"Why would anyone want to go to Pluto?"
"We don't know yet, but - "
The radios squawked. The voice of Tina Chan said, "Captain Barnes, surface wants you for a secure encrypted communication, sir."
"Okay," Barnes said. "It's time to go back, anyway." They headed back, through the vast ship, to the main entrance.
SPACE AND TIME
They were sitting in the lounge of DH-8, watching the divers work on the grid. Barnes was in the next cylinder, talking to the surface. Levy was cooking lunch, or dinner - a meal, anyway. They were all getting confused about what the Navy people called "surface time."
"Surface time doesn't matter down here," Edmunds said, in her precise librarian's voice. "Day or night, it just doesn't make any difference. You get used to it."
They nodded vaguely. Everyone was tired, Norman saw. The strain, the tension of the exploration, had taken its toll.
Beth had already drifted off to sleep, feet up on the coffee table, her muscular arms folded across her chest.
Outside the window, three small submarines had come down and were hovering over the grid. Several divers were clustered around; others were heading back to the divers' habitat, DH-7.
"Looks like something's up," Harry said. "Something to do with Barnes's call?"
"Could be." Harry was still preoccupied, distracted. "Where's Tina Chan?"
"She must be with Barnes. Why?"
"I need to talk to her."
"What about?" Ted said.
"It's personal," Harry said.
Ted raised his eyebrows but said nothing more. Harry left, going into D Cyl. Norman and Ted were alone.
"He's a strange fellow," Ted said.
"Is he?"
"You know he is, Norman. Arrogant, too. Probably because he's black. Compensating, don't you think?"
"I don't know."
"I'd say he has a chip on his shoulder," Ted said. "He seems to resent everything about this expedition." He sighed. "Of course, mathematicians are all strange. He's probably got no sort of life at all, I mean a private life, women and so forth. Did I tell you I married again?"
"I read it somewhere," Norman said.
"She's a television reporter," Ted said. "Wonderful woman." He smiled. "When we got married, she gave me this Corvette. Beautiful '58 Corvette, as a wedding present. You know that nice fire-engine red color they had in the fifties? That color." Ted paced around the room, glanced over at Beth. "I just think this is all unbelievably exciting. I couldn't possibly sleep."
Norman nodded. It was interesting how different they all were, he thought. Ted, eternally optimistic, with the bubbling enthusiasm of a child. Harry, with the cold, critical demeanor, the icy mind, the unblinking eye. Beth, not so intellectual or so cerebral. At once more physical and more emotional. That was why, though they were all exhausted, only Beth could sleep.
"Say, Norman," Ted said. "I thought you said this was going to be scary."
"I thought it would be," Norman said.
"Well," Ted said. "Of all the people who could be wrong about this expedition, I'm glad it was you."
"I am, too."
"Although I can't imagine why you would select a man like Harry Adams for this team. Not that he isn't distinguished, but ..."
Norman didn't want to talk about Harry. "Ted, remember back on the ship, when you said space and time are aspects of the same thing?"
"Space-time, yes."
"I've never really understood that."
"Why? It's quite straightforward."
"You can explain it to me?"
"Sure."
"In English?" Norman said.
"You mean, explain it without mathematics?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'll try." Ted frowned, but Norman knew he was pleased; Ted loved to lecture. He paused for a moment, then said, "Okay. Let's see where we need to begin. You're familiar with the idea that gravity is just geometry?"
"No."
"Curvature of space and time?"
"Not really, no."
"Uh. Einstein's general relativity?"
"Sorry," Norman said.
"Never mind," Ted said. There was a bowl of fruit on the table. Ted emptied the bowl, setting the fruit on the table.
"Okay. This table is space. Nice, flat space."
"Okay," Norman said.
Ted began to position the pieces of fruit. "This orange is the sun. And these are the planets, which move in circles around the sun. So we have the solar system on this table."
"Okay."
"Fine," Ted said. "Now, the sun" - he pointed to the orange in the center of the table - "is very large, so it has a lot of gravity."
"Right."
Ted gave Norman a ball bearing. "This is a spaceship. I want you to send it through the solar system, so it passes very close to the sun. Okay?"
Norman took the ball bearing and rolled it so it passed close to the orange. "Okay."
"You notice that your ball rolled straight across the flat table."
"Right."
"But in real life, what would happen to your spacecraft when it passed near the sun?"
"It would get sucked into the sun."
"Yes. We say it would 'fall into' the sun. The spacecraft would curve inward from a straight line and hit the sun. But your spacecraft didn't."
"No.
"So we know that the flat table is wrong," Ted said. "Real space can't be flat like the table."