The Omega Egg [A Fictionwise Round Robin Novel]

by Mike Resnick;Various Authors

  “All the more reason not to get in there,” Spencer said. “I might end up turning myself inside out sideways through my belly button.”

  The other man made a painful face. “All kidding aside now, Spence, old buddy, think for a minute here. If you've got the egg inside you then you can't possibly get inside of it, which means this—” he slapped his hand on the top of the egg-shaped vehicle; immediately, seams appeared in it and a door swung open, revealing a standard and quite unremarkable automobile interior “—is not any kind of egg, let alone that egg.” He reached in, pulled out a seat-belt/shoulder-harness, and held it up briefly before letting it snap back. “See? Pure car.”

  This only made Spencer even more suspicious. “I don't like it,” he said darkly.

  “Oh, you'd rather walk a hundred klicks?”

  “Is that the nearest restaurant worth walking a hundred klicks for? Or just the nearest restaurant?”

  Ktonga/Bob stared at him blankly. “What?”

  “I asked whether there was a five-star restaurant within walking distance and you said no, but you'd brought a car. Now it seems the car is an egg. I don't think I'd care to see your idea of a restaurant.”

  “Right.” Ktonga/Bob's dark face was exasperated now. “OK, how about this, then—you know what a metaphor is? You familiar with the symbolism employed in ritual?”

  Should have expected this, too, Spencer thought and rolled his eyes. “So what is my getting into that thing supposed to signify?”

  Ktonga/Bob winced. “Well, let's see. This is a car, which is a mode of transportation so how about ‘intent to travel'. That work for you?”

  “But it's an egg. It's that egg. I have to climb into it to get to the next shell?” The next eggshell, said a small voice in the back of his mind. He ignored it. “But I'm already willing to travel to the next shell. The ritual isn't necessary.”

  The admiral shook his head. “Yes, it is. Otherwise you'll collapse with a fatal case of the psychic bends.”

  Spencer hesitated.

  “You need that explained, too?” Ktonga/Bob asked.

  “No, strangely enough, I know exactly what you mean,” Spencer said. “And even more strangely, I believe you.” He started to get into the egg-car and then paused again, looking intently at Ktonga/Bob's dark face.

  Brahma or Shiva? Or just Vishnu, patron god of Same Shit, Different Day? At one time, he'd have thought that was an easy one; at one time, he would even have thought that the answer was relevant to the ritual he had to perform, but now he knew better.

  * * * *

  The car drove itself while Spencer and Ktonga/Bob sat in the front seat. The windshield and other windows were slightly larger than a standard car's but there wasn't much to see beyond the hard-packed, dirt road directly in front of them illuminated by the egg-car's headlights.

  “Because while we don't want to get all caught up in another sensory deprivation experience, we don't want a whole lot of distractions, either,” Ktonga/Bob said, noticing how he was peering intently through the windshield. “Psychic bends are nothing to fool around with.”

  “I'll keep that in mind. Should I buy a psychic bathyscaphe, do you think?”

  “I don't know where you'd find a dealership around here.”

  The egg-car rolled to a smooth stop. Instead of the top swinging open this time, however, the car cracked in the middle just as if a giant, invisible hand were breaking it open; the front seat swung around and tilted Spender and Ktonga/Bob onto the ground without ceremony or warning. Spencer only just managed to land on his feet while Ktonga/Bob, obviously used to this sort of thing, managed a gymnast's tiptoe style dismount.

  “Show-off,” Spencer accused him.

  “Don't be bitter, it doesn't become you.” Ktonga/Bob turned him around and steered him into an elaborate wooden palace claiming to be Ye Olde Mille. Inside the lights were quite low—too low to eat by, in Spencer's opinion but not too low for him to see that none of the tables was occupied.

  “Maybe we should keep going, look for a place with ostrich eggs in the parking lot,” said Spencer. “Those big-rig drivers, they know all the best places. Or so I've heard.”

  “Shouldn't believe everything you hear,” Ktonga/Bob said, unperturbed. “Why don't you have a look at the menu?” He produced a large stiff folder and flipped it open under Spencer's nose.

  Starters

  Primordial Soup (Chef's original recipe)

  One (1) Spare Rib (Chef's original sauce)

  Unborn Egg in Cup (subject to availability)

  Red Herring in Red Sauce

  ENTRÉES

  Eggs Benedict Arnold

  Moebius Strip Steak with Multilayer Onion Rings, Bell-Flower Garnish

  Meat Pie (25% meat, 75% filler)

  Red Herring in Red Sauce

  DESSERTS

  Fairy Cakes

  Torus Holes (Chef's specialty—better than doughnut holes!)

  Bombe Suprise du Jour (Today's Flavour: Plasma)

  Sweet Red Herring in Sweet Red Sauce

  COFFEE

  Ramon's Special Blend

  SERVICE IS NOT INCLUDED

  Spencer looked up at Ktonga/Bob, frowning. “Not a whole lot of choice.”

  “No, but what choice there is is cherce. Now, you probably won't get that reference. It's from an old movie—”

  Spencer nodded impatiently. “Yeah, yeah, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. ‘Not much meat on her but what there is is cherce.’ Choice, cherce, very clever. So? What do I care how clever you are? Ever since I walked into your office, all I've met are clever characters and a fat lot of good it's done me. Hell, Carol is cleverer than all of you put together and even she can't seem to dig me out of this quagmire. The best she could do was Migrate up the shells of the universe. Might as well be The answer is whistlin’ down the wind for all the help it's been.”

  Ktonga/Bob raised his eyebrows, doing his best to look superior. “Actually, it's not whistlin’ down, it's blow—'”

  “I know that, that's part of the joke,” Spencer snapped. “Not to mention that I'm trying to spare us a lawsuit here. I take back that bit about you being clever. Were you born this clueless or did you have to study?”

  “My, aren't we in a snit. Have something to eat, you'll feel better.”

  Spencer shoved the menu back at Ktonga/Bob. “No, thanks. Lost my appetite.” He turned to walk out of Ye Olde Mill and found himself staring up once again at a huge pipe organ, the very same one he had seen previously while in the company of Patsy Klein (or whoever she had been), being played by the same tall creature in black evening clothes. Almost human except for the extra arms growing out of his sides and chest, the extra arms he needed to cover all those extra keyboards.

  Spencer's jaw dropped.

  Quantum-entangled weaponry.

  Unbidden, the idea bloomed in his mind along with an image of the universe folding, unfolding, and re-folding like origami. Points meeting points meeting points meeting points, brushing past each other and leaving no sign or evidence of the glancing contact that was enough to entangle them all with each other on the quantum level, entanglement that a quantum-level weapon could home in on. No sign or evidence except—

  Blue...

  Blue shift...

  Blue Leonardoans...

  Blue bell-flowers...

  Abruptly, the almost-human creature at the organ paused and looked over its shoulder at Spencer. It had a bizarre, androgynous face with long, narrow eyes and an all but lipless mouth, which was smiling. “Now you're catching on,” it said. “I don't do requests so try to keep up.”

  Before Spencer could think of anything to say the creature had turned back to the organ and resumed playing. There was still no music that Spencer could hear but he could feel it now. Or he thought he could. Not sound vibrations, exactly, or at least not the kind of sound he was used to. Not even sound outside the range of human hearing. This was sound outside the range of human experience altogether. Sound on the q
uantum level. The sound made by particles becoming entangled as a universe folded, unfolded, and refolded like origami, making layers that some might refer to as shells. And if you followed that sound, you could migrate up the shells of the universe.

  Or was it up? Maybe it was down in some configurations and in others sideways. It would depend on where he was when the universe refolded, wouldn't it?

  Spencer realized he was getting a stomach ache. He put a hand on his midsection and suddenly found himself holding an egg. No, the egg. The one that had been absorbed into his body earlier.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped.

  “Are you sure you're not hungry?” asked Ktonga/Bob solicitously, turning him around. “Maybe just a light snack—a coddled unborn egg, say?”

  Spencer folded his arms, trying to look casual as he tucked the hand holding the egg under his left armpit. “C'mon, after all we've been through you can't have forgotten that I don't like eggs.”

  “Just coffee, then.” Ktonga/Bob took hold of Spencer's left elbow. “With an order of doughnut holes.”

  “They're torus holes,” Spencer corrected him. “So, no. Make that extra no. I don't like to eat in any joint that can't tell the difference between a doughnut and a cup.” He turned back toward the organ and its maestro but the vision had disappeared, as he had known it would have. Had Ktonga/Bob also seen it—and heard it? Spencer couldn't tell—the man had a poker face that any card-player would have died for. Or killed for, rather.

  “Doughnut holes. And not doughnut holes, torus holes, as you yourself just pointed out. Dammit, Spencer, what is your mishigas here?”

  Ktonga/Bob reached for him and he automatically took a step back, keeping his arms tightly folded. The other man gave him a sharp, suspicious look, his eyes narrowing.

  “What are you hiding?” he asked Spencer.

  “Hiding? Nothing.”

  “Bullshit. What have you got in your hands? Show me.” Ktonga/Bob advanced on him.

  “Now who's the one with mishigas?" Spencer said, despairing as he hugged himself even more tightly. If he had been holding an organic egg, it would have broken.

  “Come on, man, you didn't want it anyway.”

  “I don't. Want what?”

  “Aha! I knew it! Give it to me.”

  Spencer turned away from him and looked around in desperation. There was nothing but the entrance to the restaurant, the reception/cashier counter and—

  And sitting in a vase next to a big brass-coloured cash register, a beautiful single blue bellflower in a glass vase. Spencer flung himself forward, reaching for it with his free hand. The vase shuddered, tipped from one side to the other and then fell off the counter. Spencer made a grab, felt his hand close around a fresh, firm stem. The bellflower in his fist swayed and began to toll.

  * * * *

  The toll of the bellflower was also a sound that he felt in a way that he had never felt sound before, and although his experience was limited, he decided the bellflower made a sound more aesthetically pleasing than the organ. Perhaps because the organ was a construct and the bellflower was a product of nature. Organic. A non-organic organ and an organic flower. The universe is not only sillier than we imagine, it is sillier than we can imagine, Spencer thought. Wasn't that how the saying went? Or was he misremembering it?

  He looked around and saw that he was back in the meadow of bellflowers, holding the one he had plucked out of the vase in the restaurant as if he were picking a bouquet.

  No, correction: he wasn't in the meadow. The meadow was sweeping past him, on its way to elsewhere as the universe refolded. It looked like a giant frame of film. It was followed by an image of his own living room decorated for a quaint old historical holiday Carol told him had been called Christmas. Why she had wanted to celebrate it—a flash of blue caught his eye as it passed him, a blue the exact shade of the bellflower in his hand, a blue that was part of a high-definition photo of some planet taken from outer space. Carol had given the photo to him for a Christmas present.

  There was a disturbance under his feet. He looked down to see what he had been standing on but he had already lost his balance. He fell over sideways, landing on the hard, dark dirt of the only habitable continent on Leonardo.

  “Dammit, why here?” he demanded of no one in particular and the universe in general.

  Abruptly he saw the bellflower still in his hand, still looking as fresh and alive as before; it nodded, seemingly at him. I don't do requests so try to keep up, okay?

  “Okay,” he said, barely aware of speaking aloud, and took hold of the blossom with his free hand. It was a large blossom and he had to compress the petals a bit to keep the bell from slipping out of his grasp. The thing was surprisingly firm, much firmer than it looked. But that only made sense, he thought; anything that could produce a sound would have to have more than a little substance to it. And while he was on the subject, just how did it do that anyway? “Let's have a look at your little noisemaker,” he said, turning the bell to look inside. He felt the stem harden as it tried to resist the movement; at the same time, the blue petals deepened in colour, like a late afternoon sky slipping into evening.

  “Dammit,” he muttered, staring into the darkness inside the bowl of the flower. He'd never known bellflowers did this sort of thing. Did they all do it or was this one a sport? He shifted position, trying for a better angle to the daylight but the interior of the blossom only seemed to get darker.

  Frustrated, he sat up and clamped the stem between his knees, intending to probe the bell with an exploratory finger and then paused. He was more likely to do damage than to learn anything that way. Or maybe the bellflower might damage him. Granted, this seemed far less probable than the other way round but stranger things had happened and he had the prosthetic limbs to prove it.

  Still holding the stem between his knees, he wrapped his other hand around the blossom and tilted it up toward his face again. The slight resistance it had been giving him lessened. Maybe because it was dying? He felt a sudden, sharp burst of fear at the idea.

  Blue...

  Blue shift...

  Blue Leonardoans...

  Blue bellflowers...

  And quantum-entangled weaponry, yes. He'd been through that already—

  The night-colored bellflower in his hands stared at him like a dark eye.

  Blue, blue shift, blue eyes. Who did he know with blue eyes? It was hard to tell these days, people could have any colour eyes they chose.

  But all humans are born with blue eyes. Remember?

  Spencer frowned. Yes, but so what?

  Blue ... blue ... blue ... and quantum-entangled weaponry.

  All right, what did he know about quantum-entangled weaponry? What did he know about quantum anything? Think, he commanded himself.

  And think fast, added a small distant voice in his mind, because the dark is rising.

  When you look at things on the quantum level, you never just look at them. To look at them changes them.

  Now he winced. Oh, God, no, not the old chestnut about if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it does it make—

  The thought cut off as his gaze fell on the bellflower blossom in his hands. Bracing himself inwardly, he leaned forward and put his eye directly to the bowl of the flower as if he were looking into a telescope.

  Blue...

  Blue shift...

  Blue Leonardoans...

  Blue bellflowers...

  Indigo.

  Indigo exploded soundlessly around him or he around it, he wasn't really sure which. Some unmeasured interval passed, a second or a millennium's worth of millennia—either or both. There was no way to measure. During that time, if you could call it time, Spencer never actually lost awareness but he hadn't held onto it, either. The only thing he held onto was the bellflower and he was still holding it when he came back to conscious, sequential thought in the indigo darkness.

  He still had both hands cupped around the blossom, b
ut the opening was now turned away from him. And try as he might, he couldn't turn it toward himself.

  Of course he couldn't. Because he was now on the other side of the bellflower.

  He could feel it ringing; he could feel the universe folding, unfolding, and refolding.

  But you can't see any of it because you went through the bellflower and out the other side. Outside. Because when you look at something on the quantum level, you change it. But to look at something on the quantum level, you have to be on the quantum level yourself, which means it changes you. And if you happen to have a charge identical to the thing you look at/change, the resultant cancellation—

  ,,oH cHRIST',, Recneps screamed soundlessly. Ktonga hadn't been exaggerating about events on Leonardo jeopardizing the galaxy—he had been understating it. The gateway wasn't a portal to other universes.

  It was a portal to the anti-universes.

  Anti-matter.

  And the key to the gateway was quantum-entangled with blue—not just any blue but the blue bellflowers and the blue Leonardoans.

  And now that he knew, what in bloody blue hell could he possibly do about it?

  ,,I thought you,d never ask,, anti-said another voice behind him.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Chapter 16: Conversation With His Future Self

  by Michael A. Burstein

  Kendell Spencer turned around. He didn't recognize the person he was looking at, although the man looked somewhat familiar.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, I thought you'd never ask.”

  “But I didn't say anything out loud.”

  “I know. But I knew what you were thinking. You were wondering what you could possibly do about your situation.”

  “How did you know that?” Spencer moved back slightly, studying the other man's facial features. “You look familiar,” he said.

  The man smiled. “I should,” he said.

  A sudden thought came to Spencer. “Are you an antimatter version of myself?”

  The man shook his head. “No, as a matter of fact. I'm not the anti-you. I'm the future you. If I was the anti-you, you'd have recognized me immediately. From the mirror.”