Gravity Rising (The Parallel Multiverse Book 2)

by Ward Wagher

  “We do not have access to the global net on the train,” he said. “There is not that much I can actually be doing.”

  “Baloney. I know you have downloaded enough material to keep you reading for years. The scenery will be there when we get back.”

  “Assuming we get back,” he muttered.

  She frowned at him and sighed. “I didn’t come along on this trip just to enjoy your scintillating wit, Larry.”

  “I didn’t plan for you to come along at all,” he shot back. “Why did you come, anyway?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t honestly know. Well, yes I do.”

  He now stared at her. “Okay, I give up. Spill it.”

  “I suppose I have been looking out for you since we were in third grade together. Mrs. Willow asked me if I was going to leave town with my boyfriend.”

  “I’m not your boyfriend,” he said. “We’ve had that discussion before.”

  “Numerous times,” she agreed. “But everybody thinks you are.”

  “That sounds pretty thin to me, Mags.”

  She shrugged. “Okay, let’s go back to the first answer. I really don’t know why I came. I just knew I needed to.”

  He rolled his eyes and turned to look out the window again. Since the train traveled thirty miles per hour, if that, the scenery changed slowly. Through enormous effort, the surviving population of North America had managed to keep the major rail lines in operation. But, the tracking was not in very good condition, and the rolling stock was ancient. Since there was little heavy manufacturing, the railroads salvaged what they could of both the track and rail cars. There were plenty of old locomotives moldering away across the countryside.

  It was a comparatively simple task to convert the diesel engines to run on natural gas. So, each train consisted of a locomotive followed by a tank car, acting as a tender. Few of the oil refineries remained in operation, but natural gas was plentiful and there was enough infrastructure to support it. Each train would consist of maybe eight or ten passenger and freight cars. Enough trade flowed between the remaining population centers that railroads were useful.

  Larry turned back to Maggie. “Would it be all right for me to tell you that I’m glad you’re here?”

  She smiled and leaned into him. She grasped his hand tightly. “We are not brother and sister. We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend. We’re not lovers. I don’t know what we are. But somehow, I feel like we have become the most important people in each other’s lives.”

  She released her hand from his and patted it. Then, she turned back to the document she was typing on her computer. Maggie would often give him a playful slap on the arm, or lightly cuff the back of his head. But, she only rarely demonstrated any real affection, and he treasured those moments. He gazed out the window for a few minutes, then pulled out his computer and began reading. He wished he knew what he was looking for.

  Despite the toll the preceding two centuries had on mankind, scientific research had advanced – sometimes steadily and sometimes in fits and starts. He had one time read an ancient treatise on the development of information processing that compared the progress of that technology in the twentieth century to the uneven staggering of a drunk from bar to bar. He supposed that description fit the development of nuclear and quantum physics in this time.

  In the twenty-first century, Charles Westerly had perfected laser-fired nuclear fusion at MIT. It was now possible to construct fusion power plants on a reasonable budget that produced copious power. Unfortunately, the Carrington Event had wrecked enough of the electrical transmission infrastructure that there was no way to take advantage of the Westerly’s achievement.

  Slightly more than one-hundred years later Audry Clenèt, again at MIT, developed a working gravity field. At the time, it was considered a curiosity, but it led to the invention of a fusion reactor that used gravity fields to force the elements together and produce energy. And, this was fewer than fifty years before Lawrence Berthold arrived in Cambridge.

  Berthold was avidly interested in the history of technology. Even when in grade school, he had eagerly read everything he could find about the exploits of Westerly, Clenèt, and others. His double majors at the University of Montreal were in Mathematics and Physics. Being invited to take up doctoral work at MIT fulfilled the dream of a lifetime.

  During his research, Larry discovered subtle contradictions in the math that Westerly and Clenèt developed to support their efforts. Furthermore, an entire body of supporting work rested upon the foundations established by these two men, who were Berthold’s heroes. He was embarrassed about his discovery, and also frustrated that no one else took him seriously. He was, after all, challenging the academic orthodoxy of the time. Even Fluffy Pournelle, who seemed to listen carefully to him, apparently did not believe or agree with his findings.

  There was no dining car on the train, but the porter came through twice during the day offering sandwiches to the passengers. Other than breaks to eat or visit the restroom, Larry and Maggie spent the day working. He was somewhat surprised to look up when he noticed the winter daylight fading. He continued working into the evening, even though most of the lights in the train car did not work. His computer display produced enough light for him to work. After nodding a couple of times, he closed his computer and leaned his head back, thinking it was an opportunity to clear his head. He awakened several hours later with Maggie curled up next to him, and he went back to sleep.

  “You snore,” Maggie said.

  Larry struggled to sweep the cobwebs from his brain. He looked across the aisle and through the windows to see the sun peeping horizon.

  “I didn’t think the train would roll all night without stops,” he said.

  She laughed. “We stopped four times, silly. You were out cold.”

  “I was kind of tired. The past week has been rough.”

  “I woke you up because I thought you might like some breakfast.”

  “Thanks. I am hungry.” He looked out the window on his side at the scenery. “I wonder where we’re at.”

  “We stopped in Lynchburg a while back.”

  “I think that puts us in Carolina,” he said. “Long ride.”

  “Our tickets say Charlotte,” she said. “Are you talking to a school there?”

  “I planned to take a day in Charlotte and talk to the people at Charlotte University. They didn’t respond to my emails, and I’m not even sure they have a graduate program in physics. But, I’m trying to turn over all of the rocks.”

  “And then what?”

  “We buy tickets and go to Columbia. That’s part of old Carolina. They do have a program there, and they know Fluffy.”

  “Would Fluffy give you a good recommendation?”

  Larry shrugged. “Who knows. But it’s a chance.”

  “And where to from there?” she asked.

  “If we turn up nothing in Columbia, then we sit down, think about it, and regroup.”

  “So you still don’t know what your plans are going to be?”

  “Listen, Mags, everything has been so confused over the past couple of weeks I don’t know which way is up. Since Fluffy and the dean apparently decided my doctoral research was wide of the mark, I wonder if I am going to have to start from scratch.”

  “You will do whatever you have to do,” she said. “I’ve seen you get knocked down before, and you picked yourself up again.”

  “But never like this,” Larry said. He bent over in the seat and massaged his head. “It just has not seemed to stop recently.”

  “You’re whining again,” she commented.

  “Well, so what?” he flared. “You’re not the one who’s had the rug pulled out from under them.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she responded quietly. “Do you think I wanted to give up what I was doing?”

  He stared at her. “Well, why are you here, anyway? I didn’t ask you to come.”

  “No, you didn’t. And I’m beginning to wonder why, myself. We�
�ve been arguing about this for the past couple of weeks and we haven’t gotten anywhere. How about, when we get to Charlotte, I just buy a ticket and go back to Boston?”

  The porter stopped by their seats. “Breakfast anyone?”

  “What have you got?” Maggie asked.

  “Fried egg sandwiches and tea.”

  The porter pushed a small cart with a bin of sandwiches, and a steaming carafe on the top.

  “That sounds wonderful,” Larry said.

  “I’ll have some, too,” Maggie said.

  The tea was very hot, and they had to hold the paper cups by the bottom and top rims while fiddling with the waxed paper around the sandwiches.

  “Just a minute,” Larry said. “Hold this.”

  He handed his cup to Maggie and then began digging in his backpack. A moment later he pulled out a pair of socks that were wrapped around a pair of ceramic mugs.

  “Here,” he continued, “pour the tea into the mugs. At least we won’t burn ourselves when the paper cups collapse.”

  “You had these wrapped in your socks?”

  “They were clean, Mags… at least, I think they were.”

  He grinned at her. She looked suspiciously at the mugs and then poured the tea from the paper cups to the mugs.

  “I guess we won’t make a mess of our breakfast, then,” she conceded.

  “Right. And Maggie? I’m glad you’re with me. Sorry about the whining. Things just have gotten me down.”

  “You will feel better after you get some food into you.” She took a bite of the sandwich. “This is actually pretty good.”

  Larry took a bite of his sandwich. The bread had been toasted and then slathered with butter. The eggs were just about right. His limited experience with cooking allowed him to realize that even frying eggs was an art form.

  Feeling much better about things, Larry pulled out his computer and worked for the next couple of hours until they pulled into the station at Charlotte. They stepped off the train to the platform in the biting cold that was a shock compared to the warm comfort of the train. The porter set their come-alongs next to them.

  “Thanks,” Larry said to the Porter. “That was a great breakfast, by the way. Did you cook it.”

  The little white-haired gnome of a man smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Thank you, young man. Yes, we have a galley in the baggage car. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “It really improved my morning.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  Larry and Maggie snapped the pull handles out of their come-alongs and Larry began walking towards the ticket window.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to buy your ticket back to Boston. It was really unfair of me to subject you to this.”

  She hitched her backpack to her shoulder and grabbed his arm. “Don’t be silly. Let’s go figure out how to get to the University.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The center of Charlotte had drifted to the southeast from the crumbling ruins of the commercial district. Although the ancient rail yards still existed, the train station was now located along Wilkinson Boulevard, further to the west. They stepped outside of the station and turned to the porter standing next to the entrance.

  “Which way to Charlotte University?” Larry asked.

  The porter, who looked to be about eighteen years old pulled a piece of grass from his mouth.

  “Y’all walkin’ or yer need a jitney?” came the response.

  “Walking,” Larry said. “If it’s not too far.”

  “Mile’n a half.” The porter’s prominent Adam's apple wobbled as he spoke. “Get out heah and tek a lef’ on Remount Road. Jes stay on that. An’ when yer get t’South Boulevard, ya’ll’ll see it t’ the raht.”

  “Thanks,” Larry said. He looked over at Maggie. “Shall we?”

  “Day’s not getting any younger,” she said.

  A well-trod path extended south from the station, and they followed. Apparently, it saved extra steps to walk out the main entrance towards Wilkinson Blvd and then down to Remount.

  “They talk funny here,” Maggie said.

  “Different, anyway.”

  “There are still some people back home who speak French,” she commented. “That’s a little surprising, too.”

  “My parents made me learn to speak it,” Larry said.

  “I never knew that.”

  “It’s not something I liked to talk about. The scientific world almost exclusively communicates in Anglo. People kind of look funny at the Frenchies.”

  “It’s hard to believe that most of the province spoke French at one time.”

  “That was a couple hundred years ago,” Larry replied. “A lot has changed.”

  “I wonder what it would have been like to live in the world before the Carrington,” Maggie said.

  Larry shook his head. “The climate was already starting to change. You studied the history. There were some nutty ideas about climate change.”

  “Still are,” she snorted.

  “The Jupiter Theory,” Larry commented.

  “You’ve heard me yell about that enough, I guess. Line all the planets up the right way and get horrible tides and associated storms. It’s surprising the people that buy into it.”

  “At least the Carrington Event pretty much cured people of the idea that man could influence the environment in any meaningful way,” Larry said.

  “For now,” she said. “What we haven’t cured is the all-knowing attitude of a lot of the climatologists. As if they could know what things will look like in a hundred years.”

  “Nobody agrees on that, do they?” he asked.

  They stepped on to Remount Road and continued their walk. A car eased silently to a stop next to them and the driver put the window down.

  “Bit cold t’be walkin,’” the driver commented. “Gi’yer a rahd?”

  “Sure thing,” Larry said. “Thanks.”

  The driver nodded. “Jes hop in t’back. Wer y’headed?”

  Larry thought reviewed the driver’s question in his mind and translated it. He hoped.

  “University of Charlotte, Sir. We appreciate the ride.”

  “No prob. Ahm goin’ there m’self.”

  Larry opened the door for Maggie and then trotted around to climb in the other side. The car was pleasantly warm. The driver got the car back in motion with a hiss of the fuel cell and a slight whine from the electric drive motor. The interior was upholstered in leather, and there was wood trim around the doors.

  “Nice car,” Larry commented.

  “Thankee,” the driver said. “Jes started buildin’ these dahn in Pleasantburg a few years ago. They had an ol’ car plant there they stahted usin’ agin.”

  “Looks like they are doing a good job of putting them together,” Larry said.

  “So far th’car has been fahn. Last one was a Marysville Medley. Nothin’ but trouble.”

  The Traveler Corporation built its eponymous cars in Marysville in the Midwest. The Travelers suffered from a terrible reputation and were nicknamed the Marysville Medley because they were described as a loose collection of parts moving in the same direction.

  Although their driver did not seem to be in a hurry, it was not a long ride. He drove carefully, although the streets were clear of snow and ice. He dropped them off at the entry gate to the university and left with a wave.

  “Well, here we are,” Maggie said, using a knuckle to push her glasses further up on her nose.

  “So, we are,” Larry replied. “We might as well go introduce ourselves.”

  He hitched up his backpack and grabbed the handle of his come-along. They marched up a long sidewalk in the brilliant sunshine of the Carolina morning. Snow was piled along both sides of the walk. It seemed someone took seriously their job of clearing the sidewalks. The walk led them to a nondescript, single story building with a somewhat imposing entrance. A painted sign above the doors gave them the information they needed.

&nbs
p; University of Charlotte

  Administration Building

  Larry pulled the door open and motioned for Maggie to enter. They stepped into a sparsely furnished foyer and looked around. A service counter ran along one wall, and the windows were all slid closed.

  “Nobody’s around,” Maggie commented.

  “You don’t see many people around MIT, either,” Larry said. He nodded towards the double doors opposite from where they entered. “Let’s go.”

  They stepped into a hallway and looked both directions.

  “Which way, now?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he replied softly. “Let’s look and see if there are any placards on the doors.”

  Maggie walked quickly down the dimly lit hallway peering at the signs next to the doors.

  “Psst! Here’s the Registrar’s office,” she said in a stage whisper.

  “Why are we whispering?” Larry asked in a normal voice.

  She blushed and straightened up. “We could try in here, then.”

  Larry walked over and tapped on the door, then opened it.

  A thin, middle-aged man squinted at them as they stepped in the office.

  “May I hep you?” he asked.

  Larry looked down at the nameplate on the desk: Rikky W. Johnson, Registrar.

  “Mr. Johnson, I am Larry Berthold and this is Maggie Bosstic. I wanted to inquire about transferring my doctoral program from MIT to the University of Charlotte?”

  “Do y’have an appointment wi’ anyone?” he asked.

  “No. We… my schedule got accelerated, and we left Boston before I was able to contact anyone here. I did send an inquiry, though.”

  “Oh, y’did?” Johnson said.

  He picked up a pair of glasses and shoved them onto his nose, then peered at Larry and Maggie. He took them off again, and turned to his computer terminal and began typing. He leaned forward to study the screen, and then looked up again.

  “I have an inquiry from a Lawrence Berthold.”

  “That would be me,” Larry said. “Since we were coming through Charlotte anyway, I hoped to arrange an interview with the dean or a Physics department head.”