ruBracks, Nazis, the Death of the Universe & Everything (The Parallel-Multiverse Book 1)

by Ward Wagher

  His was just drifting off when the door slid open.

  “Cleo,” Marla hissed. “Get up. We are going.”

  Being caught in that twilight world between sleep and wakefulness, he was confused. She marched into the room and whipped the covers off him.

  “Get up!” she whispered more loudly. “If we hang around we will get caught again.”

  How had she managed to fool the ship’s computer once again? He finally moved into action and quickly pulled his shirt and pants on. He stepped into the slippers he was wearing when Simpson had arrested them. They had no other clothes aboard.

  “Where are we going?” he asked in a normal voice.

  “Quiet,” she hissed. “Just follow me.”

  She looked in both directions and slipped into the corridor. She quickly padded towards the engineering section and he had to trot to catch up with her. She continued past the door to the engineering spaces and to the end of the stub of a corridor along the side of the engineering deck. She began to manipulate the controls on the hatch that opened to the lifeboat. He grabbed her arms.

  “Wait,” he said. “That hatch has an alarm on it. It will be loud enough to wake the dead.”

  She elbowed him and pulled her arms free. “While you were sitting around I did my homework. The AI would no longer give me control of the ship, so I convinced it that the ship had been taken over by pirates. It is allowing us to escape.”

  The hatch opened with a soft shush of air and they quickly stepped into the docking tube. She carefully closed the hatch and turned to the hatch on the lifeboat. It quickly opened for her and they slipped into the small craft. Turning right she made her way to the cockpit and he followed. She pointed him to the copilot’s couch and she claimed the pilot’s seat.

  “How?” he asked.

  “I told you. I convinced the computer to let us loose.”

  “I couldn’t get the AI to talk to me,” he said.

  “You must not have tried hard enough.”

  “Will it allow us to launch the boat?”

  “Notice the systems are all up. Now, buckle in. The launch is always a little rough.”

  “Clevis Oates is going to be surprised,” he said. “Again.”

  “Clevis Oates is an idiot!” she snapped. “And it’s very fortunate for us he is. Now hold on.”

  She flipped a transparent cover over a 2-inch red button and then pushed it. They were slammed to one side as the thrusters jettisoned them from the Kingdom’s Advance. Her fingers danced over the controls and the propulsion engaged. She rotated the craft about 90 degrees to port and accelerated rapidly away from the starship.

  “Will they not simply run us down by the tracking radar?” he asked once he had caught his breath again.

  “Since the AI was convinced we were fleeing pirates, I instructed it not to show our trace on their tracking screens. In fact, the AI will not notify them that the lifeboat is gone.”

  “They will figure it out sooner or later. Especially if they heard the launch.”

  “Yes, they will,” she said. “Before then, we are going to become a hole in space. While they are fruitlessly looking for us, I will need to figure out where we are and prepare a course.”

  “I am really glad I married a pilot,” he said feelingly.

  “You are not just along for the ride, Cleo,” she snapped. “We had better decide what we are going to do when we get back to Earth. You can bet the paladin will come after us and his track record is pretty good.”

  “Can you set us down in the Carolina Free State somewhere?”

  “And probably get shot out of the sky on the way in. No, I thought we would head for Mars. The Governor-General’s family owns Red Sky Station. If we dock there, I am hoping to get to someone quickly enough that they do not transmit our arrival. The paladin’s intelligence group is fiendishly good at picking up communications. I know some people at Red Sky. If I send an oblique message to Uncle Jarvis, maybe we can get out of this in one piece.”

  “That is a lot of ifs, Marla.”

  “Yes, and if we do not get someone with some sanity looking at the laboratory in Urbana, we will certainly be dead. I do not know about Clevis Oates, but did you notice the look of David Simpson’s face when he arrested us?”

  “He did not arrest us, he abducted us.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “The paladin is playing for keeps. Well, we do not have anything to lose either.”

  “Do we have the range to make it to Earth at full power?” he asked.

  “Mmm. I am not sure,” she said. “It would be close. Why?”

  “How about if we land directly at the laboratory in Urbana and hold the scientists hostage until your Uncle Jarvis can get a look at things.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “I think it might be our best chance to keep the paladin at bay and also accomplish something at the same time. If we run full tilt to Earth, they probably will not be able to mobilize anything to stop us. You know how slack the Customs group is. And the Navy normally sits with cold drives when they are parked in orbit. I think that might be our smartest solution.”

  “The question is whether we can get far enough without the ship finding us, and catching up.”

  “Okay, when were you planning to cut the drives and go quiet?”

  She looked down at the controls and the screen showing the beacon of the Kingdom’s Advance. “Well, we could do it at any time.”

  “Then do it.”

  She shrugged then sent the commands to shut down the drives. “Now we wait.”

  § § §

  Quintan awoke to stillness. The winter wind seldom stopped howling, but it was quiet now. He had grown used to Mrs. Wallace adding fuel to the fire during the nights and he usually slept through the ruBrack’s activity. He still had a problem visualizing Mrs. Wallace as anything other than an old woman. But she was stronger than he. And he had never seen her sleep. She was moving around now.

  He rolled out of his nest and struggled to his feet. He moved over to the doorway since his needs had become urgent. He pushed against the makeshift door and it refused to budge. Peering through one of the cracks he could see the blanket of snow that accumulated overnight. It looked as though the snow would come to his knees.

  “Do you need to go out, Mr. Rogers?” Mrs. Wallace asked.

  “Yes, and rather urgently, too.”

  “Stand aside, please.”

  The ruBrack pushed between him and the doorway. His vision seemed to blur momentarily, and then she eased the door open. He shook his head as he looked outside. For about a three-foot radius outside the door, there was no snow.

  “Can you make your way, Mr. Rogers?”

  “I believe so,” he said.

  The need for privacy had inculcated itself so deeply into his culture that Quintan found himself driven across the snow to the privy. Most people never spoke of using the fresher, and in fact really did not remember those periodic trips. With nothing much else to do in that frozen wasteland, Quintan measured his days by the trips outside. Even thinking about that, however, left him with a vaguely dirty feeling.

  When he returned to the cabin, a selection of cattails awaited him. After a satisfying breakfast, he fired up his apparatus.

  “I think we are ready,” he said. “Do you suppose we should bank the fire?”

  She snorted. “We are the only humans in this universe, I think. What happens to the cabin is really not important.”

  He shook his head. “I suppose you are right. Anyway, you must step close to me before I activate things.”

  “Why is this necessary? What will the beacon do?”

  “Oh, I have accomplished something further than that. I have figured out how to return us back to our multiverse. In fact, I have identified the coordinates of my universe.”

  “Is there enough energy in the device to accomplish this?” Mrs. Wallace asked.

  “What I have discovered is that in the transition, it is not the a
mount of power required, but how we use it.”

  “How did you discover that?” she asked.

  “It seemed to me that if a ruBrack can move between parallel universes simply through the energy in their bodies, then Edgar was horribly overpowering the transition. And that is why he caused so much destruction.”

  “Do you know how to dampen the harmonic, then?”

  “I think so.”

  “And are we ready?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  She stepped over to where he had arranged the equipment. “Very well, then, Mr. Rogers, let us be about it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Are you sure you are ready to do this?” the paladin asked.

  “The Woogie is ready,” Shuurely responded.

  Edgar glanced back and forth between Sally, the Woogie, Mrs. Tasker and the paladin.

  “Shuurely’s work compliments my work. With two independent development paths leading to the same conclusions, I feel pretty comfortable with the results.”

  “What about you, Sally?” the paladin asked.

  She looked at the floor and nodded slightly. “I cannot follow some of the math, but overall, it hangs together.”

  “I suppose we should not tarry too long,” Edgar said. “There is another harmonic building up, and it looks like it will be a big one. I think we ought to stop it before it triggers another event.”

  The paladin walked over to one of the empty workspaces and rolled a chair out. He sat down with a sigh.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t handle staying up all night as well as I used to. My wife was angry with me this morning.”

  “No one made you do that,” Sally said.

  “You needed your rest, and I did not want to leave the lab unattended. What do you think Mrs. Tasker?”

  “I must rely upon Edgar and Shuurely’s knowledge. The ruBracks really have no theoretical knowledge in this area. Moving between the parallel worlds is something we are just able to do. It is so much a part of what we are that we really have never given it a thought – at least until Mr. Forsenn’s original experiment.”

  “My only question is whether we could do some kind of a test to validate the theory,” the paladin said. “I would feel a lot better if that were the case.”

  “You are an accomplished cyberneticist, Sir,” Edgar said. “Have you ever been in situations where you simply had to enter the code and go?”

  The paladin smiled broadly. “That is why I asked. Several times I had to rapidly key a sequence of commands. Most of the time I got it right. One time I got it exactly backward.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Fortunately, I had time to reverse the command. But it was a desperate situation. I was pretty close to panic at that time. What happens if we get it wrong, Edgar?”

  “I suspect we would have a few moments to realize our mistake. I do not believe there would be time to reverse the process.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better about this,” the paladin said.

  “There is not a lot of time,” Edgar said. “We are going to have to make a decision.”

  He turned to look as the door to the lab slid open. “Who…”

  The paladin turned to look. “Oh, for crying out loud,” he exploded. “How did you two get in here?”

  Cleo and Marla Malthusian walked into the lab and stopped to survey the room. They were each carrying a pistol type of slug thrower.

  “I still happened to have my key-card, Paladin,” Cleo said.

  The paladin shook his head in disgust. “No, I mean, how did you get away from Clevis? Again.”

  “That is neither here nor there,” Marla said. “We are going to halt all work here until I can get my Uncle Jarvis to look at it.”

  “There is no time!” Edgar shouted. “We are at a critical phase. There is great danger.”

  “Yes, we know,” Marla said. “Your negligence has endangered the lives of billions. It is time that came to a halt.”

  “I think not,” Edgar said.

  “I suppose you can argue with me,” Cleo said, “but you cannot argue with this.”

  And he waved the slug thrower around.

  “You might want to be careful where you point that thing,” the paladin said. “Somebody might get hurt.”

  “Better that than killing everybody in the universe,” Marla said. “I think you all should step away from the equipment.”

  “Perhaps you should give some thought to what you are doing,” Mrs. Tasker said. “What if Mr. Forsenn is correct and you are wrong.”

  Cleo seemed to shrink back from the ruBrack. Marla waved the slug thrower at her.

  “Do not try to intimidate us, old woman,” she said. “We have seen enough to know that some very bad decisions were made here. It is time to correct things.”

  Then there came a sound like an enormous balloon popping in the room. Marla and Sally both shrieked. And Quintan and Mrs. Wallace stood in the middle of the group. Marla jumped and Cleo dropped his slugthrower. With a resounding boom, it fired and Forsenn pitched backward in a heap.

  Mrs. Wallace immediately marched over and wrenched the slug thrower from Marla’s hand. She then picked up the pistol from the floor.

  “I believe we are finished with the weapons.”

  “To help the Forcept,” Shuurely called.

  “Ed,” Sally yelled. She dropped to her knees next to him. “We need medical attention for him.”

  The Tasker settled to her knees next to Sally and reached out to touch Edgar. Then she shook her head. “I’m afraid Mr. Forsenn is beyond help.”

  The paladin looked over at Quintan. “I would say welcome home, Quintan, but given the circumstances...”

  Quintan shook his head. “I do not know...”

  And he was interrupted by a humming sound.

  “Oh, no,” Sally said. She quickly moved over to Edgar’s chair and sat down.

  “Wait,” Edgar said. “Do not use the apparatus. I have the solution.”

  “What?” Sally said.

  “What?” the paladin said.

  “What?” the Tasker said.

  “Baloney mahoney,” Shuurely said.

  “What is going on?” Marla shouted. “And where did you two come from?”

  The humming increased in volume. Quintan reached picked up his suitcase and carried it over to a work table and opened it up.

  “No!” Marla shouted. “You will destroy the universe.”

  The two ruBracks moved in close to the Malthusians and grasped their arms.

  “You can be still and watch, or we will take you out of here,” Tasker said.

  “You do not have any right to hold us,” Marla shouted again. Cleo merely looked frightened.

  The ruBracks looked at one another and nodded. With a pop, they disappeared, along with the Malthusians.

  “Where did they go?” Sally asked.

  “Who cares?” the paladin said.

  Quintan powered up his test gear and opened the comp term. “Just hang on, people,” he said, as the humming increased in volume. The people began to diverge into two, as did the objects in the room.

  “Come on, come on,” Quintan said. He typed madly on the keyboard, then twisted one of the floating icons.

  The humming began to decrease immediately and a few minutes later things were back to normal. Quintan looked around.

  “Sally, can you trace the sine wave?”

  She spun back around in the chair and typed a couple of commands. She studied the three-dimensional screen array.

  “It is gone. Completely. Did that fix it?”

  “I believe so.”

  With a pop, Mrs. Wallace re-entered the room. “It appears you were successful, Mr. Rogers.”

  “The Woogie wants to know what the Quintuplet did,” Shuurely said.

  Quintan looked at the bloody heap on the floor and shook his head sadly. “Poor Edgar. He was using a brute force approach and it ultimately would have failed. I was
able to reverse engineer what the ruBracks do when they move between universes. It really requires little energy, just a lot of finesse.”

  “I need to get some people in here to secure the lab,” the paladin said.

  “Indeed,” Quintan said. “The equipment here must be destroyed. It is dangerous. And we need to do something with poor Edgar.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “It is actually rather simple,” Quintan Rogers said. “The current position in this universe and time form a starting point. You enter the relative positions and time into the system and punch the button.”

  “That is not much different from what Ed did,” Sally commented.

  The paladin folded his arms and leaned back in the chair. They were gathered in the conference room – the Rogers, Shuurely, the paladin and Mrs. Wallace. David Simpson had brought in a dozen people from his operation to secure the building and clean up after Edgar’s death. Everyone was much more relaxed with the major problem solved.

  “The Woogie embarrassed,” Shuurely said. “Was sure of the right answer. Never been that wrong before.”

  Sally smiled at Shuurely. “I was wrong, too. Poor Ed completely missed it. I am just glad Quintan figured it out. And I am glad to have him back.”

  She was sitting close to him, and they appeared to be holding hands under the table.

  “Two questions remain,” the paladin said. “One is what to do with this body of research.”

  “You must secure it so that no one can ever utilize it again,” Mrs. Wallace said. “It is incredibly dangerous.”

  “Is that even possible/” Sally asked.

  “I do not think we can keep the secret,” the paladin said.