Calahan's Con Part 18

"Whatever. The point I was making was, Zoey had recently had it impressed on her what a dangerous thing using that belt would be. I think even if she got worried enough to use it anyway, she would have tried a short hop, first, and if that didn't k-If that was successful, then maybe she'd have leaped ahead as far as midnight, or even tomorrow."

"Why an hour?" the Professor said. "Why not a minute? Or even a few seconds?"

I thought hard. Why was I sure of an hour? "Because," I said, thinking the words as I heard myself speak them, "if she jumped forward one minute, or two, or five, then she'd have taken all the risk, with virtually no chance of reward. If she'd believed the news she wanted would be available within minutes, she'd have just waited for it. One hour feels to me like the compromise she would have picked: the largest increment she would think of as small ... but that might actually be enough to learn something."

Doc Webster the diagnostician was shaking his head gently. "Jesus, Jake ... that's awful thin."

"It sounds right to me," Erin said. "We were talking once, about how terrible it must be to be clairvoyant, and never have a surprise in your life. And she said, 'Yes, but sometimes I think it'd be nice if every now and then you could peek ahead for just an hour or so, just to get your bearings.' I remember I agreed with her."

"An hour or so," Long-Drink repeated thoughtfully.

"You can't dial an 'or so,' Drink," Omar argued. "She'd probably have picked one hour. The two people who know her best both share that intuition-that's good enough for me."

My heart was hammering so loud I could barely follow the discussion, much less contribute any more. It was dawning on me that, under the scenario I was proposing, my beloved had been dead for hours by now-boiled and burst and terribly cold... .

Unless we did something about that.

"Okay, Erin," I said, loud enough to get the floor. "Let's start with those two a.s.sumptions. Zoey left at 7:03 and-" I glanced at Pixel's clock again to confirm my memory. "-and twenty-two seconds. And her intent was to hop forward exactly one hour. Is that enough information for you to figure out exactly where she ended up, and rescue her?"

Her face twisted up so bad that for a moment I thought she was going to cry again. I guess she wanted to. "Oh, G.o.d, Daddy, I don't know. Let me think-" She closed her eyes, bit down hard on her left thumbtip, and with her right hand tugged rhythmically at the hair at the back of her neck. I hadn't seen the mannerism in years; it meant she was concentrating very hard. Ten seconds went by. When she opened her eyes, I could see dismay in them. "I doubt it," she said. "It's a really hairy problem. I don't think the NSA could handle it. And our window, our margin of error is so incredibly minuscule-we can't be off by more than a few thousand yards or we'll never find her in time. So everything has to be calculated out to a humungous number of decimal places-"

Her voice was rising in pitch, speed and volume; time to interrupt. "Yeah, but didn't you tell me you had some way to steal as much computer power as you'd ever need, honey? Something about word processors on bicycles?"

The feeble attempt at humor did not go down well. "Jesus, Daddy! Yes, Solace taught me a way to access just about all the unused processor cycles of nearly any computer that's connected to the Net, without being caught at it. That's basically what she did to live. Yes, in theory that's more competing power than the U.S. federal government has, or anyway knows it has-"

Again I tried to interrupt her climb toward panic. "There you go-we'll take our best shot, and-"

She was shaking her head. "You don't get it. Raw computer power isn't enough, not nearly enough. Every step of the way you have to make a.s.sumptions, ones that could introduce whopping errors if they're wrong-"

"You'll make the right a.s.sumptions. Your intuition has always been good; you're good at this stuff."

She shook her head harder. "I'm terrible at it. Mike or Lady Sally could do it, no sweat-they solve trickier problems all the time. Uncle Nikky would probably just get the right answer in a flash of light, like always. But my brain isn't like theirs."

"Come on-I saw you hop from an orbiting shuttle to that pool over there-"

Her glare was withering. "Daddy ... I haven't done that yet. Not from my point of view."

s.h.i.t. "Yeah, well, you will."

She grimaced. "Fine. Okay, by now you've lived with me for, how long? Eleven years?"

"Close enough," I agreed.

"You tell me. In all that time, do you ever remember me Transiting any farther away than High Earth Orbit?"

"Well, I remember one admittedly short visit to the moon when you turned ten."

"Big whoop. Daddy, Mike and Uncle Nikky hop across the baryonic universe whenever they happen to feel like it! I'm out of my depth. G.o.d, I wish one of them were around!"

For the millionth time in the last ten years I wondered where or when the h.e.l.l Mike and Sally and Nikola and Mary and Finn all were, what they were up to, why we hadn't heard from them, and above all, why they weren't answering the emergency phone number Mike had once given me. It is perilously easy, I've found, to come to depend on time-traveling immortals to solve your crises for you. It suddenly made sense to me for the first time why Mike would leave us to our own devices. Imagine being Superman-with more than a hundred pain-in-the-a.s.s Jimmy Olsens and Lois Lanes pulling on your coattail every other minute... .

After a moment of depressed silence, big Jim Omar spoke up. "Have I got this right?" he said. "You're saying we could maybe solve this, if we only had more computing power than the rest of the world put together?"

"Well ... maybe, Uncle Omar," Erin said. "Not for sure ... but it would really really help a lot."

"h.e.l.l, for a minute there, I thought we had a problem."

I saw where he was going, and started to get excited-and so did most of those present. "He's right, princess," I said. "We took this cla.s.s once before. Well, you haven't, yet, but the rest of us have. I won't tell you why, but it doesn't matter now. What we need is a neural net. No, excuse me, I mean we need an interconnected bank of dedicated neural nets."

She blinked. "Have they built any good ones by now?" she asked dubiously. "Things weren't looking promising back in my time. And how can we possibly get access to some right away-by which I mean, in the next hour or two?"

"No problem," Omar said. "We roll our own."

"Huh?"

"Out of real neurons. The wet kind."

"Oh," she said, and then "Oh!"

Human brains, he meant. Telepathically interconnected, and placed under the control of a single directing intelligence.

All it required was temporary group ego-death.

"Jesus, Jake," Long-Drink said, "I don't know. I don't want to rain on the parade, but we haven't been telepathic in ten years-"

"-maybe we just haven't needed to badly enough-"

"-and everybody's scattered all over town-"

"-town my a.s.s, it's just barely big enough to be a neighborhood-"

"-in the middle of f.u.c.king Fantasy Fest!"

He had a point there. At just about any other time, I could probably have stood at the corner of Duval and Flagler with a bullhorn and raised more than half the troops. But tonight, and for the next week, everyone in downtown Key West was trying as hard as they possibly could to attract the attention of everyone else. "We'll just have to do the best we can," I snapped back at Long-Drink, but even I knew it was a crummy answer.

Doc Webster's voice was calm, sane, and reasonable. "All right, friends, let's be calm. Our group has been in rapport several times now, over the years-and we've spent most of the intervening time loving one another. We're all sensitive to one another, psychically attuned. I suggest we all shut up, close our eyes, join hands, and try to send out a Call-the way the MacDonald brothers did the night Finn's Master showed up."

On that memorable occasion, the MacDonalds had broadcast the telepathic message Mike Callahan needs you, and the response rate had been 100 percent, even though it cost some of us dearly and forced a couple of us into severe risk of life, limb, or liberty.

"Can we pull that off?" I asked dubiously. The MacDonalds had been Special Talents, mutants: practicing full-time telepaths since adolescence. For all I knew, they'd had amplification a.s.sistance from Mike himself that night. And they were both long dead now, their brains burned out by the monster they'd enabled us to destroy.

"Let's find out," Doc said. He seemed to have tapped some inner vein of strength himself; he hadn't made a spoonerism in several sentences now.

So we all looked round at one another, and took deep breaths, and moved closer together, and joined hands.

"What's the message?" Long-Drink asked. "Does 'JAKE NEEDS YOU' work for everybody?"

Half a dozen of us opened our mouths with some suggestion for a nit-picking change-looked at one another-and chorused "Fine," together.

"Okay, on three," Omar said. "One ... two ..."

>>.

11.

NEED IN A HAYSTACK.

To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders -Chuang-Tzu.

An hour later, attendance exceeded 100 percent, and everybody had been brought up to speed. Every single one of my regulars was there, and some had brought along neighbors or new friends just in case more warm bodies might be useful. And they'd managed to get there discreetly, without bringing a traveling riot along in their wake; the rest of Fantasy Fest proceeded out there, oblivious of anything but itself. We had just over 125 brains a.s.sembled in that compound, available for our neural bank. Perhaps two dozen more than we'd had the last time. But last time we'd had a less intractable problem to solve than this one... .

Outside the compound: universal anarchic tomfoolery. Inside the compound: quiet, calm purposefulness. Outside: joy unrestrained. Inside: muted fear, stoic endurance, cherished hope. It kept reminding me of a time when I had spent New Year's Eve in an emergency room.

The house lights were on, at their lowest setting. We spontaneously formed into a circle-actually a large ragged ellipse-all the way around the pool. n.o.body gave orders or stage directions; n.o.body seemed to feel like making a speech. People adopted whatever posture they felt they could maintain without effort for a time-some sitting zazen, some reclining on lounge chairs, some lying on their backs looking up at the stars-took last sips or tokes and set down whatever they'd been holding, and began to join hands. Down at the deep end, Lex's hands appeared above the water, and each was taken by somebody; he was new to this telepathy business, but game. (Long-Drink said something about him being a game fish, and got splashed for it.) Ralph von Wau Wau sat on Omar's lap, touching paws with Alf on Maureen's lap, and Pixel on mine. Harry the Parrot, uncharacteristically subdued, perched on Double Bill's shoulder, making him look more like a pirate than ever.

One person stood apart: Field Inspector Ludnyola Czrjghnczl, who had politely but firmly refused all invitations to join in. She didn't want to leave the compound, but she declined to join the circle, saying that it would be like a crack skydiving team making an important jump with a beginner who was terrified of heights. We pressed her as much as politeness required, and then let it go-she was right. Telepathy is not for the reluctant. It's scary enough as it is.

Erin sat beside me at the shallow end of the pool, seated on one of the tall chairs I use instead of bar stools. In front of her were two music stands tilted back as far as they would go, with a laptop computer on each one: a PowerBook and a Dell. She had a hand poised over each keyboard and was physically connected to our human circuit by my hand on her right shoulder and Doc Webster's on her left. She was deep in final consultation with Doc and those nearest to him: Acayib, Omar, Merry, Ben, Jaymie, Allen, Doug, Guy, Jim, Herb-every one of us who had ever worked at, played with, or studied one or more of the hard sciences, especially math, astronomy, physics, biology, or medicine. ("Their heads are already formatted properly to process the data," she'd told me.) "We're agreed, then," Acayib was saying. "We'll use the Cosmic Microwave Background as if it were an absolute reference frame for position in the observable universe."

"Effectively, it is," Jaymie said. "The CMB is isotropic to about one part in a hundred thousand. We can see the reflex Doppler shifts due to the motions of the earth, the sun, the galaxy, the Local Group, and the Local Supercl.u.s.ter-"

"That should allow us to measure velocity deviation to a high degree of accuracy," said Acayib. "With a reliable predictive model of solar system and solar galactic orbit motions-"

Erin nodded. "I was able to find those in Uncle Nikky's toolbox."

"-well, then, I think we have an excellent chance of extrapolating Zoey's location."

Jaymie nodded vigorously. "With enough velocity data from the CMB, we should be able to factor in models of even galactic and supergalactic motions, as well."

"There's something else crucial to consider, don't forget," Doug put in. "When you materialize out there, your velocity amplitude and direction may well be different enough from your mother's that there could be a very high kinetic energy difference. You'll want to try to predict that so you can compensate for it."

I had a horrid mental picture of what he meant might happen. Erin Transits with superb accuracy, pops into existence at just the right instant-with Zoey only ten feet away. Behind her, traveling away at a thousand miles a second. Or there was an even funnier variation. Do you know the true story about how, way back when there were only two automobiles in the entire town of Kansas City, they collided at an intersection? Yeah, that would be hilarious... .

"I wish I could examine that belt," Acayib said. "It may be that some measure of inertial compensation is built into it."

"I've studied it," I said. "What would such a system look like?"

He shrugged helplessly. "Anything-or nothing at all." "That's what I remember seeing besides those two dials and the Go b.u.t.ton," I said. "Nothing at all."

"I still say," Herb put in, "we're neglecting the most important problem. Let's say we do our mind-meld thing and become G.o.d's own wetware supercomputer and work this all out to so many decimal places that, miraculously, we can plop Erin down as close as half a mile to her mom, and let's even a.s.sume we can match course and speed perfectly. That still leaves us with the question of, How the h.e.l.l do you find a person in street clothes half a mile away in s.p.a.ce? A great big flashlight? Wait for them to occult a star? I can see you teleporting a portable radar ahead of you, I even know where there's a radar we could steal that's probably in working condition-but humans show up lousy on radar. Too soft."

"An X-ray interferometer-," Acayib started to say.

"No," Doug said. "You want IR-"

"Excuse me, Doug," said Erin, "but I'm going to table this. No, you're Canadian, aren't you?-take it off the table, then. Rule it out of order. We'll have to deal with that problem before I Transit-but we don't have to solve it now. First let's see if it's even possible to pin down the target."

I was very pleased to know that people could form thoughts, construct sentences, create and follow logic chains while Zoey was in danger, because if Zoey was in danger, those things certainly needed doing. I could not seem to do any of them. Maybe because I had nothing useful to contribute-except the use of the wetware in my skull.

Then I remembered something useful I could contribute. Leadership. Brains not required. I took my hand out of Fast Eddie Costigan's long enough to put my thumb and pinkie in my mouth and give a cabdriver's whistle. Murmured conversations broke off everywhere, and my friends gave me their respectful attention. That's a heady drug; it helped to steady me down some. I'm no Mike Callahan-as Jim Rockford once said, on my best day, I'm borderline-but I'd been playing him in the road company for over a decade now. I was the best Mike Callahan we had around at the moment, and n.o.body I saw seemed to feel that I sucked. I gave Eddie my hand again and took a deep breath.

"Thank you all for coming here tonight," I said. "You know what we're trying to accomplish. Basically we want to build a big calculator out of brains, just like last time. It's a paradoxical situation. We want to blesh our minds ... but then not have a conversation. We want as little thinking to take place as possible, really. We want to touch and interpenetrate and enfold one another enough to provide support, stability-"

"-bliss-," Erin put in.

"-and bliss, yes, thank you, Erin. But this is not the time to swap life stories, or marvel at each other's most intimate secrets, or compose poetry together. In particular ..." I sighed. "Look, I know this is gonna be difficult, okay? Tell people not to think about something, and it's hard for them to think about anything else, I know that. We all know that. Nevertheless, I have to ask those of you who were present for our last symphysis, or have heard about it, to please try to avoid thinking about why we were doing it. This Erin, who sits here next to me, has not yet experienced those events-and they were so heroic, it would be a shame if she had to experience them as a deja vu. She knows we saved the universe together, but not just how or even when, so let's all try to leave it at that in our thoughts, if we can't manage to leave it out of our thoughts altogether."

"I'm not sure it matters that much, Daddy," Erin said. "I've already had a little experience living through events I knew in advance would happen. It's not terrible."

"You didn't mind the feeling of being trapped in clockwork predestination, losing your free will?"

"Well ... some, yeah, sure. That's why I never peek if I can help it, now. But there are worse things. I don't want to get this calculation wrong because some people are clamping down their mental sphincters to keep the Bad Memories from leaking out. All right, everybody?" she asked. 'What we're looking for here is more like what the Zen Buddhists call no-thought. The state where you're not even aware that you're not thinking about not thinking. Those of you who are new to this ... remember what John Lennon said: If you turn your mind, off and float freely downstream, it isn't dying. Don't be afraid. We float together."

n.o.body said anything for ten seconds or so.

Finally I said, "We haven't done this in ten years. We haven't got an experienced telepath to help us, but we didn't have one the last time. What we did have last time, and the other three times, was a life-and-death emergency. Well, we have another one now. Please-" I stopped, gulped, got control. "-please help us get Zoey back."

Many voices were raised in the affirmative.

"Fast Eddie," I said, "would you start the Om, please?" "Sure ting, Jake."

His hand tightened on mine. He straightened a little on his piano stool, filled his chest and belly with air, and then began to empty them again: "AAAAAAAA00000000000000MMMMMMM-" We all jumped in after him.

I'm not trying to say Om'ing will make you and your loved ones telepathic, in and of itself. Countless groups of people have chanted Om together since time began-thousands of them back in the Sixties alone-and I doubt many achieved telepathic symphisis, no matter how long they kept it up; if they did, they kept it to themselves. (Well, but then ... they would, wouldn't they? We had.) I will say, though, that any group of people that does chant Om together will, if they all have a sincere desire to make it work, definitely end up more telepathic than they were when they started. How much more? Depends on the people.

All it is, really, is just the simplest possible activity that humans can share, and keep sharing. Inhale deeply, use the syllable aom to empty your lungs, and repeat. Nothing else to it at all. No prayers, no prescribed methods. Generally everyone holds the same note, in whatever octave they're comfortable with-but in our group if anyone feels moved to pick the dominant harmony instead, or to jam around the central drone a little like a sitar or a shehnai, that's cool, too.

It doesn't matter whether your language uses clicks, grunts, glottal stops, whistles or tones: any human mouth can make an o and an m-open mouth/closed mouth-and oscillate back and forth between them in a drone. Even the profoundly tone-deaf can usually pick some note and stick with it fairly closely-if there are enough people in the Om, the odd sour note actually enhances it, gives the overall sound a sort of shimmy that seems to resonate directly with something in the human central nervous system. Each partic.i.p.ant has to fall silent briefly while taking in the next breath, so the sound is always changing, but everyone does so at a different moment, so the sound is always constant. Any monkey will find sustained deep rhythmic breathing to be hypnotic, calming, centering, relaxing ... and at the same time energizing. In a large group, the effect can be enhanced exponentially.

We knew how by now. Most of us were conditioned to a.s.sociate chanting Om with removing our scalps, melting our skullbones away, and letting our minds out to play together. One by one, in no hurry at all, we began to do so now.

I was sitting on my chair, beside my pool, with my whole family, watching house lights and poolside j.a.panese lantern lights dance on the water .. .