The Portal

by Richard Bowker

  The professor nodded. "Such a pity you chose soldiering instead of the groves of Academe, William. You were one of our brightest students. So, can we not apply Occam's Razor here? Why postulate an infinitude of universes and the like? Can't we explain the current situation by suggesting that two boys with active imaginations have somehow come upon a device from China—amazing though it is—and concocted a silly story to go with it?"

  "We could," the lieutenant agreed. "Except that, if you're right, they have concocted a better story than any I've ever heard."

  "And there's zippers, begging your pardon, sir," Peter said. I had forgotten about Peter. He was tending his horses by a water pump, close enough to overhear the conversation. "On their pants, sir." And he described that other miraculous invention, which apparently he couldn't get out of his head. "You don't need buttons on your fly," he explained. "The thing just goes up and down, smooth as you like."

  The professor stared at us some more.

  "Ask them about baseball," the lieutenant urged. "General Aldridge was much impressed with the little one's discussion of a sport on his world."

  Professor Palmer raised an eyebrow. "Solomon is not a fool like our president," he said, "but he is also not a philosopher. Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to catechize them."

  So he began asking us questions—not about baseball, thank goodness, but about everything else on our world—politics and history and science and religion and lots more. For the first time we got to explain about America. We talked about how it became the most powerful country in the world. We talked about watching TV and playing video games and surfing the net. We talked about men landing on the moon, which got the professor to raise his eyebrow again. I described how I had touched a moon rock when my family visited the Air and Space Museum in Washington. That seemed to astound him more than anything else we said.

  Like the lieutenant, the professor pressed us for explanations that we just couldn't give. I mean, I have some vague idea of how a car works. You put gas in the tank, you turn the key, you move the thing so it points to "D", you step on the accelerator... But to explain it so that it made sense to someone who has never heard of a car—I couldn't do it. Kevin was a little better, because he read so much and liked to do science experiments and stuff, but even he didn't make a lot of sense when the professor really pushed him.

  After a while I figured we were screwing up pretty badly, and I started to get depressed. We'd been better off with Kevin explaining earned run averages to General Aldridge. Finally the professor stopped his questions and poured everyone more cider. Then he looked at Lieutenant Carmody. "What do you want from me, William?" he asked softly.

  "We're at war, Professor," the lieutenant replied. "Our nation's survival is in jeopardy."

  "You expect these boys to conjure weapons for you?"

  "I want whatever they can give us."

  Professor Palmer looked away. "Another world," he murmured. "A thousand wonders to explore. And what do we seek? Better ways of killing."

  The lieutenant gestured towards the professor's house. "Everything you have," he said, "—your life itself—is being protected by a few thousand soldiers, with dwindling supplies and little hope of reinforcement. We don't have time to explore wonders; we need to survive."

  "They're just boys," the professor pointed out. "Obviously they don't understand—"

  "And that's why I've come to you," the lieutenant interrupted. "They know things but don't understand them. You don't know, but you can understand. Together, perhaps you can come up with something."

  "You're asking for a miracle."

  "Well, why not? If these boys are to be believed, their very presence here is a miracle."

  "How long do we have?" the professor asked.

  The lieutenant shrugged. "We assume the enemy will lay siege to the city before the final attack. If so, we can hold out a couple of months. By winter it will be hopeless. But the president will likely surrender long before that. And the terms will not be favorable."

  The professor shook his head sadly. "How did it come to this?"

  "That's for others to work out," the lieutenant replied. "Soldiers simply fight the war they are given."

  "That's why you should be more than a soldier, William. But in the meantime, what is your plan?"

  "The boys will stay here with you," he said. "We need to keep this secret, not least because of how the president might react if he found out. While they're here, you learn what you can from them. Whatever might help us. I'll return to check on your progress."

  "And if there's nothing?"

  "Then there's nothing. You will have listened to some entertaining stories while you wait for the Canadians to arrive, and the rest of us will march resolutely towards our fate."

  The professor looked at Kevin and me, and I could tell he didn't like the idea of having us move in with him. "I'm an old man," he started to say, "and—"

  "Nonsense," Lieutenant Carmody interrupted. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and you know it. You are the best person in New England for the task, and you know that as well. Don't lose the opportunity just because you're set in your ways."

  "I suppose," the professor said finally, as if he was agreeing to have his foot amputated or something. "Very well."

  Lieutenant Carmody nodded in satisfaction and immediately stood up. "Excellent." He turned to us. "I trust you lads will do your best. There is much at stake here."

  "Yes, sir," we both replied.

  "Good." He shook hands with Professor Palmer, then motioned to Peter to get the carriage ready. In a couple of minutes they were clattering off down the lane, and we were alone with the professor.

  It was very quiet. Kevin and I stood by the cider press, waiting.

  "Well, then," the professor said. "I suppose—I suppose you're hungry."

  I wasn't, actually, but we both nodded.

  "So perhaps we should dine?"

  "Okay," I said.

  "Pardon me?"

  That word again. "I mean sure. Fine."

  "Well, then," he murmured again, and he started off towards the house.

  Kevin and I looked at each other. "Weird," Kevin whispered. And we followed him inside.

  Chapter 10

  "My housekeeper left to join her daughter's family in Boston," Professor Palmer explained, "but I'm used to fending for myself. Kindly have a seat."

  The kitchen was large and sunny, with a big open fireplace along the inside wall. We sat in a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs in a corner and watched him putter for a while in silence. When he was done, we helped him bring the food into the dining room, which was small and dark and kind of stuffy. We ate cold roast chicken, and it was just about the best chicken I'd ever tasted. I was beginning to get the idea that food here was either terrible or delicious. Like the soldiers in the mess hall, he ate with his knife. His fork only had two prongs, and he used it just to hold down the meat while he cut it. Weird.

  "Before long, meals like this will be but a memory," the professor said. "We must enjoy them while we can."

  "Yes, sir," I replied. "It's very good."

  "Yes. Well." He paused, then fell silent and looked down at his plate. He seemed to be having difficulty starting up a conversation with us.

  "Do you believe us?" Kevin asked.

  He looked up and blinked rapidly. "You know, I want very much to believe you," he replied. "Knowledge is so hard to come by—in many ways we have learned little—and forgotten much—since the ancient Greeks. The idea that somewhere, somehow, another turn was taken, and so much more has been discovered and accomplished—it is deeply exciting. But then, there is still Occam's razor."

  "We're telling the truth," I said. "We're not smart enough to make up all this stuff."

  The professor nodded. "That is actually the most powerful argument in your favor. Your theory, though—that we live our lives countless times, in countless different worlds—simply doesn't feel real. It is the stuff of fantast
ical late-night conversations in college common rooms, after too many glasses of port. Lieutenant Carmody wants weapons. I want to understand what is real."

  "We don't drink port," I pointed out.

  That got him to laugh. "Let us begin, then," he said. "Remove these plates, and I'll find some paper."

  We cleared the table while the professor got some of that odd-looking yellowish paper that the lieutenant had used, and one of those strange, long pencils. And we started telling our story once again.

  It didn't go all that well. Professor Palmer took a lot of notes and asked a lot of questions, but we had the same problem we had before. Like the lieutenant said, we knew things, but we didn't understand them. And the professor was mostly interested in the portal and how that worked and what it meant to philosophy and religion and stuff, and there we couldn't help him at all. After a while he began to look unhappy and distracted, like he was getting tired of listening to us.

  Finally we took a break, and he showed us his house and where we'd be sleeping. For a famous professor, his house wasn't all that big—I think people in this world were used to a lot less space than in ours. Across from the dining room was a small room he called the "parlor," which was mostly filled up with a piano. That reminded me again of the piano lesson I had missed, which wasn't good. Next to the parlor was a tiny study crammed with books. There was a narrow staircase leading to the second floor, which had one good-sized bedroom and one small one. We were bringing up sheets and blankets to the small bedroom when we noticed a couple of paintings in the hall—one was of a little boy in short pants, the other of a black-haired woman with a sad smile sitting in a chair and holding a fan. Kevin asked the professor who they were. He looked like he didn't want to answer, and then he said softly, "My wife and son."

  "Where are they?" Kevin asked. "Are they—?"

  He shrugged. "They died many years ago."

  "How did they die?"

  I thought that was kind of a pushy question. The professor again looked like this wasn't something he wanted to talk about, but he said, "In an outbreak of the smallpox." He gazed at the painting of the child. "It occurred shortly after Seth's portrait was completed."

  "Smallpox?" Kevin said. "I'm pretty sure that's totally cured in our world."

  The professor turned and glared at Kevin. "Do not trifle with me, boy!" he shot back angrily.

  Kevin retreated a step. I think he was afraid the professor was going to hit him. "I didn't mean to—" he said. "I mean, I'm sorry, if you don't want to talk about it..."

  "How was it cured?" he demanded. "Or is that something else you don't understand?"

  "I'm pretty sure they came up with, you know, a vaccine."

  "No, I don't know. What is a 'vaccine'?" he demanded.

  This time Kevin had an explanation. "It's like when you give someone a tiny bit of a disease, with a shot or something. Not enough to make them sick, but it gives them immunity when they come in contact with the disease for real."

  "What do you mean, 'immunity'?"

  "You know, when you don't get a disease, because your body has built up a resistance to the germs."

  The professor shook his head, still not getting it. "And what are 'germs'?" he asked.

  Kevin looked at me like, Can you believe this? "They're tiny, um, organisms that can make you sick," he said. "Different kinds of germs give you different illnesses. They're really small—you can only see them with a powerful microscope. Do you have microscopes in this world?"

  Professor Palmer continued to stare at Kevin. Then I noticed that his dark eyes were filled with tears. "So many people have died of smallpox," he said. "And you tell me they could have been saved?"

  "We've cured a lot of diseases," Kevin said.

  "What about... drikana?"

  Kevin looked at me. I shook my head. The name was kind of familiar, but I couldn't place it. "Never heard of it," I said.

  "Me neither."

  "No matter, I suppose," the professor said softly. "No matter."

  But that conversation did matter. It seemed to change the way Professor Palmer acted toward us. He never really said that he believed us instead of Occam's razor or whatever, but it was just more or less assumed. It was more than that, though—before, it had been like what we were telling him was just a puzzle he was trying to figure out. Now, it was different. Now, it was sort of personal. We weren't going to bring his wife and son back, but maybe we really could help.

  * * *

  After supper we all sat in the parlor and talked more about his world. Professor Palmer was eager to give us his opinions about it. He seemed a little lonely, with the college closed and the town deserted and nobody to lecture to, and we were the best audience he was going to get.

  "This war need never have happened," he said, "except that those purblind fools in Boston were certain it wouldn't happen. They assumed the Canadians and New Portuguese hated each other more than they hated us, and would never be able to unite against us no matter how much we provoked them. Perhaps fifty years ago that was true. But times have changed. They realized that they needn't be friends to be allies, and we were in no position to defend ourselves on two fronts. So they attacked, and we have been fighting for our lives ever since."

  I remembered the newspaper we'd read and the soldiers' talk. "Why hasn't England helped?" I asked.

  "Because we asked too late. And because England has more than enough problems of its own fighting the Franco-Prussian alliance. And there continue to be those who never wanted us to become independent of England, and would be happy to see us fail."

  "Sir," Kevin said, "would you mind—we still don't understand what's going on here. We know about Canada, but what happened to America—you know, what we call this place? And in our world, the Spanish came here first from Europe. Portugal didn't have a whole lot to do with the New World, that I remember. We think something must have changed way back in your history, to make things end up so different."

  The professor nodded. "All right. The theory makes sense. Let's see if we can find out."

  It didn't take that long. You wouldn't have to have paid much attention in history class to figure out what the difference was, once you started looking for it.

  In this world, Christopher Columbus didn't discover America. Professor Palmer had never heard of the guy.

  What we learned in school was that the Portuguese, under Prince Henry the Navigator, wanted to find a trade route to India, so they explored south along the coast of Africa, until they rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed north through the Indian Ocean. They weren't interested in sailing west across the Atlantic, maybe because they knew more about geography than Columbus and realized they'd have to travel a whole lot further than he thought to reach India.

  So in our world Columbus went off and sold Spain on his idea, and that's why Spain reached the New World first, why it became a huge empire, at least for a while, why Balboa discovered the Pacific and Cortez conquered Mexico and all that stuff. And America got named almost by accident when a mapmaker decided a guy named Amerigo Vespucci deserved some credit for his explorations.

  That was us.

  In Professor Palmer's world, the Portuguese did sail west and discover the New World. It wasn't even Columbus's idea; he never entered the picture. It was Portugal, not Spain, that got all the silver and gold. It was Portugal that became the big empire, with Spain just another loser country in Europe.

  France still explored and settled what would become Canada, and England colonized the eastern part of "America." But the British colonies never expanded the way they did in our world. They stayed along the Atlantic coast, hemmed in by the Portuguese, the Canadians, and the Indians. And that's the way it stayed.

  Professor Palmer showed us a map that night. New England was a lot bigger than it was in our world—it looked like it included New York and Pennsylvania—but New Portugal was huge; it extended all the way from, like, Virginia, west to what's Texas in our world, then south through Me
xico and into South America. Canada was big, too, stretching down into the Midwest. On the map New England looked like this little stone stuck between two huge boulders.

  How could it avoid getting crushed?

  Well, things weren't always quite as bad as they looked on the map. New Portugal was too big, too spread out to be much of a nation. It was more like a bunch of half-independent states, usually at war with each other. And Canada had mostly been friendly with New England and an enemy of New Portugal.

  But right now England was busy fighting a war against France and Prussia (which was sort of like our Germany), so it couldn't do much to help with the defense of its former colony. Canada and New Portugal saw this as an opportunity to carve up the little nation between them. New England had been trying to extend its borders by skirmishing with both countries, and that gave them the reason they needed to invade.

  It all seemed so strange, so different, as we talked about it. There had been no American Revolution, no Civil War. New England had stayed part of the British Empire until 1925. Slavery ended there when it ended in the rest of the Empire, in the 1830's, although it still existed on a small scale in some areas of New Portugal. The whole western part of the continent remained largely unexplored and was inhabited mostly by Indians (who were called by their tribal names, because no one ever thought they came from India).

  Some people were just as famous in this world as they were in ours—Beethoven, for example. But many either hadn't existed or, if they did, never became well-known. Shakespeare had died young and was remembered for just a couple of poems. Mozart, Van Gogh, Mark Twain—who were they? Professor Palmer had never heard of them, and lots of others we mentioned.

  And where were all the inventions, the medicines, the discoveries? Why was this world, like, two hundred years behind ours?

  The answer became obvious to Professor Palmer as we talked. "You told me this afternoon that you had never heard of drikana," he said. "That may explain a great deal."

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "A horrible disease—worse even than smallpox or consumption. A person afflicted with drikana has uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea. It is as if everything in his body is trying to escape from it as quickly as possible. Most people die within two days of the disease's onset. It is also highly contagious. If it shows up in a city, it will kill a third of the inhabitants in a month."