Infinite Exploration

by D. L. Harrison

  “I kind of have to explain a little deeper, a quantum frequency isn’t a single frequency. We say resonance, because it’s more like a chord, to keep up with the music analogy. Normal space is a chord, then subspace is a chord on a higher harmonic frequency, but the lowest note so to speak, in the resonance, is the same. So it’s all connected, the fabrics for normal, and all the levels of subspace.

  “When I jumped that ship to a quantum resonance that wasn’t a part of our universe, it disconnected the quantum paired molecules.”

  I frowned, “Say what?”

  She giggled, “Quantum paired molecules are connected through the quantum fabric. If you take one side out of the fabric that link is removed. I didn’t understand that, until I tried to figure out why I lost a ship. So I made another, but used a quantum communicator, instead of a paired quantum link, and jumped that ship to a completely different resonance type. I changed the base note of the resonance.”

  I nodded, “But the communicator was still resonating with our quantum fabric, so you didn’t lose connection?”

  She bounced, “Exactly.”

  I looked at Diana, and finally understood why she’d pushed for upgrading our command and control. So our ships would work in other quantum fabrics.

  “So, what did you find?”

  She bit her lip, “Another quantum universe, and there’s an infinite number of them. I’ve taken a look at eight so far.”

  I found a chair, and I collapsed back into it.

  “So, that base note, specifies the quantum universe we live in?”

  She nodded, “Yes, the rest of the resonance specifies the spot in that universe, so by just changing the base note, the ship came out in the same spot in another universe.”

  Diana giggled, “I think you broke your father.”

  I shook my head, “Just… wow. Not sure what to do with that. What’d you find?”

  Melody said, “In the first one, humanity was destroyed, the Sonex lived on Earth, and they were confined to the planet by the Vrok.”

  Oh, holy crap.

  Melody said, “The second one the Earth was blasted down to the bedrock. But in the third one there were humans on the planet, with Vrok ships in orbit. The fourth one had humans on the planet, and a Gray ship was out by the asteroid field.”

  I frowned, “Maybe I didn’t get over my head in that universe, and the general never found me?”

  She grinned, “Good theory dad, but wrong. The Gray ship was highly advanced, and it was using vacuum reactor nanites on their ship. I suspect in that universe that the Grays hadn’t been overly corrupted and hadn’t stopped advancing, so they didn’t fear the Sonex or fake crash land a ship in Roswell. I verified that by hooking into the internet, and running a Roswell search, nothing came up at all, at least not in regard to aliens. They were also obviously powerful enough to resist the Vrok invasion, in fact the Vrok invaded in another direction in that universe. Anyway, the humans in that universe will have to gain FTL and space the hard way.”

  I nodded, “You said eight?”

  She nodded, “The fifth has humans on the planet at the agrarian level, and there was an Atans’ herd ship in orbit. I can only assume humanity attacked them for some reason. The sixth is almost identical to us. The seventh shows a space station similar to ours, but no other countries have ships, or even colonies, so maybe you’re a jerk in that universe.”

  She grinned impudently.

  “The eighth has no station, but humans are in space, and they’re fighting a war with the Vrok and losing badly.”

  I grunted, “Maybe the General managed to kill me in that universe, but also managed to defeat the Grays and start colonies. But without me to stealth read a Vrok ship, we’d have been screwed.”

  She nodded, “That sounds right. I saw no evidence to fully back it up, but I do know a General Schafer is alive and in command of the U.S. ships. They also made friends of the other races, much like we did, and didn’t become conquerors.”

  My magic had smoothed the way in defeating the Grays, but maybe it hadn’t been entirely necessary once I’d hacked those nanites that let them copy Gray technology. Diana still would’ve come up with the same advances, and they still could’ve gotten the Gray technological database with a ground mission.

  “I’m not sure what to do with all that, though the third and eighth world, I’m tempted to help those. Maybe the seventh too, if I became some jerk that was holding humanity back there, I should be stopped.”

  I couldn’t imagine what would make me do that. Unless… I didn’t have Cassie as a check on my power, and I didn’t have Diana to warm my life and a family. God knows I wasn’t perfect, and I could’ve been corrupted in that universe.

  “The sixth is almost identical?”

  Melody nodded, “No second-generation quantum jump drive, singularity weapons. So they’re not aware of the multiple quantum universe theory. Or I should say fact, since I just proved it.”

  “No you?”

  It was hard to imagine a universe where I didn’t have her as a daughter.

  Melody shrugged, “Maybe, all that was related to my advances of subspace and quantum technology. Everything else was you and mom.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. So probably no Darrell either.”

  Melody blushed.

  “So, what do you think? I’m still trying to absorb that, should we involve ourselves in other universes, do we have that right?”

  Diana tilted her head, “You mentioned three, seven, and eight which I agree with. Why not five?”

  I shrugged, “If they were dumb enough to attack the Atans they need to grow up some more. The Atans will protect them. Unless the bugs and Vrok are threatening the Atans, I might even help with that, if only to keep the humans safe from being food or being destroyed.”

  Melody said, “They are, they’re losing on both fronts, but not badly enough to make it a short war.”

  “Alright, so in three we’d need to take out the Vrok again, in five the bugs and Vrok, in seven we need to figure out what I’m up to, and in eight we need to handle the Vrok for the fourth time. Hell, we might as well handle the bugs in all four of those. If we’re going to do it, so, what do you think?”

  Diana said, “I don’t think it’s inconsistent with our current stance. We stay out of other wars, but when it comes to humanity, we choose self-defense. They might not be our humans and Earths, but they’re humans and I don’t think we’d be crossing a line by helping them or at least keeping them alive to forge their own path. I don’t think we should uplift them though or try to sell them ships, and I agree we shouldn’t go after the Atans. They haven’t killed the humans after all, just kept them out of space after being attacked.”

  I didn’t disagree with any of that.

  “I can buy that, but where does it end? If we end up helping fifty percent of the alternate quantum universes we peek at, half of infinity is still infinity. We could secure a universe a day for the rest of time, and never be done with it. Our universe would always come first anyway, but as long as we have a free hand here we could take on more.”

  Melody said, “No argument there. Darrell could copy the stealth network every two days, and then shift the new one to a new quantum universe. We should have a good picture of the whole local area of galaxies before we do anything. If we do decide to help, we leave the new stealth network there, if we don’t, then we cross that universe off our list and slip the stealth network down to the next frequency resonance.

  “So that way we help one universe with humans in it, that need the help, every two days when another copy of the stealth network is completed. I don’t think that’s too much, and if we tried to take on more than that it would be overwhelming. Every universe we help would aid several billion humans, a drop in the bucket in an infinite quantum multiverse, but still incredibly rewarding if we focus on those we do save.”

  I got her thrust, we could double both stealth networks and help two more two days lat
er, then four more two days after that, then eight more two days after that. In less than two months we’d have over a million stealth networks in a million universes. That was just too much, and it would be overwhelming. It’d turn into a crushing endless task that would drag us down, instead of energizing us and making us feel good about saving billions of lives every other day.

  If we only continuously copied our main network, we could help another universe every other day.

  “That’s well thought out, Mel. So, we keep an eye on the ones we help?”

  She nodded, “If we put humans on top in those universes, we have a moral obligation to make sure they don’t abuse it. Plus, another danger might show up they need help with, and it might even tell us who our next danger will be in our universe. We also can’t be the only universe where this has all happened, which means we need to be on the lookout for possible enemies in other universes as well. So there’s lots of reasons to do it that way.”

  “But the main reason is to help humans who weren’t as fortunate as we’ve been?”

  Melody nodded.

  My daughter was sweet, and had a lot of empathy, but she’d also put a lot more thought into this than I had. She’d been working with this for a while, before it was ready to show me. I needed to think it over, and to talk to Cassie first.

  Our universe was no doubt full of dangers, but for the moment we were safe from anything within a hundred million light years, except perhaps ourselves. That brought up another bonus to the idea.

  “If we do this, there’ll be another good result. We won’t stop advancing as humans or grow stale and lazy. Infinite exploration and helping to protect the humanities and Earths that need help will keep us in the right mindset, that there is no pinnacle of technology. There will always be more Earths in danger of destruction or exploitation by other races.”

  Melody said, “It’s a bit overwhelming.”

  Diana nodded, “We can’t focus on the ones we can’t save, like the universes where the Earth was rendered uninhabitable, or the Sonex committed genocide on us. We’d have to focus on the ones we can help, and to take satisfaction in it.”

  “Darrell can help us with that. He can skip those on his own and mark the resonance universe as off limits in our database. Then we don’t have to see it time and time again, which will help. Out of sight, out of mind. The other universes where there is humanity, we’ll be involved in those and decide to help or decide they’re okay without us and look at the next one instead.”

  Melody said, “That’s a good idea. So, you’re going to do it? Help?”

  “I think so. I want Cassie’s opinion, but I don’t imagine she’ll be against it. Darrell, start copying the network, we already know what four universes we need a deeper look into, so the first four are covered already. Start with number eight.”

  Diana asked, “Not three?”

  I shook my head, “The humans are already a food world there, they can wait two more days. Let’s save as many of universe eight’s space assets as we can, for universe eight where they’re still fighting the Vrok if losing badly.”

  Melody bit her lip, and said, “Well, umm, those four already have stealth networks, all part of my research, you understand.”

  I snickered, that actually made a lot of sense, given the level of detail that she’d had on those universes. I’d assumed she’d jumped around a couple of ships to look around, but apparently she’d been a lot more thorough.

  “Alright. So, one every two days, except for today, where we’re going to do four? After I talk to Cassie. Do you want to join me in the command center, see the results of what you just discovered?”

  Damn, she was still just thirteen. I didn’t put pressure on her about it, no expectations except being proud of her, but I could barely imagine what she may discover over her lifetime. Multiple universes was just… damn.

  She said, “Seriously?” trying to hide her excitement under her teenage attitude.

  I nodded, “Unless you’re too busy. Are you still looking further?”

  She said, “I am, not too busy, but looking further. There’s still more potential in both subspace and the quantum fabric technologies. I don’t think we have the full picture yet of our multi-dimensional universe looks like, much less the quantum multiverse. Plus, mom won’t let me do weapons or shield research for another five years.”

  I snickered, “Fair enough. Did you consider that moon in the void can be used to feed all our ships natural jump drive coordinates directly to planets, from anywhere?”

  Melody rolled her eyes, “Of course, that as well as the stealth networks.”

  Diana sighed, “Fine, she can watch you interfering with other universes today, but not every day.”

  I kissed my wife, and I searched her eyes. She really was okay with it in theory. Our daughter was mature and was creating the tools to do these things, and she should see the results of her work and how it would be applied. On the other hand, she wasn’t happy at all about the idea of showing our little girl deadly violence in four different universes as we contained the Vrok in three, bugs in four, and another copy of myself in one, perhaps.

  I picked all that up, mainly because she’d used the word fine. Which was always a danger signal in a female of the species.

  Melody and I headed out to the command center.

  A similar conversation took place, to fill Cassie and Jessica in, so I won’t bore you with the details and regurgitation. At the end of it my vampire conscience didn’t disagree in principle or with our intentions.

  Chapter Seven

  “Okay, so how do we do this?”

  Jessica said, “Jump over there and kill the bastards.”

  I grinned, “Yes, that part is pretty clear. But do we make contact with humanity on the other side? This effort is almost pure benevolence on our part, to save other humanities and give them a place in their universe. People don’t trust benevolence. It’s why we always have to get something out of it when we help someone in this universe, because they’d be suspicious otherwise.

  “We can’t tell them what we really get out of it, besides a good feeling and satisfaction that we did the right thing, and that we couldn’t watch humanity suffer even in another universe without acting. I mean we can’t tell them the self-interest part we’re getting.

  “They won’t be happy if they find out we’re leaving behind a stealth network to watch out for their welfare in the future and to make sure they’re good stewards of our gift. Nor can we tell them that stealth network is also to give us clues and find our future enemies before they attack in our universe, or other universe hopping civilizations. Nor can we tell them we’re doing it to keep our technology growth and priorities on track. But those are our only selfish reasons, so we have none to share with them. If we tell them we believe we can help, so we should, they won’t buy it, even if it’s mostly true.”

  Jessica said, “I see your point.”

  “A part of me wants to give General Schaefer a call and give him nightmares for killing me, or his version of me, but a part of me thinks we should just remove the Vrok from space and confine them to their planets, and not contact them at all. There’s also the matter of whatever universe of humanity we tell the truth to, they’ll have all their scientists trying to figure out how to jump universes too.

  “Obviously, that technology is going to be another technology we’re hiding from our allies and enemies in this universe. Granted, it’s just software, they already have the hardware, but they don’t have my brilliant daughter.”

  Melody blush-glared at me, but she looked pleased at the compliment.

  Melody said, “Case by case. If we don’t have to tell them, we shouldn’t. In five and eight we don’t have to tell them. Five being the Atans and eight being General Schaefer. They’re already in space, and they’re protecting their outer borders. Three and seven are harder. In three the humans never made it into space, the Vrok took out the Grays. If we take out the Vrok, there’s
no one guarding the borders anymore, which means we have to uplift the humans so they can take the borders.

  “In seven, the mean version of you is keeping earth bottled up and everyone else out of space, as well as protecting the borders. That one is a bit iffy, but if we stop you, the people on Earth will have to take over the space station and fleets, which will be hard to arrange without contacting them.”

  I nodded, “Alright, case by case basis. Let’s take care of five and eight first, since we don’t have to talk to anyone. The Earth ships in eight don’t have jump drives, do they?”

  Melody brought up all the data, “No. Without you to suggest it, their Diana must not have pursued the possibility on her own. They have the communicators though.”

  “That makes sense, when I suggested jump drives to your mother, she looked at me like I was crazy, then figured it out a few days later.”

  Cassie asked, “What’s your point?”

  I said, “If humans had no jump drives, then the Vrok in that universe had no need to develop the resonance pulse drive suppression. Which means we don’t even have to send our ships, we just need to use the stealth network to target every one of their ships, then use singularity attacks right from our void.”

  Darrell said, “Affirmative.”

  “Any objections?”

  No one spoke.

  I said, “Do it.”

  It was entirely too easy, and it sent chills down my spine. Just like that, forty-two million Vrock ships, a thousand build platforms, and two hundred and eighty-six thousand space stations around their worlds were crushed. There were trillions of scout destroyers, so it literally took one shot from a small percentage of them. It made me heartily glad we had that defense, so someone in another universe couldn’t do it to us. We also took out six Stolthrim expansion fleets, which added up to three hundred billion small ships.

  Cassie said, “Without contacting them, the old Vrok empire will be swallowed up by other empires, I don’t think the humans have enough to defend eight more borders anyway.”