It was of course misleading to consider two lives among the many millions
affected. Strategy was global; the policy of optimum benefit was selected
by a computer in possession of all the facts.
Guilt? A man may murder another man, or three or four, and be culpable;
but who could assume the guilt of megadeaths? Ordinarily the answer
would have been simply -- the enemy. But the enemy was so far away,
and his guilt so ingrained in the confusions of history -- camouflaged,
so to speak -- that sometimes Hansard doubted that the answer was so
simple and so convenient for his own conscience.
Unwholesome, purposeless speculations. What had Pittmann said?
"Conscience is a luxury for civilians."
Hansard ate his dinner alone, then went to his room and tried to listen
to music. But tonight everything sounded like German beer-hall polkas.
At last he took a mild barbiturate, standard issue for the men of the
Mars Command Posts.
He was walking with Nathan Junior through a field of sere grass. The air
was drowsy with the buzzing of flies. They were hunting deer. Nathan Junior
carried the shotgun just as his father had shown him to. Hansard carried
the lunch pail. Something terrible was going to happen. The color of the
grass changed from yellow to brown, from brown to black. There was a loud
buzzing in Hansard's ears.
He picked up the receiver of the phone. "Yes?"
"Ah, there you are, Nathan!"
"General Pittmann."
"I thought you might enjoy a game of Ping-pong."
"When?" Hansard asked.
"Right now?"
"That sounds like a good idea," said Hansard. And it did.
ELEVEN
THE NATURE OF THE WORLD
"You have to be very quick," said Bridie, "or it might happen that
two objects will occupy the same place at the same time -- a highly
undesirable condition. That's why we're so careful always to be here
from two to three in the afternoon, when transmissions are made."
Hansard snatched away the can of pâté de foie gras that the small
transmitter had just produced as an echo. The lab technician reached into
the right-hand receiver and placed can[1] that he had just transmitted
there into the right-hand transmitter. He pressed a button, transmitting
can[1] to the left-hand receiver and at the same time producing can[2]
which Hansard immediately removed from the transmitter. The pile of cans[2]
that had been thus produced that afternoon filled a large basket at
Hansard's feet.
"It seems to me," said Hansard judiciously, not interrupting his stockpiling,
"that all this contradicts the laws of conservation. Where do these cans
come from? How does a single can in the Real World produce a gross of
cans here?"
"If you want an answer to your question, Nathan, we'll have to start
with First Principles. Otherwise it would be like explaining a nuclear
reactor to someone who believes in the indivisibility of the atom. In a
sense, though, your question isn't far afield from what it was that gave
Bernard the whole idea of subspecies of reality. He'd already built the
first experimental model of the machine, and the press hadn't decided
whether to treat him like God or like a maniac, when he realized that
he'd overlooked the notorious fact that every action has an equal and
opposite reaction.
"But there seemed to be no reaction corresponding to the action of
transmission -- nothing that could be measured. Of course it
was
there,
in the mathematics, and Bernard busied himself with that. Are you familiar
with topological transformations? No? But you
do
know that there are
non-Euclidean geometries, and that these have the same validity as the
common-sense varieties?
"Well, matter transmission is essentially a topological transformation
from our world of common-sense spaces to . . . somewhere else, and then
back again. It is just at the moment that the transmitted body reaches
that 'somewhere else' that the reaction takes place that forms the 'echo.'
Which tells you very little, I fear, that you haven't already figured out
for yourself. But have patience; I will get to your question.
"The consequence, you see, of Bernard's ex post facto reasoning was an
entirely new physics, a physics in which our universe is just a special
case; indeed, a trivial case, as a point is a trivial case of the circle.
There are, in this physics, progressive levels of reality, and matter can
exist at each level. Now at the same time that there can be radical changes
in the nature of the material world, there need not be corresponding changes
in energic relationships."
"That is to say?" Hansard asked.
"That is to say that sub-two reality enjoys the same light of common
day as sub-one reality, though that light issues from a sun composed of
sub-one atoms; a fortunate consequence of the double nature of light,
which seems to be both wave and particle -- and highly beneficial for us."
"Highly necessary, too. I can see that for myself. But how much energy
spillover is there? Sound, for instance, doesn't carry over from the
sub-one to the sub-two world."
"Because it is produced by the collision of sub-one particles and carried
in a medium of sub-one gases. Similarly we can receive
radiant
heat from
the sub-one universe, but not heat produced by conduction or convection.
Magnetism and gravity still act on sublimated bodies, but Bernard has
proved experimentally that the gravitational attraction isn't mutual.
But we'd best not go into that. It's an embarrassing notion for someone
like who wants to go on living in a comfortable old-fashioned Newtonian
universe."
"And you receive radio and television broadcasts from the Real World.
I've learned that much."
"Yes, if we possess a sub-two receiver."
"But in that case, why don't you communicate with the Real World by
broadcasting to them? Tell them about your situation on short-wave radio."
"Have you ever tried shining a flashlight in the eyes of somebody in the
Real World? No? Well, it's the same principle: We can see by
their
sunlight, but they're oblivious to light issuing from a light source
constituted of secondary matter. The same would hold true of any
radio broadcasts we might make. The Real World always remains real for
us secondary creatures -- all
too
real. But for primary beings our
secondary world might as well not exist, for all the difference it makes
to them. No, there is no communication backwards.
"As Bernard pointed out, the sublimation of matter that the transmitter
causes is irreversible -- another case of entropy, of the universal
backsliding of all things. So, no matter how much paté we can pile up
here, we must permanently remain second-class citizens."
"But in that case I don't understand why Panofsky -- Panofsky-Sub-One,
that is, back there in the Real World -- keeps providing for you."
"Faith," said the new Bridgetta, who was helping Hansard to stack the cans
in such a way that they did not become too heavy to keep on top of the
floor, "it's all done on faith. We must be thankful that Bernard is a
Catholic, and has lots of experience believing unlikely things. Oh, I'm
sorry," she said, glancing at Bridie. "It's
your
story."
"You needn't practice being Bridget yet, darling. Not until you've been
able to dye your hair. Besides, as it's been two years since I was in
the Real World, you're the better qualified to tell about that."
"Once Bernard had figured out the theory behind it," Bridgetta began,
"he tried to extrapolate the problems that a sublimated being would
have to face in an unsublimated world. None of the necessities would be
available naturally to him: no food, no water, not even air. But he would
definitely exist and be alive for as long as one can stay alive under such
conditions. The first problem was to provide a supply of sublimated air,
and fortunately such a supply was at hand in the pumping station that
was to be built to supply the Command Posts.
"Bernard invented all kinds of specious reasons for having that transmitter
built here under the D.C. Dome instead of, as first planned, by Lake
Superior. After only a month of transmitting, the dome would have
been filled, and as long as the pumps keep pumping, the supply is
more than adequate to compensate for what is lost through the traffic
locks. Unfortunately the locations of the general cargo transmitters were
specified in the rider to the Emergency Allocation Act, so we couldn't
look forward to having all the initial advantages of Robinson Crusoe."
"Though you do have cannibals," Hansard observed.
"That was something else Bernard could do nothing about. He wanted to have
the Camp Jackson manmitter built outside the dome, which would have solved
our problem neatly."
"And mine too."
"Excuse me, that was a rather careless statement. But he was right:
those men do pose a threat. The best we can hope for is that they don't
discover us. Fortunately, one doesn't leave footprints here."
"There'd be no problem at all, if you just told the government about this.
Then those men could be supplied with the food -- and officers -- that
they need."
"Bernard looks on the government in a different light than you do, Captain,"
Bridie said rather coldly. "You forget that his relations with the government
have not usually been of an agreeable nature. When it has not directly
hindered his work, it expropriates and perverts it. No, don't try to argue
about that with me, I'm only trying to explain Bernard's attitude.
Furthermore, the government's scientists would not have understood the
refinements of his theory, for they are still debating the validity of
the mathematics on which the transmitter itself was based. Then, if the
scientists could be convinced, try to imagine how you would go about
explaining to an Army general that there are people just like you and
me who are invisible, who can walk through walls and to whom we must
send food, though it is probable that we will never,
never
be able to
demonstrate -- in any tangible way -- that they exist."
"When you put it like that, I don't see how he's convinced
himself
."
"Faith," Bridgetta said again, earnestly.
"Faith and reason," Bridie corrected. "Don't forget that Bernard has spent
his life as a mathematician. A balanced equation is tangible proof for
him
.
Though our existence is abstract at best, he can believe in us just as
readily as in the Pythagorean theorem."
"And out of that kernel of belief has come . . . all this?" Hansard waved
his hand at the goods lining the shelves of the room. "What possible reason
does he give this lab assistant for carrying on this idiot work? It certainly
can make no sense to him, if he's unaware that he's producing groceries
for us."
"In the case of food, Bernard tells them that he's concerned about possible
nutritional losses that might be caused by excessive and repeated
transmissions. Preposterous, of course, but you must remember that the
very idea of the machine is preposterous to most people. Remember too
that the government will do all it can to humor Bernard, so long as he
remains tame. The mattress, for instance. Have you heard the story of
the mattress?"
Hansard shook his head.
"For a while," Bridgetta said, taking her cue from Bridie, "whenever
I was transmitted anywhere, Bernard insisted that I wrap myself in a
mattress. To keep myself from being
bumped
, he explained to the secret
service guards. Of course, it was really to give us something besides a
floor to sleep on. But it did make a spectacular entrance at the Paris
Embassy. Madame Viandot thought it was a new fashion from New York and
ordered three mattresses for herself the next day."
"And no one ever suspects? The things you transmit are so evidently
survival items."
"No one has any reason to suspect that survival is a problem for us.
The lab assistants, of course, are constantly complaining about the
meaningless tasks that Bernard sets for them, and once Bazeley of NASA
came around to ask what Bernard was up to. But he only has to hint that
he's doing research on a receiverless transmitter, and they fall over
themselves to be obliging. For all they know, Bernard's still good for
another golden egg."
"Well, does that explain everything, Captain?" Bridie asked.
"Yes, thank you very much. I appreciate your giving me so much time."
Bridie smiled acidly. "But you've forgotten, you know, the biggest problem
of all. You haven't learned how it is that you can walk."
"Christ, I've gone all this time without realizing it was a problem!
How is it that I'm able to walk across the same floor I can swim through?"
"Don't feel dumb, Captain," said Bridgetta. "It's only natural to take for
granted that things that you've always been able to do are possible.
For Bernard, however, lacking any direct experience, this was the chief
theoretical difficulty standing in the way of survival. He could never be
certain that as soon as we arrive here we just don't start sinking into
the ground. That's why I was so relieved when I arrived this morning --
because I found myself on terra firma. Firm enough, at least, if I don't
wear heels."
"But
how
does it work? What keeps me from just sinking down, if gravity
is acting on me, as you say?"
"Call it surface tension," said Bridie, "though actually it is a form
of potential energy that is inherent in all matter at whatever level of
reality. Like static electricity, it forms an equipotential surface over
all objects -- a sort of 'skin' of energy. What keeps sublimated objects
above the ground -- the cans on the shelves, for instance, or your feet
-- is the small repellent force generated by the two surfaces; a force
that decreases in proportion to the distance between the two realities.
"Thus a sub-four and, perhaps, a sub-three can
would
sink through a
sub-one shell. But in two adjacent fields of reality the repellent force
is quite sufficient for most purposes, though not so great that it cannot
be overcome by an opposing force. And therefore second-degree matter
can interpenetrate first-degree matter, and you can 'swim' through the
floor. All this we've learned here.