These thoughts sifted to the bottom of my mind, and after a while began to coalesce.
The secret of the hyperdrive: yes, that would be a fitting ransom. I imagined presenting it to a grateful humanity. Things would be different for us from now on.
And a little something for myself, of course. Well, I’d be a hero. Perhaps a villa, overlooking the cliffs of Miranda. I’d always liked that bust-up little moon. I thought about the interior design.
It was a sweet taste, the heady flavor of power. The Squeem would have to find a way to turn off the Xeelee flower. But there was only one way. And that was in my suit pocket.
Oh, how they’d pay. I smiled through cracked lips.
Well, you know the rest. I even got to keep the buttlebot. We drifted through space, dreaming of Uranian vineyards, waiting for the Squeem to return.
More Than Time or Distance
My one-woman flitter dropped into the luminous wreckage of an old supernova. I peered into the folded-out depths of the dead star, hoarding details like coins for Timothy.
The star remnant at the heart of the wreck was a shrunken miser; its solitary planet was a ball of slag pockmarked with shallow craters. Once this must have been the core of a mighty Jovian. I landed and stepped out. Feel how the surface crackles like glass, Tim… I imagined four-year-old eyes round with wonder. Except, of course, my memory of my son was five years and a thousand light years out of date. But I felt Tim’s presence, somehow — when you get close enough to someone you’re never really alone again. And maybe if my prospector’s luck changed here, it wouldn’t be five years before I held him again.
Above me violet sails of gas drifted through a three-dimensional sky. Around me a thousand empty light years telescoped away. And ahead of me stood a building — plain, cuboid, a bit like a large shoe box.
But a shoe box at the center of a nebula — and made of Xeelee construction material.
I stood stock still, the hairs at the back of my neck prickling against the lining of my pressure suit. An original Xeelee relic, the dream of prospectors from a thousand races… and intact, too.
The exploded star washed blank walls with light like milk. I expected a giant to step through that low doorway… I thought of one of Timothy’s jokes. What do you call a giant alien monster with a zap gun?
You know it. Sir.
I stepped through the doorway. The wall material was sword-thin.
The ceiling was translucent; supernova filaments filled the place with violet and green shadows. My eyes were drawn to a flicker of light, incongruously playful: about five yards from the doorway a small pillar supported a hoop of sky blue, which was maybe two feet wide. The hoop was polished and paper-thin, and a sequence of pink sparks raced around its circumference.
About thirty yards further down the long axis of the hall was a second pillar bearing an identical hoop. The two circles faced each other, chattering bits of light.
That was all. But it was enough to stop my heart. Because whatever this place was, it was still working — and working for the Xeelee, lurking like watchful spiders in their Prime Radiant at the Galaxy’s core — only three days away in their magical ships.
I stepped forward with my portable data desk and began to mark and measure.
The sequence of sparks in the hoop nearest the door was random, as far as I could tell. So was the sequence in the other hoop — but it was an exact copy of the first sequence, delayed by a nanosecond.
I worked out the implications of that, and then I leaned carefully against a low pillar and breathed deep enough to mist up my face plate.
Think about it. Ring A was talking to ring B, which got the message delayed by a nanosecond. Each ring was a light nanosecond across. And the rings were placed a hundred light nanoseconds apart.
So all the delay was in the structure of the rings — and the communication between them was instantaneous.
My face plate fogged a bit more. Instantaneous communication: it was a technological prize second only in value to the hyperdrive itself…
The secret had to be quantum inseparability. When a single object is split up, its components can still communicate instantaneously. That’s high school stuff, Bell’s theorem from the twentieth century. But, everyone had thought, you couldn’t use the effect to send meaningful messages.
The Xeelee had really got their fingers into the guts of the Universe this time. It was almost blasphemous.
And very, very profitable.
My sense of awe evaporated. I found myself doing a sort of dance, still clinging to the pillar, booted heels clicking. Well, I had an excuse. It was the high point of my life.
And at just that moment, in walked a giant alien monster with a zap gun. Wouldn’t you know it?
At least it wasn’t a Xeelee. About all we know of them is that they’re small, physically. My superstitious terror faded to disgust.
“You tailed me,” I said into my suit radio. “You sneaked up on me, and now you’re going to rob me and kill me. Right?” I looked at the zap gun and remembered the joke. “Right, sir?”
I don’t suppose it got it. Silhouetted against a violet doorframe was a humanoid sketch in gun-metal gray. Its head was a cartoon; all the action was in a porthole in its stomach, through which I caught grotesque hints of faces. It was like an inside-out bathyscaphe with weird sea-bottom creatures peering out of darkness.
And it had the zap gun. The details of that don’t really matter; it was essence of gun and it was pointing at me.
I labeled it the Statue.
The silence dragged on, maybe for dramatic effect, more likely because the Xeelee-derived translator box I saw strapped to one metal thigh was having trouble matching up our respective world pictures. Finally it spoke.
“Allow me to summarize the situation.” The box’s voice was a machine rasp; the stomach monster twitched. “I have discontinued your vessel. I estimate your personal environment will last no more than five human days. You have no weapons, or any means of communication with your fellows — none of whom are in any event closer than a thousand light years.”
I thought it over. “Okay,” I said, “I’m prepared to discuss terms for your surrender.”
“The logic of the situation is that you will die. You will therefore move outside this structure—”
Actually the logic was that I was dead already. I thought fast, looking for the edge. “Of course, you’re right.” I stepped forward—
— and whirled like a leaf — and snapped one sky blue hoop off its pillar — and draped it around my neck.
It was over before either of us had a chance to think about it. The whirling pink sparks faded and died.
The Statue’s limbs were motionless but its stomach thrashed. I felt breathless and foolish; the hoop around my neck was like a lavatory seat put there during a drunken teenage party. “Logic’s not my strong point,” I apologized.
You see, I had a plan. It wasn’t a very good plan, and I was probably dead even if it came off. But it was all I had, and I noticed I was still breathing.
The Statue stared. “You have damaged the artifact.”
“You see, there had to be a reason why you didn’t shoot me in the back before I knew about it. And that reason’s got to be your ignorance of humans. Right?” I snapped. “Despite the fact that you and your kind have been tailing me for months—”
“Actually years. We find humans are resourceful creatures, worthy of study.”
“Years, then — if you zapped me, maybe I’d explode, or melt, or in general make a horrible mess of the Xeelee equipment. And you won’t hurt me now for fear of doing even more damage.” I clung to the frail hoop around my neck.
The Statue moved further into the building, the interesting end of the zap gun unwavering. We stood along the axis of the structure. The Statue said patiently, “But even with this awareness you are scarcely at an advantage.”
I shrugged.
“You are still isolated and without resources.” The Statue seemed confused. “All I have to do is wait five days, when you will die in undignified circumstances and I will retrieve the artifact.”
“Ah,” I said mysteriously. “A lot can happen in five days.” In fact, maybe in three — I kept that to myself.
The stomach monster thrashed.
I walked around the pillar and sat down, taking care not to squash my catheter. “So we wait.” I settled the hoop more comfortably around my neck.
Giant wings of gas flapped slowly beyond the translucent ceiling, and the hours passed.
Time stretches like a lazy leopard when it wants to.
I spent a day staring out a statue and not thinking about my catheter — or Tim.
I snapped out, “You’ve no idea what you’re stealing from me here.”
The Statue hesitated. “I believe I do. This is clearly a Xeelee monitoring station. Presumably one of a network spread through the Galaxy.”
Instantly I wished I hadn’t spoken. If it had thought through as far as that… to distract it, I said, “So you watched my experiments?”
