“Safer that way,” he had told Keith.
In her bedroom, Rayna removed her work clothes and deposited them in a closetron bin. Moments later, she opened the bin’s lid to verify that the mechanism had done its job. The bin was empty, of course. She had no reason to doubt the closetron’s efficiency. As usual, it had broken the discarded clothing into its component elements, which it then stored for future use. Whenever you wanted something to wear, you’d pick something from the memory banks, and the closetron would construct it for you clean and ready to wear. And, of course, since you stored your measurements in the data banks, everything always fit perfectly. In all the years she’d been using closetrons, they had never failed, yet she habitually checked the bin each time. Maybe it was her old childhood fantasy that drove her. Maybe she was still hoping to catch a glimpse of myriad tiny elves making off with microscopic components of her old clothes and hiding them from the prying eyes of more trusting folk.
Calculating that she had time for a shower, she headed for the bathroom. Like Keith, she much preferred a true shower over the newest technological marvel, a body cleanser that operated on static electricity. Fortunately, her building, like Keith’s, was equipped with water recirculators. Otherwise, they would have no choice in the matter, in view of the ongoing need for water conservation in Southern California.
Quickly, she showered, dried herself, and selected her outfit for the evening: a bright blue jumpdress made of a soft, silky material. The garment had a flowing, ankle-length skirt and long, puffy sleeves secured at the wrist by tight-fitting cuffs.
Rayna examined herself in the full-length glass in her bedroom. Much too dressy for tonight, she thought. Better switch to pants mode.
She pressed a button-sized control device set into her left cuff. Released from its molecular prison by the activation of a pre-programmed valence shifter, the fabric of the skirt separated along the center front and back, from crotch to hem. Rayna rotated the controller a quarter turn and pressed again. The raw edges of the fabric, seeking a new molecular equilibrium, formed the lower half of the garment into fashionable trouser-legs and sealed themselves into a new molecular bond.
Rayna’s door alarm interrupted her self-evaluation to announce Keith’s arrival.
“I brought back Frederick’s tapes and papers,” he said, brushing past her to set the permastore container on the floor against the wall. “I have a lot to tell you. Tauber really has some—” He stopped in mid-sentence as Rayna finally caught his eye. “Wow!” he said appreciatively. “I like!”
“Well, thank you, sir,” Rayna replied with an exaggerated curtsy. “I thought the dress mode might be a little too much for an art exhibit, even for the opening of Rafe’s one-man show. What do you think?”
She executed a slow turn, enjoying Keith’s attentions.
He rubbed his chin and considered the question with much more seriousness than it had been posed.
“You look fine to me just the way you are.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Come on. We’d better get going.”
***
The exhibition was an ordeal for Keith. He managed to cope with the space settings. He knew that, like the one Rafe had given Aurora for use in the dining room at Eduardo’s, such scenes were securely anchored to reality. As the exhibition brochure pointed out, Rafe had been a navigator in the Merchant Fleet before taking retraining to become an artist. Somehow, Keith told Rayna, that knowledge helped him keep his bearings.
The abstract environments were an entirely different matter.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he whispered desperately after they’d made their way through one particularly vivid abstract, a geometric treatment featuring overlapping, multicolored, solid-looking shapes among and through which Keith and Rayna were expected to walk. The cubes, spheres and other holographic constructs of the work were supposed to lift observers into a surreal plane of consciousness, but all Rafe’s creation did for Keith was induce acute disorientation and budding nausea. A short time later, they said their farewells to Rafe and Aurora.
“Thank God!” Keith groaned as he flopped onto the couch back in Rayna’s apartment. “Finally, there’s something as solid as it looks!”
“How’s the stomach?”
Keith waved a hand in disgust. “I was fine as soon as we left the exhibition. What makes those idiots in the art world go wild over stuff like that?”
Rayna joined him on the sofa and took his hand. “Well, it wasn’t all so bad. Even you liked that portrait of Aurora against the background of stars.”
Keith rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t make up for—”
“Poor darling,” she crooned. “Shall I kiss it and make it all better?” With a gentle touch, she kissed his forehead, then his chin, then his nose.
“That’s not exactly the sort of kissing I need,” he said, pulling her to him and forcefully exploring her mouth with his lips and tongue. Despite her surprise over Keith’s unexpected aggressiveness, Rayna began to respond. Not quickly enough to suit Keith, however. He dragged her down onto the floor, his fingers groping for the garment release at the back of her neck. In rapid succession, he activated the release and yanked the top of the jumpdress down over her breasts to the sound of ripping fabric.
Rayna was appalled and frightened by this stranger who looked like Keith Daniels. Still, the look, the smell, the feel of him told her it was Keith. And, despite her horror at his behavior, a part of her wanted him as much as he wanted her.
But not like this, she realized. Not like this!
Somehow, she succeeded in pushing him off of her. “Stop it!” she shouted, rolling away and gathering the tattered remains of her jumpdress around her. “When did you start getting off on rape!”
Keith’s eyes blazed. “Maybe when you became a whoring tease!”
Rayna stared at him in shock as his reddened face suddenly went white. In the slowly lengthening silence, he shielded his eyes. “Oh jeez, Ray! I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
Without a word, Rayna rose, pulled the remnants of her jumpdress more tightly around her and headed for the bedroom. A moment later, Keith followed.
“I said I’m sorry,” he insisted, grabbing her arm and twisting her around to face him. “You’re hurting me,” she said quietly, gazing deep into his eyes.
With a start, he released her. He stared, shamefaced, at the deep red impressions his fingers had left on her arm.
“My God,” he whispered. He reached slowly toward the marks but then jerked his trembling hand away and looked desperately around the room.
“I need a shower,” he finally said. He was already in the bathroom before Rayna could respond. The steady sound of the water helped relax her as she slipped into a robe, but she couldn’t rid herself of the knot in her stomach.
She wandered back into the living room and placed the returned permastore box on the coffee table. She was shifting the contents about aimlessly, trying not to think too much about what had happened when the rush of the shower spray suddenly fell silent. She pretended not to notice the opening and closing of doors, and she resolutely refused to react when Keith came up behind her and kissed the back of her neck.
“I really am sorry for all that, Ray,” he said. “I don’t know why it happened.”
She turned to look at him, examining his face as if it were a treasure map, concealing some hidden clue to a mystery she couldn’t even guess. Seeing no answers, she looked away.
“Ray, I....” He broke off, unsure of what to say next. “I’ll get dressed and go.”
As he turned to retrieve his clothes, Rayna caught his hand, then pulled away as if jolted by a static electric charge. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” she said solemnly. “The world’s changing. Maybe we’re changing, too. I don’t much like it. But the one thing I’m sure about despite what happened is that we have a better chance of dealing with it all if we stick together.”
He smiled and held out his arms, but s
he shook her head. “Not yet, Keith,” she said. “I’m not ready for you to touch me just yet.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet. “Let me stay the night, Ray. I won’t bother you. I promise. Let me try to make things up to you.”
Rayna drew a deep breath and studied his face once more. “All right,” she finally agreed. “You can stay. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to figure out what’s going on.”
Chapter 19: Crisis of Faith
“They fired two of our teachers,” Rayna told Keith the next morning, “just because they had relatives in the colonies.”
“Oh?”
Rayna nodded. “Bob Carlson says he’s been getting phone calls about my field trip to the Milgrom-Rensselaer debate, too.”
Keith had no trouble reading the message in Rayna’s chilly manner: Allowing him to remain in her apartment last night didn’t mean that things between them were settled. She doesn’t trust me anymore, he thought. But then, why should she? Hell, I’m not sure I trust myself. He fixed his gaze on the Trans-Mat Food Service menu.
“Don’t you want your usual bacon and eggs?” she asked.
“Yeah. Sure. That’ll be fine.”
She punched in their selections. “I think I’ll try gualatur.”
Keith couldn’t help laughing. “What? You? You’re going to have gualatur? I thought you hated colonial food.”
“I decided I should give it another chance. After all, I’m giving you....” Rayna stared at Keith briefly, then turned her face away. “Aurora says the merchanters used to love gualatur whenever they had the chance to get it in the Asteroid Belt,” she said. “I just thought it might be worth another try.”
Before he could respond, the food materialized on the Trans-Mat platform. He helped Rayna move the dishes to the table, and they began to eat.
“This stuff really isn’t bad,” she said, picking unenthusiastically at a brown, lumpy mass on her plate.
Keith pressed his lips together and tried to hold his breath, but a chortle escaped despite his best efforts to stifle it. Rayna glanced up as he fought to control his reaction. A moment later, she covered her mouth and began to chuckle. Slowly, the chuckle grew and expanded until it resolved itself into the kind of breath-stealing, eye-tearing laughter that can shatter the coldest reserve.
“How can Aurora and the others stand this stuff?” she gasped.
Keith shook his head. “I have no idea. I tried it for the first time just recently—over at Tauber’s place. He and Barnard seem to like it, too. Me? I think I’d rather starve!”
“Maybe space does something to your taste buds,” Rayna said. “Hard-cooked squawker eggs served in some goo made from unpronounceable, hydroponically grown grains? No thanks. I think I’ll go back to bacon and eggs!”
“Right away, madam,” Keith said, quickly ordering a serving for her.
A calm enveloped them as they finished their meal. The laughter seemed to have a cleansing effect. What got into me last night? The unanswered question nagged at Keith, but he tried to shove it aside. Right now, he was just grateful for the thaw in Rayna’s demeanor. Eventually he’d win her back completely. It’s for damn sure I’ll never let anything like that happen again.
“Thanks for bringing back the permastore,” Rayna said after breakfast. “It means more to me now than ever.”
“I understand. A legacy from your grandfather.”
Rayna nodded. “Did you go through everything? All the tapes?”
“Listened to every one of them,” he told her. “Went over the papers pretty thoroughly, too. I think I finally have some idea of just what Mr. Al Frederick was doing all those years. Probably a better idea than he ever had himself.”
Rayna tilted her head to one side and waited for him to continue. “Go on.”
“It’s pretty complicated stuff, Ray. Like I said, I think I have a pretty good idea about what was happening, but there’s no way to prove it, and the only guy who could be considered an expert died 49 years ago.”
“You mean that physicist, ‘Azey,’ or whatever his name was?”
“Yes. Alec Zorne. I don’t think even he really knew what he was on to. I have the advantage of later research into basic physics, research that validated a lot of Zorne’s early work.”
Rayna looked carefully at Keith. “I get the feeling that you don’t think I’ll be able to understand you.”
Keith rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not exactly that. It’s more that I’m not sure I know how to say it so that you’ll understand what I think I understand....”
Hearing his own words, Keith frowned, then heaved a sigh. “Oh, hell, I don’t think I can confuse you much more than I just did.”
“You’re probably right,” Rayna said, “so please give the explanation a try.”
He rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes. First of all, do you remember much about the tapes where Al talks about Zorne’s theories?”
“Just a little,” Rayna said. “I can listen to the tapes again, now that you’ve brought them back, but I guess I could do with a short refresher course right now.”
Keith nodded. “Well, basically, Zorne’s theory involved two things: unusual oscillations associated with psychic activity, and something he called a person’s ‘reality matrix’.” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “A reality matrix is a mathematical construct that Zorne developed to reflect a person’s value system.”
Rayna’s brow was creased in concentration. “How in the world could he reduce a person’s value system to a mathematical construct?”
Keith shrugged. “I’m not sure just how he did that. After all, what we have here are Al Frederick’s papers, not Alec Zorne’s. The stuff is incomplete as far as Zorne’s methods are concerned. All I know is that Zorne assigned numerical values to attitudes—positive and negative—about certain key issues that he believed were basic to human values.”
Rayna arched her eyebrows and shook her head. “Sounds like this Zorne character had a pretty high opinion of himself. Takes quite an egotist to figure he can reduce the human spirit to a bunch of numbers.”
“I don’t think he was an egotist, Ray. Probably closer to a genius. Take a look at his book on reality-matrix physics when you get the chance. He picked his list of attitudes based on the work of leading experts in psychology, sociology and other fields, too. Very eclectic. Anyway, he recognized the fallibility of his system. Remember, he told your grandfather he was still refining his technique for quantifying the matrix, and....”
Rayna put her hands to her head. “Okay, Keith, I’ll take your word for it. Hmmmm....”
“What is it?”
She tapped her lips with a forefinger. “I was just wondering why he called it a ‘reality matrix’.”
“He explained that in his book. Zorne believed that people’s values affect the way they perceive reality. You remember the old story about the optimist and the pessimist and the half-glass of water?”
“Sure. The optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says it’s half empty.”
“Right. But Zorne thought a person’s reality matrix could make even more fundamental differences in the perception of reality.”
Rayna closed her eyes and took a breath. “Okay. Now what does all this have to do with Al—I guess I’m still not quite used to the idea of calling him my grandfather—what does this have to do with Al and whether he was really able to change reality?”
Keith ran his fingers through his hair and tried to arrive at a way of explaining the process clearly.
“According to Zorne, certain types of psychic phenomena occur when oscillations in the brain of a ‘sender’ cause harmonic vibrations in the mind of a ‘receiver.’ Zorne believed—and this was consistent with information available in his day—that strong emotions sort of supercharge the process.”
“You mean, emotions act like a kind of amplifier?”
“That’s the general i
dea,” Keith agreed. “Zorne found that the emotional boost was strongest when something conflicted with a person’s reality matrix. In Al Frederick’s case, that reality matrix apparently included some pretty intense feelings about the world at large.”
“Hmmmm, yes, that sounds like Al,” said Rayna. “We used to have these long talks about the way the world was when he was younger. Even just talking about the past, he could get pretty worked up. I know he got a big kick out of the fact that so many of the things he’d hoped for years ago wound up coming true, even though all the ‘experts’ of the late Twentieth Century used to call his dreams impossible. Things like world peace and a truly United Nations, for example, and....”
Rayna scratched her head. “What does that have to do with— Wait a minute! Are you saying that Al’s ideals gave him the psychic power to change the world?”
“Not exactly, Ray. That’s an oversimplification. His latent psychic ability was triggered when something conflicted with his reality matrix—like when John Martin Roberts was shot. The bigger the conflict, the stronger the psycho-affective spike. It’s true that those spikes affected reality, but your grandfather figured the changes were all completely his doing—that whenever he got upset about something, the world would just change to suit him.”
“Well,” Rayna began, “that’s what you seem to be saying. That’s not right?”
“No, there was more to it. Zorne’s papers show that one person alone can’t provide enough psychic energy to change reality. What happened was, a psycho-affective spike from your grandfather would cause harmonic vibrations in the mind nets of people with compatible reality matrices. All these vibrations together molded reality into a pattern consistent with his reality matrix.”
Keith waited for Rayna to comment. When she didn’t, he filled the silence with his own speculations. “Now, if the Everett-Wheeler-Graham interpretation of quantum mechanics applies here, it’s possible that the combined psychic vibrations split reality into two coexisting branches. Of course, under that theory, there’s also some branch of reality where Roberts was never even born!”
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