The Number of the Beast

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Did I show you our micro walky-talkies?”

  “Jacob gave me one.”

  “There’s one for each. Tiny but amazingly long-ranged. Uses less power than a hand calculator and weighs less—under two hundred grams. Mass, I mean—weight here is much less. Today I thought of a new use. Gay can accept their frequency.”

  “That’s nice. How do you plan to use this?”

  “This car can be remote-controlled.”

  “Deety, who would you want to do that?”

  I admitted that I did not know. “But Gay can be preprogrammed to do almost anything. For example, we could go outside and tell Gay, via walky-talky, to carry out two programs in succession: H, O, M, E, followed by B, U, G, O, U, T. Imagine Zebadiah’s face when he wakes up from sun in his eyes—because his car has vanished—then his expression two hours later when it pops back into existence.”

  “Deety, go stand in the corner for thinking such an unfunny joke!” Then Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “Why would it take two hours? I thought Gay could go anywhere in no time.”

  “Depends on your postulates, Princess Thuvia. We took a couple of hours to get here because we fiddled. Gay would have to follow that route in reverse because it’s the only one she knows. Then—” I stopped, suddenly confused. “Or would it be four hours? No, vectors would cancel and—But that would make it instantaneous; we would never know that she had left. Or would we? Aunt Hilda, I don’t know! Oh, I wish our men would wake up, I do!” The world wobbled and I felt scared.

  “I’m awake,” Pop answered, his head just showing above the doorsill. “What’s this debate?” He gave Aunt Hilda a lecherous leer. “Little girl, if you’ll come up to my room, I’ll give you some candy.”

  “Get away from me, you old wolf!”

  “Hilda my love, I could sell you down to Rio and retire on the proceeds. You look like expensive stuff.”

  “I’m very expensive stuff, darling wolf. All I want is every cent a man has and constant pampering—then a fat estate when he dies.”

  “I’ll try to die with plenty of money in the bank, dearest.”

  “Instead we’re both dead and our bank accounts have gone Heaven knows where and I haven’t a rag to my back—and I’m wonderfully happy. Come inside—mind the radar!—and kiss me, you old wolf; you don’t have to buy me candy.”

  “Pop,” I asked, “is Zebadiah asleep?”

  “Just woke up.”

  I spoke to Gay, then to Pop: “Will you tell Zebadiah radar is off? He can stand up without getting his ears fried.”

  “Sure.” Pop ducked down and yelled, “Zeb, it’s safe; her husband left.”

  “Coming!” Zebadiah’s voice rumbled back. “Tell Deety to put the steaks on.” My darling appeared wearing sword, carrying pie pan and sheets. “Are the steaks ready?” he asked, then kissed me.

  “Not quite, sir,” I told him. “First, go shoot a thoat. Or will you settle for peanut butter sandwiches?”

  “Don’t talk dirty. Did you say ‘thoat’?”

  “Yes. This is Barsoom.”

  “I thoat that was what you said.”

  “If that’s a pun, you can eat it for supper. With peanut butter.”

  Zebadiah shuddered. “I’d rather cut my thoat.”

  Pop said, “Don’t do it, Zeb. A man can’t eat with his thoat cut. He can’t even talk clearly.”

  Aunt Hilda said mildly, “If you three will cease those atrocities, I’ll see what I can scrape up for dinner.”

  “I’ll help,” I told her, “but can we run my test first? I’m itchy.”

  “Certainly, Deety. It will be a scratch meal.”

  Pop looked at Aunt Hilda reproachfully. “And you told us to stop.”

  “What test?” demanded my husband.

  I explained the Bug-Out program. “I think I programmed it correctly. But here is a test. Road the car a hundred meters. If my program works—fine! If it tests null, no harm done but you and Pop will have to teach me more about the twister before I’ll risk new programming.”

  “I don’t want to road the car, Deety; I’m stingy with every erg until I know when and where I can juice Gay. However—Jake, what’s your minimum transition?”

  “Ten kilometers. Can’t use spatial quanta for transitions—too small. But the scale goes up fast—logarithmic. That’s short range. Middle range is in light-years—logarithmic again.”

  “What’s long range, Jake?”

  “Gravitic radiation versus time. We won’t use that one.”

  “Why not, Jacob?” asked Aunt Hilda.

  Pop looked sheepish. “I’m scared of it, dearest. There are three major theories concerning gravitic propagation. At the time I machined those controls, one theory seemed proved. Since then other physicists have reported not being able to reproduce the data. So I blocked off long range.” Pop smiled sourly. “I know the gun is loaded but not what it will do. So I spiked it.”

  “Sensible,” agreed my husband. “Russian roulette lacks appeal. Jake, do you have any guess as to what options you shut off?”

  “Better than a guess, Zeb. It reduces the number of universes accessible to us on this axis from the sixth power of six-to-the-sixth-power to a mere six to the sixth power. Forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six.”

  “Gee, that’s tough!”

  “I didn’t mean it as a joke, Zeb.”

  “Jake, I was laughing at me. I’ve been looking forward to a lifetime exploring universes—and now I learn that I’m limited to a fiddlin’ forty-six thousand and some. Suppose I have a half century of exploration left in me. Assume that I take off no time for eating, sleeping, or teasing the cat, how much time can I spend in each universe?”

  “About nine hours twenty minutes per universe,” I told him. “Nine hours, twenty-three minutes, thirty-eight point seven-two-two seconds, plus, to be more nearly accurate.”

  “Deety, let’s do be accurate,” Zebadiah said solemnly. “If we stayed a minute too long in each universe, we would miss nearly a hundred universes.”

  I was getting into the spirit. “Let’s hurry instead. If we work at it, we can do three universes a day for fifty years—one of us on watch, one on standby, two off duty—and still squeeze in maintenance, plus a few hours on the ground, once a year. If we hurry.”

  “We haven’t a second to lose!” Zebadiah answered. “All hands!—places! Stand by to lift! Move!”

  I was startled but hurried to my seat. Pop’s chin dropped but he took his place. Aunt Hilda hesitated a split second before diving for her seat, but, as she strapped herself in, wailed, “Captain? Are we really leaving Barsoom?”

  “Quiet, please. Gay Deceiver, close doors! Report seat belts. Copilot, check starboard door seal.”

  “Seat belt fastened,” I reported with no expression.

  “Mine’s fastened. Oh, dear!”

  “Copilot, by low range, ‘H’ axis upward, minimum transition.”

  “Set, Captain.”

  “Execute.”

  Sky outside was dark, the ground far below. “Ten klicks exactly,” my husband approved. “Astrogator, take the conn, test your new program. Science Officer observe.”

  “Yessir. Gay Deceiver—Bug Out!”

  We were parked on the ground.

  “Science Officer—report,” Zebadiah ordered.

  “Report what?” Aunt Hilda demanded.

  “We tested a new program. Did it pass test?”

  “Uh, we seem to be back where we were. We were weightless maybe ten seconds. I guess the test was okay, Except—”

  “‘Except’ what?”

  “Captain Zebbie, you’re the worst tease on Earth! And Barsoom! You did so put lime Jello in my pool!”

  “I was in Africa.”

  “Then you arranged it!”

  “Hilda—please! I never said we were leaving Barsoom. I said that we haven’t a second to waste. We don’t, with so much to explore.”

 
“Excuses. What about my clothes? All on the starboard wing. Where are they now? Floating up in the stratosphere? Coming down where? I’ll never find them.”

  “I thought you preferred to dress Barsoomian style?”

  “Doesn’t mean I want to be forced to! Besides, Deety lent them to me. I’m sorry, Deety.”

  I patted her hand. “’S’all right, Aunt Hilda. I’ll lend you more. Give them, I mean.” I hesitated, then said firmly, “Zebadiah, you should apologize to Aunt Hilda.”

  “Oh, for the love of—Sharpie? Sharpie darling.”

  “Yes, Zebbie?”

  “I’m sorry I let you think that we were leaving Barsoom. I’ll buy you clothes that fit. We’ll make a quick trip back to Earth—”

  “Don’t want to go back to Earth! Aliens! They scare me.”

  “They scare me, too. I started to say: ‘Earth-without-a-J.’ It’s so much like our own that I can probably use U.S. money. If not, I have gold. Or I can barter. For you, Sharpie, I’ll steal clothes. We’ll go to Phoenix-without-a-J—tomorrow—today we take a walk and see some of this planet—your planet—and we’ll stay on your planet until you get tired of it. Is that enough? Or must I confess putting Jello into your pool when I didn’t?”

  “You really didn’t?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “Be darned. Actually I thought it was funny. I wonder who did it? Aliens, maybe?”

  “They play rougher than that. Sharpie darling, I’m not the only weirdo in your stable—not by dozens.”

  “Guess maybe. Zebbie? Will you kiss Sharpie and make up?”

  On the ground, under the starboard wing, we found our travel clothes, and under the port wing, those of our husbands. Zebadiah looked bemused. “Jake? I thought Hilda was right. It had slipped my mind that we had clothing on the wings.”

  “Use your head, Son.”

  “I’m not sure I have one.”

  “I don’t understand it either, darling,” Aunt Hilda added.

  “Daughter?” Pop said.

  “Pop, I think I know. But—I pass!”

  “Zeb, the car never moved. Instead—”

  Aunt Hilda interrupted, “Jacob, are you saying that we did not go straight up? We were there—five minutes ago.”

  “Yes, my darling. But we didn’t move there. Motion has a definable meaning: A duration of changing locations. But no duration was involved. We did not successively occupy loci between here-then and there-then.”

  Aunt Hilda shook her head. “I don’t understand. We went whoosh! up into the sky…then whoosh! back where we started.”

  “My darling, we didn’t whoosh! Deety! Don’t be reticent.”

  I sighed. “Pop, I’m not sure there exists a symbol for the referent. Aunt Hilda. Zebadiah. A discontinuity. The car—”

  “Got it!” said Zebadiah.

  “I didn’t,” Aunt Hilda persisted.

  “Like this, Sharpie,” my husband went on. “My car is here. Spung!—it vanishes. Our clothes fall to the ground. Ten seconds later—flip!—we’re back where we started. But our clothes are on the ground. Get it now?”

  “I—I guess so. Yes.”

  “I’m glad you do…because I don’t. To me, it’s magic.” Zebadiah shrugged. “‘Magic.’”

  “‘Magic’,” I stated, “is a symbol for any process not understood.”

  “That’s what I said, Deety. ‘Magic.’ Jake, would it have mattered if the car had been indoors?”

  “Well…that fretted me the first time Deety and I translated to Earth-without-the-letter-J. So I moved our car outdoors. But now I think that only the destination matters. It should be empty—I think. But I’m too timid to experiment.”

  “Might be interesting. Unmanned vehicle. Worthless target. A small asteroid. A baby sun?”

  “I don’t know, Zeb. Nor do I have apparatus to spare. It took me three years to build this one.”

  “So we wait a few years. Jake? Air has mass.”

  “That worried me also. But any mass, other than degenerate mass, is mostly empty space. Air—Earth sea-level air—has about a thousandth the density of the human body. The body is mostly water and water accepts air readily. I can’t say that it has no effect—twice I’ve thought that my temperature went up a trifle at transition or translation in atmosphere but it could have been excitement. I’ve never experienced caisson disease from it. Has any of us felt discomfort?”

  “Not me, Jake.”

  “I’ve felt all right, Pop,” I agreed.

  “I got space sick. Till Deety cured it,” Aunt Hilda added.

  “So did I, my darling. But that was into vacuo and could not involve the phenomenon.”

  “Pop,” I said earnestly, “we weren’t hurt; we don’t have to know why. A basic proposition of epistemology, bedrock both for the three basic statements of semantics and for information theory, is that an observed fact requires no proof. It simply is, self-demonstrating. Let philosophers worry about it; they haven’t anything better to do.”

  “Suits me!” agreed Hilda. “You big brains had Sharpie panting. I thought we were going to take a walk?”

  “We are, dear,” agreed my husband. “Right after those steaks.”

  XVIII

  “—the whole world is alive.”

  Zebadiah:

  Four Dagwoods later we were ready to start walkabout. Deety delayed by wanting to repeat her test by remote control. I put my foot down. “No!”

  “Why not, my Captain? I’ve taught Gay a program to take her straight up ten klicks. It’s G, A, Y, B, O, U, N, C, E—a new fast-escape with no execution word necessary. Then I’ll recall her by B, U, G, O, U, T. If one works via walky-talky, so will the second. It can save our lives, it can!”

  “Uh—” I went on folding tarps and stowing my sleeping bag. The female mind is too fast for me. I often can reach the same conclusion; a woman gets there first and never by the route I have to follow. Besides that, Deety is a genius.

  “You were saying, my Captain?”

  “I was thinking. Deety, do it with me aboard. I won’t touch the controls. Check pilot, nothing more.”

  “Then it won’t be a test.”

  “Yes, it will. I promise, Cub Scout honor, to let it fall sixty seconds. Or to three klicks H-above-G, whichever comes first.”

  “These walky-talkies have more range than ten kilometers even between themselves. Gay’s reception is much better.”

  “Deety, you trust machinery; I don’t. If Gay doesn’t pick up your second command—sun spots, interference, open circuit, anything—I’ll keep her from crashing.”

  “But if something else goes wrong and you did crash, I would have killed you!” She started to cry.

  So we compromised. Her way. The exact test she had originally proposed. I wasted juice by roading Gay Deceiver a hundred meters, got out, and we all backed off. Deety said into her walky-talky, “Gay Deceiver… Bug Out!”

  It’s more startling to watch than it is to be inside. There was Gay Deceiver off to our right, then she was off to our left. No noise—not even an implosion splat! Magic.

  “Well, Deety? Are you satisfied?”

  “Yes, Zebadiah. Thank you, darling. But it had to be a real test. You see that—don’t you?”

  I agreed, while harboring a suspicion that my test had been more stringent. “Deety, could you reverse that? Go somewhere else and tell Gay to come to you?”

  “Somewhere she’s never been?”

  “Yes.”

  Deety switched off her walky-talky and made sure that mine was off. “I don’t want her to hear this. Zebadiah, I always feel animistic about a computer. The Pathetic Fallacy—I know. But Gay is a person to me.”

  Deety sighed. “I know it’s a machine. It doesn’t have ears; it can’t see; it doesn’t have a concept of space-time. What it can do is manipulate circuitry in complex ways—complexities limited by its grammar and vocabulary. But those limits are exact. If I don’t stay precisely with its grammar and vocabulary, it reports
‘Null program.’ I can tell it anything by radio that I can tell it by voice inside the cabin—and so can you. But I can’t tell it to come look for me in a meadow beyond a canyon about twelve or thirteen klicks approximately southwest of here-now. That’s a null program—five undefined terms.”

  “Because you made it null. You fed ‘garbage in’ and expect me to be surprised at ‘garbage out’—when you did it a-purpose.”

  “I did not either, I didn’t!”

  I kissed the end of her nose. “Deety darling, you should trust your instincts. Here’s one way to tell Gay to do that without defining even one new term into her vocabulary. Tell her to expect a three-part program. First part: bounce one minimum, ten klicks. Second part: transit twelve point five klicks true course two-two-five. Third part: drop to one klick H-over-G and hover. At that point, if what you described as your location is roughly correct, you will see her and can coach her to a landing without using Jake’s twister.”

  “Uh…twelve and a half kilometers can’t be done in units of ten kilometers. Powered flight?”

  “Waste juice? Hon, you just flunked high school geometry. Using Euclid’s tools, compass and straight edge, lay out that course and distance, then lay out how to get there in ten-klick units—no fractions.”

  My wife stared. Then her eyes cleared. “Transit one minimum true course one-seven-three and two thirds, then transit one minimum true course two-seven-six and one third. The mirror image solution uses the same courses in reverse. Plus endless trivial solutions using more than two minima.”

  “Go to the head of the class. If you don’t spot her, have her do a retreating search curve—in her perms, in an Aussie accent. Honey girl, did you actually do that Euclid style?”

  “I approximated it Euclid style—but you didn’t supply compass and straight edge! Scribe circle radius twelve point five. Bisect circle horizontally by straight edge through origin; quarter it by dropping a vertical. Bisect lower left quadrant—that gives true course two-two-five or southwest. Then set compass at ten units and scribe arcs from origin and from southwest point of circle; the intersections give courses and vertices for both major roots to the accuracy of your straight edge and compass. But simply to visualize that construction—well, I got visualized angles of two-seven-five and one-seven-five. Pretty sloppy.