Piers Anthony - Phaze Doubt

Well, she wasn’t interested, and that might be answer enough. He had loved her, and through her the culture of the planet. But she was, in her Phaze aspect, a harpy, and they were not known for sweetness. If the potion had reversed that portion of her nature, and the nullification had restored it, it was pointless to speculate further.

Too bad Jod’e had been taken by the Tan Adept! There had been no love magic there, and she was a most intriguing woman. In fact too bad that Alyc had been an enemy agent. Though he was also one, he no longer respected her, but if even she could have been here...

He put such thoughts from his mind. The intrigue of the challenge that had defeated the computer was here for him, and he intended to lose himself in it.

It wasn’t long before he ascertained the nature of the problem: they hoped to slide the merged frames as a unit around the black hole to the fantasy side. For the distortion in the vicinity of the black hole was not just physical, so that light bent at a right angle; it represented a tangential connection between the science and the magic frames themselves. When the shell had been a perfect sphere, the curtain had transported some people from the science hemisphere to the magic hemisphere and back; now the two were melded and could not be separated without destroying the whole. But they might be moved together, like a tectonic plate, if there was a sufficient shove.

That shove was to be provided by the explosion of the Magic Bomb. If conditions were right, it would move the frames into the magic realm, and there would be nothing remaining in the science realm except an apparent black hole, unapproachable by any ordinary means. If the conditions were wrong, it would simply break up the shell, and the fragments would fall into the hole. In either case, the apparent planet would be gone from the science universe. But in only one case would it move intact to the magic universe.

If it moved intact, science and magic would work here. But away from this shell, only magic would work. Perhaps there would be exploitive creatures who came to take advantage of the unique qualities of science, or to steal the Phazite that powered the magic locally. But there had been no sign of such intrusion in the three preceding centuries. All the colonization, both animal and plant, had been from the science realm, crossing over. So it seemed likely that the inhabitants would be left alone. That was what they wanted.

If it slid around intact, the Hectare would be brought with it. But they would be cut off from their home planet and their section of the galaxy. They might be able to retain control, but that would be pointless, because they had not taken over the planet for themselves, but as part of the reorganization of this sector of the galaxy. They would do the practical thing, and yield power to the local authorities, trusting them to act in a practical way. To find ways to use the special abilities of the Hectare. It could be a richer society than it had been, because of that infusion of new talent.

It was a good plan. It should work. If the shell could be rotated intact.

The problem was that there was a virtually infinite number of connections to be made, to channel the stresses of the push correctly. A path had to be charted for every atom individually. Any that were not charted would go astray, and not make it to the magic realm. Any that were inaccurately charted would interfere with their neighbors that were on course. There would be overlapping and friction. In effect, there would be sand in the gears, and the whole thing would be brought to a halt. That would be disaster. There was only one chance, when the Magic Bomb took effect; it had to be done exactly right, or all was lost.

The Game Computer was a fine machine, but it simply wasn’t up to this calculation. It had been working on it for a hundred and fifty years, and was less than halfway through. It had a scant five years to go, by local time, and it wasn’t nearly enough. The paths had to be at least ninety-nine per cent charted and correct, or there would be destruction. The Book of Magic could not assist in this, because this was basically a science problem.

There was a way to speed it up, he saw. What was required was an algorithm: a set of rules for solving each case in a finite number of steps. A way to reduce the parameters so that the Game Computer—Mischief—could handle the simplified problem in the time allowed. A good algorithm could enhance effective calculation velocity a thousandfold. Even an indifferent one could speed things up thirtyfold, which was what was required.

Mischief was not advanced enough to devise such an algorithm. But Lysander, with his Hectare brain and training, could. Oh, it would be a challenge, and it might take him months to complete it, but he had that time. He could, indeed, save the frames.

And he could secure Mischief against any other intrusion. It hardly mattered; the untrained elves could barely comprehend the mathematics even if he gave a course in it. It was his decision.

His mind was already coming to grips with the problem, for this was the nature of the Hectare brain. He had to solve it, for his own satisfaction, even if that solution were never used. Since he could do so without risking his mission, he would indulge himself.

There was however one detail he had to find out about. The calculations could be made, and the courses set—but a connection had to be made between the two. There had to be a mechanism to tell the atoms where to go, in effect. The elves surely had something in mind, but it wasn’t evident in the computer.

He got up. His shoulders were aching; he had concentrated so hard he had been hunching over. “Where is the Chief?” he asked Mischief.

“On the way, Lysan.”

Indeed, in a moment Chief Oresmite appeared. “Thou has need o’ me?”

“I can solve your problem. But I need to know the mode of communication between the—“

“The flutes.”

“The indium flutes? But mere sound will not—“

“They use music to marshal magic.”

“Oh. Yes. But only two folk play them, and it would take a hundred to—“

“Nay, two suffice. The harmonics and the beats, guided by the Hectare aspect, will bear the signals.”

“Chief, it isn’t physically possible for just two to—“

“They will play the flutes only for practice. The true melody will be in their minds, guided by Mischief—an thou allow it. The iridium flutes be mere decoys; the ultimate flute be in Weva’s fancy.”

Lysander nodded. “Now I understand. I will key the pattern of solutions in to music, so that it will work—if I allow it.”

“An thou wish to talk to any, in the interim, any will talk to thee. If not, not. We trust in thee, and in the prophecy.”

“You have a lot of trust, Chief,” he said wryly.

14 - Duet

The time passed seemingly swiftly, though this bore no relation to the ratio beyond the Pole. Lysander worked hard on the algorithm, using Mischief to make supplementary calculations. It was an irony, he thought, that he finally had complete access to this computer, as he had wanted at the outset, but wasn’t bothering with either games or machine consciousness. Instead he was working out a program that would defeat his purpose in being on this planet (shell). But what a glorious challenge it was!

He could not work all the time; even his Hectare brain could handle only so much at one sitting, and then he had to take time off. The community was eager to entertain him. There were indeed a number of human men and women, and to his eye there was a certain resemblance between some of the women and Tania, their long-gone ancestor. He dated them, and they were barely restrained in their eagerness to get him into a breeding mode, though he told them plainly that he was infertile. “Aye, but mayhap with magic...” one suggested as she seduced him.