
would grow cold andStarhopper would coast outbound toward Alpha Centauri, having left a trail of
debris extending all the way back to Mars in its wake. Nearly half a century after launch, the instrument
package would command the booster to turn end for end and begin decelerating. Again, fuel tanks and
their supporting structure would be jettisoned as they were emptied. Even the engines would be
discarded once they finished their task of slowing the instrument package to intrasystem velocity.
TheStarhopper that entered the Centauri system would bear little resemblance to the one that left Mars.
The instrument package represented only 0.1 percent of the original vehicle mass. Even so, at 110 tons, it
was as large as a small spaceship. The instrument section contained maneuvering engines, antimatter,
reaction mass, a power reactor, communications gear, and instruments able to wrest the secrets from the
half dozen alien worlds known to orbit the Centauri suns.
Tory Bronson lay on her back on the carpeted deck of a Phobos surface dome and gazed up to where
the interstellar booster maintained station on the larger of the two Martian moons. She thought of all the
problems and crises that had been bested since the program’s conception. At times, Dard Pierce had
often told her, it had seemed as though the probe would never be built. Even now, the coalition of
governments, universities, and corporations that supportedStarhopper were grudging in their largesse.
Tory had been three years old when Pierce published his original paper. By the time he had gathered up
enough backers to begin planning in earnest, Tory had entered the University of Olympus on Mars. It had
been her intention to become a lawyer. She first heard about the project at one of Pierce’s lectures,
which she attended because she needed the extra credit for a science class. That might have been her
only exposure to Starhopper had not her career plans changed at the beginning of her sophomore year.
The change came about when she was fitted with her first computer implant.
Like antimatter propulsion, the implants were an old technology that had been steadily improved over a
century of use. The first implants had been simple aural devices, little more than fancy hearing aids that
allowed the user to subvocalize a command, and then receive the computer’s response directly to the
inner ear. In those days, implants had been little more than status symbols for the rich, subminiature
cellular phones for conducting business while pretending to do something else. Not until a method for
directly stimulating the brain was developed did the modern computer implant become possible. The
heart of an implant was its molecular computer and direct stimulus/response microcircuit. Once implanted
behind the left ear (the right ear for left-handed people), it sensed the complex electrical rhythm of the
brain and translated conscious thoughts into electrical impulses that were then transmitted to a remote
computer. The computer’s response was then translated back into brain waves, and the required patterns
induced in the sensory centers of the brain.
There were limitations, of course. The wearer had to learn to think in such a manner that the implant
interpreted that mental activity as a command, and not as the background noise that was normal thought.
It was a little like learning to wiggle one’s ears. No one could precisely describe how to accomplish it,
but once the skill was mastered, it was never forgotten. The implants did nothing to make the wearer
more intelligent. What they did do was provide a phenomenal memory, to the point where one could
“remember” things they had never known.
There were other practical limitations on implant use. Most people quickly reached a point where
additional data merely confused them. The problem, long known to students, was known as “avalanche
effect” because it felt as though one was being buried under an avalanche of data. The symptoms were
that anyone who tried to delve too far into a subject ended up disoriented and muddled.
Curiously, a few people seemed immune to the problem. No matter how complex the task, these rare
minds were able to keep the goal in view without becoming mired down in detail. Such clear-headedness
was an inborn talent. It could not be taught or learned. Those so blessed found themselves in demand as