one particle at some distance to believe it is the same as, or in resonance with, another particle under our local control.
“There could be several ways to convert a particle to an-anti-particle. A boson, approaching a particle, carries information from its source, some of which has already been conveyed by information following so-called privileged bands. The boson also conveys energy, which acts on the particle’s data, changing a particular bit sequence.”
“Energy is information?” Martin asked.
“Energy is a catalyst for information change. It’s information in only a limited sense. To convert a particle to an anti-particle, you can change its bit makeup either by perverting the privileged band information, say by sending it a boson tailored to react falsely, which might compel it to switch a series of bits to be consistent, or by creating a resonance with outside anti-particles.”
“Resonance…?”
“Imposing the data of an anti-particle on a particle in another position by making them congruent, coextensive,” Hakim said. “It is similar to how the noach works.”
“We
Martin could not keep up with their projected momerath, or even all of their explanations. “I’ll have to take some of this on faith,” he said wearily.
“Oh, please no,” Hakim said. “Work it out for yourself in private. We may be wrong, and we need criticism.”
“Not from me, I’m afraid.”
“We are all out of our depth here, actually,” Hakim said. “We must not accept this as anything more than playful theory.”
Martin poked at a few expressions in the momerath that he could just begin to riddle. “Would they have to have a lot of anti em to convert something else to anti em—match a mass particle for particle?”
“We do not think so,” Hakim said. “In Jennifer’s momerath, a single particle could be used as template to confuse and convert many other particles. Possibly, simply knowing the structure of a particle would be enough.”
“Even at a distance,” Thorkild said.
“But just how it’s done, we haven’t a clue,” Jennifer said. “The difference between theory and application.”
“Oh,” Martin said.
“Neat, huh?” Thorkild asked.
Martin closed his eyes and shook his head.
After, Martin sat alone in an empty quarters space, dabbling with the momerath but not able to concentrate on it, thinking instead about how much the crew had changed in just a few months. They acted like passengers enduring hard times on a down-on-its-luck cruise ship, or like students in a particularly lax high school with a principal too hip for their own good.
He longed for time to speed up, for the rendezvous to occur, for
Rosa’s storytelling improved.
The races were concluded, with Hans pitting himself against the fastest of ten trials, Rex Live Oak, and winning by two seconds, the races being run nose to tail within the ship. Hans was inordinately proud of the victory, and took two Wendys to his quarters after for a private free-for-all, the first partners he had taken since becoming Pan.
Martin did not notice who the Wendy’s were; he had tired of the growing reliance on gossip for excitement. He did not care who Hans was slicking, or whether Hans had stolen Harpal’s love interest, or who was going to attempt Rosa soon.
Rosa, thinner by five kilos, face austere and happy at once, was becoming, for Martin, the most interesting and at the same time the most disturbing person aboard
Martin came to the nose when it was empty and collapsed the star sphere to see the outside universe without interpretation. The stars ahead had not yet changed noticeably; bright, frozen forever against measureless black.
Jennifer’s theories had upset him on some deep level. He had dreamed about enemies they could not see, malevolent beings confusing and perverting them from a distance like puppetmasters.
“What the hell are we doing here?” he asked. He had come to the nose to pray, but he could not conceive of anything or anyone to pray to. Nothing touched him; nothing felt for him, or knew that he was in the nose, that he was alone. Nothing knew that he was confused and needed help, that Martin son of Arthur Gordon had lost whatever path he had ever known, and that merely doing the Job seemed a highly inadequate reason for living.
His father might have thought this view of deep space the most spectacular and beautiful thing one could wish for; Martin could not see it as anything but scattered light impinging on exhausted eyes.
He had fought the end of his pain for many tendays now, but his grief followed its natural course like a healing wound. Finally even the itch would be gone and Theresa would truly be dead—and William—
He groaned softly, for he owed William so much more than he could give emotionally, now or ever.
With his grief knitting its torn edges, there would be nothing left to define him but the dreary nothingness at his core, more blank than any black between stars, a comfortable emptiness to fall into, a gentle negation and dissolution.
He thought he would gladly die if death were an end in itself and not something more.
What he would pray to, then, was a weak candle of hope: that in these horrible spans of contesting civilizations, there was something, somewhere, that oversaw and judged and sympathized; that was wise in a way they could not conceive of; that might, given a chance, intervene, however mysteriously.
Something that cradled and nurtured his dead loves in its bosom; but something that would also acknowledge his unworthiness and allow him a finality, an end.
He thought of the powerful orgasm with Paola, stronger by many degrees than he remembered experiencing with Theresa.
He encouraged the pain to return and let depression settle over him, until his heart seemed to slow, his eyelids drooped, and he was surrounded by a comfortable blanket of despair, so much more palpable than memory or responsibility or the day-to-day dreariness of shipboard life.
Nothing intervened.
Nothing cared.
In a way, that was reassuring. There could be an end to the universe’s complexity, an end to the strife and confusion of intelligence.
In the middle of the sports and competitions, in the middle of Martin’s despair, Rosa Sequoia disappeared.
Kimberly Quartz and Jeanette Snap Dragon found her naked and half-dead from thirst five days later. They brought her to the schoolroom. Ariel kneeled on the floor and gripped her hair, pulling her head back and forcing her to drink water. Her eyes wandered to fix on points between the people in the room. “What the hell are you doing?” Ariel asked.
Rosa smiled up at her, water leaking from her mouth, cracked lips bleeding sluggish drops. Her face was smeared with dried blood. She had bitten her lower lip. “It came again and touched me,” she said. “I was dangerous. I might have hurt somebody.”
Hans entered the schoolroom already in a rage and brushed Ariel aside. “Get up, damn you,” he said. Rosa stood unsteadily, smelling sour, drips of dried blood on her breasts.
“Are you nuts?” Hans asked.
She shook her head, her shy smile opening the bites. They bled more freely.
Hans grabbed Rosa’s arm, looked around the room for someone to come forward of the ten crew that had
