"Right," said Zorlond. "Just hold that for me while I cast the spell, will you? Let's see, now, I'll have to do the dance backward this time..." He started hopping backwards.
Alvin took a deep breath. He would have to speak. It had been an amusing joke, but now their little indulgence at Zorlond's expense bade fair to lead to disaster. "Um, before you do that--"
"It won't work!" said Wu, loudly and forcefully enough to get even Zorlond's attention.
Whew! thought Alvin. Off the hook!
Zorlond turned to Wu and frowned. "What do you mean it won't work? Of course it will work!"
Wu folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. "It won't work for the same reason you figured it wouldn't work for you before -- the connection's too general. Your true body's Backstage. Your true mind's Backstage. Your magic bubble--" Here he indicated the blacked-out globe, still floating near Zorlond's shoulder-- "isn't transmitting. There's just not enough you in the skinsuit for your spell to work with."
"I thought of that, I can enhance the connection! With this guy I'm occupying right now I can--"
"No."
Zorlond stamped his foot. "I say yes! Why the hell don't you think--"
"Zorlond, let's assume you're right, and you can enhance the connection that way." (Wu carefully steered clear of why enhancing the connection that way was impossible.) "So what? The body you're occupying likely has parents and siblings, and their connection is much stronger than any connection to you. And they're likely nearby, not billions of miles away at 'Settlement.' Think it out. Everyone in the sphere is more related to each other than to you. You may be the ancestor of all humanity here, but that was generations back. Even the most widely separated people here today must have more recent common ancestors than you."
Zorlond pondered that. "I see what you mean," he said. "And the constant inbreeding merely serves to reinforce those connections. There's nothing of me I can enhance that everyone doesn't share. Damn! Why didn't I think of that?"
Probably because your skinsuit's human mind is trying to think using dommo braincells, Alvin thought. But it probably wouldn't be a good idea to spill the beans about that...
Zorlond brightened. "On the other hand, Kiya is my genetic twin (aside from one chromosome), and Anna's just one generation removed. Maybe I can make this work!"
"How would you isolate those characteristics when it's the body wearing you that you intend to use for enhancement? The suit-you isn't enough, and the body's connection, once again, is too general."
More general than Wu lets on, Alvin thought, but that's neither here nor there...
Zorlond slumped. "Well, what do you suggest, then?"
"Do a trajectory on Cressida's arrival, just as you originally hoped to. Extract all our memories of that event to recover the data we didn't think to record at the time, and triangulate from that. I'm sure a magician of your caliber--"
"On it!" Zorlond cried, and immediately started mumbling a new set of calculations.
Alvin "sent" his relief to his sisters via their telepathic connection, and found it fully reciprocated. Wu, meanwhile, regarded Zorlond's ruminations with a slightly amused smile and rummaged about in one of the pockets of his trenchcoat.
"The thing is," concluded Zorlond, coming up for air, "I would need a mystic/bionic astrolabe to control and set the coordinates. And I didn't happen to bring--"
"Here," said Wu, producing one from his pocket.
Zorlond gaped. "Is there anything you don't have in that damned coat?"
"Very little," replied Wu smugly. "'Always be prepared.' I was a boy scout growing up."
Sensida snicked. "And a girl scout too, no doubt!"
"Quite right," agreed Wu, entirely unfazed.
"Well," said Zorlond dubiously, "I guess this is worth a try..."
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Tue Aug 20 23:32:51 2002
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