“Didn’t anyone know this?”
“Oh, sure, everyone knew it. It was obvious almost from the start. Even Hallam can see it. That’s what got the bastard so excited. I started telling him this in detail as though I didn’t think he had ever heard it before and he blew up.”
“But what’s the point then? Is there danger in the interaction becoming intermediate?”
“Of course. What do you think?”
“I don’t think anything. When will it become intermediate?”
“At the present rate, 1030 years or so.”
“How long is that?”
“Long enough for a trillion trillion Universes like this one to be born, live, grow old, and die, one after the other.”
“Oh blazes, Pete. What odds does it make then?”
“Because to reach that figure,” said Lamont, slowly and carefully, “which is the official one, certain assumptions were made which I think were wrong. And if certain other assumptions are made, which I think are right, we’re in trouble now.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Suppose the Earth turned into a whiff of gas in a period of about five minutes. Would you consider that trouble?”
“Because of the Pumping?”
“Because of the Pumping!”
“And how about the world of the para-men? Would they be in danger, too?”
“I’m sure of it. A different danger, but danger.”
Bronowski stood up and began pacing. He wore his brown hair thick and long in what had once been called a Buster Brown. Now he was clutching at it. He said, “If the para-men are more intelligent than we are, would they be running the Pump? Surely they would know it was dangerous, before we did.”
“I’ve thought of that,” said Lamont “What I guess is that they’ve started Pumping for the first time and they, like us, got the process started for the apparent good it would bring and worried about consequences later.”
“But you say you know the consequences now. Would they be slower than you were?”
“It depends on if and when they look for those consequences. The Pump is too attractive to try to spoil. I Wouldn’t have looked myself if I hadn’t— But what’s on your mind, Mike?”
Bronowski stopped his pacing, looked full at Lamont, and said, “I think we’ve got something.”
Lamont looked at him wildly, then leaped forward to seize the other’s sleeve. “With the para-symbols? Tell me, Mike!”
“It was while you were with Hallam. While you were actually with Hallam. I haven’t known exactly what to do about it, because I wasn’t sure what was going on. And now—”
“And now?”
“I’m still not sure. One of their foils came through, with four symbols...”
“Oh?”
“... in the Latin alphabet. And it can be pronounced.”
“What?”
“Here it is.”
Bronowski produced the foil with the air of a conjurer. Incised on it, quite different from the delicate and intricate spirals and differential glistenings of the para-symbols, were four broad, childlike letters: F-E-E-R.
“What do you suppose that means?” asked Lament, blankly.
“So far all I’ve been able to think of is that it’s F-E-A-R misspelled.”
“Is that why you were cross-examining me? You thought someone on the other side was experiencing fear?”
“And I thought it might have some connection with your own obviously increasing excitement over the last month. Frankly, Pete, I didn’t like being kept in the dark.”
“Okay. Now let’s not jump to conclusions. You’re the one with experience with fragmentary messages. Wouldn’t you say that the para-men were beginning to experience fear concerning the Electron Pump?”
“Not necessarily at all,” said Bronowski. “I don’t know how much they can sense of this Universe. If they can sense the tungsten we lay out for them; if they can sense our presence; perhaps they are sensing our state of mind. Perhaps they are trying to reassure us; telling us there is no reason to fear.”
“Then why don’t they say N-O F-E-E-R.”
“Because they don’t know our language that well yet.”
“Hmm. Then I can’t take it to Burt.”
“I wouldn’t. It’s ambiguous. In fact, I wouldn’t go to Burt till we get something more from the other side. Who knows what they’re trying to say.”
“No, I can’t wait, Mike. I know I’m right, and we have no time.”
“All right, but if you see Burt you’ll be burning your bridges. Your colleagues will never forgive you. Have you thought of talking to the physicists here? You can’t put pressure on Hallam on your own, but a whole group of you—”
Lamont shook his head vigorously, “Not at all. The men at this station survive by virtue of their jellyfish quality. There isn’t one who would stand against him. Trying to rally the others to put pressure on Hallam would be like asking strands of cooked spaghetti to come to attention.”
Bronowski’s soft face looked unwontedly grim. “You may be right.”
“I know I’m right,” said Lamont, just as grimly.
7
It had taken time to pin the senator down; time that Lamont had resented losing; the more so since nothing further in Latin letters had come from the para-men. No message of any kind, though Bronowski had sent across half a dozen, each with a carefully selected combinations of para-symbols and each incorporating both F-E-E-R and F-E-A-R.
Lamont wasn’t sure of the significance of the half-dozen variations but Bronowski had seemed hopeful.
Yet nothing had happened and now Lamont was at last in to see Burt.
The senator was thin-faced, sharp-eyed, and elderly. He had been the head of the Committee on Technology and the Environment for a generation. He took his job seriously and had proved that a dozen times.
He fiddled, now, with the old-fashioned necktie that he affected (and that had become his trademark) and said, “I can only give you half an hour, son.” He looked at his wristwatch.
Lamont was not worried. He expected to interest Senator Burt enough to make him forget about time limits. Nor did he attempt to begin at the beginning; his intentions here were quite different from those in connection with Hallam.
He said, “I won’t bother with the mathematics, Senator, but I will assume you realize that through Pumping, the natural laws of the two Universes are being mixed.”
“Stirred together,” said the senator, calmly, “with equilibrium coming in about 1030 years. Is that the figure?” His eyebrows in repose arched up and then down, giving his lined face a permanent air of surprise.
“It is,” said Lamont, “but it is arrived at by assuming that the alien laws seeping into our Universe and theirs spread outward from the point of entry at the speed of light. That is just an assumption and I believe it to be wrong.”
“Why?”
“The only measured rate of mixing is within the plutonium-186 sent into this Universe. That rate of mixing is extremely slow at first, presumably because matter is dense, and increases with time. If the plutonium is mixed with less dense matter, the rate of mixing increases more rapidly. From a few measurements of this sort it has been calculated that the permeation rate would increase to the speed of light in a vacuum. It would take some time for the alien laws to work their way into the atmosphere, far less time to work their way to the top of the atmosphere and then off through space in every direction at 300,000 kilometers per second, thinning into harmlessness in no time.”
Lamont paused a moment to consider how best to go on, and the senator picked it up at once. “However—” he urged, with the manner of a man not willing to waste time.
“It’s a convenient assumption that seems to make sense and seems to make no trouble, but what if it is not matter that offers resistance to the permeation of the alien laws, but the basic fabric of the Universe itself.”
“What is the basic fabric?”
“I can’t put it in words. There is a mathematical expression which I think represents it, but I can’t put it into words. The basic fabric of the Universe is that which dictates the laws of nature. It is the basic fabric of our Universe that makes it necessary for energy to be conserved. It is the basic fabric of the para-Universe, with a weave, so to speak, somewhat different from ours, that makes their nuclear interaction a hundred times stronger than ours.”