Страница 40 из 79
The other Planetfest wi
“How long does an Immortal live?” asked Sy. “It’s obvious that nobody can be truly immortal.”
“Seventeen hundred years.”
There was another long silence. Finally Elissa said: “You mean seventeen hundred subjective years? That’s two thousand times seventeen hundred ordinary years back on Pentecost — three million four hundred thousand. They live three million four hundred thousand years!”
“Right,” said Peron cheerfully. Adjusting to that idea hadn’t been easy, and he was glad to see that others had the same reaction. “Of course, that’s only a conjecture. As Dr. Ferranti pointed out, they can only make estimates of full life span — because no one has lived it yet. It’s only twenty thousand years or so since we left Earth, and no one was living in S-space there.”
“But what about side effects?” said Elissa. “When you make such a profound change…”
“I only know of a couple,” said Peron. He brushed his hand through his hair. “See? It has stopped growing, and I think I was starting to lose it in S-space. Better get ready to lose those beautiful locks, Rosa
“That would explain why we only saw videos of former wi
“And they’ll be reluctant to do that,” said Peron. “They lose the benefit of extended life expectancy when they leave S-space. You have to eat special food there, and you don’t feel quite normal. But people will put up with a lot to increase their subjective life span by a factor of twenty.”
They were again in the suspense chamber. Peron led them into and through one of the caskets, using it as a convenient path to the other parts of the ship. There was a substantial temperature change as they passed through the suspense tank, and they all loosened their warm clothing.
“I’ll tell you one thing I still don’t understand,” Peron said. “When I was in S-space, I felt as though I was in a one-gee environment. Now we’re in exactly the same part of the ship, but we’re in freefall. I don’t see how that can happen.”
There was silence for a while, then Kallen made a little coughing noise. “T-squared effect,” he said softly.
“What?”
“He’s quite right,” Sy said calmly. “Good for you, Kallen. Don’t you see what he’s saying? Accelerations involve the square of the time — distance per second per second. Change the definition of a second, and of course you change the perceived speed. That’s why they can travel light-years in what they regard as a few days. But you change perceived acceleration, too — and you change that even more. By the square of the relative time rates — “
“ — which is another reason the Immortals don’t go down to the surface of planets,” said Lum. “They want to spend their time in S-space to increase their subjective lifespans, but then that forces them to live in a very weak acceleration field. They can’t take gravity.”
“Not even a weak field,” added Rosa
Peron looked around him in disgust. “All right. So everybody saw it easily except me. Try another one. Tell me what’s going on outside the ship. One reason I thought at first that S-space had to be some kind of hyperspace was the view from the ports. When you look out, you don’t see stars at all. All you see is a sort of faint, glowing haze. It’s yellow-white, and it’s everywhere outside the ship.”
This time there was not even a moment’s pause.
“Frequency shift,” said Sy at once. “Let’s see. Two thousand to one. So the wavelengths your eyes could see would be two thousand times as long. Instead of yellow light at half a micrometer, you’d see yellow at a millimeter wavelength. Where would that put us?”
There was a hush.
“The Big Bang,” whispered Kallen.
“The three degree cosmic background radiation,” said Rosa
“And it’s uniform and close to isotropic,” added Lum. “That’s why it looked like a general foggy haze. At that wavelength you don’t get a strong signal from stars or nebulae, just a continuous field.”
“But it can’t be that straightforward.” Sy frowned. “The pupils of our eyes provide too small an aperture to deal with millimeter wavelengths. There has to be a lot more to S-space modification than the obvious changes.”
Peron looked at Elissa. “Don’t say anything. You’ll tell me it’s all obvious, too. I guess it is. But it was a lot more confusing when I had no idea I was dealing with a difference in time rates. I couldn’t imagine where I might be, for the universe to look like that. Here. Try your hands at something else. This time I think I know what’s going on, but I need help — especially from Sy and Kallen. You’re our computer specialists.”
He led them back along narrow corridors to the chamber where the patient robots sat in their silent rows. The others watched warily as three of the little machines came to life and glided past them along the passage.
“Don’t worry,” said Peron. “They don’t move fast enough to be dangerous. We can get out of the way, or even move them around if we have to. They’re the maintenance crew for the ship. All normal functions are automatic and under computer control. One person can run everything, and even he may be u
Peron snapped his fingers. “Just like that. I tried to do the same thing, and it wouldn’t work for me. When I reached this chamber and saw the robots I finally understood what had been happening. The machines respond to commands given by people in S-space. The ship’s computer must be voice-coded through the terminals. When a command is given by someone whose voice is recognized and accepted by the system, the computer mobilizes the robots to carry out the instructions. They don’t move very fast, but they don’t have to. They’re quick enough to be invisible in S-space. Even if it takes the robots ten minutes to bring you a drink, or carry you from one part of the ship to another, you don’t notice. That’s only a fraction of a second as you perceive it.”