Against Infinity by Gregory Benford Read Free Book Online Page A

ranged in the region south of the hills, among the flow plains of purple-orange ice. He was learning the land without knowing quite how, simply by immersing himself in it and getting the feel of the vast flat plains, the hummocked and water-carved terrain, the stress-torn troughs and gorges and cañons where the melting of snow and ice had shifted weight and brought disruption. In one hollow where the thin winds twisted in a perpetual breeze, he found thin sculptures of blue-black ice, taller than a man, wind-carved, spindly, glinting in the wan sunlight.
    He came in late that day. His father studied him as he clumped in from the lock, tired and chilled, stamping off the ice from his boots. The shack insulation was poor and the temperature gradient was steep; standing up, you could wipe sweat from your face while your feet went numb. Colonel López got his son a plate of the thick turkey stew with chunks of baked corn in it. Manuel went through the first plate without talking much, just eating with that intensity the young have when the body asserts its demands. He finished and clumped stolidly into the steamy kitchen and came back with a second. He was a few mouthfuls in, going slower now, hunkered down and head bowed over the table, when the Colonel said mildly, “If you’re going to look for it you should have some equipment.”
    Manuel’s head jerked up. “How’d you…?”
    “I know it is hard to credit, but I was a boy once.”
    “Well…what’d you mean?”
    “The thing’s got metal in it. The research reports from back thirty, forty years ago say it’s most likely iron and copper. Ferromagnetic, anyway.”
    “Looks like rock.”
    “Sometimes, sí. Others, not.” The Colonel’s eyebrows rose as he stared off into space, as if remembering. “No matter. Any big piece of iron moving, an antenna can detect it. Fast Fourier components in the magnetic field.”
    Manuel nodded. He knew “Fourier” meant some kind of frequency analysis. That could pick up when the Aleph was moving. “They ever track it that way?”
    “Sure. Never learned much, though. I looked at twenty years’ worth of maps once. Big three-dimensional ones, some from back before all the ridgelines and mountains were exposed by the melting. There—”
    “Really? That old?”
    “Sure. Two centuries ago, Ganymede was smooth. We been melting and gouging, making terrain. Thing is, the scientific types spent a lot of effort plotting where the Aleph went—figured it had a place to hide out maybe, down in the core or something.”
    “What for?”
    “Repair itself. Rest up, maybe. Any—”
    “Ha! Qué gente estúpida ! It doesn’t need—”
    “I’ll thank you to not interrupt your father again,” the Colonel said precisely, each word carrying its own weight. He paused, and between the two flashed a challenge, a hint of the tension that was coming into their talk more as the years advanced, but that neither wanted to acknowledge. The boy twisted his mouth and looked away.
    “To continue. I studied their maps. The Aleph goes everywhere, lingers seldom. The trajectory, it filled the moon’s volume like spaghetti in a bowl, all through. Up to the crust, down to the core, swimming sometimes and running others. No sense to it.”
    Manuel’s expression tightened. “No help in knowing that.”
    “My point is the method, not the results. They followed its movements with satellite triangulation. Detecting the ripples of magnetic fields as it passed.”
    “I don’t know as I want to track it.”
    “No, but I want you to know when it’s around.”
    “How?” Manuel went back to chewing, more pensively now, thinking.
    “Carry some loop antennas with you.”
    “Weigh much?”
    “Five kilos, maybe.”
    “How’ll an antenna tell the difference between me, walking, and anything else?”
    His father nodded with grudging respect for the boy’s technical sense. “You have to stand still and take a reading. Squirt it up to Satellite;