The small one advanced to stand in front of Chrissie. It waited. Finally it chittered into the translator unit, which said in one rush of words, “Why is this used — What is the problem — Was there no meeting with The One?”
Chrissie could answer the last question. “If Big Rocky is the same as The One, we had a meeting.”
“ But there was no transfer?” The eyestalks of the little animal swiveled and seemed to be staring at Chrissie’s ears. “Ah, I see it is true. There was in your case not yet a transfer. What do you want?”
“We would like food.” Chrissie did not feel in the least like eating, but it was the only thing that she could think of.
“ The rest period is here. It is not food time.”
“The One told us we could have food.”
Apparently she had said the magic words. The creature in front of her clacked and whistled, and the translation unit said abruptly, “You will be given food, the same food as the converted one. Then you will remain quiet until day comes, or you will be punished. Go back into your room.”
Chrissie retreated. As soon as she was beyond the ledge, a curtain of mist seemed to close across the keyhole opening. It gradually solidified, until in half a minute it looked exactly like a brighter version of the rest of the wall.
“I guess that didn’t work,” Tarbush said softly. He went across and rapped on the new wall. “Quite a trick. Perfectly solid. I thought you were promised food?”
“Maybe it changed its mind.” But a few moments later, the part of the wall nearest the floor rippled. An object shaped like a small sled came floating through into the room and stood six inches from the floor unsupported. Tarbush bent down to lift the lid of the oblong container that sat on top of the sled, and recoiled.
“Sweet Lucy! If that’s what they call food …”
He clapped the lid back on the box, but not before Chrissie had seen dozens of purple tentacles reaching and wriggling out over the edges.
“I wasn’t hungry anyway,” she said. As she watched, the new wall slowly began to darken. It was the only source of light, and within a minute she could not make out Tarbush’s outline. “That little effort didn’t help at all, did it? We’re worse off than we were before.”
“Not really.” Tarbush again turned on the little spotlight in the helmet of his suit. “They’re not watching us any more. We’re free to fiddle around any way we like so long as we don’t make a lot of noise.”
“So what do we fiddle around with all night long?” Chrissie advanced, until she stood in front of him and could tilt her head back to look at his frowning face, shadowed by the lamp above it. “Do we take that sled apart and try to understand how it floats in the air with no support? Or do we sit in the corner and play with ourselves? I don’t have any ideas. Do you?”
The scowl that he gave her was its own answer.
31: THE NATURE OF THE MULTIVERSE
After the Angel’s pronouncement on the nature of the changed Friday Indigo, Dag Korin couldn’t wait to get everyone away from his private quarters.
“Go on,” he said. “Get out of here. It’s far too late for an old man like me, and you must be tired, too. Go get a good night’s sleep.” And to Gressel, “A good night’s transpiration for you, or whatever you do in the dark.”
And then, one by one, Dag Korin contacted every human and told them to come back.
“I had to do it this way,” he explained, when the bewildered group was reassembled. “You know how the Angel would react if I told him I planned to take Friday Indigo and use his guts for suspenders. We need a private planning session without any aliens. What’s the status on the Pipe-Rilla?”
“Still curled tight,” Tully O’Toole said. “She’s in the cool medical unit near me, and every time I go past I sneak a peek. How long can a Pipe-Rilla stay frigid rigid?”
“Months.” Elke was the only one in the room who didn’t look the least bit tired. “It’s not a big deal, they always curl themselves that way when they estivate. In fact, I suspect that stress may simply induce an unplanned estivation. If so, Vow-of-Silence will be hyperactive when she wakes.”
“Then the longer she sleeps, the better. Let’s leave her that way.” With every seat taken, Korin perched on the liquor cabinet. “All right, first question. How much of that guff about the superior science of the Malacosties do we believe?”
“All of it.” Elke replied at once. “I’ve studied our space images a lot more since last time we talked. The buildings around the airstrip morph every few hours, in their numbers and their sizes. An area of seven hundred square kilometers was cleared and sterilized, with no sign of radioactivity. And their aircraft and ships, from everything I’ve seen of them, ought not to be able to fly. They possess technology we’ve never dreamed of.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. Anyone disagree?” Korin glanced around at the circle of gloomy faces. “All right, so I have to believe it. The Mallies have science and weapons different from and maybe superior to ours. What they did to Friday Indigo shows that they regard us as expendable. That tells me there’s no way we can allow them into our universe. The Angels and the Pipe-Rillas may think those bastards can be nice guys, but even a nice guy who can do anything he likes tends to do things you won’t like. If we want to live — and I assume we do — we’d better find a plan of action that lets us.”
“Easier said than done.” Elke was biting her fingernails, already chewed down to the quick. “The Angel and I have a good idea of the structure of the multiverse, and we think we know how to set coordinates to go to any universe — including the one we came from. But we’ve beaten our brains out for a way to get there. Our only chance would be to talk the Malacostracans into lending us one of their ships, and it’s pretty clear they aren’t about to do that.”
“I never said it would be easy, Elke. But any plan, even a terrible one, is a lot better than no plan at all. So I’m going to throw out ideas. You can all chip in or disagree any time you want.
“First, and this one’s a no-brainer: somebody has to go ashore tomorrow morning with Deb Bisson. We have to talk to the Mallies, no matter how much we hate ’em. We’ve been told that they can blow this ship up any time they feel like it, and if we don’t cooperate with them we’ll automatically be considered an enemy. We need to leave here soon — we’d better, because this hulk is dying around us — but right now we’re a sitting duck.
“So who goes with Deb Bisson? Well, I’m not inviting discussion, because this one I’ve already decided.” Korin turned to Chan. “You’ve been itching to go and look for trouble ashore for days—”
“I accept.”
“ — so here’s your chance. You and Bisson seem to work well as a team.”
“We do. Any other instructions?”
“Not without breaking one of my own golden rules. In an unpredictable situation, the man or woman on the spot should make the decisions, not the general sitting on his ass a million miles away from the action. But I’ll tell you what I expect from you. I need time. Time to organize ourselves to leave this ship and establish a base on shore. And time for Elke and the Angel to nail a way to get us through the Link and off this dump of a planet.” Korin waved his hand at Elke. “I know, I know. We don’t have a ship, and I don’t see any half-rational hope of getting us one. We need time for that, too. Yes?”
His question was addressed to Tully O’Toole, who was holding up his hand.
Tully glanced at Danny Casement sitting next to him, who nodded and said, “Friday Indigo didn’t say we could only send two people ashore. He said they only wanted two people to take our answer to them.”
“What are you proposing?”
“We have two of our team members in the hands of the Mallies. Tully and I talked about this even before you called us back here. We’d like to go ashore and take a shot at rescuing Chrissie and the Tarb.”
Instead of replying, Dag Korin leaned back and put his hand over his eyes. Finally he said, “Damn m
e, that’s a hard one. I don’t know what your friends are going through up there, but I can’t imagine it’s pleasant.” He tilted his head forward and stared at Danny. “Worse than anything, I hate to lose people. Ninety-nine percent of me is on your side, cheering you on to give it a shot. But I can’t let you do it. We have a proposal from the Mallies sitting in front of us. We don’t understand all its implications, but we have to explore it farther. Now, if you make a rescue attempt, whether you succeed or whether you fail, you’ll drop a mine on what Chan Dalton is doing. So it has to be no — though I wish there was some way I could say yes.”
Danny protested, “So we just sit around, waiting?”
“Did I say that? We’re going to be busy, every one of us. Soon we’re going to leave the Hero’s Return and set up camp on shore. We have to pick a site a comfortable distance from the Mallies, preferably in an inconspicuous place that can easily be hidden from overhead inspection. Elke Siry, that’s your job. We must also decide what we need to take from this ship and what we can take — Bony Rombelle, Liddy Morse, and Tully O’Toole, you make the list and assemble everything by the main airlock. Keep it practical and assume we’re never coming back. Food and shelter should be tops, but remember we can’t make many trips and we can’t carry too much. Danny Casement, you and I are going to float. We’ll help out anywhere we’re needed. Any questions?”
“How long do we have?” That was Elke, already on her feet.
“Before Chan Dalton and Deb Bisson leave, I want to know where we’re going and what we’re taking with us. Tomorrow I want us ashore. Anything else? Otherwise, let’s get going.”
Elke nodded. “One other thing, and it’s not good. Before I returned here I checked the condition of our external sensors. Air pressure at the surface has been dropping and wind speeds are picking up. We don’t have metsats to provide confirming images so I can’t be absolutely sure, but I think another big storm is on the way — worse than when we first arrived. The first front will hit this area sometime tonight, with high winds and rain. Then we’ll have a lull, low winds and clear skies, maybe lasting all day tomorrow. But two days from now the real hurricane hits. Either we’re out of here and somewhere safe before that, or we won’t be going anywhere at all.”
* * *
Everyone gave up all thoughts of sleep. When the meeting broke up, Elke Siry at once headed aft. Chan Dalton followed her.
She turned as they came to the entrance of the control room. “What do you want? Your assignment may not begin until tomorrow, but mine already started. I don’t have time to talk.”
“This will take only five minutes.” Chan followed her in. “Let me start with a question. You understand more about the multiverse than anyone on board. Suppose we could capture a Malacostracan vessel — don’t ask me how. What would our chances be of performing a Link transition in that ship, without help from them?”
“How long would we have to study their controls and operating systems?”
“Let’s say, an hour or two.”
“Forget it. Without their help our chances would be one in a billion. For starters, we have no idea how to open the Link itself. It turns on and off in a way that we don’t understand, and it’s been off almost all the time since we arrived.”
“It was open whenever one of our ships came here.”
“I suspect that it opens whenever something wants to come through this way, but for ships that are leaving it’s controlled locally by the Mallies. I realize that General Korin believes the use of an alien ship is our only hope for finding our way home, but I can’t imagine it being possible. They won’t loan us a ship, and they won’t open the Link for us.”
“All right, a different question. Back in General Korin’s quarters, you said that you and the Angel know how to set coordinates for a Link transfer to any universe. True?”
“Quite true. Of course, I meant we know how to do it using a ship that we understand. Not an alien ship. But with our own vessel, I think we’d be able to Link to any exit point in any universe.”
“Can you describe how?” Chan could see that she was becoming impatient.
“Certainly. Once you’ve made a structural map of the multiverse, navigation across the different energy levels isn’t difficult. But you have to be extremely careful what you’re doing.”
“Because of the different time rates in different universes?”
“There’s that. But the Link coordinates give a good idea whether a universe will run faster or slower than the one you’re in. In retrospect, knowing what we know now, we could have predicted that the coordinates we had for a transit to the Geyser Swirl wouldn’t take us there. They showed a transition from one universe — ours — to one like this where time runs slower.”
“If you can estimate the time rates, why do you say you have to be very careful with transitions?”
“Because of variability even within the same energy level. It seems as though almost any imaginable combination of physical constants is going to be found in some universe. Suppose you Link to a universe where those basic constants are grossly different? And in most universes, they will be. There might be no stars or planets. There might even be no matter , just pure radiation. Then the time rate wouldn’t matter, because our kind of life, and maybe any kind of life, would be impossible.”
“Can you show me how to avoid that problem?”
“In five minutes? Not so you’ll understand what you’re doing.”
“I don’t have to understand, not in your sense of the word. I just want to know how to Link.”
“In our own ship — or an alien one?”
“Our own ship. Let’s forget the idea of doing it with one of their ships.”
“The Hero’s Return will never fly again. But I can show you how to pick a subset of universes that should be safe to visit. That’s as far as I can go.”
“And will I know the time rate in each one, before I Link there?”
“I think so.”
Chan sat down beside Elke at the console. “Show me.”
“You have a plan?”
“Maybe. But I don’t want to talk about it yet.”
“In case it’s no good?”
“In case it is. But I still don’t want to talk.” Not to you. Not to General Korin, not to Deb — not even to myself. Maybe especially not to me.
* * *
Chan stretched his five minutes to ten, and then to twenty, before Elke decided that he understood as much about the structure of the multiverse as he ever would, given his ignorance of macroscopic quantum fields. She threw him out.
“And close the door behind you,” she called as Chan was leaving. But she had barely summoned onto the display the satellite image that she needed when the door of the control room was sliding open again.
“No!” she said. “Not another millisecond. I have work to do. Oh! I’m sorry, sir. I thought it was somebody else.”
“It is somebody else.” Dag Korin hovered on the threshold. “I came to check on your progress. Liddy Morse and the others are making a first list of what we need, and they hit me with some very reasonable questions. Which of course I couldn’t answer. Where will we land? How far will we have to carry the things that we pick out? How much of the journey will be underwater? How long will we have to live on whatever we take with us? You’re the only one who can answer any of those. How’s it coming?”
“It’s not coming at all. I haven’t started yet. Chan Dalton was in here until two minutes ago, asking questions of his own.”
“Was he now?” Korin frowned and sat down uninvited next to Elke. “What sort of questions?”
“About whether we could fly an alien ship through a Link on the surface of the planet, and about the structure of the multiverse. He asked me for the transition sequences to different levels, especially to an extreme case that I’ve been calling the Omega level. He said he needed to know how to initiate the transfers before his meeting with the Malacostracans.”
�
��Did he now. You gave the information to him?”
“Of course. I assumed he was doing it with your knowledge and approval. Shouldn’t I have?”
Dag Korin bent his head forward. He was silent for a long time, the only sound in the control room the steady drip of condensation. Elke wondered if he had gone to sleep. At last he stirred and said, “Who’s in charge here? I thought I was, but maybe I’m fooling myself. Let me see what you gave him.”
“It’s still on the display. He wanted a selection of levels where a human can survive. And he wanted to know exactly what the protocol would be to make a transition to those universes. He also wanted to know if a Malacostracan would be likely to use the same protocol as one that we would use.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I said, yes, so far as I knew it made no difference who initiated the transition protocol, humans or Angels or Malacostracans. The parameters depend only on universal mathematical constants, like pi and e. But I would expect any alien ship, including all its controls and operating sequences, to be totally unfamiliar.”
“But the sequence should work. All right.” Korin was still glaring at the display. “Your list doesn’t include our universe.”
“That’s right. I have that, but Dalton specifically told me that he didn’t want a sequence to our own universe to be on the list he would take away.”
“Curiouser and curiouser. Make a copy of what’s on that screen, would you?”
“It’s coming now. On the output by your right hand. What’s going on? I asked Dalton why he wanted that list, and he wouldn’t tell me. Wouldn’t talk about it, either.”
“I don’t know. But I suspect that Chan Dalton is considering some kind of end run. No, don’t ask me what that means. I don’t know myself — not yet.”
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