Tales Of Known Space Part 31

"Don't let the small ma.s.s fool you," he said, unnecessarily now.

"Computer, what's the ma.s.s of a ten-foot neutronium sphere?--Around two times ten to the minus six times the ma.s.s of this world, which is pretty tiny, but if you get too close...

Computer, what's the surface gravity?--I don't believe it."

The two objects seemed to be pulling together again. d.a.m.n, thought Louis. If they hadn't come along, that'd be me.

He kept talking. It wouldn't matter now, except to relieve his own tension.

"My computer says ten million gravities at the surface. That may be off. Newton's formula for gravity. Can you hear me?"

"They are too close," said the alien.

"By now it is too late to save their lives." It was happening as he spoke. The ship began to crumble a fraction of a second before impact. Impact looked no more dangerous than a cannonball striking the wall of a fort. The tiny silver bead Simply swept through the side of the ship. But the ship closed instantly, all in a moment, like tinsel paper in a strong man's fist. Closed into a bead glowing yellow with heat. A tiny sphere ten feet through or a bit more.

"I mourn," said the alien.

"Now I get it," said Louis.

"I wondered what was fouling our laser messages. That chunk of neutronium was right between our ships, bending the light beams."

"Why was this trap set for us?" cried the alien.

"Have we enemies so powerful that they can play with such ma.s.ses?"

A touch of paranoia? Louis wondered. Maybe the whole species had it.

"Just a touch of coincidence. A smashed neutron star."

For a time the alien did not speak. The telescope, for want of a better target, remained focused on the bead. Its glow had died.

The alien said, "My pressure suit will not keep me alive long."

"We'll make a run for it. I can reach Margrave in a couple of weeks. If you can hold out that long, we'll set up a tailored environment box to hold you until we think of something better. It only takes a couple of hours to set one up. I'll call ahead."

The alien's triple gaze converged on him.

"Can you send messages faster than light?"

"Sure."

"You have knowledge worth trading for. I'll come with you."

"Thanks a whole lot." Louis Wu started punching b.u.t.tons.

"Margrave. Civilization. People. Faces. Voices. Bah." The ship leapt upward, ripping atmosphere apart. Cabin, gravity wavered a little, then settled down.

"Well," he told himself.

"I can always come back."

"You will return here?"

"I think so," he decided.

"I hope you will be armed."

"What? More paranoia?"

"Your species is insufficiently suspicious," said the alien.

"I wonder that you have survived. Consider this neutronium object as a defense. Its ma.s.s pulls anything that touches it into smooth and reflective spherical surface. Should any vehicle approach this world, its crew would find this object quickly. They would a.s.sume it is an artifact. What other a.s.sumption could they make? They would draw alongside for a closer examination."

"True enough, but that planet's empty. n.o.body to defend."

"Perhaps."

The planet was dwindling below. Louis Wu swung his ship toward deep s.p.a.ce.

Safe at Any Speed -------------------------------------------------------.

In the two hundred years between Beowulf Shaeffer and Louis Wu, little had changed on the surface. Known s.p.a.ce was somewhat larger. Most ships used a reactionless drive, the "thruster." The birthright lotteries had been in use on Earth almost since Shaeffer's time.

It was the birthright lotteries, which made being born a matter of sheer luck, that eventually created the Teela Brown gene. Teela Brown's story is chronicled in Ringworld. There were other teelas on Earth, and their effect was catastrophic, at least for a writer. Stories about infinitely lucky people tend to be dull.

One tale survives from the golden age that followed.

LN --------------------------------------------------------.

But how, you ask, could a car have managed to fail me?

Already I can see the terror in your eyes at the thought that your car, too, might fail.

Here you are with an indefinite lifespan, a potentially immortal being, taking every possible precaution against the abrupt termination of your G.o.dhead; and all for nothing.

The disruptor field in your kitchen dispose-all could suddenly expand to engulf you.

Your transfer booth could make you disappear at the transmitter and forget to deliver you at the receiver. A slidewalk could accelerate to one hundred miles per hour, then slew sideways to throw you against a building. Every boosterspice plant in the Thousand Worlds could die overnight, leaving you to grow old and gray and wrinkled and arthritic.

No, its never happened in human history; but if a man can't trust his car, fa' Pete's sake, what can he trust?

Rest a.s.sured, reader, it wasn't that bad.

For one thing, it all happened on Margrave, a world in the first stages of colonization. I was twenty minutes out of Triangle Lake on my way to the Wiggly River logging region, flying at an alt.i.tude of a thousand feet. for several days the logging machines had been cutting trees which were too young, and a mechanic was needed to alter a few settings in the boss brain. I was cruising along on autopilot, playing double-deck complex solitaire in the back seat, with the camera going so that just in case I won one I'd have a film to back up my bragging.

Then a roc swooped down on me, wrapped ten huge talons around my car, and swallowed it.

Right away your see that it couldn't happen anywhere but Margrave. In the first place, I wouldn't have been using a car for a two-hour trip on any civilized world. I'd have taken a transfer booth. In the second place, where else can you find rocs?

Anyway, this big d.a.m.n bird caught me and ate me, and everything went dark. The car flew blithely on, ignoring the roc, but the ride became turbulent as the roc tried to fly away and couldn't. I heard grinding sounds from outside. I tried my radio and got nothing. Either it couldn't reach through all that meat around me, or the trip through the bird's gullet had brushed away my antennas.

There didn't seem to be anything else I could do. I turned on the cabin lights and went on with the game. The grinding noises continued, and now I could see what was causing them. At some time the roc had swallowed several boulders, for the same reason a chicken swallows grit: to help digestion. The rocks were rubbing against the car under peristalsis, trying to break it down into smaller pieces for the murky digestive juices to work on.

I wondered how smart the boss brain was. When it saw a roc glide in for a landing at the logging camp, and when it realized that the bird was incapable of leaving no matter how it shrieked and flapped its wings, would the master computer draw the correct conclusion? Would it realize the bird had swallowed a car? I was afraid not. If the boss brain were that smart it would have been in business for itself.

I never found out. All of a sudden my seat coc.o.o.n wrapped itself around me like an overprotective mother, and there was a meaty three-hundred-mile-per-hour Smack!

The coc.o.o.n unwrapped itself. My cabin lights still showed red-lit fluid around me, but it was getting redder. The boulders had stopped rolling around. My cards were all over the cabin, like a snowstorm.

Obviously I'd forgotten one teensy little mountain when I programmed the autopilot.

The roc had been blocking the radar and sonar, with predictable results. A little experimenting showed that my drive had failed under the impact, my radio still wouldn't work, and my emergency flares refused to try to fire through a roc's belly.

There was no way to get out, not without opening my door to a flood of digestive juices.

I could have done that if I'd had a vac suit, but how was I to know I'd need one on a two-hour car trip?

There was only one thing to do.

I collected my cards, shuffled, and started a new game.

It was half a year before the roc's corpus decomposed enough to let me out. In that time I won five games of double complex solitaire. I've only got films for four; the camera ran out. I'm happy to say that the emergency food-maker worked beautifly if a little monotonously, the air-maker never failed, and the clock TV kept perfect time as a clock.

As a TV it showed only technicolor ripples of static. The washroom went out along about August, but I got it fixed without much trouble. At 2:00 P.M. on October 24 I forced the door open, hacked my way through the mummified skin and flesh between a couple of roc ribs, and took a deep breath of real air. It smelled of roc. I'd left the cabin door open, and I could hear the airmaker whine crazily as it tried to absorb the smell.

I fired off a few flares, and fifteen minutes later a car dropped to take me home. They say I was the hairiest human being they'd ever seen. I've since asked Mr. d.i.c.kson, the president of General Transportation, why he didn't include a depil tube in the emergency stores.

"A castaway is supposed to look like a castaway," he tells me.

"If you're wearing a year's growth of hair, your rescuer will know immediately that you've been lost for some time and will take the appropriate steps."

General Transportation has paid me a more than adequate sum in a compensation for the fact that my car was unable to handle a roc. (I've heard that they're changing the guarantees for next year's model.) They've promised me an equal sum for writing this article. It seems there are strange and possibly damaging rumors going around concerning my delayed arrival at Wiggly River.

Rest a.s.sured, reader. I not only lived through the accident without harm, but came out of it with a substantial profit. Your car is perfectly safe, provided it was built later than 3100 A.D.

AFterthoughts I HAD BEEN writing about three years. You might say I was just getting into the swing of constructive daydreaming: letting my imagination flow until I had something, then guiding it.

I had a violent picture in my mind, and practically no story around it, at first. I saw men building a campfire out of what they did not know to be stage-tree logs ...

The stage tree was part of the background of the novel World of Ptavvs. I had developed quite an elaborate background for the Thrintun, the race that ruled the galaxy one-and-a-half billion years ago. The stage tree was an organically grown solid-fuel rocket: tree on the outside, chemicals in the core around a star-shaped hollow. It bothered me, losing all those fascinating life forms...

...The campfire catches slowly, then burns briskly. And suddenly the logs are going off like so many sticks of dynamite!

Well, why shouldn't some of those life forms have survived in mutated form?

"A Relic of Empire" was the third story set in Beowulf Shaeffer's era. But it was the first of the Known s.p.a.ce Series, because it linked the cosmos of Lucas Garner with the cosmos of Beowulf Shaeffer. From that point on I was writing a future history. Later I included the Kzinti, who already existed via "The Warriors," and the intermediate era of A Gift From Earth, and in Ringworld even the sunflowers of Kzanol's time were found to have survived. Early tales of planetary exploration became part of the fabric. It was fun, fitting the pieces together.

That was how the Known s.p.a.ce Series began. It ends with Ringworld. Though I've written stories in the series since Ringworld, writing that novel made me realize how tangled and complex my basic a.s.sumptions had become. There were too many unlikely miracles left over from individual stories. For example, from World of Ptavvs came a stasis field so useful that every story set later in time must be examined for reasons why a stasis field would not solve the problem. From Neutron Star, where it was introduced to create an airtight problem in logic, comes an invulnerable s.p.a.cecraft hull-same remarks.

For the Ringworld floor material I had to come up with still another unreasonably strong material.

And then there was the Teela Brown gene to consider. And I had to contend with the near certainty that the Ringworld had been settled, as was Earth, by Pak breeders and had been built by Pak protectors. But the story was already too complex; I couldn't open that can of worms too! I settled for letting Louis Wu deduce the wrong answer.

It's been fun. Unexpectedly, I've had a great deal of interaction with readers, and I pa.s.s along some of their more interesting suggestions: Mathematically, the Ringworld can be treated very simply, as a suspension bridge with no endpoints.

The antimatter planet in "Flatlander" can be furnished with an experimental outpost, by setting the buildings on a metal base with a stasis field around it.

A fan named Dan Alderson has done a two thousand-word treatment of the Grog problem as raised in "Handicap." His conclusion: the Grogs can be controlled, if they need to be, by Banders.n.a.t.c.hi. The dinosaur-sized beasts are demonstrably immune to hypnotic telepathy. However, they must be s.p.a.celifted in from Jinx.

I keep meeting people who have done mathematical treatments of the problem raised in the short story "Neutron Star," from which the collection derived its t.i.tle. Alas and dammit, Shaeffer can't survive. It turns out that his ship leaves the star spinning, and keeps the spin.

"There Is a Tide' was suggested by a conversation with Tom Digby and Dan Alderson.

Hank Stine suggested Matt Keller's interestingly limited psychic power, later known as "Plateau eyes."

Well, I've put these notes at the back of the book to avoid ruining your willing suspension of disbelief. If one must explain a magic trick, one should do so after the show is over. The Known s.p.a.ce series is now complete. If you want more stories in the series you can make them up yourself. I think I've given you enough background.

Key

Collections Novels Al. Neutron Star NI. World of Pfavvs A2. The Shape of s.p.a.ce N2. A Gift from Earth A3. All the Myriad Ways N3. Ringworld A4. The Flight of the Horse N4. The Flying Sorcerers A5. A Hole in s.p.a.ce N5. Protector A6. Tales of Known s.p.a.ce N6. The Mote in G.o.d's Eye A7. The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton AHM Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k's GAL Galaxy Magazine Mystery Magazine IF Worlds of If ASF a.n.a.log Science Q4 Quark 4 Fiction TET Ten Tomorrows DV Dangerous Visions TRM Trumpet, No. 9 EPC Epic EQM Ellery Queen's TTT Three Trips in Time Mystery Magazine and s.p.a.ce FAN Fantastic VER Vertex Magazine FSF The Magazine of WOT Worlds of Tomorrow Fantasy and Science Fiction FU Futures Unbounded nov. novel coll. collection nSF not science flction UC has not appeared in a collection Bibliography Throughout, t.i.tles followed by asterisks appear in this collection.

Italicized t.i.tles are those of collections or novels; all others are t.i.tles of stories or nonfiction articles"

Orig.

Yr Month t.i.tle Publ. Book Series 1964 Dec The Coldest Place* IF A6 Known s.p.a.ce 1965 Mar World of Ptavvs WOT N1 Known s.p.a.ce Apr Wrong Way Street GAL UC rime Travel Jun One Face GAL A2 Known s.p.a.ce Jul Becalmed in h.e.l.l* FSF A3/A6 Known s.p.a.ce 1966 Feb Eye of an Octopus* GAL A6 Known s.p.a.ce Feb The Warriors* IF A2/A6 Known s.p.a.ce Apr Bordered in Black FSF A2 Known s.p.a.ce Jun By Mind Alone IF UC Teleportation Oct Neutron Star IF A1 Known s.p.a.ce Oct How the Heroes Die* GAL A2/A6 Known s.p.a.ce Nov At the Core IF A1 Known s.p.a.ce Dec A Relic of the Empire IF A1 Known s.p.a.ce Dec At the Bottom of a Hole* GAL A2/A6 Known s.p.a.ce 1967 Feb The Soft Weapon IF A1 Known s.p.a.ce Mar The Long Night+ FSF A2 not series Mar Flatlander IF A1 Known s.p.a.ce Apr The Ethics of Madness IF A1 Known s.p.a.ce May Safe at Any Speed* FSF A2/A6 Known s.p.a.ce Jun The Adults+ GAL NS Known s.p.a.ce Dec The Handicapped GAL A1 Known s.p.a.ce - The Jigsaw Man* DV A3 Known s.p.a.ce 1968 Feb-Apr s...o...b..at Cargo+ IF N2 Known s.p.a.ce Apr The Deceivers*+ GAL A6 Known s.p.a.ce Apr Grendal A1 A1 Known s.p.a.ce Apr Neutron Star coll. A1 Known s.p.a.ce May Dry Run FSF A2 not series Jul There Is a tide* GAL A5/A6 Known s.p.a.ce Aug The World of Ptavvs nov. N1 Known s.p.a.ce Sep Like Banquo's Ghost IF A2 not series Sep A Gift from Earth nov. N2 Known s.p.a.ce Oct The Meddler FSF A2 not series Oct All the Myriad Ways GAL A3 Time Travel - Wait It Out* FU A3/A6 Known s.p.a.ce 1969 Jan The Deadlier Weapon EQM A2 nSF Jan The Orgonleggers+ GAL A2/A7 Known s.p.a.ce Mar Exercise in Speculation+ The Theory and Practice of Teleportation GAL A3 nonfiction Apr Not Long before the End FSF A3 Warlock Sep Pa.s.serby GAL A3 Leshy Circuit Sep The Shape of s.p.a.ce coll. A2 Oct Get a Horse!+ FSF A4 svetz Nov Down in Flames TRM UC nonfiction 1970 May-Jul The Misspelled Magishun (w. D. Gerrold)+ IF N4 not series Jun There's a Wolf in My time Machine FSF A4 svetz Aug Leviathan PLB A4 svetz Oct Bird in the Hand FSF A4 svetz Oct Ringworld nov. N3 Known s.p.a.ce Dec Unfinished Story No. 1 FSF A3 Warlock 1971 Jun Inconstant Moon A3 A3 not series Jun Man of Steel--Woman of Kleenex A3 A3 nonfiction Jun Theory and Practice of Time Travel A3 A3 nonfiction Jun What Can You Say About Chocolate-Covered Manhole Covers? A3 A3 not series Jun Unfinished Story No. 2 A3 A3 not series Jun No Exit (w. Hank Stine) PAN UC not series Jun All the Myriad Ways coll. A3 Jul For a Foggy Night FSF A3 Time Travel Aug The Flying Sorcerers nov. N4 not series Nov Rammer GAL A5 Leshy Circuit - The Fourth Profession Q4 A5 Leshy Circuit 1972 Mar Cloak of Anarchy* ASF A6 Known s.p.a.ce Sep What Good Is a Gla.s.s Dagger? FSF A4 Warlock 1973 Jun The Alibi Machine VER A5 Teleportation Jun All the Bridges Rusting VER A5 Teleportation - Flash Crowd TTT UC Teleportafion Sep The Flight of the Horse coll. A4 Svetz Sep Protector nov. N5 Known s.p.a.ce - The Defenseless Dead TET A7 Known s.p.a.ce 1974 Jan The Hole Man ASF A5 not series Mar Bigger Than Worlds ASF A5 nonfiction Apr A Kind of Murder ASF A5 Teleportation - $16,940.00 AHM A5 nSF Jun The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club A5 A5 Teleportation Jun A Hole in s.p.a.ce coll. A5 various Aug Night on Mispek Moor VER UC Leshy Circuit Aug Plaything GAL UC not series Oct The Mote in G.o.d's Eye (w. Jerry Pournelle) nov. N6 not series Dec The Nonesuch FSF UC not series 1975 Jan The Borderland of Sol* ASF A6 Known s.p.a.ce Aug Tales of Known s.p.a.ce coll. A6 Known s.p.a.ce ARM EPC A7 Known s.p.a.ce 1976 Feb. The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton coll. A7 Known s.p.a.ce + t.i.tle changed for novelization or appearance in a collection; see "t.i.tle Changes," below.

t.i.tle Changes 1967 original becomes in Mar The Long Night Convergent Series A2 Jun The Adults (incorporated into) Protector N5 1968.

Feb-Apr s...o...b..at Cargo A Gift from Earth N2 Apr The Deceivers Intent to Deceive A6 1969.

Jan The Organleggers Death by Ecstasy A2/A7 Oct Get a Horse! The Flight of the Horse A4 1970.

May-Jul The Misspelled Magishun The Flying Sorcerers N4 Series Known s.p.a.ce (stories in chronological order of appearance; righthand column is latest publication) 1964.

The Coldest Place Tales of Known s.p.a.ce 1965 World of Ptavvs World of Ptavvs One Face The Shape of s.p.a.ce Becalmed in h.e.l.l Tales of Known s.p.a.ce 1966 Eye of an Octopus Tales of Known s.p.a.ce The Warriors Tales of Known s.p.a.ce Bordered in Black The Shape of s.p.a.ce Neutron Star Neutron Star How the Heroes Die Tales of Known s.p.a.ce At the Core Neutron Star A Relic of the Empire Neutron Star At the Bottom of a Hole Tales of Known s.p.a.ce 1967 The Soft Weapon Neutron Star Flatlander Neutron Star The Ethics of Madness Neutron Star Safe at Any Speed Tales of Known s.p.a.ce The Adults Protector The Handicapped Neutron Star The Jigsaw Man Tales of Known s.p.a.ce 1968 s...o...b..at Cargo+ A Gift from Earth The Deceivers+ Tales of Known s.p.a.ce Grendel Neutron Star Neutron Star Neutron Star There Is a Tide Tales of Known s.p.a.ce World of Ptavvs World of Ptavvs A Gift from Earth A Gift from Earth Wait It Out Tales of Known s.p.a.ce 1969 The Organleggers+ The Shape of s.p.a.ce 1970 Ringworld Ringworld 1972.

Cloak of Anarchy Tales of Known s.p.a.ce 1973 Protector Protector The Defenseless Dead Ten Tomorrows 1975.

The Borderland of Sol Tales of Known s.p.a.ce Tales of Known s.p.a.ce Tales of Known s.p.a.ce ARM Epic 1976.

The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton LESHY CIRCUIT - Pa.s.serby (1969) All the Myriad WaYs Rammer (1971) A Hole in s.p.a.ce The Fourth Profession (1972) Quark 4 Night on Mispek Moor (1974) Vertex, August 1974 SVETZ.

Got a Horse! (1969)+ The Flight of the Horse Bird In the Hand (1970) The Flight of the Horse Leviathan (1970) The Flight of the Horse There's a Wolf in My Time Machine (1970) The Flight of the Horse Death in a Cage (1973) The Flight of the Horse TELEPORTATION By Mind Alone (1966) If, June Flash Crowd (1973) Three Trips In Time and s.p.a.ce The Alibi Machine (1973) A Hole in s.p.a.ce All the Bridges Rusting (1973) A Hole in s.p.a.ce A Kind of Murder (1974) A Hole in s.p.a.ce The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club (1974) A Hole in s.p.a.ce TIME TRAVEL-PARALLEL UNIVERSE.