Damn that Poss, he thought.
The big trouble was in here, though-in the tube, and six good men had died trying to find it. They were six men he had helped train-and that was another reason he had come. They were all caught up in the same dream.
Around Ing stretched an airless tubular cave twelve kilometers long, two kilometers diameter. It was a lightless hole carved through lava rock beneath the moon's Mare Nectaris. Here was the home of the "Beam"-the beautiful, deadly, vitally serious beam, a tamed violence which suddenly had become balky.
Ing thought of all the history which had gone into this tube. Some nine hundred years ago the Seedling Compact had been signed. In addition to its Solar System Communications duties, the Haigh Company had taken over then the sending out of small containers, their size severely limited by the mass an angtrans pulse could push. Each container held twenty female rabbits. In the rabbit uteri, dormant, their metabolism almost at a standstill, lay two hundred human embryos nestled with embryos of cattle, all the domestic stock needed to start a new human economy. With the rabbits went plant seeds, insect eggs and design tapes for tools.
The containers were rigged to fold out on a planet's surface to provide a shielded living area. There the embryos would be machine-transferred into inflatable gestation vats, brought to full term, cared for and educated by mechanicals until the human seed could fend for itself.
Each container had been pushed to trans-light speed by angtrans pulses-" "Like pumping a common garden swing," said the popular literature. The life mechanism was controlled by signals transmitted through the "Beam" whose tiny impulses went "around the corner" to bridge in milliseconds distances which took matter centuries to traverse.
Ing glanced up at the miniature beam sealed behind its quartz window in his suit. There was the hope and the frustration. If they could only put a little beam such as that in each container, the big beam could home on it. But under that harsh bombardment, beam anodes lasted no longer than a month. They made-do with reflection plates on the containers, then, with beam-bounce and programmed approximations. And somewhere the programmed approximations were breaking down.
Now, with the first Seedling Compact vessel about to land on Theta Apus IV, with mankind's interest raised to fever pitch-beam contact had turned unreliable. The farther out the container, the worse the contact.
Ing could feel himself being drawn toward that frail cargo out there. His instincts were in communion with those containers which would drift into limbo unless the beam was brought under control. The embryos would surely die eventually and the dream would die with them.
Much of humanity feared the containers had fallen into the hands of alien life, that the human embryos were being taken over by something out there. Panic ruled in some quarters and there were shouts that the SC containers betrayed enough human secrets to make the entire race vulnerable.
To Ing and the six before him, the locus of the problem seemed obvious. It lay in here and in the anomaly math newly derived to explain how the beam might be deflected from the containers. What to do about that appeared equally obvious. But six men had died following that obvious course. They had died here in this utter blackness.
Sometimes it helped to quote the book.
Often you didn't know what you hunted here-a bit of stray radiation perhaps, a few cosmic rays that had penetrated a weak spot in the force-baffle shielding, a dust leak caused by a moonquake, or a touch of heat, a hot spot coming up from the depths. The big beam wouldn't tolerate much interference. Put a pinhead flake of dust in its path at the wrong moment, let a tiny flicker of light intersect it, and it went whiplash wild. It writhed like a giant snake, tore whole sections off the tube walls. Beam auroras danced in the sky above the moon then and the human attendants scurried.
A troubleshooter at the wrong spot in the tube died.
Ing pulled his hands into his suit's barrel top, adjusted his own tiny beam scope, the unit that linked him through a short reach of angspace to beam control. He checked his instruments, read his position from the modulated contact ripple through the soles of his shielded suit.
He wondered what his daughter, Lisa, was doing about now. Probably getting the boys, his grandsons, ready for the slotride to school. It made Ing feel suddenly old to think that one of his grandsons already was in Mars Polytechnic aiming for a Haigh Company career in the footsteps of his famous grandfather.
The vac suit was hot and smelly around Ing after a three-hour tour. He noted from a dial that his canned-cold temperature balance system still had an hour and ten minutes before red-line.
It's the cleaners, Ing told himself. It has to be the vacuum cleaners. It's the old familiar cussedness of inanimate objects.
What did the handbook say? "Frequently it pays to look first for the characteristics of devices in use which may be such that an essential pragmatic approach offers the best chance for success. It often is possible to solve an accident or malfunction problem with straightforward and uncomplicated approaches, deliberately ignoring their more subtle aspects.
He slipped his hands back into his suit's arms, shielded his particle counter with an armored hand, cracked open the cover, peered in at the luminous dial. Immediately, an angry voice crackled in the speakers:
"Douse that light! We're beaming!"
Ing snapped the lid closed by reflex, said: "I'm in the backboard shadow. Can't see the beam." Then: "Why wasn't I told you're beaming?"
Another voice rumbled from the speakers: "It's Poss here, Ing. I'm monitoring your position by sono, told them to go ahead without disturbing you."
"What's the supetrans doing monitoring a troubleshooter?" Ing asked.
"All right, Ing."
Ing chuckled, then: "What're you doing, testing?"
"Yes. We've an inner-space transport to beam down on Titan, thought we'd run it from here."
"Did I foul the beam?"
"We're still tracking clean."
Inner-space transmission open and reliable, Ing thought, but the long reach out to the stars was muddied. Maybe the scare mongers were right. Maybe it was outside interference, an alien intelligence.
"We've lost two cleaners on this transmission," Washington said. "Any sign of them?"
"Negative."
They'd lost two cleaners on the transmission, Ing thought. That was getting to be routine. The flitting vacuum cleaners-supported by the beam's field, patrolling its length for the slightest trace of interference, had to be replaced at the rate of about a hundred a year normally, but the rate had been going up. As the beam grew bigger, unleashed more power for the long reach, the cleaners proved less and less effective at dodging the angtrans throw, the controlled whiplash. No part of a cleaner survived contact with the beam. They were energy-charged in phase with the beam, keyed for instant dissolution to add their energy to the transmission.
"It's the damned cleaners," Ing said.
"That's what you all keep saying," Washington said.
Ing began prowling to his right. Somewhere off there the glassite floor curved gradually upward and became a wall-and then a ceiling. But the opposite side was always two kilometers away, and the moon's gravity, light as that was, imposed limits on how far he could walk up the wall. It wasn't like the little Phobos beam where they could use a low-power magnafield outside and walk right around the tube.
He wondered then if he was going to insist on riding one of the cleaners... the way the six others had done.
Ing's shuffling, cautious footsteps brought him out of the anode backboard's shadow. He turned, saw a pencil line of glowing purple stretching away from him to the cathode twelve kilometers distant. He knew there actually was no purple glow, that what he saw was a visual simulation created on the one-way surface of his faceplate, a reaction to the beam's presence displayed there for his benefit alone.
Washington's voice in his speaker said: "Sono has you in Zone Yellow. Take it easy, Ing."
Ing altered course to the right, studied the beam.
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Intermittent breaks in the purple line betrayed the presence between himself and that lambent energy of the robot vacuum cleaners policing the perimeter, hanging on the sine lines of the beam field like porpoises gamboling on a bow wave.
"Transport's down," Washington said. "We're phasing into a long-throw test. Ten-minute program."
Ing nodded to himself, imagined Washington sitting there in the armored bubble of the control room, a giant, with a brooding face, eyes alert and glittering. Old Poss didn't want to believe it was the cleaners, that was sure. If it was the cleaners, someone was going to have to ride the wild goose. There'd be more deaths... more rides... until they tested out the new theory. It certainly was a helluva time for someone to come up with an anomaly hole in the angtrans math. But that's what someone back at one of the trans-time computers on Earth had done... and if he was right-then the problem had to be the cleaners.
Ing studied the shadow breaks in the beam-robotic torpedoes, sensor-trained to collect the tiniest debris. One of the shadows suddenly reached away from him in both directions until the entire beam was hidden. A cleaner was approaching him. Ing waited for it to identify the Authorized Intruder markings which it could see the same way he saw the beam.
The beam reappeared.
"Cleaner just looked you over," Washington said. "You're getting in pretty close."
Ing heard the worry in his friend's voice, said: "I'm all right long's I stay up here close to the board."
He tried to picture in his mind then the cleaner lifting over him and returning to its station along the beam.
"I'm plotting you against the beam," Washington said. "Your shadow width says you're approaching Zone Red. Don't crowd it, Ing. I'd rather not have to clean a fried troubleshooter out of there."
"Hate to put you to all that extra work," Ing said.
"Give yourself plenty of 'lash room."
"I'm miking the beam thickness against my helmet cross-hairs, Poss. Relax."
Ing advanced another two steps, sent his gaze traversing the beam's length, seeking the beginnings of the controlled whiplash which would throw the test message into angspace. The chained energy of the purple rope began to bend near its center far down the tube. It was an action visible only as a gentle flickering outward against the cross-hairs of his faceplate.
He backed off four steps. The throw was a chancy thing when you were this close-and if interfering radiation ever touched that beam...
Ing crouched, sighted along the beam, waited for the throw. An experienced troubleshooter could tell more from the way the beam whipped than banks of instruments could reveal. Did it push out a double bow? Look for faulty field focus. Did it waver up and down? Possible misalignment of vertical hold. Did it split or spread into two loops? Synchronization problem.
But you had to be in here close and alert to that fractional margin between good seeing and goodnight! forever.
Cleaners began paying more attention to him in this close, but he planted himself with his AI markings visible to them, allowing them to fix his position and go on about their business.
To Ing's trained eye, the cleaner action appeared more intense, faster than normal. That agreed with all the previous reports-unless a perimeter gap had admitted stray foreign particles, or perhaps tiny shades dislodged from the tube's walls by the pulse of the moon's own life.
Ing wondered then if there could be an overlooked hole in the fanatic quadruple-lock controls giving access to the tube. But they'd been sniffing along that line since the first sign of trouble. Not likely a hole would've escaped the inspectors. No-it was in here. And cleaner action was increased, a definite lift in tempo.
"Program condition?" Ing asked.
"Transmission's still Whorf positive, but we haven't found an angspace opening yet."
"Time?"
"Eight minutes to program termination."
"Cleaner action's way up," Ing said. "What's the dirt count?"
A pause, then: "Normal."
Ing shook his head. The monitor that kept constant count of the quantity of debris picked up by the cleaners shouldn't show normal in the face of this much activity.
"What's the word from Mare Nubium transmitter?" Ing asked.
"Still shut down and full of inspection equipment. Nothing to show for it at last report."
"Imbrium?"
"Inspection teams are out and they expect to be back into test phase by 0900. You're not thinking of ordering us to shut down for a complete clean-out?"
"Not yet."
"We've got a budget to consider, too, Ing. Remember that."
Huh! Ing thought. Not like Poss to worry about budget in this kind of an emergency. He trying to tell me something?
What did the handbook say? "The good trouble-shooter is cost conscious, aware that down time and equipment replacement are factors of serious concern to the Haigh Company."
Ing wondered then if he should order the tube opened for thorough inspection. But the Imbrium and Nubium tubes had revealed nothing and the decontamination time was costly. They were the older tubes, though-Nubium the first to be built. They were smaller than Nectaris, simpler locks. But their beams weren't getting through any better than the Nectaris tube with its behemoth size, greater safeguards.
"Stand by," Washington said. "We're beginning to get whipcount on the program."
In the abrupt silence, Ing saw the beam curl. The whiplash came down the twelve kilometers of tube curling like a purple wave, traveling the entire length in about two thousandths of a second. It was a thing so fast that the visual effect was of seeing it after it had happened.
Ing stood up, began analyzing what he had seen. The beam had appeared clean, pure-a perfect throw... except for one little flare near the far end and another about midway. Little flares. The afterimage was needle shaped, rigid... pointed.
"How'd it look?" Washington asked.
"Clean," Ing said. "Did we get through?"
"We're checking," Washington said, then: "Limited contact. Very muddy. About thirty per cent...just about enough to tell us the container's still there and its contents seem to be alive."
"Is it in orbit?"
''Seems to be. Can't be sure."
"Give me the cleaner count," Ing said.
A pause, then: "Damnation! We're down another two."
"Exactly two?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Dunno yet. Do your instruments show beam deflections from hitting two cleaners? What's the energy sum?"
"Everyone thinks the cleaners are causing this," Washington muttered. "I tell you they couldn't. They're fully phased with the beam, just add energy to it if they hit. They're not debris!"
"But does the beam really eat them?" Ing asked. "You saw the anomaly report."
"Oh, Ing, let's not go into that again." Washington's voice sounded tired, irritated.
The stubborness of Washington's response confused Ing. This wasn't like the man at all. "Sure," Ing said, "but what if they're going somewhere we can't see?"
"Come off that, Ing! You're as bad as all the others. If there's one place we know they're not going, that's into angspace. There isn't enough energy in the universe to put cleaner mass around the corner."
"Unless that hole in our theories really exists," Ing said. And he thought: Poss is trying to tell me something. What? Why can't he come right out and say it? He waited, wondering at an idea that nibbled at the edge of his mind-a concept... What was it? Some half-forgotten association...
"Here's the beam report," Washington said. "Deflection shows only one being taken, but the energy sum's doubled all right. One balanced out the other. That happens."
Ing studied the purple line, nodding to himself. The beam was almost the color of a scarf his wife had worn on their honeymoon. She'd been a good wife, Jennie-raising Lisa in Marsxamps and blister pods, sticking with her man until the canned air and hard life had taken her.
The beam lay quiescent now with only the faintest auroral bleed off. Clean
er tempo was down. The test program still had a few minutes to go, but Ing doubted it'd produce another throw into angspace. You acquired an instinct for the transmission pulse after a while. You could sense when the beam was going to open its tiny signal window across the light-years.
"I saw both of those cleaners go," Ing said. "They didn't seem to be torn apart or anything-just flared out."
"Energy consumed," Washington said.
"Maybe."
Ing thought for a moment. A hunch was beginning to grow in him. He knew a way to test it. The question was: Would Poss go along with it? Hard to tell in his present mood. Ing wondered about his friend. Darkness, the isolation of this position within the tube gave voices from outside a disembodied quality.