Macroscope

Finally, utilizing several of the delayed macroscopic return-messages, the records of the single recovered moon, and detailed analysis of the Traveler itself when the Third Siege began, the locals were able to come at the complete story.

It was the dawning of a new era.

The lecture was over. The convoluting shapes faded, and on the stage a prima do

Afra considered her human heritage, and that of the galaxy. It was as though six great manifestations of culture had occurred, in whatever mode they were considered. The galaxy had gone through three long civilizations and three short sieges, the last still in progress, and now was on the brink of the seventh and perhaps climactic manifestation. Every individual, every species, every culture was on the threshold. The mirror of history provided the reflection of all the past — but that past was a lesser history than what was about to be.

The prima do

With only moderate effort, Afra shifted into station reality. The room had changed; this was another busy complex. Machines were turning out the element-display samples and feeding them into conveyor-slots, undoubtedly for transport to the several visitors’ lounges. Art was being reproduced, and foodstuffs manufactured. This section was, in fact, an extensive but comparatively routine station production center. Either there was a considerable turnover in samples, implying many visits here, or the displays were replaced frequently as a matter of course.

Schön was present, and he held the S′ device. “Mercury was yours, 10 to 5,” he a

She had won a round at last! But the vision was upon her:

The street of Macon, she at age seven, the Negro man standing over her. But now her terror was gone. Six manifestations — ascendant, sun, moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury — transmuted to the seventh — Jupiter — and the auspices were beneficent. She knew that the Negro had not come to hurt her; he was not the gunman. The holdup man had been white.

“Little girl, you got to come with me. Your daddy’s been hurt.”

“I know,” she said.

“I work at the store,” he continued, helping her to her feet. “I saw you bolt, and I knew you was scared. But it’s all right now. Your daddy grabbed that robber and held him, and he’s in jail by now I know, but—”

Her knee was ski

“He’s not hurt bad. I’m sure. He’s a brave man, doing that, stepping into a gun like that. A brave man.”

Afra stepped out of the memory-vision again, independent of its power as well. She did not have to run any more.

Schön was watching her, aware that he was losing ground. He had thought to win the round by throwing her into the vision of terror and forcing her to capitulate once more, but this time she had conquered her fear. Her liability was gone. Whatever type of conquest he had contemplated was farther from realization now than it had been during their initial encounter in the ascendant.

She was still gaining strength, riding the crest of her victory in Mercury and her release from the continuing repression of the ascendant. She was ready to expand her horizons even more, to encompass the ultimate information and profit thereby.

“Did you consider,” she demanded of Schön, “the essential paradox of the Traveler? The single fact that makes it distinct from all other broadcasts, and makes its very existence proof that its Type III technology is qualitative as well as quantitative?”

“Certainly,” he said — but there had been a fractional hesitation that betrayed his oversight. He had missed the obvious, as had they all, and worked it out only in this instant of her challenge. Another point for her side! “The Traveler, as an impulse moving at light velocity, could never supervise so complex a chronological process as melting and reconstitution of an unfamiliar creature, since no memory of prior experience could exist in a pattern traveling past the subject at the ultimate velocity. The portion of the Traveler that directed the reduction of the epidermis would be twenty-four light-minutes beyond, by the time the heart dissolved. And the portion that finished the job would not have been advised when the process started — not when it couldn’t, relativistically, catch up for that same twenty-four minutes. Information ca

“You’ve missed it!” she cried. “Genius, you’re blind to the truth. You don’t understand the Traveler any more than the early galactics did.”

“Ridiculous,” he said, irritated. “I can tell you how the melting cycle is accomplished within that limitation. Do I have to draw you a picture?”

“This won’t fit on any picture, stupid.”

Schön intercepted a carbon-cube — one of the tremendous diamonds — on its way to some display and set it on top of one of the art-machines. He trotted down the hall to procure something resembling chalk, and returned to make a sketch on his improvised blackboard. A chalk sketch on a diamond!

“The beam originates at point A, strikes the subject at point B and goes on to point C, never to return,” he said, drawing a cartoon figure. She had no doubt he could turn out a work of art if he chose, but the chalk was clumsy, the surface slick, and he was preoccupied by the reversal of their competitive fortunes.

“For the sake of simplicity,” he continued, “we’ll ignore such refinements as the manufactured melt-beam that actually does the work; that’s merely an offshoot produced ad hoc when triggered by a suitable situation. The point is, the Traveler only touches once and moves on at light velocity. It doesn’t stay to see the job finished, any more than a river stays to watch the wader crossing it. There’s always new water.”

“You’re still all wet,” she said.

“But an object in water will set up a stationary ripple,” he continued, seemingly unperturbed. She knew he had to make his point — or lose points. “Because the impulse is not confined to one direction. In the case of our Traveler, the interaction at point B initiates a feedback that meets and prepares the oncoming impulses. So an extended interaction is feasible.” He drew another figure on a second face of the cube. “Call point D that secondary interaction, though it occurs at no fixed place. It does alert the oncoming signal in advance, making a type of memory and pla