The Chaos Weapon
THE CHAOS WEAPON
COLIN KAPP
In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:
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UNDER skies
the hue of ancient lead, the threat of disaster brooded over the planet of Monai. Half a year of continuous snowfall had altered the shape of the mountains above the capital city of Edel, and millions upon millions of tons of precarious mass awaited the imperceptible signal to join in catastrophic avalanche. Crouching beneath its protective mountain outcrop, the frozen city viewed the altered heights with faint amazement but without undue alarm; the long granite backbone was a time-honored guardian that divided the great slips and diverted them with relatively little harm.
A small snow-cat was ploughing its way toward Edel from the east, following the line of the frozen and snow-locked Spring River. At the controls, Asbeel had eyes for nothing but the immediate route ahead. He and his companion had driven far, the cat’s controls were heavy and tiresome, and the cabin was hot to the point of near suffocation. His powerful frame rested unhappily in the inadequate bucket seat, and the jolting of the iron control column had substantially bruised the inside of his sinewed thighs.
In the rear of the cat, Jequn looked only at the snows poised breathlessly above Edel. He was slightly smaller than Asbeel, and his face was constantly alive with questing speculation; his dark, intelligent eyes mirroring his appraisal of secret fears, and haunted with strange foreboding. He read in the brooding heights a message his companion had not seen. He kept the thought to himself until the myriad factors in the mental equation hardened into a daunting certainty.
“Asbeel, we’re driving into
a trap.”
“Are you certain?” The driver did not falter at the controls, but the lethargy induced by heat and boredom dropped from his shoulders like a mantle. Instantly he was the taut animal his training and experience had caused him to become.
“I’m certain. I can see it now. A rime of tension on the trees.”
“I see only hoar frost.”
“The bush-edges have a slight double-diffraction. There’s a stress building in the continuum.”
“Your eyes must be more sensitive than mine.”
“Can’t you feel the tension rising? Causality’s been suspended in this place. A catastrophe which should have taken place has been held to await our coming. If we enter Edel, the trap will spring.”
“The Chaos Weapon?” Asbeel asked.
“What else? We’re entering a prime focus. We should have guessed they’d try it on us again sooner or later.”
“Well, we’ve beaten it before. Let’s see if we can’t do it this time.”
Two kilometers out from Edel, Asbeel turned the cat away from the course of the frozen river and drove it into a rocky cutting. Here he muted the engine and joined Jequn in the rear of the cabin.
“As I read it, one of us has to go into Edel to make contact with Kasdeya. We’re looking at two causal chains—the chain involving Edel, which has been placed in suspension, and a chain of cause and effect which brings one of us to this point of coincidence. One of us can go into Edel with a chance of survival. Theoretically, the other stands no chance at all.”
“The question then becomes,” said Jequn, “which one of the pair of us has been linked with Edel’s coming catastrophe. Exactly what brought us to this point?”
“Kasdeya. He asked us to pick him up. I piloted the ship, but it was your decision which set the timing. Perhaps we’re all involved.”
“Never! You can calculate the directions of two
causal chains and manipulate the odds to ensure they intersect at a catastrophe. But the mathematics to handle three or more causal chains is never likely to exist. These events have to be designed around just one of us—but we don’t have enough information to decide which.”
“Supposing neither of us goes into Edel?”
“Then Kasdeya’s dead for sure. At this moment the Chaos Weapon is straining to hold off some great natural disaster.” As he spoke, Jequn’s eyes were scanning the profiles of the surrounding rocks, reading how the stress in the continuum was warping the path of the light reflected from the rocks. Farther back and high above, potential avalanches hung poised in a kind of stasis. “They must be tapping a young star a second to get power for an operation like this. If the coincidence doesn’t take place soon, something has to snap. When it does, all that power will be released in one almighty backlash. It’ll shatter this territory from end to end.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I’ll tell you. Drop me off here with a balloon, and take the cat a few kilometers out into the plain. Look for a spot where there seem to be no natural faults in the terrain. I’ll try not to provoke the Chaos reaction until you’re there, then I’ll go in and try to reach Kasdeya. When the catastrophe breaks, move back fast and rescue the both of us.”
“What if it’s you the Chaos Weapon’s aimed at?”
“Don’t worry! It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve cheated Chaos. As long as the entropy equations are satisfied, it isn’t particularly selective. If necessary, someone else’s death can substitute for mine.”
Unknown to the cat’s occupants, other eyes were watching. Across the valley, high on a windswept plateau, the Galactic Deep-Space Observatory had become host to unusual visitors. Two spacecraft had made planetfall close to the observatory complex, and these formed the nucleus of an observational network directed not spaceward
but on to the heights over Edel and across the cold approaches of the snowpacked plain. They were now well placed for a unique and privileged view of the disaster that threatened Edel. Yet the snows so precariously balanced above the city did not justify the awful foreboding of the computer predictions. Written wide across the Chaos printouts was the suggestion of an energy release many orders of magnitude greater than the avalanche could provide. This prediction had brought out the inquisitive ships from Terra to rest on this gaunt rock shoulder on Monai.
They looked for the unusual, but found nothing. Indeed, the only activity of any interest at all occurred when a small snow-cat appeared unexpectedly on the terrain scanner. Aboard the lab-ship
Heisenberg
, Space-Marshal Cass Hover called for a visual image and was presented with a telescopic view originating from a scanner set on the plateau’s edge. Scowling, Hover read off the identification letters on the cat’s dark hull.
“Local?”
Captain Rutter shook his head. “With that index it’d have to come from somewhere way out—around New Sark, at a guess. And he’s sure going to be sorry he made the journey. If that Chaos printout’s true, all hell’s going to get loose just about the time that cat hits Edel.”
“What’s that?” asked a voice from the rear. The speaker was a tall, dark, bearded man whose black cloak eternally hugged his shoulders almost as if the attachment was symbiotic. “Can you check that timing out for me?”
“Sure!” Rutter detailed two technicians with a movement of his finger. “What’s on your mind, Saraya?”
“I can’t abide mysteries, that’s all,” the dark man said moodily. “Not in Chaos work. We’ve just rechecked the soundings on the snows over Edel and calculated the worst-case energy release. It forms a barely measurable part of the entropy change predicted by the
Chaos equation. There
has
to be another factor at work here.”
“It checks out, Captain.” One of the technicians handed Rutter a strip of printout. “If that cat keeps going on its present course and speed it’ll meet the Chaos Omega point precisely in the center of Edel.”
“Which has to be something more than a coincidence.” The dark man stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Lock some surveillance equipment on to that cat, and try and find out where it came from and who’s in it.”
“If I understand you correctly,” Hover said, “that cat would have to contain a couple of fusion warheads if it were going to satisfy the entropy equation.”
“I doubt if it’s anything that simple,” said Saraya. “Rutter, how did the Edel authorities react to the prediction of instant extinction?”
“With a polite but disbelieving smile. Their emergency resources are on standby, but they regard the whole exercise as rather academic.”
“Let’s hope for their sakes that’s the case. But if it is, it will be the first time one of our Chaos predictions of this magnitude has proved unfounded.”
“I’ve always thought of Chaos prediction as being on a par with astrology,” said Hover mischievously, puzzling over the focus of his screens.
“That’s because the field acquired too many practitioners with neither the intelligence nor the financial backing to exercise it properly. Even at ChaosCenter it’s still not an exact science. But if I had any personal doubts, the existence of that cat headed precisely for Chaos Omega would make me think very carefully.”
“Then I’m sorry to disappoint you, Saraya, but the cat has just pulled off course and headed into the rocks.”
“Damn!”
The dark man bent to the screens to verify the statement, then retired to the rear of the instrument room to consult some notes. Captain Rutter caught Hover’s eye and they exchanged a mutual glance of disbelief in the dark man’s certainty. Then
the rigors of the Chaos countdown began to demand all their attention.
Soon the only sound to be heard in the lab-ship’s instrument room was the muted whisper of the air-conditioning system. The interest that had been generated by the cat’s arrival drained to quiet concentration on the instrument boards and screens. Meanwhile in the background the Chaos indicator began the slow countdown toward the onset of theoretical catastrophe.
Omega minus ten …
Hover was constantly having to adjust the focus of his scanner, which obstinately refused to retain a clear picture. The other technicians were having similar problems.