Macroscope

The changes in the two women were quite noticeable now, as they stood side by side during that inevitable hesitation before proceeding further into the station. Both were well proportioned, Afra a little taller and more dynamic. Afra was modern — and it looked less well on her, in contrast to the more conservative motions of the other. Where Afra jumped, Beatryx stepped. The difference in their ages showed less in appearance than in attitude and posture and facial expression.

Finally he pi

Ivo wondered whether he and Groton had changed similarly.

They were in a long quiet hall lighted from the ceiling, a hall that slanted gently downward. “Down” was toward the center of the sphere, not the rim; nothing so simple as centripetal pseudo-gravity here. The materials of the hall’s construction were conventional, as these things went; no scintillating shields, no compacted matter. If this were typical, the two-mile sphere could not possibly have the mass of a star, or even a planet. Somehow it generated gravity without mass.

The situation was not, on second thought, surprising. A potent gravitic field was no doubt necessary to power the destroyer impulse, and it should be a simple matter to allow some of it to overlap around the unit, providing for visitors. It was handy for holding down satellites too, even at distances similar to those prevailing in the Solar System itself. Earth was only eight light-minutes from Sol…

A hundred yards or so along, the hall widened into a level chamber. Here there were alcoves set in the walls, and objects resting within them.

Afra trotted to the nearest on the left side. “Do you think the exhibit is safe to touch?” she inquired, now hesitant.

“Do you see any DO NOT HANDLE signs, stupid?”

“Harold, one of these minutes I’m going to whisper nasty things about you into your wife’s docile ear.”

“She’s known them for fifteen years.” Groton put his arm around Beatryx, who smiled complacently.

Afra reached into the alcove and lifted out its artifact. It was a sphere about four inches in diameter, rigid and light, made of some plastic material. It was transparent; as she held it up to the light they all could see its emptiness.

“A container?” Groton conjectured.

“A toy?” Beatryx said.

Groton looked at her. “I wonder. An educational toy. A model of the destroyer?”

“Not without docking vents,” Afra said. She put it back and went on to the next. This was a cone six inches high with a flat base four inches across. It was made of the same transparent material, and was similarly empty.

“Dunce cap,” Ivo suggested.

She ignored him and went on. The third figure was a cylindrical segment on the same scale as the cone, closed off by a flat disk at each end. It was solid but light, the silver-white surface opaque but reflective. Afra turned it about. “Metallic, but very light,” she said. “Probably—”

Suddenly she dropped it back in the alcove and brushed her hands against her shorts as though they were burning.

The others watched her. “What happened?” Groton asked.

“That’s lithium!”

Groton looked. “I believe you are right. But there’s a polish on it — a coating of wax, perhaps. It shouldn’t be dangerous to handle.”

What was so touchy about lithium? Ivo wondered, but he decided not to inquire. Probably it burned skin, like an acid, or was poisonous.

Afra looked foolish. “I must be more nervous than I let on. I just never expected—” She paused, glancing down the wall. “Something occurs to me. Is the next one a silvery-gray pyramid?”

Groton checked. “Close. Actually it’s a tetrahedron, similar to the one we built originally on Triton. Your true pyramid has five sides, counting the bottom.”

“Beryllium.”

“How do you know?”

“This is an elemental arrangement. Look at—”

“Elementary arrangement,” Groton corrected her.

“Elemental. You do know what an element is? Look at these objects. The first is a sphere, which means it has only one side: outside. The second is a closed cone: two sides, one curved, one flat. The third, the cylinder, has three. Yours has four, and so on. The first two aren’t empty — they’re gases! Hydrogen and helium, first and second elements on the periodic table—”

“Could be,” Groton said, impressed.

“And likely to be so for any technologically advanced species. Lithium, the metal that’s half the weight of water, third. Beryllium, fourth. Boron—”

She broke off again and lurched for the sixth alcove — and froze before it.

The others followed. There lay a four-inch cube — six sides — of a bright clear substance.

Groton picked it up. “What’s number six on the table? Six protons, six electrons… isn’t that supposed to be carbon?” Then he too froze, eyes fixed on the cube. The light refracted through it strongly.

Then Ivo made the co

They gazed upon it: sixty-four cubic inches of diamond, that had to have been cut from a much larger crystal.

A single exhibit — of scores in the hall.

Then Afra was moving down the length of the room, calling off the samples. “Nitrogen — oxygen — fluorine — neon…”

Groton shook his head. “What a fortune! And they’re only samples, shape-coded for ready reference. They—”

Words failed him. Reverently, he replaced the diamond block.

“Scandium — titanium — vanadium — chromium—” Afra chanted as she rushed on. “They’re all here! All of them!”

Beatryx was perplexed. “Why shouldn’t they put them on display, if they want to?”

Groton came out of his daze. “No reason, dear. No reason at all. It’s just a very expensive exhibit, to leave open to strangers. Perhaps it is their way of informing us that wealth means nothing to them.”

She nodded, reassured.

“The rare earths, too!” Afra called. She was now on the opposite side of the room, working her way back. “Here’s promethium — pounds of it! And it doesn’t even occur in nature!”

“Does she know all the elements by heart?” Ivo muttered.

“Osmium! That little cube must weigh twenty pounds! And solid iridium — on Earth that would sell for a thousand dollars an ounce!”

“Better stay clear of the radioactives, Afra!” Groton cautioned her.

“They’re glassed in. Lead glass, or something; no radiation. I hope. At least they don’t have them by the pound! Uranium — neptunium — plutonium—”

“Saturnium — jupiterium — marsium,” Ivo muttered, facetiously carrying the planetary identifiers farther. It seemed to him that too much was being made of this exhibit. “Earthium — venusium — mercurochrome—”

“Mercury,” Groton said, overhearing him. “There is such an element.”

Oh.

Afra came back at last, subdued. “Their table goes to a hundred and twenty. Those latter shapes get pretty intricate…”

“You know better than that, Afra,” Groton said. “Some of those artificial elements have half-lives of hours, even minutes. They can’t sit on display.”

“Even seconds, half-life. They’re still here. Look for yourself.”

“Facsimiles, maybe. Not—”

“Bet?”

“No.” Groton looked for himself. “Must be some kind of stasis field,” he said dubiously. “If they can do what they can do with gravity—”

“Suddenly I feel very small,” she said.

But Ivo reminded himself that such tricks were nothing compared to the compression of an entire planet into its gravitational radius, and the protection of accompanying human flesh. This exhibit was impressive, but hardly alarming, viewed in perspective. He suspected that there was more to it than they had spotted so far.

The hall continued beyond the element display, slanting down again. Ivo wondered about such things as the temperature. Sharp changes in it should affect some of the element-exhibits, changing them from solid to liquid, or liquid to gas. Yet the exhibit had been geared to a comfortable temperature for human beings, and was obviously a permanent arrangement. The layout, too — convenient for human beings, even to the height of the alcove.