Hogan, James P Giants 5 Mission to Minerva

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and flattered. Danchekker and the two Thuriens responded with appropriate
pleasantries.
"Duncan and Sandy went off to explore the ship just before you came in,"
Danchekker told Hunt. Duncan and Sandy had been dating cozily since their
return from the expedition to Jevlen. "It seemed like an excellent idea. We
were just about to do likewise. Would you care to join us?"
"Just imagine, an alien starship!" Mildred enthused.
"Of course. How could I refuse?" Chien agreed. Hunt declined, saying that he
had only left Sonnebrandt for a moment; in any case, he had seen enough of
alien starships. After exchanging a few parting words and seeing them on their
way, he went back to the other table.
"So you never married, I think you told me once?" Sonnebrandt said, leaning
back and taking in the room.
"Never did."
"Never found the right woman, eh?"
"Oh, yes, pretty close, once or twice. Only trouble was, they were still
looking for the right man. How about you?"
"Oh, I was once, some years ago now, but it didn't work out. They can be such
demanding creatures. I thought marrying them would be enough. I didn't know
you were supposed to live with them as well."
They talked about life in UNSA's scientific divisions compared to German
academia. Sonnebrandt had worked for a while with the large European
nucleonics facility near Geneva. In fact, he had met a number of Ganymeans
from the Shapieron then, when they were accommodated in Switzerland during
their stay on Earth. Although Hunt had been around at the time, their paths
evidently hadn't crossed.
Sonnebrandt's work there had been on Multiverse interference experiments and
the teleportation of quantum-entangled systems. At first, it had seemed to
many people that this had to be the key to explaining how the Jevlenese ships
had been hurled back to ancient Minerva, and more recently, following the
media furor over the revelation at Owen's UNSA retirement dinner, the
projection of the relay into this universe from whichever other one it had
come from. But Hunt and Sonnebrandt agreed that quantum teleportation of the
kind that was familiar in Terran laboratories and which the Thuriens used
routinely in various ways wasn't the answer. The problem, in essence, was the
impossibility in principle of being able to synchronize in advance any
receiving apparatus at the other end, which was what enabled such effects to
be achieved. Transporting to another universe would require something
"self-contained" that could be "projected" like sending a message in a bottle
as opposed to transmitting to a tuned radio that was already there. But how
did you get a bottle to go where you wanted it to, and then know enough to be
able to announce itself when it was there? Clearly, a lot of onboard
capability was indicated. But their counterparts in at least one place had
managed to work it out.
"We'll start making progress all of a sudden when VISAR gets properly
involved," Hunt said.
"You think so?"
"That would be my guess if I had to."
"What do you mean, 'properly'?" Sonnebrandt asked.
"New insights and intuition still seem to be a biological specialty," Hunt
answered. "We don't know how we do it, so it's kind of difficult to specify
the essence of it to a machine, however much it might be wrapped up in
associative nets and learning algorithms. Induction doesn't come easily even
to a Thurien system. But once you've given it the idea, it will run with it
and tell you in minutes what does and doesn't follow from your assumptions.
VISAR did an astounding job of authenticity faking the Pseudowar that panicked
Broghuilio's Jevlenese. But it was us who suggested it in the first place."
"Who? You mean you and Chris Danchekker?"
"Oh, there was a bunch more involved, too, at the time. But all Terrans, yes.
The Thuriens admitted that something like that would never have occurred to
them. Devious thinking and deception isn't their thing."
Sonnebrandt touched a finger to the avco disk behind his ear. "Just out of
curiosity, is VISAR tapping into this conversation?"
Hunt shook his head. "It doesn't eavesdrop. Thuriens are finicky about things
like that."
"How do you know when it's online and when it isn't?"
"You learn to cue it. It's a knack that you pick up."
Sonnebrandt rubbed his fingertip lightly over the device, tracing its outline.
"This isn't the Thurien total-sensory thing that people talk about, right?" he
checked. "It's just an audio-visual subset. That's what avco means."
"You've never tried the full Thurien system?" Hunt was surprised. For some
reason he imagined all major scientific establishments like the Max Planck
Institute as having a Thurien neurocoupler or two hidden away somewhere. But
Sonnebrandt shook his head. Hunt flipped the mental switch to raise VISAR. "I
assume you've got couplers installed at various locations around the place?"
he checked.
"Sure. It's a Thurien ship. Comes with all the fixings."
"Josef's never used one. Think we could give him an introductory ride?"
"No problem," VISAR replied. "Finish your beers, and I'll guide you to the
nearest ones that are available right now."
CHAPTER SIX
Thurien engineering tended not to be intrusive or ostentatious. VISAR directed
Hunt and Sonnebrandt along one of the corridors from the Terran lounge area of
the ship to a space divided into a number of partitioned cubicles. They
entered one of them to find what looked like a fairly standard padded
recliner, with panels of multicolored crystal mosaics positioned behind and
alongside the headrest in a manner vaguely suggestive of sound baffles in an
acoustic room. An array of video and other sensors covered the area from high
on the walls and other directions to capture the subject from all angles for
an accurate virtual surrogate to be produced. Otherwise, apart from a
convenience shelf to one side, coat hanger, and a mirror, the cubicle was
bare. A pattern of intriguing artistic designs relieved the monotony of the
walls. "That's it. Take a seat," Hunt said, gesturing.
Sonnebrandt looked around, evidently mildly surprised. "What, no flickering
lights and forests of wires? You don't stick your head in a helmet, or
anything like that?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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