Probability Space Read Online Free Page B

tunnel-visioned rationalist. Your father’s daughter. Thus are the sins visited on the children. Yes, Amanda, I think the government kidnapped your father. I also think they will blame it on the antiwar movement.”
    “Why ? Why take Daddy?”
    “Haven’t a clue. I’m neither a politician nor a scientist, thank the Lord. Was your father working on some new big piece of science?”
    “My father is always working on a big piece of science.” Really, Father Emil didn’t know much about scientists.
    “Yes. Well. Maybe that was the impetus. Maybe not. The Lord provides.”
    “Provides what?” Amanda said, but Father Emil had turned away again. He went to the picture of the bloody man and knelt in front of it, his lips moving silently. On Father Emil’s face was a look of such anguish that Amanda was afraid.
    She had studied religion in history class, of course, although history was her least favorite subject and she hadn’t paid much attention. Maybe there had been a religion called “Catholic.” There had been so many. And all of them, her father said, were silly and irrational, which had further decreased Amanda’s interest in them. But she nonetheless knew what Father Emil was doing. He was “praying,” asking “God” for help. Help with what?
    Amanda eyed the door. If she tried to leave, would the Wrath of God stop her? The huge metal robot looked as if it could stop an earthquake. And if she did get out the door, where would she find herself? Was she still even at Walton Spaceport?
    Before she could decide what to do, Father Emil stood. “Amanda, I’m going to help you get to Luna.”
    She should have felt grateful, but something in his voice bothered her. She said cautiously, “Why?”
    “Because the Lord does provide in mysterious ways, child. For both of us. I have friends, and they have ships, and you won’t need to show your passport to any government deebee.”
    There was something wrong with this statement. Amanda thought, and found it. “But … even if you have ships, they have to be cleared and tracked by a spaceport, and that’s the government.”
    “Not entirely. Or, rather, there are spaceport employees who are on our side, and who will enter data that records the takeoffs and landings of the ships accurately, but not who’s aboard or why.”
    Amanda was bewildered. She said, “Why do they do that? What do you mean, ‘employees who are on our side?’ Our side of what?”
    “Politics. Not everyone likes General Stefanak, you know.”
    Well, of course she knew that . Everybody knew that. Whole bunches of people thought General Stefanak was doing a terrible job of fighting the war with the Fallers. The news holos were full of demonstrations and editorials and stuff, all boring. Amanda lost interest. What did it matter what these people’s politics were? “Science is above politics, and outlasts it,” Daddy always said. The important thing was to get to Luna to find Marbet so she could help get Daddy back.
    “All right,” she said to Father Emil, “I’ll go to Luna on your friends’ ship. Thank you.”
    “Oh, child,” Father Emil said, and again his lips moved in that pointless “prayer,” until Amanda looked away. She wished he’d get on with it. She had to get to Luna as soon as possible.

THREE
    LOWELL CITY, MARS
    T here are, Lyle Kaufman discovered, a thousand ways for a government to stop a citizen from doing something legal that the citizen wants to do. None of the ways involved violence, nor even threats. No deebees were penetrated, no information falsified, no lies told. No one ever actually said, “No.”
    Instead, files disappeared. Meetings were canceled due to “emergencies.” People, whose retinal signature to electronic documents was vital, were temporarily out of reach, traveling beyond remote space tunnels on “war-related business.” Information systems suffered breakdowns, viruses, input confusion, data bleeding, gate bubbles, and deebee atoll