‘I’m sure you could.’ Thinking about it, that didn’t sound like a bad deal, and Deira wondered if she could get a clone of herself. She shook herself out of her fantasising before she went too far down that route. It was just too tempting.
‘So, how do you feel now about helping us?’
‘Deira, I never said I wouldn’t help. I just don’t know how. ‘
Finally, Deira believed him. The expression on his face was pure, earnest Adam, and she simply couldn’t imagine he’d changed that much – even after twenty years in sub-quantal space. So, there was the problem. How were they to get the beacon where it needed to be without being able to get into Tao’s infra-low. To enter somebody else’s brain was a major feat of self-development that nobody, with the notable exceptions of Josh and Tao, had achieved so far. The other young agents would have been expected to reach this stage soon had they been able to continue with their training, but that was currently on hold because the Eich were unreachable. It was a real poser.
Deira was still pondering when Juliette walked in.
‘Mum, I heard you’d come to see Adam. What’s going on?’
Deira carefully explained what she and Jiao had been doing, and how adept she’d become at moving through her own levels. Then she went on to detail the problem they had regarding the placement of the beacon.
‘I thought Adam might be able to help, but he’s not mentalic and doesn’t know where to start. The other young agents are no good, and I certainly couldn’t enter someone else’s head. We seem to be stuck.’ She sighed and pulled Jiao out of her holder. ‘Any further thoughts, Jiao’
‘I’m afraid not. We’ll just have to sit and wait. Hope that Tao finds a way to contact us.’
‘Hmm. Sit and wait isn’t really my style. I’ve done my share of waiting over the years and it’s never been accompanied by sitting. Just the opposite. I’ve worn out more pairs of boots than I can count. What about Chayka? Do you think he might be able to suggest something non-mentalic.’
Juliette shook her head. ‘He hasn’t got anything new. He and Gary have been working on the mathematics of sub-quantal space, but it’s all very theoretical. There’s nothing that would be useful to us.’
‘You never know,’ Deira said. ‘I’m going to see him anyway. He’s all we’ve got right now.’
‘Why don’t you …?’ Juliette began, then realised Deira had already formed a portal. ‘Oh hell,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I hope this turns out alright.’
She followed Deira through the portal and found they’d folded straight into Chayka’s office. They stood, watching his back for a few seconds as he worked on his terminal, then Deira coughed. He visibly started and swivelled round in alarm.
‘Agent MacMahon – and Dr MacMahon – you gave me quite a fright.’
‘Sorry Professor.’ Deira looked like she was anything but sorry and pulled up a chair. Juliette remained standing, looking acutely embarrassed as usual. ‘We need to run something past you.’
‘Indeed? Please continue. Perhaps you’d also care to sit, Dr MacMahon?’
Juliette crept round and sheepishly sat in the chair next to her mother. When she was settled, Deira described the efforts they’d made to reach sub-quantal space and how none of their ideas had worked up to now. Chayka looked sympathetic, but unsurprised.
‘I think the idea of a beacon is a good one,’ he said. ‘What appears to be the problem with it?’
‘None of us can access Tao’s infra-low, Professor. It’s just a mentalic step too far.’’
Chayka stroked his goatee again. ‘Why would you need to access Tao’s infra-low? The role of the beacon is simply to guide Agent Chen into the surface layer of sub-quantal space, from where she can contact us. It needn’t be in proximity to her own infra-low. Once she contacts us, and we provide the necessary stimulus, she’ll automatically seek out her own DNA signature and emerge – as she did last time.’
Deira gaped at him. ‘You think she’ll find the hole in her own infra-low even if she’s not right next to it?’
‘I believe so. The topography doesn’t imply a need for proximity.’
‘It doesn’t imply a need for proximity,’ Deira repeated, turning to Juliette. ‘Hon, this is fantastic. I can do it myself. It’s just a matter of tossing the DNA construct into the hole in my own infra-low.’
‘What about that tentacle?’ Juliette said looking worried.
‘Yeah, there is that, I guess. I’ll just need to be careful, that’s all.’
Chayka leaned back in his chair and watched as the two women got up and left his office, chatting excitedly. A small smile played around the corner of his mouth.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, as the door closed behind them.
Deira and Juliette hurried straight back to the lab. Deira was keen to get stuck in and took Jiao out of her belt and placed her next to Juliette’s terminal.
‘
‘We’ve got a solution,’ she said.
‘I know. I heard.’
‘And I think we’ll be able to make use of that tentacle. Get ready to pull me out again. I’m going straight down to the infra-low with our beacon.’
‘Ready when you are, Deira.’
Deira immersed and grabbed her construct from where she’d parked it in alpha-normal before heading straight down to the infra-low. Once there, she imagined the beacon as a baseball, with herself as the pitcher, and literally tossed it in the direction of the hole. As she’d expected, the tentacle shot out and caught it, retracting rapidly back with its prize into sub-quantal space. It was as easy as that, and Deira smiled to herself with satisfaction. A few minutes later, she felt the energy stimulus from Jiao and she was ascending the levels back to the outside world again.
Now it was just a matter of waiting … again.
Chapter 16
Do you believe what Barth and Nerima say?’ Tao said. Tao and Josh were lying under a huge duvet on a massive super-king bed. They were still in the log cabin in the clearing and knew none of this was real. It was constructed from compressed photons; some, like the bed and duvet, by themselves, and some by the alien entities they’d recently encountered. Then again, what was reality anyway? What was usually thought of as reality was matter composed of atoms – and atoms were mostly empty space. Then, on an even more basic level, all matter was simply quantum wave functions, as were the photons they’d used to construct their bed, so why should the “real” world be any more real than this? The philosophy of it became quite confusing, but the main thing was that, as far as they were concerned, it felt real. That was all that mattered.
Josh smiled. ‘Always the sceptic. I love you so much.’
‘Hmm. I love you too. So, do you believe them?’
‘Well, they couldn’t fake that mentalic download could they?’
‘That’s what I keep coming back to.’ She grimaced and screwed up her nose as if she’d suddenly smelled something bad. ‘I just feel like they’re putting one over on us. I’m sure there’s something they’re not telling us.’
‘We can’t criticise them for wanting to escape – and that’s been given a whole new urgency by this business with the cosmic constants. I think we should help them if we can.’
Tao lay silent, looking thoughtful, and Josh could tell she wasn’t completely convinced even now. She was clearly trying to reconcile her knowledge that mentalic transfers couldn’t be faked with her sense that things weren’t quite as they seemed. Josh knew things weren’t exactly as they seemed. The sub-quantal entities would inevitably have some secrets, their natural appearance being one, but he didn’t think those secrets really had any bearing on the current situation.
Finally, Tao pushed the duvet to one side and got up. Sub-quantal space provided a lot to grouse about, but it wasn’t so bad in some ways, and she particularly liked the instant gratification it provided. Having got out of the bed naked one minute, she was instantly fully garbed in her Agency Uniform the next. And she didn’t sm
ell either, so no need for a shower – even though that would have been especially nice right about now.
She looked back at Josh who seemed perfectly happy to stay where he was.
‘Come on, shift yourself. We’ve had our time out. Now we need to get going.’
‘Spoil sport.’ Josh gazed at her longingly for a moment then sighed and climbed out of bed. Unlike Tao, he had no great desire to get going, and would have happily remained here with her. Tao, however, clearly had other plans, so he thought himself into his uniform and prepared to move out. He gazed back at the bed.
‘Shall we keep this for later? We could be stuck down here for some time.’
Tao kissed him, deliberately keeping it to a quick peck so as not to give him any ideas. She couldn’t believe how lucky she’d been to have found him again and it wouldn’t have taken much to persuade her back to bed. It was calling to her even now – warm and comfortable, just herself and Josh – but she knew it couldn’t last. There would be other times. Now wasn’t one of them.
‘We can always make another one,’ she said. ‘Or, we can do something else instead. Let it go, Josh.’
Josh was disappointed. He knew she was right, that they had to make progress and formulate a plan to escape from this place. It was just … he could happily stay here if Tao was with him. That thought startled him, even alarmed him. It was much like the trap you could fall into in delta-normal – peace and tranquillity that you never wanted to leave. Clearly, they would need to be very careful. With some misgivings, he allowed the bed construct to dissipate.
‘Done. Can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I think you’re right – as usual.’
Tao grinned. ‘Story of my life. Get used to it. Want to call the aliens?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ He didn’t actually know how to do that, so he simply raised his mentalic voice and called out. ‘Barth and Nerima, if you can hear this we’re ready to talk again.’
The scene shifted almost immediately, and they were suddenly back in the sitting room by the log burner. The two aliens were with them, rocking gently in similar chairs to their own.
‘Feel better?’ Nerima was smiling, as if she knew exactly how they felt and didn’t expect an answer. She didn’t get one. She cast a swift glace at Barth, but he was staring intently into the fire as if deep in concentration. ‘Do you have any further questions?’ she asked, ‘or shall we move on?’
‘I’ve a question,’ Tao said. ‘Are we the first of our species you’ve come up against?’
Barth stirred himself from his contemplation. ‘You’re the first with whom we’ve had any meaningful discourse. There have been occasional mutants over the years, mutants who possessed the hole in the infra-low and were able to access us without fully comprehending what they were seeing. Some of them were quite interesting.’
‘I think the first to come through was someone called Lao Tzu,’ Nerima said. She gazed at Tao. ‘Looked like you.’
‘Chinese,’ said Tao. ‘Yes, he’s very well known.’
Nerima nodded. ‘I thought he’d make an impact when he returned. He was fascinated by this place. In fact, he was the first to use the phrase “the way”. Coincidentally, in his language, it’s the same as your name, Tao.’
‘I know that,’ Tao said. ‘I was told my parents were heavily influenced by the teachings of Lao Tzu.’
‘Hmm.’ Nerima looked thoughtful, then carried on. ‘The second one to come through simply called himself “The Nazarene”.’ She paused again, this time staring at Josh. ‘We subsequently discovered that his name was the same as yours – Joshua.’
Recognition hit Josh immediately. ‘Joshua the Nazarene – Jesus of Nazareth!’ He stared back at Nerima. ‘But, my name’s Josh, not Joshua.’
Nerima gave an enigmatic smile. ‘He was an odd one,’ she continued. ‘He didn’t understand anything – though he did seem to realise he was unusual in being able to reach us. He had a real conceptual problem with the multiverse – kept babbling about his father’s house having many mansions, or some such.’
Josh wasn’t religious. He’d never understood the need for what he considered to be a social crutch. Now he saw what he’d suspected all along – that some extraordinary event had happened to the founders of most of the world’s religions. An extraordinary event that they had only been able to interpret in a religious context. That extraordinary event was accessing sub-quantal space.
If he remembered rightly, Jesus had made a comment about his father’s house having many mansions – and had also referred to himself as being “the way”. So, how many of his teachings were based on his sub-quantal experience? Most of them, Josh suspected. That wasn’t to denigrate them, of course, but it did put them in context.
Nerima was watching him as if she knew exactly what was going through his mind.
‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘We have a double coincidence. Tao’s name means “the way” and a similar-named entity to yourself, Josh, referred to himself as “the way”. Both of you can access sub-quantal space whenever you choose – the way is open to you.’ She glanced questioningly across at Barth, and he nodded. ‘We believe the way might be open to you in both directions.’
Josh and Tao looked at each other in confusion, unsure what Nerima meant by that. It was Tao who got it first.
‘You mean we might be able to leave without help from outside?’
‘That’s what we hope.’ There was a long hesitation now. ‘We also hope you might consider taking us with you.’
And there it was. Ever since these entities had first shown them, via the mentalic download, how they hoped to piggy-back out into normal space, it was clear they thought they’d finally found the real deal. What Josh hadn’t understood until now was that they thought he and Tao could come and go as they pleased – and he was pretty sure they couldn’t.
‘I think you’re in for a disappointment,’ he said. ‘Tao’s been down here before and couldn’t get out without a lot of outside help. I’m expecting she’s going to need it again. As for me …’
He let the sentence drift, and for a split second, Tao wondered why. Then she understood – and she felt sick.
‘Josh’s body was destroyed just after he arrived here,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t anywhere to go back to.’ She grabbed Josh’s hand and squeezed it hard. ‘And if he can’t go back, I don’t want to either. Sorry – looks like you’ve got the wrong guys.’
Josh felt terrible. He hadn’t previously stopped to think about his position. He’d simply enjoyed the ride. Now, he was forced to confront the reality of it – he didn’t have anywhere to go. He was just as stuck down here as these entities were, and in no position to help them. Tao, though, that was another thing altogether, and he was damned if he’d watch her throw her life away to stay with him. He returned her squeeze.
‘You can’t stay. You’ve a perfectly functioning body out there and you must return to it.’ Tao started to protest. ‘No, stop! Hear me out. We know that the presence of these entities in sub-quantal space is disturbing the cosmic constants and will destroy the universe if nothing’s done about it. We also know that the Cthon have got it all wrong and are doing everything they can to stop these entities escaping. Agree?’
‘I guess so,’ Tao said, reluctantly. ‘But …’
‘No “buts”. If we both stay down here, the universe will be destroyed. You must go back, and you must find a way to free these entities – even if it means you carrying each one out individually.’
Tao was appalled at that prospect. ‘All sixteen thousand? I don’t think so.’
‘Even if it’s the only way of preventing universal catastrophe? Don’t write it off yet.’
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Never more so. Why don’t we ask our new friends here? Barth, Nerima, would it be possible for Tao to do what I’ve just suggested?’
The two entities exchanged doubtful glances.
‘I don’t know….’ Nerima
started.
‘It would be possible,’ Barth interrupted. ‘However, it would clearly not be desirable. It would place a very heavy load on Tao and would probably take longer than the time we have available to us.’
Now there’s something we haven’t asked,’ Josh said. ‘How long do we have? You’ve been down here for over thirteen billion years, so we must have a little slack surely?’
Barth sighed, a very human response that conveyed what Josh thought was a profound weariness.
‘We first detected the problem five billion years ago. At that time, we thought we had what you call “a little slack”. We’ve been searching for a way out ever since – and our slack has been eroded significantly. You must understand that, if this event happens, it will be very sudden, the constants reverting almost instantaneously to their original state. We’ve had all the warning we’re going to get, with the probable exception of some universe quakes near the end. My best guess is we have three years – five at the most. To truly safeguard the universe, we need to move now.’
So that was it then. Josh had put his money on them having hundreds, if not thousands, of years in which to plan this. Unfortunately, they seemed to have used up all their collateral and were literally living on borrowed time. It was imperative that Tao get back to normal space as soon as possible.
He turned to her and took her in his arms, grateful once again for their hard-photon bodies.
‘You have to go,’ he said.
‘I know.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘The problem is – I don’t know how.’
Something suddenly caught Barth and Nerima’s attention. They appeared to be listening to something and began whispering excitedly. Barth turned back to them.
‘It would appear your colleagues are giving you a helping hand. Listen!’
Josh and Tao listened, unsure what they were expected to hear in a place where there was no sound. Of course, it wasn’t sound they were listening for – and they weren’t really hearing. It was, however, like the mentalic equivalent of hearing, a strange sensation whereby they could detect certain things at a distance. And the certain thing they were both detecting loud and clear “sounded” just like Tao. It was almost as if she were shouting to them from a great way off. They stared, baffled, at the alien entities.
Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Page 12
