Jintao Page 23

  “What’s so funny?” asked von Ang.

  McGowen dipped a chip right into the bowl of guacamole and took a bite.

  “Okay, I see,” said von Ang. “When in Rome.”

  “Reminds me of a time, back in the day,” said McGowen. “We were on leave from the RAF and we found this little Tex-Mex bar in Chelsea. The guacamole was really good. One of our crew was this kid who’d never been far from home. He’d never eaten guac before and he couldn’t get enough. He went through two bowls of it. Well, let me tell you, the next night we tied up at a sushi bar in Soho. We were sitting there, drinking sake at the bar, waiting for the sushi man to fix us some fish, when he reaches over and puts mounds of wasabi in front of each of us. After a minute or two I look at the kid and he’s gone all red in the face, sweat rolling down his cheeks. I look down and see all his wasabi is gone! The poor fool thought it was guac and gobbled it up!”

  With a smirk, Quan said, “Good for the sinuses.”

  “Yup. Did him up right.” McGowen laughed.

  After draining his cup of sangria, von Ang poured himself another cup.

  “So, Sealy is getting on okay?” asked Quan.

  “She’s moving to our parents’ house. They’re thrilled to have her,” said Lotus. “Don’t worry. She’s be pampered there.”

  Rosalea brought more food and made another pitcher of sangria. They ate and drank and laughed and, in due course, the chirping of crickets increased and night descended on the compound. Sated, they retired to their rooms and fell asleep with a distant hiss of spray nozzles coming from inside the last of the five bungalows. A few minutes after 3:00 a.m., the hissing stopped and the symphony of crickets continued. All that remained was for the paint to dry.

  In the dark, Quan lay with eyes wide open, wondering what time it was in New Hong Kong and wondering what Sealy was up to. It was unsettling, seeing her sister there without her. Yet it was predictable. Lotus wasn’t the kind to stay put, especially if there was something more exciting to do.

  The next morning, underground, in the laboratory, McGowen opened an access panel on the reactor and fed umbilical cables into conduits that came up from under the floor. Then he pushed the cables through to another room, where Von Ang began terminating them with low-impedance connectors. The construction-bots uncrated a new sequencer and, seeing it for the first time, McGowen said, “That’s half the size of the one at Henan Kaifeng.”

  “It’s a newer model,” stated von Ang. “Twice the bandwidth.”

  “Probably twice the price, too,” said McGowen.

  Von Ang connected the reactor to its subsystems and rechecked the fittings.

  Sitting in a swivel chair, Quan watched his team assemble the equipment. Life, he thought, created such amazing diversity, all capable of assembling themselves from a single cell. By comparison, our most complicated machines are crude, not capable of self-assembly. And, while living systems are capable of repairing themselves…

  Quan was jogged from his thoughts by von Ang, who announced, “We’re ready for a systems test.” He brought the reactor online and activated the subsystems one by one. Streams of data appeared on a view field floating in midair. He inserted a finger and paused the run.

  Nearby, bots were drilling holes and inserting anchors into the polymer-coated wall. They bolted the new gimbal-mounted transfer bed to the wall and McGowen plugged it into the system computer. Then, with a bucket in hand, he went to one of the lab benches and opened the lid. Reaching in with his gloved hand, he lifted out a large arroyo toad. Holding the specimen around its mid-section, limbs squirmed spasmodically.

  “I’ve got our first subject right here,” said McGowen.

  “It’s not going to stay still,” said von Ang. “That will be a problem.”

  With his other hand, McGowen reached for a transparent box that was on the lab bench. He proceeded to force the toad into the considerably smaller enclosure. The toad resisted, bridging its limbs against the opening. As McGowen tucked one leg in, another popped free. At last, using a two-handed approach, he slid the amphibian between the walls and quickly slapped the lid shut. As McGowen crossed the lab, the frog seemed to eyeball him with malice.

  McGowen left the box on the transfer bed and the amphibian croaked in protest, puffing up its epiglottis and jumping up hard against the lid.

  “It seems perturbed,” said von Ang.

  “Ah, he’ll get over it,” said McGowen.

  The scientist motioned for McGowen to move away. “Stand clear.”

  Blue light flashed from emitters at the four corners of the bed. Sequenced data was instantly digested by the system. The countdown began, and within a few seconds the box and its occupant vanished. A few seconds later, the box abruptly reappeared.

  The toad’s eyes were fixed, gray and unblinking. McGowen hurried to open the box, gently lifting the animal out. The toad was no longer squirming. Holding one of its hind feet between his thumb and forefinger, he slowly pulled the limb to its full extent and let go. The leg gradually withdrew, but not all the way. McGowen’s thumb pressed the creature’s belly, squeezing slightly, then releasing. He laid the frog on its back. It made no attempt to right itself.

  “He’s dead, for sure. What the hell did you do?” squawked McGowen.

  Without a word, von Ang went to the virtual control panel and called up a diagnostic program. He stood motionless, paging through the field, studying the data with rapt attention.

  “Got it,” said von Ang, pointing at a column of numbers on the control panel. “We’ll need another specimen.”

  “What went wrong?” asked Quan.

  “One of the settings was off by a decimal place.”

  McGowen scoffed. “Off by an order of magnitude! Well now, among theoretical physicists I suppose that’s to be expected. You’d never get away with that in aerospace.”

  Keeping his back to McGowen, von Ang began leafing through the rest of the data. “It’s why we do tests.”

  McGowen left the lab and returned a little while later with a new specimen. “There are more of these outside, if we need them,” he said.

  With the new toad in position, von Ang fired up the sequencer, initiated the transfer, and within a minute the second toad returned, very much alive, squirming to break free of its cell.

  McGowen swept the specimen container from the transfer bed and took it to the medi-bot station. Looking at the multipoint display, he announced, “I don’t know what’s normal for toads, but the readouts look okay. Maybe we should wait a day or two and see if anything changes.”

  Quan got up from his chair and approached von Ang. “You think it’s ready?”

  “The settings are correct,” said von Ang.

  “I want to try it.”

  “Can’t let you do that, sir,” said McGowen. “The machine hasn’t been thoroughly tested. Give us another day or two.”

  “Get on with it then,” said Quan. “Time is of the essence.”

  McGowen muttered, “Time is of the essence? What does that mean?”

  33.

  That evening inside their bungalow, Lotus was sprawled on a chaise lounge in her silk robe, listening to von Ang’s account of the frog mishap. He was berating himself for having entered a wrong decimal place. The image Lotus held of von Ang was that he was the smartest person she had ever known, but now he was pouting like a little schoolboy.

  “You made the corrections and the equipment is working now, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Without looking at her, he said, “Yes. I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “Then you shouldn’t let this bother you. You’re twice as brilliant as anyone else here.”

  He stood straighter and told her how impatient Quan was to try the new equipment.

  Lotus went on praising him for a time, then took the conversation in an unexpected direction.

  “Who do you think should be the first person to test the new equipment? Don’t answer that. I’ll tell you. It should be me. This whole deal i
s way orbital and I want to be part of it. I’m the logical choice. I’m expendable. Besides, all of you have done it already. Why not me?”

  “Come now. Don’t be ridiculous. You aren’t expendable. Anyway, it’s Quan’s decision, not mine.”

  Adopting her most adorable attitude, she said, “You’re a big boy, Gaston. Assert yourself. Let’s do this together. I understand the basics of what you’re doing and I can help with the tests.”

  “I would never risk anything happening to you. I would never forgive myself. Anyway, I think Quan wants to be the first.”

  “Doesn’t make sense. He’s funding the entire project and he put you in charge for a reason. You can make this decision. I’m sure he’ll go along with whatever you recommend. Someone has to go. Why not me? What do you say?”

  “None of us are expendable. I think we should use a volunteer, like we did before.”

  ~~~

  Early the next day von Ang brought up the need for a volunteer. Quan and McGowen voted to use someone from outside and von Ang conceded. McGowen borrowed the shiny new glide and headed out to find a volunteer. He flew north for almost an hour until he came to a produce loading station in the town of Salinas. It was a huge facility, over a kilometer long, where long freight transports backed into a series of loading bays at a massive warehouse. As his glide moved slowly past, he saw workers loading crates of green peppers, apples, potatoes, and cabbage onto conveyors. Across from the facility, he spotted a group of men standing near a road sign. They were day laborers looking for work.

  McGowen set the glide down on the other side of the loading area and walked back to where the group of men were. Some were sitting on a stack of pallets. A few were smoking cigarettes. Four of them raced up to him, speaking in Spanish. He turned on his translator and introduced himself as the project manager for a research center and began asking about their backgrounds and their interest in being a subject for medical research.

  Two of the men turned away, opposed to the idea of being used as guinea pigs. The third man was wearing a wedding ring, a disqualification from McGowen’s point of view. The other man, maybe in his twenties, wearing jeans and a faded green jacket, introduced himself as Rolondo. His answers fit the profile. He was single, from a small town about a fifty kilometers east of Salinas. McGowen explained the job—testing new lab equipment—and the pay was a full day’s wages for only a couple hours work. Rolando agreed to sign up and followed the big man back to the polished glide.

  Back at the lab, the new recruit put on a skinsuit and stood upright with his back against the transfer bed. Emitters on the bed strobed and the bed rotated to horizontal. Von Ang set the duration for thirty seconds and initiated the transfer. To the relief of everyone, the test was successful and Rolando returned unharmed. Following protocol, he was analyzed by the medi-bot system and reminded of his agreement not to speak of his experience to anyone. An hour later McGowen left to return Rolando to where he had been.

  As soon as McGowen exited the building, Lotus began her campaign to convince von Ang and Quan that she should be the next one to use the equipment.

  “The volunteer is fine, I’m the least important person here and I’m the only one who hasn’t had the experience yet.”

  Without a valid objection, the men acquiesced and within a few minutes Lotus was stepping onto the platform, in a black skinsuit. With her head rested against the transfer bed and a pulse could be seen beating in her neck.

  The emitters winked and the sequencer shot her data into the system.

  “Okay,” said von Ang, “lean back and grab the handrails.” He touched a button and the bed automatically rotated to horizontal.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m fine. It’s going to be okay.”

  “This is a short run. You won’t have time for anything more than a quick peek. So just relax and lie still.”

  “I think you’re more nervous than I am,” said Lotus, listening to the threshing of blood in her ears.

  He touched several places on the view field, rechecking the values for a third time, then looked at her before sending the final command. “Everything looks good.”

  “For goodness’ sake. Have a little faith in yourself. Let’s do this.”

  She looked around at the glossy walls and the stainless steel equipment and, a heartbeat later, she was gone.

  She sweeps her arm through the churning particles. Her black appendage sparkles with white fringe. She sits up, folding her legs under her in a lotus position. To her right she sees a black silhouette. It’s Gaston. She lies back, watching the multicolor drifts above her. Particles are brushing across her synapses. It’s exhilarating. She’s alone and she feels exposed, but there’s something sensual about it. Then out of the corner of her eye . . . someone is there . . . watching her . . . studying her. It’s not von Ang—not Quan—not McGowen. She takes a deep breath and looks around. Wait. The figure has moved to the other side of the room. It’s different from the others . . . particles are clumping together, forming a body. Uneasy, she sits up again. Who is it? What is it?

  Suddenly, the opaque walls of the laboratory reappeared. Her thoughts were racing as she stepped from the gimbal mount. She stood for a moment, looking down at the floor, clenching her fists.

  “Tell me you’re okay,” said von Ang.

  “I’m fine. The transfer is a rush. You’ve done it, so you know what I mean. Wow. We have a corona surrounding our bodies. It’s evidently part of what we are.”

  “But I saw something else. There was another figure. It looked like someone was standing on the other side of the room. I don’t know what it was. It didn’t feel right. There wasn’t the corona you see on our bodies.”

  “Can you tell us more about that other figure? What did it look like? Did you hear anything?” asked Quan.

  She inhaled fully and looked around the room, then let out a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure, but I think it was someone else. Someone who isn’t here.” She began to pace. “I need to process this.”

  Von Ang instructed her to recline on the gurney at the medi-bot station. Sensors quickly scanned twenty-seven different parameters, detecting no adverse effects.

  “You’re in perfect shape,” said von Ang, helping her up.

  “I feel energized . . . more focused. It’s like every atom in my body was just realigned.”

  “An exaggerated state of quantum flux is the essence of transference,” said von Ang. “I think that’s what you’re feeling.”

  She put a hand on his chest. Giving him a pat, she said, “Hold that thought.”

  Lotus left the laboratory, wearing only her skinsuit and a pair of flex soles, and walked to the edge of the bluff. She sat on a large rock, looking out at the far reaches of the Pacific and stars littering the night sky. The surf churned below her.

  Von Ang watched her from the laboratory atrium, respecting her need to be alone, to assimilate the experience at her own pace. Physically she was fine and he couldn’t help but admire her exuberance. He let an hour pass. Then, following the pathway lights, he went to her. She was hugging herself, chilled by the night air. Draping his lab coat around her shoulders, he helped her up and walked with her back to the compound.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked.

  “I am totally in awe,” said Lotus. “Seeing what’s on the other side opens up a whole new world.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Obviously, what we see is just the tip of the iceberg. Here we are, living our lives, all the while totally unaware of the depth of our world.” She stopped for a moment then went on. “It’s an experience I could never describe. It’s beyond words.”

  “It’s best expressed in mathematical terms.”

  “At best, mathematical terms are abstractions,” said Lotus, looking at him squarely. “You can model all of the moments of inertia and quantum elements and still not come close to describing the experience itself. It’s so much more than words or nu
mbers can convey. It just fills me up in a way that nothing else has. Describing the path is nothing; walking the path is the thing.”

  34.

  Homo sapiens had always demonstrated a propensity to go their own way. It was in their naure. Humankind first split from nature with the creation of artificial units of time. Before that, humans were prisoners of nature, marking time by the cycles of the moon and the seasons. Defining their own reality, they broke free. They invented clocks and calendars and electric lights, and went on to fill the world with human contrivances, taking flight and breaking the sound barrier. The generations that followed heaped technological advances one on top of another until their independence was complete. Far beyond tools for basic survival, they found ways to sustain life in space, breathing manufactured air, eating synthetic food, and procreating in zero gravity. How ironic then, that a radically advanced technology would them lead back, full circle, to discover an even more profound relationship between man and nature.

  Quan had waited patiently, for weeks, for another sustained walkabout and, now that Lotus reported seeing a figure in the mist, the suspense was almost unbearable. Was the figure the same as the one Quan encountered thousands of kilometers away? Had it followed them? Or was it something new—an aberration produced by the equipment? Eager to investigate, Quan called his small group together. They arranged themselves in a loose semicircle on chairs in the underground lab and he began. “I want to talk about what’s next.”

  Before he could speak another word, von Ang began talking about the calibrations and how well the machine was performing and the experiments he wanted to pursue.

  “I know,” said Quan, turning to Lotus. “That’s great but I’d like to hear more about what Lotus saw.”

  Once again Lotus described what she saw and felt. She concluded with a suggestion that the center should be opened up for others to have the experience.

  “I like very much what you said,” said Quan. “Describing the path is nothing; walking the path is the thing. And you’re right. We should invite others—scientists and engineers—to join us.”