Charles Sheffield: The Mind Pool

“Preparing to pass the buck.” Luther Brachis spoke with an impassive face and without moving his lips.

“Naturally.” Both men had learned the parade ground knack of invisible speech long ago, but the trick could still come in useful. “Did you ever doubt it?” went on Mondrian softly. “Mac’s a good bureaucrat, if he’s nothing else. He decided long ago where he was going to place the blame.”

“First, a statement from Commander Luther Brachis,” said MacDougal, as though he had managed to intercept Mondrian’s last remark. “Commander Brachis is the Chief of Solar System Security. As such, he is responsible for monitoring all anomalous events that occur within half a lightyear of Sol.” MacDougal turned away from the other Ambassadors, and moved so that all four were in line facing the witnesses. Hidden lamps came on to frame Brachis in a crossfire of illumination.

“You may begin,” said MacDougal.

Brachis nodded to the four shapes in their cocoons of light. His thoughts, whatever they were, would not be read from his blunt lion’s face.

“The Ambassador correctly stated my duties. Security is my job, from Apollo Station and the Vulcan Nexus, out to the edge of the Oort Cloud and the Dry Tortugas. I have held that position for five years.

“Two years ago, I received a request for a development project on Cobweb Station. That station is a research facility about twelve billion kilometers from Sol. It is a free orbiting artificial structure, in the ecliptic, and roughly halfway between the orbits of Neptune and Persephone. Cobweb Station has served as a research center for more than seventy Earth years. The proposed project was a secret one, but that is not unusual for the facility. I approved the request, and the project began under the code name, Operation Morgan. With your permission, we will defer description of the nature of the project itself until Commander Mondrian’s testimony.” Brachis paused, and waited for the four stylized gestures of assent.

“Then I will say no more than this: From my point of view, Operation Morgan was conducted with the highest level of security. Twenty of my department’s most experienced and valued guards were assigned to the project. They took up residence on Cobweb Station for the duration of the project. General supplies of volatiles were dropped in from the Oort Cloud, and energy came through the solar system’s supply grid. That power was controlled from the Vulcan Nexus, with the master boards here on Ceres. In two years of operation, no anomaly of any kind was ever noted. All progress reports on Operation Morgan indicated excellent results, with no substantial difficulties experienced or projected.

“That situation ended twenty days ago. On that date, an anomalous energy demand triggered a flag in our general power monitoring system.

“This concludes the first part of my testimony.” Brachis glanced from one Ambassador to the next. “Are there questions?”

The four figures facing him were silent. There was only the usual faint hiss of the Mattin Link connection. The Angel was restlessly waving its upper lobes, while Dougal MacDougal was glancing from side to side. Brachis knew better than to expect support from the Solar Ambassador.

“With your permission, then, I will continue. The changed energy requirement that I referred to came directly from Cobweb Station. Unfortunately it happened during a quiet period, very near to a change of shift. The evidence of increased load was not at first noticed by my staff. I take full responsibility for that operational failure. However, the demand change was registered by our automatic monitoring system, together with a lengthy communications silence. A probe was dispatched to Cobweb Station.

“It arrived too late. All my staff were dead. The station was empty of human life. The Mattin Link had been operated. And I finally learned things about the nature of Operation Morgan that I should have taken the time to learn long ago. All activities at Cobweb Station are under my jurisdiction. I take full responsibility for what happened there.”

He had finished his testimony and was ready to stand down, but now there was a stir from the ranks of the Ambassadors. “You said that the Mattin Link was activated.” It was the Pipe-Rilla, gently vibrating her thorax plates. “For transmission of objects, or for signals only?”

“For objects.”

“Then, to what destinations?”

“I do not know. But the energy drain says that it must have been many lightyears.”

As Brachis was giving his testimony, new individual components had flown in silently to join the Tinker Composite. Now it bulked much larger than a human. There was a fluttering of tiny purple-black wings, and then a sibilant facsimile of human speech came again through the Link. “We would like the records, if you please. We wish to attempt our own analysis of possible destinations. And we wish to know more about the nature of the project you term Operation Morgan.”

“Very well. But for that, I will with your permission defer to Commander Mondrian. My own records will be sent to you at once, and I will of course be available to answer any further questions.” Luther Brachis stepped back, ceding the spotlight to Esro Mondrian.

His companion had been performing his own close inspection of the Ambassadors. There was no chance of recognizing any particular assembly of Tinker Composites, but the Angels and Pipe-Rillas both had stability of structure. It was possible mat he had met one of them before, on their own home worlds. In any case, he knew he would have to talk right past Dougal MacDougal if he hoped for any kind of sympathetic response from the alien Ambassadors.

“My name is Esro Mondrian. I am Chief of Boundary Survey security. My territory begins half a lightyear from Sol, where it meets the region controlled by Commander Brachis. It extends all the way out to, and includes, the Perimeter. Between us, Commander Brachis and I divide the responsibility for human species security. However, Operation Morgan was my initiative and its failure is my responsibility, not his.

“I have worked in the past with each of your own local monitoring groups, and I have visited your home systems. We are fortunate, all our species, in that we live in stable, civilized regions, where there are few unknown dangers. But out on the Perimeter, fifty lightyears and more from Sol, there are no such guarantees.”

Down in the sunken atrium in front of Mondrian there was an odd grunting sound. It was Dougal MacDougal, clearing his throat. He did not speak, but he did not need to. Mondrian understood the message. Get on with it, man. The Ambassadors didn’t link in from halfway to the Perimeter just to hear platitudes from you.

And yet they had to hear this, whether MacDougal liked it or not. Esro Mondrian hurried on.

“Out on the Perimeter, distances are enormous. But our resources to monitor what is happening out there are limited, and operating uncertainties are large. A few years ago I realized that we were losing ground. The Perimeter constantly increases in size, but our capability was not growing with it. We had to have some new type of monitoring instrument — one that could function with minimal support from the home bases, and also one that was tougher and more flexible than anything that we could make with the pan inorganica brains. It was while I was wrestling with that problem, and evaluating alternatives! — none of them satisfactory — that I was approached by a scientist, Livia Morgan. She offered an intriguing prospect. She could, she claimed, develop symbiotic forms that combined organic and inorganic components. By the end of our first meeting, I was convinced that what she had might be perfect for our needs.” Mondrian nodded at one or the figures in front of him. “I also knew of at least one example, sufficient to prove that such a blend of organic with inorganic was not impossible.”