"Perhaps the simplest thing would be for you to come and visit us and see it for yourself when we get back," Chien suggested.
"I'd like to," Hunt said. In fact, he had been thinking of trying to arrange just that. "What are the prospects of it coming into general use in the foreseeable future?" he asked. "Seriously. I've heard a lot of worried talk about it."
Chien smiled faintly in a distant kind of way that seemed very wise and worldly. "Worried talk in America?"
"Well, yes, sure…"
"It will happen, Dr. Hunt. You can't turn the clock back. We will soon be immersed in an economy of universal abundance. It will be the end of the line for capitalism, which functions on the basis of manipulated scarcity. But it was inevitable eventually, even without the Thuriens. The world will just have to learn and get used to new ways of thinking a little sooner than they otherwise would have."
Hunt finished the last of his tea while he thought about that. It wasn't the first time he'd heard such sentiments expressed, but he wasn't sure if this would be the time to go into it with someone he hardly knew yet. He decided to keep things on the light side for now. "You should talk to Chris Danchekker's cousin," he said, indicating the table where Mildred was sitting. "From what he's told me, it sounds as if you'd have a lot in common there."
Chien straightened up in her seat. "Yes, I must do that. I haven't met them yet." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "I've been racing through one of her books since I learned she was coming with us. The one about how brainwashed and conditioned to political ideology professionals in corporations are. Very interesting and insightful. Have you read it?"
Hunt shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Come on over. I'll introduce you."
"Would you excuse me?" Chien said to Sonnebrandt.
"I'll be right back," Hunt told him.
"Of course. We'll talk more later." Sonnebrandt rose again as Chien got up to go with Hunt. Hunt wondered if this was going to be a permanent thing. As they moved away, Sonnebrandt beckoned Vercingetorix over and ordered another beer.
"And one for me," Hunt called back.
Hunt introduced Chien and told Mildred she was a fan. Mildred seemed delighted and flattered. Danchekker and the two Thuriens responded with appropriate pleasantries.
"Duncan and Sandy went off to explore the ship just before you came in," Danchekker told Hunt. Duncan and Sandy had been dating cozily since their return from the expedition to Jevlen. "It seemed like an excellent idea. We were just about to do likewise. Would you care to join us?"
"Just imagine, an alien starship!" Mildred enthused.
"Of course. How could I refuse?" Chien agreed. Hunt declined, saying that he had only left Sonnebrandt for a moment; in any case, he had seen enough of alien starships. After exchanging a few parting words and seeing them on their way, he went back to the other table.
"So you never married, I think you told me once?" Sonnebrandt said, leaning back and taking in the room.
"Never did."
"Never found the right woman, eh?"
"Oh, yes, pretty close, once or twice. Only trouble was, they were still looking for the right man. How about you?"
"Oh, I was once, some years ago now, but it didn't work out. They can be such demanding creatures. I thought marrying them would be enough. I didn't know you were supposed to live with them as well."
They talked about life in UNSA's scientific divisions compared to German academia. Sonnebrandt had worked for a while with the large European nucleonics facility near Geneva. In fact, he had met a number of Ganymeans from the Shapieron then, when they were accommodated in Switzerland during their stay on Earth. Although Hunt had been around at the time, their paths evidently hadn't crossed.
Sonnebrandt's work there had been on Multiverse interference experiments and the teleportation of quantum-entangled systems. At first, it had seemed to many people that this had to be the key to explaining how the Jevlenese ships had been hurled back to ancient Minerva, and more recently, following the media furor over the revelation at Owen's UNSA retirement dinner, the projection of the relay into this universe from whichever other one it had come from. But Hunt and Sonnebrandt agreed that quantum teleportation of the kind that was familiar in Terran laboratories and which the Thuriens used routinely in various ways wasn't the answer. The problem, in essence, was the impossibility in principle of being able to synchronize in advance any receiving apparatus at the other end, which was what enabled such effects to be achieved. Transporting to another universe would require something "self-contained" that could be "projected"-like sending a message in a bottle as opposed to transmitting to a tuned radio that was already there. But how did you get a bottle to go where you wanted it to, and then know enough to be able to announce itself when it was there? Clearly, a lot of onboard capability was indicated. But their counterparts in at least one place had managed to work it out.
"We'll start making progress all of a sudden when VISAR gets properly involved," Hunt said.
"You think so?"
"That would be my guess if I had to."
"What do you mean, 'properly'?" Sonnebrandt asked.
"New insights and intuition still seem to be a biological specialty," Hunt answered. "We don't know how we do it, so it's kind of difficult to specify the essence of it to a machine, however much it might be wrapped up in associative nets and learning algorithms. Induction doesn't come easily even to a Thurien system. But once you've given it the idea, it will run with it and tell you in minutes what does and doesn't follow from your assumptions. VISAR did an astounding job of authenticity faking the Pseudowar that panicked Broghuilio's Jevlenese. But it was us who suggested it in the first place."
"Who? You mean you and Chris Danchekker?"
"Oh, there was a bunch more involved, too, at the time. But all Terrans, yes. The Thuriens admitted that something like that would never have occurred to them. Devious thinking and deception isn't their thing."
Sonnebrandt touched a finger to the avco disk behind his ear. "Just out of curiosity, is VISAR tapping into this conversation?"
Hunt shook his head. "It doesn't eavesdrop. Thuriens are finicky about things like that."
"How do you know when it's online and when it isn't?"
"You learn to cue it. It's a knack that you pick up."
Sonnebrandt rubbed his fingertip lightly over the device, tracing its outline. "This isn't the Thurien total-sensory thing that people talk about, right?" he checked. "It's just an audio-visual subset. That's what avco means."
"You've never tried the full Thurien system?" Hunt was surprised. For some reason he imagined all major scientific establishments like the Max Planck Institute as having a Thurien neurocoupler or two hidden away somewhere. But Sonnebrandt shook his head. Hunt flipped the mental switch to raise VISAR. "I assume you've got couplers installed at various locations around the place?" he checked.
"Sure. It's a Thurien ship. Comes with all the fixings."
"Josef's never used one. Think we could give him an introductory ride?"
"No problem," VISAR replied. "Finish your beers, and I'll guide you to the nearest ones that are available right now."
CHAPTER SIX
Thurien engineering tended not to be intrusive or ostentatious. VISAR directed Hunt and Sonnebrandt along one of the corridors from the Terran lounge area of the ship to a space divided into a number of partitioned cubicles. They entered one of them to find what looked like a fairly standard padded recliner, with panels of multicolored crystal mosaics positioned behind and alongside the headrest in a manner vaguely suggestive of sound baffles in an acoustic room. An array of video and other sensors covered the area from high on the walls and other directions to capture the subject from all angles for an accurate virtual surrogate to be produced. Otherwise, apart from a convenience shelf to one side, coat hanger, and a mirror, the cubicle was bare. A pattern of intriguing artistic designs relieved the monotony of the walls. "That's it. Take a seat," Hunt said, gesturing.