In the bizarre pulse-bunching that characterized some gazer beams, the giant statues seemed to pause, circling round a common center. But even as they did a languid dance, she sensed another, more powerful beat gathering below. Teresa tried to move her arms and legs to flee, but sud-denly she was pressed to the ground as if by a giant’s hand. Tides coursed her innards, pressing her liver against her pounding heart. A cry escaped her open mouth like a soul prying its way out.
That force passed just before she thought she might burst. Teresa blinked through nausea and saw that the statues had disappeared. Into their hasty absence, a cyclone of angry air blew, just as the gravitational pulse tail left her abruptly with no weight at all.
The familiar sensation might have felt pleasantly like spaceflight, but she quickly saw where the wind was tossing her… toward a deep cavity where the stony gods had formerly stood! She clawed at the dirt and grass, grabbing at any purchase as a midget hurricane dragged her toward the pit — deep and gleamingly oval. Her feet passed over empty space, then her legs, her hips. Desperately she cried out as her fingers lost contact…
Suddenly she flapped like a flag in the gale — but did not fall. At the last moment, one outstretched arm had caught on something.
Or something had caught her! Twisting, she saw a beefy hand clamped round her wrist. The hand led to an arm and massive shoulders… merging with the head and face of Pedro Manella.
The storm ended as quickly as it had started. Aerodynamic lift vanished like a bed dropping out from under her, releasing her to fall in a horrible arc. The glass-smooth wall struck her a blow, setting off dazzling waves of pain.
Consciousness wavered, but the insults didn’t end there. Her arm was yanked again and again, in rhythmic heaves that hurt like hell as she felt herself drawn upward, slowly upward, to the precipice, over the glazed, cutting edge, and then finally onto the rough basalt-gravel surface of Rapa Nui.
At last, somehow, she and Pedro lay next to each other, gasping in exhaustion.
“I… saw Lustig succeed… diverting their beam,” Manella explained. “He couldn’t push it all the way to sea… so I came outside to watch.
“Then I saw you falling…”
Teresa touched the big reporter’s arm. He didn’t have to explain further. “So—” She inhaled deeply a few more times, blinking away blurriness. “So Alex did it.”
Then, with more enthusiasm, she rolled over onto her stomach and laughed, hitting the ground. “He did it!” Pedro commented. “Yeah. I’m sure sorry—” Teresa sat up. “Sorry! What are you sorry about?” Manella stared at the pit he’d just pulled her from. “That wind tore off my True-Vu. I wonder how far down this thing…” He shook his head and turned to face her. “But no. What I meant was that I’m sorry for the other guys. They’re in for a rough time, I bet, now that it’s Lustig’s turn to fight back.”
Teresa glanced toward the resonator building where Alex labored on all alone. Just uphill though, she saw a cascade of Tangoparu engineers, running to rejoin their tohunga, looking mortified at having left his side during a battle. Teresa doubted it would ever happen again.
In the rear, security guards escorted June Morgan, who stared about in mute surprise, much to Teresa’s satisfaction. “Come on, Pedro,” she told the big reporter, offering her hand. “You can search for your recorder later. First let’s see if we can be of any use.”
In Yellowstone Park, tourists pose near steaming geysers. All around them stretch cinder cones and other testaments to the land’s violent past. And yet, they don’t see any of it really relating to them. After all, those things happened a long, long time ago.
Today, however, the Old Faithful geyser surprises them. Instead of steam, wet and clear, what comes out at the appointed time glows white hot and molten.
It is quite a show, indeed. More, perhaps, than the visitors ever bargained for.
• HOLOSPHERE
As time passed, it was only the outline — the warp and weft — that remained hers alone. As for the rest, it be-came a collage, a synthesis of many contributions. Though Jen’s daring model of the essential processes of thought grew more complicated with each added ele-ment, most of its newest pieces now came bobbing out of the capacious well of the Net itself. Some bits were brought home by her ferrets. But lately, the little software emissaries kept getting lost in the worried maelstrom surging through the world’s data hubs. The help she got now came mostly in real time, from real men and women — co-workers and colleagues who knew her access codes and had begun by merely eavesdropping on her work, but soon, intrigued, started offering suggestions as well.
Li Xieng of Shanghai had been first to speak up — after watching her model build for hours before making his presence known. Apologetically, he pointed out a flaw that would have stymied her if left uncorrected. Fortunately, he had a convenient solution ready at hand.
Old Russum of the University of Prague logged in next with a recommendation, and then Pauline Cockerel in London. After that, rumors spread with the eager pace of electrons, drawing attention from specialists across the globe. Helpful suggestions began arriving faster than Jen could scan them, so she deputized to surrogates — both living and simulated — the job of culling wheat from chaff.
Of course this was no more than a ripple in the tide of anxious comment right now sweeping the Net. Jen knew she and the others were being self-indulgent. Perhaps they oughtn’t to be concentrating so single-mindedly on an abstract model while all channels crackled with angst over matters of planetary survival. They should pay attention to the pronouncements of presidents and general secretaries and all the multichanneled pundits.
And yet, moments like this came so seldom in science. Mostly, a researcher’s work was a daily grind no less than the toil of a baker or grocer. Now and then though, something glorious happened — a paradigm shift, or theoretical revolution. Jen and the others were caught in the momentum of creative breakthrough. No one knew how long the burst of synthesis would last, but for now the whole was far greater than the sum of its parts.
… PRECONSCIOUS CULLING OF SEMI-RANDOM MEMORY ASSOCIATIONS cannot be too strict, Li Xieng commented in a line of bright letters to her upper left, after all, what would CONSCIOUSNESS BE WITHOUT THOSE SUDDEN LITTLE MEMORIES AND IMPULSES, APPARENTLY SO RANDOM, BUT…
Li’s comment wasn’t particularly important in itself. But the software bundle accompanying them was. A quick simulation test showed it wouldn’t hurt the big model, and just might add to its overall flexibility. So she spliced it to the growing whole and moved on.
A contribution from one of the Bell Labs arrived, bearing Pauline Cockerel’s chop of approval. Jen was about to evaluate it for herself when a sudden swirl of garish color drew her attention to the screen on the far left.
It was that bloody tiger again! Jen couldn’t figure out what the thing represented or why it persisted so. Or why it looked more battle worn each time she saw it. A while ago she had assigned the symbol to serve as an icon for her protection-sieve program, guarding this computer nexus from any outsiders trying to interfere without permission. But by now her data domain was so much larger, it seemed in retrospect a trivial precaution.
The tiger really was looking rather the worse for wear. It’s fur even smoked along one flank, as if seared by some terrible flame. Bleeding wounds seemed to trace the recent work of raking talons. And yet it rumbled defiantly, turning now and then to glare at something lurking just off screen.