The Heisenberg Corollary

by C H Duryea

  “You’ve never wanted to be Han Solo?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Don’t underestimate the usefulness of a good concealed weapon,” Narissa said as she picked up the box holding the moolite tiles. She grabbed a few handfuls and dropped them into her bag.

  “What’s that for?” Zeke asked.

  She shrugged. “We might need something to trade.”

  Zeke picked up a small chunk of the refined cyex. After a moment’s consideration, he dropped it into his bag.

  “What’s that for?” Narissa asked back.

  “Not sure,” he said. “Curiosity mostly.”

  Augie and Harbinger closed the manual seals on the flight deck and the engine compartment, locking away the Frogger and the NeuralNav in case any locals got nosy. Augie spun inset tumbler dials to lock each door shut.

  “All right,” Harbinger said, “the money’s safe, let’s go.”

  Narissa pointed to her bag. “The money’s right here.”

  “It’s a joke.”

  “I got it,” Augie said.

  “Let’s get moving,” Zeke said. “We have no idea how long this is going to take.”

  The group clambered out of the manual hatch and closed it behind them. Zeke looked around. The walls on each side of the canyon looked at least fifty meters high.

  “Unclimbable,” Augie noted.

  “Bet Qaant Yke could do it.”

  “I will not climb the wall,” the alien said.

  “I don’t think we’ll have to.” Zeke pointed to the far end of the canyon, opposite from where they had been brought in. “We can reach that gap if the debris under it is stable enough.”

  They picked their way along the remaining length of the canyon. Even at a brisk pace, the going was slow, with all the rocks and charred dead things to climb over and around. But, shortly after, they reached the base of the debris fall below the gap.

  Qaant Yke unhooked a coil of cargo stabilizing line, took one end of the line and handed the coil to Harbinger. Then he started up the rockfall and skittered up the slope in a way that was not quite like a lobster and not quite like a mountain goat, but rather both at the same time. He reached the top, looped the line around a toothy upthrust of rock, and beckoned. Harbinger secured the other end of the line on the ground end, and he headed up next, pulling himself over the rocks, hand over hand along the rope. Narissa and Augie went next, moving slowly and close together, Augie behind Narissa to keep her secure.

  When they were at the top, it was just Zeke and Vibeke left to climb.

  “I might have been able to get us out of here,” she said, “if you let me try the NeuralNav. Or you might have saved my life keeping me off it. That was a pretty big gamble, Doctor Travers.”

  “A risk I’m willing to take, Doctor Helstrom.”

  She leaned over and kissed him.

  “Thanks,” she said and went up the line.

  When she reached the top, Zeke secured the end of the line around his shoulder and pulled himself up, coiling the line as he went.

  Suddenly a high-pitched screech bounced and echoed throughout the canyon behind him. He whirled, and in the distance, the two dragons were banking leisurely on an approach back to the eyrie.

  Zeke scrambled the rest of the way up.

  “We need to be gone,” he said. “Now.”

  “I have located an appropriate route,” Qaant Yke said and led them to a path that took them down a rocky slope towards a line of trees.

  “The trees should give us enough cover,” Zeke said.

  “Unless the dragons have heat vision,” Narissa replied.

  “If they did, they’d be constantly blinding themselves on their own belches,” Harbinger answered.

  “Just get under the trees,” Zeke said.

  They half skidded, half ran down the slope, their feet kicking up clouds of dust in the afternoon sun. Once they made it into the cool shade of the canopy, they stopped and looked back.

  Through the branches overhead, they saw the dragons as they circled the eyrie once, then twice, then they swooped down along the rocky escarpment and directly overhead as they headed off in search of more malleable prey.

  They breathed a collective sigh of relief and walked farther into the woods. Soon they came to a break in the trees that gave a view of the sweeping path ahead.

  “If we can make it to that pass,” Zeke said, pointing off to a split between the rolling hills in the distance. “It looks like it could get us back into the valley on the other side.”

  They started back along the trail as it wound back into the trees. Harbinger walked a few meters ahead, with Augie and Narissa side by side just behind. Zeke and Vibeke followed, in roughly lockstep with one another. Qaant Yke brought up the rear.

  Zeke took a deep sniff of the forest air. “Delicious,” he said.

  “You forget what it’s like,” Vibeke said, “when you’re breathing from air scrubbers all the time.”

  She brought her stride a little closer to Zeke and curled a couple of fingers around his. Between the sweetness of the air, the natural beauty around them, and the simple touch of Vibeke’s hand, Zeke began to think that all this might not be so bad. He let himself smile.

  Then they came to a sharp turn on the trail, and up ahead, Harbinger stopped cold. So did Augie and Narissa. Zeke and Vibeke hurried around the bend.

  A line of about a dozen armed and armored soldiers on horseback barred the trail.

  “What do we have here?” asked one near the center. He had an impressive scar down one cheek.

  The other soldiers drew swords, and the riders on the ends closed in around the group.

  Zeke held up his hands. “We come in peace,” he said.

  “Maybe so,” the one with the scar replied. “But from where? And at whose command?”

  When Qaant Yke came around the bend, the riders gasped and struggled to restrain their mounts.

  “Sergeant!” one of them shouted. “They bring a demon with them!”

  “They must be agents of the invaders!” exclaimed another.

  “Seize them!” the scarred leader ordered, and several riders closed in on the group.

  “We’re not agents of anybody,” Narissa protested.

  Scar ignored her. He turned to one of his men.

  “Ride to the camp,” he said. “Find the prince, and tell him we’re bringing in a band of sorcerers from beyond the Wandering Gate!”

  Fourteen

  “Sorcerers?” Harbinger asked, his voice breaking with incredulity as the armored men dismounted and closed in on them.

  “Speak not, interloper,” one said, drawing his sword and bringing the point to rest on Harbinger’s jaw. “Or you’ll be uttering your spells without a tongue.”

  Harbinger snapped his mouth closed as another soldier seized him from behind and slapped a set of restraints about his wrists.

  “You guys have the wrong idea,” Zeke tried to say as he and the rest of them were shackled. Augie placed himself protectively at Narissa’s side, holding his hands out in a non-threatening gesture. They slapped a set of irons on him as well.

  Vibeke thrashed and kicked to no avail. “You really have a way of making people feel welcome.”

  “We’re not sorcerers,” Narissa protested.

  “We need your help,” Zeke said, trying another tactic. “We’re visitors, and we’ve traveled a long way to come here.”

  Scar turned to him and laughed. “So you admit it,” he said.

  Zeke and Augie exchanged a look. “Admit what?”

  “You admit your origins lie beyond the reaches of Inverketh.”

  “Inverketh?” Harbinger asked, his face stretched in surprise.

  “What gave us away?” Vibeke asked.

  “Silence, temptress,” one of the men growled at her.

  “Hey,” Zeke said. “Watch what you call her!”

  A number of Scar’s soldiers surrounded Qaant Yke, swords drawn.

  “Hold,
demon,” one said poising his blade for a preemptive strike.

  “He’s no demon,” Narissa said, struggling against her captors, her bag falling open in the process. Several of the moolite tiles fell to the ground.

  Qaant Yke did not immediately react to his arresters, but his pincered hand moved towards the pocket on his pack that held his flying death-ball.

  “Quant Yke,” Zeke said, “don’t!”

  Several turned to Zeke.

  “He utters a spell in a strange tongue!”

  “Strange tongue? It’s his name!”

  “Do it, Qaant Yke,” Vibeke urged.

  “To the camp,” Scar ordered two riders, who turned on their mounts and galloped off. “Summon the mage!”

  “We should slay them now,” a soldier said. “If they bewitch us before the mage can return—”

  “No,” Scar declared. “The prince will want to interrogate them himself. Gag them for the ride back.”

  They forced Zeke and the others to their knees.

  “Listen to me,” Augie said, trying his best to maintain his trademark cool and articulate calm. “There’s no reason for you to have any fear of us. I can assure you that whatever concern you have about our origins can be readily alleviated if—“

  A particularly thuggish soldier stepped up behind him and clubbed him with the pommel of his sword.

  What happened next happened fast.

  Narissa screamed—and when she did the metal tiles scattered around her burst with light and energy that swirled up from the ground, surrounding and enveloping her.

  “Leave him alone!” she shouted, and her voice suddenly took on the force of a bludgeon that shot out in all directions, like the Friendly Card’s shields, flattening everyone in the clearing. Zeke fell and planted the side of his face into the pine needle carpeted trail. The rush of energy coming off Narissa pinned him to the ground. He turned his head, with some effort, to look at her.

  Narissa was glowing—just like she had when she had passed out in the cockpit earlier. But what was like soft bioluminescence before, now cast everything in the shady clearing in a garish blue-green glow. Her eyes burned like a pair of acetylene torches, and the shackles ran from her wrists like they had been turned to hot jelly. She held her hands out to either side of her hips and the glowing metal tiles shimmered and popped up from the ground and into her hands.

  She advanced on the soldiers around Augie. They struggled to scramble away from her. As eyes fell on each of them, they were pushed unceremoniously across the floor of the clearing.

  Augie was dazed from the blow to his head, but he still tried to get himself up.

  “Narissa!” he yelled, but she didn’t respond. As if in a trance, she crossed over and put her hands on him, and his restraints popped off. A shimmering translucent shell seemed to surround them.

  Three horses came around the corner and skidded to a stop. The two soldiers Scar sent away dismounted, along with a colorfully robed old man Zeke assumed was the mage. The mage pulled a staff from a sheath under his saddle and held it out defensively before him.

  But at that point, the shimmering cocoon around Narissa and Augie started to wobble and disintegrate. It shredded into the air, and the glow from Narissa dissipated like dry ice fog. She collapsed into Augie’s arms, and he lowered her to the ground.

  Zeke and Vibeke’s hands were still shackled, but they worked together to scramble to the edge of the clearing.

  Harbinger struggled to his feet. “Augie!” he yelled. “Grab the tiles!”

  Around Augie and Narissa, the metal tiles were still glowing. Zeke saw that the ones still in the bag were lit up as well. Augie snatched them up and pulled the bag to him, but the rest of the bag’s contents spilled out on the ground.

  Scar and his men were reorganizing, and Scar himself had pulled his sword.

  “The prince will be disappointed,” he said, storming at them.

  But the mage barred his way with a thrust of his staff.

  “Hold, Sergeant,” the grizzled man said. Then he turned and slowly approached Narissa and Augie. His face was drawn, and a quiet look of awe slowly crept into his expression.

  “She didn’t mean any harm,” Augie said. “She was just trying to protect me.”

  But the old man wasn’t even looking at them. His eyes were on the ground by their feet, at the strewn contents of the bag.

  Narissa’s pulse blaster lay inert in the pine needles and dirt. The old man bent down and picked it up, turning it over and back in his hands.

  “It’s not functional,” Zeke explained.

  “Of course it does not function,” the mage said. “Do you take me for the Regent’s jester?”

  He popped open the power supply on the blaster’s stock, removed the plasma core and put in in one of his many pockets.

  “I’d handle that carefully if I were you,” Zeke said.

  The mage glanced sharply at him as he moved to stand, but then he stopped. He looked again at Zeke, his face still and hard as a statue, his eyes intense. He held the stare long enough for Zeke to start feeling awkward.

  “You don’t want that blowing up in your pocket,” he elaborated.

  The mage stood slowly, as if having come to some silent decision. He turned to Scar, his robes whirling as he moved.

  “Free these people,” he said. “Feed them and tend to their wounds. Then escort them to camp. Give them your mounts if any require it.”

  The mage returned to his horse and mounted.

  “They are not prisoners?” Scar asked.

  “No, Sergeant,” the old man said. “But if any of them come to harm, it is you who will find yourself in shackles.”

  The mage turned and galloped away.

  “Okay,” Narissa said as they rode on the soldiers’ horses, “who wants to tell me exactly what the hell happened back there.”

  “You showed them, my dear,” Augie said. “What happens to anyone who crosses you.”

  They moved slowly, keeping pace with the soldiers who were now forced to walk so that they could ride. The locals eyed them with a combination of distrust and fascination. Qaant Yke declined a mount and followed the party at a discreet distance.

  “I’m serious,” Narissa said.

  “So am I,” Augie replied.

  “You burst into flame,” Vibeke said, “and turned into a human polarity reversal generator.”

  “Does anyone,” Zeke said, “have any objective take on what is happening here?”

  “I think I might,” Harbinger said.

  “We’re listening.”

  “The Heisenberg corollary. I suppose that the effect is modulated by all of us in varying degrees, but, um—I’m afraid I might be responsible for this.”

  “What do you mean?” Zeke asked.

  “It’s not an exact match,” Harbinger said. “But it’s close.”

  “To what?”

  “Inverketh is a world in one of my RPGs.”

  “Ha!” Vibeke barked.

  “Chuck,” Zeke asked, “please start making sense.”

  “The corollary proposes,” Augie said, “that we are to some degree, by virtue of our cognition and experience, guiding the Frogger’s path through the multiverse.”

  “I know. We covered that.” He turned again to Harbinger. “Are you saying that we jumped into one of your role-playing worlds?”

  “Or something like it.”

  “But aren’t your worlds populated by elves and orcs and what not?”

  “We’ve only been here a few hours,” Vibeke commented. “They got dragons. Who’s to say what else we’ll find?”

  “But come on,” Zeke said. “Those worlds are all driven by magic—are you going mystical on us?”

  “Narissa just summoned fire,” Vibeke pointed out. “Looked like magic to me.”

  “So not only have we landed on a planet where technology doesn’t work,” Zeke asked, “but one in which magic does?”

  “The two phenomena may be connect
ed,” Augie said. “I know we’re all scientists here, but we can’t afford to look at what Chuck is suggesting with derision. After all, magic is simply a different approach to manipulating energy.”

  “Now who’s getting mystical?” Harbinger asked.

  “I need some time to process this,” Narissa said. “But Augie’s right. Whatever tweak of physics shut off our electricity may be redirecting that energy to forms of expression we can’t even guess at. And if any of this holds water, it would have to apply to the entire continuum—not just this planet.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Vibeke said. “The ship had power for hours after we jumped here.”

  “But we lost power when we were just shy of orbit,” Zeke said. “And it wasn’t until we hit the atmosphere that I saw that strange energy display off Narissa.”

  “But I had been feeling strange since we arrived in this continuum.”

  “In open space—we’re fine. But closer to the planet, electrons stop behaving. Hit the atmosphere and magic—or whatever it is—kicks in. Gravity?”

  “Gravitation warps space-time in our universe,” Narissa said. “It slows time. Who knows what else it warps in places where the rules are different? I don’t know—as hypotheses go, I’ve worked with weaker.”

  “Should I insert a joke here about gravity and weak atomic forces?” Harbinger asked.

  “You’re a weak atomic force,” Vibeke said.

  “Whatever the cause,” Zeke said. “Whatever the laws governing matter and energy. Whatever the hell we want to call it. It’s irrelevant. There’s really only one thing that matters right now.”

  “Which is?” Vibeke asked.

  “Getting the Friendly Card back online.”

  “And living long enough,” Augie said, “to figure out how to do that.”

  “I think that pretty much sums it up,” Zeke said. “So everyone dedicate some processing cycles to both of those problems.”

  “There’s something else,” Harbinger said.

  “What’s that?”

  He withdrew a small stack of the moolite tiles from the bag. “Well, for starters,” he said, “anyone want to take a stab at what’s up with these?”

  “They come from outside,” Augie said. “It may be a metal they don’t have here or one that has unusual or electromagnetic properties that it lacks in its native space.”