Mindbridge (13 page)

“We’re inferring from an absence of data,” Jacque said. “That’s lousy science.”

Riley shrugged elaborately. “Would either or both of you like to be taken off the mission?” Which would mean a review board and probably dismissal-then a lifetime of debt, reimbursing the AED for your expensive training.

They shook their heads no.

“Would anybody else? It’s just a matter of filling out a couple of forms.”

No response.

“Good.

“At any rate, you’re not likely to come in contact, in bridge rapport, with any of the bridges you catch. The main thrust of this mission is to bring untouched bridges back to Earth, so that they can be studied under controlled conditions.

“Jameson suggests that we screen the world’s population for people with phenomenally high Rhine potential; let them make first contact with the bridges. Sounds like a good idea.

“So we don’t want you to touch them, not if you can help it. . . . You know that the Groombridge Effect is blocked by certain dielectrics-ceramic quasi-metals, for instance. We’ve built extensions, waldos, for your suits, made entirely of these ceramics. Hopefully, this is what you’ll be using to pick up the bridges.”

“Nobody told us about that,” Jeeves said.

“We weren’t sure we’d have them made in time. Krupp’s been working night and day. We do have them now, though; that’s why I called this meeting. You and your team are going to go train with them today.

“Team B, Ubico, you’re free to go, unless there are questions.” There were none. “Team A, questions?” None. He stood up. “Well, then. Go on down to the ready room and get suited up. There’s a floater on pad C that’ll take you out to a place on the Colorado River; it has the extension waldos and the nets you’ll be using. Do it right and you’re free until the eleventh.”

The apparatus worked well. The two nets were semi-rigid, articulated so as to conform precisely to the river bottom. It took two people to operate a net, one on each bank. The nets would block off a section of river several kilometers long, and then slowly be brought together. They would trap any floating or swimming object more than a centimeter wide.

In the Colorado they wound up with a swarm of thousands of confused fish. They tested their retrieval waldos by picking a few of the best trout. It took a half hour to get three fish, but trout are faster and slipperier than the Groombridge bridge. Then they rolled up the nets and had a picnic.

GROOMBRIDGE 1618 MISSION,

11 OCTOBER 2051

A TEAM

PERSONNEL:

1. TAMER 5 TANIA JEEVES. FEMALE, 31. 9
^TH
MISSION. SUPERVISOR.

2. TAMER 3 GUSTAV HASENFEL. MALE, 26. 6
^TH
MISSION.

3. TAMER 2 (PROB) JACQUE LEFAVRE. MALE, 26. 3
^RD
MISSION.

4. TAMER 1 VIVIAN HERRICK. FEMALE, 24. 2
^ND
MISSION.

5. TAMER 1 CAROL WACHAL. FEMALE, 24. 2
^ND
MISSION.

EQUIPMENT:

5 GPEM MODULES W/GROOMBRIDGE 1618 MOD

1 PERSONNEL RECORDER

1 HOMING FLOATER W/GROOMBRIDGE 1618 MOD (SECOND SHOT)

2 SERVO NETS (THIRD SHOT)

1 MASS SPECTROGRAPH, WESTINGHOUSE MOD 17 (FOURTH SHOT)

1 COLLECTING TANK (FOURTH SHOT)

POWER REQUIREMENT:

3 SHOTS 17.89688370924 SU, TUNING

@ LOCAL TIME

10:24:38.37677BDK399057

10:32:29.66498BDK399059

10:36:46.00983BDK399060

1 SHOT 17.89688370930 SU, TUNING

@ LOCAL TIME

10:42:05.83997BDK399062

MISSION PRIORITY 1.

FUNDING
          
#733092
         
PSYCH
          
40%

    
#483776
         
EXOB
 
20

    
#000101
         
PR
      
20

    
#000100
         
GENEX
          
20

They came out of the LMT near Groombridge’s southern pole. The floater that followed eight minutes later had been modified to approach and then hover nearby, awaiting Tania’s command (to prevent the kind of accident that had left them grounded on the first mission).

They got aboard the floater and homed in on the two nets. That, and taking the nets to the river where they’d found the first bridge, totaled over three hours’ flying time. They unloaded and Tania asked for a volunteer.

“The collecting tank and the MS are a couple of hundred kilometers away. Who wants to go get them?” Silence. “Less than a two-hour job.”

“We should have arranged for B Team to pick them up,” Gus said. “It’s really their job.”

“Too late to change things now,” Jacque said. “Let’s draw straws.”

Tania had everyone pick a number between one and a hundred. Carol lost.

The other four immediately set up the nets, isolating a kilometer-long stretch of the river. The intent was to surprise a number of the creatures, not allowing one to warn the others away.

Of course, there was always the chance that there had been only one bridge on the planet, and it had sought them out. If so, they would spend forty-seven days in fruitless wading.

Jacque thought they would probably catch dozens, maybe hundreds, on each sweep. Spend most of the seven weeks playing with the mass spectrometer.

The actual results fell somewhere in between. When Carol came back with the floater, they were just about through with the first sweep. It was quite a contrast to their practice session: no activity, just a coalescing mat of floating weed. The nets joined at the bottom and they hauled them in.

After an hour of picking through the mess, they found one bridge.

They hurried downstream fifty kilometers and repeated the process. Nothing. They did it again: nothing again.

On the fourth try they came up with another bridge. B Team showed up, homed in on the MS, and started mining the mud.

That first day was the only day Tania’s team caught two bridges. At the end of the seven weeks they had a total of eight bridges. B Team fared better. They had built a small town of airtight, interconnected A-frame huts: rigid silvery tents of aluminum-silicon alloy. They were in high spirits.

Tania’s team was bored and frustrated. Jacque had exploded several times and even snapped at Carol. When they huddled together for the translation back to Earth, it was with desperate relief.

Arnold Bates spends half his life sleeping or taking drugs. Most of the drugs are to help him get to sleep. He is a millionaire several times over, but spends little: rent and food and drugs. He has no hobbies.

When he is awake he is more awake than most people. He must be; he is Senior Controller of the LMT chamber at Colorado Springs. Its 120-centimeter crystal is the largest that AED has, and the busiest.

Bates is a short, wiry man with a shock of white hair framing Amerind features. His skin is pale for an Amerind. He looks fifty but is thirty-two years old. He has been a Controller for ten years, twice the time it normally takes to wear a person down. He has the kind of nerveless self-control that would make an ideal Tamer, but he carries too many bad genes for the job.

His stomach is made of plastic and his liver is a machine. He has an IQ of 189 and gunslinger reflexes.

His main job is to prevent another Los Alamos disaster. Two human bodies trying to occupy the same place at the same time turned a mountain into a deep valley and spread heavy fallout from Albuquerque to Mexico City.

He is looking at the first page of his schedule for today, 27 November 2051:

Jumps
        
Returns
    
Slack
Mission
    
Comments

06:09:14
     
12:38
      
Tau Ceti
         
Breeding(3)

17:20

06:26:34
                 
61 Cyg B
         
Samples for Agr Grp

09:40

06:36:14
                 
Procyon A
        
Tamers (5)

06:31

06:42:45
                 
Procyon A
        
Floater

22:14

07:04:59
70
              
Ophiuchi A
       
Tamers (6)

07:34

07:12:33
70
              
Ophiuchi A
       
Floater

05:11

07:17:44
                 
Tau Ceti
         
Food (hurry crew)

17:43

07:35:27
                 
Groombridge 1618
 
Tamers (5)

07:51

07:43:18
                 
Groombridge 1618
 
Floater

04:18

07:47: 37
                
Groombridge 1618
 
Misc equipment

05:19

07:52:56
                 
Groombridge 1618
 
Samples for Bio Grp,

                         
Psy Grp (both on standby)

11:05

 
08:04:01
   
       
   
E Indi
     
Tamers(5)

             
16:38
      
Training

He will be on today from six to ten AM and from two to six PM. The clock in the controller lounge says 05:58.

The door to the control room opens and a young man steps out. Bates has seen him off and on for almost a year, but doesn’t know his name.

“Bates,” he nods; Arnold nods back. “It’s clear now; you’ve got better’n ten minutes’ slack.” Arnold knows this, of course: ten minutes and forty-some seconds. When he opens his eyes in the morning he knows what time it is, to the minute.

The young man is pale, mopping his forehead.

“Trouble?”

“Yeah, bad one last hour. Geoformy team with three injuries, one deader. Slingshot deader.”

“Tamers,” Arnold says. “Can’t learn to keep their arms in.”

“Yeah.” He shuffles out the door and Arnold goes into the control room. His partner is Mavis Eisenstein, overlapping him on the four-to-eight shift. He’s known her for four years.

“Morning, Mavis.” She nods and sighs, gets up from the prime chair and moves over to the other one, the backup.

Arnold sits down and opens a fresh pack of cigarettes. He puts that and his old pack on the table in front of him, lights up.

“Wish you were here at five,” Mavis says. “Instead of me.”

“That’s what he said. Real mess?”

She nods, keeps nodding. “One on the bottom cut right down the middle. Even got blood on the glass. Everybody else fell all over. Coordinator and two others were unconscious anyhow. Still don’t know what happened.”

“Geoformy team?”

“E Eridani. 05:27:14. Their fucking MS coming in right on top of them, 03:29 slack. Had to steam and bake.”

“That’s only a two-twenty cycle.”

“Don’t I know?” Her voice is thin, strained. “Fucking autopsy made me hold. Wanted the cadaver. Almost didn’t make it, steamed one of the loading crew, pretty bad I think. Cycled out with nine seconds slack at that.”

“Too close. Better file a report.”

“Bet your cock I’ll file a report. Six,” she says, automatically, as double chimes announce the hour. “Fucking autopsy acts like they run the place.”

“Want a pill?”

“Took one six minutes ago. I’ll be all right.”

He checks down through the eleven missions they’ll be doing together. “Anybody standing by for the Ag Group samples?”

“No. They called last night, we’re supposed to store. Runner coming at nine.”

“Tell the loading crew about the squeeze on this food shipment?”

“Oh, yeah. Better call again. I prepared them at four but they maybe brought in some new people after the five-twenty-seven. One for sure.”

Arnold places the call. “Whole new crew, as a matter of fact.”

“What about the one I steamed?”

“He’s alive,” Arnold lies instantly. She can find out later. “Fair condition.”

“Hated to do that.”

“They get paid for it.” He points through the window. “There’s our breeders.”

“Thirty seconds early.”

“Twenty-five,” he corrects.

The loading crew has already brought out the floater, now standing upright, centered over the LMT crystal. The three Tamers approach it.