James P. Hogan - Catastrophes,Chaos and Convolutions

Catastrophes, Chaos and

Convolutions

Table of Contents

The Guardians

Getting Better Connected

Impossible Rhymes

Frog Fantasies

Convolution

The Modern Medievalism

Global Flooding

Word Games

The Tree of Dreams

Nuclear Waste

Who Will Remember The Deep End?

The Trouble With Utopias

Decontamination Squad

The Cosmic Power Grid

Sword of Damocles

Cryptic Crossword

More Globes Warming

Animal Quackers

Take Two

Intelligence Test

Old, Unimproved Model

Children Need To Get Out And Play

Pioneer 10 Signing Off

The Falcon

Crossword Solution

Catastrophes,

Chaos &

Convolutions

James P. Hogan

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

“Convolution” first appeared in the anthology Past Imperfect, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry

Segriff, DAW Books, New York, October 2001. “The Tree of Dreams” first appeared in the anthology

Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Far Futures, edited by Toni Weisskopf, Baen Books, New York, February

2005. “Decontamination Squad” first appeared in Guy H. Lillian’s magazine Challenger, Issue 22, July

2005. “The Sword of Damocles” is based on an original story of the same title that was included in

Stellar 5 Science Fiction Stories, edited by Judy-Lynn Del Rey, Ballantine, May 1980. “Take Two” first

appeared in the anthology Silicon Dreams, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff, DAW

Books, New York, December 2001. “The Falcon” first -appeared in Apex Science Fiction and Horror,

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-0921-8

ISBN-10: 1-4165-0921-6

Cover art by David Mattingly

Interior drawings by Randy Asplund

First printing, December 2005

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production & design by Windhaven Press (www.windhaven.com)

Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to the Irish midge—a tiny, pesky fly that comes out in swarms in warm, humid evenings.

Hence, even with the summer sky still showing light close to midnight, we retreat indoors at a reasonably

early hour from hours of pottering in the garden or just idling in the sun. Without the midge, this book

would possibly not have been written.

By James P. Hogan

Inherit the Stars

The Genesis Machine

The Gentle Giants of Ganymede

The Two Faces of Tomorrow

Thrice Upon a Time

Giants' Star

Voyage from Yesteryear

Code of the Lifemaker

The Proteus Operation

Endgame Enigma

The Mirror Maze

The Infinity Gambit

Entoverse

The Multiplex Man

Realtime Interrupt

Minds, Machines & Evolution

The Immortality Option

Paths to Otherwhere

Bug Park

Star Child

Rockets, Redheads & Revolution

Cradle of Saturn

The Legend That Was Earth

Martian Knightlife

The Anguished Dawn

Kicking the Sacred Cow (nonfiction)

Mission to Minerva

Catastrophes, Chaos & Convolutions

The Guardians

"God in His wisdom made the fly;

And then forgot to tell us why."

—Ogden Nash

"It's been declared an emergency, official from Earth," Nordsen said over the desktop in the cubbyhole

that served as his office in the Lab Section of the Eurussian compound. "Which means that under the

rules that everyone out here has contracted to abide by, the Chinese are empowered to take charge.

They're the biggest contingent, and they've got the most at stake in the operation. If they say they need a

metallurgical physicist at Tremil, we're obligated to comply." He paused, eyeing Kerry dubiously. "If it's

any consolation, they will recompense us for your time. So look on the plus side. You can think of it as a

spell of paid leave. Being paid to get away from this place for a while . . ."

Yeah, right, Kerry thought to himself. To get sent to a place where everyone just got wiped out and

nobody knows why. One of the reasons why he'd signed up to come out to this god-awful swamp of a

world that some administrator with either a terminally warped sense of humor or none at all had

christened Priscilla had been to get away from home-style bureaucracy's strangulation of rules and

procedures.

That Kerry's enthusiasm lay distinctly to the nether side of total must have showed. Nordsen located a

pink memorandum denoting Directorate business beneath the litter of paperwork and equipment parts

and pushed it across to change the subject. "They want you over there right away to fill you in. The

person you need to ask for is a Xiang-Chu Juanita, Office of Security."

"Juanita?"

Nordsen shrugged. "That's what it says."

Kerry picked up the slip and read it. A small detail that Nordsen had omitted to mention was that the

only military presence on Priscilla—reinforced several times now with the general heightening of

preparedness as relationships with the Eks deteriorated—was also predominantly Asian and under

Chinese command. So not only was their word law for all under an officially declared emergency, they

had the means to back it up.

It seemed that Kerry was going to Tremil.

* * *

Okay, so their culture went back thousands of years to when Europe was home to barbarian tribes, and

they had emerged as a superpower after America balkanized into self-run racial and ethnic enclaves. That

made it all the more amusing that, out of the assortment of state, corporate, private, and other interests

whose conglomeration of structures made up Langtry "city," the Chinese should be the ones whose

internal environmental management had goofed. Everyone else had set up strict controls at the locks in

the communications tunnels connecting to the Chinese compound, and so Kerry went across via the

surface route, taking one of the GP robobuggies that provided the main means of getting around outside

Langtry and in its immediate vicinity.

It was still called a compound, although the original dome put up after the Eurussian founding of the base

had by now grown to a complex of towers and launch facilities, with enclosed plazas and residential

zones standing above more than a dozen subterranean levels. Somehow, a consignment of insect samples

en route to an experiment being conducted at some distant research station had gotten loose and found

the surroundings conducive to multiplying their various kinds. As a result the entire Chinese sector was

overrun and under effective quarantine to prevent the invasion spreading to the rest of Langtry. Not that

there was anything hazardous to be concerned over. But conditions on Priscilla were oppressive enough

as things were, without having to deal with other people's bugs on top of all else. And besides, there was

that feeling of satisfaction that comes with being in a position to dictate to the high and haughty that the

administrative chiefs in the other sectors weren't going to miss the opportunity of relishing.

Enclosed working and living spaces were not essential for survival on Priscilla. The atmosphere was

breathable but drippingly humid, and it stank just about everywhere with fetid emanations from the

swamps and mudlands that were the closest the planet came to mustering an ocean. The location had

been deemed suitable for a long-range logistics consolidation and forwarding base to support the string of

farther-flung outposts proliferating into the nearby regions of the Galaxy since macro-coherent

entanglement toppled and superseded Relativity. Soon, ships from every outreaching organization with a

cause or a product or a creed to promote were bringing down pilot groups to begin a new construction

on the periphery of what the Earth media had dubbed a "spacerush" town, and stake out their claim in the

operation.

Kerry had a good view of the area as the buggy came over the hump of bulldozed excavation debris

between the south side of the Eurussian sector and the twin domes housing the shared power-generation

and materials-extraction plant. In a way that said a lot even if it hadn't been by design, the layout and

groupings on the ground reflected pretty closely the pattern of ideological affinities and aversions back on

Earth. The Eurussian sector was connected to the New American. (On Earth this referred to the white

Caucasian remnant, comprising the bulk of the Midwest and much of Canada, with coastal feet in Texas

and New England straddling Ebonia, which ran from Louisiana to the Carolinas above the Cuban south

of what had been Florida.) Zion—its namesake had been rebuilt in southern Argentina in the aftermath of

the last global conflict—sat as a smaller appendage also connected to the New American complex but on

the opposite side from the Eurussian. Yenan, which was the Chinese sector's proper name, dominated

the central part of Langtry, having absorbed the original landing area for its military facility as impudently

as its empire was expanding across Siberia. And equispaced from both, but the only other structure to

rival them in size, the Muslim sector stood apart in a symbolic balancing role, incongruously complete

with minarets and finials. Among these major edifices, the outposts of lesser representations had sprung

up nearer or far according to their allegiances, like Gothic hamlets huddled under the walls of their lords'

castles.

After three serious attempts at destroying what progress they had made in the direction of being able to

live together in a civilized way, Kerry had thought people would have had enough. And, for a while, it

had seemed that they might indeed have learned something of value finally. The tribal divisions that found

expression in places like Langtry city reflected tradition more than effective reality, and by and large the

assortments of humanity that found themselves clustered together on strange worlds orbiting alien suns

light-years from home got along remarkably well.

For Kerry, "Priscilla" had never fitted the image of easygoing acceptance and everyone getting along.

The name had too much of a prim and proper ring about it. There was nothing prim and proper about the

bars and clubs that did a round-the-clock trade in Langtry's "downtown" strip that everybody went to but

nobody owned. But they made a better mixing ground and forum for the conduct of social affairs than

any parliament or congress back on Earth had ever done. The people you ran into there could be rough

and blunt at times, but they were not judgmental, accepted others as they were, and if you stayed out of

their business they stayed out of yours. Some wondered if it could be a preview of how the new worlds

that were coming into being in the Outzones might be run. Hadn't it been the meddling moralizers who

always caused all the problems? Live and let live would be the new guiding philosophy. The reason

people don't trust each other and end up fighting is that they think others are different. But out here,

everyone is so small compared to the vastness around them that they realize they're really the same now.

So the old way of handling life is over, right? We've changed. Inside, where it matters, we know that

everyone is just like us, moved by the same feelings, harboring the same fears. So when I take a deep,

honest look inside myself, I see you. Isn't that right? Right!

And then the Eks showed up.

As missions from Earth probed farther into the surrounding reaches of interstellar space, they

encountered various other forms of life—some looking surprisingly familiar; others, completely alien.

Biologists of opposed persuasions all claimed support for theories that contradicted each other, and

Kerry had never really followed the arguments why. Most of the life was primitive, and for a long time the

rare instances of what could rightfully be classed as "intelligent" were rudimentary. However, as was

probably inevitable, the collision with another advanced, technological culture happened eventually.

The "Eks," as far as could be ascertained, appeared to be at a comparable stage of development to

Earth's, pushing out their own horizon of expansion and discovery, but coming the other way. So, they

should have been just like us: motivated by the same reverence for knowledge, awed by the same

wonder at the mysteries of the universe, and kindred spirits in all the ways that the new philosophy of

enlightenment said mattered. And maybe they were. But they were also built to a body plan of

arthropods, with exterior plates of black armor; double-jointed, sticklike limbs covered in bristles and

hair; and snoutish heads sporting mandibles and large, multifaceted eyes suggestive of giant, mutant

insects or riot police in full gas-masked battle garb. The name was a derivation from "Exoskeleton," but

alternatives that quickly caught on included "Roachies," "Stickleheads," "Beetle-Peeple," and

"Mantis-Men." Predictably, things had gone downhill from there. The taunts, boasts, and thinly disguised

threats that seemed to be the nearest approach to diplomacy that the Ek mind could manage didn't help

matters much either.

Kerry hadn't followed the details of who had allegedly said or done what as relationships deteriorated,

despite the media's hysterical blow-by-blow coverage. That it followed the usual pattern of screwups by

the best and the brightest that everyone else trusted to run the ship, he had no doubt. He had long ago

grown too cynical to have much faith or interest in politics. He'd had enough dealing with his own

domestic politics back home. That had been another reason why he signed up to come out for a tour at

Langtry.

* * *

Tremil was a peculiar body on the fringe of the Xerxes system, of which Priscilla was an inner planet. It

was peculiar in possessing a habitable surface with life-bearing oceans, despite being too small, as

planetary standards normally went, to retain any atmosphere at all, and at a distance from its parent star

where whatever did exist should have been frozen solid. Analysis of data from probes sent out to check

the neighborhood following the first human arrivals at Xerxes suggested that Tremil contained a hot,

superdense core, which at once sent imaginations racing. Theories spanned the gamut of exotic objects

from miniature black holes and coherent neutronium plasmas to artificial bioforming devices constructed

by aliens, and proposals for further research programs had poured in from all quarters.

While the scientists and funding authorities were still arguing, a rogue prospecting consortium called

Midas Holdings had sent in a private expedition to assess the territory and take first dabs on any

pickings. The laws as to who owned what or had the right to authorize such actions were still vague, and

with a sharp legal department it was generally possible to get away with things like that. On this occasion,

however, the move to get in ahead of the game had backfired tragically. A garbled distress call had come

in from the Midas base camp on Tremil, indicating that they were in some kind of trouble, and then cut

out. Almost at the same time, signals from the navigation beacons and communications relays placed in

orbit as a matter of routine had ceased. Finally, the Midas expedition ship had come through briefly

again, sounding as if it was attempting a hasty departure. Since then, there had been nothing. Fifty-three

individuals had been involved in the expedition. It could only be feared that the worst had befallen all of

them.

That much was common knowledge from the news coverage. Juanita Xiang-Chu—if they wanted to

write their names backward that was their prerogative, but Kerry thought of them the way he was used

to—filled in the few remaining details in an outer office of the Chinese Security Section. They were

waiting for Kerry to be called in to a selection panel headed by a Colonel Hinjao, who would be

commanding the mission being sent to Tremil to investigate. A bank of screens along one wall showed

images of Tremil from orbit, along with the view of the Midas base camp that had been filed with its

certificate in the Titles Registry before the disaster overtook it. The visible background was sandy and

rocky, with a stretch of water opening out on one side and yellow cliffs beyond—about as different from

Priscilla as it was possible to get.

"You'll be able to see the actual message transcripts later, when your temporary transfer is confirmed. . .

." Juanita began.

Kerry's eyebrows lifted. "Why the secrecy? Is there something more about this business that's

security-sensitive?"

"No. It's just that the extra time would be better justified when we know for sure that you'll be coming. It

will be decided later today."

"Coming?" Kerry repeated. "Does that mean you're on this too?"

"Yes, Dr. Kaplinsky. I shall be going with the mission also."

"Okay." Something buzzed past Kerry's ear on the edge of his field of vision, causing him to swat at it

reflexively. He had noticed the flies on the walls; another walked across the screen showing Tremil as

they watched.

"I must apologize for this inconvenience," Juanita said awkwardly. She was clearly embarrassed. "We

are doing what we can until things arrive from Earth to deal with the situation. It wasn't an eventuality that

Langtry was equipped for."

"Oh, I'm sure we'll all pull through," Kerry said with a grin that he tried to make look sympathetic. Truth

was, he was enjoying it.

He had to admit to being guilty of carrying something of a stereotype of Chinese women around in his

head—particularly intellectual, academic, or otherwise officious ones—as being genderlessly baggy and

toothy, with ring-rimmed glasses and their hair tied up like schoolmarms. "Priscilla" would have fitted it

well. But Juanita shattered the caricature totally. She was perhaps in her early thirties, he judged—for

what that was worth; he had a habit of being hopelessly wrong with Orientals—with a slim figure that

managed to look shapely even in the high-necked, trousered suit that was standard casual working dress

for the Chinese uniformed services. In the case of the Security Branch the colors were off-rust with black

tabs and trim, which seemed tailored for her skin, more umber than yellow, and the hair sweeping to her

shoulders with just enough bend not to look lank. Her eyes were the ever-alert, watchful kind, set in pert,

finely formed features, which just at this moment were held in cool, unyielding lines that gave away

nothing. Kerry had the feeling that was due more to a sense of professional correctness than to anything

innate within. Off-duty, she could have turned a few heads in the bars downtown, if she ever had a mind

for it.

Juanita continued, "From what we were able to make out before communications ceased, they seemed

to be having equipment failures."

"What kind of equipment?" Kerry asked.

"All of it. Multiple failures, as if everything was going down at once. We had messages that would start

coming through on one band stop suddenly, and resume on a different kind of channel. One talked about

surface vehicles being immobilized, and another cut off in mid-sentence after saying that the power was

going out." Juanita gestured in Kerry's direction, as if signaling something of particular relevance. "The

crew of a reconnaissance platform left in orbit reported that they had structural failure in the hull. They

said it was disintegrating before their eyes as they watched. Did you ever hear of anything like that in

orbit before, Dr. Kaplinsky?"

"This is flattering, I'm sure," Kerry interjected. "But it's just mister. I'm called other things too."

"I apologize. My assumption. I should have read the records more closely."

Kerry frowned as he went back to her question. "In free fall, outside the atmosphere? . . . Meteorite

stream, maybe?"

"No, it was nothing like that."

"How many people were up there?"

"Three."

"What happened to them?"

"The platform was equipped with an escape capsule. But whether they ever got down, we don't know."

Not that it would have made a lot of difference by all accounts.

"I see," Kerry said. Although at that stage there really wasn't much yet to be seen. It was just something

to say.

However, one thing he could see now was why they had wanted a metallurgical physicist included in

whatever kind of team was being organized to go there. Although, it seemed strange thathe should have

been singled out. There were numerous others of the same kind of specialty around Langtry, including

more than a few who could boast a more exalted handle to their name than just "mister."

He ran his eye over the orbital shots of Tremil again. It looked like a tropical panorama of desert coasts

and islands set amid cobalt oceans. Yet by rights it should have been solid ice and frozen methane. An

interesting place under any other circumstances.

And then the obvious finally hit him. They didn't want to risk the Prof's and the Dr's, and the others with

expensive, fancy titles. Nobody knew what to expect out there. They wanted someone more

expendable!

The interview with the panel went smoothly, and Kerry's selection was confirmed early that same

afternoon. The mission to Tremil departed from the Chinese launch area less than forty-eight hours later.

* * *

Kerry was prepared to swear that they could walk through metal walls. They had gotten into here too.

Less than a day out from Priscilla, and the ship was turning into an insectarium.

"I hate them!" Juanita slapped at her arm as she sat behind Kerry on a folding seat in a recess at the

side of the instrumentation fitting bay, where scientists were working to get their equipment ready. Kerry

was running a calibration test on the grating assembly of an X-ray spectrometer lying partly dismantled on

a bench. "My skin feels as if its crawling, even when there's nothing there," she said. "What use are they

to anybody?"

"Over three quarters of all known Terran species are supposed to be insects," Kerry murmured without

looking up. "Maybe they could ask the same question about us, but with a better reason." He read off

some numbers to a red-bearded optronics engineer called Elliott, who repeated them while adjusting the

shape of a curve being displayed on a screen. Juanita sniffed behind Kerry's shoulder. There was a

pause.

"Okay, we're done on this," Elliott said. "Time for coffee, guys. I'll get 'em." He cocked an inquiring eye

at Juanita. She shook her head.

"They don't seem to trouble you," she commented to Kerry as Elliott rose and moved away. "These

bugs everywhere."

Kerry sat back on the lab stool. "Well, they're just being what they are, same as the rest of us. . . ." He

tried biting his lip but couldn't resist adding, "Anyhow, I'm not the one who thinks his country's image is

disgraced. You do it to yourselves, Juanita. Nobody else thinks so. It could have happened to anyone."

"Perhaps not everyone feels the same obligation to maintain exemplary standards, Mr. Kaplinsky."

"You know, to us that has a kind of stiff and formal sound about it. 'Kerry' would really do just

fine—especially out here in a situation like this."

"Kerry." She repeated the word distantly, then fell silent again—as if she were thinking about it.

The first, most obvious suspicion was that whatever had happened at Tremil had something to do with its

strange internal composition, possibly involving a hitherto unknown type of radiation associated with a

matter-annihilation process. But nobody had any ideas of trying to learn more by landing on the surface

and seeing what happened. Walking into a den is not the smart way of finding out if the bear is at home.

The first step would be to put robot instrument packages in close orbit and down on the surface, while

the ship stayed well back and its complement of chemists, physicists, electronics, communications,

structures, materials, and other specialists monitored developments remotely. And that was about as far

as anyone had been able to plan ahead in the time available. Where they went after that would depend on

what transpired.

"Kerry's an Irish name, isn't it?" Juanita said at last. "But it doesn't seem to fit with the other part."

Kerry got asked this all the time. "I'm from the part of Eurussia called Poland," he replied. "My parents

bought a lucky ticket in the Irish state lottery shortly before I was born, and that was how they

celebrated." He wrinkled his nose and rubbed it with a knuckle. "Anyway, who are you to ask? How

does 'Juanita' come to be connected with Xiang-Chu?"

Juanita's face softened into the concession of a smile. It was the first time Kerry had felt a moment of

real person-to-person contact. He wasn't sure what she and the several others from her department were

doing here at all. It wasn't as if there was likely to be much call for security precautions on Tremil. The

Chinese just seemed incapable of doing anything without its having to have a political dimension.

"Oh, my mother had a Mexican grandfather that she was very fond of," she replied. "You know how it is

with us and our illustrious ancestors. I'm pretty sure that had something to do with it."

"Do you miss it much?"

"Earth, you mean?"

"Uh-huh."

Juanita sighed. "I suppose there are always some things. I try not to think about it much. This is where I

am. This is where the things are that it is my duty to do. . . ." She inclined her head. "How about you?"

Kerry shook his head. "It's a madhouse back there. Everyone has some reason for getting militant about

why everyone else shouldn't be allowed to do what they want to do. Getting through to most of them is

like trying to talk to a fire siren. I prefer life in the Outzones, even if the attractions might not make for the

best tour brochures. People value each other for the things that matter, because they depend on them.

Phonies don't get very far. You learn to be honest with yourself."

"I saw in your records that you are divorced," Juanita said.

"Hey, that's not fair. I didn't get to see your records."

"I was never married. I got involved in politics when I was at university, and decided on a career in that

direction."

"Hm. So weren't there any like-minded politically attractive males there too?"

"If there were, I never met one." Juanita paused for a moment, acknowledging the need to be delicate. It

struck Kerry as very gracious. "What happened with you? Things just didn't work out?"

"Oh . . . her only measure of a meaningful life was impressing worthless friends. She'd never have lasted

a week out here. You see, we weren't meant for the same world. Literally."

Elliott returned with two plastic mugs and passed one across to Kerry. Before Kerry had taken a sip,

Colonel Hinjao came in from the corridor, wearing ship fatigues and accompanied by an adjutant. He

looked around, raising a hand to indicate that he had an announcement. A hush fell over the scientists.

"We have more news from Langtry, just in from Earth," Hinjao informed them. "It appears that our task

is more complicated. Two more occurrences have been reported, each in a different star system. So we

can forget any idea that this is something peculiar to Tremil. I will, of course, keep you updated as soon

as we learn anything further. Thank you."

* * *

Earth had been strengthening the deep-space defenses protecting the outposts around the periphery of its

domain in response to the perceived threat from the Eks. One of the new incidents was at a gamma-laser

battle station in orbit over a gas giant in the Cyrus-2 system. The platform also housed an advanced

military research and testing laboratory that possessed all the right equipment and expertise to investigate

the phenomenon from its earliest beginning. It was from here, therefore, that the first insights came back

as to what was going on.

The station was being "digested"—which was the best word that the scientists there could come up with.

Its outside was corroding under the combined assault of countless microscopic objects that attacked

metals, utilizing oxidation energy and incorporating the products. Nobody knew where they had come

from. They seemed to have drifted in from space, and found the artifacts of advanced technical

civilization to be just what they needed to thrive on. Built in the way and to the scale generally thought of

in connection with nano devices, yet exhibiting more of the function of a bizarre form of digestion enzyme,

they had been dubbed "nanozymes." Arguments broke out immediately over whether they were of natural

or artificial origin but the issue was soon settled. Before the scientists in the ship were even through

studying the preliminary data, reports of new attacks were already coming in. As the locations were

plotted on charts of the surrounding regions, an ominous pattern became discernible. The nanozymes

were appearing roughly in a hemisphere centered upon Sol. And the latest ones were getting closer.

Things didn't move that quickly between star systems. Not naturally, anyway. It was being orchestrated

deliberately, for a reason, by something with the means to exert an influence across light-years. And at a

time like this, that could only mean the Eks.

* * *

James P. Hogan - Catastrophes, Chaos and Convolutions

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