by Ward Wagher
§ § §
Sally had just slid back into her chair when the Tasker reappeared. She jumped up again.
“That was quick! Where is Ekaterina?”
“I thought it wise to spend as much time as possible within this time window,” the Tasker said. “I no longer needed Ekaterina for this project. She is helping with the problem of finding Mr. Rogers.”
“The Woogie will retrieve the information,” Shuurely said. “Not wanted to get moldy.”
“You mean stale?” Sally asked.
“That too.”
“Did you happen to find out anything further on where Quintan has gotten to?” She asked.
“I am sorry,” the Tasker said, “but there is no news as yet. Other ruBracks are working on that problem.”
Sally started to scratch her stomach and then jumped. She looked down, puzzled.
“Is something wrong?” Edgar asked.
“There is a sore spot on my stomach,” she said. “I have no idea where that came from. It would be the wrong time of the year for an insect bite.”
Shuurely set the apparatus on the worktable and woke it up. The Woogie manipulated several of the three-dimensional icons on the display with delicate movements of its tentacles, and they watched as it displayed a simulacrum of a stream of data moving to the other equipment.
“To be sure, good data goes splat.”
“What?” Everyone asked at the same moment.
“The Woogie goes back to working on the maths.”
Edgar shrugged and bent over his equipment to begin dissecting the information that the ruBracks had collected from the previous night in Sally’s home. He was beginning to get confused between all of the different time streams, and what was happening versus what had happened versus what would happen. Even the ruBracks seemed to be a little befuddled at times. But, this was outside of their experience, too. The data collection apparatus was once again working well. And that presented a problem to Edgar Forsenn. The data was clear and consistent, and he had absolutely no idea what it meant.
“Very well, people,” he said. “We can clearly see this alternate waveform propagating through our universe during the early morning hours. The real question is where did it come from?”
“I wonder if it is an echo of the universe that destroyed itself,” Sally said. “My dream definitely matched the description of what Mrs. Wallace told me. It was unsettling.”
“There are many things here which we do not understand,” the Tasker said. “I feel the need to consult with my colleagues. However, I am convinced that we will solve the problem in this room.”
And with a pop, the Tasker left the room.
“No goodbyes from the ruBrack,” Shuurely said.
“It is kind of spooky if you ask me,” Edgar said.
Sally had also open to the data set that the ruBracks had gathered, and was studying it.
“You are right, Ed. The data is very clear, and it makes absolutely no sense to me either.”
“Shuurely, are you ready to talk about your theory?” She asked.
“Clear the board. The Woogie will talk.”
Sally made sure the calculations on the display wall were properly stored and then cleared it for the Woogie. Shuurely confidently manipulated a few icons and a new group of equations flipped up onto the wall. Edgar and Sally both stood and walked over to the wall and begin studying the work that Shuurely had concentrated on recently. Edgar scanned the characters on the wall than stepped up close and pointed to one.
“What is that?” He asked.
“Boofloocoo tensor,” the Woogie replied. “Ties everything else together.”
“But, what does it do? I am unfamiliar with it.”
Sally leaned back in her chair and studied the equations, and then drew a circle around the equation that had excited Edgar’s interest and copied it to her comp term. She ran a search on it and then began carefully reading the results.
“Boofloocoo tensor ties everything together,” the Woogie repeated.
“You are not making any sense,” Edgar said.
“No, wait a minute,” Sally said. “I just looked it up. This is new to me, too, Shuurely. We need to pay more attention to what others are researching.”
“That why the Woogie here.” The triumphant sound carried clearly through the monotone voice of the Woogie’s vocoder.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Edgar said as he strode back to his workstation and copied over the offending equation to look at.
A little tune began to flow from the Woogie’s vocoder as it flowed across the floor back to its station.
“When you stop that?” Edgar asked with some asperity.
“Come on, Ed. The Woogie’s are ahead of us here.”
“We are just slightly ahead of our time,” Shuurely said.
Once again Edgar found himself folding his arms on his worktable and laying his head down. One never knew what a Woogie would say next. And Shuurely was an excellent example of the race.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The owner’s suite of the Vanderbilt consisted of a combination bed and sitting room, along with an attached fresher. The elegant room was paneled in teak with a brass chair rail gilding the décor. A plush beige carpet completed the mise en scene and identified the owner as someone with wealth and taste. And it was also a prison for Cleo and Marla Malthusian.
Cleo lay stretched out on the sofa and studied his comp term, while Marla paced the room.
“Are you just going to lie there and do nothing?” she suddenly snapped at him. “The entire universe is getting ready to crumble and all you can do is play the sofa spud.”
He raised both hands palm up. “What would you have me do, Kitten? We are locked in this cabin. Assuming we could get the door opened, we would have to overpower the crew. And if we headed back to Earth orbit, broadcasting news about what is happening, the paladin would as likely shoot us out of space. You remember what David Simpson told us.”
“If we sit here and twiddle our thumbs we will likely die anyway,” she said. “Why can you not talk the Commodore into opening the door for us?”
A mechanical sounding voice came from a transducer in the wall. “I am sorry, but I am not allowed to give you the freedom of the boat.”
He looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. “See what I mean?”
“I refuse to accept that.” She stood in the middle of the room, thinking hard. “Commodore, what circumstances would require you to open the door?”
“An order from the ship’s command authority, or an onboard emergency requiring evacuation.”
She continued her pacing, then stopped again. “What is the definition of the ship’s command authority?”
“The ship’s command authority consists of the captain and the first officer. The owner or the owner’s representative may also exercise command authority, as would a salvage crew.”
Cleo swung his feet around and sat up in the sofa, and set his comp term to the side. He began watching Marla carefully. While he tended to be analytical in his problem-solving approach, she was more apt to simply try things experimentally. He reminded himself that this is why they made a good team. He recognized what she was attempting with the AI, and was curious to see how far she would get.
“What kind of an emergency would require evacuation of the ship?” She asked.
“A failure of the ship’s environmental systems, dangerous levels of toxic chemicals or gases aboard the ship, failure of the drives or power plants, rapid combustion of interior materials…”
“Stop,” she said. “Now, tell me who has the authority to declare an emergency?”
“Because of the dangerous environment of outer space,” the computer immediately replied, “any crew member or passenger may declare an emergency.”
She turned to Cleo with a triumphant look on her face. His eyes were wide in surprise. The Commodore was divulging a surprising amount of information about the ship and its operation.
“Thank you, Commodore,” she said.
“You are very welcome, Marla.”
She resumed pacing the room while chewing on a fingernail. Cleo was also thinking furiously. He was also idly curious as to whether he would arrive at the solution first through logical thought, or whether her ability to intuitively drive-through to an answer would get her there ahead of him.
“Commodore?” He asked.
“Yes, Cleo?”
“Under what circumstances would the ship be under salvage?”
“If the ship were abandoned by its crew and, or the owner’s representatives, or if the ship is uncrewed by the owner’s representatives for a statutory time frame, it is available for salvage.”
“Thank you.”
“You are very welcome.”
Marla walked over and sat down next to Cleo. She wore an evil smile.
§ § §
“Fire! Fire!” The warbling alarm and flashing strobe were enough to startle anyone into action. The voice of the AI added impetus. “Abandon ship! Abandon ship! Fire! Fire!”
Clevis Oates scrambled out of his comfortable bed and stumbled into the corridor. He was almost knocked over by one of the crew members running for the lifeboat. Not being quite awake, he fell into the routine drummed into his brain by years of training and exercises. Fire could be a fatal threat to starships. While shipbuilders and crew worked hard to minimize the flammables aboard any given ship, accidents sometimes happened.
Oates dove into the lifeboat and his executive officer hit the emergency release switches, and the lifeboat launched.
“Did we get everybody?”
“Good count, skipper,” the exec said.
Oates glanced around the lifeboat. “And where are our guests?”
The executive officer quickly looked at the crew members aboard and swore out loud.
“Get us turned around,” Oates said.
“But Skipper, we had a fire aboard.”
“Did anyone confirm that?”
“The Commodore did.”
Oates looked around the lifeboat. “Did any of you confirm the fire?”
All he saw was confused faces.
“All right,” Oates said, “get us back to the ship.”
“What are you saying, skipper?” The executive officer asked.
“I wonder, Mr. Exec if someone was playing head games with us.”
The exec eased over to the emergency radio and tried to connect with the ship. The Commodore’s answer caused Clevis Oates to begin swearing.
§ § §
“It is midnight, Ed, and I am losing the ability to function,” Sally said.
Edgar Forsenn stood up and stretched. “I have been sitting for too long. I am starting to get glimmers of understanding Shuurely’s equations.”
“No good dude goes unpunished,” the Woogie said. “The angels smile on us.”
“Err, right,” Edgar said. “Sally, you might as well go home and get some sleep.”
“And you are continuing?” she asked.
“I am really not very tired. And I think Shuurely is on the right track. I can sleep on the sofa in Arnold’s office.”
“Will make sure the Forsaken one gets his ugly rest.”
“Wait a minute,” Edgar said. “For the record, my name is Forsenn and I think you meant beauty rest.”
The Woogie stepped aside from the workstation and stared at Forsenn.
“What?” Edgar asked.
“Perfectly clear. The human never had a beauty rest.”
Sally burst into almost hysterical laughter. “I must really be tired,” she gasped, “it wasn’t that funny.”
“Thank you so very, very much,” Edgar said to the Woogie.
Shuurely waved a tentacle in the air. “No extra charge, human.”
“Okay, I will see you in the morning,” Sally said. “Do not let him conduct any experiments tonight, Shuurely.”
“The Woogie on the job.”
After Sally left, Edgar and Shuurely were alone in the lab. The Tasker popped in and out from time to time – she was currently out.
“Okay, Shuurely, check me on this,” Edgar said as he threw a group of equations on the wall display.
He highlighted a single group in blue. “According to this, I think we can infer that the destruction of that universe dampened out the harmonic in our group of universes. It sort of puts us in an island of stability. Some of the larger harmonics still get to us, but they are attenuated.”
“Correct so far,” the monotone of the Woogie’s vocoder said.
“But, I think there is a problem at this point.” And the pointer moved down a row. “The island of stability should not this large. The destruction of that universe released an enormous amount of energy, but this is a pretty big energy sink.”
“More than one universe was destroyed,” Shuurely said. “Should be possible to calculate how many universes were destroyed according to the size of the island of stability.”
“True. Perhaps we could do that when we have some spare time. I think we can use your equations to inject a counter-wave into the harmonic to damp it out once and for all.”
“The Woogie sees what the human says. Not run experiment tonight, though.”
“Oh, no. We need to build a new apparatus first. We could get started tonight.”
“No, human. The Forstner has exhaust. Woogie tired, too. Need to crash and burn.”
“Metaphorically,” Edgar said. “Okay, I am going to Arnold’s office. See you later, Shuurely.”
“Tight sleep,” Shuurely said. “Now, the Woogie must find a place to tilt.”
Sally had not really wanted to go home. For one thing, she missed Quintan dreadfully and everything in the house reminded her of him. She also feared having another dream as she had the previous night. The realism was like nothing she had ever experienced. After the fact she could usually pick apart the logical inconsistencies of a dream, as could most people. But, this seemed like a real memory. It was not just the people, but the smells, the sounds, and the textures. The reaction of the ruBracks were a pretty good indication that the experience was another consequence of the Forsenn Event.
Once home, she changed into her flannel pajamas, then went to the kitchen. She shook a pill out of the bottle and swallowed it with water. It was a sleep-cycle nano. It was designed to regulate a night’s sleep by moving the subject between the REM cycles and the deep sleep. Though a person would dream, the nano would then pull them back down into the deep sleep. The result was a good night’s sleep and no memory of dreams.
Sally was glad she sent Lauren to stay with Quintan’s parents. Their daughter got along very well with the grandparents. And the girl really did not need to know what was going on in the lab. If she were at home, she would eventually figure things out.
Within thirty seconds of laying her head on the pillow, Sally was asleep, and the nano was doing its job.
She lay in the bed wide awake. She glanced over to see Edgar Forsenn snoring softly as he slept next to her. On the other side of Edgar was the boy-toy he had procured at the club that evening. They seemed peaceful in the moonlight that flooded through the window. She slipped out of the bed and quietly dressed. She left the apartment and made her way to the Urbana Quantum Physics Laboratory.
After logging on to the mainframe she began pulling the pieces of the experiment together. Sally struggled to talk to her alternate self.
“Do not do it! Can you hear me? Do not run the experiment. You will kill billions.”
She paused her typing and cocked her head. Had she heard something? After a few moments, she shook her head and continued working.
Sally rolled out of the bed and stood in the center of the bedroom gasping for breath. Still in her mind was the shock of being enveloped in cold fire as the universe came apart. How in the world was she connected? It had to be some kind of connection. She walked over and opened the bedroom door. Tasker and Ekaterina sat in the living room with the information
gathering apparatus.
“Did you get anything useful?” she asked.
“I apologize,” the Tasker said. “We felt we would get a more accurate reading of your experiences if you did not know we were here.”
Sally shook her head. “No complaints from this lady. I am sorry I interrupted you.”
“You experienced the same dream again?” the Tasker said.
“Yes, Mrs. Tasker. I do not understand how it can seem so real.”
“I believe it was real. In some fashion, you became a part of the Sally in the other universe.”
“I did not like that. That Sally did some vile things. And she destroyed her universe. All those people.”
“Are you going to be able to sleep?”
“I suppose I should try. Four hours is not quite enough for me.”
“With your permission, we will continue to monitor.”
“Please do.”
After getting a glass of cold water from the kitchen, Sally closed the bedroom door and went back to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“You have got to be kidding me!” the paladin yelled. “Tell me this is a joke.”
A white-faced David Simpson shook his head. “This was all my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. Okay, let me see what I can do.”
And the paladin picked up his comm unit. Once connected, he laid it on the desk so Simpson could hear.
“Hello, Scott. Hello, David,” the warm, mellifluous voice called.
“Josiah, have you been following the situation?” he asked.
“I have. The Malthusians completely surprised Captain Oates. I believe we underestimated them.”
“What did they do, exactly?” Simpson asked.
“It appears they tricked the Commodore. They manufactured some kind of an emergency, and the crew evacuated to the lifeboat. The Malthusians then claimed the ship as salvage.”
“And, they committed fraud,” the paladin said.
