Well, she agreed to give Turner and me a chance to come up with another idea to present to her dad. Then she laid a bombshell on us. She told us her people only had thirty years to vacate. In thirty years, she said, the particle and energy flux from the supernova, at the line of sight between Earth and her home world, would reach a point where quantum effects would become noticeable.
Huh? “So?” I asked.
It would make it impossible to transmit the DNA and other data to Earth, she said. Stella’s communications link with her father, Turner explained, is a feeble trickle of photons from the home star. Some computerlike equipment here at the complex was able to compensate for atmospheric disturbances and such, but couldn’t deal with anything that cuts off the light altogether, or screws with the quantum mumbo jumbo.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That information should have been on its way here years ago.” Then it hit me. Stella’s conversation with her father had been real time. No delay at all. The old man could have been in the next room. Either I was being hoodwinked big time, or I was missing something important.
So Stella and the good Doctor tried to explain it, and something called the “Quantum Non-Locality Phenomenon.” But I gotta tell ya, I don’t think either of them understood it all that well. Stella accepted that it worked and shrugged off any explanation, which would be my reaction if I had to explain threedeevision to a cave man, whether I understand it or not (which I don’t!).
Turner was one big toothy grin. Spouted theories—quantized gravity black holes, quantum effects undisturbed by gravity wells, light orbiting a singularity (I had him write this stuff down for me later)—and how he figured it all ought to work. He didn’t sound any more convincing than I would have been with that cave man.
From what they told me, it seems Stella’s people had mastered more than terraforming, centuries ago. They had turned their whole anti-matter solar system into a huge cosmic quantum Dixie cup telephone, the string being the light from the antistar. Stella and her people could quan-tum pluck it like a violin string and the person on the other end would hear it instantly.
A seventy-five year long beam of starlight, stored in orbit around an artificial black hole where their Oort cloud used to be—that was the main part. The beam’s twin was the string, stretched between them and Earth. If Stella’s people modulated the first beam, the receiver in Stella’s compound would see the exact same pattern in the second beam as it drifted down through the Arizona skies, and at exactly the same time. Or Stella could modulate the starlight herself before it splashed onto the desert sand, and her people would see her message in their stored beam.
Real-time conversations over any distance. Magic? No, Turner assured me, only sufficiently advanced technology.
Turner raved about Stella’s radio, like it was the second coming, or something. I just thought it was super convenient.
Well, not completely convenient, as it turns out. You can’t simply call—you can’t phone home with it. Both people have to agree ahead of time when to start talking and listening. That time had come again now. Stella left to talk to her father again. She promised to buy us two hours.
After she left, Turner looked at me with a hangdog expression. Out of his depths for a change and at terminal overload from all the new developments. A man so smart, just sitting there, helpless. It was sad. I had to get him thinking. “You know? There were some exceptions.”
“Exceptions to what, Kirk?”
“To what I said about when first worlders crush primitives.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Did you know that the American Indians kicked the Europeans out of North America, five hundred years before Columbus? Yeah! Kicked their butts back to Norway, or Iceland, someplace. Of course, those Indians didn’t know the big picture when they did that. If they had, they might have made better use of the 500 years.”
He nodded, not aroused much. I got up and motioned for Turner to follow. “C’mon, Doc. I don’t like the odds with Stella and Dad negotiating without us. You’n me are gonna have a chat with Papa McFarland.”
I stormed in, dragging Turner behind me, and crashed their little party.
“Hello again, Mr. McFarland. Say, do you mind if I just call you Mack? Great!”
There was a lot of sputtering all around, but if I let any of them stop me now, I’d be lost in no time.
“Great,” I continued. “We’ve been discussing this little real estate deal of yours. As an interested party—the Sellers, to be exact—we have a counteroffer.”
The old man was human, all right. Every shocked, insulted, confused, and indignant expression in the catalog raced across his face. Not a poker face, that’s for sure. This was going to be easy.
Stella and Doc just looked lost-hopeful, but lost. Stella’s eyes were still red. Hang on, Stella.
The old fart got a grip and, talking to me like I was some lower life-form (which, I was beginning to see, he had a perfect right), he said, “Well, Earthman?”
“The name’s Kirk, and if you want to get off that anti-world of yours, you’ll listen to me.”
“Why? Why should we bother?”
“Well, for one thing, even though you’re obviously strong enough to simply take Earth away from us, I’m banking that you’ve got at least as much conscience as us and would jump at the chance to do this without resorting to genocide. For another thing, Stella hasn’t put this place on autopilot yet, and if I were you, I’d worry about what was in that backpack I had with me when I got here.”
I turned away from the old man and made some faces of my own at Turner and Stella. They knew I was bluffing and if either gave it away the jig would be very up. I pleaded silently with Stella. Now she could show her true colors. Would she go with the muscle-bound aliens, or the ninety-pound weakling human geeks? Which would it be, Stella?
“Kirk!” she shrieked. “Where did you leave that pack?” Shocked expression, eyes wide. Academy Award stuff. Thank you, Stella. Thank you!
I faced Mack. “So, Dad, you can either risk losing this end of your quantum Dixie cup telephone, or do what I ask.”
Mack looked right into my eyes. The fact that he was trillions of miles away and that his image was the result of fiddling with photons at the quantum level didn’t lessen the impact of that look on me. I felt like I was facing an angry school principal. I think I went a little white. But then he said, in a strangely paternal tone, “So, young man. What is this counteroffer of yours?”
“A fixer-upper on the same block.” Total silence. Then a gasp of understanding from Turner. (There may be hope for him yet.)
Mack, however, seemed ready to send me to detention. But before he could say anything, Turner jumped in—bless his pea pickin’ little heart.
“You see, sir, if we’re going to evacuate your people to this Solar System, we need to quarantine you first. Not for health reasons, but for social reasons. Having such an advanced race of beings here on Earth will create serious problems. It will disrupt and demoralize humanity, and cause alienation and trouble for us both. And Earth is already under strain from our own numbers.”
“But where, then?”
Maybe Doc thought he knew, but he let me do the honors. I gave Mack my best salesman smile. “Mars!”
Mack’s eyebrows knotted in thought; a good sign, I figured.
“Doc tells me your planet is closer to the size of Mars, and so you’ll like the gravity better. Now, I understand you people are pretty good at terraforming. So how long would it take you to make over Mars so it will support all of you?”