The affinity index was useful nevertheless in that it provided a crude way of marking off the swathe of Multiverse in which realities possessing a certain family resemblance-the Minerva of fifty thousand years previously, for example-were likely to lie. The approach was a bit like highlighting a newspaper ad with a tar brush, but in a situation where it reduced possible solutions numbered at "almost-infinity" by an amount "almost-infinity-minus something," the result was a problem that VISAR could generally find manageable. In short, while it wasn't possible to hit a specific target by its characteristics, they could usually lob a shell onto more or less the right continent.
Given some indication by the data fed back of where and when they were within those limits, the technique then was to try and hop the device closer by sending it a series of corrections. The corrections didn't always have the expected effect, but correlating the directives sent with the result returned was producing the fragments that it was hoped would one day connect together into a map. But nobody yet knew what the scale was, and to make matters worse the scale seemed to vary in every one of innumerable directions. VISAR said it was nice to have something challenging to do.
The voice of the Thurien supervisor directing the operation came over the local circuit. "Beacon lock-on is holding steady. Bell distributor drawing h-input and charging. Drone wave function registering on all matrixes. Pilot beam synched." An exchange of numbers and status checks with VISAR followed. It meant that the raft out in the Gate was ready to go, and the array of projectors positioned in space around it was almost up to power. The "beacon" was for VISAR to home the raft on-a probe that had been sent through about thirty minutes previously to a fairly "nearby" location in the Multiverse that could be identified with some confidence. A fix from the returned astronomical observations and intercepted Thurien communications signals put it about a half million miles from an unremarkable planet of one of Gistar's neighboring systems, and several months in the past.
"Well, with luck we'll soon know if you were right," Hunt said to Chien. The test involved an aspect of the return-wave that she and some of the Thuriens had been investigating. An object was brought back by reversing the projection process-effectively creating a progression of wave representations in the return direction. It had been demonstrated successfully with a series of small objects sent via the old MP2 chamber. The raft would be the first attempt with a larger body, using the Gate.
"Being sure about the part that gets us home again is something that interests me greatly," she replied dryly.
"Vic, by the way," Caldwell said from his window in Hunt's head. "Owen stopped by to visit today. Asked me to say hi. He was hoping to be in on this too, but he couldn't stay." The test had been postponed a couple of hours due to some last-minute changes out at the Gate.
"That's too bad," Hunt said. "How's he liking retirement?"
"Doing okay. Catching up on his reading and traveling, he says, and still thinking about writing that book about his UNSA days. But I think he misses the firm. Did I ever tell you I thought about retiring too around a year or two ago?"
Hunt's eyebrows arched in surprise. "No, you never did. Seriously?"
"Sure. It was touch and go. Maeve talked me out of it in the end. I think she was terrified of the thought of having me under her feet all day, every day. I'm glad she did. I think I was going through a-"
VISAR cut in "Excuse me, but Bytor is asking to have a word with Gregg." Bytor was one of Thurien engineers assisting near the supervisor's panel.
"Back in a second, Vic."
"Sure."
Caldwell vanished. Hunt returned his attention to the screens. The views from the raft's imagers showed the sixteen projector bells as disks of blue-violet light spaced around in all directions against the background of stars, with MP2 showing as a bright light on one view and the distant globe of Thurien beyond. The Thuriens around the Control Center sat intent at their tasks. By now, nobody expected any real surprises. Hunt reflected on how quickly even something like this, which a year ago would have been viewed as outlandish, could come to be accepted as routine. The countdown was approaching zero.
"Sequencing out… Transferring."
And the gate was empty. That was it. There were no spectacular effects. One moment the raft had been there, centered at the focus of the array pattern, and then it was gone-across several light-years of space and several months back in time, if all was according to plan.
"Looks like another good one," Chien said, her eyes busy taking in displays and numbers.
"And we're sitting here getting ho-hum about it. Do you realize how staggering this all is, really?" Hunt shook his head.
VISAR confirmed that the data link to the raft was functioning. The readings coming back showed that it had found the beacon. Moments later, a visual channel opened up, showing an altered view of stars and space, this time without any bells, no MP2, and a planet that wasn't Thurien, farther away and smaller.
"There it is." Chien indicated with a nod. The beacon was coming into view in another shot, riding at a distance that VISAR reported as being eleven miles.
"We're probably causing some excitement there already," Hunt said. There could be no hiding something the size of the raft from the Thurien monitoring system of whatever universe they had connected with-not that there was any particular reason to want to hide it. In fact, quite the contrary.
Caldwell popped back into his visual field. "It's looking good. The raft got there," he said.
Hunt nodded. "Seems like it, Gregg."
"Access established. We're presenting our calling card," VISAR informed the company. It meant that via the raft's communications relay, it was in contact with its counterpart-the VISAR that existed in the target universe. In fact, this was one of the more valuable parts of the exercise. Instead of having to decode its way into an unfamiliar system, this way it was able to transfer enormous volumes of information describing the reality the raft was in. After a series of repeat performances with probes, they were no longer initiating person-to-person contacts. The routine had gotten old, and the individuals on the receiving end were usually too dumbfounded to supply much in the way of anything useful enough to be worth the time.
"Wow!" VISAR didn't often insert exclamations. "You're lucky you weren't with this outfit. They didn't power down at Quelsang and move the action out to MP2. There was a major accident-sounds like a matter clash. It took out half the Institute. The group was wiped out except for Danchekker and Mildred, who weren't there. I've given them our records, but I don't know if it will do any good. Their whole project is shut down. It's causing a major political scandal all over Thurien and back at Earth."
"Jeez!" Caldwell murmured. Hunt could only whistle silently, too taken aback to form any words.
"Eesyan permitted it?" Chien said, sounding surprised and a little disbelieving.
"It seems their Eesyan resigned from the program early on," VISAR replied. "There were disagreements… Pressures from Earth that he wouldn't go along with."
"Don't tell me, I can guess," Caldwell said. "My other self there is about to be fired, right?"
"You're not there," VISAR answered. "You took an early retirement over a year ago."
The supervisor announced, "Wave pattern is stable. Switching over to local control now."
"Link deactivated to standby. Bubble manifold dissolving," another voice reported.
This was the crucial part of the experiment. The transfer of power through from the Gate had been cut. The bubble of local M-space and its extension forming the umbilical to the raft's locally generated bubble was no longer being sustained. The raft was now a self-contained entity, free to move around in the foreign universe, all communications severed. It simulated the situation that would exist with the Shapieron when it was sent back to Minerva. The blank screens and inactive readouts confirmed that all information flow back from the raft had ceased. The homing beacon that had been sent ahead, on the other hand, was still connected to the projector at MP2 via its own umbilical and sending back a view of the raft, captured telescopically from about fifty miles away.