by Ward Wagher
Another melody came out of the vocoder as the Woogie sang, “Nothing could be finer than to be a pink mist in the morning.”
Edgar put his hand on his forehead as he shook. “I just never know what you are going to say.”
“The Woogie not know the words, but can hum the tune.”
Quintan burst into a full-throated laughter, then quickly rose to his feet and walked from the room. He had been on his third cup of coffee and was at capacity. The Woogie’s antics nearly caused him to have an accident.
“Is he going to see Arnold?” Forsenn asked.
“Oh, probably,” Sally replied as she looked her display with a broad grin on her face.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I am not completely sure how I allowed everyone to talk me into this,” Quintan Rogers grumbled as he studied the surroundings.
They stood downtown in a major city – at least it seemed such from the large buildings and busy streets. Groundcars shared the streets with horse-drawn carriages and the aroma of partially combusted hydrocarbons competed with that given off by the liberal provenance of horse droppings in the traffic.
“What is this place, anyway?”
“Follow me, Mr. Rogers,” Mrs. Wallace said.
They stepped from behind a short wall in an alley and moved out onto the sidewalk. He was dressed in an uncomfortable wool suit and Mrs. Wallace in a woolen suit-dress. Quintan held tightly to the large suitcase he carried and looked around nervously.
“We should have transportation shortly,” Mrs. Wallace said. “We are in Europe approximately six hundred years before your time, in a parallel universe, of course.”
“Are we safe here?” he asked.
“This is a police state, however, it is also very orderly. The papers you carry should keep you from being molested unnecessarily. If it becomes necessary, we can act independently. Although, as we studied this time-block, we concluded the risks were low.”
“How did you select this point?” he asked.
“We already had a base of sorts here. It seemed simplest to use what we already had in place,” the apparent old woman said. “We attempt to disturb the worlds as little as possible.”
A groundcar swung around the corner and rolled to a stop next to the curb in front of them. A man in some kind of a uniform climbed from behind the steering wheel and trotted around to open one of the back doors. He said nothing but tilted his head toward the vehicle as he looked at them.
“Is this our transportation?” Quintan asked.
“It would so appear,” Mrs. Wallace replied dryly.
Quintan bent down to see who the person was, sitting in the back seat of the ground car. Mrs. Marsden glared back at him.
“Yes, I guess this is our ride,” he commented.
“Please allow the driver to take care of your luggage,” Mrs. Wallace said.
The uniformed driver eased the suitcase from Quintan’s hand as they climbed into the back seat of the ground car. The driver placed the suitcase in the boot and slammed the lid. He climbed into the driver’s seat and with a crunch of gears launched them into movement.
“Where are we going?” Quintan asked.
Mrs. Wallace placed her hand on Quintan’s arm and shook her head. The driver said something in a guttural language. Mrs. Marsden replied. Quintan thought that he perhaps recognized some words from his conversations with Johann. Was this Germany?
After about ten minutes the driver pulled up in front of a large six-story building. Pennants of blood-red and black festooned the place. More men in uniform stood in front of the doors – clearly guards. Quintan grew more nervous. The driver once again got out of the car and trotted around to open the door for them.
“It would be better if you did not speak where the inhabitants of the world can hear you,” Mrs. Marsden said.
“This is Germany?”
“It is. Now be silent.”
The three of them climbed out of the car and walked up to the building. The guards recognized the driver and immediately stepped to the side and pulled open both doors for them. Quintan and the two ruBracks followed the driver into the building and down a hallway and through a doorway into the stairwell. Quintan had to trot down the stairs to keep up with the driver. The two ruBracks had no problems keeping up. It seemed they were more spry than their appearances suggested.
At the end of the basement hallway, two guards stood in front of a single door. They jumped to attention when the driver stopped in front of them. After a brief exchange, they opened the door. The driver motioned with his head for Quintan to walk in.
Quintan and the two ruBracks walked into was looked like a small apartment. The driver spun around and left the suite, pulling the door closed behind him.
“Now, Mr. Rogers,” Mrs. Wallace said, “you may speak. Please do not speak when any of the inhabitants of this world might hear.”
“My equipment?” he asked.
“Karl will bring it down to us,” Mrs. Marsden said.
“You will have freedom to work here without interruption,” Mrs. Wallace said. “When you have finished your observations, we will return directly from this room.”
Quintan looked around the room. “This is a primitive place. You are working here, Mrs. Marsden?”
The ruBrack nodded. “It is not so bad. I am helping a very good man and his family here. In this case, Mr. Forsenn’s experiment achieved some good. However, events are balanced on a knife-edge.”
“Your interaction with the people here introduces some risks,” Mrs. Wallace said. “You must not leave this apartment until you have completed your work. I cannot allow the good that Marsden has accomplished to be undone.”
Quintan nodded. “I think I understand. I shall be very careful.”
“Yes, and you must,” Mrs. Wallace said. “Marsden, you should return.”
The other ruBrack nodded and marched out of the room. A moment later the driver walked in carrying the suitcase. He gave Quintan a searching look and then marched out again. Quintan watched him leave, then turned to the suitcase. He bent over and eased it down on the floor so he could open it. He set the apparatus on the small table in next to the kitchenette.
“I guess there is no time like the present,” he said as he activated the comp term attached to the rest of the equipment.
“Very well,” Mrs. Wallace said. “Our observations indicate you will be undisturbed for several days. I return to prepare your meals. If you grow tired you may rest in the bedroom. That door there leads to the fresher.”
“You are leaving?” There was a note of panic in his voice.
“Remember, Mr. Rogers, we can step outside of time as you know it and view this universe in a panorama. I am but a snap of the fingers away. Remember how you arrived.”
Quintan smiled at her and also shivered. One moment he stood in the laboratory in Urbana and the next he was in this place. There was no sense of change other than a slight tingling of his skin.
He shrugged and sat down at the table. The wooden chair was not comfortable, but in every sense of the work the paladin was not paying for his comfort right now. As he began working he reflected on the differences between him and Edgar Forsenn. Edgar had a questing intellect. He constantly dreamt up one innovation or another. If he were here, he would be itching to sneak out and explore the streets of this ancient city.
Quintan was the conservative scientist of the group. His wife Sally was much like Edgar. But Quintan was content to take the discoveries of Edgar or Sally and work to fit them into his view of the cosmos. He smiled and shook his head. It was obviously for the best that the ruBracks refused to allow Edgar to make this trip, in spite of his vehement protests. He simply hoped he would be able to complete the project and return home to Sally. He thought about how far away he was and then thought about the poor man that Edgar had dragged across eight hundred years and heaven knew how many universes to land him in Urbana.
The days stretched out. Quintan spent long hours si
tting at the comp term and collecting thousands of terabytes of data from the structure of this universe. Mrs. Wallace would appear in the little apartment with a pop and quietly prepare delightful meals for him. Although he was preoccupied with his work, he concluded that the ruBrack had a gift for cooking. These were some of the best meals of his life.
He lost track of day and night. When he grew weary, he would retreat to the bedroom and a bed that always had fresh sheets, and a mattress that was awful compared to his home in Urbana. He accepted his situation with wry humor and probably worked harder than he had ever in his life. But the data he collected was amazing. The Woogie was correct. By moving to a different universe, he had a different perspective on the interstitial harmonic.
Then one afternoon… well, he thought it was afternoon. As he worked he became aware of a humming noise in the background. At first, he thought there was an electrical problem in the apartment. The electricity supply was variable and he sometimes heard distant hums and crackles. Then he decided his equipment might have developed a malf. With a start, he recognized the hum and watched as images of the room begin to split apart as though through a thousand mirrors. Next to him sat his doppelganger, another Quintan staring at him in astonishment.
This should not be happening, he thought. Although he had caught glimpses of what was now called the Forsenn Harmonic, this parallel universe seemed to live in quantum quietude. It now snapped back to normal and he had the presence of mind to study his equipment, which had obviously captured the event. But the instruments indicated a small harmonic that had nowhere near the amplitude of what this universe had just experienced.
A few minutes later the door to the apartment slammed open against the stops and a very angry man marched in and began shouting at Quintan. Quintan stood up and faced the man in the ugly brown suit and wondered what to do. His normal reaction was not to panic, but rather to try to analyze the situation. The other man suddenly stopped yelling and turned pale. The anger was now fear. He was staring at the three-dimensional display of the comp term and this was something clearly outside of the experience of this universe.
“Oh, Lordy,” Quintan muttered.
With a pronounced pop, Mrs. Marsden materialized in the doorway behind the other man. Hearing the noise, the man spun around and began yelling at Mrs. Marsden. She swelled up as though in anger. She spoke softly, but directly at him. He seemed to wilt as she spoke. He tried to argue, and she interrupted him in the same guttural tongue. Finally, he brushed past her and walked quickly from the room, past two wide-eye guards.
Mrs. Marsden turned back to Quintan. “So… it seems we have a problem, Mr. Rogers.”
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“I believe we can assume that the recent event has unsettled people.”
“It unsettled me,” Quintan said. “The equipment did not record anything like the kind of harmonic that should have caused the event.”
The ruBrack stared at him. “That is very bad. Have you collected a useful amount of information with your apparatus?”
“I believe I have. And I would like to get home to my wife.”
Mrs. Marsden chuckled softly. “I believe I can sympathize with that.”
There was a soft pop as Mrs. Wallace arrived. She was dressed in a pantsuit, which was normal in Quintan’s century, but not here. “Things are very unsettled.”
Mrs. Marsden looked at her. “It is going to require some effort for me to settle down Herr Schloss. We experienced a Forsenn Event here.”
“Things are unsettled across multiple universes,” Mrs. Wallace said.
“Sally,” Quintan said suddenly.
“We believe Sally is well,” Mrs. Wallace said.
“You believe?” Quintan repeated. For the first time, he began to feel the edges of panic.
“You must relax, Mr. Rogers,” Mrs. Wallace said. “I suggest you pack your apparatus and let us be on our way. Mrs. Marsden has much repair work required here. We must be out of her way.”
“We are all going to die, aren’t we?” he said.
The two ruBracks looked at each other but said nothing.
“Oookay,” Quintan said. “Let me get things packed up.”
Five minutes later Mrs. Marsden watched Quintan and the other ruBrack translate out of the universe. She stood, shaking her head, then turned to march upstairs to try to salvage her mission to the leader of the nation she was currently inhabiting.
Quintan Rogers gazed around the grassy meadow where he, Mrs. Wallace and the suitcase stood.
“Why did we stop here?” he asked.
Mrs. Wallace also looked around the meadow. Then she looked at Quintan.
“This is not where I intended to arrive, Mr. Rogers. Something is very wrong.”
“People keep saying that,” he rejoined. “I do not like it.”
“You are not alone in that, Mr. Rogers,” Mrs. Wallace said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The humming subsided and reality merged back together. Edgar Forsenn gripped the edges of his worktop and gritted his teeth. Ironically, he could feel the deep indentations left in the surface by Mrs. Wallace’s fingers during the last event.
“Gosh,” he muttered.
“Where did that come from?” Sally asked. “There wasn’t any warning, was there?”
She was enveloped suddenly in an indescribably horrid smell. She gasped and looked over at a very pale, trembling Woogie.
“So sorry, the Woogie,” Shuurely said. “To be unexpected events. Tear the universe apart.”
Sally shook her head and returned her attention to her comp term. She also tried to control her heaving stomach. Badly frightened Woogies could be rank.
“I do not know where that event came from,” Edgar said as he looked at his display. “There was just the barest blip of a harmonic. Based on what we have seen, it was not enough to trigger an event. Not even close.”
“To be sure,” Shuurely said, “something stinks.”
Both Sally and Edgar turned to stare at the Woogie.
“In a speak of mannering,” Shuurely continued. “This throws the forcept’s math to shambles.”
Edgar slowly swung his head from side to side. “This just gets worse and worse.”
Shuurely skittered over to Edgar’s workstation and placed a tentacle on his shoulder.
“Not to despair, Friend Cigar. Shuurely goodness and Cigar and Salacious will build new maths. Fix problems and universal happiness.”
“I sure hope you are right,” Sally said. “I have to say that I am badly frightened. I wish Quintan was here.”
Arnold Gingery walked quickly into the room. “I hope you know what you are doing. I just talked to the paladin and the whole world is in an uproar and what is that god-awful smell?” He ended his statement with a shout.
Sally looked back and forth between Arnold and the Woogie. Gingery looked at the Woogie and colored slightly.
“Uh, sorry, Shirley.”
“Shuurely,” the Woogie corrected.
“Listen, Arnold,” Sally said, “that most recent event did not show up on our instruments.”
“You do not know what caused it?”
“We do not know what is causing any of them. But this one just showed up.”
The laboratory directory wobbled over to a chair and sat down heavily. “I did not think it was possible to be even more frightened. What are we going to do?”
“What we have been doing,” Sally replied. “We track down the problem and fix it.”
“Is it even fixable?”
Sally glanced over to where Edgar Forsenn sat staring into the data display.
“Are you a believer, Arnold?”
“I do not know if I believe this team can pull off a fix or not.”
“No, Arnold,” she said. “Who do you worship?”
“Oh. It has been just one thing after another and I did not think about that...”
“Pay attention, Arnold! Listen. What we are se
eing is exactly what the Bible describes at the end of time. The bands holding matter together are loosened and the whole universe dissolves. But it will not happen unless Christ the King is standing astride the worlds. We do not have anything to worry about. Do you understand?”
She glanced over at the Woogie, and Shuurely watched her carefully.
“But… but, what about this?” Arnold swung his hand in an arc, describing the room.
“We have a problem,” Sally said. “It’s a bad one, and we have been selected to fix it. So, we must fix it. But this is not the time for panic.”
Arnold Gingery stared at her. Visibly he shook himself. Without another word, he turned and strode from the room.
“Very encouraging, Salacious one,” Shuurely said. “You do well.”
“That is Sally!” she snapped.
“Whatever.”
“And about this much more,” she held up her hand with her thumb and index finger a quarter inch apart, “and I will run screaming from the building. Oh, I need Quintan here. I need his calmness. He never gets excited.”
Shuurely turned back to the comp term. A slight buzz from the vocoder indicated a pause, something like a human putting a thumb against his lips and saying, “Hmm.”
“If the theory does not match the observed factoids, change the Matts, math.”
“What?” Edgar asked.
“We must rebuild the math,” Sally interpreted.
“I spent ten years developing this model,” Edgar said. “I cannot just throw it away.”
“Then you are in love with your model,” Sally said.
“Always hard to say goodbye,” the Woogie contributed.
“Oh, thanks, Shuurely,” Edgar said, dryly sarcastic. “Just what I needed to hear.”
“He is right, Ed,” Sally said.
“Oh, I know.”
He got out of his chair and walked over to look at the equations covering the wall. He put his hands on his hips as he looked at a decade’s work.
“All right, Sally, clear the board.”