Ellipsis Between Worlds: Chapter 3
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Chapter 3
Albert stared at Dr. Norton while he tried to make sense of his feelings. First, shock, of course. He thought of that quote attributed to Joseph Stalin: “When one man dies, it's a tragedy. When thousands die, it's statistics.” What would Stalin have thought of the deaths of billions? Albert wondered. He would have found it just as incomprehensible as Albert did. When the numbers get big enough, the distance between a genocidal tyrant who killed millions and a college professor turned construction worker shrank down to insignificance. Albert realized he probably could have asked Dr. Norton for the difference in percentage between the people Stalin had killed and the people Albert had killed (zero), relative to the number of people Dr. Norton had just declared dead, and the man in front of him could have spit out the number almost instantaneously. Would the doctor have resented being used as a calculator in that way, or would he have enjoyed it? Albert didn’t test it, not out of sympathy for Dr. Norton, but because he didn’t want to know the answer to the math problem.
The shock was followed by a focused concern. If thousands are statistics and billions are incomprehensible, what about one person, one grain of sand on that beach, who may or may not have washed in on that poison tide? And what if Albert wasn’t sure if he wanted her dead or alive? Surely he wanted her to be alive … didn’t he? This concern turned to a sharp guilt.
And then the guilt became shame when he realized Dr. Norton’s last words included him, and the news of the death of billions was a precursor to information about his own impending death. Albert felt horrible for wondering about anything in the wake of the revelation about the fate of most of the human race. His instincts for self preservation felt like the worst kind of egotism.
And yet, he had to know. A problem that would mean the end of the human race, Dr. Norton had said. How could Albert, even in the name of virtue, reasonably pretend he didn’t want to know about that?
“I presume you mean the virus?” Albert asked. “That’s what’s going to kill us?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Well, not directly, no. We will have a preliminary vaccine shortly, just as we have informed everyone. Then we’ll have to do some animal testing, then Phase One, Two, and Three trials. Those take time. You have to make sure the vaccine doesn’t kill people first. That’s Phase One. Then you have to make sure it helps prevent the virus from infecting people. That’s Phase Two. Then you have to make sure it helps people enough. That’s Phase Three. All these things take time. But not as much as they used to. It used to take people years to do this work. Now, with the synthetic molecules we can manipulate, and with the computer modeling we can do to predict their efficacy, we expect we can have a safe and effective vaccine produced to the necessary scale in a matter of months. Quite impressive, really. People should be impressed. But they aren’t. And that’s the problem.” Dr. Norton held his hands out, palms up, in his second employment of the only hand gesture he’d made during the interview, and he sighed loudly, an expression so intentional he made it almost into a word. “That’s always the problem for me, you see. People. If this were a mechanical problem, I could solve it. I’m much smarter than you are, Dr. White, and I recognize you are of above-average intelligence. I know I’m not supposed to tell people how much smarter I am. It’s impolite. I do not understand why. It’s a simple fact, not an insult. It’s not like I’m mocking someone’s absurd religious beliefs. That is rude. But I am not supposed to say that I am smarter. Well, in this circumstance, I think it needs to be made clear: I am much smarter, and I could solve this problem if it were mechanical.”
Then he looked at the ceiling. “I know that technically it is mechanical. Neurons firing. Chemicals in brains. Muscles activated. Human behaviors. Humans reacting to the behaviors of other humans. I understand all that. But it’s far too complex a mechanical problem. More chaotic than Earth’s weather, even with the anthropogenic activity removed. Completely chaotic, but governed by predictable forces. Gravity, wind velocity, humidity, convection. Just too many forces simultaneously. And people are worse. Cultures and nationalities and religions and individual actors. Frankly, it makes me want to take a nap. It makes me very anxious. I’m dimming the lights. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Go right ahead,” Albert began, but his voice trailed off because Dr. Norton had already fished out his phone and was turning the lights down without Albert’s permission, and Albert realized the doctor hadn’t really asked for permission, anyway.
Once the lights were dimmed, Dr. Norton looked down towards his lap, closed his eyes tightly, and took some deep breaths. Albert felt his own anxiety rise in the silence, then he began to calm himself, and he had almost reached a normal state of equilibrium when Dr. Norton’s head snapped up, eyes once again fixed on that far corner of the room. Albert started a little in surprise, just as he had when Dr. Norton walked in upside down, and he bit down on a shout so it came out as a grunt that wanted to escape through his nose.
Dr. Norton didn’t seem to notice. “As I said, this ship is populated by volunteers. Though the company did weed out some of the least desirable candidates, those with a violent criminal history, for example, it would have been unethical to over-determine which members of the population would live or die, compounding the dubious ethics of the lack of forthrightness about the consequences of the ships leaving Earth. We are doing our best to preserve humanity, not some perfected strain of humanity. That means we brought along many of Earth’s problems. Not only was someone carrying a new virus for which we do not yet have a cure, but people have brought along their old enmities and distrust. I can assure you we will find a vaccine for this illness and have everyone out of their cabins and ready to build our new home on Enceladus when we arrive, but only you get to decide if you believe me. Some people onboard have already begun spreading rumors that there is no virus, that it is all a ploy to keep the population under stricter control for the duration of the journey. This makes no sense to me. People employed in their work preparing for colonization would be far easier to control. Instead, this quarantine has caused something of a powderkeg. Do you understand that idiom? It’s a historical anachronism, but you are a professor of history.”
“Yes, I know what a keg of gunpowder was,” Albert said, consciously trying not to be offended or express sarcasm.
“Good. Yes, well, that’s what this ship is now. And, we suspect, it’s not an accident. The people spreading this misinformation are doing so intentionally and in a targeted way. We need to figure out who these people are and identify their real motives. Perhaps today they want to cause rioting. But tomorrow? A mutiny? Ethnic cleansing of some sort? Some kind of religious mass conversion and purge of unbelievers? We don’t know. That’s what I want you to help us find out.”
Albert nodded slowly. “I see. I mean, I understand why you need to find out who is behind this movement. But I don’t understand why I was selected as a candidate for this position.”
“Oh, not a candidate, Dr. White,” Dr. Norton said. “You are the only candidate. If you choose not to take the position, we could go back to the drawing board and try to find someone else, but they would not be as suited. You are the only person I want for the job.”
“Why me?”
“Well, that’s a bit complicated, also. We’ve had a split within our own security services. Some of the security personnel and the high ranking officers of the ship’s crew want the ship to be run far more like a military vessel, with a stricter chain of command. Others want to preserve more of the civil liberties of the rest of the crew and make the ship’s leadership more democratic and transparent. These groups have become increasingly distrustful of one another. It is very possible, in fact quite likely, that some members of the security services are working with whoever is behind the misinformation campaign regarding the virus. But we don’t know who. And since neither side trusts the other, even if some members of the security services were to identify culprits, those findings wouldn’t be believed. We need an outsider, someone who can participate in the investigation and then vouch for the findings. And if that person had expertise in insurgencies, propaganda, and coup attempts, they would also be helpful to the security officers. So, a person with the skills to be helpful but with no history of military service or police work. A detective who has never been a detective.”
“You have a crack team of investigators, and one of them is a mole, so you want to throw Encyclopedia Brown into the group.”
“Precisely. Or, metaphorically. And imprecisely. Because I don’t know if there is one mole. Perhaps all the investigators are moles. Also, if these agitators are willing to risk the health of everyone on this ship by encouraging the spread of a deadly virus, do not for a moment think they will hesitate to eliminate a history professor brought in to expose them. Encyclopedia Brown didn’t have to worry about losing his life in his neighborhood sleuthing. You, on the other hand, will be a prime target. I want that to be clear. However, do the math this way: Maybe these people want to kill you. But they also might want to kill everyone onboard, and you might be the key to stopping them, so if you don’t take the position, you may be just as emperilled as if you take it.”
“Those are not good options, Dr. Norton.”
“No,” the man said. He shook his head slightly but kept starting into the corner. “No, they are not. Now you see why I prefer mechanical problems.” Then he leaned back in his chair, straightened his spine slightly, and almost looked Albert in the eye. “So, will you accept the position, Dr. White?”
It was Albert’s turn to look down into his lap. “I just learned that most of the human race is dead or dying, and that, one way or the other, I will probably be killed soon, too. My first choice of a response would be to go to a bar and order strong drinks until I have the courage to speak to confident women. But since the bars are all closed, and since I don’t want to return to my cabin to contemplate this new information, I would like to take the job, and I hope I can start immediately.”
Dr. Norton smiled, a flash of a rictus grin that appeared and disappeared as though he’d read a stage direction in a script. “I’m glad to hear that. Let’s go meet the team you will be working with. And remember, one or more of them may want to kill you. So I suggest we walk in on the ceiling. It’s a power move.”