The Omega Egg [A Fictionwise Round Robin Novel]

by Mike Resnick;Various Authors

  Someday there wouldn't be any real parts left.

  "Spence, c'mon.”

  The fairy hovered above him, gray goo running down the side of its lovely face. A greenish blob formed next to him. Spence realized he was looking at Plibix.

  Whose face was a mass of rock and splinters.

  "We gotta get outta here before they find us,” the dragon-man said.

  "They?” Spence managed. His tongue felt like cotton. His entire brain felt like cotton. He was wrapped in cotton—not literally but figuratively.

  Shock. He was in shock and he recognized it. What had happened?

  "They,” Plibix said. “The tower's the only part of Goldmeadow still standing. Or probably one of the few parts. And they'll look to see who's here, and what they're doing. We need the egg. You still got it? We need—

  It was too lucky to have the shelter here. Just like it was convenient to have Patsy Kline turn into the Patricia Kelvin, like it was convenient to have his wife appear to give him an update on the children (wife? Children? When had he had time to marry? He didn't remember that. He didn't remember any of it, not really, not even how he got the summons from Ktonga), like it was too convenient to have Parapara become two—well, he would say people, but he wasn't sure that was correct.

  God, his head hurt.

  And below, that trill started again. The warble would follow, and then the ululation and the stupid battle cry, just to remind him that the Leonardins were there.

  He would have to do something about them.

  Or he would have to go in the shelter.

  Someone had made it very easy for him to get to the Intel shelter.

  Someone or something—

  —will be here. Spence, get up. We have to go.” Plibix's claw dug into his shoulder.

  "What happened?” Spence asked.

  "Bomb,” the dragon-man said.

  "Plasma bomb?” Spence asked, remembering (flashing forward? He wasn't sure) the hospital, Plibix sitting near his bed, having this exact conversation.

  "How should I know?” Plibix snapped. “Probably not. We're still here, although you're bleeding pretty bad. You still got the egg?"

  Spence sat up—

  —stuck his hand through the shimmer, and the Intel shelter appeared before him. The warble had turned into an ululation and then into a battle cry, and it sounded closer than he had thought possible.

  The shelter was in its most common form—a door, no windows, and a force field to protect it from curious purple creatures with a terrifying battle cry.

  Spence's intel i.d. allowed him through the field (probably allowed him to see the shiver) and he rolled inside the force field, feeling absurdly grateful.

  The ash and traces of fire didn't exist here. Here the grass was an odd orangish green and some saplings grew around the shelter itself.

  The plate felt like it was burning off the back of his head.

  He staggered to the shelter, touched the door, and the codes—thank god—recognized him. The door eased open enough for him to squeeze inside, and then it snapped closed.

  The interior was cool and well lit—yellow light, like humans were used to, not Leonardo's orangish crap that made it seem like he was wearing the wrong kind of goggles. An old chair had been pushed against a plastic table—the kind that seemed like it had grown out of the floor—and the remains (covered in mold) of a meal sat on a plate near the camp kitchen.

  Someone had been using this place, but they'd stopped—at the time the fire (or whatever it was) had destroyed the trees? Or earlier? Or later?

  He couldn't tell.

  He punched on the screens, and the walls suddenly filled with color. Tiny surveillance cameras (barely visible dots if they were like cameras on other planets) floated down the hill, searching for movement, and finding it in the Leonardins at the edge of the destroyed areas.

  He had miscounted: there weren't dozens of Leonardins. There had to be hundreds, maybe thousands waiting for him. Most of them looked alike (but didn't all natives look similar until you learned how to distinguish them? Weren't they all of an unfamiliar kind?)—large, with wide-set eyes and equally big teeth.

  Must be something primitive in humans—the reptile brain, still existing from all those millions of years ago—that found big teeth on big creatures terrifying.

  The Leonardins stood six deep and who knew how many wide. They kept shaking their right—hand? Claw? Paws? (he really should've learned the terminology before embarking on this mission. Hell, he really should've learned something about the mission instead of fighting with Ktonga)—and their necks vibrated visibly as they repeated the pattern of yells that formed the battle cry.

  He searched for a med kit, found it, and then unwrapped the sling from his arm. The wound was deep and probably infected. Blood kept oozing out as if he were actually squeezing the vein, which he wasn't.

  He cleaned the area, cauterized it, then wrapped the wound and hoped that would help him save the limb. In the future, he would refuse any more missions.

  They'd cost him too many body parts as it was.

  Almost on cue, the plate in the back of his head thrummed again. He—

  —held the egg. His thumb had left a print on the side, but miraculously, he hadn't broken the thing. It seemed smaller than it had before the explosion.

  Plibix stared at it, stunned. “Whoda thought?”

  Who'd've thought, indeed. Something that fragile should've shattered.

  "You think somebody's protecting that thing?” Plibix asked.

  "I don't know,” Spence said, “but I wish whoever it was would've worked a little harder at protecting me."

  He shook his head, felt slightly dizzy, and tried to catch his breath. The Leonardins hadn't moved away from the edge of the devastated area. He could find the codes and send help from the nearest Space Navy base. That'd been his plan when he first set on this course.

  The base could pull him out of here, and he'd never have to deal with the Leonardins again. Or at least, not until he got some help for this part of the mission.

  He could stay here. It was well protected. Maybe the most protected place on this part of Leonardo. It had survived whatever had caused the devastation after all.

  Then he froze.

  The most protected place on this part of Leonardo. Wasn't that where the Paras had wanted him to go? To the most protected place on Leonardo?

  The plate in his head was vibrating so hard his teeth were chattering. It had started this halfway up the hill, and the first thrums had been annoying, but this was crazy-making. He'd have to find a way to shut the thing off.

  He'd have to find a way to have it removed.

  He wished it hadn't been attached in the first place. Served him right for always putting the mission first.

  What a mistake that was.

  The fairy stared at the egg. Plibix peered out what had been the window but what was now just a crumbled wall.

  "We don't have a lot of time,” Plibix said again. “You gotta move. I can't do that for you."

  Spence knew that. He got up slowly, still cradling the egg, feeling as if he had just awakened from a dream, a dream he couldn't quite shake.

  It felt wrong—not being here, being here, not being here. Something was off.

  He must've spoken out loud, because Plibix said, “Yeah, it feels like someone blew a hole in the universe."

  Spence frowned. He moved closer to one of the walls in the Intel shelter. The vibrating in his head grew worse. His teeth were going to rattle out of his mouth. His eyes ached, and he could—for the first time in his life—actually feel his sinuses, because they were rattling too.

  Who knew the human body could do that?

  That shimmer was back—what he had thought was the force field was something else entirely. A panel, maybe? A compartment?

  A place to hide the device that the Paras had told him about.

  He reached into the shimmer, his fingers shaking like they'd done before
, and—

  "Yeah,” he said. “Not a hole. Holes. And we keep falling through them."

  "Not we,” Plibix said. “You. You keep fading in and out of consciousness. Maybe you should give me the egg."

  The fairy smiled, revealing big teeth.

  What was it about big teeth that terrified humans? He'd thought it was big teeth on big creatures, but even on little ones...

  —a panel opened. A floor plate slid out. He stepped back, his head throbbing. A glowing, twisted strip of metal with no inside or outside sat on the floor plate. It looked like a circle, or a strip, or a square, or a rhombus—changing each time he studied it, which he couldn't do very well since his entire head was rattling.

  This was the device, made, as the Paras said, to withstand eons of natural changes. It could not be hurt except by a sentient being who truly wanted to tear it apart.

  He had said he was that person, and if that glowing strip of metal (which had the same chemical odor as the forest) was causing this horrible head-rattling, then he did.

  But he had to wonder how this thing got into a panel in an Intel shelter, and how he had found it so easily, and why the Leonardins weren't attacking him. Breaking something this old and this powerful shouldn't be easy. It should be—

  —mine,” Plibix was saying. “Aren't we a team? You should hand the egg over."

  Weren't they discussing the holes in the universe? Spence didn't remember changing the topic. He frowned again, his eyes gritty from the explosion, still feeling slightly woozy.

  What would happen if he just crushed the damn egg with one hand? Would there be another explosion? Would the universe end?

  He felt this incredible

  powerful

  urge

  to destroy

  this thing in

  front of him.

  The urge was so powerful

  that it felt like something outside of him

  maybe something from the plate in his head

  or from those holes in the universe.

  He spun around, reached for the control panel on that table, and started to send the evacuation signal.

  Then he stopped.

  The throbbing in his skull stopped too. He realized he was straddling two realities—and in one, he didn't have a plate in his head.

  He didn't want the plate in his head. He'd suspected from the beginning that it controlled him. He wanted it gone, he wanted all of this gone.

  He wanted to destroy something

  and all it would take was

  the crush of his hand

  into the glowing strip

  around the egg.

  Or a push of a button, activating the evacuation sequence from the nearest Space Navy.

  If he did, was he missing his only chance?

  His only chance at what?

  He had no idea what was real, but he knew there was only one way to find out.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Chapter 11: Choosing Sides

  by James Patrick Kelly

  Spence stooped down to have a closer look at the glowing metal thing ... what the hell was it? Impossible to describe. Just looking at it made his vision blur, It churned and twisted in on itself like something alive, although its glowing surface had a burnished metallic sheen like burning chrome or silver fire. He gingerly touched the thing with the tip of his finger, afraid it might be molten. But it was just blood hot. The shining surface yielded to his touch and the thing pretzeled into a new and impossible shape that made his head swim. With a quick swipe, he picked it up with his cyber hand and closed his tensteel fist around it.

  Slowly he ratcheted up the pressure. He could crush stone with the prosthetics the Navy had built for him, or if need be, he could catch a butterfly by the wing without harming it. But although he could compress the glowing thing to the size of a marble, when he relaxed, it sprang again to its full size and continued to turn itself inside out. With a cry of frustration he smashed it against the cabinet where he had found the med kit. This also had but a momentary effect. He dropped it and tried to pile drive it through the floor with his cyber leg, but although he succeeded in cracking floorboards, he did it no harm whatsoever. He picked it up again and held it in the palm of his hand. It changed size and shape restlessly, went flat and bulged round. He tried to remember exactly what the Paras had said about it.

  Destroy the twisted ring, break the circle.

  Our gateway between the dimensions, made to withstand the eons.

  But it could be torn apart by someone who truly wished it.

  Was that it? He hadn't actually tried to tear it apart. He tried to grip the thing with his injured hand and yank at it with his cyber hand. It stretched and incandesced a little before the pain was too much for him. With a gasp, he let it go. Maybe he would have to wait until his hand healed. It struck him as ridiculous; that couldn't be the way that the universe really worked. Then maybe he didn't truly want to destroy the Guardian's dimensional gateway.

  He glared at the thing in his hand. “I hate you,” he said. “You're everything that's wrong with my life just now and there is nothing I'd rather see than you in a million shattered pieces.” The thing continued to pleach and wattle as if it didn't have a care in the world. For some reason, this struck Spence as funny and he laughed, whether at himself or the absurdity of his situation he could not tell. Maybe that was the problem, he realized; he wasn't taking this seriously enough. He tried looking deep inside himself.

  Did he truly want to destroy the gateway? The Paras has said that the evil Guardians would start messing with physics unless he destroyed this thing. Spence tried to imagine a universe with the strong force cranked down and the weak force cranked up. Electromagnetism gone wild. Gravity up for grabs. He licked his lips and wished he had gone ahead and uploaded The Idiot's Guide to Leptons that Carol had bought him for Christmas two years ago instead of slipping it into his sock drawer and forgetting all about it until now. What he saw in his soul was not doubt. It was howling ignorance. He didn't know what the right thing was to do. He didn't even know what the next thing he ought to do. Was any of this real?

  He perked his head up and sniffed the stale air. There was nothing more real than a bad smell and suddenly the shelter reeked of rotting meat. He slipped the glowing gateway into his pocket and whirled to face a man-sized shimmer in the shape of a dragon. A claw emerged from the shimmer and then an ugly reptilian face that Spence knew all too well.

  “Plibix! Where have you been?” he cried. “Where's Boganda? The egg? Have you seen my wife? My kids?”

  “That's at least five questions.” said Plibix calmly. “Would you care to prioritize them for me?”

  “Just tell me what's going on, Plibix. We thought you'd gone over to the other side.”

  “The other side?” Plibix strode across the shelter and peered at the array of screens that showed the Leonardoins surrounding them. “What side is that?

  “The side that blew up Goldmeadow. The side that killed poor Snorkin Mibble's clone. The side that put Patsy Klein in my bed and then told her to commit suicide. The side that the evil Guardians are on.” He gestured at the blue-skinned mob. “Their side.”

  “One thing that traipsing between the dimensions makes pretty clear is that directionality is in the eye of the observer. There are no sides, Spence, or rather there are an infinite number of sides, each tethered to a individual consciousness.”

  A rock hit the side of the shelter with a loud thwock that seemed to ring off the plate in Spence's head.

  “Save the fortune cookie philosophizing for another day, Plibix. The natives are restless.”

  “So they are.” The dragon nodded and, reaching forward, calmly pressed the button that would signal the Space Navy to evacuate Spence. “So they are.”

  Thwock! !

  “Hey!” Too late, Spence yanked the dragon's arm away from the control panel. “What did you do that for?”

  “Just trying
to help.” Plibix's tail lashed, which Spence knew was the dragon's way of shrugging. “You were having such a hard time making up your mind.”

  “Maybe you should leave making up my mind to me.”

  “Good idea.” With that the dragon began to shapeshift. His body seemed to bunch and flow. His tail retracted into his body and the planes of his face shifted. Hair sprouted on the top of his head. He grew clothes.

  Thwock!

  The speaker on the control panel crackled and a face swam into view on the flat panel screen above it. “Attack cruiser Santiago to Leonardo Base Juliet-Papa-Kilo.” A young woman in the high-collared uniform of Elite Space Guard stared anxiously into nothingness. She was wearing lieutenant's silver stars with a bronze cyborg cluster. “Base JPK, we just picked up an emergency evac signal. Is anyone there? I don't seem to have video. Repeat, is anyone there? You're in a restricted area.”

  “Just a moment,” said Plibix. He turned to Spence and grinned. To his horror, Spence realized what shape the dragon had taken. He was now Spence. “How's this?” The dragon waved the cams on. “Can you see me now?”

  “I can,” said the lieutenant. “Identify yourself.”

  “Commander Kendall Spencer,” said Plibix. “On a secret mission for Admiral Ktonga.”

  “That's not true,” cried Spence, thrusting his double aside. “I'm Kendall Spencer.”

  Thwock! Thwock!

  “What?” said the lieutenant. “Who's that with you, Commander Spencer? What's that strange thwocking sound?”

  “We're under attack, Lieutenant.” Plibix/Spencer pushed Spence/Spencer back. “I was hit by a doppelganger beam just before I reached the safety of shelter.”

  “Doppleganger beam!” Spence couldn't believe it. “That's ridiculous! There's no such thing! Don't listen to him.”

  “Just get a dropship here double-quick,” said Plibix/Spencer smoothly. “I'll have this all sorted out by the time you get here. Out.” He stabbed at the communicator's power switch and the screen went black.

  The dragon stepped away from the control panel, winked at Spence, and stretched. His tail snaked out of his back and his teeth daggered and his shoes curled back into three-toed claws. “I don't know how you put up with that body of yours, Spence,” he said. “Being you was like wearing underwear that was two sizes too small.”