Charles Sheffield - The Mind Pool

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Introduction
The Mind Pool, the volume you are now holding in your hand, was originally a somewhat different and rather shorter
book, The Nimrod Hunt.
Writing a book is hard work. Writing a book twice, the same book, sounds like masochism. I want to explain why I did
it.
Before The Nimrod Hunt was published, I knew three things. First, the book was the longest and most complex science
fiction novel that I had ever written. Second, because of my own worries over that length and complexity, I omitted a
substantial subplot that I was very fond of, but which was not an absolute essential. That did allow the book to be a
good deal shorter, although at the cost of an ending different from the one that I had originally intended. (I have put
that subplot back in. It first enters in Chapter Three. Although the beginning of The Mind Pool is like the start of The
Nimrod Hunt, the ending is radically different.)
Third, and less obviously relevant, in writing The Nimrod Hunt I had been greatly influenced by a classic novel by
Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination. I've loved that book since I first read it. I had no thought of imitating Bester's
style, which although marvelous is uniquely his and quite unlike my way of telling stories. But I wanted to emulate the
multitude of ideas, the diverse backgrounds, and the blowzy rococo decadence of his future society. I also wanted to
put in a good deal more science, an interstellar landscape, and some rather odd aliens. That told me I was going to
write a pretty long novel.
My admiration of Bester was not particularly hidden. How could it be, when his book had a major character named
Regis Sheffield, and mine had one called King Bester?
But soon after publication, I learned two things that I had not known before it. First, the influence of Bester was direct
enough to upset some reviewers, particularly in the way that The Nimrod Hunt ended. Dan Chow told me as much and
said it marred the novel for anyone familiar with Bester's works.
Second, and perhaps more important, I had committed a basic sin of story-telling. At the beginning of the book I set up
a red herring, an expectation in the reader's mind which was never fulfilled. Algis Budrys told me just what I had done,
and how to correct it.
All these things would normally be irrelevant. The moving word processor writes, and having writ, moves on. A book,
once published, cannot be unwritten, and even if rewritten it will not normally be seen in print.
Enter Jim Baen, publisher of The Nimrod Hunt. In August or 1991, Jim called to say that he was going to reissue the
book, with a new cover. Was I interested in changing, deleting, or adding anything?
Was I! Of course I was, and my task sounded easy: remove the red herring, restore the original subplot, and make the
homage to Alfred Bester less intrusive.
Naturally, it didn't work out like that. I am not the same writer I was six years ago. I finished by rewriting the whole
novel to match my present tastes. Some passages grew, others shrank or disappeared, many became unrecognizable. I
don't think any page was left untouched. The one-week easy fix became the two-month concentrated effort. I found
that I had produced a different book.
The Mind Pool is that book. If you have read The Nimrod Hunt, I invite you to compare the two. If you have not, I
invite you to read the book that you are holding.
I hope the story is a success. If not, I'm not sure I want to know about it. It would be a real pain to have to write
everything a third time.
Prologue: Cobweb Station
The first warning was no more than a glimmer of light. In the array of twenty-two thousand monitors that showed the
energy balance of the solar system, one miniature diode had flicked on to register a demand overload.
To say that the signal was neglected by the crew at the Vulcan Nexus would be untrue and unfair. It was simply never
seen. The whole display array had been installed in the main control room of the Nexus for the benefit of visiting
dignitaries and the media. "There!"— a wave of the hand—"The power equation of the whole system at a glance. Left
side, energy supply. Each light shows energy collection from a solar panel. The individual demands are on the right."
The visitors took a moment or two to examine the array of gently winking lights, and the tour went on. The impressive
part was still to come, with the powered swoop past four hundred million square kilometers of collectors, each sucking
in Sol's radiance. The array orbited only two million kilometers above the photosphere, where Sol's flaming disk filled
thirty degrees of the sky. It was an unusual visitor who gave the display room a second thought after a roller-coaster
ride to the solar furnace, skimming over vast hydrogen flares and the Earth-size-swallowing whirlpools of the
sunspots.
So the overload signal was seen by no one. But human ignorance of minor energy fluctuations was no cause for
concern. Supply and demand had long been monitored by an agent far more efficient and conscientious than
unreliable homo sapiens. The distributed computing network of Dominus at once noted the source of the energy drain.
It was coming from Cobweb Station, twelve billion kilometers from the Sun. In less than one hour, energy demand at
Cobweb had increased by a factor of one hundred. Even as that information came through the computer network, a
second light went on in the displays. Energy use had increased again, by another factor of a hundred.
Dominus switched in an additional power supply from the orbiting fusion plants out near Persephone. Reserve supply
was more than adequate. There was no sign of emergency, no thought of disaster. But Dominus initiated a routine
inquiry as to the cause of the increased energy demand and its projected future profile.
When there was no reply from Cobweb, Dominus brought new data on-line. A communications silence for the past
twenty-four hours was noted for Cobweb Station. That was correlated in turn with the pattern of energy use, and a
signal showing that the Mattin Link system at Cobweb Station had been activated, although not yet used for either
matter or signal transmission.
Dominus flashed an attention alert to the main control displays at Ceres headquarters and scanned all probes beyond
Neptune. The nearest high-acceleration needle was nearly a billion kilometers away from Cobweb—seventeen hours at
a routine hundred gee.
Dominus dispatched the needle probe just a few seconds before the problem first came to human attention. The
technician on duty at Ceres checked the status flags, noted the time, and approved both the increased energy drain
and the use of the needle probe. She did not, however, call for a report on the reason for the energy use on Cobweb
Station. The anomaly appeared minor, and her mind was elsewhere. The end of the shift was just a few minutes away,
and she had an after-work date with a new possible partner. She was looking forward to that. Staying overtime to
study minor power fluctuations, far away in the Outer System, formed no part of her evening plans.
Her actions were quite consistent with her responsibilities. That she would later become the first scapegoat was merely
evidence of the need for scapegoats.
When the needle probe was halfway to Cobweb Station, energy demand flared higher. That surging rise by another
two orders of magnitude finally pushed the problem to a high-priority level. Dominus signaled for an immediate
increase to emergency probe acceleration and began the transfer to probe memory of all structural details of Cobweb
Station.
The racing probe was less than two years old. As a class-T device it contained the new pan inorganica logic circuits
and a full array of sensors. It could comprehend as much of what it saw as most human observers, and it was eager to
show its powers. It waited impatiently, until at five million kilometers from Cobweb Station it could finally pick up the
first image on its radar. The hulking station showed as a grainy globe, pocked by entry ports and knobby with
communications equipment. The probe's data bank now included a full description of the station's purpose and
presumed contents. It had started all-channel signalling even at extreme range, with no reply.
Cobweb Station's silence continued. The probe was closing fast, and it was puzzled to observe that all the station's
entry ports appeared open to space. It sent a Mattin Link message back to Dominus, reporting that peculiarity, and
decelerated hard until it was within a hundred kilometers. The high-resolution sensors were now able to pick up images
of small, irregular objects floating close to the station. Some of them gave off the bright radar reflection of hard metal,
but others were more difficult to analyze. The probe launched two of its small bristle explorers, one to inspect the
space flotsam, the other to enter and examine the interior of the station.
If the second bristle explorer's task was ever completed, the results were not recorded. Long before that, every
message circuit on the probe had hit full capacity. A blast of emergency signals deluged through the Mattin
Link to Dominus, while rarely-used indicators sprang to life on every control board from the Vulcan Nexus to the Oort
Harvester.
The first bristle explorer had encountered the debris outside Cobweb Station. Some of it was strange fragments,
mixtures of organic and inorganic matter blown to shapelessness by the weapons of station guards. But next to those
twisted remnants, sometimes mixed inextricably with them, there floated the bloated, frozen bodies of the guards
themselves. In shredded uniforms, cold fingers still on triggers, the dead hung gutted and stiff-limbed in the endless
sarcophagus of open space.
Throughout the solar system, alarm bells sounded their requiems.
Chapter 1
LINK NETWORK COMPLETE. STAND BY FOR CONFERENCE CONNECT.
The musical disembodied voice sounded from all sides. In the last few seconds before final Link Connection, Dougal
MacDougal turned to the two men standing next to him in the domed hall.
"I want to emphasize it one more time. This is strictly a briefing for the Ambassadors. Although the hearing takes
place in the Star Chamber, there's currently no criminal charge at issue. I'm sure you want to keep it that way. That
means your testimonies have to be as accurate and complete as possible. No concealing of information, even if it
makes you look bad. Understood?"
Ambassador Dougal MacDougal was a tall, imposing figure. The traditional robes of office were handed down from
one Terran Ambassador to the next, but on him they sat as though made for his shoulders alone.
The other two men exchanged the briefest of glances before they nodded. \
"And be consistent," went on MacDougal. "You are in enough trouble already. You don't want to add to it by
contradicting each other."
"I understand perfectly." Luther Brachis was a match for MacDougal in height, and massively broader. Even in the low
gravity of the Ceres' Star Chamber, his booted tread shook the gold and white floor. He was in full uniform. On his left
breast sat a phalanx of military decorations, and the swirling Starburst of Solar Security was blazoned across his right
sleeve. No matter that those meant less than nothing to the alien ambassadors. They mattered to him.
His eyes, a weary grey-blue, were unreadable as they met Dougal MacDougal's. "I will describe everything, and
conceal nothing."
"Very good." The Ambassador turned at once to the other man. "I know you two never stop bickering. I just want to
tell you, this isn't the time and place for it. If you have anything to disagree on, do it now. The link will close in a few
seconds."
Esro Mondrian had to look up to meet MacDougal's glare. Both MacDougal and Brachis towered over him by a full
head, and in contrast to them his build was slender, even frail. Unlike them, he was also wearing the plainest of
costumes. The severe black uniform of Boundary Security, precisely tailored and meticulously clean, stood unadorned
by medals or insignia of office. Only the single fire opal at his left collar served as his identification badge—and
concealed its other multiple functions as communicator, computer, warning system, and weapon.
Mondrian shrugged. "I'm not in the habit of concealing information from anyone who legitimately has a need to know
it. As soon as we have full identification for the parties tapping in to the Link, and a secure line, I'll give them all the
information that I believe appropriate.'
His voice was agreeable and low in volume, but it was not offering the commitment that Dougal MacDougal was
asking. Before MacDougal could reply, the lights for full Mattin Link operation began to blink. The Terran
Ambassador gave Mondrian one unsatisfied scowl and turned to face the sunken well of the room. In front of them,
the hemisphere of the Star Chamber's central atrium had been empty. Now three oval patterns of light were flickering
into existence within it. As the men watched, the lights gradually solidified to reveal the three-dimensional images of
the Ambassadors.
On the far left hung a shrouded, pulsing mass of dark purple. The image steadied, and the shape became the swarming
aggregate of a Tinker Composite, imaging in from Mercantor in the Fomalhaut system. The Tinker had clustered to
form a symmetrical ovoid with appendages of roughly human proportions. Next to it (but fifty-plus lightyears away in
real space, halfway across the domain of the Stellar Group) loomed the dark green bulk of an Angel. And far off to the
right, beyond a vacant spot in the assembly and still showing the margin of rainbow fringes that marked signal
transients, hovered the lanky tubular assembly of a Pipe-Rilla. It was linking in from its home planet around Eta
Cassiopeiae, a mere eighteen lightyears away.
MATTIN LINK NETWORK COMPLETE, said the same pleasant human voice. THE CONFERENCE MAY NOW
PROCEED.
It was a historic moment. The representatives of the Stellar Group were in simultaneous full audio and visual contact
for the first time in twenty-two Earth years. Dou-gal MacDougal, conscious that he was about to take part in a singular
event of Stellar Group history, adjusted his already-perfect robes and stepped forward to fill the one remaining spot in
the tableau of ambassadors. "Greetings. I am Dougal MacDougal, Solar Ambassador to the Stellar Group. Welcome to
the Ceres' Star Chamber. Can you all see and hear me, and each other?"
The question was pure diplomatic formality. The Link computers would have confirmed full audio and visuals before
permitting any of the participants to enter link mode. Yes," said the Pipe-Rilla, in a fair approximation to human speech.
"Yes," echoed the Tinker, and, after a few seconds, the computer-generated response of the Angel Ambassador.
"As you know," went on MacDougal, "we have called this special meeting to discuss a difficult situation. A recent
event here in the Sol system is cause for grave concern, and it could be a problem affecting the whole Stellar Group.
We may have to consider unusual—maybe unprecedented—control measures. Naturally, any such decision must
involve all members of the Stellar Group. But first, you need to know the background of the problem. For that purpose,
I have arranged for you to receive a briefing from two of the principals involved in this matter from the beginning,"
"Preparing to pass the buck." Luther Brachis spoke with an impassive face and without moving his lips.
"Naturally." Both men had learned the parade ground knack of invisible speech long ago, but the trick could still come
in useful. "Did you ever doubt it?" went on Mondrian softly. "Mac's a good bureaucrat, if he's nothing else. He
decided long ago where he was going to place the blame."
"First, a statement from Commander Luther Brachis," said MacDougal, as though he had managed to intercept
Mondrian's last remark. "Commander Brachis is the Chief of Solar System Security. As such, he is responsible for
monitoring all anomalous events that occur within half a lightyear of Sol." MacDougal turned away from the other
Ambassadors, and moved so that all four were in line facing the witnesses. Hidden lamps came on to frame Brachis in a
crossfire of illumination.
"You may begin," said MacDougal.
Brachis nodded to the four shapes in their cocoons of light. His thoughts, whatever they were, would not be read from
his blunt lion's face.
"The Ambassador correctly stated my duties. Security is my job, from Apollo Station and the Vulcan Nexus, out to the
edge of the Oort Cloud and the Dry Tortugas. I have held that position for five years.
"Two years ago, I received a request for a development project on Cobweb Station. That station is a research facility
about twelve billion kilometers from Sol. It is a free orbiting artificial structure, in the ecliptic, and roughly halfway
between the orbits of Neptune and Persephone. Cobweb Station has served as a research center for more than seventy
Earth years. The proposed project was a secret one, but that is not unusual for the facility. I approved the request, and
the project began under the code name, Operation Morgan. With your permission, we will defer description of the
nature of the project itself until Commander Mondrian's testimony." Brachis paused, and waited for the four stylized
gestures of assent.
"Then I will say no more than this: From my point of view, Operation Morgan was conducted with the highest level of
security. Twenty of my department's most experienced and valued guards were assigned to the project. They took up
residence on Cobweb Station for the duration of the project. General supplies of volatiles were dropped in from the
Oort Cloud, and energy came through the solar system's supply grid. That power was controlled from the Vulcan
Nexus, with the master boards here on Ceres. In two years of operation, no anomaly of any kind was ever noted. All
progress reports on Operation Morgan indicated excellent results, with no substantial difficulties experienced or
projected.
"That situation ended twenty days ago. On that date, an anomalous energy demand triggered a flag in our general
power monitoring system.
"This concludes the first part of my testimony." Brachis glanced from one Ambassador to the next. "Are there
questions?"
The four figures facing him were silent. There was only the usual faint hiss of the Mattin Link connection. The Angel
was restlessly waving its upper lobes, while Dougal MacDougal was glancing from side to side. Brachis knew better
than to expect support from the Solar Ambassador.
"With your permission, then, I will continue. The changed energy requirement that I referred to came directly from
Cobweb Station. Unfortunately it happened during a quiet period, very near to a change of shift. The evidence of
increased load was not at first noticed by my staff. I take full responsibility for that operational failure. However, the
demand change was registered by our automatic monitoring system, together with a lengthy communications silence.
A probe was dispatched to Cobweb Station.
"It arrived too late. All my staff were dead. The station was empty of human life. The Mattin Link had been operated.
And I finally learned things about the nature of Operation Morgan that I should have taken the time to learn long ago.
All activities at Cobweb Station are under my jurisdiction. I take full responsibility for what happened there."
He had finished his testimony and was ready to stand down, but now there was a stir from the ranks of the
Ambassadors. "You said that the Mattin Link was activated." It was the Pipe-Rilla, gently vibrating her thorax plates.
"For transmission of objects, or for signals only?"
"For objects."
"Then, to what destinations?"
"I do not know. But the energy drain says that it must have been many lightyears."
As Brachis was giving his testimony, new individual components had flown in silently to join the Tinker Composite.
Now it bulked much larger than a human. There was a fluttering of tiny purple-black wings, and then a sibilant facsimile
of human speech came again through the Link. "We would like the records, if you please. We wish to attempt our own
analysis of possible destinations. And we wish to know more about the nature of the project you term Operation
Morgan."
"Very well. But for that, I will with your permission defer to Commander Mondrian. My own records will be sent to you
at once, and I will of course be available to answer any further questions." Luther Brachis stepped back, ceding the
spotlight to Esro Mondrian.
His companion had been performing his own close inspection of the Ambassadors. There was no chance of
recognizing any particular assembly of Tinker Composites, but the Angels and Pipe-Rillas both had stability of
structure. It was possible mat he had met one of them before, on their own home worlds. In any case, he knew he
would have to talk right past Dougal MacDougal if he hoped for any kind of sympathetic response from the alien
Ambassadors.
"My name is Esro Mondrian. I am Chief of Boundary Survey security. My territory begins half a lightyear from Sol,
where it meets the region controlled by Commander Brachis. It extends all the way out to, and includes, the Perimeter.
Between us, Commander Brachis and I divide the responsibility for human species security. However, Operation
Morgan was my initiative and its failure is my responsibility, not his.
"I have worked in the past with each of your own local monitoring groups, and I have visited your home systems. We
are fortunate, all our species, in that we live in stable, civilized regions, where there are few unknown dangers. But out
on the Perimeter, fifty lightyears and more from Sol, there are no such guarantees."
Down in the sunken atrium in front of Mondrian there was an odd grunting sound. It was Dougal MacDougal, clearing
his throat. He did not speak, but he did not need to. Mondrian understood the message. Get on with it, man. The
Ambassadors didn't link in from halfway to the Perimeter just to hear platitudes from you.
And yet they had to hear this, whether MacDougal liked it or not. Esro Mondrian hurried on.
"Out on the Perimeter, distances are enormous. But our resources to monitor what is happening out there are limited,
and operating uncertainties are large. A few years ago I realized that we were losing ground. The Perimeter constantly
increases in size, but our capability was not growing with it. We had to have some new type of monitoring
instrument—one that could function with minimal support from the home bases, and also one that was tougher and
more flexible than anything that we could make with the pan inorganica brains. It was while I was wrestling with that
problem, and evaluating alternatives!—none of them satisfactory—that I was approached by a scientist, Livia
Morgan. She offered an intriguing prospect. She could, she claimed, develop symbiotic forms that combined organic
and inorganic components. By the end of our first meeting, I was convinced that what she had might be perfect for our
needs." Mondrian nodded at one or the figures in front of him. "I also knew of at least one example, sufficient to prove
that such a blend of organic with inorganic was not impossible."
The Angel acknowledged the reference with a wave of blue-green fronds. It was itself a symbiotic life-form, discovered
a century and a half earlier when the expanding wave-front of the Perimeter had reached the star Capella and the
planets around it. The visible part of the Angel was the Chassel-Rose, slow-moving, mindless, and wholly vegetable.
Shielded within the bulbous central section lived the sentient crystalline Singer, relying upon the Chassel-Rose for
habitat, transportation, and communication with the external world.
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," said the computerized voice of the Angel.
Mondrian stared back at the gently waving fronds. The Angels had that disconcerting habit of employing human
clichés and proverbs at every opportunity. No one was ever sure if it represented the symbiote's perverse ideas of
racial politeness, or served some wild sense of humor.
"Regarding the entities that Livia Morgan proposed to create." Mondrian had realized after a few seconds that the
Angel intended to offer no further comment. "I will from this point term them the Morgan Constructs. They were
designed specifically to patrol the Perimeter. Their performance specifications were drawn very precisely. Each unit
had to be mobile, durable, and highly intelligent. Livia Morgan told me once that they would be—I
quote—'indestructible.' Fortunately, she was exaggerating. However, they were designed to be very tough, since they
would cruise the unexplored regions of the Perimeter, and perhaps there encounter life forms inimical to them and to
everyone in the Stellar Group. However, I intended that they should serve a reporting function only. They would be
able to protect themselves from attack, but they would not, under any circumstances, harm a known intelligent life
form, or any life form that might possibly have intelligence.
"I was present at every initial demonstration of the Morgan Constructs. They were exposed to each of our four
species, and to the seven other possibly intelligent organisms within the Perimeter. They were also allowed to interact
with a variety of Artefacts, simulacra of differing degrees of apparent intelligence. The Constructs recognized each
known form. The unknown ones, they responded to in a friendly and harmless manner. They treated the Artefacts with
caution and respect. When attacked themselves, they did no more than remove themselves from harm's way. However,
they did so too reluctantly, and would have been destroyed in any real attack. I therefore authorized the next stage of
the work, to raise the Constructs to a higher level of sophistication. Livia Morgan began that program. But somehow,
out on Cobweb Station, a crucial design blunder must have been made." Mondrian faced Dougal MacDougal. "May I
show the images obtained by the probe?"
"Carry on. But hurry. We can't hold the link indefinitely."
"I want to warn you all, these scenes are deeply disturbing." As Mondrian spoke, a sphere of darkness was forming
behind him. Within it glowed the rough-textured ovoid of Cobweb Station as it had been seen by one of the bristle
probes. At first the whole station sat in the field of view. It grew in size, and increased steadily in resolution. Soon
dozens of flattened and twisted objects could be seen, floating outside the airlocks. Many of them were quite
unrecognizable, little more than fused fragments of metal and plastic. The camera ignored those. It closed
remorselessly on a score of space suits. Each one was filled, but if their occupants had been alive when they were
expelled from the locks, they would not have survived for long. The detailed images showed missing limbs,
disemboweled trunks, and headless torsoes. The camera locked on one figure, a turning eyeless corpse that lacked feet
and hands.
"That is the mortal remains of Dr. Livia Morgan." Mondrian's voice was unnaturally calm. "Although neither she nor
the guards were able to send distress signals from Cobweb Station, the monitors preserved a complete record of their
last few hours. Based on that evidence, Morgan Constructs are cunning, and deadly, and utterly inimical to human life.
I would Tike to express my admiration for the performance of the guards assigned to Cobweb Station by Commander
Brachis. Although they had no warning when the Constructs ran wild, they did not give up or panic. There were
seventeen Morgan Constructs on Cobweb Station, each at a different stage of development, and each designed with a
different level of sophistication. The guards were able to destroy fourteen of them completely, inside or outside the
station, but with great loss of life. Dr. Morgan and four surviving guards attempted to negotiate with the remaining
three. She was seized and systematically dismembered. Unless you insist, I do not propose to show you details of
those scenes.
"The remaining guards were hounded through the station interior. They managed to destroy two more Morgan
Constructs before they were killed themselves. By the time that the bristle probes reached Cobweb Station, it was
empty of all life.
"Seventeen Constructs." The whistling voice of the Tinker Composite spoke at once. "Fourteen died, and later two
more ..."
"You are quite correct." The images behind Mondrian were fading. "As Commander Brachis told you, the Mat-tin Link
had been operated. That should have been impossible for a Construct which had received no assistance or training. It
is a further proof of extraordinary intelligence. The seventeenth Morgan Construct—the most recently developed, and
the most sophisticated— has disappeared. We are doing our best to trace it, but our working assumption must be a
pessimistic one. Somewhere within the fifty-eight lightyear radius of the Known Sphere—close to the Perimeter, we
hope, rather than near one of our home worlds—there is a formidable threat, of unknown magnitude. I do not believe
that any of our races is in immediate danger, particularly since the Constructs were designed and trained to work out
on the Perimeter, and it is likely that the escaped one will have chosen to flee there. But we cannot guarantee that, or
that the Construct will stay in one place. The purpose of today's meeting was to inform you of these unfortunate facts;
and to hear your suggestions as to ways of dealing with the situation. That is the end of my official statement. Are
there questions?"
Mondrian waited, glancing from one oval pool of light to the next. The Tinker, Angel, and Pipe-Rilla were too alien for
him to be able to read their feelings. Dougal MacDougal merely seemed irritable and decidedly uneasy.
"Then, your Excellencies." Mondrian took a step backwards, intending to align himself with Luther Brachis. "With
your permission—'
"Questions!" The fourteen-foot figure of the Pipe-Rilla was unfolding, rising high on its stick-thin legs. The fore-limbs
were clutching the tubular trunk, and the long antennas were waving. "I have questions."
Mondrian stepped forward again and waited, while the Pipe-Rilla went through a writhing of limbs and a preliminary
buzzing.
"Tell us more about the capability of the Morgan Constructs. A being, designed for defense but turned against its
makers, sounds unpleasant. But it does not sound like a great threat, or a cosmic issue. Presumably you designed
these Constructs without major means of aggression?'
"They were designed that way, true enough." Mondrian glanced around, to see if Luther Brachis wanted to make any
comment. The other man seemed more than ready to stay in the background. "However, as I mentioned, the
Constructs were all equipped with considerable powers of self-defense, to protect them from possible enemies of
unknown strength. Remember, they were supposed to operate alone, far from any support, against any dangers.
Unfortunately, their defensive powers can also be used offensively. Their power plants can produce small fusion
weapons. Their power lasers and shearing cones are enough to destroy any ship. They contained the best detection
equipment that we could produce, since we wanted them to be able to find other life forms at the longest possible
range. I could give you full details, but perhaps a single example is more informative: any single Morgan Construct
could destroy a city, or lay waste a fair-sized planetoid. The surviving Construct, unfortunately, was the best equipped
of the seventeen that were made."
Throughout Mondrian's reply there had been a slow stirring within the Tinker Composite. As he ended there came a
burst of speech, so fast that the computers cut in to decipher and re-translate it.
"Why? gabbled the Tinker. "Why, why, why? In the name of Security, you humans have produced a danger to
yourselves and to all the other species of the Stellar Group. Why does anyone need a Morgan Construct? Consider
yourselves. You have been exploring the region around your Sun for six hundred of your years. We have watched that
exploration for more than three centuries, ever since humans discovered our world and offered us space travel. And
what have we seen? The Perimeter now encloses a region one hundred and sixteen lightyears in diameter, with more
than two thousand star systems and a hundred and forty-three life-supporting planets. And nowhere, at any place
within that vast region, has any species been found that is in any way murderous or aggressive—except your own.
You humans are lifting a mirror to the universe, seeing your own faces within it, and declaring the cosmos terrifying.
We, the Tinkers, say two things: First, until you created your Morgan Constructs there was no danger anywhere.
Second, tell us why you continue this insane rush to expand the Perimeter. It now ends fifty-eight lightyears away
from Sol. Will you humans be satisfied when it has reached eighty lightyears? Or one hundred lightyears? Will you
stop then? When will you stop?"
Esro Mondrian looked to MacDougal. He saw no support there. "I cannot answer your general questions,
Ambassador. However, I can make a relevant point. I have long suggested that the Perimeter be frozen, or at least the
expansion slowed. You say that the region within the Perimeter has no dangers to any of us—'
"Had none." The Tinker was a blizzard of components, flying furiously about the central cluster. "Had none until your
species created one."
"—but the region outside the Perimeter may contain absolutely anything. Who knows how dangerous it might be, to
all of us?" Mondrian turned to face the Terran area of the atrium. "With all respect, Ambassador MacDougal, I must
say that I agree completely with the Tinker Ambassador. I know that such decisions are made at levels well above
mine, but as long as expansion does proceed, something like the Morgan Constructs is essential. We must take
measures to protect ourselves against whatever lies—"
"That's enough." Dougal MacDougal moved one hand, and the lights illuminating Esro Mondrian were instantly
extinguished. "Commander, you are removed from the witness stand. You were brought here to present a statement of
a situation, not to offer your personal—and unsound—views on human exploration. , MacDougal moved out of the
atrium, and turned so that he could be seen by the other three ambassadors of the Stellar Group. "Fellow
Ambassadors, my apologies to all of you. As you have heard, both these men bear fault in permitting this serious
problem to arise. Their own words convict them of error and of negligence. As soon as this meeting is over, you have
my word that I will move at once to have them removed from office. They will never again be in a position to—"
"No-o-o." The word came rolling from the Angel, delivered slowly and heavily through its computer link. "We will not
permit such action."
Rarely for him, MacDougal was caught off balance. "You mean—you do not want me to dismiss Commander
Mondrian and Commander Brachis?"
"No indeed." The topmost frond of the Angel went into slow but wide-ranging oscillation. "That cannot be. The
punishment must fit the crime. We, the Angels of Sellora, request a move at once to Closed Hearing. We request full
closure, without staff. There should be no one but Ambassadors present."
"But then the record—"
"There must be no record. The subject for discussion is a question so serious that it can be pursued only in full closed
hearing. For this, we invoke our ultimate Ambassadorial privilege."
Even as the Angel spoke, an opaque screen was flickering into existence around the atrium. The lighted areas around
the four Ambassadors were visible for a few seconds more, then there was nothing in the center of the Star Chamber
but a ball of scintillating darkness.
Luther Brachis stepped forward to stand next to Esro Mondrian. The two men were alone, outside the dark sphere.
Within it sat the four Ambassadors of the Stellar Group. Their earlier meeting had been the first full audio and visual
meeting in twenty-two years. Now came the first Closed Hearing in more than a century.
Chapter 2
Mondrian and Brachis had clearly been excluded from the Ambassadorial meeting. Just as clearly, they had not been
given permission to leave the Star Chamber. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do.
That should have been no problem. With overlapping areas of jurisdiction, the two men had a thousand points of
shared responsibility and a hundred disputes to settle.
But not today. They remained speechless, Brachis pacing and Mondrian sitting in brooding silence, until after two
long hours the opaque screen shivered away. The atrium mat it revealed had only two places occupied. The Pipe-Rilla
and Dougal MacDougal were still in position, but the Angel and the Tinker Composite had vanished. Even
MacDougal's presence was debatable. He sat crumpled in his seat, like an empty bag of clothes from which the
occupant had been spirited away.
The Pipe-Rilla gestured to Brachis and Mondrian to step forward. "We have reached agreement." The high-pitched
voice was as cheerful as ever, but that was no more than an accident of the production mechanism. The Pipe-Rillas
always sounded cheerful. The nervous rubbing of forelimbs told a different story. "And since the others are gone, and
your own Ambassador appears to be indisposed, it is left to me to tell you the results of our discussions." The
Pipe-Rilla gestured around her, at the two empty places and then at the shrunken, miserable figure of Dougal
MacDougal.
"What happened to him?" asked Brachis.
"There was a point of dispute between your Ambassador and the Ambassador for the Angels. The Angel has forceful
means of persuasion, even from a distance of many lightyears. I do not understand them, but Ambassador MacDougal
will—I trust—recover in just a few of your hours." The Pipe-Rilla waved a clawed forelimb to dismiss the subject.
"Commanders Brachis and Mondrian, please give me your closest attention. I must summarize our deliberations, and
our conclusions. First, on the subject of your own blame ..."
Mondrian and Brachis froze while the Pipe-Rilla stood, head bowed, for an interminable period. If a human had done
such a thing, it would have been by design. But with a Pipe-Rilla ...
"All the Ambassadors agree," said the Pipe-Rilla at last. "You are both responsible in this matter. Commander
Mondrian for initiating a project with such enormous potential for danger. Commander Brachis, for failing to make sure
that the monitoring for which he had responsibility was suitably carried out. You, and Livia Morgan herself, are
culpable in high degree. The willingness of both of you to accept responsibility does you credit, but it is not ultimately
relevant. You are guilty. The suggestion of your own Ambassador was that you should be relieved of all duties,
dismissed from security service, and stripped of all privileges."
Brachis glanced at Mondrian. Their Ambassador! He held up his hand, palm outward. "If I could be permitted a
comment—"
"No." There was a barely discernible tremor in the Pipe-Rilla's voice. "I must proceed, and as rapidly as p-possible. If
this discussion was impossible for the others, can you not see that it is far from easy for me? Ambassador
MacDougal's proposal was of course unacceptable. As the Angel Ambassador pointed out to him, we hold you,
Commander Mondrian, more to blame than Commander Brachis, since you initiated the project, but it would be
preposterous to dismiss either of you, or relieve either of you of your duties. In any civilized society, it is the
individual or group who creates a problem that must have responsibility for solving it. The cause must become the
cure. The creation of the Morgan Constructs, and the subsequent escape of one of them, came from your actions and
inactions. Livia Morgan, who made the Constructs, is d-dead. And therefore the seeking out and d-disposal of that
escaped Morgan Construct must be in your hands. We recognize that humans follow codes of behavior quite different
from the rest of the Stellar Group, but in this case there is n-nothing to d-discuss. We are ... adamant."
There had been a shift in the Pipe-Rilla's posture, and its voice reflected the change. It was too gabbling and jerky to
be understood without translation, and Dominus had cut in to provide computer support.
"Ambassador MacDougal has agreed," went on the Pipe-Rilla. "B-beginning at once, there will be created a new group
within the department of Human System Security. It will be of a form peculiar to human history ... a military expedition
... what your species knows as"—there was an infinitesimal pause, while Dominus selected and offered for Pipe-Rilla
approval a variety of words—"as an Anabasis."
"As a what?" The grunted question from Brachis to Mondrian was nothing like a whisper. "What's she mean?"
"Anabasis," said Mondrian softly. "We need to review our translation boxes. I don't know what she means, but I'll bet
that's not it—the original Anabasis was a military expedition, one that turned into defeat and retreat. Not a good
omen."
The Pipe-Rilla took no notice of their exchange. She was in serious trouble of her own, limbs moving spastically and
her narrow thorax fluttering. "The Anabasis," she whistled, on a rising note. "It will be headed by Commander
Mondrian, who has principal responsibility for the problem, assisted by Commander Brachis. Your t-task will be simple.
You will s-select and t-train Pursuit Teams, to find the—location of—the Morgan Construct. You will follow it
to—wherever it is hi—ding." Now even Dominus could not help. The speech pattern of the Pipe-Rilla was becoming
more and more disorganized as its voice rose past the range of human ears. It became a great, shivering whistle,
matching the shake of the giant body. "Each pursuit team must contain one—trained— member of—each intelligent
species. Tinker—Angel— Human—and ... and Pipe-Rilla." The voice became a supersonic shriek. "The Pursuit
Teams will find the Morgan Construct and—they will—destroy it. DESTROY IT!"
The Pipe-Rilla was gone. The Link was broken, the Star Chamber atrium empty except for the huddled form of Dougal
MacDougal.
Brachis turned to Esro Mondrian. "What in the name of living hell was all that about?"
Mondrian was rubbing his cheek and staring at the chromatic flicker of the dying Link connection. 'I guess she
couldn't stand it. None of them can. No wonder they had to have a Closed Session, and a secret vote."
"Couldn't stand what?" Brachis was scowling. It had just occurred to him that according to the Pipe-Rilla's edict, he
now reported to Mondrian. "You're as bad as they are."
"Come on, Brachis. You know the prime rule of the rest of the Stellar Group as well as I do. Intelligent life must be
preserved. It's not to be destroyed ever, for any reason."
"Yeah. As stupid a damned rule as I ever heard."
"Maybe. But that's the way they think of it—true at the individual level, and even more true at the species level."
"So?"
"So they want us to find the Morgan Construct—and destroy it. Suppose it's really an intelligent living form?"
"Tough. Happens all the time. Hell, I just lost twenty of my best guards."
"That's individuals. This Construct is the only one of its kind in the whole universe. Livia Morgan is dead, and we
didn't find her records. Without them we don't know how to make a Construct. The ambassadors must have gone
through agony to make that ruling—you saw them when they were looking at the images from the Cobweb Station
probe. They told us we're the most aggressive species they know—but they must be afraid that the Construct is a lot
worse than us."
"But if they can't stand the thought of violence, why did they come up with that dumb idea about a member of each
Stellar Group on every Pursuit Team? You can see what will happen when a Pursuit Team gets to the Construct and
has to wipe it out. The other species will just fall apart."
"Maybe they will. But that's consistent, too, with their way of thinking. It's the old idea of the firing squad, where one
man gets a blank instead of a live bullet. Each species won't know for sure that it was the one responsible for the death
of the Morgan Construct."
"Big deal." Brachis stared down at the zombie figure of Dougal MacDougal. "I guess we're dismissed. I don't see him
giving us orders for a while. If I'd been in that meeting, I'd have told us humans to go ahead and catch the Construct
for ourselves. I care about intelligent species, too, but I'd blow away a thousand of 'em, and not think twice about it,
for solar system security."
"You're proving the ambassadors' point."
"So what? Even you've got more in common with me than any one of them. They're all less human than a damned
jellyfish." Brachis frowned. "Know what really pisses me off about this whole thing, apart from losing my guards? You
screw up a lot worse than me, so the bug puts you in charge of me. Did you ever run across a more ass-backwards
logic in your life? You've come out a winner! You ought to be in the worst trouble, instead you can sit there grinning
all over your face. Though I must say, I don't see you smiling much."
"You know me, Luther. I could be laughing my head off inside, and you'd never know it. Come on, let's go before the
ambassador wakes up."
He led the way out of the Star Chamber.
Esro Mondrian was not laughing, inside or out. He needed to track down the last surviving Morgan Construct. And
when he met that Construct, the last thing he wanted around him was members of the other Stellar Groups.
摘要：

V1.0–scannedbyFaile(lousyprintwithsmalllettersandverytightlines,correctedhundredsofOCRErrors,probablystillsomeinthere,sosomebodyproofreadthisthing)IntroductionTheMindPool,thevolumeyouarenowholdinginyourhand,wasoriginallyasomewhatdifferentandrathershorterbook,TheNimrodHunt.Writingabookishardwork.Writ...

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