* * *

The designers of E. Crimson Tally had put enormous effort into his construction. Since they were building an embodied computer, a complex inorganic brain operating within a human body, they wanted that computer to follow processes of logic that mimicked to a large extent the thought processes of a human.

Perhaps they had succeeded too well. Certainly, faced with the situation at the surface of Paradox, a totally logical entity would have had no trouble in deciding the procedure to be followed: Rebka and E.C. Tally should take their findings and return at once to Sentinel Gate. The artifact specialists there would evaluate them. They would recommend the next step of Paradox exploration.

Curiosity is an intensely human emotion. It was a measure of the success of E.C. Tally’s creators that he did not try to dissuade Hans Rebka from his actual decision. In fact, Tally egged him on. The only point of disagreement between them was on who would lead the way.

“I should certainly be the one.” Tally was searching his own and the ship’s data banks for a record of the tensile strength of a neural cable. It was not designed to support a large load, and its strength was not recorded as part of the standard specification. “I can readily detect the onset of a Lotus field, and return unscathed.”

“You have no experience at all in getting out of tough situations.”

“I fought the Zardalu.”

“Sure. And they pulled you to bits. You didn’t exactly get out of that situation — we had to carry you out in pieces, and get you a new body. So no argument. I go inside, you keep an eye on me. First sign of trouble, or if I stop talking, you haul me out.”

“What trouble can there be, other than the Lotus field? — with which I am better prepared to deal than you.”

“The fact that you even ask that means you shouldn’t be going in. Trouble comes in a thousand different ways. Not usually anything you expect, either. That’s why it’s trouble.” Rebka was looping the cable through a tether ring on his own suit, then attaching the end to his communications unit. He gave it an experimental tug. “There. That should do us nicely.”

“If you are unsure, and wish me to go in your place…”

“I’m on my way. Listen at this end, but don’t do anything unless I tell you to. However, if I stop talking, or seem unable to move—”

“I will use the cable to pull you out.” E.C. Tally was superior to most humans in at least one respect. He lacked sulking algorithms. He had accepted that he was not going into Paradox, and now he was thinking ahead.

Hans Rebka headed straight for the wall of shifting colors. He felt no resistance as he entered, only the faint tug of the cable unreeling steadily behind him. “Ten meters, and all is well. Twenty meters and all is well. Thirty meters…” He was going to become very bored unless he found something better to say. There were twenty-five hundred ten-meter intervals between the outer surface and the center of Paradox. “The colors are disappearing now. Eighty meters. I can see ahead, all the way to the center.”

He was not the first human to enter Paradox and see clearly to its heart. He would, however, be the first person to return with the knowledge of what he had seen. And Paradox from the inside was different. At least, it was different from data in the old files, gleaned from radiation emanating from the interior.

“There’s a small flat torus in there at the middle. Looks like a fat donut almost side-on to me. I’ve never heard of that in the descriptions of Paradox. My guess is that it must be a few hundred meters across. I think I see dark spots along the outer perimeter — they may be openings. I’ll give more information when I get closer to the center. I don’t see any other interior structures, though there should be lots of them. I also don’t see evidence of color fringes, or space distortion. I must be through the boundary layer.”

Rebka felt a tug at his back, halting his inward progress.

“Wait there for a little while, if you please.” E.C.’s message came clearly through the fiber-optic connection.

“Problems?”

“An insignificant one. There is a snag on the reel that is winding out the cable, and for convenience I wish to free it. Do not move.”

Rebka hovered in space. Twenty-three kilometers to the center. He had said that he had no intention of going that far, but now, with the exploration proceeding so smoothly, who could bear to stop?

His heart was beating faster. It was not fear, but anticipation. Hans Rebka had never thought of himself as a hero, and he would have denied any such suggestion. Some jobs carried danger with them, some did not. He just happened to be a man with a dangerous job. But it was one with its own rewards — like seeing what no human or alien had ever seen before.

“I almost have the tangle loosened.” Outside Paradox, Tally sounded calm and confident. “However, it would make my task rather easier if you were to back up this way a few meters.”

“Very good. Backing up.”

Rebka used his suit controls to reverse the direction of his movement. He turned his head, to judge by the slackness of the cable when he had moved far enough. The fiber was still taut, a clear straight line running back to the shimmering colors of the Paradox wall.

“Are you reeling in the line back there?”

“Not yet. I am waiting for you to back up a little. Please do so.”

“Wait a moment.” Rebka used the suit thrusters again. The line behind him remained taut as ever. He had apparently not moved backward even a millimeter. “Is any line reeling in at your end?”

“No. Why are you not moving toward me?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe I can’t move that way at all. Try something for me. Move everything, reel and all, a couple of meters this way, closer to the surface of Paradox.”

“That is about all I can move it, without encountering the surface. I am doing it now.”

The line slackened.

“Good. Now don’t move.” Hans Rebka eased forward, very carefully and slowly, until the line at his back was once more taut. He watched it closely, then operated his suit thrustors to reverse the direction of his motion. The line remained bow-string taut and straight.

Rebka hung motionless, thinking. No one before, in the recorded history of Paradox, had ever had the slightest trouble in leaving the artifact. On the other hand, no one had ever before penetrated the interior and not been affected by the Lotus field.

“E.C., I think we may have a little problem. I can move forward fine, toward the center. But I don’t seem able to back up toward you.”

“You have a problem with your reverse thrustors?”

“I think not. Here’s what I want you to do. Wait a couple of seconds, then pull on the cable — not too hard, but hard enough for me to feel it.”

Rebka turned to grip the cable close to where it met the tether ring on his suit. By taking it between gloved thumb and forefinger he could tell how much tension was in the line. It was increasing. Tally was tugging at the other end. Rebka should now be pulled toward the surface of the Paradox like a hooked fish. He was not moving.

“It’s no good, E.C. I don’t think I can travel outward at all. Listen to me carefully before you do anything.”

“I am listening,”

“We have to face the possibility that I may be stuck inside permanently. I’m going to try something else, but if you lose contact with me, I want you to make sure that a full report on everything that has happened here goes to the Artifact Institute. Address the message to both Darya Lang and Quintus Bloom. Is that clear?”

“Completely.”

“All right. Now I want you to try more force on the cable. At the same time I’m going to use my suit’s thrustors, just as hard as they will push. Wait until I give the word.”


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