Robinson, Spider - Callahan 08 - Callahan' s Key

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This e-text was scanned from paperback, proofread, and double checked carefully by Gorgon776 in

early June, 2001. It was released 21 June 2001 for your reading pleasure in lit, rtf, html and

plain vanilla text format. Cover scans also by Gorgon 776. If you find any errors in this e-text,

please correct them, update the version number by .1 and post it to alt.binaries.e-books, with

Attn: Gorgon776 in the header. If you enjoy this book, buy it in dead-tree edition to support the

author. Better yet, go to Baen Books website and buy the electronic version of Spider Robinson's

books, or those of any other author with the balls to release their works in e-book format. If you

can't manage that, hunt down his address and send him whatever you think the book is worth.

This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

CALLAHAN'S KEY

A Bantam Spectra Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Bantam Spectra hardcover edition published July 2000

Bantam Spectra paperback edition/May 2001

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed- "s" are trademarks of Bantam

Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Cover design by Jamie S. Warren Youll

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-051311

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information address: Bantam Books.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property.

It was reported as "unsold and destroyed' to the publisher and neither the author nor the

publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

ISBN 0-553-58060-4

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark,

consisting of the words "Bantam Books' and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S.

Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway,

New York, New York 10036.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

OPM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This one is for Guy Immesa

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK WOULD not have been possible without certain key speculations by cosmologists Alan Guth,

Sidney Coleman, and Sir Martin Rees, which I encountered in John Brockman's splendid book THE

THIRD CULTURE; my thanks to them for their unwitting assistance.

Possible or not, this book would have been much less plausible without the witting

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assistance of the following friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and kindly strangers: Guy Immega

(roboticist), Douglas Beder (physicist), David Sloan (physicist), Jaymie Matthews

(astrophysicist), Jef Raskin (interface expert; chief designer for the Macintosh), Douglas Scott

(cosmologist), Michael Spencer (blacksmith; philosopher), Bill McCutcheon (astrophysicist), David

Measday (astrophysicist), Joseph Green (writer; NASA alumnus), the uncredited creators of the NASA

website, Dean Ing (writer; auto designer/builder; military aviation expert) Laurence M. Jamfer

(writer; polymath), Ben Bova (writer; space travel expert), Douglas Girling (systems analyst;

aerospace expert), Ed Thelen (Internet Nike expert), and Ted Powell (programmer; cyberhistorian;

skeptic).

And those are just the people who helped with the science component of this story! (Any

errors arising from my misunderstanding of what they told me are, of course, all their fault, for

not explaining it better.)

Other invaluable assistance, advice, inspiration, or permission to quote was provided by

Spider John Koemer (musician), Don Ross (musician), the Beatles (the Beatles), David Gerrold

(writer; cat servant), Stephen Gaskin (hippie; writer; Head Judge for the first and second annual

International Cannabis Cup competitions in Amsterdam), Virginia Heinlein (retired naval officer;

biochemist; widow of Robert A. Heinlein), Lord Buckley (saint), Will Soto (tightrope-walking

juggler), the Key West Cultural Preservation Society and just about every Key West local I've ever

met. Special thanks must go to the superb Key West writer Laurence Shames, whose contribution to

this story (like those of Rees, Guth, and Coleman, above) was crucial, although quite unwitting.

And my ongoing gratitude goes to the alt.callahans Usenet newsgroup, for keeping me grounded.

All their efforts-and any efforts of my own-would have come to naught without the massive

ongoing love and support of my cherished wife Jeanne. . . or the acumen of my agent Eleanor Wood .

. . or the sagacity and kindness of my editor Patrick LoBrutto, who found several structural

defects and showed me how to fix them. And my friend Ted Powell deserves a second mention here,

for his work as volunteer creator and keeper of my website (which can be found at

http://psg.com/~ted/spider/).

Another second mention, and credit where it's due: the new name that Doc Webster suggests

for gamma-ray bursters, herein, is my own invention. . . but the exquisite topper Mei-Ling comes

up with was coined not by me but by Dr. Jaymie Matthews (who also came up with the title for my

triweekly Technology column in The Globe and Mail, Past Imperfect, Future Tenser).

Finally, my thanks to the late great madman Henry Morrison Flagler, without whom the whole

enterprise would not have been necessary-and to you, without whom it would have been pointless.

-Howe Sound, British Columbia 9 June, 1999

Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it...

-PHILIP K. DICK

If it ain't one thing, it's two things.

-GRANDFATHER STONEBENDER

CHAPTER ONE

Cold Reboot

"The future will be better tomorrow."

-J. Danforth Quayle

IT'S ALWAYS COLDEST before the warm.

Oh, it could have been colder that day, I guess-I hear there are places up north where

fifty below is considered a balmy day. But it could be a lot hotter than where I am now, if it

comes to that. This is just about as warm as I care to be-and the day the whole thing started, I

was as cold as I ever hope to get again in my life.

It was only twenty below, that day. . . but for Long Island, that's unusually frosty, even

in the dead of winter. Which that winter surely was: dead as folk music. Dead as Mary's Place.

Dead as Callahan's Place. Dead as my life, or my hopes for the future. You've read Steinbeck's THE

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WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT? Well, 1989 was the winter of our despair...

It's the little things you remember. You know how snow gets into your boots and makes you

miserable? I had been forced to stagger through a drift of snow so deep it had gotten into my

pants. A set of long underwear makes a wonderful wick. The damp patches from above and below had

met at my knees almost at once.

Not that snow of yesterday's blizzard had fallen to a depth of waist height. Long Island

isn't Nova Scotia or anything. My long soggies were simply the result of my tax dollars at work.

Just as I'd been in sight of my home-driving with extreme caution, and cursing the damned

Town of Smithtown that should have plowed this stretch of Route 25A yesterday, for Chrissake-I had

seen the town snowplow, coming toward me from the east. I'd experienced a microsecond of elation

before the situation became clear to me, and then I had moaned and banged my forehead against the

steering wheel.

Sure enough, the plow sailed by my home at a stately twenty miles an hour, trailing a long

line of cars and trucks nearly berserk with rage . . . and utterly buried my driveway with snow,

to the aforementioned waist height.

I knew perfectly well that there was nowhere else I could possibly park my car along that

stretch of two-lane highway anywhere within even unreasonable walking distance of home in either

direction-except the one driveway that I knew perfectly well the sonofabitching plow was about to

stop and plow out, which it did. The one right next door to mine. The driveway of the Antichrist,

where I would not have parked at gunpoint.

Of course the traffic stacked up behind that big bastard surged forward the instant it

fully entered Nyjmnckra Grtozkzhnyi's drive and got out of their way. Of course not one of them

gave an instant's thought to the fact that the road under their accelerating tires would now no

longer be cleared of snow and ice. And there I was, big as life, right in their way, with my

forehead on the steering wheel...

So by the time I got that snow in my pants, trying to clamber over the new dirty-white

ridge that separated my home from civilization, I no longer had to worry about parking the car. Or

fixing the damn heater, or putting gas or oil in it, or any such chores. Just paying for the final

tow-and, of course, the rest of the payments to the bank. Needless to say, the only car in the

whole pileup that had been totaled was mine; all the people who'd caused the accident drove away

from the scene. And of course they'd all agreed it had been my fault.

On the bright side, I was reasonably unhurt. Indeed, the only wound I had to boast of was

an extremely red face. Not from anger, or even from the cold. Those goddam air bags are not soft.

They never mention that in the ads.

So I was not looking forward to going through my front door. In the first place, I hated

having to tell Zoey that we were pedestrians again. A nursing mother does not often receive such

news gladly-and especially not when the temperature outside is twenty below and nothing useful

lies within walking range. And in the second place-

-in the second place I knew exactly what I was going to see when I walked-okay, hobbled-

through that door. And I just didn't know if I could take it one more time.

Is there anything sadder in all the world than a great big comfy superbly appointed

tavern. . . so unmistakably empty and abandoned that the cobwebs everywhere have dust on theme

I'd tried to keep up a brave front, and sustained it maybe six months. Then I'd gradually

slacked off on the mopping and dusting and vacuuming and polishing. By the end of a year, I wasn't

even fixing leaks. What was the point? No way in hell was Mary's Place ever going to reopen. We-I,

Jake Stonebender, its proprietor, and all of my highly irregular clientele-had made the single,

fatal mistake of pissing off Nyjmnckra Grtozkzhnyi. Our Ukrainian next-door neighbor-and the

beloved only aunt of Jorjhk Grtozkzhnyi.

Town Inspector Grtozkzhnyi...

Have you ever seen the total stack of paperwork required to legally operate a tavern in

the Town of Smithtown in the County of Suffolk in the great State of New York in these United

States of America~ I don't mean the liquor license: assume you have that. Let's just say if I'd

had that stack of paperwork-all of it six-point type, and consisting mostly of blanks for me to

fill in-in the trunk of the car with me that day, I could have just climbed up on top of it and

stepped over that goddam heap of snow left in my driveway by one of Inspector Grtozkzhnyi's

minions. In order to open Mary's Place at all, back in '88-in less than five years, for less than

half a million dollars-I had been forced to run it outlaw, counting on its isolation and the fact

that I made no effort at all to attract business to protect it from official attention.

But as Bob Dylan forgot to say, "To live outside the law, you must be lucky."

So it killed me, every time I walked through those swinging doors and saw my dream,

shrouded in spiderwebs. I always saw it, for a brief instant, as it had briefly been: full of

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warmth and life and laughter and music and love and magic. It re-broke my heart every time. It had

been much more than just my livelihood, far more than simply the only thing my wife and I owned

besides a Honda presently being dragged away for burial, two noble but battered musical

instruments, and a small fortune in baby gear.

It had been the home and the nucleus of an experiment so grand and important and urgent

that I know of no parallel in human history, an experiment that, had it succeeded, might

conceivably have brought an end to much human misery. And on the very verge of success, at the

moment of its greatest triumph, the critical mass it had brought together and fanned to ignition

temperature had been smashed, scattered like glowing gravel across the countryside by the most

destructive force man has unleashed in the last two millennia: bureaucracy.

So it was with maximum reluctance and a deep sense of failure that I entered my home and

former workplace that day. I lurched through the outer door, stopped in the foyer, called, "Hi,

Homey, I'm Hun," to Zoey, and stomped my boots together to knock off a few shards of snow before

pushing open the swinging doors to go inside. Unfortunately, someone had entered just before me

and done the same thing, leaving a slick I had failed to notice.

Which is why I lost my footing and slipped and fell flat on my ass.

Now I had snow under my shirt, that had migrated up from my pants. (You see the little

things you remember?) I said a few words that could have gotten me ejected from the cheapest

brothel in Manila, and sat up. Thank heaven for the thick furry hat that had partially protected

my skull when it whanged against the floor. I took it off and felt my head with my hand, was

relieved to confirm that I probably wouldn't raise a lump. My ass was a different matter. I got

wearily to my feet-

-well, I started to. I got just far enough to raise my entire, already inflamed face up in

front of those swinging doors before they burst open.

The Big Bang. The slow, slow expansion. The Heat Death. Empty cold eternity. Someone

slapping my fucking face-

"Jesus Christ, Duck, knock it off! What the hell are you doing back?"

"Nap later," the Lucky Duck said. "You're working."

Ernie Shea is known to one and all as the Lucky Duck because around him the laws of

probability turn to Silly Putty-which combined with his short stature explains and may even excuse

an irascible sourpuss personality reminiscent of Daffy Duck. He is a mutant, the bastard offspring

of a pookah and a Fir Darrig, two creatures commonly thought to be mythical (everywhere except

Ireland), and strange things always happen around him. It's sort of a paranormal power.

I was too groggy to think through the implications of his presence.

"The hell I am," I snarled. "I haven't worked in over a year. The goddam bar is as dead as

Nutsy's Kells . . . and the Folk Music Revival developed ice crystals in the brain from the

defrosting process, they had to put it back to sleep again. There is no work, you dumb pookah!"

"You're working," he repeated. "Nikky's here. Come on."

"Huh?"

I levitated, then looked down and stuck my feet firmly to the floor. This was too weird

not to be true. At my gesture, the Lucky Duck went back inside, and I followed him. And there,

standing at my bar, impeccably dressed as always and wiping drool from the chin of my baby

daughter Erin, was indeed and in fact Nikola Tesla.

Perhaps the name rings a bell? Forgotten Father of the Twentieth Century? Father of alternating

current. . . the condenser . . . the transformer . . . the Tesla Coil...the very induction motor

itself...the remote control... radio . . . the crucial "AND-gate" logic circuit. . . and all the

essential components of the transistor? (Tesla held patents on all of these. . . and literally a

hundred more.) Friend of Mark Twain and Paderewski, sworn enemy of the evil Edison and treacherous

Marconi? Perhaps the single most outrageously shafted and dishonored man in the history of the

human race, screwed out of more credit and money than anyone since the guy who invented sex? That

Nikola Tesla? Okay, perhaps it seems a little odd that he was going bar-hopping in the snow at age

133. Especially since he'd died forty-six years earlier, in 1943. But Nikky has more fiber than I

do, I guess: he doesn't let a little thing like death slow him down. "Hi, Nikky," I called out.

"What's up?"

"Jake!" he cried, in that memorable baritone. "Excuse me, Erin."

"Sure, Uncle Nikky," my fourteen-month-old said, releasing his fingers.

"Thank heaven you are here," Tesla said to me, wiping his fingers off on Erin's barf-scarf

and handing her to the Lucky Duck . . . who reluctantly accepted her and held her at arm's length.

"There is little time to lose."

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I sighed. Somehow I knew what he was about to say. It had been that kind of a day. "Go

ahead. Tell me about it."

He took a deep breath himself, and those incredible eyebrows of his drew together. "Jake,

Michael and I need you to save the universe."

I slammed my hat to the barroom floor. "God damn it. AGAIN?"

"Jake-" Zoey began, coming out of our living quarters in the back.

"No, I mean it, Zoey. I'm sorry, Nikky, but this is starting to piss me off."

He nodded gravely. "It is exceedingly aggravating."

"Jake, it's not-"

"Zoey, when the hell did I ever sign any recruitment papers? I would have been a

conscientious objector for Nam, if I hadn't already been 4-F."

"Jake, it's not as if-"

"Enough is enough, you know? You can go to the well once too often."

"Jake, it's not as if you had-"

"Do I have any training for this shit? Do I have my own tools? All I ever volunteered for

in my life was going up on stage to make music, and running a bar, and helping you and Erin

conquer the planet, and I've blown two out of three so far."

"Jake, it's not as if you had anything better-"

"No, I'm serious: twice is as much as any man ought to be asked to serve his . . . I'm

sorry, love, what did you say?"

"It's not as if you had anything better to. . . oh, never mind, I won't say it."

Well, if she'd decided not to say it, then it was probably something that would have stung

like hell to hear, so I stopped trying to guess what it might have been. Besides, by then she was

taking my clothes off, which is likely to distract me no matter how busy we are.

"Jesus Christ, Jake," the Lucky Duck snickered, "even considering it's cold outside-"

"Duck," Zoey said, toweling me briskly with a huge bath towel, "would you like me to sit

on you while Jake makes a snowman out of yours so you can compare?"

He shriveled. Making two of us.

"Out of his what, Mommy?" Erin asked. Zoey ignored her and kept drying me; I endured it

with what dignity I could muster.

"Nikky," I said, "I appreciate the confidence you and Mike are placing in me-I'm really

flattered, okay?- but-"

"Are they talking about Daddy's penis? That's silly. It gets much bigger than that, I've

seen it-"

"-thank you, Erin, but excuse me, okay? Daddy has to tell Uncle Nikky he isn't going to

save the universe this time: after that we can discuss my penis." Zoey pulled sweatpants up me to

help change the subject. "Nikola, I would like to help you...but you have got the wrong man."

He looked somber. "There is no other, Jacob."

I went into my Lord Buckley imitation. "'What's the matter, Mr. Whale? Ain't you hip to

what's goin' down in these here parts? Don't you read the Marine News?" He didn't recognize the

quote, and I didn't have the heart to sustain it anyway. "Nikky, let me explain it in words of one

syllable," I said in my normal voice. "It's all over. The Place is dead. I got no crew."

"They yet live."

"Sure. Scattered all to hell and gone. Shorty and his wives are out west, Doc's retired to

Florida, Isham and Tanya went up to Nova Scotia, the rest are scattered all over the Island. I see

Long-Drink once a month if I'm lucky, and he's the one I still see the most. Christ knows what the

hell ever happened to Fast Eddie. Like John Lennon said, the dream is over."

Zoey had finished dressing me (fuzzy slippers, sweatshirt, bathrobe), and picked that

moment to yank the bathrobe belt tight around my middle, hard enough that I made a little peep

sound. "There," she said contentedly. "Erin, Bless your father."

The Duck had set Erin down on the bar; in a shot she crawled down to the far end, down

onto the counter and over to The Machine, studied the combination, and pushed the go button. The

conveyor belt hummed into life, and dragged an empty mug to its fate.

Nikky watched this soberly until he was sure Erin did indeed have sufficient coordination

to be safe where she was. (She could walk great, at fourteen months, but was far too smart to

attempt it on top of the bar.) Then he turned back to me. "How many could you assemble, if you

sounded the tocsin?"

Warm clothes and the prospect of coffee were beginning to mollify me a trifle; my voice

came out perhaps two tones lower and ten decibels softer than before. "Aw, hell, Nik. I guess . .

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