“That’s your position, Scholar Huld. But a thousand armspans underground, you could have disposed of the body in any number of places: putting it in an airtight bag to keep its smell from escaping, then throwing it down a fissure, burying it under loose rock, or tossing it into a rock-grinding machine. The mine complex is huge, after all, with tens of thousands of paces’ worth of tunnels and drifts. Surely you could have gotten rid of the body down there.”
“But I didn’t.”
“So you say.”
“Yes,” said Adikor, forcing calmness into his tone, “so I say.”
The previous night, at Reuben’s, Louise and Ponter had tried to devise an experiment that could prove to others whether what Ponter had claimed was true: that he came from a parallel world.
Chemical analysis of his clothing fibers might do it. They were synthetic, Ponter had said, and presumably didn’t match any known polymer. Likewise, some of the components of Ponter’s strange Companion implant would almost certainly prove unknown to this world’s science.
A dentist might be able to show that Ponter had never been exposed to fluoridated water. It might even be possible to prove that he’d lived in a world without nuclear [186] weapons, dioxins, or internal-combustion engines.
But, as Reuben had pointed out, all those things would simply demonstrate that Ponter didn’t come from this Earth, not that he came from another Earth. He could, after all, be an alien.
Louise had argued that there was no way life from any other planet would so closely resemble the random results evolution had produced here, but she conceded that for some, the idea of aliens was more acceptable, and certainly more familiar, than the notion of parallel universes—a comment that prompted Reuben to say something about Kira Nerys looking better in leather.
Finally, Ponter himself had come up with a suitable test. His implant, he said, contained complete maps of the nickel mine that was supposedly located near here in his version of Earth; after all, this had been the site of the facility where he worked, too. Of course, most of the major ore bodies had been found by both his people and the Inco staff, but, by comparing the Companion’s maps to detailed ones on the Inco web site, Ponter’s implant identified a spot it said contained a rich copper deposit that had eluded Inco’s detection. If true, it was precisely the sort of information that only someone from a parallel universe might have.
So now Ponter Boddit—they had learned his full name—Louise Benoît, Bonnie Jean Mah, Reuben Montego, and a woman Louise was meeting for the first time, a geneticist named Mary Vaughan, were all standing in the middle of dense woods precisely 372 meters away from the SNO surface building. With them were two Inco geologists, who were operating a core-sampling drill. One of them [187] insisted Ponter could not be right about there being copper at this spot.
They drilled down 9.3 meters, just as Hak had said they should, and the sampling tube was drawn back up. Louise was relieved when the diamond-tipped drill finally shut off; the grinding sound had given her a headache.
The group took the wrapped core back to the parking lot, everyone holding on to it at some point along its length. And there, where there was room to do so, the geologists removed its opaque outer membrane. At the core’s top, of course, was humus, and, beneath that, a glacial till of clay, sand, gravel, and pebbles. Below that, said one of the geologists, was Precambrian norite rock.
And beneath that, at precisely the depth Hak had said it would be found at, was—
Louise clapped her hands together in excitement. Reuben Montego was grinning from ear to ear. The doubting geologist was muttering to himself. Professor Mah was shaking her head slowly back and forth in astonishment. And the geneticist, Dr. Vaughan, was staring at Ponter with wide eyes.
It was there, precisely where he said it would be: native copper, twisted and bulbous, dull but clearly metallic.
Louise smiled at Ponter as she thought about the verdant, unspoiled world he had described to her the night before. “Pennies from heaven,” she said softly.
Professor Mah came over to Ponter and took his giant hand in hers, shaking it firmly. “I wouldn’t have believed it,” she said, “but welcome to our version of Earth.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Everyone except the geologists adjourned to a conference room at the Creighton Mine: Mary Vaughan, the geneticist who’d come up from Toronto; Reuben Montego, the Inco doctor; Louise Benoît, the SNO postdoc who had been on hand when the detector had been destroyed; Bonnie Jean Mah, director of the SNO project; and, most important of all, Ponter Boddit, physicist from a parallel world, the only living Neanderthal to be seen on this Earth since at least 27,000 years ago.
Mary had chosen to sit beside Bonnie Jean Mah, the only woman in the room who’d had an empty chair next to her. Holding forth, standing at the front of the room, was Reuben Montego. “Question,” he said in that Jamaican accent Mary found delightful. “Why is there a mining operation on this site?”
Mary herself had no clue, and none of those who obviously did know looked inclined to play games, but at last Bonnie Jean Mah replied. “Because 1.8 billion years ago,” she said, “an asteroid hit here, resulting in huge deposits of nickel.”
“Exactly,” said Reuben. “An event that happened long before there was any multicellular life on Earth, an event [190] both Ponter’s world and ours share in their common pasts.” He looked from face to face, coming at last to Mary’s own. “One has little choice in where mines will be built,” Reuben said. “You put them where the ores are. But what about SNO? Why was it built here?”
“Because,” said Mah, “the two kilometers of rock over top of the mine provide an excellent shield against cosmic rays, making it an ideal location for a neutrino detector.”
“But it’s not just that, is it, ma’am?” said Reuben, who, Mary assumed, had become quite the expert thanks to the help of Louise. “There are deep mines elsewhere on the planet. But this mine also has very low background radiation, right? In fact, this site is uniquely qualified for housing instruments that would be adversely affected by natural radiation.”
This sounded reasonable to Mary, and she noted that Professor Mah nodded once. But then Mah added, “So?”
“So,” said Reuben, “in Ponter’s universe a deep mine was also built on this very spot, to excavate the same nickel deposits. And eventually he himself recognized the value of the site and convinced his government to set up a physics facility underground here.”
“So he would have us believe that there’s a neutrino detector at the same place in the other universe?” asked Mah.
Reuben shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, there isn’t. Remember, the choice of using this facility for a neutrino observatory also had to do with a historical accident: that Canada’s nuclear reactors, unlike those of the U.S. or the U.K. or Japan or Russia, happen to use heavy water as a moderator. That set of circumstances isn’t duplicated in [191] Ponter’s world—in fact, they don’t seem to use nuclear power. But this underground facility is equally good for another very delicate kind of instrument.” He paused and looked from face to face, then he said, “Ponter, where do you work?”
Ponter replied, “Dusble korbul to kalbtadu.” And the implant, using its male voice, provided the translation: “In a quantum-computing facility.”
“Quantum computing?” repeated Mary, but feeling uncomfortable doing so; she wasn’t used to being the most ignorant one in the room.
“That’s right,” said Reuben, grinning. “Dr. Benoît?”
Louise got up and nodded at the M.D. “Quantum computing is something we’re just starting to play with ourselves,” she said, pushing hair out of her eyes. “A regular computer can determine the factors of a given number by trying one possible factor to see if it works, then another, then another, then another: brute-force calculation. But if you used a conventional computer to factor a big number—say, one with 512 digits, like those used to encrypt credit-card transactions on the World Wide Web—it would
take countless centuries to try all the possible factors one at a time.”
She, too, looked from face to face, making sure she hadn’t lost her audience. “But a quantum computer uses superposition of quantum states to check multiple possible factors simultaneously,” said Louise. “That is, in essence, new short-lived duplicate universes are spun off specifically to do the quantum calculation, and, once the factoring is complete—which would be virtually instantaneously—all those universes collapse back down into one again, since, [192] except for the candidate number they tested to see if it was a factor, they’re otherwise identical. And so, in the time it takes to try just one factor, you actually get them all tried simultaneously, and you solve a previously intractable problem.” She paused. “At least, until now, that’s how we’ve believed quantum computing works—relying on the momentary superposition of quantum states effectively creating different universes.”
Mary nodded, trying to follow along.
“But suppose that isn’t how it really happens,” said Louise. “Suppose that rather than creating temporary universes for a fraction of a second, a quantum computer instead accesses already existing parallel universes—other versions of reality in which the quantum computer also exists.”
“There’s no theoretical basis for believing that,” said Bonnie Jean, sounding annoyed. “And, besides, there’s no quantum computer at this location, in the only universe that we know does exist.”
“Exactly!” said Louise. “What I propose is this: Dr. Boddit and his colleague were trying to factor a number so large that to check every possible factor of it required more versions of the quantum computer than there were in separate already existing long-term universes. Do you see? It reached into thousands—millions!—of existing ones. And in each of those parallel universes, the quantum computer found a duplicate of itself, and that duplicate tried a different potential factor. Right? But what if you were factoring a huge number, a gigantic number, a number with more possible factors than there are parallel universes in which the quantum-computing facility already [193] exists? What then? Well, I think that’s what happened here: Dr. Boddit and his partner were factoring a gigantic number, the quantum computer found its siblings in all—every single one—of the parallel universes in which it already existed, but it still needed more copies of itself, and so it went looking in other parallel universes, including ones in which the quantum-computing facility had never been built—such as our universe. And when it reached one of those, it was like hitting a wall, causing the factoring experiment to abort. And that crash caused a large part of Ponter’s computing facility to be transferred into this universe.”
Mary noted that Dr. Mah was nodding. “The air that accompanied Ponter.”
“Exactly,” said Louise. “As we’d guessed, it was mostly just air transferred to this universe—enough air to burst open the acrylic sphere. But, in addition to the air, one person, who happened to be standing in the quantum-computing facility, was transferred, as well.”
“So he didn’t know he was going to come here?” asked Mah.
“No,” said Reuben Montego, “he didn’t. If you think we were shocked, imagine how shocked he was. The poor guy instantly found himself submerged in water, in absolute darkness. If there hadn’t been that massive bubble of air transferred with him, he would have drowned for sure.”
Your whole world turned inside out, thought Mary. She looked at the Neanderthal. He was certainly doing a good job of hiding the disorientation and fear he must feel, but the shock surely had been enormous.
Mary gave him a small, empathetic smile.
Chapter Twenty-two
Adikor Huld’s dooslarm basadlarm continued. Adjudicator Sard still sat at the south end, and Adikor remained in the hot seat, with Daklar Bolbay stalking around him in circles.
“Has a crime really been committed?” asked Bolbay, looking now at Adjudicator Sard. “No dead body has been found, and so one might argue that this is simply a case of a missing individual, no matter how improbable such a circumstance seems today. But we have searched the mine with portable signal detectors, and so we know that Ponter’s implant is not transmitting. If he were injured, it would be transmitting. Even if he were dead by natural causes, it would continue to transmit, using stored power, for days after Ponter’s own biochemical processes ceased. Nothing short of violent action can account for the disappearance of Ponter and the silence of his Companion.”
Adikor felt his stomach knotting. Bolbay was right, as far as her reasoning went: the Companions were designed to be foolproof. Before they existed, people did sometimes just go missing, and only after many months were they declared dead, usually simply for lack of a better explanation. But Lonwis Trob had promised his Companions [196] would change that, and they had. No one just disappeared anymore.
Sard obviously agreed. “I’m satisfied,” she said, “that the lack both of a body and of Companion transmissions suggests criminal activity. Let’s get on with it.”
“Very well,” said Bolbay. She looked briefly at Adikor, then turned back to the adjudicator. “Murder,” Bolbay said, “has never been common. To end the life of another—to put a complete and utter stop to someone’s existence—is heinous beyond compare. But, still, there are cases known, most, I grant you, from before the time of the Companions and the alibi-archive recorders. And in previous cases, the tribunals asked for three things to be shown to support a charge of murder.
“The first is a chance to commit the crime—and this Adikor Huld had in a way that no one else on this planet did, for he was beyond the capabilities of his Companion to transmit his actions.
“The second is a technique, a way in which the crime might have been committed. Without a body, we can only speculate on how it might have been done, although, as you will see later, one method is particularly likely.
“And, finally, one needs to show a reason, a rationale for the crime, something that would cause one to commit so awful, so permanent an act. And it’s that question of reason I’d like to explore now, Adjudicator.”
The old female nodded. “I’m listening.”
Bolbay swung to face Adikor. “You and Ponter Boddit lived together, isn’t that true?”
Adikor nodded. “For six tenmonths.”
“Did you love him?”
[197] “Yes. Very much indeed.”
“But his woman-mate had died recently.”
“She was also your woman-mate,” said Adikor, taking the opportunity to emphasize Bolbay’s conflict of interest.
But Bolbay was up to the occasion. “Yes. Klast, my beloved. She is no longer alive, and for that I feel great sorrow. But I blame no one; there is no one to blame. Illness happens, and the life-prolongers did all they could to make her final months comfortable. But for the death of Ponter Boddit, there is someone to blame.”
“Be cautious, Daklar Bolbay,” said Adjudicator Sard. “You haven’t proven that Scholar Boddit is dead. Until I rule on that, you may speak of that possibility only in hypothetical terms.”
Bolbay turned toward Sard and bowed. “Apologies, Adjudicator.” She faced Adikor again. “We were discussing another death, one about which no doubt exists: that of Klast, who was Ponter’s—and my own—woman-mate.” Bolbay closed her eyes. “My own grief is too great for expression, and I will not parade it for anyone. And Ponter’s grief, I’m sure, was equally large. Klast often spoke of him; I know how much she loved Ponter, and how much he loved her.” Bolbay was silent for a moment, perhaps composing herself. “Given this recent tragedy, though, we must raise another possibility about Ponter’s disappearance. Could he have taken his own life, despondent over the death of Klast?” She looked at Adikor. “What is your opinion, Scholar Huld?”
“He was very sad at the loss, but the loss was also some time ago. Had Ponter been suicidal, I’m sure I would have known.”
[198] Bolbay nodded reasonably. “I won’t pretend to say I knew Scholar Boddit anywhere near as well as you did, Schola
r Huld, but I do share your assessment. Still, could there have been any other reasons for him to commit suicide?”
Adikor was taken aback. “Such as?”
“Well, your work—do forgive me, Scholar Huld, but I see no gentle way to phrase this: your work was a failure. A Gray Council session was imminent, at which you and he would have had to discuss your contributions to society. Could he have so feared that your work might be terminated that, well, that he chose to terminate himself?”
“No,” said Adikor, stunned by the suggestion. “No, in fact, if anyone were to smell bad at Council, it would have been I, not he.”
Bolbay let this comment sink in, then: “Would you be so kind as to elaborate on that thought?”
“Ponter was the theoretician,” said Adikor. “His theories had been neither proven nor disproven, so there was still valid work to be done related to them. But I was the engineer: it was I who was supposed to build experimental apparatus to check Ponter’s ideas. And it was that apparatus—our prototype quantum computer—that had failed. Council might have found my contribution inadequate, but they certainly wouldn’t have judged Ponter’s to be so.”
“So Ponter’s death could not possibly have been a suicide,” said Bolbay.
“Again,” said Sard, “you will speak of Scholar Boddit as if he is alive, until if or when I rule to the contrary.”
Bolbay bowed again to the adjudicator. “Once again, [199] my apologies.” She returned to Adikor. “If Ponter wanted to kill himself, is it fair to say, Scholar Huld, that he would not have taken his life in a way that might implicate you?”
“The suggestion that he would take his own life at all is so improbable ...” began Adikor.
“Yes, we agree on that,” said Bolbay, calmly, “but, hypothetically, if he were to do so, he would surely not choose to do it in a way that would leave a suspicion of nefarious action, don’t you agree?”
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