Supervisor Billie beamed, although now the investigator would probably get tough. They were down to the deliberately disguised material. Until they had everything just right it would be a guessing-game with the computer.
“Where was the sponge cure developed?” Kai asked, also excited.
unknown,the machine replied.
“Who developed it?”
COMPUTER.
“Whose computer?” Tortoi asked.
ZINDER’S.
Pursuing their leads was still like pulling teeth, though, until they had the information to ask the right question.
“What year was it developed?”
UNKNOWN.
“What year did the computer give it to Councillor Alaina?”
1250.
She heard the supervisor slowly exhale behind her. So there it was. Gil Zinder’s computer had given the powerful woman the sponge cure some thirteen years after the computer was supposed to have been destroyed.
“What is the location of Zinder’s computer today?” Kai asked.
DESTROYED BY COM POLICE ACTION, 1250 SEE COM POLICE RECORDS FOR 9-2-1250.
“We got it!” the supervisor whooped.
The records were clear. One day thirteen years after its disappearance, Zinder’s computer and the planetoid into which it had been built reappeared at their former coordinates. Com Police received a call for assistance from a New Harmony shuttle, and everything they learned went straight to then-President Alaina’s desk. One look and she sped to the area.
The ship had contained three aliens of unknown type and eleven stunningly beautiful women. Except for hair and eye color, all of the women looked exactly alike. But nine of them had large, graceful horse tails.
“The Olympians!” Tortoi Kai exclaimed.
Of the aliens, one was a blue-skinned creature whose human torso was topped by a devil’s horned head and who sat atop goatlike legs; another resembled two fried eggs sunny-side up and oozed around creating tentacles as needed from the orange sacs atop its body. The third, which was only dimly perceived, appeared to be an energy creature of pale red, resembling a hooded cloak in which nobody could be seen.
And President Alaina received answers. At the demonstration, Zinder double-crossed Trelig at the last minute by activating a field—based on his theories—that removed New Pompeii from reality. But unexpectedly the planetoid was drawn like a magnet to orbit a strange planet—the Well World—one composed of hexagonal biospheres, each containing its own unique, dominant lifeform. The world’s computer transformed anyone reaching its surface into one of the dominant creatures—as the blue satyr said he had been changed—along with Trelig, Trelig’s assistant Ben Yulin, the Zinders (father and daughter), and Mavra Chang, who had been Alaina’s personal representative. After years trapped on the Well World’s surface, Chang and the blue satyr Renard, Ben Yulin, Nikki Zinder, and a few others made it back to New Pompeii, whereupon Yulin took command of the computer. Yulin then remade most of the people on New Pompeii into what he considered to be beautiful love-slaves. At the cost of Chang’s life, Chang’s group managed to kill Yulin and break his hold on the transformed women, then flee to the Com. The sponge cure had been a last legacy of Zinder’s computer.
“So Zinder was right all the time,” the supervisor breathed. “There was a singularity somewhere, Markovian-built, that kept the rules! The Well World! A laboratory for the gods!”
Tortoi Kai nodded gravely. “He was entirely correct. The records indicate that the three aliens seized a ship, flew off, and vanished completely—the ship was eventually recovered. Somehow they had returned to their home world. The others—with Alaina’s financial help—founded Olympus. Eleven superwomen. Incredible!” She halted for a minute. “I wonder? Eleven superwomen? How did they breed—cloning?”
Billie shrugged. “Or else Yulin impregnated them and some bore males. No wonder they call their founders the First Mothers!”
“This also explains their odd religion, at least partly,” Kai pointed out. “They have a kernel of the truth—but they have it the way centuries of isolation and telling and retelling would distort it. All except this Nathan Brazil business, anyway, which is almost certainly a later addition.”
The supervisor agreed. “Yes, if Zinder was proved right, and the Olympians seem to be living proof, you could accept a god easily—they just went shopping for one and found him. I’ll bet if we key Nathan Brazil into the computers we’ll find the connection.” He suddenly stopped his enthusiastic babble and looked toward his assistant. She was frowning. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “This is proof Zinder was right! It means, I suspect, the end of the Dreel threat.”
She nodded dully. “Yes, it does. But then what? This kind of power—in full public view, in Com hands. What sort of thing are we unleashing on ourselves after the Dreel defeat? Remember—the Com Police destroyed New Pompeii and its computer, and all the files were thoroughly hidden. Back then they were scared of such power. Aren’t you? According to the records on New Pompeii, Zinder designed a dish-shaped object to remake an entire planet in seconds—to specification! Doesn’t that scare you?”
He nodded. “It does, but so do the Dreel. After… well, you and I will write the history of it and watch the next act unfold, as always. It’s too late to forget our rediscovery. For better or worse, Gilgram Zinder’s legacy is back. It is real, it is here, and it will not be buried again.”
Com Police Laboratories, Suba
“Stand by!”
The technicians ran for shields. To reinforce the controller’s verbal warning a series of buzzers sounded, then anxious supervisors visually confirmed that all were out of the danger zone.
They watched the experimental chamber on large monitors, for they were dealing with something they did not understand in the slightest and were taking no chances. The shielding on the room was sufficient to contain a thermonuclear explosion; the command center even had its own heavily shielded self-contained life-support systems. Even if the rest of the planetoid was destroyed they might survive.
Inside the chamber was a large, slightly concave metal disk; a small rod protruded slightly from its center. The disk aimed down at another disk, one that had no protuberance but was flattened slightly in the center. In the exact center of the lower disk a single plastic cup contained exactly four-tenths of a liter of distilled water. Nothing more.
The men in the command center grew tense as the operators hovered over their consoles.
“Energize!” came the command of the project director. “On my mark… Mark!”
A switch was thrown. Inside the experimental chamber the upper disk shimmered slightly and projected an odd violet light onto the lower disk and the glass it held. Now they would learn if this attempt would succeed, unlike the thousands tried earlier. So far they hadn’t even managed to boil the water.
The senior scientists of the project wondered why Zinder had been successful with essentially the same setup. They were using the plans and the math Zinder had described in bis position papers; the computers of Suba and the Council had assured them that if Zinder’s theories were correct the device would work. Historical record said he was right. Why wouldn’t it work?
They were missing Zinder’s computer, they finally concluded, and the plans for it had died with him on some Markovian world that possibly was not even in our Universe and the machine itself had been destroyed in a Com Police operation where chunks of anti-matter had been driven into collision with it.