When their sun decayed the only source of heat available to the Ghost biosphere was the planet’s geothermal energy. So the Ghosts turned themselves and their fellow creatures into compact, silvered spheres, each body barely begrudging an erg to the cold outside.
Finally clouds of mirrored life-forms rolled upwards. The treacherous sky was locked out… but every stray photon of the planet’s internal heat was trapped.
“I don’t get it, Michael,” Wyman said. “If they’re so short of heat why aren’t they all jet-black?”
“Because perfect absorbers of heat are perfect emitters as well,” I said. “High school physics, Wyman. While perfect reflectors are also the best heat containers. See?”
“…Yeah. I think so.”
“And anyway, who cares about the why of it? Wyman, it’s… beautiful.”
“I think you’ve got a visitor.”
A five-foot bauble had separated from the forest and now came flying over the sequined field. In its mirrored epidermis I could see my own spectral face. Taped to that hide was a standard translator box. A similar box was fixed to the pod floor; now it crackled to life. “You are Dr. Michael Luce. I understand you represent a Wyman, of Earth. You are welcome here,” said the Silver Ghost. “I work with the Sink Ambassador’s office.”
“The Sink?” I whispered.
“The Heat Sink, Luce. The sky. I am Wyman. Thank you for meeting us. Do you know what I wish to discuss?”
“Of course. Our respective expeditions to the lithium site.” The truncated spheroid bobbed, as if amused. “We can make an educated guess about what you seek to achieve here, Mr. Wyman. What we do not know yet is the price you’ll ask.”
Wyman laughed respectfully.
I felt bewildered. “Sorry to butt in,” I said, “but what are you talking about? We’re here to discuss a pooling of resources. Aren’t we? So that humans and Ghosts end up sharing—”
The Ghost interrupted gently. “Dr. Luce, your employer is hoping that we will offer to buy him out. You see, Wyman’s motivation is the exploitation of human technology for personal profit. If he proceeds with your expedition he has the chance of unknown profit at high risk. However, a sell-out now would give him a fat profit at no further risk.”
Wyman said nothing.
“But,” I said, “a sell-out would give the Ghosts exclusive access to the lithium knowledge. All that creation science you told me about, Wyman… I mean no offense,” I said to the Ghost, “but this seems a betrayal of our race.”
“I doubt that is a factor in his calculation, Doctor,” said the Ghost.
I laughed dryly. “Sounds like they know you too well, Wyman.”
“So what’s your answer?” Wyman growled.
“I’m afraid you have nothing to sell, Mr. Wyman. Our vessel will arrive at the lithium-7 site in…” A hiss from the translator box. “Fourteen standard days.”
“See this ship? It will be there in ten.”
The Ghost was swelling and subsiding; highlights moved hypnotically over its flesh. “Powered by your supersymmetry drive. We are not excited by the possibility that it will work—”
“How can you say that?” I snapped, my pride obscurely wounded. “Have you investigated it?”
“We have no need to, Doctor. Our ship has a drive based on Xeelee principles. Hence it will work.”
“Oh, I see. If the Xeelee haven’t discovered something, it’s not there to be discovered. Right? Well, at least this shows mankind isn’t alone in suffering a fracture of the imagination, Wyman.”
The Ghost, softly breathing vacuum, said nothing.
“We humans aren’t so complacent,” snapped Wyman. “The Xeelee aren’t omnipotent. That’s why we’ll have the edge over the likes of you in the end.”
“A convincing display of patriotism,” said the Ghost smoothly.
“Yeah, that’s a bit rich, Wyman.”
“You’re so damn holy, Luce. Let me tell you, the Ghost’s right. This trip is risky. It’s stretched me. Unless you come up with the goods I might have trouble paying your fee. Chew on that, holy man.”
“Dr. Luce, I urge you not to throw away your life on this venture.” The Ghost’s calm was terrifying.
There was a moment of silence. Suddenly this world of mirrors seemed a large and strange place, and my own troubled eyes stared out of the Ghost’s hide.
“Come on, Luce,” said Wyman. “We’ve finished our business. Let’s waste no more time here.”
My drive splashed light over the chrome-plated landscape. I kept my eyes on the Ghost until it was lost in a blanket of sparkles.
I soared out of the gravity well of the Ghost world.
“Strap in.”
“Disappointed, Wyman?”
“Shut up and do as I say.”
The drive cut out smoothly, leaving me weightless. The control screens flickered as they reconfigured. Thumps and bangs rattled the hull; I watched my intrasystem and hyperdrive packs drift away, straps dangling.
The pod was metamorphosing around me.
I locked myself into a webbing of elasticated straps, fumbling at buckles with shaking fingers. There was a taste of copper in my throat.
“Do you understand what’s happening?” Wyman demanded. “I’m stripping down the pod. Every surplus ounce will cost me time.”
“Just get on with it.”
Panels blew out from the black casing fixed to the base of the pod; a monitor showed me the jeweled guts of the Susy drive.
“Now, listen, Luce. You know the conversational inseparability link will cut out as soon as you go into Susy-space. But I’ll be — with you in spirit.”
“How cheering.”
The pod shuddered once — twice — and the stars blurred.
“It’s time,” Wyman said. “Godspeed, Michael—”
The antique expression surprised me.
Something slammed into the base of the pod; I dangled in my webbing. For as long as I could I kept my eyes fixed on the Ghost world.
I lit up a hemisphere.
Then the planet crumpled like tissue paper, and the stars turned to streaks and disappeared.
Wyman had boasted about his Susy drive. “Hyperspace travel is just a slip sideways into one of the Universe’s squashed-up extra dimensions. Whereas with supersymmetry you’re getting into the real guts of physics…”
There are two types of particles: fermions, the building blocks of matter, like quarks and electrons, and force carriers, like photons. Supersymmetry tells us that each building block can be translated into a force carrier, and vice versa.
“The supersymmetric twins, the s-particles, are no doubt inherently fascinating,” said Wyman. “But for the businessman the magic comes when you do two supersymmetric transformations — say, electron to selectron and back again. You end up with an electron, of course — but an electron in a different place…”
And so Wyman hoped to have me leapfrog through Susy-space to the lithium-7 object. What he wasn’t so keen to explain was what it would feel like.
Susy-space is another Universe, laid over our own. It has its own laws. I was transformed into a supersymmetric copy of myself. I was an s-ghost in Susy-space. And it was… different.
Things are blurred in Susy-space. The distinction between me, here, and the stars, out there, wasn’t nearly as sharp as it is in four-space.
Can you understand that?
Susy-space is not a place designed for humans. Man is a small, warm creature, accustomed to the skull’s dark cave.
Susy-space cut through all that.
I was exposed. I could feel the scale of the journey, as if the arch of the Universe were part of my own being. Distance crushed me. Earth and its cozy Sun were a childhood memory, lost in the grief of curved space.
Eyes streaming, I opaqued the window.
I slept for a while. When I woke, things hadn’t got any better.
Trying to ignore the oppressive aura of Susy-space I played with the new monitor configurations, looking for the Susy-drive controls. It took me two hours of growing confusion to work out that there weren’t any.
The Susy drive had been discarded after pushing me on my way, like a throwaway rocket in the earliest human flights.
I could see the logic of it. Why carry excess baggage?
There were two problems.
The trip was one way. And Wyman hadn’t told me.
I’m not a strong man; I don’t pretend to be. It took some time to work through my first reaction.
Then I washed my face and sipped a globe of coffee.
The translator box lit up. “Luce. What’s your status?”
I crushed the globe; cooling coffee spurted over my wrist. “Wyman, you bastard. You’ve hijacked me… And I thought the inseparability link wouldn’t work over these distances.”
“We have a packet link; but apart from that, it doesn’t. This isn’t Wyman. I’m a Virtual representation stored in the translator box. I should think you’re pleased to hear my voice. You need the illusion of company, you see. It’s all quite practical. And this is a historic trip. I wanted some small part of me to be out there with you…”
I breathed hard, trying to control my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me this trip was no return?”
“Because you wouldn’t have gone,” said the Wyman Virtual — mentally I started calling him “sWyman.”
“Of course not. No matter what the fee. — And what about my fee? Have you paid it over yet?”
sWyman hesitated. “I’d be happy to, Michael. But… do you have an estate? Dependents?”
“You know I don’t. Damn you.”
“Look, Michael, I’m sorry if you feel tricked. But I had to make sure you’d take the trip. We have to put the interests of the race first, don’t we?…”
After that my courage began to fail once more. sWyman had the decency to shut up.
