by Ward Wagher
“But how...” he trailed off.
She smiled at him. “I am ruBrack. The Maker placed me in Eisenach to be a help to you when you needed it.”
“I never thanked you. I am sorry.”
“That is thanks enough, Johann. Now we must attend to this business.”
He nodded, still looking shocked, and returned to his chair.
“Small universe,” the paladin commented as he turned to face the group of scientists.
“What we have is a delegation or a team of ruBracks,” Baughman continued, “I’m not sure which. They popped into my office, much as they did here, to ask my permission to utilize the Urbana laboratory team.”
“What is a ruBrack?” Arnold Gingery asked.
“Perhaps Mrs. Miller or Mrs. Wallace could explain that,” the paladin said.
Mrs. Wallace cleared her throat, sounding like some kind of dyspeptic beast. “As I explained to the paladin, we are created beings much as yourselves. We have been imbued with some additional talents and are not strictly temporal.”
“You exist outside of time?” Forsenn asked excitedly.
“Not precisely. We exist in what we call meta-time and can view the many parallel universes as a temporal panorama.”
“Is that how God views time?” Sally asked.
“No.” The answer was short and staccato. “The Maker created all things and wrapped it in a binding agent which we call meta-time. By Him all things consist. We are not able to penetrate the binding agent, nor do we wish to.”
Sally tilted her head and looked at the ruBracks. “Are you sinless creatures?”
Mrs. Marsden snorted. “Hardly.”
“We are part of creation,” Mrs. Miller said. “The fall impacted everything, including us. All of creation groans and travails because of sin.”
“But you are closer to God,” Sally persisted.
“Not closer,” Mrs. Miller said. “However, our relationship to Him is slightly different than humans experience. But, I am not allowed to explain further. While we are not completely unknown to humankind, we work better in the shadows.”
Quintan tapped on the table with his index finger. “For what purpose do you need the lab team?”
The ruBracks all looked at one another; then Mrs. Wallace spoke again. “We need the team to repair the damage you caused in the first place. The side-effects of that experiment have not subsided. In fact, the problems are increasing.”
“What do you mean?” Forsenn asked.
“The trans-temporal wave you created has seeded harmonics in space-time. When enough of the harmonics coincide, the universe at the center of the harmonic could well cease to exist.”
The humans in the room went pale and the area grew silent. Finally, Edgar Forsenn spoke again.
“What do you mean, cease to exist?”
“How is that even possible?” Gingery asked.
“Somehow the bindings of a given universe are released and it simply dissipates.”
“I somehow think it will be more violent than that,” Quintan Rogers said. There is a lot of energy binding matter together.”
“That may be,” Mrs. Wallace said. “You humans are actually better physicists than the ruBracks. That is why we need you on this project.”
“I don’t want to sound irreverent,” Sally said, “but why doesn’t God fix it? I mean, I am not sure why He would allow humans to do something like this in the first place.”
All five of the ruBracks glowered at Sally. Finally, Mrs. Wallace spoke again.
“This is something we do not understand. The Tasker gave us this project and also indicated the Maker was very interested in it.”
“Who is the Tasker?” the paladin asked.
“Someone very like you, Paladin,” Mrs. Wallace said. “But, perhaps without as much personal authority as you wield. And if you are honest you will agree that you have resources that, perhaps, none of us have.”
The paladin leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in thought. After a pause, he responded. “Perhaps, I do.”
“We may need those resources.”
“I plan to commit whatever resources that are necessary if it has to be said,” the paladin spoke in a dry tone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Edgar Forsenn cradled his head with his crossed arms on the desk in front of him. With the laboratory reopened, he had immediately plunged into the necessary research for reversing his last experiment. Now, in the middle of the second night, the waves of fatigue washed over him.
The initial euphoria of going back to work in the lab carried him through the first night. This was followed by deep frustration over making no progress. On the other hand, they had made no progress on a solution in the ninety days following the experiment before the paladin shut the lab down.
“Perhaps you should go home and sleep for a while, Mr. Forsenn”
He raised his head and looked at Mrs. Willow. It was hard to imagine the old bag as an alien creature, even though he several times had witnessed her popping in and out of the lab without using the door.
“Wha?” he slurred.
“You have been up all of one night and this much of the second. You need to rest. Can you tell me you are accomplishing anything at the moment?”
He shook his head. “I do not know what I was thinking to take on this project.”
“Go home. Sleep. Tomorrow will bring a fresh perspective.”
He dropped his head back to his folded arms. “Just a little nap. I will be fine.”
Mrs. Willow shook her head, as Forsenn began snoring. With a sigh, she marched over to his workspace.
Three hours later Quintan and Sally Rogers stepped into the room. Each carried a mug of coffee and a lunch bag. The project had ramped up again so quickly that Gingery had not yet had the food machines serviced. They looked around the brightly lit lab.
“I wonder where Ed has gotten to,” she said. “He obviously did not have enough sense to go home last night.”
“I took Edgar home,” Mrs. Willow said as she stepped around the corner. “He was in no condition to drive.”
“So, the rascal finally crashed, did he?” Quintan said. “He usually does his best work when he’s on the thin edge of total exhaustion.”
“I believe he was becoming somewhat frustrated with his progress,” Mrs. Willow said. “I was able to convince him that some rest was necessary.”
“And you have been here for two nights yourself, have you not?” Sally asked.
Mrs. Willow shook her head. “I have been able to slip away to rest.”
Sally cocked her head and studied the ruBrack. “Out in meta-time?”
Mrs. Willow glared at her. “One might say that.”
“You know, it would help the project immensely if we could research this from your perspective.”
“Humans are not able, nor allowed to cross the temporal boundaries. That is strictly forbidden.”
“It happened once,” Quintan said. He looked around, then walked over to his work area to set down his coffee and lunch bag.
“With Mr. Bach?” She raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you did not realize that Mr. Bach’s temporal crossing was not an isolated incident.”
“There were others?” Sally asked. “And were they caused by Edgar’s experiment?”
The ruBrack hesitated a moment. “There were hundreds; perhaps thousands. Mr. Forsenn’s experiment generated a far-reaching event.”
Sally placed her hands on her hips. “And you are only now telling us this? This is important datum. How do you expect us to work in the dark like this?”
“I am not obliged to tell you everything you ask.”
“You are not?” Sally’s voice started to rise. “Then what, pray tell, are you doing here? We have been back on the job for a week and your main contribution is to be inscrutable. I thought you ruBracks were supposed to help us.”
“I will not be spoken to in such a manner by a mere human.” Mrs. Willow’s teeth w
ere clenched.
From outside the building came the sound of thunder. Quintan stepped back involuntarily. “Sally.”
“And I refuse to be intimidated by a creature I have never heard of, masquerading as an old lady. I think you would be wise to sit down and start telling us everything you can about temporal theory.”
“I warn you,” Mrs. Willow said, “do not trifle with me.”
“Oh, I’m not trifling. I’m deadly serious.”
Quintan put his hand on Sally’s arm. “Sally, Sally, settle down.”
With the sound like a balloon popping, Mrs. Wallace appeared in the room. Quintan and Sally jumped. Mrs. Willow turned to glare at the other ruBrack.
“You are not scheduled here yet,” she said. “And your entrance was overly energetic.”
“Correct,” Mrs. Wallace said. “The Tasker sent me here to regain control of the situation. You nearly caused an irretrievable error in this universe.”
Mrs. Willow paled. “I did not.”
“Did you not study the risk parameters before you translated in here?”
Mrs. Willow said nothing.
Mrs. Wallace studied her for a few moments. “Very well. I will cover this compartment for now. You must depart.”
Without another word, Mrs. Willow disappeared with a light pop. Mrs. Wallace turned to the Rogers.
“You have my apologies for Mrs. Willow’s behavior. None of us are well experienced in this kind of situation.”
“I somehow received the impression that you people were part of the team,” Sally said.
“You are correct in that assumption,” Mrs. Wallace said.
“We are going to need to know as much as possible about how the ruBracks interact with the multiple universes,” Sally said. “Mrs. Willow has refused to discuss that.”
Mrs. Wallace nodded. “I was late in learning that. We are all very busy right now. I stand ready to help in any way possible.”
“What was that error in the universe you mentioned?” Quintan asked.
“Could we sit down?” Mrs. Wallace asked.
“Of course,” Quintan said.
He pulled two chairs out of the nearest work spaces, then stepped across the room and pulled a chair away from a test apparatus. Everyone sat down.
Mrs. Wallace cleared her throat. “The Tasker advised us to freely tell you anything you want to know from the ruBrack perspective. This was not received with universal enthusiasm. Nevertheless, we feel that any information we can provide to you increases the possibility of success.”
“That was how we understood the agreement,” Sally said. “What did we miss?”
“ruBracks are not perfect beings. We are redeemed such as you are. But we also have an old nature to battle. Many, no, most of us have difficulty controlling our wrath.”
“Mrs. Willow was very angry,” Sally said.
“Indeed. That is why I am here. Mrs. Willow was on the cusp of triggering an event which would have forked the universe along two divergent paths.”
“Doesn’t that happen anyway?” Quintan asked.
“No, by itself a universe will not fork, or split into two. However, when a ruBrack triggers such an event, an analogue to the ruBrack is created in the parallel universe. Both are then unable to return to meta-time.”
“So, she would have been trapped here?” Sally asked.
“Indeed.”
The three sat looking at each other as they considered the conversation.
“I suppose I need to ask,” Quintan said, “what the triggering event was.”
“Mrs. Willow attempted to destroy Sally,” she said. “In one universe, she succeeded in killing your wife. In the other, Sally was rendered a complete invalid.”
Quintan rocked back in his chair, speechless. Sally leaned forward towards the ruBrack.
“I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me. But did you not change time by doing so?”
“ruBracks are capable of changing the flow of time. However, it is grossly immoral for us to do so.”
“But, I thought that was your job.”
“No,” Mrs. Wallace shook her head. “Our job is to reinforce certain aspects of the temporal flow in a given universe to keep things stable and avoid forks. We are required to carefully study a given universe before we step into it, so that we do not inadvertently cause a disaster, such as Mrs. Willow nearly did, here.”
“Okay,” Quintan eased into the conversation, “so our universe, or time, is immutable, except by the actions of a ruBrack. Is that correct?”
“In the normal sense, yes,” Mrs. Wallace said. “Mr. Forsenn’s experiment made us realize there were other abnormal events that could affect the flow of time. That realization was unpleasant.”
“And given what you just told us,” Quintan continued, “the class of events that could possibly effect time as we know it are probably not limited to the two you just mentioned.”
Mrs. Wallace turned pale, and then she chuckled sourly. Quintan thought it sounded like a cat being sick. “You humans do seem adept at thinking of the worst of all possibilities. Nevertheless, I think you are correct. It is all the more reason why we must be very careful as we approach this task.”
“So, you just sent Mrs. Willow away?” Sally asked.
“No. She must now face the Tasker. She has been difficult before. And that is something I cannot explain further.”
“Okay,” Quintan said, “I would like to set up a meeting for the three of us on the project to sit down with you and learn as much as we can about temporal theory. It’s obvious that we understand enough of it to be incredibly dangerous.”
Mrs. Wallace snorted. “Some facts are incontrovertible. There is another individual I would request you include in this meeting.”
“And who would that be?” Sally asked.
“The paladin has an… associate, who is a skilled cyberneticist as well as being competent in physics.”
“Are you speaking of Josiah?” Sally asked. “Are you aware of his special situation?”
“That he is an artifact? Yes, we know that.”
“That is a state secret,” Quintan said. “Only a handful of people know he is a Cyberint.”
“We are aware of that as well.”
Quintan stood up. “Very well. Let me see if I can set up a meeting.”
“Meanwhile, Sally, perhaps I can help with your current research,” Mrs. Wallace said.
“Let me show you what I have been doing,” Sally said.
She stepped over to the wall and waved her hand past a sensor. A complex series of equations appeared on the wall.
“The equations and flow charts in red represent Ed’s theory. The blue indicates how it was implemented in the experimental apparatus.”
“And the black?”
“Those are my notes.”
Mrs. Wallace studied the chart. “Much of the math is beyond me. Perhaps you could give me an overview of what we see here.”
Sally nodded. “This area has us puzzled.” She pointed to a group of notes in black. “Ed’s theory starts to fall apart at this point. The math just does not hold up. You can see where the implementation notes diverge from the theory. The problem is that the machine’s performance does not match either the theory or his implementation notes.”
“Have you charted the performance of the machine?”
Sally nodded and swept her hand over the sensor again. A group of green equations flowed across the wall.
“You will note,” she said, “at this point the experiment took a path that diverged from both theory and how the machine was constructed.”
“Perhaps you could give me a thumbnail explanation of Edgar’s theory,” Mrs. Wallace said.
“It is esoteric, but let me try,” Sally said. “First of all, he was attempting to further develop the Berthold Singularity BOK.”
“Bach?”
“No, Bee Oh Kay. That means Body of Knowledge. Audry Clenèt developed the original equations and the scie
nce was further advanced by Laurence Berthold. Much of our current technology is based upon this work – from the grav fired fusion reactors to the Berthold Interstellar Drive. However, the equations are incomplete.”
“Incomplete in what way?” Mrs. Wallace asked.
“In each case the energy budget is off by a few tenths of a percent from what we actually measure. There is an energy bleed somewhere and it is not detectable. In the case of the Berthold Quantum Drive, some of the energy is thrown off in tachyons. We know that we are working with forces that affect the fabric of the universe. Ed was convinced that we could harness this energy and create a pipe that would allow us to view other epochs in time. And, events show that he was almost right.”
“And your notes here?” Mrs. Wallace pointed to the black equations on the display.
“When we realized we were dealing with a parallel universe, I began sketching some equations to fit that into his work. But nothing seems to fit.”
“How did you conclude there were parallel universes based upon the theory?” Mrs. Wallace asked.
“Oh, that was not from the theory. As you can see, the theory does not explain it. No, it was from simple deduction. Ed’s experiment pulled Mr. Bach into our world. Yet, our histories show Bach as having been born in 1685 AD and dying in 1750 AD. The answer to the contradiction seems to lie in the existence of a parallel universe.”
“That is understandable,” Mrs. Wallace said. “So, do your calculations accommodate that explanation?”
Sally sighed and stared at the equations along the wall. “No, none of it hangs together.”
“Is it better to continue to fight with the current equations, or possibly start over?”
“I think what we need to do is to quantify what we do know, and then work backwards. It does bother me, however, that Berthold’s work has served us well over the past several hundred years.”
“Then whatever solution you arrive at must coexist with Berthold’s work.”
Sally looked speculatively at the Mrs. Wallace. “So, did Laurence Berthold have a ruBrack influencing him?”
“He did. Mrs. Willow lived near him during the formative part of his career.”
“You people are spooky,” Sally said.