The Edge

by Jacob Wenzel

  “Penelope?”

  “Promise me that you'll always love me.”

  “Of course I will, I always have and I always will.”

  “Even when I get older, and flabby?”

  “I will, and I'll get older and flabby, too.”

  “But you're rich, and could easily find a younger prettier girl.”

  “Penelope, I want to grow old with you. How can I grow old with someone younger? It just doesn't work.”

  “Even when I'm gray?”

  “Even when we're both gray.”

  “Even when my scales have lost their luster?”

  “Even when.”

  Peter and Penelope had no way of knowing that far above their location, a young woman gazed out at the water-covered planet below, mourning her lost love, and daydreaming about what life was like down on that beautiful blue and white ball.

  Frannie Lefkin, Eng. Apprentice 1st class, sighed as she looked out the observation port in the zero-g portion of the station, she had always enjoyed the view from this window, and would frequently come here during her off hours. In these final days, she found she was mostly alone here, most of the others preferred to stay in the centrifuge, in the comfort of the artificial gravity.

  She missed Bertrand, but he had had orders to return to Mars. When he first left, she regretted that they had not had a baby, but now with Mars lost, and the station soon to be gone, she was glad they hadn't, it would just be another life to lose when the station broke apart and burned up in re-entry.

  She now regretted that she had not taken an opportunity to be on a scouting mission to the surface to check on the Platterfish, to see what Earth really looked like from the surface, but Bertrand was still here then and she was in love, and did not want to be away from him even for a day, much less for the weeklong duration of the mission.

  Perhaps she should have taken Leroy, the amphibologist, up on his offer of companionship, but until now, she had held out hope that contact with Mars would be re-established, and that Bertrand was alright, and she would see him again.

  Her hopes were gone now, it would take a miracle to save the station at this point, and she just didn't have enough faith for a miracle.

  35.

  The Winnie didn't land this time, as there was no land. They hovered a few dozen meters above the surface of a calm ocean.

  “Bob, how far to the nearest land?” William asked.

  “About three hundred and seventy-four thousand kilometers.” was Bob's reply.

  “What? That would be in space.”

  “The surface of the Moon, William, is the closest dry land. This world is entirely covered in water. I'm guessing, of course, there's a three point two percent chance of a few small islands. There are also the polar icecaps, but technically, they are not land, but I would assume that you would rather stay on the water than go to either the icecaps, or the Moon.”

  “You're one hundred percent correct on that assumption, Bob.” said William.

  “I don't know, I'd kind of like to go to the Moon some time.” Sally said William said, “The Winnebago is only equipped for a low earth orbit, maybe another time, we'll be able to go to the Moon. For now, I think the best option is to deploy the pontoons and wait.”

  They spent a lazy afternoon, laying in lounge chairs, on the deck that had extended from the Winnie. Sally was gazing absentmindedly into the water, thinking how nice it was to have a break from adventures, when she became aware of two odd looking heads rising from the ocean's surface, three eyes were peering at her from the two heads, while a fourth seemed to be looking at William. As they looked at each other, one of the heads rose a bit more, and a long, flat snout with a wide mouth poked up, took a deep breath, and slowly said, “What are you?” (Actually, what it said sounded more like “Whawat arwar youwoo,” but Sally was able to understand it.) William sat up suddenly as Sally said, “We are humans, what are you?”

  “We are duckbill platterfish, we live here, are you from space?” (“Wewe arwar duwuckbiwill plawahterwerfiwish”, and so on, I'm going to stop giving the untranslated speech now, you get the idea.) “Sort of, we are from another world.”

  The platterfish looked at each other, and both said, “Cool,” then they looked back at Sally, and one of them said, “Is there land on your world? You might have noticed that we have no land.”

  William said, “We noticed, our world is about thirty percent land. If you have no land, how do you know about it?”

  “We are taught in school that long ago, our world had a little land, and it was low. Our species evolved on land, but when the sea level rose, we re-engineered ourselves to live in the water.”

  William asked, “What caused your sea level to rise?”

  The platterfish looked at each other, then back at the humans, and one said, “I didn't do it.” Then the other one said, “I didn't do it either.” Then together, “No-one did it, it just happened.” Then the first one asked, “Do humans have names?”

  “I'm Sally, and this is William, and you?”

  “I am Peter.”

  “And I am Penelope. What are you doing here?”

  “We are travelers to many worlds, just passing through.” said William.

  “Well, enjoy your stay, it has been nice talking to you.”

  And they were gone. William looked at Sally, “That was interesting, would you like to find out what it's like in a low earth orbit?”

  “Don't you want to find out more about this world?”

  “Not really, it seems kind of boring, we're here for a little over three weeks, so we can always investigate further if we want to.”

  “Doesn't going into orbit take a lot of energy?” Sally asked.

  “It takes a hell of a lot of energy to go into orbit, even a low orbit, but it's a lot less than it takes to make even a small jump. We can go into orbit, and still have plenty of power to make the next jump, which is relatively short, but with a critical time window.”

  “What's it like in orbit?” Sally asked.

  “I don't know, I've never been, remember, I had never even flown the Winnie until we were in the ice age world. When I went to the future to have the Winnebago modified, it was possible for anyone to fly to the moon, but it was not something in which I was interested. I understand that microgravity can be fun, but that a lot of people initially find it unpleasant.”

  “You mean the nausea? I read about that. I'm not too worried about it. I've never been sick in my life.”

  “Do you mean that you've never been sick to your stomach, or that you've never been sick at all?”

  “I've never had a fever, never been sick to my stomach, nothing at all.”

  “I assume that was unusual in your clan.”

  “I think everybody else in my village was sick occasionally, there would be a cold or flu that would go around, and of course since they were caused by evil spirits, people didn't avoid sick people, so if one person got sick, soon everybody was sick, except me... and I don't remember my father ever being sick.”

  “I wonder if it's something genetic that he passed on to you, a superior immune system, maybe,.. I don't know, you seem to be superior to most people in every other way, why not your immune system, too?”

  “Superior?” she blushed, “you're just biased.”

  “Well, we've established that you're super-intelligent, have a near perfect memory, incredible musical ability, superior strength, and you remain mostly calm under stress.”

  “I panicked and fell down when Bob first spoke to me.”

  “It was an extraordinary situation, and you composed yourself almost immediately.”

  “What about strength?”

  “I weigh at least thirty kilos more than you, but when I lost my foot, you picked me up and carried me back to the Winnebago. There aren't very many women that could do that.”

  “Really, even if their man is seriously injured?”

  “Well, extreme circumstances can cause people to do extraordinar
y things, but you're just stronger.”

  “Could that be from the different lifestyle I led before I met you?”

  “That could be a factor, but I think it could be something else, do you mind if I run a genetic scan on you?”

  “If you like, but I'm not sure I understand why.”

  “I'd like to determine where your father came from.”

  “Latvia, wasn't it?” she chuckled.

  “Seriously, your father was not from your village, and since he had green eyes, I'm guessing he wasn't from anywhere near your village, and with a DNA scan, we might be able to find out where he was from.”

  They ran the DNA scan, and Bob began analyzing, he said that he already knew the results, but if they didn't do the scan, he would not be able to tell them.

  “Why is that?” William asked.

  “I know all possible outcomes, and I need to do the scan in order to know which results to give you.” Bob said.

  When Bob was done, he suggested they meet in the conservatory, and make themselves comfortable.

  “Well?” asked Sally.

  “I was able to definitely separate your DNA into two groups, the group from your mother is unusual, but not surprising, your mother's ancestors came from in several waves, between one thousand and six thousand years before you were born, from central Asia, by way of Mongolia and Siberia. I can't find a match for your father's DNA anywhere in my database.”

  “What are you saying, Bob, her father's an alien?”

  “No, as far as I can tell, he was just a genetically perfect human, and not from anywhere in particular.”

  “Perfect?” Sally asked.

  “As perfect as a genome can be, without any of the known mutations that differentiate one human group from another, and with no genetic tendency toward any disease, no imperfections in any of the DNA strands, no mismatched segments. No one on record has such flawless genes. It's what I would expect to see in an engineered being, if humans ever develop that ability.”

  “How is that possible.”

  “That is a mystery which you will one day solve.”

  “So you know the answer and just can't tell us, right?” asked William.

  “Bingo.” said Bob.

  William said, “Do you have any idea how much that frustrates me?”

  “Not really, but your future self asked me to tell you to be patient.”

  William turned to Sally, “See, you're fifty percent perfect.”

  “Actually, Sally, you're sixty-two percent perfect.” said Bob.

  “Sixty-two? How does that work?” William asked.

  “As I said, Sally's mother's DNA was unusual, and her mitochondrial DNA is particularly of interest, it seems that she has a different maternal line than anyone else on the planet, at least anyone in our original timeline.”

  Sally said, “That seems strange, but my grandmother once told me that the women in our family have always had one and only one daughter, can you tell us how that can happen?”

  “I do not know how it's possible, and never will.”

  “Maybe my mother was a Moon Princess in exile, and my father came to join her.”

  William said, “So, do you think you inherited your lunar obsession gene from your mother or your father?”

  “Actually, I mutated that gene, myself, anyway, this is just too weird, I'm tired of talking about being partly perfect, let's go into orbit, and see if my sixty-two percent perfect DNA keeps me from hurling.”

  “I think that could be a lot more interesting than floating here the whole time.” said William.

  “What about Fluffy? He won't be able to go out.” Sally asked.

  “He can't go out here, either.”

  Bob informed them that Fluffy had his own room with a big litter box.

  William asked, “When did you arrange that?”

  “Right when we landed in Sally's world, I wanted to be prepared.”

  “What about food, he won't be able to hunt.” Sally asked.

  Bob said “Don't worry, I will provide him with as much food as he needs.”

  William only had minor worries about things floating around the Winnie, it had been designed for this, with everything fastened down that needed to be, or, like the books in the library, in closed cabinets.

  As they settled into a low orbit after an uneventful low-g takeoff, William did experience a little nausea, but recovered quickly, and asked Sally how she felt.

  “Just fine, it's less bothersome than the bigger jumps we've made, but I see we didn't get everything stowed properly.”

  William turned to see Fluffy floating into the room. The sight of the huge tiger maneuvering with a gentle touch of his paw against a wall was a bit unnerving. He almost asked Sally if Fluffy had been in space before, but realized that would have been impossible unless he had been in space with Sally's father, before he had come to her village. The prospect that her father had been a space traveler, or even a time traveler was one on which he did not long dwell. It was impossible to know, and unless he discovered new information, he could only speculate.

  “It's like he's swimming,” Sally said, “He's joined me in the water a couple of times when it was really hot, he's moving the same way he does in the water.”

  “That's one possibility.” Said William.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I have some ideas about your father, but I need to think about them more, before we discuss them.”

  “Alright.” she said, she was now used to William's way of working out problems, which was to think about them for a long time with minimal discussion, while he tried to come to an understanding of the situation. He had once told her that he didn't fully understand any aspect of science or mathematics until he had re-invented it himself. She could wait until he was ready, but now she wanted to distract him.

  “This is fun,” she said, “and once you're feeling better, I have an idea for an experiment we could do together.”

  “What kind of experiment?” he said before he noticed how she was looking at him, “Oh, that could be fun, give me a little while, until my stomach settles a bit.”

  “And, I forgot to ask you how we use the facilities up here without gravity.” she said.

  “Don't worry about that, in the bathrooms, kitchen, garage, lab, or for that matter, almost any room in the Winnebago without windows, there is gravity.”

  “How did you manage that? Gravity there, no gravity here, I don't get it.”

  “You know how much of the Winnie is in other dimensions, right?”

  “I sort of understand it now.”

  “Well, in one of those other dimensions, there is no Earth, no planet, so there is no gravity, or rather, very little, just the gravitational leakage from other dimensions, so the portions of the vehicle that are located in that dimension already have artificial gravity, created by a large centrifuge which may very well be the only significant piece of matter in that entire dimension. The actual structure of the Winnebago is very different from what we perceive.”

  “Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask you since I first stepped in here, how can we have so many windows, several of them very large, that look out to whichever world we're in, but there aren't that many on the outside.

  He said, “I've been waiting for you to ask that.”

  “You could have explained it to me.”

  “You never asked, and I suspected that you were trying to figure it out yourself.”

  “I was,” she admitted, “and I think I have.”

  “What's your theory?”

  Sally pushed off the ceiling where she had floated, and back down to William, who was holding on to a chair. “I think the views out those windows are synthetic, I think Bob examines the area with his cameras and scanners, and holographically creates a view for each window based on what the scenery would look like from the corresponding viewpoint. I first had that idea when I went up to the fifth floor in the south tower when we wer
e in Sam and Janet's world, and had a great view from what seemed to be at least fifteen meters up. I discovered that the window would not open, and of course, the Winnie isn't that tall. I realized that I could not trust my eyes, the view could not possibly be real. Am I right?”

  “Exactly, only it's not Bob that creates the view, it's a separate computer system, although Bob does monitor it, and can override it. It's a commercially available system from the early twenty-fourth century, developed for underground high-density urban structures. You can fit a lot more apartments into an area if they don't actually need windows. It makes it possible to have an extremely large population in a small area, and still leave a lot of green space, so people can have room to go outside when they want, and have the illusion of space when they're inside. I'm feeling better now, would you like to join me for a shower in gravitational space?”

  After the shower, they tried making love in microgravity, but found it to be more awkward than pleasurable, trying to stay together was difficult, so they finally gave up and went to their room, which had gravity.

  Later, Sally wanted to talk about the Winnie a bit more.

  “In all this time, I haven't even been in all the rooms, sometimes when you're busy, I explore, and find more rooms. A couple times, I got lost, and Bob had to help me find my way back.”

  “I haven't been in all of them either. I had it built and decorated, but really don't bother with most of it.”

  “How big is it?”

  “Counting the garage, about ninety-thousand square meters, with something like six hundred and fifty rooms.”

  “Why so big?”

  “That's a good question, I guess there are several reasons, one was because I could, I made a lot of money when I sold the time travel business and I always wanted a huge house. One time, a couple friends and I were talking, one of them said that she wanted a sparsely furnished house, another said that he wanted a lot of furniture, I said I wanted a lot of furniture in a sparsely furnished house, she understood, he didn't. There's also the physics, the jumps actually take less energy if the mass being transported is large, the larger the mass, the more it distorts space itself, so less power is required to distort it to the point of merging timelines.”