David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

From the hallway, Carl kept staring at him until the door had shut again, cutting off the view, but not the image.

After a moment Saul looked up at the ceiling.

Oh, I know you, Ado-shem, he thought at the bearded, fierce-eyed God of Abraham. Thismorning I opened your gift, tore off the wrapping paper, and looked inside. And just now I showed its frightening beauty to a man who was once a friend.

It looks, at just, like a fine gift. Like the rock that flowed with water for the Hebrew children in the desert. But you and t know that inside the box is another box and another, and more ad infinitum.

And I’m still no closer to an answer to the basic questions, am I!? Where did Halley-Life come from? Did comets seed the Earth, long ago? Or are we only the latest invaders of this little worldlet? How could all of this have happened in the first place?

There was no reply, of course.

He smiled upward, through half a mile of rocky ice, at the stars.

Oh, yes. You will have your joke.

Carl and Virginia sat stiffly in nearby web-chairs. The G-wheel had broken down years ago and subtle side effects of constant low-gravity were showing. The lounge was deserted except for them, its vivid wall weather running unnoticed. A drowsy camel slowly bobbed along the brow of a distant sand dune.

“What I mean is, do you think he’s got all his marbles?” Carl asked flatly.

“Of course Saul is perfectly all right,” she answered indignantly, tension visible in her body language.

I’ve got to remember, she really loves the jerk, Carl thought. Okay, be diplomatic. “I’m worried about his… health.”

Virginia wasn’t having any of it. “You mean you think his discovery is a delusion.”

“Well, it is extreme.” Carl threw his hands into the air and boomed out, “I, Saul Lintz, am a godlike immortal. Immune! Impervious! Kneel, mere mortals!”

“That’s not his attitude.”

“Well, let’s say he comes over as a quiet megalomaniac.”

“He was describing a theory.”

“With himself as prime evidence.”

“Well, yes. Who else aboard has the N-constellation?”

“Good question. You could check the DNA log for the corpsicles.”

Virginia’s eyes shifted a fraction sideways for just an instant, but by now he could read her pretty well. “You already have, right?”

She nodded, knitting her fingers together and staring into them. “There are three others.”

“Good. Easy way to test his theory, right’? Unslot ’em and see if they catch a bug.”

“Saul said the same thing when I told him yesterday.”

“Hmmmm. I wonder why he didn’t mention that little fact to me.”

“He’s been busy. I suppose he wants to think things through a little more before… experimenting.”

“Or maybe— just maybe— he wants to do everything himself. Big Saul saves all.”

Virginia flared. “You have no right to say that!”

He held up his hands. “Okay, maybe so. Let’s say I’ve been dealing with a lot of crazies these years. I’ve gotten used to doubting everything.”

She bit her lip. Containing her anger? Or keeping in the suspicion that maybe I’m right?

“If Saul’s inoculations work,” she said in measured tones, “we will be able to save ourselves. The expedition will succeed. You must put your faith in him. You are going to okay his initial test treatments of volunteers, aren’t you?”

Carl shrugged. “My authority is limited. The ‘tribes’ contribute their labor. I handle routine management and make up a maintenance roster. Cap’n Bligh I’m not. I don’t see where I could stop him from recruiting… volunteers.” He had almost said suckers.

“Good. You’ll see, Carl. This is our hope.”

Hope? He was tempted to tell Virginia about the side effect of Saul’s wondrous symbiosis— Saul’s sterility. But if Saul had already told her, it would make him look mean.

Carl paused. Above her shoulder a caravan of scruffy tan camels plodded tirelessly across a vast sandy waste, heading for a green dab of palms halfway to the hard-edged horizon. Red-garbed traders swayed atop each, peering directly toward Carl with unveiled suspicion. Their images wavered with the heat, making the ponderous caravan ripple like a dream. Psychologically effective, no doubt, but Carl’s feet still felt cold.

“Something bothering you, Virginia?”

“JonVon’s… sick.”

“I’d heard. Is it— he— malfing?”

“He’s an organic matrix, remember. Saul thinks he’s got some infestation of Halleyforms. I hope Saul can find a cure.”

She started outlining the problem, the analogy between JonVon’s nonliving organics versus ordinary flesh and blood, and how JonVon could “catch a cold” in a more than metaphorical fashion. Carl listened, looking into her eyes for a long time. He still felt the old tug, that slow warm yearning that would come swelling up in him if he let it. Her pensive, expectant mouth, the regal cast to the high cheekbones…

“Is JonVon immortal, same as Saul is supposed to be?” Carl asked.

“Saul might make him so. If a cure is found. If Saul is right about himself…”

“I still think it’s all baloney.”

She said primly, “We must test those three from the slots immediately.”

She seems so sure. Could Lintz be right?

Virginia was too honest to let love blind her totally. She would have given some sign if she doubted Saul…

“Okay, assuming a real miracle, we’ll need to activate more farm area. We’ll want to pull nearly everybody out of the slots. Maybe— who knows?—Saul can cure some of those with black borders.”

“Even Commander Cruz?”

The thought struck Carl hard. “Could be,” he said to cover his confusion. Reviving senior officers… I won’t be such a big cheese around here. But it would be great to work with the captain again, with somebody who really knew how to get things done…

“It’ll be a hell of a rush, with only a few years to go to aphelion.”

Virginia brightened. “We can do it. I know we can.”

“Damn right.” And Carl forced a hopeful smile.

Why not be optimistic? It couldn’t hurt, after all that’s happened. At worst Saul Lintz is proven as a fool. At best… well, at best we may even finish the Nudge Launchers, move Halley, actually get on with the mission.

But Carl knew that even miracles have their unwelcome consequences. What will hope do to the tribes? he wondered.

That’s when real infighting is going to come, over where we target this old iceball to fall thirty years from now.

Virginia wiped at her eyes. Without any gravity to speak of, tears upwelled and clung in quivering beads held together by surface tension. You had to shake your head or blot them. It was that or wear little saltwater lenses and watch the world refracted through your pain.

“Is he going to be all right?” she asked. Her voice trembled like a little girl’s, but Virginia wasn’t ashamed. Lots of people cared as much for certain objects as for human beings. And JonVon was a lot more than a Raggedy Ann doll.

“I think…” Saul’s voice faded in and out. His head was immersed in the holo tank, a cubic meter of neatly squared simulation that looked like an aquarium filled with some bizarre concoction, a chef’s nightmare of bright bits and pieces. It was a color-coded depiction of the intricate chemistry of a colloidal-stochastic computer, and on this deep level all of her expertise was useless. Virginia might be a fair programmer, but she knew next to nothing about molecules, or what made pseudoliving things ill.