Measuring the Universe

It's strange how life works. Is a lifetime measured by time alone? Is a lifetime the sum or only a part of being? Yes, I have been drinking. Why do you ask?

What was it Kevin said?

"We are here to measure the universe."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, unfocusing from my slush bomb to look in his general directions. It was one of those bar conversations where no one ever gets to the point, even though everyone is sure there is one.

"Eddie was asking about existinnn.... meaning of life. 'Forty two' didn't even make sense."

"It's not suppose to make sense," I explained.

"What's the point of discussing it then?" he asked.

I shrugged and said, "It's better than going on about Joe and his heavy-handed appropriation of my quanta drive."

Kevin thought about it for a few seconds. "Yeah. But don't you have another one of those things?"

I laughed and managed to snort very cold alcohol while doing it. Kevin waited for me to recover. "No. There are two units, but the quanta drive itself exists 'between' them, as it were, so there is only one drive."

"Oh." Kevin contemplated his drink and said, "I really missed getting drunk. Submind is so going on my holiday gift list. Maybe a nice expensive wine for the Doc... that big fellow who's going to marry Sandra... he's got some nice stuff..."

I nodded and circled back in on the conversation. "So how are we measuring the universe?"

Kevin shrugged. "Like a tick toc clock ticking thing. Take out one second, and the whole thing stops."

I blinked at him. It made sense in a drunken sort of way. "Yeah."

"It's more than that, for certain," Kevin said. I'm not sure he cared if I was listening or not. "We notice the universe. We detect it in specific ways--giving names to things, and counting things, and all sorts of stuff like that."

"You've been talking to Doc," I said.

Kevin shrugged. He does that a lot now that both of his shoulders work like they should. "She's the closest thing to a symborg around here, and I had questions."

"Sounds like you got the same kind of answers I usually get."

Kevin smiled and nodded. Then he stood up and carefully walked over to get a refill.

"Five years without a drink," I muttered. "He's holding it pretty well."

Symborg

"So what do you think? Chicken or egg?" Kevin asked, gesturing at himself.

I met Kevin Jaunha a couple of months ago. He was staying with Ray Miller, Minister of Immigration, while he waited for his papers to clear. Remember Comet, the ex-cybernetic dog? Kevin had similar cybernetic implants--plus replacements for nearly half his face, one arm, both legs, and some squishy parts I don't want to talk about.

"Was it a chicken egg, and if so, was that because it was from a chicken, or because a chicken hatched out of it?" I asked. "Obviously there were eggs a long time before there were chickens, so I have to assume you intend that a chicken hatches out of the egg, in which case, the egg was first."

"That part was rhetorical." Kevin said.

"However," I continued. "If you intended that a chicken laid the egg, then your question is pointless. Considering there are only two answers, and one of them pointless, the question itself reveals nothing about chickens, eggs, or your new face."

"Thank you very much. You can shut up now."

I couldn't stop. "It makes me wonder if eggs are like the uncertainty principle. You can't tell what kind of egg it is until it hatches, then it's no longer an egg."

"Ray had me convinced you were intelligent," Kevin said.

I shrugged and said, "I've been calling Comet a 'symborg'. Other than that, I don't have anything to say about it. Maybe one day, if I get half my head blown off and then have it replaced by custom made biological constructs infected with an intelligent virus, I'll have more of an opinion."

"Symborg?" Kevin asked, flexing his symborg hand. "I like that. Ray was right about you."

"So you just stopped by my office to let me judge your face?"

"Pretty much." Kevin said. "Thanks, Dee."

"No problem," I muttered to his receding backside.

Golden Relativity

"Relativity 1.618?" I asked. "That's stupid. Where did you get a number like that?"

"You know about pi?"

"Duh," I said. "I'm a Dizzy Jack."

"Right," Doc said. "This one is like that, only it's called phi."

"1.618 is phi? Should I bother asking you to explain?"

"It's more commonly called the golden ratio." Doc said. "From your description of the event, the inaccurate time accounting, and your vague air of smugness about how easy it was, you achieved Relativity 1.618, not Relativity Two."

"I didn't say it was easy," I said with irritation. "I said it was simple once I figured it out."

"You haven't figured it out," Doc said. Her tone of certainty suggested that Submind was present and, once again, turning my personal triumph into just another day.

"What did I do then?"

"You learned how to turn it on," Doc said. I could tell Submind was driving the words. "You have very little control. When you have learned to focus your gravity and hop snowballs like Rick, you might be able to do more than orbit Saturn while you are exercising relativity."

That made sense, but didn't make me happy. "It's just that Rick, as much as I like the guy, can't stop talking about how easy it would be to take over this ship or that space station. Did you know he wants to take Mars Metro?"

Doc nodded.

"He goes into details I don't even understand," I said, shuddering. "And he laughs like it's not really a joke. It gives me the creeps when I think about it, because I'm fairly sure he would be successful."

Doc nodded and shrugged. "No one else has learned 'the gravity trick', as you call it."

"What does phi have to do with time dilatation anyway?"

"It is a natural resting point for those without focus, and a common ratio throughout the universe. Go look it up--and then consider the inverse."

"Great," I muttered, and went home for a nap.

Temporal Inertia

Counter-Spin went ice-hopping with me to help me 'practice' manipulating gravity. I'm not sure he understands I'm really just trying to get a grip on time. While Rick is throwing around his own personal gravity, he is slowing his own time in little fractions. He leaves for a day, and his watch is ten minutes slow when he gets back to the station.

"Ten minutes?" I asked, making sure Rick understood how disappointed I was.

"Why do you keep going on about that, Dizzy?" Rick said. "It was ten minutes. I was just ice-hopping, not trying to achieve some exponential time compression."

"Dilatation," I muttered.

"Whatever," Rick said. "Stop using your ion thrusters for one thing. You want to feel the ice with your feet before it's even close enough to see."

"No I don't," I said. "I like my ion thrusters. I have control of my own momentum."

"You'll never learn..."

"Why should I?"

"You said you wanted..."

"To control my own personal time," I said, interrupting. "Gravity is only the power source for what I want to do."

"You are crazy. Go figure it out then. I'm going to stretch my legs." Rick turned, hopped off the snowball we were riding, and orbited a couple of times to pick up speed. That meant he wouldn't be back for a while. He probably thought he was punishing me with his absence.

I thrusted into a trailing orbit with the snowball and idled the jets. I 'felt' it's gravity with my feet and rode the edge of Saturn's rings while I thought about time. Time was there, like inertia and momentum, and I could feel it.

Some people can explain anything and make it simple.

I am floating in space while my gravity rides a snowball. All around me is an endless well of mass--an untapped source of time dialatation. I activate the symbiont and throw my gravity outwards, in all directions.

I take three deep breaths.

"Yo," someone shouted. "You going into hyber-sleep or what?"

"No," I said. "Why?"

"I've been trying to shake you out of it for half an hour," Rick said. "Figuratively speaking. These suits have some serious security."

"How long were you gone?" I asked.

"Well, I found and marked a carbon-cluster. According to my suit-chrono, I was gone for about 10 hours. I don't know what yours says."

I ignored his sarcasm and said, "I did it."

"Did what?" Rick asked suspiciously. His day had been longer than mine.

"Relativity Two, I think," I said. "There are 3600 seconds in 1 hour... I took three deep breaths, say about six seconds..."

"Seriously. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Rick," I said slowly, and with as much drama as possible. "According to my suit-chrono, you only left a few minutes ago."

"Oh," he said, catching on.

This may seem strange, considering how short it was for me personally, but that was best day I've had in weeks.

The Other Side of Gravity

"Why didn't you tell me this last month?" I asked loudly. "I still want to know why you didn't tell me."

Rich just shrugged.

I turned on Paula and Doc and started to shout again, but Paula interrupted casually.

"Geez, Dizzy, after all the fuss you make about cats having minds of their own, you'd think we strapped Bane to a booster and lit the fuss."

"You should have told me," I said.

"Told you what, Dizzy?" Paula asked. "That we think Bane took his vac-suit and jumped on the fastest Relativity Train to Earth? You're not very rational about cats, and anything Rick or I could have told you a month ago would have sent you off into the vacuum looking for him. Doc didn't want us to say anything which might hinder your attempts to consciously interface with the symbiont."

I turned to glare at Doc, but couldn't think of anything to shout.

"You appear to have gained some measure of conscious control," she said with a shrug. "Your instincts probably would have delayed your progress."

It's strange, even though I didn't see Bane that much, the station feels as if there is an empty spot--you don't miss it until it's gone sort of thing. It's the not knowing. You know? I don't know where he's at, or how to find him.

"What's with Earth anyway?" I asked. "He's a damn cat. How would he even know about Earth, let alone how to get there in some feline space-pod?"

It was an uncomfortable silence. I'm used to those, so I let it stay that way until Doc, a.k.a. Submind, said, "His symbiont has known about Earth all along... And we believe he managed to trigger Genitor memories."

"Genitor?"

"Our original host species. We were only genetic memories back then." Submind said. "Hiekaa were very much like Earth felines, and we think Bane has gained access to those memories. If so, he is most likely looking for territory and a mate."

"Great," I muttered. "I knew there would be an alien invasion some day. Earth won't know what hit them."

Doc laughed uncertainly.

Paula attempted to change the subject. "So you learned how to adjust your personal gravity?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm not impressed. Do you know how hard it is to achieve Relativity One? I was out there for ten hours, and when I came back, it was only 12 hours real time. It's hardly worth the effort."

Paula nodded.

"It gets easier," Rick said.

"And a ship sized mass will make it even easier," Doc said.

"Besides that," Paula said. "It's about your personal gravity--not time."

"Time is just the other side of gravity," I said.

Doc gave me one of THOSE looks, but she didn't bother to explain.

Robot Uprising

Fife Tiberman was a tiny man with a red face and white thinning hair. That, plus the palm sized mechanical spider he was demonstrating, made me think of a toy maker. "I had a dumb cat get in the way," he said. "It makes you wonder how many incredible ideas are lost because of distraction."

"So," I said carefully. "A cat interrupted your great idea because you forgot to secure the lab, which then gave you another great idea for those creepy things," I paused to readjust my vocal output down to normal. "And now you want to ban cats from my station, and replace them with hundreds of hive-minded little automatons?"

"Yes," the man said, sounding puzzled by my tone.

"The toys stay on your ship," I said flatly.

"But I need at least 25 units to demonstrate full functionality for the Governor and Doctor Hestor."

He was obviously serious because he ignored my sarcasm, so I was trying very hard not to laugh. "Why don't you take a tour of the station without the robot grid, and then if you still think the direct approach is best, schedule a brief pre-demonstration with four or five units. If Kelly doesn't throw you the off the station, we'll talk about harsh environment adaptability."

He was staring at me in horror. I knew all about Fife's project because Eddie hadn't shut up about it for weeks. EMF Eddie is a genius in a lot of way which don't apply to reality, but at least he knows that. He said the robots would be good in automated comm-stations and such, where atmo was maintained for visitors and service personel.

"Robots will always be better than life-forms for some things," I said. "I've got some toxic cores in need of scraping. Of course, I'm not a tech any more, but..."

"I will return to my ship and divest myself of the grid," he said sharply. "Then I will make my own appointment with the Governor, durning which time I will not only make my demonstration, but complain about your conduct."

"Oh good," I said, smiling widely. "Have me replaced. For a favor that big, I'll let you have first choice from Pipster's next litter."

He spun around and stomped away. The swarm of creepy little robots followed along. I half expected him to crush one, but he seems to have the damage avoidance software locked. I can only guess the electronic wand in his hand was the "nucleus control device."

Probability Cloud

I stopped by Doc's lab to ask more questions about the symbionts. This time I wasn't worried so much as I was looking for an upgrade.

"How can I learn to slow down my own time rate?" I asked. "Like Rick does with his gravity trick?"

"There was this pre-Luna scientist named Heisenberg," she said. "He picked up on a universal truth and called it the Uncertainty Principle. It's the one you used to rant about on a regular basis when we were moving the station."

"You mean not knowing where something is and how fast it's going at the same time?" I asked. "Is that what it's called? No wonder you wouldn't admit to knowing anything about it."

She laughed quietly. "I also didn't explain that it only applies to very small particles. Apply this principle to a very small and very fast electron, and location effectively becomes anywhere within a specific probability cloud at all times. Time is no longer a factor."

"How does that help me slow time with this symbiont?" Confusion makes me grumpy.

"Within known parameters, a particle can be anywhere at any time, but if the right pressure is applied, a particle can be literally anywhere in the universe for micro-slices of time," Doc said, shrugging. "This can be used to encourage the gravity of one mass to have more effect on your own mass. A useful side-effect of that pressure is time dilation."

"So," I said, hesitating briefly to form my thoughts. "Our three dimensions don't fit together exactly perfectly, because if they did, time wouldn't be able to get in?"

It was one of THOSE pauses. Doc smiled and said, "The universe fits together just fine until you pay attention to the small details. That's where time becomes irrelevant."

"Huh," I said. "I thought I had something there."

"We will have to think about it," Doc said. "Perhaps if we did some cloning experiments, we could determine if your thought processes have a genetic component."

It took me a second. "What? I don't think so. I like knowing who I am." I suddenly realized Doc was laughing, and I became certain the joke was Submind's.

"Laugh it up space-bug. I only want to learn how to control gravity with this thing. I don't suppose you could just tell me how? So I can go try it out?" I asked without much hope.

"Sorry. It's like learning to walk. You're on your own from here."

Feeling Truth

My granpa used to talk about what kinds of fear there were, and how I should pay attention to the warning and use it to get the hell out of the way. I think it was his way of telling me to get over being space-struck and watch where I was going.

I've learned a couple of things since then. For one, fear is not always useful. For another, politics and opinions are all about the deep-down-personal feelings, and if fear is one of those feelings, the others cannot be trusted. Granpa probably knew that too, but I was only seven at the time.

---

At the moment I'm basking in the proof that high-tech suits and toys are positive status points--no matter where they came from. My discomfort with zero-Gee has become my best thing because of an intelligent virus inhabiting a genetically engineered host of it's own creation. Plus, I get the latest and best thing in vacuum wear.

---

It's been weeks since I checked the ship, and Pipster has blissfully taken over. I suspect she is planning to have more kittens. She wasn't exactly offended when I stopped by without calling, but she was fine with my presence as long as I didn't touch her or acknowledge her in any way. Miss Hiss decided to go domestic and moved into the deluxe-master apartment for very-important-cogs with Paula and me. Bane was last seen guarding his favorite fish pond.

---

Another thing Grandpa always said was, "Truth doesn't mean vac unless it has feeling." It was usually after a drunken argument with an engineer.

Relativity Zero

I've learned something about time. Or more correctly, about Submind's ability to manipulate various states of reality. Counter-spin Rick can adjust his own personal gravity. I've watched him do it, and I paid attention this last time.

Rick can hop from snowball to snowball without using his ion-thrusters.

"How the hell did you do that?" I asked over comm.

"What?" Rick asked. He hadn't even thought about it.

"Get off of this bit of ice," I added. "And onto that bit ice you are on right now?"

"Oh that," Rick said, pausing. "I'll tell you only if you promise not to ask another question for at least 24 hours."

"That's stupid. What if I don't understand?"

"You'll have time to think of a better question," Rick said.

I thought about it for maybe a second and said, "Fine. But I get two questions tomorrow."

Rick grinned and said, "I encouraged the 'bit of ice' to catch me."

It's so obvious I feel confident I won't bring it up again. Plus, Rick probably doesn't want to describe color for me.

I asked Doc. Doc sent me to a chimp who calls himself Tesla Cee. Tesla is even more aggressive than most male apes, but he has channeled it into what has got to be a first for chimpanzees. He plays with lightning.*

In short terms, Tesla (and probably a generous dosage of Submind) told me that gravity is easy to manipulate at the quantum level, and Submind is good at quantum. Time is also part of the equation, and when Rick is catching a new ride, he is probably slowing his own personal time.

So now I want to learn how to do that, because if I can turn a three hour boring suit ride into an 18 minute joy ride at 'Relativity One,' then I will totally forget every single Submind intrusion into my life. The gravity manipulation thing would be nice too.
----

• Later in the bar, I asked Tesla Cee about his fascination with a crazy pre-Luna human. He said, "Tesla was the first human scientist with an imagination."
  
• Everyone has their own delusions I guess. I have concluded that like humans, some chimpanzees are best avoided.