The Forest of Time - Hugo Nominated Novella

by Michael Flynn

  Knecht pulled on his moustache, thinking of Vonderberge’s speculations of the previous night. Before he had spoken with Kelly. “So you say that...somewhere...there is a world in which you did?”

  “Right. It’s a small world, because the probability was small. Temporal cross-section is proportional to a priori probability. But it’s there, close by. It’s a convergent world.”

  “Convergent.”

  “Yes. Except for our two memories and some ash on the floor, it is indistinguishable from this world. The differences damp out. Convergent worlds form a ‘rope’ of intertwined timelines. We can Jump back and forth among them easily, inadvertently. The energy needed is low. We could change places with our alternate selves and never notice. The only difference may be the number of grains of sand on Mars. Tomorrow you may find that I remember dropping the cigar; or I might find that you do. We may even argue the point.”

  “Unconvincingly,” said Knecht sardonically.

  Kelly chuckled. “True. How could you know what I remember? Still, it happens all the time. The courts are full of people who sincerely remember different versions of reality.”

  “Or perhaps it is the mind that plays tricks, not the reality.”

  Kelly flushed and looked away. “That happens, too.”

  After a moment, Knecht asked, “What has this to do with your becoming lost?”

  “What? Oh. Simple, really. The number of possible worlds is large, but it’s not infinite. That’s important to remember,” he continued to himself. “Finite. I haven’t checked into Hotel Infinity. I can still find my own room, or at least the right floor.” He stood abruptly and paced the room. Knecht followed him with his eyes.

  “I don’t have to worry about worlds where Washington and Jefferson instituted a pharaonic monarchy with a divine god-king. Every moment grows out of the previous moment, remember? For that to happen, so much previous history would have had to be different that Washington and Jefferson would never have been born.” He stopped pacing and faced Knecht.

  “And I don’t have to worry about convergent worlds. If I find the right ‘rope,’ I’ll be all right. Even a parallel world would be fine, as long as it would have Rosa in it.” He frowned. “But it mightn’t. And if it did, she mightn’t know me.”

  “Parallel?” asked Knecht.

  Kelly walked to the window and gazed through the bars. “Sure. Change can be convergent, parallel, or divergent. Suppose, oh suppose Isabella hadn’t funded Columbus, but the other Genoese, Giovanni Caboto, who was also pushing for a voyage west. Or Juan de la Cosa. Or the two brothers who captained the Niña and the Pinta. There was no shortage of bold navigators. What practical difference would it have made? A few names are changed in the history books, is all. The script is the same, but different actors play the parts. The differences stay constant.”

  He turned around. “You or I may have no counterpart in those worlds. They are different ‘ropes.’ Even so, we could spontaneously Jump to one nearby. Benjamin Bathurst, the man who walked behind a horse in plain sight and was never seen again. No one took his place. Judge Crater. Ambrose Bierce. Amelia Earhart. Jimmy Hoffa. The Legion II Augusta. Who knows? Some of them may have Jumped.”

  Kelly inspected his cigar. “Then there are the cascades. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. The differences accumulate. The worlds diverge. That was my mistake. Jumping to a cascade world.” His voice was bitter, self-mocking. “Oh, it’ll be simple to find my way back. All I have to do is find the nail.”

  “The nail?”

  “Sure. The snowflake that started the avalanche. What could be simpler?” He took three quick steps along the wall, turned, stepped back, and jammed his cigar out in the ashtray. He sat backward, landing on his cot. He put his face in his hands.

  Knecht listened to his harsh breathing. He remembered what Ochsenfuss had said. If I push him too hard, he could crack. A spy cracks one way; a madman, another.

  After a while, Kelly looked up again. He smiled. “It’s not that hard, really,” he said more calmly. “I can approximate it closely enough with history texts and logical calculus. That should be good enough to get me back to my own rope. Or at least a nearby one. As long as Rosa is there, it doesn’t matter.” He hesitated and glanced at Knecht. “You’ve confiscated my personal effects,” he said, “but I would like to have her photograph. It was in my wallet. Along with my identification papers,” he added pointedly.

  Knecht smiled. “I have seen your papers, Herr ‘Professor Doctor’ Kelly. They are very good.”

  “But...”

  “But I have drawn others myself just as good.”

  Kelly shrugged and grinned. “It was worth a try,” he said.

  Knecht chuckled. He was beginning to like this man. “I suppose it can do no harm,” he said, thinking out loud, “to give you a history text. Surely there gives one here in the fortress. If nothing else, it can keep you amused during the long days. And perhaps it can reacquaint you with reality.”

  “That’s what the shrink said before.”

  “The shrink? What...? Oh, I see. The Hexmajor.” He laughed. Then he remembered how Ochsenfuss and Vonderberge had quarreled over this man and he looked at him more soberly. “You understand that you must here stay. Until we know who or what you are. There are three possibilities and only one is to your benefit.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “It gives some here who your story believe, and some not.”

  Kelly nodded. “I know. Do you believe me?”

  “Me? I am a scout. I look. I listen. I try to fit pieces together so they make a picture. I take no direct action. No, Herr Kelly. I do not believe you; but neither do I disbelieve you.”

  Kelly nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Do not thank me yet, Herr Kelly. In our first five minutes of talking it is clear to me you know nothing of value of the Wyoming, or the Nations, or anything. In such a case, my official interest in you comes to an end.”

  “But unofficially...” prompted the other.

  “Ja.” Knecht rose and walked to the door. “Others begin to have strong opinions about you, for whatever reasons of their own I do not know. Such are the seeds, and I do not like what may sprout. Perhaps this...” He jabbed his cigar at Kelly, suddenly accusing. “You know more than you show. You play-act the hinkle-dreck Quatschkopf. And this, the sowing of discord, may be the very reason for your coming.”

  He stepped back and considered the prisoner. He gestured broadly, his cigar leaving curlicues of smoke. “I see grave philosophical problems with you, Herr Kelly. We Germans, even we Pennsylvaanish Germans, are a very philosophical people. From what you say there are many worlds, some only trivially different. I do not know why we with infinitely many Kellys are not deluged, each coming from a world almost like your own!”

  Kelly gasped in surprise. He stood abruptly and turned to the wall, his back to Knecht. “Of course,” he said. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! The transformation isn’t homeomorphic. The topology of the inverse sheaf must not be Hausdorff after all. It may only be a Harris proximity.” He turned to Knecht. “Please, may I have my calculator, the small box with the numbered buttons...No, damn!” He smacked a fist into his left hand. “I ran the batteries down when I was with Goodman deVeres. Some pencils and paper, then?” He looked eager and excited.

  Knecht grunted in satisfaction. Something he had said had set Kelly thinking. It remained to be seen along which lines those thoughts would run.

  Rumors flew over the next few days. A small border fort is their natural breeding ground, and Fox Gap was no exception. Knecht heard through the grapevine that Vonderberge had had the Hexmajor barred from Kelly’s cell; that Ochsenfuss had telegraphed his superiors in Medical Corps and had Vonderberge overruled. Now there was talk that General Schneider himself had entered the dispute, on which side no one knew; but the General had already postponed his scheduled departure for Wind Gap Fortress and a packet bearing his seal had gone by special courier to Oberkommando Pennsylvaanish in Phila
delphia City. A serious matter if the General did not trust the security of the military telegraph.

  The General himself was not talking, not even to Knecht. That saddened the scout more than he had realized it could. Since his talk with the prisoner, Knecht had thought more than once how slender was the chain of chance that had brought Schneider and himself together, the team of scout and strategist that had shepherded the Commonwealth through two major wars and countless border skirmishes.

  He had dined with the General shortly after submitting his report on Kelly. Dinner was a hearty fare of shnitz un’ knepp, with deutsch-baked corn, followed by shoofly pie. Afterwards, cigars and brandy wine. Talk had turned, as it often did, to the Piney War. Schneider had deprecated his own role.

  “What could I do, Rudi?” he asked. “A stray cannon shot and both Kutz and Rittenhouse were dead. I felt the ball go by me, felt the wind on my face. A foot the other way would have deprived this very brandy of being so thoroughly enjoyed today. Suddenly, I was Commander of the Army of the Delaware, with my forces scattered among the Wachtungs. Rittenhouse had always been the tight-lipped sort. I had no idea what his plans had been. So I studied his dispositions and our intelligence on Enemy’s dispositions, and...” A shrug. “I improvised.”

  Knecht lifted his glass in salute. “Brilliantly, as always.”

  Schneider grinned through his bushy white mutton-chop whiskers. “We mustn’t forget who secured that intelligence for me. Brilliance cannot improvise on faulty data. You have never failed me.”

  Knecht flushed. “Once I did.”

  “Tcha!” The General waved his hand in dismissal. “The nine hundred ninety-nine other times make me forget the once. Only you constantly remember.”

  Knecht remembered how once he had misplaced an entire regiment of Virginia Foot. It was not where he had left it, but somewhere else entirely. General Schneider, except that he had been Brigadier Schneider, had salvaged the situation and had protected him from Alois Kutz’s anger. He had learned something about Konrad Schneider then: The General never let the short-term interfere with the long-term. He would not sacrifice the future on the whim of the moment. It had been such a simple error. He had improperly identified the terrain. The Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia looked much the same from ridge to ridge.

  Or was it so simple? He recalled his discussion with the prisoner, Kelly. Ich biete Ihre Entschuldigung, Herr Brigadier, he imagined himself saying, but I must have slipped over into a parallel universe. In my timeline, the Rappahannock Guards were on the north side of the river, not the south.

  No, it wouldn’t work. To believe it meant chaos: A world without facts. A world where lies hid among multiple truths. And what did the General think? What did Konrad Schneider make of Kelly’s tale?

  Knecht swirled the brandy in his snifter. He watched his reflection dance on the blood-red liquid. “Tell me, Konrad, have you read my report on the prisoner?”

  “Ja, I have.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “It was a fine report, Rudi. As always.”

  “No. I meant what did you think of the prisoner’s story?”

  The General lifted his glass to his lips and sipped his brandy. Knecht had seen many men try to avoid answers and recognized all the tactics. Knecht frowned and waited for an answer he knew he could not trust. For as long as Knecht could remember Schneider had been his leader. From the day he had left his father’s house, he had followed Colonel, then Brigadier, then General Schneider, and never before had he been led astray. There was an emptiness in him now. He bit the inside of his cheek so that he could feel something, even pain.

  Schneider finished his slow, careful sip and set his glass down. He shrugged broadly, palms up. “How could I know? Vonderberge tells me one thing; Ochsenfuss, another. You, in your report, tell me nothing.”

  Knecht bristled. “There is not enough data to reach a conclusion,” he protested.

  Schneider shook his head. “No, no. I meant no criticism. You are correct, as always. Yet, our friends have reached conclusions. Different conclusions, to be sure, but we don’t know which is correct.” He paused. “Of course, he might be a spy.”

  “If he is, he is either a very bad one, or a very, very good one.”

  “And all we know is...What? He loves Rosa and does not love the military. He has some peculiar documents and artifacts and he believes he comes from another world, full of marvelous gadgets....”

  “Correction, Herr General. He says he believes he came from another world. There is a difference.”

  “Hmph. Ja, you are right again. What is it you always say? The map is not the territory. The testimony is not the fact. Sometimes I envy our friends their ability to reach such strong convictions on so little reflection. You and I, Rudi, we are always beset by doubts, eh?”

  Knecht made a face. “If so, Konrad, your doubts have never kept you from acting.”

  The General stared at him a moment. Then he roared with laughter, slapping his thigh. “Oh, yes, you are right, Rudi. What should I do without you? You know me better than I know myself. There are two kinds of doubts, nicht wahr? One says: What is the right thing to do? The other says: Have I done the right thing? But, to command means to decide. I have never fought a battle but that a better strategy has come to mind a day or two later. But where would we be had I waited? Eh, Rudi? The second sort of doubt, Rudi. That is the sort of doubt a commander must have. Never the first sort. And never certainty. Both are disasters.”

  “And what of Kelly?”

  The General reached for his brandy once more. “I will have both the Hexmajor and the Kommandant interview him. Naturally, each will be biased, but in different ways. Between them, we may learn the truth of it.” He paused thoughtfully, pursing his lips. “Sooner or later, one will concede the matter. We need not be hasty. No, not hasty at all.” He drank the last of his brandy.

  “And myself?”

  Schneider looked at him. He smiled. “You cannot spend so much time on only one man, one who is almost surely not an enemy agent. You have your spies, scouts, and rangers to supervise. Intelligence to collate. Tell me, Rudi, what those fat knick patroons are planning up in Albany. Have the Iroquois joined them, too? Are they dickering with the Lee brothers to make it a two-front war? I must know these things if I am to...improvise. Our situation is grave. Forget Kelly. He is not important.”

  After he left the General, Knecht took a stroll around the parapet, exchanging greetings with the sentries. Schneider could not have announced more clearly that Kelly was important. But why? And why keep him out of it?

  Fox Gap was a star-fort and Knecht’s wanderings had taken him to one of the points of the star. From there, defensive fire could enfilade any attacking force. He leaned his elbows on a gun port and gazed out at the nighttime forest farther down the slope of the mountain. The sky was crisp and clear as only autumn skies could be, and the stars were brilliantly close.

  The forest was a dark mass, a deeper black against the black of night. The wind soughed through the maple and elm and birch. The sound reached him, a dry whisper, like crumpling paper. Soon it would be the Fall. The leaves were dead; all the life had been sucked out of them.

  He sighed. General Schneider had just as clearly ordered him away from Kelly. He had never disobeyed an order. Angrily, he threw a shard of masonry from the parapet wall. It crashed among the treetops below and a sentry turned sharply and shouted a challenge. Embarrassed, Knecht turned and left the parapet.

  Once back in his own quarters, Knecht pondered the dilemma of Kelly. His room was spartan. Not much more comfortable, he thought, than Kelly’s cell. A simple bed, a desk and chair, a trunk. Woodcuts on the wall: heroic details of long-forgotten battles. An anonymous room, suitable for a roving scout. Next month, maybe, a different room at a different fort.

  So what was Kelly? Knecht couldn’t see but three possibilities. A clever spy, a madman, or the most pitiful refugee ever. But, as a spy he was not credi
ble; his story was unbelievable, and he simply did not talk like a madman.

  And where does that leave us, Rudi? Nowhere. Was there a fourth possibility? It didn’t seem so.

  Knecht decided it was time for a pipe. Cigars were for talk; pipes for reflection. He stepped to the window of his room as he lit it. The pipe was very old. It had belonged to his grandfather, and a century of tobacco had burned its flavor into the bowl. His grandfather had given it to him the night before he had left home forever, when he had confided his plans to the old man, confident of his approval. He had been, Knecht remembered, about Kelly’s age at the time. An age steeped in certainties.

  Spy, madman, or refugee? If the first, good for me; because I caught him. If the second, good for him; because he will be cared for. He puffed. For two of the three possibilities, custody was the best answer; the only remaining question being what sort of custody. And those two choices were like the two sides of a coin: they used up all probability between them. Heads I win, Herr Kelly, and tails you lose. It is a cell for you either way. That is obvious.

  So then, why am I pacing this room in the middle of the night, burning my best leaf and tasting nothing?

  Because, Rudi, there is just the chance that the coin could land on its edge. If Kelly’s outrageous tale were true, custody would not be the best answer. It would be no answer at all.

  Ridiculous. It could not be true. He took the pipe from his mouth. The warmth of the bowl in his hand comforted him. Knecht had concluded tentatively that Kelly was no spy. That meant Ochsenfuss was right. Knecht could see that. It had been his own first reaction on reading the notebook. But he could also see why Vonderberge believed otherwise. The man’s outlook and Kelly’s amiable and sincere demeanor had combined to produce belief.