"So if you want to reach a wormhole, you definitely first
have to invent some kind of really fast spaceship to take you to where one is.
"That sounds all right, as long as nobody actually asks you to build one. It isn't. The bottom-line trouble with trying to find wormholes is that they are extremely hard to find. You can't see the things. They're very small—ten to the minus thirty-third centimeters in diameter, give or take a bit—and they don't last very long ordinarily, say ten to the minus forty-third seconds.
"That's to say, your average wormhole is about the size of a typical quantum fluctuation in the structure of our universe. The wormholes, if they exist, are in fact quite indistinguishable from the 'space-time foam' which is the basic structure of everything.
"Still, if you are lucky enough to find one of the things at all, there are some neat things you can do. And even if you can't find one, perhaps you have another shot. Maybe you can make one—or make an existing one big enough, and long enough lasting, to do you some good.
"Some people at Cal Tech figured out a theoretical way of using the Casimir effect for that purpose. A man named Alan Guth, with the help of two people named Edward Fahrl and Jumal Guven, said you could perhaps do the job by heating a volume of space to about ten to the twenty-seventh Kelvin— here, I'll write it on the board for you—
"1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Kelvin
"—or, alternatively, you could compress some matter a lot —down to black hole densities, far denser than even a neutron star.
"If you were able to do either of those things, then you really might have something. At those figures, a wormhole might well open up, and, if Mellor and Moss are right, you might even be able to send something through it. Not matter, probably. But something.
"Lots of luck if you decide to try."
And the aiodoi sang on: "What is luck? "There is no luck.
"Luck is the chance that something may happen. "And everything that may happen does."
13
Marco Ramos thought he had never seen his captain so angry —or worse than just angry: he was baffled. Captain Krake was almost inarticulate, dancing around as he fought to get the words out. He had even forgotten, Marco thought, to get the wave-drive normalized; they would never be able to get into the wave configuration again if that weren't done first. But just listen to him: "You're insane," Krake was shouting as he squinted up at the hard-armored bulk of Chief Thunderbird. "We can't take this ship through a wormhole! That's suicide."
"It is without previous experience and therefore dangerous, yes," the Turtle rumbled. "One is a child of the Mother, however. One must sacrifice personal interests for our brothers."
"That's fine for you, but we're not Turtles!"
"You have accepted our gifts," Litlun squawked severely. "You have entered the service of our Mother; you too are bound by her needs."
"But the Mother is dead," Krake said brutally. "Face it, Lidun."
"Do not call me by that name!" the Turtle screeched, raising himself up to full height.
"Then don't talk like a fool," snarled Krake. "Everybody knows that if you get too close to a black hole you die. Even you—Facilitator."
There was silence for a moment, while one of Litlun's eyes turned to meet one of the eyes of Chief Thunderbird. Ramos felt one of Daisy Fay's tentacles reach out to hold one of his own for comfort. He turned one eye toward her reassuringly —though not at all confident in himself that there was any reason to be reassured. Then Marco cleared his throat—or made the noise that would have signified that, if he had still had a throat to clear. "Captain?" he ventured. "If we're going anywhere, we need to renormalize the wave-drive—"
"Then do it!" thundered the bigger Turtle.
"Well, sure, Proctor," Marco said, "but there were some funny fluctuations in the drive before. This is an old ship, you know," he added persuasively. "It might be about due for a general overhaul. We could contact some of those other Turde ships for help—"
"No!" squawked Lidun. "It is not our intention to contact those other Brotherhood vessels!"
And Chief Thunderbird added suspiciously, "One is not aware of any unusual fluctuations. Go and do your work; then come back and report to us." Then he turned to Captain Krake. "What you said a moment ago, Captain Krake," he thundered, "is untrue. Everybody does not know that transiting a wormhole is fatal. One of you says otherwise—is that not so, Sork Quintero?"
Marco and Daisy Fay, on their way to the wave-drive chamber, tarried to look at Sork, as everyone else was doing. Sork blinked at the Turtle. "Me?" he said. "Are you talking about those old scientific chips? But they aren't me talking, are they?
They're just records of what some professor said in a lecture hall; I don't know, myself, if any of it is true."
"You have told us that these humans believe it to be true," Litlun said severely. "Sue-ling Quong also has said that the chips are authentic. Do you deny the wisdom of your own race?"
"Well, you've been denying it!" Krake put in furiously. "What made you change your mind?"
Silence for a moment. Then Chief Thunderbird said hollowly, "We have not changed our minds. We simply have no choice, because we are desperate."
As soon as they were outside, Daisy Fay turned to Marco. "Is there really anything wrong with the wave-drive?" she demanded.
The face on his screen shook its head. "Not as far as I know, but I wanted to give Francis an excuse in case he needs it. Let's get it renormalized, anyway."
She followed him down the hall. "I hate it when Francis gets so apoplectic," she murmured.
"He's got a lot to get apoplectic about," he told her. He stopped in front of the entrance to the chamber. "Whatever happens, though," he said, "somebody's got to take care of the store. Let's balance the wave converters."
It was a relief to be doing something familiar, adjusting the output potentials in the generators to prepare for the next leap into wave-drive space. But Daisy Fay turned on the intercom, and they could hear the angry voices from the control room. Everybody was in the argument now, Krake bellowing, the two Turtles thundering, Sue-ling and the Quinteros trying to get a word in when they could. Only Moon Bunderan and her Taur were silent.
Daisy Fay sighed. "Everything's so mixed up," she complained. "What should we do, Marco?"
"We'll do whatever the captain wants us to do," he answered at once. "What else?"
She said seriously, "Maybe you had the right idea. Maybe we should disable the wave-drive generators—just until Francis gets things under control ... or the Turtles give up the idea."
"Not without orders from the captain," Marco said at once.
"No, of course not." She sighed again. "Sometimes I wish they'd left me in the snow to die," she said wearily.
Ramos turned both eyes to stare at her. "Never say that! Still," he added softly, "sometimes I remember what life was like—before."
She waved her tentacles in agreement. "So far away—so long ago. Are you sorry, ever?"
"Sorry that the Turtles rescued us? Never!" he said staunchly. "It's better to be alive than dead."
She looked at him for a long moment before speaking. "But that's the question, isn't it? Are we really alive, Marco?"
"You know we are! Well," he qualified, "not in the same way as—before—maybe, but we're alive all right." His eye-stalks turned toward her, and the look on the face on his belly platen was serious. He said, "In a way, this isn't just life for me, you know! It's almost—heaven. It's what I dreamed of as a child. I've told you why."
Daisy Fay turned one eye on her companion, the other busy on the dials as they worked. In the background they could hear the shouting from the control room, words like wormholes and other universes and, most of all, Krake's raging voice refusing to do what the Turtles were demanding. "Tell me again, Marco," she whispered, her voice almost shivering.