"Somebody called Palomec Jindriss," the building's message processor replied. "He says you wanted to talk to him."

"Don't let him go. I'll take it as soon as I get to the lab."

Jindriss was older than Sarvik had imagined. Or maybe that was what being an internationally prestigious scientist did to people, Sarvik thought as he confronted the image waiting on the screen. It was of a man of around middle age, his crest thin and graying prematurely, with furrows that imparted a permanently worried look to both sides of his head. Even the screen seemed to capture a bleak light in his tired, pink-rimmed eyes.

"Naturally, my sister has told me of your conversation," Jindriss said. "What you wanted to talk to us about, I really don't know. ButI would very much like to talk to you, Dr. Sarvik. You can't imagine the significance of what you've stumbled on. I can't go into the details from here, but suppose I fly over from Vayso. My schedule is completely flexible. When would you be available?"

No preliminaries. None of the caution and probing that would have been only prudent or any play for notching up an opening advantage. Perhaps that was simply the way academics were, Sarvik thought. For a moment he was too perplexed by the directness to know how to respond. His confusion must have shown.

"Oh, I suppose you're surprised by my failure to follow the customary social maneuverings,"

Jindriss said. "I don't have the time for that kind of thing, I'm afraid, or the disposition. It may strike you as naive, but I urge you not to pay it undue attention. I can a.s.sure you that none of it will matter for very long. In fact, before very much longer nothing will matter at all."

17.

Jindriss caught a late afternoon flight from the island of Vayso, where ASH's headquarters was located, and arrived in Pygal that evening. An aircab brought him to Sarvik's house on the outskirts of the city. Formed as an attachment on the underside of a large ovoid balloon moored beside an inlet of water, it was a fitting abode for the abrupt swings of mood that Sarvik was p.r.o.ne to. When he felt sociable, he stayed down by the anchoring pylon near the water's edge. When not wanting to be bothered with anyone, he would reel out a thousand feet or so of line and sail up into the clouds until the rest of the Borijan race chose to become bearable again.

Since Palomec Jindriss was expected, the house was down, and he didn't have to be carried up in the elevator capsule that rode the mooring cable. Sarvik showed him into the living room, which was at the nose end. It had windows the length of three walls, at present commanding a view of the approach road flanked by scrubby trees and garage structures and the choppy gray waters of the inlet flecked white by a gusty breeze. The furnishings were a collection of oddments picked at various times for utility, with no thought for coordination or balance of style. It wouldn't have mattered all that much, anyway, since most of the designs and colors were obscured by scattered papers, boxes of folders, and untidy piles of journals and books. A desk with screens occupied one corner, and a pot of graff simmered on a worktop conveniently close by.

They exchanged greetings, and Sarvik hung up Jindriss's topcoat. "Something to eat, maybe?"

Unused to academics, he was not sure if a show of unearned courtesy was in order so soon. The best thing was to play it safe.

"No, thank you all the same, Dr. Sarvik. I eat sparingly these days. My lunch was quite sufficient."

Jindriss was as gaunt in full figure as his image had conveyed. His frame, though tall, showed a stoop, as if all the world's worries were piled on his shoulders. He had on a somber two-piece suit of dark gray with muted stripes that was dated and hung too loosely, suggesting that he had lost weight.

"A graff, then?" Sarvik said. Jindriss accepted, and they sat down, the visitor in one of the two central recliners, Sarvik clearing a s.p.a.ce for himself on a padded couch below the windows in one of the room's long walls.

"I had a friend who used to live in one of these," Jindriss said, gesturing vaguely at the surroundings.

"His cable broke one night, and they all woke up halfway to Xerse."

Sarvik started to smile, but Jindriss's expression remained deadpan. Sarvik changed his to a grimace on one side and a questioning look on the other.

Jindriss, however, was already off the subject. "Leradil told me your account of Farworlds Manufacturing's plans to convert Searchers into generation craft."

Well, one certainly couldn't fault academics for not getting straight to the point, Sarvik thought. Not this one, anyway. Jindriss could have made some initial conversation by saying a little about the kind of place he lived in, with some observation on the differences between academic and connivance life, or even a word to say that he knew the background of Sarvik's dealings with his sister. Or perhaps, from what he had said on the phone, Jindriss didn't attach much importance to discussing things like that.

Sarvik replied with equal terseness. "They believe the time has come for Borijans to go out and begin exploring the galaxy." His tone and expressions conveyed thathe hadn't said it. The people at Farworlds had.

"But you don't seem to think so."

"I think there's more to it."

"Why?"

"Well . . ." Sarvik hesitated in confusion once again. He was not used to direct demands for information, with no reciprocation offered or reasons being given.

Jindriss raised a hand, nodding. "I understand that this is not the way in which you are accustomedto going about things. But believe me, the importance of what I think you've gotten yourself mixed up in makes all of that irrelevant."

"You'd better tell me what, then," Sarvik said.

"If I were not prepared to, I would hardly be here," Jindriss answered. "But can we take it a step at a time, please? Now, what madeyou suspect that there might be more to it?"

Sarvik ma.s.saged his brow with his fingers and sighed. There wasn't any one thing he could single out. A lot of it was simply an instinct developed from long experience dealing with people like the Farworlds directors he had met. A glance here, an intonation there, somebody's change of posture . . .

In the end he said, "It's all too much-too big a change, too suddenly."

Jindriss nodded that this was what he had expected. "Go on."

"All of Borijan thinking about offworld habitats has been focused within the Kovar System for over a century. n.o.body has ever been able to come up with even the beginnings of a policy for going outside that anyone thought workable." Sarvik waved a hand in the air. "If such att.i.tudes change at all, they change gradually, over generations. But this has all happened at once. There has been nothing in recent years to prepare anyone for it, yet the Farworlds directors are in such a hurry that they're haggling over days. Conclusion: They know something that they're not telling. My nose said it was something big. And now your being here, and on the same day I talked to your sister, tells me that I was right."

"How did you connect any of it to ASH?" Jindriss inquired.

Sarvik sat back, interlacing his fingers in a leisurely movement. "I don't see why the details of that should be pertinent. The importance of whatever Farworlds and ASH are involved in can't depend on how I came to know what I know, now, can it?"

"You discovered that ASH had infiltrated Leradil into Farworlds." Jindriss contemplated Sarvik for a second or two, as if reflecting on what that meant. "You must have access to some extraordinary code-breaking resources."

"Ah, well, then, you've just said it, haven't you?" Sarvik told him. At the same time he permitted himself a satisfied smirk that said he hoped Jindriss didn't expect him to divulge details.

But Jindriss went on. "And that's why Farworlds wants you in. They need top-level computing expertise. Is it for the generation ships?"

"Partly. And to handle the kind of operations they'll need to support the settlements when they get out there," Sarvik replied.

"How feasible is it?" Jindriss asked. "Can they do it, do you think? Could these generation ships work?" He gave the question a ring of finality, as if this had been his main object all along. It was a strange thing to ask. The problems with interstellar migration had always had to do with Borijan politics and mutual suspicions, not technology. Now, suddenly, Jindriss was speaking as if only the technology mattered.

"I'm sure that they could, in principle," Sarvik answered. "After all, consider for yourself: the Searchers have been going out there for long enough. It's obvious that such ships can be built."

Jindriss gave him a penetrating look, as if inviting him to reflect on what he had just said. "Yes, they have, haven't they? And initiating self-sustaining, fully automated operations of astonishing complexity.

So tell me, what exactly is this more advanced computing that they say they'd need for the generation ships? What would it be for? Surely, what they've got already is advanced enough for anything they could reasonably want, wouldn't you say?"

That point had occurred to Sarvik, too, but he was hardly going to tell Farworlds that he really didn't think they needed him for anything. If they thought they did and were willing to make a present of sensitive inside information, then fine. He'd listen.

He replied evasively. "It's difficult to say without knowing more of what their plans are. I'd have to reserve judgment on that for the time being."

Jindriss put his fingers together in front of him and inclined his head to one side. "Just suppose that building the generation ships was not the end of it at all," he said. He waited a moment for that to sink in."Suppose that the real object was to re-create from minimum beginnings a complete Borijan culture, preserving as much of our knowledge and sciences as possible but with no falling back on Turle or any of the rest of the Kovar System for support. Complete isolation. No recourse to any help if things became difficult. Wouldthat make a difference, do you think? It would mean getting absolutely the best technology you could lay hands on, of every description. You'd need lots of advanced computing then, wouldn't you?"

The questions were getting odder. Sarvik could only spread his hands. "Well, if you put it that way, of course I have to say yes. But-" Sarvik cut himself short with a sigh, deciding that he was weary of this interrogation. "Look, I think it's time you told me what this is all about." He leaned back on the couch.

Jindriss stared at him for what started to feel like a long time, as if knowing that the moment had come, yet wanting to put it off just a little longer. Evading the issue to the last, he asked, "You know my field, I presume. Leradil told you?"

"Stellar physics, yes. Stellar physics and evolution." Sarvik's voice took on a discernible edge of impatience.

Jindriss nodded. His face seemed to get longer, and the bleakness to intensify. "As I'm sure you're aware, our parent star, Kov, is what's known as a common yellow dwarf. It so happens, however, that Kov exists as an oddity inside a local cl.u.s.ter of younger, more ma.s.sive hot blue-white stars, all of which formed at about the same time-as stellar time scales go, that is. Those are the kinds of stars which, at the end of their lifetimes, explode into supernovas. A supernova radiates at typically 200 million times the brilliance of Kov." Jindriss waited until he saw from the protest writing itself across both Sarvik's epaulets that Sarvik was already guessing what was coming. He nodded. "Yes, Dr. Sarvik. The initial instabilities that forewarn of thermonuclear runaway have started to appear in several of our nearest neighbors. Supernovas are rare occurrences in any galaxy. It seems that we have been singled out for the dubious privilege of experiencing a barrage of them." He paused, bringing a second eye to bear on Sarvik, but for the moment Sarvik could do no more than return a numbed look.

Finally he managed to respond in a voice that had lost all its smugness. "This is quite certain?"

"Oh, absolutely."

"How-how long do we have?"

Jindriss shrugged resignedly. "Not long. Very probably we should have gone out into the galaxy before, but it's of little consequence now. By our calculations, it will begin, at the most, within six years.

Very possibly in as little as two."

18.

Why had Jindriss told Sarvik all this?

From his reaction to Leradil's news, it was clear that Jindriss had known nothing of Farworlds'

plans to build generation ships. But from the indications of ongoing communication between Farworlds and ASH that GENIUS had uncovered, there were others at ASH who evidently did. The implication had been as obvious to Jindriss as it was to Sarvik as soon as Jindriss mentioned the supernovas: An inner clique, presumably drawn from the controlling factions of both organizations, had concocted the scheme as a desperate bid to get themselves away to a new beginning before the great irradiating happened.

Having gotten that far, Jindriss wasn't exactly sure what he wanted. In part, he had come to Sarvik out of a need for undisputable corroboration of what Leradil had said. And partly it was self-preservation. Farworlds was sufficiently impressed by Sarvik's abilities to want him in on the project, and to this end had been prepared to reveal at least a part of the story to him. Jindriss had enabled Sarvik to put it in perspective by telling him the rest. Therefore, Sarvik owed Jindriss. Jindriss's unstated hope had to be that through the weight Sarvik evidently carried with Farworlds, coupled withthe threat of exposure that the two of them were now in a position to brandish, they might gain places for themselves in the ark. And as for Leradil? She had known as little about Farworlds' plans for generation-ship lifeboats as Palomec had, and as little about the reasons for them as Sarvik. But she had been the instrument by which they had put the two parts of the story together. This-apart, of course, from her being Palomec's sister-was enough to earn her a place in whatever they managed to make from the situation.

Sarvik's decision, after a lot of thought and endless arguing with GENIUS, was to tackle the situation head-on. He called Indrigon at Farworlds and told him that he had his answer.

"Already, Dr. Sarvik?" It was still well inside the seven days they had agreed on. Indrigon looked pleased. "So the prospect of becoming a part of the greatest exploration project ever attempted proved irresistible, eh?" One side of his face took on a cautionary look. "Of course, you understand that the termination of your present arrangements would have to be official and final before we could admit you any further into confidentiality." The deal had been that Sarvik would have to finish with Replimaticon.

They obviously didn't mean to leave him in a situation where he could go bargaining elsewhere.

But none of that mattered now. Sarvik replied bluntly, "There's no need for any more games with half-truths, Mr. Indrigon. I know the real reason behind the project and why it's so urgent."

Indrigon's expressions changed to a disappointed frown, as if he had expected better. "Now you're pushing us too far, Dr. Sarvik." Clearly, he thought that Sarvik was trying an ill-timed bluff.

"You think so?" Sarvik said, maintaining an easy look. "Surely you haven't forgotten that I specialize in finding out what I'm not supposed to know. After all, isn't that what attracted your interest in the first place?"

Indrigon looked disbelieving, then suspicious. And then both sides of his face went into agitated spasms that betrayed uncertainty. Sarvik put any doubts to rest by saying as much as was prudent over a net link, even on an encrypted channel. "Life is going to get distinctly unhealthy in this neighborhood, I hear. It might be a good time to think about moving on, wouldn't you agree? Shall we say . . . maybe in as little as two years? Now have I got your attention?"

Sarvik had guessed that Indrigon was one of the inner group at Farworlds who knew the situation.

Indrigon's mute incredulity now was enough to confirm it. Sarvik wasn't so sure about the other two he had met, Lequasha and Umbrik. There could be room only for so many on a generation ship, after all- along with favored relatives, friends, hangers-on, and others with necessary skills. But Sarvik didn't think that anyone at Farworlds had discovered Leradil Jindriss's connection with ASH, and therefore Indrigon could have no idea how Sarvik had gotten the information. All anyone at Farworlds would know was that in two days flat Sarvik had penetrated the inner group's most closely protected secret.

One solution they could resort to, of course, would be to put out a contract to get rid of him, which was sometimes the way things went when a tangle of overlapping deals led to so many conflicts and contradictions that resolution was impossible. But Sarvik was prepared to gamble against it. Such a drastic answer would deprive them of any chance of benefiting from his expertise and the resources he commanded, which had been their objective to begin with-and which he had just shown to be even more potent than they had realized previously. He didn't think they would throw it away now. And he was correct. The response came within hours of Sarvik's call: no teleconference hookups this time; Farworlds would fly him to Xerse to talk in person.

He was met at the airport at Gweths by a flymobile sent to collect him and was flown to a pad high on the Farworlds Tower. There he met Indrigon again, along with a number of other insiders on the project-not in a staff relaxation park halfway up the building, but in the executive offices of the topmost pinnacle. For this time all of them knew thathe was dictating the terms. His terms were simple: from himself, a total commitment to developing the kinds of systems they were going to need at the other end; from them, places for himself and up to a dozen a.s.sociates in the generation-ship program, which he learned was code-named Breakout. To comply with his side of the arrangement, naturally he would need full access to Farworlds' files of design data, logistics planning, and future development schedules for the entire project."Who are these dozen a.s.sociates, Dr. Sarvik?" Indrigon asked him.

Sarvik shrugged vaguely. "I'm not sure yet. Relatives? Friends? You're not the only ones who would want to bring a small part of your own world with you, you know. I'd like to think I could preserve a few familiar faces, too."

It was what anyone would have expected. The terms were agreed upon.

19.

There was little point in worrying about immortality if the world was about to end-not as something of immediate concern, anyway. But the thought of reviving that project later, to extend existence indefinitely in some unimaginable future life on some distant star, was another matter.

Accordingly, Sarvik wound up his relationship with Replimaticon on terms that Pezamin Greel and Marduk Alifrenz, his two accomplices there, found surprisingly generous considering the abruptness of Sarvik's announcement. His reason was that he wanted to leave the door open to renew his a.s.sociation with them later. Since they were already familiar with his immortality project and its technicalities, he had them in mind for two of the slots he'd been a.s.signed in Breakout, but he didn't want to reveal anything about that at present.

Moving house to Gweths was easy enough. All he had to do was rent a bolt-on motor unit for his balloon house, secure the gla.s.sware and other loose items, and wait for the wind to blow in the right direction. GENIUS 5 transferred itself via satellite links, leaving an instruction in the Replimaticon system that would erase the original copy on receipt of a signal from the other end. Borijans had often debated the question of ident.i.ty and how they would deal with the problem of creating multiple copies if they ever reached the stage of being able to transmit themselves from place to place electronically. As open-minded about it as they tried to be, most were simply unable to feel any sense of continuity with a hypothetical replica of themselves happening to come into existence possibly millions of miles away. If the original was obliterated in the process,they would have ceased to exist, whatever else the copy might think. But an intelligence that had been electronic from its beginnings apparently suffered from no such qualms.

Sarvik found a leafy, sheltered valley with a lake to moor his house by, ten miles inland from the Farworlds Tower, and GENIUS took up residence in some of the most sophisticated hardware on Turle. Gradually, as Sarvik became more engrossed in the details of Breakout, familiarity led to acceptance, and in time the underlying morbidness of what made the undertaking necessary oppressed his thoughts less. As he applied himself to the task, his thoughts of all the worldly cares that had ruled his life and were no longer important faded. In their place, he found himself entertaining exciting visions of a future with whole new dimensions of experience and undreamed-of possibilities. It was only when GENIUS got to examining the Farworlds plans in detail that Sarvik got his first premonition that Breakout might not, in the time available, be feasible at all.

A vertical line divided GENIUS's screen into two halves. One side was empty except for two small designs: one a wrench crossed on top of a gear cog, the other a symbolic representation of one of the robot freighters that brought products back from the remote manufacturing complexes. The other side was filled with a hierarchy of symbols arranged in descending levels, with connecting lines showing the dependencies of the higher groupings on the lower. At the top was an icon of one of the proposed generation ships, and immediately beneath it, a short line of figures representing Borijans. To the left below them a cloud formation with slanting lines of rain represented an atmosphere, with sublevels below that branching off into a tree of chemical formulas and symbols for temperature, pressure, physical dynamics, and all the other properties essential to supporting life. Another tree alongside it depicted a city habitat with its supporting agencies and services. And a third, to the right, showed food supplies, broken down into categories of animal, agricultural, and synthetic, and below them, depictions ofirrigation, microorganism populations, soil chemistry, and other factors they depended on. As Sarvik watched, a bewildering web of cross-connections added themselves to show how climatic factors would affect the soil, how the rocks would affect the oceans, and how just about nothing could change without altering everything else. GENIUS's voice narrated: "Setting up a colony of Borijans is going to be a more complicated business than these people seem to have realized. It's not just a question of upgrading the Searcher operations, which is all they've had any experience of. A manufacturing complex that just has to send robot ships back to Kov is pretty straightforward by comparison. Machines just need a ball of rock solid enough to plant foundations on, and environmental conditions short of the extremes that would upset electronics. But this carbon chemistry that you guys are stuck with is something else. First you have to have breathable atmospheres, and all the ingredients and physical parameters have got to be just right. Then you need watery surfaces with a tolerable chemical mix, a benign climate, and not too much or too little gravity. Then there's all this food to think about, because you run on energy from slow oxidation instead of conduction. The complexity of how it all interrelates is horrendous. The truth is, n.o.body knows if what they're talking about comes anywhere close to reality. The simulations are all based on a.s.sumptions and unsubstantiated theories. There haven't been any crewed interstellar missions to test anything. You judge a kitchen by what comes out of it, not what goes in."

"No one's expecting to design a planet," Sarvik said. "All we need to get started is something reasonably close to the way this one is. And surely they've got enough data on that."

GENIUS presented a view of star-speckled emptiness receding to infinity. "But it narrows down the choice of worlds dramatically and makes the probability of finding one a correspondingly protracted process. n.o.body knows what percentage of worlds is likely to meet all the requirements or, therefore, the amount of time it would take to find one. All the figures that have been used are guesses." A picture appeared of a Searcher modified as proposed, bristling with question marks. "So, for how long should the essential systems on the generation ships be designed to function? n.o.body knows. What mission duration should be a.s.sumed? Ditto. What are the limits of the presently available technologies? You tell me."

Sarvik slumped back in his chair. "Surely not. It can't really be that bad." It was a feeble response.

The shock of what GENIUS was telling him was still registering.

"You don't want to hear my estimate of the odds of it working," GENIUS told him.

Sarvik stared numbly into the distance through the console panel in front of him. "Do you think this explains why Palomec Jindriss was so concerned about technology the first time I talked to him?" he asked at last.

"Not my department. I don't do wet-brain psychology," GENIUS answered.

Sarvik pulled himself together slowly and exhaled a long breath. "So, what's your summary a.s.sessment of the whole thing?" he asked. "Is Breakout a feasible solution?"

"In the time that's available? No, I don't think it is," GENIUS replied. A picture appeared on the screen of a trash basket stuffed with rolled-up plans.

Sarvik flew to Hoditia and rented a flymobile to take him across to the island of Vayso, planning to see how much of this was new to Palomec Jindriss. Jindriss met him in the roof-level reception lobby of the ASH headquarters building. He had reserved a small meeting room by the main library where they could talk privately.