‘Is this some kind of joke, Dallas? Because these white hairs of mine should tell you, I’m kind of low on a sense of humor right now.’
‘It’s no joke.’
‘Is it because of what happened? Me getting metabolic icebox? Because I’ve already figured out a way of preventing that from happening.’
‘As a matter of fact, so have I.’
‘Then what’s the problem? I don’t understand.’
‘The truth is that when it came to the real thing, it was always going to be me and Cav.’
‘But why?’
‘Because he has some special skills. Skills that even he doesn’t know about.’
‘Would you mind telling me what they are?’ asked Gates.
‘I’m intrigued to know, myself,’ admitted Cavor.
‘All in good time.’
‘If that’s the case, then why did you do the simulation with me instead of him? Why am I the one who looks like a goddamn albino if I’m not the one who’s going on the real job after all?’
‘Hey,’ protested Simou. ‘You ask me, your hair color’s looking good. Better than before.’
‘Because Cav’s special skills wouldn’t have worked in a Simworld. Only in reality.’
‘Now I really am intrigued.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased, Rameses. After all, you’ve expressed quite a few reservations about my plan. Not least our going into the containment room and exposing ourselves to radiation.’
‘Reservations are one thing,’ argued Gates. ‘Cold feet are quite another. Which reminds me, in case you’d forgotten. Cav has P2, just like me.’
‘Yes, but for not as long as you. If you were going to point out that his body’s core temperature is likely to cool down quicker than mine, then I’d agree with you. But still not as quickly as yours. Look, Rameses, this is nothing personal. This is just the best way of getting the job done. The only way, as it happens. What matters to you and to Lenina, and to the rest of you, is that we get the blood.’
‘Amen to that,’ agreed Simou.
‘Well? Isn’t it?’
‘I guess so,’ nodded Gates. ‘But there’s one thing I still don’t understand — since we happen to be talking about what’s important for everyone here. What’s in this for you, Dallas? You don’t have the virus. You don’t need the blood.’
‘I want blood all right,’ Dallas said grimly. ‘Just as badly as the rest of you. You see, I’ve got a different kind of virus. Maybe it won’t kill me, but it’s eating me up just the same. For me, revenge will be a kind of cure. It will be the greatest feeling in the world.’ Dallas smiled. ‘The world? It can go hang. Perish the whole damn universe just as long as I have my revenge.’
II
Earth, looking like some fabulous blue Faberge egg inside a black-velvet-lined case, seems a much more precious, durable thing than the deserving object of Dallas’s small-minded revenge. The mathematics, those fundamental numbers, are by themselves sufficiently miraculous in the way they seem to reflect a certain underlying order, and might have given him pause for thought.
Numbers like the size of the electric charge of the electron: Even the smallest difference, and the stars — whose debris went to form other stars and planets, such as Earth — would never have exploded. Numbers such as the ratio between the mass of an electron and a proton, which seem to have been minutely fixed to make possible the development of intelligent life in the universe. A universe that is still expanding at such a critical rate that, even now, ten thousand million years after the singularity that had detonated its existence, an infinitesimally small alteration in that expansion rate taking place one second after that singularity, of less than 0.0001 percent of one hundred billion, would have resulted in the universe recollapsing before ever reaching its present size and shape.
Despite the fact that there are probably one hundred billion billion planets suitable for the creation of life in the universe, the odds are stacked against such an event occurring anywhere else, except on Earth — and improbable enough even there. This can properly be calculated as a result of dividing the number of planets suitable for life by the number of planets where it is certain that this event has already occurred — namely, one, Earth itself. In other words, the odds of life occurring anywhere else in the universe are in the region of one hundred billion billion to one.
In comparison with the sun-drenched and comparatively unremarkable lunar surface, the Earth is a fabulous egg indeed. It is almost enough to make you believe in the anthropic cosmological principle — the notion that man occupies a privileged place in the universe consistent with his existence as an observer. The nature of the universe, so goes the principle (although it seems like a truism, it is actually a principle that has profound implications for physics), is of a type that could be observed to allow the evolution of observers.
What is man, asked the psalm, that thou art mindful of him? Perhaps nothing. Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin have all contributed to the invalidation of man’s self-selected position at the center of the universe created by a monstrous series of accidents. But perhaps, as the world of thought comes full circle, like a globe in a simple brass orrery, it is everything.
Perish the universe? When fortune has already favored it so? Not a chance. With so much time still ahead, the universe is only just beginning.
III
Dallas was seated on the flight deck, in the pilot’s seat formerly occupied by Lenina, who, successfully smuggled out of the Galileo Hotel, was now resting in the crew sleeping station on mid-deck below. Gates occupied the commander’s seat, as before, and was keeping a close eye on the automatic pilot as they made their approach to the Descartes Crater.
The view out of the flight-deck window was much as Gates remembered it from the simulation, just a lot of craters he had trained himself to look out for in order of their appearance: Torricelli, Alfraganus, Hypatia, Zollner, and Kant. The Kant crater system, over which they were now flying, was the last landmark before they reached Descartes.
‘Going to manual,’ he said, switching off the autopilot. ‘Simou? Are you ready?’
‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ said a voice in his headset.
‘In your own time,’ said Gates, as he took a firm hold of the flight stick and checked the instruments on the control panel above his helmeted head.
‘Good luck,’ said Dallas.
‘To us all,’ replied Gates.
Seconds later they felt the loud bang from the explosion detonated remotely by Simou’s trigger. It was the same noise they had heard in the simulation except that this time it was not immediately followed by the master alarm. The explosion had not holed the fuselage.
‘What was that?’ asked Dallas for the sake of verisimilitude on the cockpit voice recorder.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Gates. ‘But it sure sounded like something, didn’t it?’
‘Did something hit us?’
‘We’re still here, aren’t we?’ Gates glanced above his head at the flight instrumentation. ‘All instruments are showing normal readings. If something did hit us, we’re still pressurized.’
Dallas cursed silently. Without a verifiable emergency the Descartes computer would never permit them to land. ‘Sim?’ he asked. ‘Any ideas on the mystery noise?’
‘Negative, Dallas,’ said Simou. ‘I’m as puzzled as you are.’
Dallas unbuckled himself from the pilot’s seat and craned forward to look through the triangular flight-deck window at the gimlet-shaped nose.