The Imagination Trap.

Colin Kapp.

ONE.

Professor Carl Diepenstrom, Director of Tau Research Corporation, switched off the intercom.

"Well, at least he's come to see us, Paul."

Paul Porter nodded. "I thought he would. Eric Brevis can't resist the lure of curiosity any more than we can. In fact, if we can score with him, it will be on that very point."

"I see." Diepenstrom raised his large and greying head and studied Porter seriously for a moment or two. "And you still think it vitally necessary that we go through with this project, Paul?"

"You know it is. It's the only chance we have. We can't continue with the present research line. It isn't humanitarian, and it isn't giving us a glimpse of a coherent pattern. Besides which, you know how the Government's att.i.tude is hardening."

"Yes, I know it," said Diepenstrom gravely. "And that's the reason I've backed you as far as I have. I can't see any practical alternative. But I'd be happier if it didn't have to be you who went out there. Tau Research can't afford to lose you, Paul."

"There won't be any Tau Research if this project folds. Anyway, I don't think the risk will be too great-not if we can persuade Eric Brevis to join the team."

"You think a great deal of Dr Brevis, don't you?"

"I do. He has an intuitive understanding of the irrational, and that can be a prime factor for survival under extreme Tau conditions. With him on the team we have a very real chance of making a breakthrough."

"Very well," said Diepenstrom. "If you want Dr Brevis, you shall have him. But you'd better leave the interview to me. It may just be that he isn't very willing to offer his life for somebody else's cause. In which case he will have to be . . . ah! . . . persuaded."

As the psychologist entered the room, Diepenstrom rose in greeting.

"Dr Brevis, thank you for coming."

Brevis seated himself carefully and took a cigar from the offered box. "Being in receipt of such an intriguing communication, I could scarcely have refused."

Diepenstrom repressed a mischievous smile. "That was, shall we say, contrived. Curiosity is a force far more potent than most people allow."

Brevis studied the Director's face carefully for a moment. "True," he said. "Though I don't think you asked me here just to discuss the psychology of curiosity."

"Indeed not. I wanted to discuss the possibility of death."

"Whose death-yours or mine?"

"Yours."

Brevis exhaled sharply. "I suppose there's some sense in this cryptic nonsense?"

"There is indeed, my dear Doctor, and shortly I'll tell you what it is. But first let me enquire how much you know about Tau?"

"Not very much. I know it's a system in which solid bodies are resonated in such a way that their atoms can pa.s.s through the s.p.a.ces in the atomic structure of other solid bodies. I know you use the method for transport, bringing the big Tau ships to resonance and then driving them through the earth by the shortest mean path to their destination."

"Go on," said Diepenstrom.

"I know also that in its resonant state such a ship pa.s.ses into an inter-atom domain called Tau-s.p.a.ce which is incongruent both physically and psychologically with conditions existing in normal s.p.a.ce." "That will do for the moment," said Diepenstrom. "I recall that you were concerned with Paul Porter on the epic voyage of the old Lambda I Tau raft. I also recall that the impact of some of the things you discovered on that journey caused a radical re-thinking of some major portions of the Tau concept. I put it to you, Dr Brevis, that this is a remarkable record for one who claims very little knowledge of Tau techniques."

"Suppose we come to the point," said Brevis abruptly.

"I was just going to," said Diepenstrom. "Does the phrase deep-Tau mean anything to you?"

"No."

"Then I'll tell you. Deep-Tau is the Tau-s.p.a.ce a.n.a.logue of conventional deep s.p.a.ce. We are actively researching into the possibility of achieving interstellar s.p.a.ceflight by travelling in the Tau-s.p.a.ce a.n.a.logue."

"I don't see . . ." said Brevis.

"Let me finish first, please. Now, deep-Tau as an alternative to conventional s.p.a.ceflight promises some remarkable advantages in simplified technique. Indeed, it may be the only technique to make star travel possible. Superficially, deep-Tau travel would appear to be easier than terrestrial Tau work. Unfortunately there are a number of impossible and irrational reasons why this is not so."

"I fail to see," said Brevis, "what all this has to do with me."

"A great deal. The present pattern of Tau research consists of sending manned telemetry probes into deep-Tau. We've sent some twenty-four to date. Some have returned and some haven't, but each has piled paradox on paradox-and each has cost the life of the probe pilot.

Now we're approaching our last chance. If we fail, the Government will probably close down our activities completely. Such an action would be a setback to this research from which it might never recover."

"So?"

"Paul Porter wants to take a four-man vessel fitted out as a laboratory into deep-Tau, and he wants you to go with him. It's my job to persuade you to go, while at the same time leaving you in no doubt that to do so is tantamount to committing suicide."

"So that's it! I refuse, of course. I still have the scars to show from the last time Paul Porter took me into Tau."

"I have a contract here on which you can write your own price for one successful deep-Tau vector."

"No, Professor. If Paul wants to seek an anguished grave in the corner of some dark and twisted hypothetical continuum, that is his own affair. I've no such ambition."

"A fair statement, Dr Brevis. I appreciate your position. Faced with the same situation, I should probably adopt a similar standpoint. Let me thank you again for coming, and apologize for wasting your time."

Brevis watched him narrowly for a moment. "What are you up to, you old fox? You aren't a man to accept defeat that easily."

Diepenstrom raised his ponderous head. His smile was a mere ghost haunting the corners of his mouth.

"Ah, yes! There was something else. I'm glad you reminded me. While you're here I wonder if you'd care to see some of our deep-Tau exhibits."

"Seeing the whole point of this interview seems to turn on this apparent afterthought, I have no objection. But I warn you that nothing you can show me will make me change my mind."

"Perish the thought, my dear Doctor. I merely wish to show you our little museum of paradoxes. I think you'll find them rather fascinating. Would you care to step this way?"

The vaults beneath Tau Research were olive-drab and vast in extent, and the footsteps of thetwo men echoed hollowly down the steel and concrete corridors. Brevis had previously had no idea that Government influence extended to the point of including armed servicemen alongside Tau Corporation's own formidable security force. The two men were checked and counter-checked at each level and intersection with a meticulous care which placed a sinister stamp on the ultimate importance of the project.

Brevis smiled wryly. "If I have as much trouble getting into Heaven as we've had getting into here, I don't think I'll bother."

"Don't worry," said Diepenstrom. "The qualifications for entry are somewhat different-one might almost say mutually exclusive."

"That's a rare piece of cynicism."

"Wait," said the Director, "until you've seen what we have to show you. There are more things in Heaven and on Earth than are dreamed of in your psychology."

They reached the appointed door, and Diepenstrom withdrew the bolts with a heavy clatter and stood aside for the psychologist to enter.

"This is one of the ten or so probe vessels which we have been able to recover. It came back to us on an automatic-recall vector from deep-Tau, and it's not the least of our curiosities."

Brevis entered the room and walked around the exhibit, his face registering a melange of fear and fascination.

"What sort of trick is this?"

"No trick, Doctor. Simply one of those things that we at Tau Research have had to learn to live with."

"And the pilot?" Brevis asked at last the question he had been avoiding.

"He came back alive but died in hospital. He was completely to scale with the craft. He was desperately mad and measured exactly one and a quarter inches tall. Do you want to see any more?"

"Not just now. One has to learn to re-adjust."

"You're not feeling ill, are you?"

"No. I was just thinking what a remarkable character your pilot must have been."

"You've got beyond me there," said Diepenstrom, with sudden interest. "What did you have in mind, Doctor?"

"I was reflecting that you sent him into a complex so vast that it doesn't include the limiting concept 'universe'. The wonder to me is not that he came back minute, but that he didn't come back microscopic."

A trace of light flickered across Diepenstrom's brow.

"I think you're on to something, Dr Brevis. Paul Porter was right. You do have an intuitive understanding of the irrational. Won't you have second thoughts about joining our team?"

"d.a.m.n you, Diepenstrom! You've pushed the ball right into my court."

"I merely showed you the ball. You did the pushing."

"But you knew which way it would roll."

"Certainly. With the pitch inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees in the right direction, I could scarcely miss. It's what I call an imagination trap. Give an expert an outstanding problem in his own field, and you have one of the most infallible mousetraps ever devised.

Now suppose we go upstairs and sign that contract?"

"I still haven't said I agree," Brevis said.

"No, but you will. You see, if you walk out now you'll always be haunted by the vision of the Tau probe vessel which came back only twenty-two inches long and with a pilot not as big as your thumb. I don't think a man with your imagination could live with himself with that problem unresolved." "It would appear," said Brevis, "that I am now working for Tau Corporation until death do us part-unless I misread the small print at the bottom of the contract. Although, if I have your intentions divined aright, that mayn't be a very long-term prospect."

Porter turned with a smile from the drafting machine. "I take it that you have just concluded an interview with Diepenstrom. He tends to induce that depressive att.i.tude in interviews. Anyway, glad to have you join the team, Eric. On the type of project we're planning we're going to need all the expertise we can get."

"Even in psychology?"

"Especially in psychology-and your own understanding of the irrational. Eric, we're going into a complex which doesn't begin until a point way beyond where our physics ends-out into a region from which nothing vaguely rational has ever been recovered. What happens to things out in deep-Tau is completely beyond our experience. That's why I feel a sight happier to know you're going to be alongside."

"I'm with you, Paul . . . although just now I'm d.a.m.ned if I can think of a convincing reason why. What's the big attraction about going into deep-Tau anyway?"

"Because it's there, I guess. Man isn't built to live happily on the edge of the unknown. And if we're ever to get to the stars, then deep-Tau is the only possible route."

"Not s.p.a.ceflight?"

Porter was slightly amused. "Hardly. Unless there are some very radical changes in our concept of normal physics, we don't have either the engines or the power sources necessary to make such a journey in man's lifetime. And we probably never will have. Ma.s.s-energy relationships alone rule that out quite firmly."

"You've just shattered my dream of the s.p.a.ce age," said Brevis.

"Except for a ruinously expensive exploration of the Solar system, it never was more than a dream," said Porter.

"But doesn't that apply to deep-Tau travel also?"

"Not completely. In Tau-s.p.a.ce there are no gravitational gradients to overcome, and ma.s.s-energy relationships and some aspects of Relativity don't hold strictly true. Don't ask me to show you the maths, because we're still trying to understand it ourselves, but Tau-s.p.a.ce provides us with a potential medium in which we can circ.u.mvent a lot of the physical absolutes which make conventional interstellar s.p.a.ceflight an impossibility. Even the speed of light is no longer a limiting velocity."

"But aren't the power requirements still prohibitive?"

"They're high, but they don't climb to infinity or anything like. Even today it's theoretically possible to build a ship which could make a thirty-two light year round trip through deep-Tau to Altair and back under its own power."

"Phew! I begin to see the attraction."

"Precisely," said Porter. "If we can't reach the stars via Tau-s.p.a.ce then it's doubtful if we shall ever reach them. But standing in our way is a set of problems so imponderable that we don't know how to begin to start to solve them."

"How much do we know about these problems?"

"Lamentably little. Apart from the monstrosities in the vaults which came back on automatic-recall vectors, all our information is limited to transmitted verbal and telemetered material gathered during the first few hours of a probe vector run-that is to say, before the vessels achieved the speed of light."

"So the speed of light is a limiting velocity?"

"Not in the usual sense. Neither is it a failure of communication due to Doppler effect.

This is something truly frightening in its implications."

"Go on!" Brevis said, noting the look in Porter's eyes. "When the probe vessel reaches the velocity of light our receiver here at Tau Research breaks down. The probe continues to transmit, but we can't receive its signals."

"I don't understand," said Brevis.

"Neither do we." Porter's face was haunted. "Their signal strength increases to such proportions that the current actually fuses the terminal elements of our receiver. Millions of amperes are involved."

"But how can that be?"

"I don't know. But the implications are terrifying. If we can receive such power over such a distance . . . then what must have happened to the ship itself? Such a condition presupposes that the ship's transmitters are happily modulating beamed power equal to the output of a pretty fair-sized star."