The Chaos Weapon (19 page)

“But not this
one,” said Wildheit.

“Why should you say that?”

The marshal glanced at Roamer. “Because you stand on the edge of the ultimate catastrophe. This will be the disaster at which all other disasters come to an end. There is nothing you can substitute, nothing you can alter, and nothing of you will remain.”

A long period of agitated silence followed. Then another speaker rose to his feet. “For what it’s worth, your predictions coincide with our own. But we’ve sets of multivariables with potentially different interpretations. These we intend to exploit.”

“You’re grasping at straws,” said Wildheit.

“I think not. The two of you have been identified as a singularly potent catalytic force. I am aware that killing you would not necessarily end the catalytic effect. Sometimes, as with sociological events like martyrdom, the death of the principal can actually trigger the reaction. So we propose to run Chaos analyses on you to define the nature of your catalysis and to divert it to a less disruptive end.”

“That won’t work,” said Wildheit. “The patterns are already set. Future history has no place for the Ra.”

“Then future history will have to be rewritten, Marshal. And this we are learning to do. With what we shall gain from examining the two of you, not only shall we survive, but we’ll be able to write our own history in advance. But now I think we had better become engaged with practical things, because the times passes and we still have a great deal to do.”

The cage in which Wildheit found himself confined was intended not so much as a method of containment but as a means by which he, as a specimen, could be lowered into the great apparatus in one of the equipment halls. Nevertheless, as a crane lifted the spherical birdcage high into the air he inevitably thought of one of the ancient punishments where a caged man was hoisted on high and left to die of thirst, starvation,
and exposure—and of finally becoming carrion for the birds. In contrast, his own destination was intended to be infinitely less exposed.

A mammoth block of some shielding substance about fifty meters square had a shaft drilled from top to bottom and circular tunnels cut at right angles between the opposite faces of the cube. The crane lowered him carefully and deliberately down the shaft until he was at the intersection of the opposing tunnels, his ball-cage thus axially aligned in three dimensions. His only light was that which incidentally penetrated down the shaft from the top. He had noted in his brief flight that the horizontal tunnels terminated in equipment heads presumably designed to bombard the cage with some effect and measure the results obtained.

A voice which reverberated around the tunnel complex asked suddenly: “Can you hear me, Marshal?”

“Who’s that?”

“Penemue. I’m doing the interpreting for his session.”

“What are they going to do to me?”

“You’ve been screened as far as possible from extraneous entropic radiation. You will now be subjected to alterations in entropic state, so that your Chaos spectra can be determined. From that they hope to deduce the nature of your catalytic effect.”

“Can that tell them much?”

“I think not. If Saraya has done his work properly,
circumstance
is the real catalyst; with you merely as the agent to which the circumstance is attached. I think the Ra also fear this is true, but it won’t prevent them trying to prove otherwise.”

“Is it likely to be rough?”

“Depends on what fields they use and what results they find.”

“Well, tell them to speed it up, because this parrot-cage is giving me cramps in muscles I don’t even possess.”

Penemue’s ability to influence the timing of the project was doubtful, nevertheless the equipment
started up almost immediately. First a strong draft of air was forced through the horizontal tunnels and withdrawn through the vertical shafts, placing Wildheit in the center of a miniature hurricane which whistled through the bars of his cage. Then further equipment was brought into play which illuminated the tunnel ends with a pulsing red illumination. A continuous whine signaled the next phase of the operation in which some form of beam was projected down each of the horizontal tunnels to converge on him from all sides.

The nature of the beam was not apparent, and for a moment he noticed nothing but a strong field of radiant heat. Then he was hit by a charge of electrical tension which made his hair stand on end and caused sparks of static to discharge across the bar of the cage and leap across to his skin. Wildheit drew himself as far from the bars as he was able, but soon the long, tinkling sparks began to play between his fingers and between his arms and his chest and even from his chin and ears to his neck.

“How are you doing?” Penemue asked anxiously.

“When you can smell roast meat you might as well drop down some gravy and vegetables. They’re cooking me alive. Tell them to turn the damn thing off.”

“I’ll try.” Penemue sounded dubious, but before he could possibly have relayed the request there came the sound of a loud explosion somewhere in the hall, and all the effects faded and died.

“You needn’t have put it quite that forcibly,” said Wildheit in mock reproof.

Penemue was excited. “I didn’t do it, you did. Your Chaos index climbed a sudden exponential when they started scanning into the future, and continued way up to infinity. Their amplification was such that they couldn’t contain the overload. It’s blown a fair part of their equipment. Zecol is half out of his mind. Swears you did it to spite him.”

“What do you make of it?”

“From the results I’ve seen so far, your prediction
of the ultimate catastrophe holds true. Not only that, but you’re predicted to be about epicenter when the blow-up begins. This virtually proves the case for the existence of a circumstantial catalyst with you as the trigger agent. But nobody is agreed upon which is the nature of the catastrophe, or what circumstance could cause you to trigger it.”

“I’d welcome a bit of information on that myself. Are they going to pull me out now?”

“Not yet. They’re trying to hook in some new equipment so that they can have a few verification runs with variations on some of the parameters. For one thing, the timing is no way in agreement with their original predictions. On your showing, the disaster should happen within days, whereas they gave themselves years. If only you’re right and they’re wrong, very few of the Ra are ever going to get the chance to see the new universe.”

THEY were quartered in a wing of the space station, in which they had the unexpected luxury of individual cabins and a lounge which they jointly shared. Their supervision by the station guards was a purely nominal affair because, except when the infrequent supply ships arrived, there was no place where they could run. Apart from a few high-security areas, they effectively had the freedom of the entire station, and this arrangement Wildheit was attempting to use to his advantage.

The employment of all four Ra renegades as translators meant that collectively they had access to most
of the results of the test program. At the same time, they had sufficient leisure to explore the station and its relationship to the Chaos Weapon which it orbited. The most potentially valuable pieces of information which this freedom enabled them to gain was that the targeting programs for the weapon were actually compiled at the station in which they were confined and that the guidance of the weapon itself was controlled by another station immediately adjacent. The most dispiriting news collected through this channel was that all communications between the complex of orbiting stations was by means of a data-transfer link, and that physical transfers between stations were hardly ever made. This latter fact crippled a crucial piece of Wildheit’s planning, which was to have been an attempt to sabotage the weapon itself.

Meanwhile, tension in the Ra technical crew was rising. As Penemue had surmised, the Chaos catalyst had been confirmed as being a web of circumstance in which the marshal merely functioned as an agent. There was no way in which the Ra could obtain definitive patterns from anything as insubstantial as a theoretical circumstance; yet their tests showed, with increasing definition, a causal link between Wildheit and the ultimate catastrophe. It also showed a substantial mismatch in time between the predictions obtained from Wildheit’s patterns and those derived from the Ra’s own broad sweeps of Chaos.

Yet a moment of jubilant speculation came for the Ra when they began to concentrate their attention on Roamer. The patterns they found attached to her were in broad agreement with their own, and there was no suggestion that she was a catalytic trigger. The realization that the dreaded Chaos catalyst was divisible into two non-identical components brought a night of rejoicing for the Ra, and their confidence was high that the problem would soon be solved.

Kasdeya, too, was having new thoughts about Roamer. He was unhappy about her easy cooperation in the tests, and the way in which she knowledgeably
discussed the test results with the Ra technicians and occasionally added her own Chaos insight to their interpretation. When he taxed her with this she grew evasive and sullen, and a critical schism might have developed had not Zecol shown a comprehending hand.

A body of armed guards came in the middle of the rest period and took Roamer, Asbeel, and Jequn off to a lock where a shuttle had been brought secretly. The pinnace departed for an unstated destination, leaving Wildheit, Kasdeya, and Penemue despairing and angry. Whereas they had previously had at least the assurance of ultimate success as predicted by Chaos, in the departure of Roamer they had lost the key against which they could test the results of their actions. Suddenly their whole campaign seemed futile; and the prospects of the ultimate disaster becoming a reality seemed substantially less real than the reams of graphs that ostensibly claimed it to be future fact.

Whether such demoralization was intentional or merely incidental to the progress of the investigation, they could not be sure. A visit from Zecol, however, helped fuel their disillusionment. His mood was one of jubilation as he called the trio together.

“Our mission here is nearly ended. I’ve called for a provost-craft to take the three of you to War Base. Kasdeya and Penemue will stand trial there for their parts in the events leading up to the Great Anger and for numerous subsequent incidents—not the least, treason. There is no possibility of acquittal. As for you, Marshal, armed resistance may merit a swifter death but one nonetheless sure.”

“I wonder you bother,” said Kasdeya critically. “War Base is a long way to take us just for an execution.”

“You miss the point. After the shadow under which we’ve been living has been raised, your show-trial will be not the least of our celebrations.”

“After
the shadows have been raised?” Penemue was quick to note the point.

“There are a
few details to finalize, but no problems which can’t be solved. In such matters, the girl from Mayo is remarkably astute, especially since her separation from the marshal. Without her assistance we could not have gotten so far in so short a time.”

“At what price was this assistance purchased?” asked Wildheit suddenly.

“None of your business. But since you ask, it’s a promise to liberate the people of Mayo from Federation oppression.”

“Damn!
I might have guessed.” Wildheit was nearly tempted to smile. “Commander, you’ll find you’ve struck the worst end of a bad bargain.”

“Nothing that a couple of accidental hell-burners can’t take care of,” said Zecol slyly.

“Don’t you think she’d have read that in advance? No, Commander. Even the Devil would think twice before making a pact with one of the Sensitives.”

“Don’t disappoint me, Marshal. I would salute you as a gallant loser, but a loser nonetheless. Don’t spoil your image by carping. We plan no further tests here, so you may relax until the provost-craft arrives.”

When the Commander had left the station, Wildheit called his group together. “This doesn’t compute,” he said. “Penemue, you saw the results on the last test run. Was there anything to suggest that the patterns had changed substantially?”

“Quite the opposite. It added two significant figures to the timing certainty.”

“Then what’s Zecol playing at? Surely he’s not foolish enough to count on his chicken before he’s run a good Chaos prediction on what she’s hatching?”

“Where do you think they’ve taken Roamer?”

“At a guess, no farther than the weapon guidance station.”

“Then they’ve had enough time to make some extra Chaos runs there,” said Penemue. “Could be they’ve found something different. But I suspect another sort of answer. I think the chicken’s given them a substitution method so that the equation which applies to you
can be satisfied in terms of your destruction, but the effect, though violent, will be purely local. In other words, what will happen will not now be the ultimate catastrophe, but simply the ultimate catastrophe which happens to Space-Marshal Jym Wildheit.”

“I doubt that could be made to work,” objected Kasdeya. “Too much energy showed up on that scale. For instance, if the power plant on this station went nova right now, it would certainly take some of the adjacent stations with it. And if Roamer is in one of those, she’d go too.”

“Not true,” said Penemue. “In the junction domain, effects are relative only to themselves. This station could go nova, and another only meters away would be completely unaffected. There is no interactive transfer of energy in the junction.”

“Then isn’t it possible that something of that nature is what they’ve arranged? Just suppose they plan to destroy this station along with the marshal in order to arrange an entropic substitution to balance the Chaos equation?”

“It would need one hell of an explosion to balance those power figures.”

“True. But conservation of energy would require that if the energy couldn’t be radiated into the junction, it must be reflected. This station is spherical, and internal reflections in a sphere could produce a phenomenal flux density at centerpoint.”