Hal Clement - Half-Life

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To Robert E. Stearns, Jr., in memory of a lengthy discussion a few years ago as we sat on a bench in the

exhibit room at the ConAdian World Science Fiction Convention.

Its precise effects on my thinking are far too labyrinthine for me to detail, or even remember completely.

Its connection with the events in this book would never have been believed by the late Immanuel

Velikovsky, who seems to have been convinced that any such relationship should be direct and obvious.

The connections are there. Maybe you can spot some.

Thanks, Robert.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are

used fictitiously.

HALF LIFE

Significant portions of this book appeared in a different form as a series of stories published in Absolute

Magnitude.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Edited by David G. Hartwell

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC. Design by Lisa Pifher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clement, Hal, date

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Half life / Hal Clement.-1st ed.

p. cm.

"A Tom Doherty Associates book."

ISBN 0-312-86920-7 (alk. paper)

I. Title.

PS3505.L646H35 1999

813'.54—dc21 99-22199

First Edition: September 1999

Printed in the United States of America 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I DENTIFYING THE SHAPES, colors, and assembly dates of the segments in a million-piece but not

quite completed jigsaw puzzle is probably impossible. Doing the same with the factors comprising a

human being who has been around and active for over three-quarters of a century is much harder.

Chronologically, I suppose one starts with the parents who taught me and my sister the three Rs well

before we started school in 1928, and were understandably miffed when our English usage deteriorated

after that date. There were numerous grammar and high school teachers who contributed pieces, even

ones I didn't like, such as "Business" in high school, which are still in the picture.

There were college professors I remember well, such as Bart J. Bok, Donald H. Menzel, Fred L.

Whipple, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, and John Arrend Timm. There were many I don't remember in

much detail, but who certainly also contributed.

There were the taxpayers who provided my education degree under the G. I. Bill, and other taxpayers

who supplied my chemistry M.S. via a National Science Foundation grant during the post-Sputnik panic.

There were science fiction writers and editors like John Campbell, Fred Pohl, Jack Williamson, and Neil

R. Jones, and legions of fans who liked my work or criticized it usefully or both.

And latest—not last, I hope—there is Adam Goldberger, who, possibly with assistants and co-workers

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whose names didn't show on the work sheets, confronted me during the preparation of this book with the

most complete, challenging, detailed, and professional piece of copyediting I have faced in fifty-seven

years of writing. I know I have a good scientific background, and held my end up fairly well there; but I

also thought I was a good speller. It's just as well

I reached for the dictionary when we disagreed. And grammar... Well, I've been sure for a long time that

languages evolve, even in literate societies.

I'm grateful to them all, and apologize for the mistakes I still make; but of course a science fiction

writer has to provide some sort of evidence that he may be human.

GENERAL ORDER SIX (G06) Northern Research Force

1. In view of the common human tendency, when seeking to explain observations, to favor the first

speculation which comes to mind, the following procedures will be observed by all ranks:

(a)No speculation by any member of the services will be reported to higher-ranking personnel unless

accompanied by (i) a comparably plausible alternative speculation, or (ii) a detailed procedure for testing

the one proffered.

(b)if the said speculation occurs during a general discussion, either formal or informal, then (i) or (ii)

may be delayed until after the end of the said discussion. Alternative ideas contributed by participants

other than the originator of the speculation will be regarded as satisfying 1(a) (i) above.

2. This rule is not intended to discourage speculation, which is recognized as a necessary first step in

developing any body of knowledge, but to help preserve objectivity as far as possible in both private

reasoning and public debate.

3. The commander of any research unit, whether of observer or theoretician grade, is authorized and

advised to use discretion in the detailed enforcement of this regulation.

4. No punishment more serious than reprimand is to be inflicted for violation of this rule.

Rule X This is not a formal regulation, and cannot be stated with real precision; but reference to "Rule

X" in conversation or inferred

thought of any person is pejorative. It may be used by anyone to anyone else regardless of any rank

involved. The "rule" is to the effect that "1 told you so" is unacceptable language. It presumably evolved

in the hope of keeping scientific debate as free as possible from, or to delay as long as possible, the use

of personalities.

ANTE

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THE CREW, OR STAFF, whichever it should be

called, of one of the oddest spacecraft ever to lift from Earth was as strange as the vessel itself. Not one

of them had previous space experience. They were neither draftees nor volunteers; the best name might

have been "persuadees."

And none of them expected, or even very much hoped, to get back. Most of them knew they were dying,

and had simply chosen to die usefully away from their home world.

The ship itself was a two-hundred-meter-diameter, slightly prolate sphere, with twenty remountable

fusion thrusters distributed uniformly over its surface. It lifted very wastefully from Earth under its own

thrust, docked with a supply station in medium orbit, and took on board every possible additional

kilogram of water. It was then inserted into a minimum-energy Saturn trajectory.

There were fifty people aboard. All but three were dying and knew it, a far higher percentage of terminal

cases than in Earth's now drastically shrunken population. The crew number had been chosen by highly

mathematical guesswork, with none of the mathematicians involved agreeing on appropriate

assumptions or algorithms.

And few if any had taken their calculations seriously.

For almost two centuries, Earth's population, human and

otherwise, had been decreasing at a rate almost perfectly described by a 69.2-year half-life. Then,

twenty-two years before, births had rather suddenly caught up with deaths, and the curve had become a

nearly horizontal line.

Hard-line optimists promptly decided that the danger was over, and even praised the mysterious

phenomenon which had delayed the climax of the earlier overpopulation crisis. Most of these quickly

decided the Saturn mission would now require only a small crew. Even these, however, admitted the

importance of finding the cause of the epidemics.

Others pointed out, however, that whatever the general population change, the fact that those who were

going were nearly all terminally ill meant that a much smaller half-life should be used in figuring the

crew number needed. Neither group ever mentioned publicly that no number of people which could be

carried in any practical spacecraft, even with construction and energy costs nearly negligible, could be

large enough for half-life calculations to mean anything at all.

This was demonstrated before the orbit of Mars had been passed. Erroneous planning of some of the

equipment seeds had been recognized, including those for aircraft to explore Titan's heavy atmosphere,

and made it necessary to keep more of the staff active and at work during the five-and-a-quarter-year trip

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than had been planned. Eleven people instead of the "calculated" one or two were dead, their

personalities remembered as friends and colleagues and their bodies preserved as data, before the rings

could be seen clearly by the unaided eyes of the survivors. The orbit had been a minimum-energy

Hohmann semi-ellipse; there was a vast amount of water on board, but most of it was intended for uses

other than reaction mass.

Eighteen more—much closer to the guessed-at figure—were lost during the work inside Saturn's

radiation belt, while fragments of ice were being assembled and welded by careful squirts of water into a

rough sphere with the original ship in the center. This went on until the ship and its personnel were

shielded from particle radiation by half a kilometer of ice that was fairly solid, but not perfectly so; the

fragments had not been melted before assembly and did not fit each other very well.

Two of the eleven, including one of the three not known to be terminal, could only be memorialized;

their remains could not be salvaged or even found. The outside work, spotting and capturing

construction material and repeatedly relocating thrusters so they remained on the outside of the growing

ice ball, all the while exposed to particle radiation which no suit could keep out completely, had come

closest to matching the half-life for this part of the task predicted before liftoff.

When the resulting station had been worked into orbit around Titan and the six unprotected and

uninhabitable relay stations which allowed observation of any part of the big moon were in place, there

were twenty-one survivors.

Not only were they not spacemen, they were not even scientists in the full sense of the word. At least,

they were not specialists. They were well educated, well supplied with common knowledge, and familiar

enough with the cause-and-effect reasoning needed for research to be able to plan scientific work. None,

therefore, was seriously inclined toward supernaturalism, and they had a vast information store in the

Station on which to base their thinking.

Figuring the seventeen-plus-year half-life which corresponded to the loss on the way out, the nine-month

one for the construction deaths, and the nine-year combination which covered the whole Earth-to-station

period was mere mental arithmetic to any of them, unless one of the many new Alzheimer's syndrome

varieties made someone forget 1n2—and that number could always be supplied by Status, their

information bank. They, too, attached no weight to the figures; if the calculations had not been trivial, no

one would have attempted them. They were like calculating the weight of Earth's atmosphere to settle a

minor bet.

Their ailments were under the best available control. They could—probably counting out any

Alzheimer's victims—take care of the general run of foreseeable emergencies. If advice—not physical

help—was required they could probably afford the roughly three

hours needed to send a question to Earth and get an answer.

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Or rather, roughly three hours plus the time needed for a repeatedly decimated and largely panicked

humanity to find an answer. When this totaled too long, or the problem occurred during the period every

twelve and a half months when the Sun cut off communication for a few days, ingenuity and

imagination would have to serve.

Contact was to be carefully maintained with home, since the staff would almost certainly never get back

themselves. Whatever they learned, however, must reach the rest of humanity. Even if they didn't learn

what they had been sent for, any possibilities they might eliminate could be critical for future planning.

Their mission was easily stated: Fill the information gaps between the mineral and biological worlds.

This seemed logical, if not exactly hopeful. After all, if flying machines suddenly develop a fiftypercent-

per-flight crash rate and flight is still necessary, one studies the basic physics of aeronautical engineering

as well as the wreckage. When life itself is failing, the need for basics, probably chemical this time, is

even more critical. Something was wrong with life processes in general; the decay curve, with only

modest differences in half-life, applied to most nonhuman species as well.

When the station finally began operation, its staff consisted of

Corporal Cheru Akagawa Corporal Ludmilla Anden Sergeant Gene Belvew Corporal Marilyn Carla

Major Maria Collos

2nd Lieutenant Olivia D'Arnot 1st Lieutenant Emil diSabato

Dr. Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Donabed (presumed healthy) Sergeant John Paul Finn

Colonel Arthur Goodall Sergeant Barn Inger

1st Lieutenant Carla lePing Corporal Peter Martucci (presumed healthy)

Major Louis Mastro Corporal Marahla Nemaya 1st Lieutenant James Skokie

Recorder Status, bank of factual and fictional information Corporal Jenny Vannell

Corporal Xiawen Wei Major Jennifer Xalco Captain Seichi Yakama Corporal Phyllis Zonde

Their ranks stemmed from a century-old attempt to organize along military lines the research obviously

needed to salvage humanity. Noncommissioned ranks were "observers"; officers were "theoreticians."

The distinction, and much else of the military flavor of science, had blurred badly during the twenty-two-

year flattening of the population decay curve. The resumption of the drop on Earth, with a noticeably

shorter half-life, during the trip to Saturn failed to clear the blur in the least, though many people

suddenly began complaining that the ship and crew as planned had been far too small. Humanity might

be dying, but otherwise wasn't changing much.

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General Order Six was still in full force because it was good science. Most of the other GOs were

remembered only when convenient. Rule X was merely background.

PAR T ODIC

STRATEGY

SPOT

IT WAS BAD TIMING, not too surprisingly for a random event. His Mollweide screen was offering

one of its occasional, brief, irregularly presented views of Sergeant Gene Belvew's real surroundings.

These consisted of his personal quarantined suite in the Station seven hundred kilometers above Titan's

surface, and showed nothing surprising at all. It cut him off for little more than a second from the scenes

provided by Oceanus's cameras deep in the atmosphere below, but in that second the pipe stall occurred.

It would, a less conscious level of his mind reflected. He didn't believe in a literal, unqualified Murphy's

Law, which was strictly for near-civilians like Ludmilla Anden. She was actually a corporal, one of the

few people still alive in the Saturn system who didn't outrank him, and for reasons he didn't know

himself he tended quite unjustly to regard her as not properly military.

A scientist of any rank should understand the Law of Selective Observation, which tradition, flexible as

ever in its details, now attributed to one Murphy. If his engines had chosen any other time to flame out

he would have seen it coming, forestalled it easily without conscious thought, and forgotten it promptly

as unimportant. As it was, his first warning was the waldo suit's nonvisual input, which kept him in

touch with his aircraft even when he could see nothing but the walls, furniture, and equipment actually

around him.

Being in two places at once was no longer a logical impossibility but a familiar nuisance.

The suit administered a sharp twinge almost simultaneously to both his elbows. A moment later, when

he could see Titan again, thrust was gone and accelerometers showed that Oceanus was slowing sharply

in the dense atmosphere. His reflexes had already operated, of course, only slightly later than they would

have from a visual stimulus; but the trifle made a frightening difference.

Belvew was an excellent pilot except for his tendency to take occasional chances. The aircraft had

practically no reaction mass in its tanks, mainly because of the pilot's eagerness to get the seismic lines

dropped without wasting time tanking up, so shifting to rocket mode would be futile. It had been

obvious to everyone that trying to finish the current line with no thrust backup was silly, but Belvew

wasn't the only person impatient for data. The thunderhead over Lake Carver had, however, practically

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forced itself on his attention, convincing him that he could pick up juice with very little delay after all,

and he had been just implementing his decision to refill after all when it happened.

The big satellite's gravity, which his body in orbit couldn't feel any more than it could the ramjet's

deceleration, was feeble; if the craft had slowed too much, even the vertical dive he had promptly

entered wouldn't get him back to ram speed from his present altitude. Diving into the surface would not

injure him physically—the waldo's feedback didn't go that far—but would still be a bad tactical mistake.

Ramjets, while they were grown products, pseudolife like practically every other piece of modern

equipment, could not be picked from trees.

Not that there were trees this far from the Sun. The aircraft were not even single pseudoorganisms, but

assemblages of more than a thousand separately grown modules. Replacement would not be impossible,

but would be lengthy and difficult and would complicate planning. Carla—Lieutenant lePing—did have

two more nearly assembled, and plenty of modules were growing, but like most of the crew she was not

always able to work.

For increasingly worrisome moments the tension and airspeed mounted as Gene's elbows stayed sore.

Then ram flow resumed simultaneously in both pipes and the speed of his dive abruptly increased with

the restored thrust. Still reflexively he pulled out of the dive, very carefully to avoid a secondary stall.

In level flight at last, with fully a hundred meters of air still below him, he put his nose—his own, not

the ramjet's—more deeply into the face cup of his suit and moved his head slightly. This ran the screen

through its preset half dozen most-likely-useful vision frequencies. He was already pretty sure what had

caused the stall, but pilot's common sense agreed with basic scientific-military procedure in demanding

that he check.

Yes, he was still in the updraft; the screen displayed the appropriate false colors all around him, and the

waldo, which was also an environment suit, and therefore had been designed not to interfere with his

own breathing system by using olfactory codes, was reporting the excess methane and consequent

lowered air density as a set of musical tones. As usual, there had been no one but himself to blame.

He'd been driving just a little too slowly, trying to get a good look below while filling the mass tanks,

and a perfectly ordinary but random and mathematically unpredictable drop in the density of the rising

air had raised the impact pressure needed by the jets. He could have seen it coming, but if the waldo

hadn't been backing up the interrupted visual sensors he'd have learned too late and with probably much

less than a hundred meters leeway.

No point thinking about that.

"What happened, Sarge? Or shouldn't I ask?" Barn Inger, Belvew's coranker and usual flying partner,

didn't bother to identify himself; only twenty-one people were left of the original crew, and there were

no strange voices. As Belvew's copilot, a task fitted in among many other demands on his attention, one

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of Inger's regular duties was to check with Gene vocally or in any other way appropriate whenever

something unexpected occurred in flight; the "shouldn't I ask" was merely a standard courtesy. Few

people

enjoyed admitting mistakes, however important they might be as data. The terminally ill people who

formed a much larger fraction of the Titan crew than of Earth's rapidly shrinking population were often

quite touchy about such things.

"I rode too close to stall. It's all right now," Belvew answered.

"Use anything from the tanks?" The question also was pure courtesy; like everyone else, Inger had

repeaters for Oceanus's instrument output in his own quarters. Nearly anyone could have taken over

control of the jet within seconds of realizing the need. Inger was trying to make the slip look like an

everyday incident, to be passed over casually.

"Nothing to use. There was enough room to dive-start." Belvew did not mention just how little spare

altitude he had had, and Inger didn't really need to ask. Because of the constant possibility of having to

start flying with no notice, everyone kept as conscious as other duties allowed of current aerial activities.

"You're still over Carver. You could have put down and tanked up from the lake." This was quite true,

but neither speaker mentioned why that option had been passed without conscious thought. Both knew

perfectly well; Inger's stress on the "could" had been as close to being specific about it as either cared to

go. He changed to a neutral subject.

"You seem to have the fourth leg about done."

Belvew made no answer for a moment; he was spiraling upward to start another pass through the droplet-

rich updraft, at a safer altitude this time. Mass was needed in his tanks as soon as possible, and he was

now prepared to accept the lower concentration to be found higher up, and to budget the time to get

there and make the extra run or two that would be needed. Haste hadn't paid, and had almost presented a

very large bill. No one argued, most were relieved at the decision, and Gene was the pilot anyway.

"Not quite," he finally answered absently.

In visible light frequencies his target looked exactly like an earthly thunderhead. There was even

lightning, in spite of the non- polar composition of the droplets, and Belvew faced the piloting task of

making collection runs through it at a speed high enough to prevent another ram stall but low enough to

avoid turbulence damage to his airframe.

"Not quite," he repeated at last. "But I still have enough cans to finish Four and most of Five. I hope all

the ones I've dropped so far work. It'd be a pity to have to go back just to make replacements. There's too

much else to do." He fell silent again as the waldo began pressing his body at various points, indicating

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Hal Clement - Half-Life

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