‘Yes—to both—curse it! And “Joanie”, eh? You did get in.
How did it go?’
‘Not so good. Barely a touch. It didn’t spread after we,got it started. Just one flash and it went out.”
‘Hm … m … m. That’s funny … Not the way it worked with me at all. However, I don’t see that it makes any difference whether you get it by drips and driblets or all at once, just so you get the full ability eventually. What was it you picked up the first time, Storm?’
‘That’s one thing you’ll never know, if I have to hold this
block forever.’
‘Oh.’ Joan blushed, vividly. ‘I know what it was, then, I
think. But don’t you see … ?’
‘No, I don’t see,” Cloud interrupted. ‘All I see is that it’s worse than being a Peeping Tom in a girls’ dormitory. I don’t like it.
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I don’t like any part of it.’
‘You wouldn’t, of course—at first. Nevertheless, Storm, you and I have got to work together, whether either of us likes what happens or not. So let’s get at it. Bring it out and look at it— let’s see if it’s so bad, really. It was just that I was afraid maybe I was going to fall in love with you and get burned to a crisp around the edges, wasn’t it?’
‘That was part of it. You were wrong in two things, though. No matter how much I loved Jo—and I really did love her, you know …’
‘I know, Storm.” Her voice was very gentle. ‘Everybody knows you did. Not only did—you still do.’
‘Yes. So much so that I thought I’d never be able to talk about her without going off the deep end. But I can, now. I’m beginning to think that perhaps Phil Strong was right. Perhaps a man can love twice in his life, in exactly the same way.’
The woman caught her breath and started to say something, then changed her mind. The man went on:
‘The second point in error is that a woman at age thirty-four is not necessarily a doddering wreck with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.’
‘Oh … I’m so glad, Storm!’ she breathed; then changed mood with an almost audible snap. ‘There! It’s done and your guard is down. It wasn’t too bad, was it?’
‘Not a bit.’ Cloud was surprised at how easily the thing had been ironed out. ‘You’re a prime number, Joanie—a slick, smooth operator. As smooth as five feet and two inches of tan velvet.’
‘Uh-uh. Not me, so much; it’s just that we’re a very nicely-matched pair. But I think we’d better lay off a while before trying it again, don’t you?’
‘Check. Let our minds—mine, anyway—get over the jitters and collywobbles.’
‘Mine, too, brother; and I’ve got a sort of feeling that what that mind of yours is going to develop into, little by little, is something slightly different from ordinary telepathy. But in the meantime, you’d better get back to work.’
‘I don’t know whether I can work up much enthusiasm for work right now or not.’
‘Sure you can, if you try. What were you doing to that chart when I came in? What have you got there, anyway?’
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‘Come on over and I’ll show you.’ They bent over the work-table, heads almost touching. ‘The pink area is the explored part of the First Galaxy. The marks represent all the loose vortices I know of. I’ve been applying all the criteria I can think of to give me some kind of a toe-hold, but up to the present moment I’m completely baffled.’
‘Have you tried chronology yet? Peeling ’em off in layers— by centuries, say?’
‘Not exactly, although I did run a correlation against time. Mostly been studying ’em either singly or en masse up to now. Might be worth a fling, though. Why? Got a hunch?’
‘No. And no particular reason; just groping for more detailed data. Before you can solve any problem, you know, you must know exactly what the problem is—must be able to state it clearly. You can’t do that yet, can you?’
‘You know I can’t. I’ve got some coloured pins here somewhere … here they are. Read me the dates and I’ll stick colors
accordingly.’
They soon ran out of colors; then continued with num-
bered-head thumb-tacks.
The job finished, they stood back and examined the results.
‘See anything, Joan?’
‘I see something, but before I mention it, give me a quick briefing on what you know already.’
Cloud thought for a minute. ‘Well, the distribution in space is not random, but there is no significant correlation with location, age, size, power, load-factor, or actual number of power-plants. Nor with nature, condition, or age of the civilization of any planet. Nor with anything else I’ve been able to dream up.
‘They aren’t random in time, either; but there again there’s no correlation with the age of the power-plant affected, the age-status of atomic power of any particular planet, or any other thing except one—there is an extremely high correlation—practically unity—with time itself.’ ‘I thought so.’ Joan nodded. ‘That was what I noticed. The
older, the fewer.’
‘Exactly. But with your new classification, Joan, I think I see something else.’ Cloud’s mathematical-prodigy’s mind pounced. ‘And how! Until very recently, Joan, the data will plot exactly on the ideal-growth-of-population curve.’,
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‘Oh, they breed, some way or other. Nice—that gives us a…’
‘You said that, woman, I didn’t. I stated a fact; if you wish to extrapolate it, that’s your privilege—but it’s also your responsibility.’
‘Huh! Don’t go pedantic on me. Haven’t you got any guesses?’
‘Except for this recent jump, which we can probably ascribe to Fairchild and explosives, nary a guess. I can’t see any possible point of application.’
‘Neither can I. But if that’s the only positive correlation you can find, and it’s just about unity, it must mean something.’
‘Check. It’s got to mean something. All we have to do is find out what… I think maybe I see something else.’ Bending over, he sighted across the chart from various angles. ‘Too many pins. Let’s clear a belt through here.’ They did so. ‘Will you read ’em to me in order, beginning with the oldest?’
‘At your service, sir. Sol.’
Cloud stuck a pin in Sol.
‘Galien— Salvador— DuPont— Eastman— Mercator— Cen-tralia Tressilia— Chickladoria— Crevenia— DeSilva— Wynor
—Aldebaran …’
‘Hold it! Don’t want Aldebaran—can’t use it. Take a look at this!’ For the first time Cloud’s voice showed excitement.
She looked, and saw a gently curving line of pins running three-quarters of the way across the chart. ‘Why—that’s a smooth curve—looks as though it could be the arc of a circle
—clear across all explored space!’ She exclaimed.
Cloud’s mind pounced again. ‘It is a circle—pretty close, that is, according to these rough figures. Will you read me the exact coordinates—spatial—from the book?’
She did so, and through Cloud’s mind raced the appropriate equations of solid analytic geometry.
‘Even closer. Now let’s apply a final refinement. From their proper motions we can put each star back to where it was at the vortex date. It’ll take a little time, but it may be worth it.’
It was. Cloud’s mien was solemn as he announced his final figures. ‘Those twelve suns all lay on the surface of a sphere. Radius, 53,327 parsecs, with a probable error of one point three zero parsecs—which, since the average density of the stars along that line is about point zero four five per cubic parsec, makes it
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as perfect a spherical surface as it is physically possible for it to be. The center of that sphere is almost exactly on the ecliptic; its coordinates are: Theta, 225°—12’—31.2647″; distance,
107.2259.’
‘Good heavens! It’s that exact? And that far outside the Rim? That spoils my original idea of radiation from a center. But all of the twelve oldest vortices are on that surface, and none of them are anywhere else!’
‘So they are. Which gets us where, lady?’ ‘Nowhere that I can see, with a stupendous velocity.’ ‘You and me both. Another thing, why that particular time-space relationship in the first twelve? I can accept Tellus being first, because we had atomics first, but that logic doesn’t follow through. Instead the time order goes from Sol through Galien and so on to Eastman—to the very edge of unexplored territory along that arc—then, jumping back to the other side of Sol, goes straight on to the edge of Civilization in the opposite direction. Can you play that on any one of your brains, from Alice to Margie?’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘I don’t either. That relationship certainly means something, too, but I’m damned if I can make any sense out of it. And what sense is there in a spherical surface that big? And why so ungodly accurate? Alphacent, there, is less than one parsec outside the surface, but it didn’t have a blow-up for over seven hundred years. How come? Anybody or anything capable of traveling that far could certainly travel half a parsec farther if he wanted to. And look at the time involved—over a thousand years! Assuming some purpose, what could it be? Human operations, or any other kind I know anything about, simply are not geared up to that kind of scope, either in space or in time. None of it makes any kind of sense.’