The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes

by Robert A. Heinlein

  First she selected the conclusion to be proved, then covered several pages with scratch work in developing statements, incomplete in themselves, which would arrive at that and only that conclusion. Having done so, then tested them by symbolic logic, she wrote out her list of six statements, mixing them randomly—then looked up.

  The young mathematician was looking at her solemnly, his notepad in hand. “Finished?” she asked.

  “Just finished. Mrs. Carter, you remind me of my little friend Alice Liddell.”

  “I know,” she said. “That’s how I recognized her. Shall we trade?”

  Dodgson tore out a sheet from his pad. “This is to be solved in the first person; the conclusion applies to you.”

  “All right, I’ll try it.” Deety read:

  Every idea of mine, that cannot be expressed as a syllogism, is really ridiculous;

  None of my ideas about bath-buns are worth writing down;

  No idea of mine, that fails to come true, can be expressed as a syllogism;

  I never have any really ridiculous ideas that I do not at once refer to my solicitor;

  My dreams are all about bath-buns;

  I never refer any idea of mine to my solicitor, unless it is worth writing down.

  Deety read it and chortled. “How very sweet of you! It is true, you know, all my dreams do come true!”

  “You solved it so quickly?”

  “But it’s only six statements. Have you solved mine?”

  “I haven’t read it yet. I will now.” He read:

  Everything, not absolutely ugly, may be kept in a drawing room;

  Nothing, that is encrusted with salt, is ever quite dry;

  Nothing should be kept in a drawing room, unless it is free from damp;

  Time-traveling machines are always kept near the sea;

  Nothing, that is what you expect it to be, can be absolutely ugly;

  Whatever is kept near the sea gets encrusted with salt.

  He blinked at the list. “The conclusion is true?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  For the first time he stared openly at Gay Deceiver. “That, then—I infer—is a ‘time-traveling machine.’ ”

  “Yes … although it does several other things as well.”

  “It is certainly not what I expected it to be … although I am not sure what I expected a time-traveling machine to be. I haven’t given it much thought before today.”

  I pulled the handkerchief off my face. “Do you want to take a ride in it, Mr. Dodgson?”

  The young don looked wistful. “I am sorely tempted, Captain. But I am responsible for three little girls and cannot leave them. So I must thank you for your hospitality and bid you goodbye. Will you offer my apologies to Professor and Mrs. Burroughs and explain that duty calls me?”

  XXXVI

  Jake

  Our captain said, “Deety, how does it feel to say goodbye without getting kissed?”

  “Zebadiah, I didn’t even make it possible. The record shows that Lewis Carroll was terrified by females over the age of puberty.”

  “If not terrified,” my dear wife Hilda added, “at least he did not pick them to chum with. Tended to avoid them.”

  “That’s why I stayed close by. Deety hon, if I had gone with Jake and Hilda, he would have left at once.”

  “I can’t figure out how he got there in the first place,” Hilda went on. “Lewis Carroll was never in Wonderland; he simply wrote about it. But this is Wonderland—unless rabbits in England wear waistcoats and watches.”

  “You aren’t being logical, Aunt Hilda. Who can possibly be as deeply inside a story as the person who writes it?”

  “Hmm … I think I’ll have to study that one.”

  “Study it later. All hands, stand by to rotate. Set it up, by your schedule, Copilot. Deety, we’re going to try your new scram. In my voice, just for drill. Copilot, if it works, rotate at once. That’s for drill, too. Mars, isn’t it? End of group.”

  “Right, Captain,” I agreed. “Next stop off: Mars, Universe-One.”

  “Gay … Bounce!”

  At once we were high. I pushed the “execute” button—and at once Mars-Zero was swimming ahead of us, in half-phase and looking the proper distance.

  “Copilot, set rotation, by schedule.”

  “First rotation of third group, to tenth rotation universe—set!”

  “All hands, stand by to rotate! Execute!”

  A quite homelike starry void …. But I saw no recognizable constellations.

  “Copilot, set your next rotation, then turn out the instrument lights. All hands; pigeon tumble coming up. Stand by.”

  We went through a full somersault; no one reported anything near us—and I still saw no familiar constellations. The captain said, “Science Officer, mark this one as promising.” He turned on the instrument lights. “Ready to rotate, Jake?”

  “Set, Captain.”

  “All hands, stand by to rotate. Execute.”

  Still another star-filled universe— But to my considerable surprise, these constellations were indeed familiar; I was looking right at the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, and the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor, was in its correct place, with Polaris at the end of its handle. I hastily checked the dials. No, we couldn’t possibly be in Universe-Zero. Besides, Mars was missing.

  “All hands, stand by for tumbling pigeon routine.”

  I kept quiet while the captain took us through the familiar scanning procedure, expecting each moment to disclose at least our familiar Sun. Not only did I fail to see it but also, no other celestial body was near enough to show, other than as a bright point of light. However, all constellations that I observed seemed familiar—save that I confess that the sky as seen from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere is not too familiar to me. I spotted, I thought, Crux, the Southern Cross, and both the Magellanic Clouds; I was less sure of others.

  But there could be no doubt about Leo and Cygnus and the square of Pegasus and others that decorate the night sky of Arizona and anywhere in northern latitudes.

  “Copilot? Where are we?”

  “Apparently in our home universe, Captain. And this time Taurus is on the correct side of Orion. I noticed.”

  “Yes, but where in hell is Sol? Deety, Hilda—we seem to have mislaid the Sun. Either of you see it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No, Cap’n Zebbie.”

  “Jake, I don’t like this a little bit. Is your next rotation set?”

  “Yes, Captain,” I acknowledged. “I set it up at once, pursuant to standing orders.”

  “Good. Keep your finger near the button. Science Officer, how does this fit your theory? I don’t recall listing a fictional universe that doesn’t have the solar system in it.”

  “Cap’n Zebbie, it could fit two of the four still left … or any one of a dozen that got three votes—especially any of that half a dozen that you might have listed. If you hadn’t had a ‘baker’s dozen,’ I think you said, tied in your mind. Were any of that baker’s dozen space-travel stories? Or groups of stories?”

  “Almost all of them.”

  “In that case we could be in any of several soi-disant fictional universes that take our own universe as a frame of reference … but far enough from the sun so that it appears as second- or third-magnitude. That wouldn’t have to be very far for the constellations to look familiar; our Sun is pretty faint as stars go. So this could be the Darkover universe, or Niven’s Known Space, or Dr. Williamson’s Legion of Space Universe, or the Star Trek universe, or Anderson’s world of the Polesotechnic League, or Dr. Smith’s Galactic Patrol World. Or several more. Did you have any of those in mind?”

  “All of them, I think—including some that I voted for. As you know.”

  “As you know, yes.”

  “Sharpie, you mentioned that there were two that this could not be? Care to name them? Or is that cheating?”

  “No, it can’t hurt to name them. The world of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Ta
ble, and the world of the Hobbits—The Fellowship of the Ring.”

  “Well … if we find ourselves in either of those, we leave quickly. No obstetricians. We’ll just mark them down as nice places to visit once our kids are big enough for travel. Jake, is there any point in staying here any longer?”

  “None that I see, Captain,” I answered.

  “I can see good reason to scram. Several of those space-opera universes can be pretty sticky. I don’t care to catch a photon torpedo or a vortex bomb or a negative-matter projectile or anything else, just through a failure to identify ourselves promptly. All hands, stand by to rotate. Execute!”

  This time we weren’t merely close; we were on the ground—and maybe I … perhaps Captain Zeb shouldn’t have asked Hilda what those other two were—possibly it affected the outcome. I found very persuasive her theory that we were not going places at random; these were all dream universes mutually shared … but in the too, too solid flesh.

  Charging straight at us was a knight in full armor, his lance couched in attack. I think it unlikely that a lance could damage Gay Deceiver. As may be, this “gentle knight” was unfriendly; I did not wait for orders but shouted, “Gay! Bounce!”

  Sighed with relief at sudden darkness and set the next rotation at once—and hoped that the captain would not notice that I had not done so before raising my head (as his standing order required).

  Either he had not or chose not to mention it; the captain’s next words were: “Thanks, Copilot. You were on your toes.”

  “Thank you, sir. Next rotation set. End of group three. Back to the neighborhood of Mars.”

  “I suppose we might as well get on with it. All hands ….”

  “Zebadiah!” my daughter interrupted. “Captain, I mean. Is that all that we are going to see of the Round Table? And King Arthur and his knights?”

  “Deety, that wasn’t one of King Arthur’s knights. He was wearing full-plated mail. Didn’t anyone else notice?”

  “That’s my impression,” my beloved wife agreed. “But I gave more attention to his shield. Field sable, argent bend sinister, in chief sun proper with crown, both or.”

  “Sir Mordred,” my daughter decided. “I just knew he was a baddie. Dear, you should have hit him with your L-gun. Burned him down.”

  “And killed that beautiful beer-wagon horse? A Percheron. Or maybe a Clydesdale. Deety, I do know something of the history of arms and armor. That sort of armor wasn’t made earlier than the fifteenth century, five hundred years or more after the days of King Arthur. If he ever lived.”

  “Then why was he carrying Sir Mordred’s shield?”

  “Heraldry is not a subject I know. Sharpie, was that Sir Mordred’s coat of arms?”

  “I don’t know, Cap’n Zebbie. I simply blazoned what I saw. But aren’t you nit-picking in objecting to plate armor merely because it’s anachronistic?”

  “But history shows clearly that—”

  “That’s the point, Zebbie. Camelot isn’t history; it’s fiction.”

  Our captain was silent a moment, then said, “Shut my big mouth.”

  “Barsoom was loaded with anachronisms; so was Oz. Zebbie, I venture to guess that the version of Camelot we blundered into is a patchwork of all of our concepts of King Arthur and the Round Table. I picked up most of mine from Tennyson, then revised them from end to end when I laid hands on Le Morte d’Arthur. Where did you get yours? There is a great variety, much of it contradictory, to choose from.”

  “I haven’t read either of the two you named. Um, I guess Mark Twain gave me most of mine—at least—A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court was my major introduction. Add on some Prince Valiant, too. I don’t know. I read some kids’ stories, too—but the Connecticut Yankee stands out. Jake?”

  I said, “Captain, there seems little doubt that there was indeed a king or a general named Arthur or Arturius or some such. But I think most people think of King Arthur from fiction having little or no connection with the historical person, if indeed there ever was one. The Sword in the Stone and The Once and Future King are my favorites. Although I’ve dabbled in others.”

  My daughter persisted, “I do believe in the Round Table, I do! We were just there—why don’t we go back and look? Instead of guessing.”

  “Deety,” our Captain said gently, “first, because you and Hilda are not going to be subjected to fifth- or ninth-century midwifery, or whatever it is. Second, because the jolly, murderous ways of that gang of roughnecks called the Knights of the Round Table are fun to read about but not to know socially. That bloke would have killed us if we hadn’t been safe inside this car. Nor are people the only dangers. There would be honest-to-god dragons, and wyverns, and malevolent magic—not the Glinda-the-Good variety. We’ve learned—so far—the easy way that these alternate worlds are just as real as the one we came from. I don’t want to learn it the hard way by getting suddenly dead.”

  “Jacob,” said my wife, “suppose this party were made up of people who don’t like fanciful stories and never read them. What sort of rotation worlds would they find?”

  “I don’t know, Hilda. I venture to speculate that they would visit only humdrum slice-of-life universes indistinguishable from the real world. Correction: substitute ‘Universe-Zero’ for ‘real world’—because, as the captain pointed out, all these worlds are equally real.”

  “Jacob, why do you call our universe ‘Universe-Zero’?”

  “Eh … for convenience, I suppose.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Didn’t you tell me once that no frame of reference is preferred over any other? In other words, each of one of the Number of the Beast is equally zero-zero in six axes?”

  “Well … theory requires it.”

  “Then we are simply fiction in all those other myriad universes. Or have I reasoned incorrectly?”

  I was slow in answering. “That would seem to be a necessary corollary. But I would want to give it much thought. It’s a disturbing idea. The notion that we ourselves are merely figments of imagination.”

  “I’m nobody’s figment!” my daughter protested. “I’m real, I am! Pinch me! …. Ouch! Hey, Hillbilly, not so hard!”

  “You asked for it, hon,” said the captain.

  “My husband is a brute. And I’ve got a cruel stepmother just like Snow White. I mean, Cinderella. And my Pop thinks I’m imaginary. But I love you all anyway because you’re all I’ve got.”

  “If you fictional characters will all pipe down, we’ll get this show back on the road. All hands, stand by to rotate. Execute!”

  Mars was where it should be. I felt more real.

  XXXVII

  Zebadiah

  “Next rotation set, Captain. Starting fourth group. Thirteenth rotation universe. Correct, Hilda?”

  “That’s what I have, Jacob. Camelot was number twelve.”

  “Check. Say when, Captain.”

  “Let’s catch our breaths first.” I stared out at the ruddy, barren, rugged face of Mars-Zero. “That piece of rock looks downright homelike. At least we’re back in our own universe. I feel like the sort of tourist who tries to cover thirty countries in a two-week vacation—then can’t remember anything but the hotel rooms. Shock. Not ‘future shock’ but something like it. Continue shock?”

  “Homesickness,” said Hilda. “Knowing that we can’t ever go back to Snug Harbor. Zebbie, it just doesn’t do to think about it … or you’ll find yourself crying in your pillow. But somewhere, somewhen, somehow, we’ll build another Snug Harbor. Won’t we, Jacob?”

  Jake reached back and patted his wife’s knee. “We will, dearest.”

  Deety said wistfully, “I’d like to see Kanakook.”

  “Deety, are you over that pioneer-mother jag?”

  “No, Zebadiah. I know what we have to do. But I can get homesick, too. Like you. Like Hilda. Like everybody but Pop.”

  “Correction, daughter. Count me in. I don’t miss Logan especially, but I don’t think Hilda misses Cal
ifornia ….”

  “Not a bit!”

  “Me, neither,” I agreed. “I just had a rented flat there. Didn’t count, no sentimental attachment. But Snug Harbor was home to all of us.”

  “True. I didn’t really hate the Panki—just feared them—until they bombed our home into a radioactive crater. Now I want to exterminate them. Utterly.” Burroughs added, “But we’ve got to find a new home first. Comfortable as this car is, we can’t live in it indefinitely.”

  “Check. Science Officer, your theory about rotation universes seems to be checking out on the nose. You have the list. Is there any reason to finish this schedule of rotations? Should we go directly to the axis?”

  “Cap’n Zebbie, I don’t know. But we haven’t been wasting our time. Granted that most rotations didn’t amount to more than sightseeing, if we hadn’t followed Jacob’s schedule, this car would not be nearly so comfortable. Do you know of another Ford duo that has two bathrooms?”

  “Hilda, I don’t know of one that has one bathroom. Yes, our space-warp special is not only a comfort—beats the hell out of a honey bucket!—but also it enables us to stay in space as long as our air holds out. And food. But air is the critical factor now.”

  “I thought that recharger widget Cart’s people made for us would pump up those air spheres?”

  “It will, but we have to be in the atmosphere of a planet with breathable air. Could be risky.”

  “It need not be,” Burroughs pointed out. “I can place us in Oz, or in Wonderland, in seconds. Sweet air, no danger.”

  “Gentlemen, Deety and I haven’t mentioned one more asset we have. Cap’n Zebbie, would you like a banana?”

  “There aren’t any more, Hilda. I ate the last one just before I buried our garbage. While you and Deety were washing dishes, just before we left Wonderland.”

  “Tell him, Deety.”

  “Zebadiah, Hilda and I salvaged all the picnic that was left, and washed the dishes, and put everything back in the basket. Hilda started to put it into the bottom of our wardrobe—and found that it was heavy. So we uncovered it and looked. Packed tight as it was when we left Oz. Six bananas—and everything else. Cross my heart. Go look for yourself.”