for the transmission encoders. You already have access to the equipment you need in the graphics lab. There would be no need for you to physically enter the Communications Center itself, or any other secure area.”

“What about the messages coming in from Earth?” Paula asked. “How do you handle them?”

“I can take care of that myself,” Olga answered.

“If we do it, is there any guarantee Ivan will still be listening after all this time?”

“No. Let’s just hope that he is.”

They stood looking in silence at the lights and the water for a while. “When do you want an answer?” Paula asked at last.

“I was hoping for one now.”

“I have to think about it.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Okay, tomorrow.”

When they met the next day, Paula had been having some ideas of her own about how a private communications link to Earth might prove useful, too – except that the people she had in mind to communicate with had nothing to do with Soviet intellectual dissidents or with spiriting fugitives out of Russia. How she might be able to extend the link from the groundstation in Siberia to the West’s military-communications network, she at present hadn’t the faintest Idea. But in the meantime, the opportunity for setting up the first phase was too good to miss. Her fingertips were already itching impatiently at the prospect.

“All right,” she told Olga. “You’ve got yourself a deal. Let’s hope Ivan’s still listening – I’ll give it a try.”

McCain rinsed off the suds and dried his face briskly with his towel in front of the mirror. Gonares was working at the hub again that week, and had been bringing back descriptions and sketches as McCain had asked. From his initial perusals of them, they seemed to McCain to bear out the officially published construction plans. Maybe Foleda had allowed himself to get carried away for once.

The door opened as if a grizzly bear had swiped at it, and Oskar Smovak came in. He threw down a plastic box containing his soap and shaving gear, and began peeling off his shirt. “Sounds as if we’re going to be getting the place spruced up before very much longer, eh, Lew?” he said, leaning forward to examine his beard in the mirror.

“How come?”

“This place is going to be the big attraction.”

“Zamork?”

“No, the whole of
Tereshkova
, Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Big celebrations for the centenary. All the Russian bigwigs will be coming here – First Secretary Petrokhov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Kavansky, the whole Politburo, most of the Central Committee…
Tereshkova
will be the showpiece of the Communist world.” November 7 was the day the Soviets traditionally celebrated the Revolution. This year would be extra special, since it was the centenary.

“Well, don’t forget to write down all your complaints and suggestions,” McCain grunted.

When McCain came out of the washroom, he found Luchenko sitting with Nolan at the end table. Andreyov was reading something to Borowski nearby, and Taugin was lying morosely on his bunk. King and Kong, as usual, were hovering not especially inconspicuously in the background. Luchenko caught McCain’s eyes and tilted his head to beckon him over. McCain stopped.

“You have been getting good reports from your work detail,” Luchenko said. “I’m glad to see it.”

“I like to think I earn my keep,” McCain answered.

“You seem to be behaving yourself more these days.”

“People are leaving me alone more these days.”

Luchenko let the remark pass. “Just to show that such things do not go unrecognized, I will be assigning you to more outside duties around the colony,” he said. “I trust you will find that agreeable.”

McCain raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise. It fitted in with his own aims perfectly. “Sure,” he replied. “I like to be out and about.”

“Of course. Well, just so you know what to expect.” Luchenko stared up with an expression that said he had made a concession and would be expecting some reciprocation. McCain returned a look that said maybe, and moved on. He guessed that Luchenko had had no choice, so was making it look like a favor. In other words, Luchenko had been notified that there was going to be need for a lot of outside work around the colony. It fitted with what Smovak had just said.