“Did Pete tell you what being with me is like?”
“He said the government told him not to talk about it.”
Kris sighed. “He should know they aren’t serious -- they’re just looking to cover their asses. The first trip I took him on, we were two miles away from a nuclear explosion. In spite of how bad that sounds, it was actually better than an hour earlier when I put him in the garage of a home at the main breaker box. Things went south and I told him to not come back in the house, but to open the garage door and head out.
“He did that, but if he’d delayed thirty more seconds, he might have been overcome with carbon monoxide. As it was, the aliens on the other side of the Far Side door hit us with a chemical cocktail -- carbon monoxide, insect juvenile growth hormones, chlordane powder and something the biologists think is a spore cocktail -- probably insect parasites. Pete got the worst of that. There was nothing in that cocktail that could hurt him, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
The woman stared at Kris, unblinking. “Pete never said anything about this.”
Kris waved at the phone in her room. “Go ahead, call him and ask him. It’s something the government was very insistent that we not talk about. I did anyway.”
The grin on Kris’ face was wintery. Kathy had heard about the interview on TV and watched the reruns; they’d played it very often once it became apparent that Kris had told the truth about the President ordering a nuclear weapon used over Chicago. There was no doubt in her mind, as there hadn’t been any doubt in anyone’s mind who watched the interview that it had been a deliberate hatchet job. But, it had been delivered in such an understated, apologetic fashion; the TV station hadn’t picked up on it, and had actually asked Kris to repeat it. Which, of course, Kris had been happy to oblige.
“Look,” Kathy told her. “If you want someone to watch your back -- and I mean in the bodyguard sense, as I’m straight as an arrow -- I’m available. Pete will scream, but he’s been overprotective since I was born.”
Kris contemplated it. “If you’re crazy enough, sure. Where do you live?”
“What do you mean, where do I live?”
“Did I mention that you get free room and board?”
“That would be good; currently I’m living at home and it would be better all around if I was elsewhere. What’s the pay?”
“Sixty thousand a year, plus if we go on a rescue, you’d get what everyone else gets.”
“Oh? Pete hasn’t said what that was, but hinted that you weren’t exactly underpaying him.”
Kris explained the terms.
“And Pete walked away from this?”
“Like I said, his wasn’t the worst reaction by far, on Arvala, and he isn’t the only one who can’t work there.”
“I don’t think I’ll be affected,” Kathy mused. “But I guess you can’t be sure until you try it.”
“Most of my classes have midterms next week,” Kris told her, “and I’m supposed to be in Arvala in two weeks to say goodbye to Charles Evans. But, if you don’t have anything else on your schedule, tomorrow or Saturday morning we can hop over to LA for a day or two. You can check out the operation at the Rookery.”
Kris got up, fetched her purse, and took out a calculator and pressed some of the keys. She waved it in Kathy’s direction. “Linda Walsh made up a bunch of these. You can put in a planet, a date and a time and it tells you the other planet’s date and time, with phases of the moon thrown in. All three moons.”
After a second, Kris nodded. “Yep, I thought that’s what it would be. Saturday at noon LA time, the Big Moon will be halfway up on the western horizon. It’s not as dramatic as when it’s overhead, but it’s dramatic enough.”
“Just like that, we go to LA, step through a door and go a g’zillion trillion light years.”
“I have a private jet at my disposal. It’s my father’s, but right now he’s busy in Washington DC and New York. It’s easier for him to take the train.”
Kathy’s eyes glittered. “Okay, that’s a plan then. What should I bring to the party?”
“Whatever pistol you’re comfortable with. When we get to Arvala, talk to Ezra and you can get something heavier from the armory there. Everyone on Arvala goes armed with something heavier than a pistol all of the time, now. Which reminds me, expect to spend an hour or two on the plane ride with me explaining the dangers on Arvala.
“We’ve had people killed by animals, by pirates and slavers. We’ve had a person kidnapped. My first bodyguard saved me from a few animals, but the human kind I dealt with myself. If actually having to kill someone is going to bother you, and then this isn’t the job for you.”
Kathy shrugged. “I was a cop; shooting people happens. I don’t imagine it’s fun, but I’ve told myself a million times that I’ll do what I have to.”
“That’s what everyone says. You might as well know that when the rubber meets the road, I’ve found that I only have qualms afterwards.”
“If you can deal with it, so can I!” Kathy said confidently.
“Then you’re hired at least for the time being. If, after the weekend, you still want the job, I’ll get approval for you to move into the other room of this suite. We’ll get you set up as an authorized member of the Norwich campus police, cleared with the Norwich PD and all of that. And get you a meal ticket for the campus cafeteria.”
Kathy laughed. “I’ve never lived in a dorm before. Are the guys cute?”
Kris grinned and didn’t speak.
* * *
Kris Boyle looked up at the man who stood next to her in her study carrel in the library. A few feet behind him, Kathy stood with her hand on her weapon.
“Miss Boyle,” the man said in measured tones, sounding self-confident, polite but not obsequious. “May I have a word?”
“I have mid-term tests the rest of the week,” she told him, lofting the textbook. “Don’t make it more than a few words.”
He laughed, lightly and heartily. He pulled what looked like a portable hard drive from the fabric bag that he was carrying.
“This, Miss Boyle, is a computer. I used it to record a trip I made through one of the Far Side doors. Jon Bullman said that if you ever owed him a favor, going over the data it contains with me is it.”
“How much data? I’m not sure I have the time if there is very much.”
“It’s about seven hundred hours of video tape, and another thousand hours of audio only, plus several hundred million pictures and documents. I’ve got an executive summary that’s two hours. You really need to see it. Jon said to ask ‘please.’”
“You spent that long on the other side of a Far Side door?”
“About seven months. There are a lot of things on this computer that you really need to see, Miss Boyle. One of the things of particular interest is the technical explanation of the Far Side doors, plus about two hundred years of scientific advances, beyond where we are today, including a means to open Far Side doors anywhere we want.”
Kris raised an eyebrow. “We need Andie Schulz and Linda Walsh for that,” she told him. “I’m fair at physics -- considering I’m a college freshman. That is really Andie and Linda’s area of expertise -- except that Andie is four hundred miles from the Arvala Far Side door at the moment, and it would take a couple of days to get to her.”
“There is another device that blocks the formation of Far Side doors in either a particular area, or, if you are so inclined, planet-wide,” he told Kris.
“That would be useful to stop people like you from experimenting,” Kris said evenly.
“That’s not fair, Miss Boyle. I left in August, before Chicago and France. I’ve been back now for three days. I thought I was making a one-way trip -- except they could detect my Far Side door, even when it was no longer activated. They reactivated it, sent me through and then permanently sealed it behind me.”
“The people you met seem to be a little paranoid,” Kris said carefully, watching for his reaction. “Why would you give
away hundreds of years of scientific progress -- and then close the door behind you and weld it shut?”
He laughed. “That’s a more accurate description of what they did than you know, Miss Boyle. They were scheduled to detonate a hundred megaton bomb a few hundred meters away from that door a day later. It’s really a fascinating tale in its own right, not to mention very critical to our survival.”
Kris contemplated him for a few seconds. “And your name is?”
“Dale Sedgewyck, Miss Boyle, ‘wyck’ with a ‘y’. ‘Sedge’ with an ‘e,’ ‘Wyck’ without one.”
“Two hours for the executive summary, you say?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Would you mind showing it to more than just me?”
“No, of course not. The more influential the audience, the quicker this will go up to the top. Jon said he would offer to show it to the government, but said that you and Andie should have a chance to look at it first.”
Kris nodded sagely while trying to keep from laughing out loud. “You’ve heard that there have been a few changes since you left?”
“Yes, and I understand and agree with what you, your friends and your father have been doing. When I left you and your friends were still missing, but your father was most definitely rocking the boat. Please Miss Boyle, this is important.”
Kris sighed and pulled out her cell phone and turned it on. In theory cell phones were verboten in the library, but she had an exemption.
“General, Kris Boyle. Sir, there’s a gentleman here who says he has a cornucopia of technical information about fusors and Far Side doors. He has, he says, a lot of data, including a two hour executive summary. Do you suppose you and your wife might have that much time free anytime soon?”
There was a pause and Kris said, “Yes, sir, two hours. But, on the plus side, sir, if what he says is true, you might find some use for that building across the highway. He says he knows how to make a Far Side door go anywhere we want; how that works, I’m not sure -- but it’s what he says. He also says he has a mess of data on future technology.”
She turned back to the man. “Come along, Mr. Sedgewyck; General Briggs can either work on a faculty memo or watch your executive summary. Guess which he’d rather do?”
“Thank you, Miss Boyle. This is really important.”
“You say,” Kris replied, aping Diyala. “Come along.”
They walked the few hundred yards to the administration building and into General Brigg’s outer office. His receptionist had been alerted and they went right in. Without a word, Kathy Sharp followed on their heels.
Kris introduced the two men, and then a moment later, introduced Marjorie Briggs to Dale Sedgewyck.
“The computer has a built in screen,” Dale Sedgewyck told General Briggs. “I can vary the size, four feet by six feet works best. If we all sit on one side of a conference table, that would be optimal.”
Kris raised an eyebrow, and beat out General Briggs to ask the question. “I was going to say that had to be a small screen on a computer that size, but I take it there’s a projection system?”
General Briggs did get to say something. “Sure, the conference room is free. Come along. I’m a bit curious now, myself.”
They walked a few feet down the corridor and Dale Sedgewyck sat the computer down. A light started blinking. He smiled apologetically. “This isn’t like the computers we have. It’s tuned to my mind; the blinking light they added so that I could be sure it was actually working. They just assume a computer is always on.”
A blank screen appeared over the conference table, a view of waves crashing against a cliff.
“This is a quantum computer, given to me by my hosts. I am, by profession, a professor of electronics, formerly of Rice. I have some idea of how it works, but not very much. There are, for instance, no moving parts; barring an accident, they never break. A computer like this contains what we would call a stupendous amount of information. I told Kris how much I had added; there is about a million times more -- and I’m not exaggerating.
“There is a storage chamber filled with quintillions of quantum dots, each of which knows who it is and what it contains and what it’s supposed to do. Each dot can act as a bit of information or a logic gate or a transistor. It can reconfigure itself as is needed. So when I command it to display a four by six foot screen above the table with a relaxing scene, it builds the electronics for the screen internally and projects the desired screen.”
“How is it powered?” Marjorie Briggs asked.
“They explained it, but it was above my level of understanding. They fuse hydrogen that they get from the moisture content of the atmosphere, or from a small reservoir of tap water. I didn’t really understand the method.
“I could give the same briefing verbally, but I rehearsed this, working from a script and it covers everything in a logical order. Please, I cannot stress this too much -- you have to listen. This is very important.”
The TV screen lit and Dale Sedgewyck looked out at them.
“I’m Dale Sedgewyck...” he ran through his biography, which, while interesting, wasn’t much more than that.
“When I heard about the fusor power generator, I was entranced. Then I heard about the Far Side doors and I was, well, skeptical. Bussard showed that there was very likely something there with fusor technology -- it wasn’t surprising to see it come to fruition. The Far Side doors -- that stumped me. I couldn’t see how it could possibly be true.
“So, like the scientist that I am, I made one. Obviously, I’m a believer now.” His image looked right into the camera after a short pause.
“There’s no easy way to explain this; the quantum universe is not only not intuitive, it reacts to other things in the quantum universe in ways that simply defy our ability to describe.
“The reason Andie Schulz and Kris Boyle went to where they went is because Andie Schulz so very much wanted to find an exciting planet to have the adventure of a lifetime. I went to where I went because I was dreaming of finding a planet with scientists who understand things a whole lot better than we do.
“I went to a planet the natives call ‘Emora.’ In the records here are some pictures of the planet from days long ago; I use one as a sort of poster -- they don’t understand the concept of a screensaver. It was quite lovely; it’s what the planet used to look like.
“Two hundred of their years ago, about that many for us, they discovered Far Side doors. Like us, they weren’t sure at first what was happening. To make matters worse, their work on quantum theory lagged ours, so it was even more difficult for them to make sense of what was going on.
“Two hundred years is an eye blink in the cosmos, compared to the lifespan of universe. And considering that Far Side doors are what the Emorans called ‘variant’ they have access to a great deal of what we call reality. As huge as our universe is, reality is that cubed and then cubed a couple of more times. The number of universes, to the best of their calculation is 2.4 times ten to the 314 millionth power -- That’s a lot universes.
“Who knows how the quantum universes work? They don’t seem to make rhyme or reason. On Earth we have the saying, ‘bad news comes in threes.’ That’s actually not a bad observation and reflects an underlying quantum reality that I can’t explain, but the Emorans could -- after a fashion.
“In the first hundred years of research the Emorans found the usual variety of worlds. Some boring, some more exciting that a single person can possibly imagine and most somewhere in between. They found more than a thousand inhabited worlds and had created a brisk commerce; information exchange and a number of other things that saw their knowledge of the universe soar into the stratosphere.
“The Emorans were moderately altruistic and had envisioned themselves one day going into space and becoming a member of a league of like-minded worlds. They found what they were looking for.
“Then, without warning, one day there were frantic calls from a research center on an island, where F
ar Side door researchers had long before met their first few interstellar ‘neighbors’ -- not that neighbor has much meaning with Far Side doors.
“Those calls were for help. Something was coming out of the Far Side door to one of their newer trading partners. The invaders were insect-like, animals about the size of German shepherd -- and they were hungry.
“They were also technically sophisticated, having weapons nearly on a par with those of the Emorans. Reluctantly, the Emoran government approved a nuclear strike on the affected Far Side door.”
“I’m told that we would call such an event a ‘meeting engagement.’ The insects were in the process of bringing jet fighters through, fighters optimized to fit through a Far Side door, just as the Emorans launched a single bomber with a dozen escorts to do the deed.
“The battle lasted a year; I kid you not. The first attack failed, but they killed dozens of their enemy’s fighters, far more than they lost. The obvious thing to do was to regroup and attack more strongly.
“Which they did, but as I said, those insects aren’t stupid! In a month instead of using bombers, they were using standoff missiles; they finally had to stop or the Emorans would have rendered their entire planet uninhabitable.
“They tried ICBMs, they tried soldiers -- nothing worked. At the end of that first year, virtually the entire Emoran military had been exterminated, plus there had been about ten million civilian casualties.
“They couldn’t sustain the initial attacks on several levels, and they were forced to let their enemies dig in.
“The Emorans switched to chemical and biological weapons. The insects retaliated with a massive raid on one of their Far Side doors to the Emoran’s richest trading partner. A few of the insects survived to get through, but the door was destroyed in the fighting. The Emorans assume that their friends survived. They realized that the insects could detect Far Side doors, so they started working on being able to do that themselves, and that knowledge gave their research a tremendous boost.
For the next fifty years the Emorans were forced steadily back. Bug landings were made on continents, and no matter how hard people fought, the insects were just that -- insects. They didn’t seem to care about dying if they could advance even an inch or kill an Emoran.
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