Part 12 (1/2)
”Except that this time, Bey, I intend to understand what you are doing, 'ast time it was a mystery to me. I've had the opportunity to 'ook at the computer system in the past few weeks, and I suspect that I grasp the concepts proper'y for the first time in my 'ife.” La.r.s.en rubbed at the ropy hair on his rounded skull with a bony protuberance that projected from the second joint of his left upper limb. ”I hope, though, that this time you do not want to drag me through O'd City-I wou'd have some prob'ems carrying my 'ife-support packages with me.”
”If I'm right, we'll have to go a lot further than that,” said Wolf calmly. He settled his percomp on his knee and began to call out displays. ”Let's start at the very beginning. That means going back more than ten years.”
”Wait a minute, 'ing was sti' Capman ten years ago,” protested La.r.s.en.
”He was both. I thought that if Ling was an expert on the Solar System, he'd have had to write papers on it-real papers-and that meant that others would have referred in their papers to his work. I began by scanning the citation index in the Tycho City reference files. It wasn't easy. I suspect that a lot of references to Ling's work have been deleted, but I managed to trace him. I even obtained a display of an actual paper, published nearly ten years ago. So his interest in Loge-that was discussed in the paper-is real, and it goes back long before Capman was forced to disappear. Any deduction that you'd care to make based on that, John?”
La.r.s.en made a gesture like a shrug, a rippling upward movement of his upper body. ”I can make the obvious one. Capman had known for a 'ong time that he might get caught one day. He knew he'd have to prepare his retreat in advance.
Somehow, he estab'ished the character of 'ing, and his interest in 'oge was something that he had to deve'op for his own convenience, probab'y because it was important to his continued experiments.”
”That's my conclusion exactly.” Wolf entered a confirming note to his file.
”So then I took a closer look at Ling's publications. That's when I found something a little different from the way that Park Green had described it to us. Ling was an expert on Loge, that's true-but if you look at his publications, the ones that he tried to cover up in the literature, you find that Loge is the minor part of it.”
La.r.s.en nodded. ”That is no surprise. It is hard to re'ate his interest in form-change to any simp'e interest in 'oge.”
”He's interested in the Asteroid Belt. He wrote a series of papers about its formation-and he did a really big series of papers on some specific asteroids.
If you catalog all his work, only a few deal with Loge, and most of them concern one group of asteroids. Did you ever hear of the Egyptian Cl.u.s.ter?”
La.r.s.en nodded. ”Yes. If you asked me that a month ago, I'd have to say no, but I can absorb information faster now, and I have had a 'ot of time to spend with the termina' here. Most of the free hours when you were not giving me tests, I have been catching up on my reading.”
He leaned back and closed his l.u.s.trous eyes. ”The Egyptian C'uster. I think I can quote the re'evant texts verbatim for you. 'A group of about one hundred asteroids, with orbits that are different from a' others in the Be't. They 'iein an orbit p'ane a'most sixty degrees from the ec'ip-tic.' 'et me see, what e'se?”
La.r.s.en opened his eyes again for a moment. ”Excuse me, whi'e I scan my interna' fi'es.” He was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. ”Here we are.
What are you interested in? Members of the C'uster, ma.s.ses, orbits?”
”How about history.”
”No.” La.r.s.en grimaced, new wrinkles appearing in the gray skin. ”That is an area of the fi'es that I have not read yet.”
”That's a relief. I was beginning to think that you knew everything.” Wolf consulted his output displays. ”Store this away. The cl.u.s.ter was discovered by accident, in 2086, during a deep radar search program. They were surveying the Halo, looking for power kernels. First visited during the Outer System search.
According to the Ling paper that I found, all the asteroids in the cl.u.s.ter were formed out of one piece of Loge, after the main explosion of the planet.
Most of them are small, five kilometers or less, but there are a few bigger ones.”
”That much I know. The data bank 'ists a' the main members. Five of them are bigger than eight ki'ometers in mean diameter-Thoth, Osiris, Bast, Set, and Anubis. No transuranics on any of them. They must have been formed from a piece of 'oge's core. There is a mining sett'ement on Isis, and another on Horus, main'y for the rare earths. No permanent sett'ements on any of them.
They seem 'ike a very du' group. Why the big interest in them?”
”I'm getting to that,” said Wolf. ”You're right, they are a remote lot. It's not the distance, but they're so far out of the ecliptic that it takes a fair amount of fuel to match orbits with them. That's why they aren't a good commercial prospect, even though the lodes of minerals are rich, especially on Horus. The one I'm interested in isn't one you've mentioned. What do you know about Pearl? Anything in your head on that one?”
”Hm. I think I need to go back to my references and dig deeper. I have a 'itt'e information, but there must be more. Pear' used to be ca'ed Atmu. That fits in with the idea that it is part of the Egyptian C'uster, but I don't know why it was renamed.”
”That's because you've never seen a picture of it. You're quite right; it was named Atmu when it was first discovered. A good name for one of the cl.u.s.ter; oldest of the Egyptian G.o.ds. But the first expedition there, forty years ago, changed the name. Other factors seemed more important than the mythology.
Pearl is quite small, less than two kilometers across-but it's an odd shape; a perfect sphere of white, fused gla.s.s.”
”Wait a moment, Bey.” La.r.s.en was shaking his great head. ”That sounds wrong to me. If it is made of g'a.s.s, it must have been part of the outer crust of 'oge, near enough to the surface to be fu' of si'icates.”
Wolf looked up from his records and shook his head admiringly. ”It took me a while to come to that conclusion, John. You're getting too smart for your own good. I finally decided it was part of the outer core, deep enough to be very hot and near enough the surface to have the silicates. It's a very small piece of Loge. The diameter is listed as 1.83 kilometers. Now, do your records include a ma.s.s figure for it?”
La.r.s.en's broad skull and upper torso dipped forward in a nod. ”I show a ma.s.s of about one bi'ion tons. That means-” He paused and looked up at the ceiling of the tank. ”That can't possib'y be right. Un'ess ... ”
Wolf was nodding. ”Go on, John, let the calculator run free for a moment.
You're heading in the right direction.”
La.r.s.en shrugged his heavy shoulders, again the upward rippling movement of the body. ”With that diameter, it must have a density of 'ess than thirty-fifty ki'os per cubic meter. Fused si'ica g'a.s.ses ma.s.s at 'east two tons per cubic meter. So ... it must be ho'ow.”
”Quite right.” Bey was nodding his agreement. ”It's as thin as an eggsh.e.l.l.
The references give the inner diameter as about 1.7 kilometers. Pearl is nothing more than a big, delicate gla.s.s bubble, blown by trapped gases inside the fragment when Loge exploded. It's cla.s.sified now as one of the protectedasteroids. The USF declared it one of the natural wonders of the system. No one is allowed to land on it-but I think that rule is being broken.”
Wolf paused. He felt that there had been an inconsistency in La.r.s.en's replies, but he couldn't put his finger on it. After a few moments, he went on. La.r.s.en continued to sit there motionless, his luminous eyes unblinking.
”Let me give you one more fact, John, then you can tell me what you make of all this. Nine years ago, Karl Ling wrote twelve separate papers on the structure, formation, and stability of Pearl. All references to those papers have been deleted-I had to dig out the information by indirect references. Do you recognize the pattern? It's the one that we saw with Capman's medical records back in Central Hospital.”
La.r.s.en nodded calmly. ”I see where you are heading. You think that Pear' ho'ds some specia' secret, something that keys you to find Capman. It is p'ausib'e, Bey, but I see one prob'em. You are suggesting that Capman managed to create the persona of 'ing, at the same time as he was the director of Centra'
Hospita'. How cou'd he do that?”
Wolf stood up and began to pace up and down in front of the viewing panel. His manner was tense and nervous. ”I checked that, too. All Ling's early papers show an Earth address. His other records show him living on Earth until six years ago, then moving to the Moon. That's the USF files-but the Earth ID files don't show anything for him at all. I suspect that the USF chromosome ID they have is faked. One more thing, then I'm done. Capman's travel records at Central Hospital for the final two years before he was forced to run for it show that he was off-Earth far more than ever before. He always seemed to have a good reason for it-hospital business-but he would have had no trouble making up a reason; he was the boss.”
La.r.s.en was nodding his head and trunk slowly, eyes unblinking.
”And so, your conc'usion, Bey? What do you propose to do next?”
Wolf stopped his pacing. His manner was resolute. ”First, I'm heading for the Moon. I have to know more about Pearl, and I have to know why Capman was interested in it. I'll be leaving tomorrow. I don't like to leave you out of it, but you're in good hands here. Maria will do all that you need if you want to begin reversion.”
”Of course, that is no prob'em. But one thing before you go, Bey.” La.r.s.en was looking directly at Wolf, his gaze steady and penetrating. ”You ought to ask yourse'f one other question. Why do you pursue Robert Capman with such zea'?
Even if you think he is a monster, why is he so important to you?”
Wolf, who was turning to leave, was stopped in midstride. He swung quickly round to face La.r.s.en through the viewing panel. ”Tokhmir! You know that, John.
There were two other projects in Capman's background at the hospital. We only traced two of them, Proteus and Timeset. What about the others? I want to know what Lungfish and Ja.n.u.s are. They're still complete mysteries. That's what fascinates me about Capman.”
His tone was defensive, not quite steady. La.r.s.en looked at him quietly for a few moments.
”Ca'm down, Bey. They are mysteries, I agree. But is that sufficient reason? I don't think so. We've had unso'ved mysteries before in the Office of Form Contro'. You managed to 'eave them a'one after a whi'e, didn't you? Remember when we were ba'ked on the form changes in Antarctica? We were pu'ed off that, and we hated it-but you managed to 'ive with it after a month or two. This has chased you, and you've chased Capman, for more than four years. Think about it, Bey. Do you have to keep up the hunt?”
Wolf's eyes were introspective and thoughtful. He rubbed his fingers absently along the seam of his loose jacket.