Lost in Transmission (40 page)

appendix D

mursk in lalande, act two

Lalande was another metal-deprived dwarf, with three gas giants and one tidally locked terrestrial—the half-frozen world of Gammon. Allegedly it was named after a historical person of some sort, but Conrad had always figured it was really because, as in a well-won game of backgammon, all the black was on one side and all the white on the other. It might also have been named “eyeball,” for the frosty whites extending just beyond the terminator, the coal-colored iris beyond it in the daylight, and the clear blue “pupil” of tidally raised ocean.

Conrad's image found itself appearing on the front porch of a brick-veneer ranch house, beneath an awning of translucent gray wellstone. A woman stood before him, out on the grass beyond the porch's concrete. She was barefoot and whipped by a strong steady wind, so that her hair and the hem of her long dress flailed out beside her. She didn't appear cold, but from the look of things Conrad would be if he were actually standing here in front of her.

Behind her, in the distance, was an ocean shrouded in fog.

“Hi, Benny,” he said. “Nice to see you again. It was windy like this the last time I was here.”

“It's always windy here, Conrad Mursk of the Kingdom of Barnard.”

“And always three in the afternoon,” he said, looking up through the awning at the sun, resting motionless in the sky. It was difficult to say for sure, with no landmarks around it for reference, but it seemed to Conrad that it was both wider and dimmer than the sun of P2's own sky. Certainly it was much redder.

She laughed. “Always, yes, but not forever. The planet is locked, but the snow and ice builds up on the Darkside, bleeding off the Brightside Ocean. The water gets shallower and shallower, and the Darkside gets heavier and heavier, and every eight hundred years the planet flips.”

“I'll bet that's a fun ride.”

“We'll evacuate the planet,” she said, flashing a don't-be-daft look in his direction. “We're actually due for a flip in just two centuries. Which is good, because the melting glaciers will expose all kinds of fresh ore, which we can really use.”

“So the shore
is
farther away than it used to be.”

“Yup. It retreats about twenty meters every standard year.”

Conscious of the time, Conrad looked around the immediate area. The house was large, and it was up on a hill overlooking the city of Moll. And the hill was grassy where most of the landscape beyond it was bare slate or shale. He hadn't noticed this on his previous visit, but it didn't surprise him now. Finding a pen pal here on Gammon had taken decades of back-and-forth prowling on the Instelnet's low-bandwidth message boards, and anyone who could afford to take him up on the offer was, almost by definition, a member of the planet's upper-crust
palasa
. Wealthy, at least by colonial standards.

“Benny N.,” Conrad mused, now looking over the woman herself. “You must think I'm an idiot.”

“For what?”

“This doesn't look like a palace,” he offered, by way of excuse.

“Ah,” she said. “No, it doesn't. So you've found me out, have you?”

“Bethany Nichols, the Queen of Lalande.”

She smiled sheepishly. “Guilty. We can still flirt, though, can't we?”

“I don't know,” Conrad answered seriously. “Your philander might have something to say about it.”

“I don't have philanders,” she said. “I have old-fashioned
boyfriends
. And right now, I'm in between.”

“Oh, I see,” Conrad told her, then made a show of eyeing her even more appraisingly. “If only I had a body. And some time.”

Her giggle was pleasant, unhurried. “Maybe someday, Architect. But if I'm going telefuff, I'd rather pick someone closer to home. Lalande is less than five light-years from Wolf system and only six and a half from Ross. We have our own little club: we can actually trade fashions quicker than they go out of style. Whereas Sol is a round trip of seventeen years, and all the other colonies—including yours—are twenty or more. Wolf has an ocean, too, and a biosphere, and a mean case of tidal lock. So really we have a lot in common.”

“You can't
see
Wolf from here, though. Can't see Ross, either. Right? Not with the naked eye, not even on Darkside.”

“We can see Wolf when it flares. God, they have lovely flares. You think
you've
got radiation troubles, try living on Pup!”

“I've visited there in message form,” he said. “Stay out of the water, is my advice.”

She snorted regally. “And the air. There's a
reason
the capital is under a mile of rock, along with most of the population. King Eddie is many things, but stupid is not one of them.”

“Ah,” Conrad said, “so it's Edward Bascal you have your eye on, is it? It wouldn't be the first time he and I crossed swords over a woman.”

“Well,” she admitted, “he is kind of cute. Younger and more charming than his so-called cousin. A girl could do worse.”

Running through what little he knew of her bio, Conrad asked, “Aren't you a playwright or something?”

Her smile grew pained. “Used to be. I fear my muse has fled, and anyway the bitch only ever gave me one solid hit. If you're looking for the next Rodenbeck, I'm afraid it's not me.”

“Well,” he said, “life is long. You never know.” And then a chime sounded through his virtual bones, and he added, “I'm done here.”

“Already? I haven't even shown you my tattoo. Ah well, see you in twenty.”

“God willing,” Conrad agreed, and vanished.

And while it may be true that the digital summary of these experiences was lost in transmission, they
were
thoughtfully archived in the Brick Palace Library, and moved off the planet's surface in the Turnabout Evac, there to find their way into a letters archive which survived intact for nearly twenty thousand years.

In a quantum universe, as they say, almost nothing is ever truly lost.

about the author

Engineer/novelist/journalist Wil McCarthy is a
contributing editor for
Wired
magazine and the science columnist for the SciFi Channel, where his popular “Lab Notes” column has been running since 1999. A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, AnLab and Theodore Sturgeon awards. His short fiction has graced the pages of
Analog, Asimov's, Wired, SF Age,
and other major magazines and anthologies, and his novels include the
New York Times
Notable Book
Bloom,
Amazon.com
's “Best of Y2K”
The Collapsium
(a national bestseller) and, most recently,
The Wellstone
.

Previously one of those “guidance is go” people for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems, and later an engineering manager for Omnitech Robotics, McCarthy is currently the Chief Technology Officer for Galileo Shipyards, an aerospace research corporation with projects ranging from rockets to high-altitude balloons to quantum nanoelectronics. He can be found online at
www.wilmccarthy.com
.

By Wil McCarthy
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Aggressor Six

Flies from the Amber

The Fall of Sirius

Murder in the Solid State

Bloom

The Collapsium

The Wellstone

Lost in Transmission

Praise for
WIL McCARTHY

THE WELLSTONE

“An ideal blend of wit and superscience, set in a brilliant future age when wealth and immortality just aren't enough. McCarthy gives an adventurous new spin to the ongoing rebellion of the young.” —David Brin

“Wil McCarthy is one of the best hard SF writers in the business.” —Jack McDevitt

“Wil McCarthy asks a question for the first immortals: if their children do not know or fear death, might death become an exciting adventure?” —Sean McMullen

“
The Wellstone
has a madcap, inventive energy that proves irresistible. Wil McCarthy's previous book,
The Collapsium
, was dazzling in its ingenuity, and
The Wellstone
—a deranged take on a boys' adventure tale, with its log cabin flying through the Kuyper Belt on its programmable matter
sails—is a sequel worthy of its predecessor.”
—Walter Jon Williams

“Everything I've seen of McCarthy's work is worthwhile, and this is no exception.” —
San Diego Union Tribune

“A good combination of adventure and hard sci-fi.”
—
Kansas City Star

“This fun read is packed with weird but believable technology, and paints a possible picture of life in the distant future.”
—
The Dallas Morning News

“A standout job . . . full of action, humor, top-notch speculation and intriguing characters . . . Such ambition and creative playfulness should serve this book well when award lists are made up. . . . McCarthy's tale summons up echoes of a number of classics. The rudimentary power politics recalls William Golding's
Lord of the Flies
(1954). The lost-boys aspect rings changes on J.M. Barrie's
Peter Pan
(1904). And certainly the theme of ‘lighting out for the territories' harks back to Mark Twain's
Huckleberry Finn
(1884) . . . All these potent riffs are fleshed out in a comprehensive portrait of humanity transformed by advanced technologies. What more could any SF reader ask for? Next year will see the publication of the third volume in this fascinating series,
Lost in Transmission
. I, for one, wish it were to hand
right now.” —Paul di Filippo,
scifi.com

“If Robert Heinlein had written
Lord of the Flies,
he probably would have come up with something like
The Wellstone
.” —
Rocky Mountain News

“Wil McCarthy considers post-scarcity economics, leadership politics and immortality—all in an adventure
that would have made Robert A. Heinlein proud.”
—BookPage

“McCarthy's satirical humor and mastery of the hardest of hard science—he actually is a rocket scientist—are just as much in evidence here as in his earlier novels. It's lots
of fun.” —Netsurfer Digest

THE COLLAPSIUM

“Wil McCarthy is a certified science fiction treasure, a real-life rocket scientist with a gorgeous writing style and rapier wit to boot. [While his] high-concept physics ideas . . . are deft and fascinating, it's his characters and story that make
The Collapsium
a book to savor, a complex and layered story in the grand tradition of science fiction's masters.”
—Therese Littleton,
Amazon.com

“Ingenious and witty . . . as if Terry Pratchett at his zaniest and Larry Niven at his best had collaborated.”
—Roland Green,
Booklist

“Fresh and imaginative. From a plausible yet startling invention, McCarthy follows the logical lines of sight, building in parallel the technological and societal innovations. ‘Our Pick.' I wanted to visit this Queendom and meet these people.”
—Mark Wilson,
Science Fiction Weekly

“The future as [McCarthy] sees it is a wondrous place. . . . While there are amusing attributes and quirks to McCarthy's characters, the greater pleasures of this novel lie in its hard science extrapolations. McCarthy plays us his technical strengths by providing a useful appendix and glossary for the mathematically inclined reader.”
—
Publishers Weekly

“A fairy tale [with] . . . the most delicious superscience since Larry Niven's
Ringworld
. Stylistic diversity and hard scientific rigor blended with panache and striking imagination. McCarthy works hard to draw out pathos and character development. Genuinely exciting—a wonderful hoot.” —Damien Broderick,
The New York Review of Science Fiction

“The author of
Bloom
once again demonstrates his talent for mind-expanding sf. Vibrant with humor, drama, and quirky ideas. Highly recommended.” —
Library Journal

“McCarthy has pushed his work to a new level. A very deft storytelling touch added to his engineering experience makes
The Collapsium
a standout novel. McCarthy has added a lyricism reminiscent of Roger Zelazny to cutting-edge hard science in the manner of Robert L. Forward.”
—Fred Cleaver,
The Denver Post

“[McCarthy] studs his narrative with far-out scientific concepts that he defends in a series of appendices. He certainly has a sense of humor. [Protagonist] Bruno de Towaji . . . is surely speaking for his creator when he assures another character, ‘Imagination really is the only limit.'”
—Gerald Jonas,
The New York Times

“[A] comedy of manners about High Physics, immortality, mad scientists, and murder. Great fun [with a] Wodehouse-meets-Doc-Smith aesthetic. As ingenious as the physics and special effects are, it is their juxtaposition to the wit and comedy that gives the novel its particular flavor. [A] playful, thoughtful book.” —Russell Letson,
Locus

“Top notch. Terribly good fun. This very funny book has something for everyone.”
—Niko Silvester,
Entertainment Tomorrow

“McCarthy knows his physics, and makes it extremely easy to suspend disbelief. He creates a world that is both foreign and amazing . . . but in McCarthy's hands it appears all but inevitable.” —J.M. Frank,
Mindjack Magazine

“Quite entertaining. The science is larger-than-life, and so are the characters.” —Rich Horton,
SF Site

“I don't recall the last time a book made me laugh out loud. I did so here on page 146, and at the book's end I did so again . . . though my eyes were moist as well. McCarthy has created a story here that is distinctly Asimovian in flavor, though his voice is very much his own.”
—Ernest Lilley,
SFRevu

“Prepare to use your grey matter. [McCarthy] fills his pages with lovingly rendered
descriptions . . . but it is the strength of his scientific imagination that really shines through.”
—Rob Williams,
SFX Magazine (UK)

“A most dazzling future. What follows is a mind-spinning struggle that recalls a Henry Fielding novel of manners, Michael Moorcock's epic sagas and the cosmic free-for-alls of Doc Smith. There's fascinating science aplenty, mad scientists, robots running amok . . . What more could
you want?”
—Terry Dowling,
The Weekly Australian

“A decidedly odd but enjoyable mix of mannered, decadent comedy and far-out physics. I liked and was even prepared to believe in [it].” —David Langford,
Ansible (UK)

“A wonderfully off-kilter space operetta, best described as a sophisticated version of those golden-age serials of the '30s populated with slightly mad scientists who happen to have total mastery of nanotechnology and black hole physics.”
—Netsurfer Digest

BLOOM

“
Bloom
is tense, dynamic, intelligent, offering a terrifyingly vivid view of how technology can rocket out of our control.”
—David Brin

“What clever and compelling science fiction! The
Bloom
future is all too believable.” —James Gleick, author of
Chaos: Making a New Science

“Wil McCarthy makes ideas jump.
Bloom
grabs you from the very first scene and doesn't let go till the last page. It's irresistible.” —Walter Jon Williams

“An ingenious yarn with challenging ideas, well-handled technical details and plenty of twists and turns.”
—
Kirkus Reviews

“Succeeds on many different levels, combining a unique literary style with complex scientific speculation and political intrigue. Wil McCarthy's most entertaining and thought-provoking novel yet.” —Preston Grassman,
Locus

“McCarthy is an entertaining, intelligent, amusing writer, with Clarke's thoughtfulness [and] Heinlein's knack for breakneck plotting.” —John Mort,
Booklist

“An intense narrative of survival.
Bloom
works on several levels even while beckoning the reader into deeper mysteries. McCarthy proves once again that he has the wit and narrative power to take us to the outer reaches of space and down into the vast unknown of human, and inhuman, consciousness.” —
Barnes and Noble

“Complex and inventive. Hundreds of pages of smart, suspenseful science fiction. ‘Our Pick.'”
—Curt Wohleber,
Science Fiction Weekly

“The writing is vivid. Readers who can plug into the prose and navigate its dense circuitry will find themselves rewarded with a wallop of a finale that satisfies high expectations for high-concept SF.” —
Publishers Weekly

“The science is consistent and integral to the story, and the characters are much more plausibly drawn than are so many folks in [other speculative] fiction. In nearly every passage, we get another slice of the science of McCarthy's construction, and a deeper sense of danger and foreboding.” —Jim Hopper,
San Diego Union-Tribune

“An astonishingly original concept, one of the most chilling versions of nanotechnology yet envisioned. McCarthy is able to make the idea . . . seem quite believable. The pacing of the book is also excellent. McCarthy has a real talent for
hard-SF concepts and thriller plotting.”
—D. Douglas Fratz,
SF Age

“A feast of exposition [that is] tasty as well as nutritious. His sworn agenda to balance hard science, adventure and characterization is vindicated by the completed product.
Bloom
is a fine synthesis between Hard and Literary SF, a trick many have tried, but few have managed.”
—Ernest Lilley,
SFRevu

“Technology gone wrong provides hard-SF terror in this fast-paced thriller of nanotech-as-mold. Recommended.”
—Russell Letson,
Locus

“Ultimately [humanity] must learn to ask new questions. The book's message is [that] in a universe stranger than we know, ignorance may be inevitable, but it's definitely not bliss.” —Gerald Jonas,
The New York Times

“Swiftly paced, consistently inventive and tightly written. This is a novel that knows its business.”
—Gregory Feeley,
The Washington Post

“McCarthy has worked out a bleakly dramatic future. This is the kind of broad view of mankind's future and the
universe reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke.”
—Fred Cleaver,
The Denver Post

“The science is plausible, the narrative sinewy and taut. [McCarthy's] assurance and skill are evident throughout. Starlog Verdict: ***** [5 out of 5 stars]” —
Starlog UK

“
Bloom
might be the wide-screen novel nanotech SF needs to kick-start itself. As soon as I read the cover blurb I couldn't wait to start reading, and then once I'd started reading I couldn't stop. Wil McCarthy's take on nanotech SF may be just about as far as we can go with the idea in fiction.” —Stuart Carter,
Infinity Plus (UK)

“Destined to become the classic nanotechnology novel.”
—
Bookman News

“Impressive. Believable. The story-telling and plot devices are tight, tight, tight. I regretted ever having to put the book down. I found it to be often insightful, in psychology, relationships, even philosophy. But the bottom line is that Bloom is fun. Complaints? Nope, can't think of one.”
—
Fantastica Daily

“Seriously original and inventive.” —Netsurfer Digest