David Brin: The Practice Effect

“They took your weapons? I was afraid of that.” Dennis grimaced. Kremer already had his needler, and there was no telling what other arms the ever-cautious Brady had brought along. No doubt Brady had not stinted quality in outfitting himself. With all that stuff, Kremer could still turn out to be a big pain down the road.

“They stole everything!” Brady groaned. “From my camp-stove right down to my wedding ring!”

“You’re married, now?” Dennis’s eyebrows rose. “To whom? Anybody I know?”

Brady suddenly looked anxious. Clearly he did not want to offend Dennis. “Uh, well, when you didn’t come back—”

Dennis stared. “You mean you and Gabbie?”

“Uh, yes. I mean, you were gone so long. And we discovered we had so much in common—well, you know.” He looked up sheepishly.

Linnora, too, was looking concerned.

Dennis laughed. “Never mind, Bernie. We never had anything going, anyway. I’m sure you’re better suited to her than I ever would have been. Congratulations. Sincerely.”

Brady shook Dennis’s hand uncertainly. He looked from Dennis to Linnora and back and seemed to understand the situation.

But that only appeared to make him more miserable. The fellow wasn’t merely afraid and homesick. He was in love.

“Well, we’ll see to getting you back to her as quickly as possible,” he told his erstwhile rival compassionately. I’ve got to visit Earth temporarily anyway. I’d like to trade a few local works of art for some items I can buy from N-Mart.”

Dennis had plans. For the sake of both worlds he would make sure Linsee kept a tight guard on the zievatron, restricting the flow between the worlds carefully. They certainly didn’t want to create any paradoxes in time!

But in a limited way trade could probably profit both realities.

Brady shook his head. “Even if we could put a new return mechanism together from those parts you buried, we’d never get it finished in time! Flaster gave me only a few days, and those are about used up!

“And when the airlock mechanism was wrecked, it destroyed the calibration settings. I don’t even know Earth’s reality coordinates!”

“Well, I remember them,” Dennis assured him.

“Oh, yeah?” A touch of Brady’s familiar sarcasm returned. “Well, have you figured out the coordinates for this crazy place yet? We never were too sure of them back in Lab One, We just sort of stumbled onto the settings. And now those, too, are ruined!”

“Don’t worry. I can calculate them as well. You see, I think I know not only where we are, but when as well.”

Brady stared. And Dennis started to explain.

“Think about the most important discoveries of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” Dennis suggested. “Clearly the most dramatic were bioengineering and zievatronics.

“Physics was a dead end by the year 2000. Oh, there were lots of abstract problems, but nothing that seemed to offer a way to bring other worlds within mankind’s grasp. The solar system was a pretty barren place, and the stars remained awfully far away.

“But with recombinant DNA, there appeared the possibility of creating almost any type of viable life-form, for whatever purpose. Work only beginning at Sahara Tech and at other institutions when we were there seemed to be leading to a world filled with wonders—giant chickens, cows that gave yogurt, even unicorns, dragons, and griffins!

“Then there was the zievatron, which promised to reopen the road to the stars relativity seemed to have closed off forever.

“Now imagine both of these trends,” Dennis asked, “taken into the future.

“When, in a hundred years or so, the ziev effect was finally perfected, bands of migrants would travel to other worlds, to colonize or find space for their own diverse ways of life.

“And by that time they wouldn’t take with them many tools, only the very minimum that could fit through the zievatron. After all, when you can tailor-make organisms for any function, why burden yourself with clumsy hunks of metal?

“Self-repairing, semi-intelligent robots made of living matter would drive you to work, toil in the fields, and clean your house. Walking brains would record your messages and recite any information verbatim at command. Fiercely loyal great flying “dragons” with laser eyes would protect your new colonies against any danger. All these specialized organisms would be “fueled” by food generated at special facilities.

“In the future, colonists would not go in star ships, nor would they carry cold metal with them. Why should they, when they could simply step through a gate to their new worlds and design creatures for any function?”

Brady scratched his head. “That’s a lot of speculation, Nuel. You can’t tell what’s going to happen in the future.”

“Oh, but I can,” Dennis said with a smile. “Because this is it! This is the future, Brady.” Brady stared.

“Imagine a group of colonists who belong to a fringe group with antimachine sentiments,” Dennis said. “Let’s say this group finds a beautiful world, accessible through the zievatron. They save up to pay transmission charges and then leave the complicated society of Earth for their paradise, shutting the door behind them.

“At first all goes well. Then, all of a sudden, the complicated bioengineered creatures they depend upon start dying!

“Their scientists finally find a cause. It is a plague, created by another race that plies the ziev space, one with whom man has by this time had skirmishes for several centuries. The enemy are called the Blecker, and they have chosen this isolated outpost of humanity to test their new weapon.

“The Blecker had released a disease on Tatir, which is what the world was named. The plague could not kill any life-form capable of independent existence—able to find its own way in the wild—but it destroyed the synthetic food supply. Without that food the delicate symbiotes upon which the colonists’ civilization depended were doomed.

“The scientists of Tatir discovered the attack too late to stop it. The dying was well under way, beginning with the huge but delicate dragons upon whom the planet’s defense relied.

“Desperate, they reopened the zievatron link to Earth, to beg for help.”

Brady sat on the edge of his seat, listening intently. “What happened then?” he asked.

Dennis shrugged. “Earth was anxious not to get contaminated. They sent through a powerful device that would scramble the zievways to Tatir for a thousand years, until a cure could be found. When the machine had done its work, neither Earth nor the invaders could get through to this world.

“But"—Dennis raised one finger—"before doing that, they sent through a gift!”

From outside they heard Arth’s voice call. “I think th’ critter’s settled down now. I’ll bring him in. You all sit still!”

The curtain parted and Arth entered again. The pixolet rode his shoulder. When it saw Brady it glared but was quiet. It spread its wing membranes and glided over to Linnora’s lap. She stroked the beast and soon it was purring again.

Linnora whispered, “We of the L’Toff never forgot the gift from Earth, did we, my little Krenegee?”

“No, you didn’t,” Dennis agreed. In the centuries of savagery that followed the inevitable fall of Tatir civilization, almost everything was lost. The few machines rusted away and were forgotten. Since most of the transports had been hovercraft, even the principle of the wheel was forgotten.

“Most of the specialized animals died off, leaving only the sturdiest Earth stock and local fauna. The language started to change as virtually all learning and lore were lost.