Mathematicians in Love

by Rudy Rucker

  Peering deep into the tunnel, I saw that our test artichoke had fallen through; it was dwindling in size as it approached the other end; it was a tiny speck amidst the far floating archi­pelago. A distant triangular shape darted at the artichoke, then snapped to attention. It aligned itself towards us, pondered for a fraction of a second, then flew decisively our way, growing larger as it approached.

  I could see the brown and white triangular markings upon the creature’s shell, its wavy mollusk foot, its bunched eyes, snout, and siphon. Yes, the approaching alien was a flying cone shell snail.

  With the strength of a madman Roland Haut clawed past me, literally climbing over my shoulders. He threw himself towards the magic teapot, perhaps hoping to break the inter­world link.

  Just after Haut launched himself, the hall door gave way and flew open, thudding into the bed, covering my thesis advisor from view. I heard Haut’s drawn-out, dwindling whoop, more ecstatic than desperate. Had he fallen into the tunnel? At the same time, the man who’d broken our door began a lurid kung-fu scream—and abruptly stopped.

  The mauve light went out; at the same time the room echoed with a sound like a cannon shot or a clap of thunder. The floor rocked and vibrated as if from an earthquake. In the sudden dark, something clattered against the ceiling. I felt an updraft of wind. And then the room was still. I heard excited voices in the hallway. In the distance, sirens were approaching.

  “Wow,” said Paul, leaning against me.

  “Come on!” I said. “We gotta bail!”

  We got to our feet and half-closed the door. Most of our ceiling was gone, with pinkish light coming in from the low night clouds of San Francisco. Tang Fat tenants were milling in the hall, questioning and discussing. But there was no sign of Haut, and no sign of Owen.

  Paul had a little flashlight stored in his tidy red duffel bag, and he knew exactly where to find it. He made me wait an endless fifteen seconds while he shone it around the bed and floor, looking for the magic teapot. But it, too, had vanished.

  And then we were down the fire stairs and out the rear door into a stinking, offal-strewn alley that led back out to Stockton Street, now crowded with excited locals. Some gestured at the sky, some pointed at us. A cop car and a fire truck were blaring their horns and loudspeakers in front of the building, and still more sirens were on the way.

  We trotted around the corner to the Vallejo Street Garage and hustled up to level three where I’d left the squinty whale.

  Parked next to it was, somehow unsurprisingly, Gyula in the white Hornswoggle limo. This time he was alone.

  “Where’s Owen?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t say.” I noticed that he still had a laptop and the paracomputer on the seat next to him. They were both turned off.

  “Veeter says you’ve been cut loose,” Gyula told me. “On your own now. He’s not gonna sue you. And there’s no murder con­tract on you just yet. But if you talk about—what was the word?”

  “Paracomputation.”

  “If you mouth off about that, or post anything about it on the Web—” Gyula drew his finger across his throat.

  “This is for real?”

  Gyula shrugged, his stubbled face dark in the dim light. He got out of his car and came close. The nearby sirens echoed in the parking structure’s concrete walls.

  “Talk to me,” he murmured.

  “You’re still looking for a payoff?”

  “Three hundred kay.”

  “Don’t got,” I lied. “I can get you a hundred. And you give me that little magic teapot. Tell Veeter somebody stole it from your car. You don’t know who. Don’t tell him till he notices. Later tomorrow.”

  “A hundred fifty, and I’ll throw in my pistol. I lost that too, say. I got drunk in Chinatown. Wasted on O. Rolled by the lo­tus blossoms. Grieving for Owen. Plenty of places open this late, if you know where to look.”

  “Good deal, Gyula. I’ll get the money to you later.”

  “Transfer it to this account by tomorrow,” said Gyula, writ­ing some digits on a card and handing it over. “Under the name of Sino-Ugric Services.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks, Cousin Bela.” Gyula gave me a wolfish smile and headed out of the garage on foot.

  It was almost four in the morning now. Paul and I tooled south on Route One, heading for Cruz, two surfboards in the back of my beater, a nine millimeter pistol in my pants pocket, and a magic lamp in the glove compartment.

  5

  Mathematicians from Galaxy Z

  We made a pit stop just south of SF in the gritty beach town called Corona. I visited a cash machine by a Mono­grub burger place. I really did have a million dollars in my bank account now. I withdrew my daily maximum, three hundred bucks. And then I tanked up my car while Paul got some sup­plies. “I’m taking Alma surfing in Big Sur today,” I told him as the squinty whale lumbered back onto the highway. “I’ll drop you off in Palo Alto.”

  “No way,” said Paul. “I want to see Alma too. I want to go to Big Sur. We can run Haut’s Paradox again. Make a new hyper­tunnel.”

  "What about your big meeting with the chairman this after­noon? Can’t miss that, Paul.”

  He gave me a haughty look. “I’m beyond this Earth’s aca­demic games. The hypertunnel changes everything. I’ll come to Sur with you and we’ll make a tunnel we can travel through.”

  "But I’d like to see Alma on my own. It’s been a few days. I want to work on—on our relationship.” With any luck, I’d slip into her bed in the garage before daybreak and we’d make love.

  “Oh, I won’t interfere,” said Paul, still taking that lofty tone. “We need to stick together for now.” He turned his head and stared out the rear window. "Is something following us? In the air?”

  I half-suspected he was trying to spook me. “You think the cone shell came through the tunnel and stayed?” I said, firmly keeping my eyes on the foggy road. Steep cliffs dropped to the Pacific on my right.

  “I think she ate Owen and maybe Haut and then she flew out through that hole in the ceiling,” said Paul. “With the tun­nel closed, she’s trapped here. She’s probably hoping we’ll open up another tunnel so she can fly back.”

  “She?”

  “I picked up a vibe that this particular alien is female,” said Paul. “From the little bit of her that I saw. Owen opened the door at just the wrong time.”

  “I bet he thought so, too,” I said.

  “The tunnel didn’t stay open for very long,” mused Paul, off on his own train of thought. “A hyperdimensional tunnel like that needs a lot of mass at our end to stabilize it. When we make the next one, we should set up the paracomputer in, like, a cave. Or under a heavy bridge. So we’ll have plenty of time to go through and look around. You know any places like that?”

  “Miller Beach,” I said. “There’s an amazing natural bridge in the water. A massive craggy stone haystack with a little square passage through it. I’ve always thought it’s like a door to an­other world. You see postcards of it. We could set our paracom­puter to running Haut’s Paradox on a ledge inside that natural bridge, paddle out past it, turn around, and when the tunnel opens up we surf through! Crunkabunka, dude.” I paused, thinking of Alma again. “Hypothetically speaking, that is. But are you really sure about missing your big meeting with the chairman?”

  “I’m telling you it doesn’t matter if I miss the damned meet­ing,” said Paul. “If we make it though the tunnel, we’ll never see this planet again. We’ll surf out to a higher level of exis­tence, tweak a new Earth, and surf to the new world. Cammy can be alive there, Bela. We can undo the murder.”

  The ultimate adventure. And a release from my guilt. The cliffs had leveled out; a meadow sloped down to the sea on our right. The squinty whale’s headlights were carving white cones into the fog. I checked the rearview mirrors. No sign of a flying cone shell alien. Was Paul spinning wild plans just to get an­other shot at my girl?

  “Here’s the turnoff for P
alo Alto,” I said. “I still think maybe I should drop you off. I don’t want you near Alma.”

  “Don’t be so uptight, Bela. I accept that Alma’s decided on you. I’m not gonna try to snatch her away.” He snickered ever so softly. "Of course if she asks me to—”

  “You give us some privacy when we get there, you hear me, you gunjy freak? We’re gonna sleep for awhile. I’ll get in her bed and you—you can stretch out in the back of the station wagon.” “What am I, your dog?”

  “Try to think about somebody besides yourself for once in your life, you autistic prick.”

  “I’m thinking about saving Cammy.”

  It was still pitch dark outside. I couldn’t drive very fast be­cause of the fog. Paul had his window open and I could hear the sound of the surf. “What makes you so sure that we can al­ter reality?” I asked after a time.

  “Did you notice the vine thing that was growing through the tunnel? Off to the left?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I figure it was a connector cable. Something at the other end is passing the code for our universe through that cord. Universal dynamics says that all of spacetime can be computed from a simple seed, you know. All the future and all the past are determined by a small pattern that’s fed into something like a cellular automaton rule. Change the tiniest tip-ass bit of that seed, and everything’s different over here."

  “Jump to conclusions much?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, Bela. And the pat­terns of light on the Gobrane confirmed my theory. I was watching them closely. The fact that those elliptical bands re­mained in an eccentric configuration, and that their successive widths were in the golden ratio—I strongly suspect there’s a morphon-theoretic proof that therefore the cable is indeed the carrier of our cosmic seed.”

  “No doubt,” I said absently. I was too tired to let Paul frog­march me off to Mathland. But one thing was nagging at me. “What about that million dollars we’d be leaving behind us here? Should we bring it with us?”

  “It’s hard to run with the weight of gold,” said Paul. “The million was Roland’s thing. I was just interested in figuring out how to get it. We can always get more, wherever we wind up. We’re mathematicians.”

  “I’ll pay off Gyula in any case,” I said. “For the good karma. And maybe give the rest to someone worthy?”

  “Whoever you like,” said Paul. “Except my parents. They couldn’t handle it.”

  We were nearing the outskirts of Santa Cruz. It was about five A.M., with a faint grayness in the eastern sky.

  Although I’d never been to Alma’s house before, I’d checked the route on the Web. I found the Ziff compound easily enough: a sandy lot with a single-story stucco house flanked by a little garage with a peaked roof and a concrete driveway holding a Bogoturf-topped panel truck and an oil-dripping motorcycle with a surfboard rack. The garage, where Alma was staying, had a row of tiny, curtained windows in its pull-down door.

  I parked in the street, locking the Gobrane in the glove com­partment. “Stay,” I said to Paul as I got out.

  “Whine,” he said, dogging my steps.

  I felt the weight of Gyula’s pistol in my pants pocket. What the hell was I supposed to do with it? I’d never fired a gun in my life. I glanced up through the thick predawn fog, cocking my head to listen. All was calm.

  The garage had a regular door on the side. I tapped lightly, and hearing no response, I eased it open and peeked in. The garage was fixed up with furniture and a square of carpeting. Alma was sleeping beneath a cotton blanket on a fold-away double bed across the room. A faintly glowing seashell night-light illuminated the pleasant landscape of her horizontal body.

  “I’ll crash right here,” said Paul, wriggling past me like, yes, a dog and settling himself on an empty daybed just inside the door. A sleeping bag happened to be rolled up on the daybed; before I knew it, Paul had squirmed into the bag, tucked his head between two sofa cushions, and had fallen—or had begun pretending to have fallen—asleep.

  I closed the door and undressed. I slid my stuff under an armchair and got in bed with Alma. I spooned up behind her; with a sleepy purr she molded herself against me. A peaceful minute passed and then her head popped up.

  “Bela?”

  “It’s me. Here for our trip to the beach.”

  She rolled over and kissed me. “I missed you. Are you better now?”

  “I guess. The funeral’s over. And Paul and I have this plan to—” I thought better of immediately going into the details. “Oh, I’ll tell you later. Basically everything’s fine. The concert was great. Did you watch it on the Web?”

  “We don’t have a decent link here,” said Alma. “Nothing ever works in this house. I’ll be glad to get back to Humelocke.” She cuddled against me and we kissed again.

  Paul let out a sudden sharp snore.

  “What’s that?” demanded Alma, sitting up and staring at the quilted figure on the day-bed.

  “Paul.”

  “You brought him along? Isn’t he supposed to be in Palo Alto? Did you go out of your way to pick him up?”

  “Well—he and I were doing some stuff up in the city after the concert last night, and he was begging to come to Big Sur with us, so I thought—”

  “He insisted because he misses me so much,” said Alma, a little smile playing over her lips. “What am I going to do with you two mathematicians?”

  “Stick with me,” I said pulling her back down. “And forget Paul. Washer Drop is gonna be humongous. And Veeter’s not suing me anymore.” I ran my hands under her nightgown. Paul’s breathing had switched to a light, steady snoring.

  “Don’t, Bela. Not with him here.”

  “If we’re quiet he won’t notice.”

  “Well—maybe. You do feel awfully good.”

  We were almost at the point of no return when Alma’s head popped up off the pillow again. “I hear something! Right out­side the door! It better not be Pete.”

  “I don’t hear a thing.”

  I got in one more kiss, but then Alma heard another noise. “Go see what it is, Bela.”

  “Okay.”

  There was indeed a sound outside, a stealthy, rhythmic crunch, as of someone tip-toeing across sand. Maybe it was Pete circling the garage, hoping to do a peeping Tom number on his sister? I considered getting the gun out from under the armchair and busting a cap in Pete’s face. A moment of plea­sure, a lifetime of pain. Don’t do it, Bela. I took a deep breath, slipped on my shoes, and went outside naked.

  As soon as I opened the door, the crunching stopped. The fog was palely luminous with dawn; I could see all around the yard. Gary Ziff’s pumpkin patch was well established, with thick vines, yellow blossoms, green leaves the size of dinner plates, and lovely beads of dew upon the leaves. But nobody was walking around, nobody was hiding behind the garage. Maybe the tilled soil had been shifting on its own. Whatever. I went back inside, pulling the door closed ever so gently so as not to wake Paul.

  But Paul was gone from his spot. He was naked in bed with Alma.

  “Oh, no way!" I said.

  Alma giggled, sitting up with the sheet across her breasts, looking perky and jazzed. “Maybe we should—you know.” she said. “The three of us. Just this once. I’ve always wondered how—”

  “I am not going to do that,” I heard myself say. “Not with my girlfriend. And come on, Paul, you’re a good guy, but rolling around naked with you is—”

  “If it’s okay with Alma, why not?” said Paul. “Do I disgust you?” His expression was earnest and pleading. Vulnerable and yearning. Deeply human.

  “Get out of our bed,” I said.

  “No,” said Paul, grabbing the headboard with one hand and the mattress frame with the other.

  “Jerk.” Rather than fighting him, I simply squeezed into the bed between him and Alma.

  “You’re so possessive, Bela,” said Alma with a disappointed little laugh. “I mean—I could tell you boys what to do.”
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  “We’re going to sleep,” I said, feeling tired and square.

  It took awhile for the three of us to drop off, crowded like sardines, Paul too stubborn to leave. I didn’t get into my really deep sleep until the sun was up.

  I awoke to the sound of arguing. Alma and her father. Oh shit. He was standing at the foot of our bed, glowering, sneering, leering. It was midmorning; a shaft of sun sliced through the room, highlighting the heavy gold chain around Gary Ziff’s neck: a flat-linked chain with an X-eyed smiley face medallion hanging in the open collar of Gary’s parrot-patterned shirt.

  “—in here enjoying a three-way,” Gary was saying. “And that’s cool, but meanwhile there’s a skeleton wrapped in snot right outside. Look at it from my standpoint, Alma. I gotta call the law.”

  “You’re spun,” said Alma wearily. “As usual. You’re not think­ing straight. Call the cops and I show them your and Pete’s stash. All of it.”

  “Let us get dressed, Mr. Ziff,” said Paul. “Then we’ll talk.”

  “I thought you two boys were on the up and up,” said Gary, his teeth flashing through his walrus mustache. “Ph.D.s. Math­ematicians. And now you’re coming on like the goddamn Man- son family.” He took a half-step towards us, balling his fists. “If you harm one hair on my little girl’s head I’ll—”

  “Dad, please," said Alma, bursting into tears. “Get out of here.”

  “I’ll be in the yard,” he said, and stepped out, slamming the flimsy door.

  “I’m sorry about him,” said Alma to me, drying her eyes. “Oh, this is so embarrassing. You have to get me out of here right away.” She darted around the room, putting on clothes. For now she was ignoring Paul.

  Paul looked over at me, the two of us together in bed. I met his eyes. For a moment it felt like looking in a mirror. We were

  wearing the same smile. Rueful, embarrassed, amused, eager for the coming day’s adventures. You had to love the guy.

  “Mr. Ziff’s wearing Owen’s chain,” he said.