"That's one force. There are, in all of nature as we see it today, only three others.
"The second force is the one that holds you to the surface of the Earth and keeps the Earth from flying into space away from the Sun. That one is called the force of gravity.
"Then there are two other forces. You don't notice them much in everyday life, because they mostly have to do only with things that go on inside the structure of atoms. They do exist, though. Their names are 'the strong force' and 'the weak force.'
"I am not, at least not right now, going to tell you about the ways in which these four forces relate to each other. Right now they seem to be quite different—although, actually, some scientists have tried to write equations which link them together; that was one of the things that drove poor Albert Einstein to distraction in the last years of his life, because he thought he should be able to do that, and he wasn't.
"Long ago, though, they weren't different at all.
"If you remember your plate tectonics courses, you'll recall that once there was a time when most of the present continents of Earth were joined together in one big continent called Gondwanaland. They didn't stay joined together. As the plates migrated the continents split apart, and as a result we have the map of the globe that we all know and love so well today.
"In somewhat the same way, those four present-day forces were once a single force.
"That was a long time ago—back in Planck time, way back at the beginning of our universe, only the flicker of a gnat's eye after the Big Bang itself. At that time there wasn't any separate force called 'gravity' or 'electromagnetism.' There was just one force that included all of them, and it has a name.
"Its name is 'superforce.'
"What is the superforce? It is the basic and overriding force in the universe. It is the force that can do anything to everything. It is what generated everything we know and see everywhere. As Paul Davies says about it, the superforce 'is ultimately responsible for generating all forces and all physical structures.' If we could control the superforce, there is nothing we could not do.
"So says Paul Davies. But then he goes on to say that to achieve the superforce you need to attain what he calls 'the Planck energy'—more energy than you can imagine—and that, he says, is impossible.
"But wouldn't it be pretty if we could?"
And the aiodoi sang lovingly: "Why not?"
11
"The name is superforce . . the voice of the long-gone professor was saying, and Sue-ling Quong was forcing herself to listen to every word. Whether she understood them or not was another question entirely. There was nothing in her education that had prepared her for this—or, of course, in anyone else's, either.
Nor were the surroundings conducive to concentration. Francis Krake had insisted on keeping the view screens on—"I have to see where we're going, dammit!"—and so what Sue-ling's eyes could see was the picture of her shipmates hovering around the player, and behind and around them all the great silent spectacle of the galaxy, with all its stars and dust clouds and clusters. Her shipmates looked like gods in a vast, empty heaven.
Or like pitiful living creatures, trying to comprehend what only a god could really understand.
Francis Krake was next to her, almost dwarfed by the bulk of the two Turtles on his other side. Krake looked sad, Sue-ling thought—or maybe just thoughtful, for it was hard to discern expressions in the dim light—but behind him the fierce parrot beak of Chief Thunderbird was grimly thrust forward in concentration. Or in revulsion. Sue-ling wondered which it was, and what could be passing through the mind of a Turtle as he forced himself to listen to this quantum-mechanical anathema. The Turtles had complained furiously against being compelled to share the lectures with the whole crew— out, Sue-ling thought, of pure embarrassment.
Or else simply because they were Turtles.
Krake stirred slighdy, frowning in thought. Impulsively, Sue-ling put her hand over his in sympathy. He gave her a surprised, abstracted glance, then he returned his attention to the lecture.
Now why, Sue-ling wondered, did I do that?
Then she caught Sork's glare directed toward her. Guiltily —and annoyed at herself for feeling guilty—she withdrew her hand and sat up straighter to listen ... just in time to hear the lecture come to its end.
When the chip went silent no one spoke for a moment. Then the Taur lowed softly to its mistress, and Moon Bunderan stirred. "Are those things they're talking about all real?" she asked, wonderingly. She waved at the panoply of stars all around them. "I mean, does all that talk have anything to do with that>n
Queerly, it was the giant Turtle, Chief Thunderbird, who responded. "That is a proper question," he squawked through his transposer. "What is your answer, Sork Quintero?"
Sork gave him a belligerent look, then turned it on Sue-ling. "Ask her. She's the one who gave me the chips."
Chief Thunderbird turned one red eye on Sue-ling. "Well?"
She shrugged. "Those chips came from my university, after it was closed down. Sork has my agreement in giving them to you."
"We do not seek your agreement," the Turtle told her. "That is assumed. What we need is quite different. It is necessary for us to know about the source of those information chips. It is Sork Quintero's opinion that they were genuine and represent actual scientific theories of humans. Do you concur in this?"
"As I've told you, the chips are exact copies of lectures from our astrophysics department at the university. Does that answer your question?"
"It does not," rasped Chief Thunderbird. "Does what they say represent truth V
"I can't tell you that," Sue-ling said firmly. "I don't know anything about astrophysics or cosmology or quantum effects —I was a med school student. But I did know some of the faculty members at the university as personal friends, and, yes, as far as I know—as far as they knew—the lectures represented serious theories about the subject."
"Theories can be wrong," Lidun put in, seeming unhappy.
"Of course they can. That's why they're theories," Sue-ling replied.
Sork Quintero spoke up. "That's what I've been trying to tell you," he said sulkily. "That's what human beings call the scientific method. Scientists make a theory to try to explain something that is happening. Then they look to see if the theory predicts certain effects or events, and then they conduct experiments to see if those effects happen. If they do it's a good theory. You can even assume that it's right—that it's a law— at least for the time being. But it's still only a theory, and sooner or later you may find some other phenomenon that doesn't fit; then you have to make a new theory."
"That is very unsatisfying," Chief Thunderbird rumbled.
"It's the best we can do," Sork said. "Now, what about you? Isn't it about your turn to talk now?"
Chief Thunderbird's claws scratched warningly across his belly plate. "One does not take your meaning, Sork Quintero," he rasped.
Sork said, "I mean we have a right to know your reasons— not to mention all the other things you're keeping from us. Why you care about these lectures, and where are we going?"
"And what did you want with Thrayl?" Moon Bunderan put in.
The big Turtle's limbs were flapping ominously as he listened. He opened his beak to screech, but before he got a word out Kiri said, quite calmly and judiciously, "They are right, Proctor. We can't help you if we don't know what you need."
That stopped Chief Thunderbird. He squawked to himself, then turned off his transposer, and he and Litlun screeched at each other at length. It went on for quite a while, and the odd thing about it, Sue-ling thought, was that, although they were certainly agitated enough, they seemed more frightened than furious.