The Man-Kzin Wars 03

'No. What for?'

'Or cold fusion?'

'No.'

'Cold fusion releases neutrons,' she said. 'Sheath the generator with spent uranium, what do you get?'

'Plutonium, I think. So?'

'They used to make bombs out of plutonium.'

'Bothers you?'

'Jack, the fission bomb was it in the mass murder department. Like the crossbow. Like the Ayatollah's Asteroid.' Phoebe's eyes held mine. Her voice had dropped; we didn't want to broadcast this all over the restaurant. 'Don't you ever wonder just how much of human knowledge is lost in that… black limbo inside the ARM building? Things that could solve problems. Warm the Earth again. Ease us through the lightspeed wall.'

'We don't suppress inventions unless they're dangerous,' I said.

I could have backed out of the argument; but that too would have disappointed Phoebe. Phoebe liked a good argument. My problem was that what I gave her wasn't good enough. Maybe I couldn't get angry enough… maybe my most forceful arguments were classified…

Monday morning, Phoebe left for Dallas and a granddaughter. There had been no war, no ultimatum, but it felt final.

Thursday evening I was back in the Monobloc.

So was Anton. 'I've played it,' he said. 'Can't talk about it, of course.'

He looked mildly bored. His hands looked like they were trying to break chunks off the edge of the table.

I nodded placidly.

Anton shouldn't have told me about the broadcast from Angel's Pencil. But he had; and if the ARM had noticed, he'd better mention it again.

Company joined us, sampled and departed. Anton and I spoke to a pair of ladies who turned out to have other tastes. (Some bends like to bug the straights.) A younger woman joined us for a time. She couldn't have been over thirty, and was lovely in the modern style… but hard, sharply defined muscle isn't my sole standard of beauty…

I remarked to Anton, 'Sometimes the vibes just aren't right.'

'Yeah. Look, Jack, I have carefully concealed a prehistoric Calvados in my apt at Maya. There isn't really enough for four—'

'Sounds nice. Eat first?'

'Stet. There're sixteen restaurants in Maya.'

A score of blazing rectangles meandered across the night, washing out the stars. The eye could still find a handful of other space artifacts, particularly around the Moon.

Anton flashed the beeper that would summon a taxi. I said, 'So you viewed the call. So why so tense?'

Security devices no bigger than a basketball rode the glowing sky, but the casual eye would not find those. One must assume they were there. Patterns in their monitor chips would match vision and sound patterns of a mugging, a rape, an injury, a cry for help. Those chips had gigabytes to spare for words and word patterns the ARM might find of interest.

So: no key words.

Anton said, 'Jack, they tell a hell of a story. A… foreign vehicle pulled alongside Angela at four-fifths of legal max. It tried to cook them.'

I stared. A spacecraft matched course with the Angel's Pencil at eighty percent of lightspeed? Nothing man-built could do that. And warlike? Maybe I'd misinterpreted everything. That can happen when you make up your code as you go along.

But how could the Pencil have escaped? 'How did Angela manage to phone home?'

A taxi dropped. Anton said, 'She sliced the bread with the, you know, motor. I said it's a hell of a story.'

Anton's apartment was most of the way up the slope of Maya, the pyramidal arcology north of Santa Maria. Old wealth.

Anton led me through great doors, into an elevator, down corridors. He played tour guide: 'The Fertility Board was just getting some real power about the time this place went up. It was built to house a million people. It's never been fully occupied.'

'So?'

'So we're en route to the east face. Four restaurants, a dozen little bars. And here we stop—'

'This your apt?'

'No. It's empty, it's always been empty. I sweep it for bugs, but the authorities… I think they've never noticed.'

'Is that your mattress?'

'No. Kids. They've got a club that's two generations old. My son tipped me off to this.'

'Could we be interrupted?'

'No. I'm monitoring them. I've got the security system set to let them in, but only when I'm not here. Now I'll set it to recognize you. Don't forget the number: Apt 23309.'

'What is the ARM going to think we're doing?'

'Eating. We went to one of the restaurants, then came back and drank Calvados… which we will do, later. I can fix the records at Buffalo Bill. Just don't argue about the credit charge, stet?'

'But— Yah, stet.' Hope you won't be noticed, that's the real defense. I was thinking of bailing out… but curiosity is part of what gets you into the ARM. 'Tell your story. You said she sliced the bread with the, you know, motor?'

'Maybe you don't remember. Angel's Pencil isn't your ordinary Bussard ramjet. The field scoops up interstellar hydrogen to feed a fusion-pumped laser. The idea was to use it for communications too. Blast a message half across the galaxy with that. A Belter crewman used it to cut the alien ship in half.'

'There's a communication you can live without. Anton… What they taught us in school. A sapient species doesn't reach space unless the members learn to cooperate. They'll wreck the environment, one way or another, war or straight libertarianism or overbreeding… remember?'

'Sure.'

'So do you believe all this?'

'I think so.' He smiled painfully. 'Director Bernhardt didn't. He classified the message and attached a memo too. Six years of flight aboard a ship of limited size, terminal boredom coupled with high intelligence and too much time, elaborate practical jokes, yadda yadda. Director Harms left it classified… with the cooperation of the Belt. Interesting?'

'But he had to have that.'

'But they had to agree. There's been more since. Angel's Pencil sent us hundreds of detailed photos of the alien ship. It's unlikely they could be faked. There are corpses. Big sort-of cats, orange, up to three meters tall, big feet and elaborate hands with thumbs. We're in mucking great trouble if we have to face up to such beasties.'

'Anton, we've had three hundred and fifty years of peace. We must be doing something right. The odds say we can negotiate.'

'You haven't seen them.'

It was almost funny. Jack was trying to make me nervous. Twenty years ago the terror would have been fizzing in my blood. Better living through chemistry! This was all frightening enough; but my fear was a cerebral thing, and I was its master.