I'd have lost my leverage. I'd have been sinking deeper and deeper into the interface, unable to yell to Bera, building up more and more velocity outside the field.
I picked myself up and tried something safer. I took out my pen and dropped it. It fell normally: thirty-two feet per second per second, field time. Which scratched one theory as to how the killer had thought he would be leaving.
I switched the machine off. “Something I'd like to try,” I told Bera. “Can you hang the machine in the air, say by a cable around the frame?”
“What have you got in mind?”
“I want to try standing on the bottom of the field.”
Bera looked dubious.
It took us twenty minutes to set it up. Bera took no chances. He lifted the generator about five feet. Since the field seemed to center on that oddly shaped piece of silver, that put the bottom of the field just a foot in the air. We moved a stepladder into range, and I stood on the stepladder and turned on the generator.
I stepped off.
Walking down the side of the field was like walking in progressively stickier taffy. When I stood on the bottom, I could just reach the switch.
My shoes were stuck solid. I could pull my feet out of them, but there was no place to stand except in my own shoes. A minute later my feet were stuck, too: I could pull one loose, but only by fixing the other ever more deeply in the interface. I sank deeper, and all sensation left the soles of my feet. It was scary, though I knew nothing terrible could happen to me. My feet wouldn't die out there; they wouldn't have time.
But the interface was up to my ankles now, and I started to wonder what kind of velocity they were building up out there. I pushed the switch up. The lights flashed bright, and my feet slapped the floor hard.
Bera said, “Well? Learn anything?”
“Yah. I don't want to try a real test: I might wreck the machine.”
“What kind of real test—?”
“Dropping it forty stories with the field on. Quit worrying; I'm not going to do it.”
“Right. You aren't.”
“You know, this time compression effect would work for more than just spacecraft. After you're on the colony world, you could raise full-grown cattle from frozen fertilized eggs in just a few minutes.”
“Mmm ... Yah.” The happy smile flashing white against darkness, the infinity look in Bera's eyes ... Bera liked playing with ideas. “Think of one of these mounted on a truck, say on Jinx. You could explore the shoreline regions without ever worrying about the Bandersnatchi attacking. They'd never move fast enough. You could drive across any alien world and catch the whole ecology laid out around you, none of it running from the truck. Predators in midleap, birds in midflight, couples in courtship.”
“Or larger groups.”
“I ... think that habit is unique to humans.” He looked at me sideways. “You wouldn't spy on people , would you? Or shouldn't I ask?”
“That five-hundred-to-one ratio. Is that constant?”
He came back to here and now. “We don't know. Our theory hasn't caught up to the hardware it's supposed to fit. I wish to hell we had Sinclair's notes.”
“You were supposed to send a programmer out there.”
“He came back,” Bera said viciously. “Clayton Wolfe. Clay says the tapes in Sinclair's computer were all wiped before he got there. I don't know whether to believe him or not. Sinclair was a secretive bastard, wasn't he?”
“Yah. One false move on Clay's part and the computer might have wiped everything. But he says different?”
“He says the computer was blank, a newborn mind all ready to be taught. Gil, is that possible? Could whoever have killed Sinclair have wiped the tapes?”
“Sure, why not? What he couldn't have done is left afterward.” I told him a little about the problem. “It's even worse than that, because as Ordaz keeps pointing out, he thought he'd be leaving with the machine. I thought he might have been planning to roll the generator off the roof,
I picked myself up and tried something safer. I took out my pen and dropped it. It fell normally: thirty-two feet per second per second, field time. Which scratched one theory as to how the killer had thought he would be leaving.
I switched the machine off. “Something I'd like to try,” I told Bera. “Can you hang the machine in the air, say by a cable around the frame?”
“What have you got in mind?”
“I want to try standing on the bottom of the field.”
Bera looked dubious.
It took us twenty minutes to set it up. Bera took no chances. He lifted the generator about five feet. Since the field seemed to center on that oddly shaped piece of silver, that put the bottom of the field just a foot in the air. We moved a stepladder into range, and I stood on the stepladder and turned on the generator.
I stepped off.
Walking down the side of the field was like walking in progressively stickier taffy. When I stood on the bottom, I could just reach the switch.
My shoes were stuck solid. I could pull my feet out of them, but there was no place to stand except in my own shoes. A minute later my feet were stuck, too: I could pull one loose, but only by fixing the other ever more deeply in the interface. I sank deeper, and all sensation left the soles of my feet. It was scary, though I knew nothing terrible could happen to me. My feet wouldn't die out there; they wouldn't have time.
But the interface was up to my ankles now, and I started to wonder what kind of velocity they were building up out there. I pushed the switch up. The lights flashed bright, and my feet slapped the floor hard.
Bera said, “Well? Learn anything?”
“Yah. I don't want to try a real test: I might wreck the machine.”
“What kind of real test—?”
“Dropping it forty stories with the field on. Quit worrying; I'm not going to do it.”
“Right. You aren't.”
“You know, this time compression effect would work for more than just spacecraft. After you're on the colony world, you could raise full-grown cattle from frozen fertilized eggs in just a few minutes.”
“Mmm ... Yah.” The happy smile flashing white against darkness, the infinity look in Bera's eyes ... Bera liked playing with ideas. “Think of one of these mounted on a truck, say on Jinx. You could explore the shoreline regions without ever worrying about the Bandersnatchi attacking. They'd never move fast enough. You could drive across any alien world and catch the whole ecology laid out around you, none of it running from the truck. Predators in midleap, birds in midflight, couples in courtship.”
“Or larger groups.”
“I ... think that habit is unique to humans.” He looked at me sideways. “You wouldn't spy on people , would you? Or shouldn't I ask?”
“That five-hundred-to-one ratio. Is that constant?”
He came back to here and now. “We don't know. Our theory hasn't caught up to the hardware it's supposed to fit. I wish to hell we had Sinclair's notes.”
“You were supposed to send a programmer out there.”
“He came back,” Bera said viciously. “Clayton Wolfe. Clay says the tapes in Sinclair's computer were all wiped before he got there. I don't know whether to believe him or not. Sinclair was a secretive bastard, wasn't he?”
“Yah. One false move on Clay's part and the computer might have wiped everything. But he says different?”
“He says the computer was blank, a newborn mind all ready to be taught. Gil, is that possible? Could whoever have killed Sinclair have wiped the tapes?”
“Sure, why not? What he couldn't have done is left afterward.” I told him a little about the problem. “It's even worse than that, because as Ordaz keeps pointing out, he thought he'd be leaving with the machine. I thought he might have been planning to roll the generator off the roof,
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