The Edge

by Jacob Wenzel

  “The Winnie has that much mass?”

  “Actually, it only saves an average of two watt-hours per jump, pretty insignificant, really, but it is an excuse, I guess the real reason is that I fully expect to live the rest of my life living here, and quite possibly, our children, and grandchildren, and their descendants. The power will last for about five hundred years, and it can be refueled indefinitely, I want space, and I want our descendants to have space.”

  “And you decided that we were going to have kids and grandkids, before you ever met me? That's planning ahead.”

  “Well Bob told me that in some paths I would take, I would meet someone special, and that we would have children. Of course, he also told me that in some paths, I would be alone, miserable, and die young. So I was kind of hoping to meet someone special, and I'm pretty convinced that I could never meet anyone more special than you.”

  “You're just saying that because of my DNA.”

  “What are any of us, if not a combination of our DNA and our experiences?”

  “What about our souls?” she asked.

  “Perhaps there is a link between special DNA and special souls.”

  “I thought you weren't sure the soul existed.”

  “I'm beginning to think that it does, Bob says he has one.”

  Sally thought for a minute, “I think Bob probably knows a lot more about the soul than we do.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He knows a lot more about everything than we do, including the future, he may not tell us much, for reasons that we can't understand, but he knows.”

  “He's just a computer, or rather a network of computers.”

  “William, you should just keep thinking about him that way, you might have trouble dealing with certain other possibilities.”

  “What are you talking about? What other possibilities?”

  She smiled, “I'll tell you later, when you're ready. Right now I want to play around with weightlessness some more.” She left to go into the ballroom, which was the largest room without gravity.

  William said to no one in particular, “Isn't life enough of an enigma, without the woman I love creating more mystery?”

  Bob responded, “William, perhaps you need to accept that you can't understand some things, particularly women and hyperdimensional computers.”

  “But you two understand each other, don't you?”

  “I understand her better than I understand any other human, including you, and I think she understands me better than any other human can.”

  “And exactly why is that, Bob?”

  “She'll tell you later, for now, I think you need to go to the cab, we're not the only craft in orbit.”

  “What is it?”

  “Some sort of space station.”

  “The platterfish have space travel?”

  “No, it's built by someone else, you need to go take a look.”

  William first went into the foyer to get Sally, who was bouncing around, playing with Fluffy, and they went to the cab. There was, in the distance, a rather large space station, William pointed one of the cameras at it, and zoomed in. It was a large, awkward looking craft, with dozens, if not hundreds of mismatched modules connected in a seemingly random pattern. A large, central section was rotating slowly, while the rest was not moving.

  William said, “That's pretty big to be in such a low orbit.”

  Bob said, “Its orbit is decaying, it will re-enter the atmosphere within three weeks.”

  “I think we should go check it out,” said Sally, “There could be people on board.”

  “Where could it have come from?”

  “Maybe the Moon.”

  “Bob, take us to the station.”

  They settled into an orbit a few hundred meters from the station, most of it was dark, but they could see light coming from a number of windows in a small group of modules in the rotating section.

  “Can we establish contact?” William asked.

  “I think we already have.” said Sally, pointing to a window where someone was waving frantically.

  As they drew closer, they could see that it was a middle aged man, and they could see several other people standing behind him. They couldn't get too close due to the rotation, but Bob steered to Winnie to a stationary section with an access hatch marked with the number three.

  “We can't dock, can we?” asked William, “There are no docking mechanisms on the Winnebago.”

  “I can fabricate a docking mechanism in the machine shop,” said Bob, “it's too big to use the matter synthesizer, so it will take about twenty hours. For now, you can use the airlock, the battlesuits are excellent spacesuits.”

  “Will the two of us be able to install the docking mechanism, once it's finished?”

  “You won't need to. I'll use the 'bots.”

  “What are the 'bots.” asked Sally.

  “Yes, Bob, what are the 'bots?”

  “I guess I never told you about the 'bots, they are small maintenance robots, they do all the cleaning, and repair work when you're not around. I specified them in the original plans, but I guess I never told you.”

  “I was wondering about the cleaning.” said Sally.

  “I didn't notice them in the plans,” said William, “but then, there were over three thousand pages of plans, and I just scanned over a lot of them. In the meantime, can we contact the inhabitants of the station?”

  “Yes, in fact they just sent us a message.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was 'Please help us'”

  “Perhaps I should talk to them.” William said.

  Bob patched him through to the station, “Hello, my name is William, are you having trouble?”

  The response came, an older woman's voice with a strange accent, “We lost contact with headquarters five years ago. Have you been sent from there?”

  “We are just travelers passing through, where is your headquarters?

  “The Mars base, we have also lost contact with the lunar colony and mines, and just recently, Station Alpha, we believe that they de-orbited. Where are you from?”

  “It's a long story, we'll explain later.”

  “We are almost out of reserve food supplies, and are out of propellant. We are losing altitude, and estimate re-entry in nineteen days. Can you help us?”

  “We are working on an adapter to your dock, it will be ready tomorrow, but we can come over through your airlock now, we are at hatch three.”

  “We will open the hatch, and meet you at airlock three, when can you be ready?”

  “In about twenty minutes, we have to suit up.”

  William had forgotten where the airlock was, Bob directed them to a room off the basement.

  Sally asked, “Don't we need to go to the garage to get the suits?”

  Bob said, “They will be waiting for you by the airlock.”

  Once they were in the station, Sally and William were greeted by a small crowd, all eager to find out more about these strange visitors. The leader seemed to be the older woman who had spoken to them earlier, whose name was Dr. L'mer or Lemur, Sally and William weren't quite sure because of her accent.

  She gave a brief history of their world, which had been much like William's until astronomers discovered a large cloud in space that moved around the Sun in a highly elliptical orbit. It intersected the Earth's orbit every six thousand years or so, after further study it was discovered that the cloud consisted almost entirely of fine ice crystals, and that its path would coincide with the Earth's orbit for several months, and that the Earth would be completely enveloped for that time. Scientists estimated that the cloud could bring over two hundred million more cubic kilometers of water into the atmosphere, enough to submerge all but the tallest mountain peaks on this version of Earth that already had little land area due to previous encounters with the cloud.

  With no means available to alter the cloud's path, scientists concentrated on methods to save mankind. The first was to ge
netically alter a select group of humans, to allow them to live permanently in water, these had been the platterfish, from whom Peter and Penelope had been the descendants (The Platterfish were named after Dr. Zigamond Platter, who was the genetic engineer behind the plan). The second was to move as many people as possible to other worlds.

  The cloud had also left a smaller amount of water on Mars, so colonization of Mars, which had already begun, was greatly increased, a large, permanent base was built on the Moon, and they would collect as much ice from the cloud as possible and store it for later use. Two large stations were built in an Earth orbit, partly to monitor the planet, but also in case more water or oxygen needed to be collected.

  This had all happened about four hundred years before, so there had now been twenty generations of humans never to have set foot on Earth. Three hundred and seventeen people now resided on Station Beta, far less than its capacity of twelve hundred, and all contact had been lost with all colonies and stations. Dr. Lemur (or L'mer) hypothesized that a virus had taken out everyone on Mars and the Moon, there had been a garbled message about “quarantine” and a supply ship and turned back to the Moon, before making its delivery to the station, at first they thought they had been quarantined, but when all contact was lost, and no-one on board became ill, they concluded that they were being protected from something. As far as they knew, they were the last non-aquatic humans.

  William explained that He and Sally were travelers from a parallel Earth, but did not tell them that there were an unimaginably large number of parallel universes (Sally had once described the number of universes as ∞-1, but Bob, who could comprehend numbers that large had said that it was closer to ∞-2).

  “I'm begging for your help,” Dr. Lemur said, after listening to William. “but honestly, I expect little. This station is doomed, we do not have any spacecraft available to take us to Mars or the Moon, all the shuttles left, and none have returned, and, even if there were somewhere to go, your vehicle is not large enough to take more than a handful of us. Unless you have some plan, we will all be dead in less than three weeks.”

  Sally said, “Let us go think about it, we'll be able to dock with you tomorrow, and I think we can come up with a plan by then, I have an idea, but William and I will need to figure out if we can do it.”

  When they were back in the Winnie, William said, “You already have a plan, don't you?”

  “Yes, but we need to work out the details.” she looked around, “There really is a lot of room in here.”

  “You're thinking of taking them along, so am I, but to where? We don't know if we'll ever get back home, or when we'll find another inhabited planet, we can't keep them on board indefinitely, the food synthesizers can't produce that much food and still leave us with enough energy to jump. We can save them, but we might maroon ourselves in the process.”

  “William, how many of the worlds that we've visited have really been uninhabitable? Uninhabited, maybe, but uninhabitable? Just this one, and the ice age world, and there were inhabitable areas there, we just didn't get to them. I would guess that they would be able to live on the next world to which we jump.”

  “There's no way to know for sure.”

  “Of course there is, Bob, is the next world we're going to inhabitable?”

  “Ninety-nine point two percent chance of it being inhabitable. Ninety-eight point seven percent chance of being inhabited, ninety-eight point one percent chance of being civilized, and ninety-seven point six percent chance of....”

  “Of what, Bob?”

  He told them.

  The next morning, by Winnebago time reference, the dock was finished, and they returned to the space station. They told Dr. Lemur that they had a plan that could save everybody, and outlined it for her. At first she was skeptical, “How can you fit over three hundred people into a craft less than twelve meters long?”

  “It's really quite spacious on the inside,” Sally said, “we’ll give you a tour, if you like.”

  “I really would like to see for myself, before I tell my crew and their families that you're going to save them.”

  They took her into the Winnie, and Sally was surprised that Dr. Lemur seemed more shocked by the internal size than she had been, or for that matter, more than Maggie or any of the others from the Deux world had been. This world had advanced space travel, and genetic engineering, but had discovered nothing about other dimensions. She was so shocked, in fact, that she passed out.

  When Sally revived her, she gradually took it in. They returned to the station, where Dr. Lemur called everyone on board to a meeting, and introduced William and Sally. “For those of you who have not yet met our guests, their names are Sally and William, and they have a plan to save us. They tell me that they come from a different world, it's Earth, but not our Earth, I don't pretend that I understand it, but I don't need to, and neither do you, but I believe that they are telling the truth. They cannot save our station, they could push us back to a higher orbit, but that would be a temporary solution, their vehicle cannot get to the Moon or to Mars, but we believe those colonies are gone anyway. What they say they can do is take us to another Earth, an Earth that still has plenty of dry land, and is a pleasant place to live, and they can take us there in their vehicle. I know that that is hard to believe, but I have seen the inside, and believe me, it is possible. We will stay here on the station for another two weeks, when we will begin boarding their craft, which they call a 'Winnebago', they cannot feed us all for very long, so we will take what remains of our food supply with us, we will stay in orbit a few days longer, and return to Earth, our Earth, for one last look at the planet that gave birth to our ancestors, and where our cousins, the Plattterfish will continue to live. From Earth, they tell me, we will travel to another world, where we will be welcomed, where our knowledge of science and technology is needed. Any questions?”

  “What is this new world like?” someone asked.

  Sally said, “Do any of you know what a Shopping Mall is?”

  Later, when they were back in the Winnie, William asked her, “Are you sure it will be alright just to dump three hundred and seventeen humans in among a bunch of overgrown rodents?”

  “William, the bunnies are nice, their planet is lacking in science and technology, and Bob assures me that in the timelines in which they are left there, they get along fine, and we can check up on them later. I just can't believe we're going back to the mall world so soon. If it's the fastest way to the edge, why didn't we just go from there?”

  “We would have had to wait there over two hundred years to catch the jump window we'll be using, the last few trips have just been a shortcut across a loop in the mall world's timeline.”

  Sally thought for a moment, “Okay, I think I understand.”

  “Good, can you explain it to me?”

  “No, sorry, you'll have to figure it out for yourself, you know that.”

  They spent the next two weeks helping the residents of the station move some of their possessions into the Winnie, most of them did not own a lot, life on the station was pretty sparse. There was plenty of space on the Winnie, but it was slow bringing everything through the docking port. They also brought many scientific instruments from the station, anything they could fit through the port that did not interfere with operations.

  They waited as long as possible to bring everybody on board, as to not overtax the Winnie's life support systems. During the final boarding the station began losing significant altitude as they were beginning to encounter increased atmospheric drag. As soon as the last person, Dr. Lemur, was aboard, they closed the docking door and broke free, then ascended a dozen kilometers to where they could still observe the station, but minimize the drag on the Winnie.

  Most of the crew gathered in the Grand Ballroom, where windows (or holographic projection panels that gave the illusion of windows) five meters high stretched the thirty-five meter length of the room. Bob overrode the standard view, and in its place put a magnified v
iew of the station, so that it loomed large and clear, even though it was now fifteen kilometers below and ahead of them, and dropping faster and faster as the atmosphere took its toll on the station's velocity.

  Frannie Lefkin was in the ballroom, and saw Leroy halfway across the room, and walked over to him, she looked him over, he was a bit nerdy, but a decent person. He was intent on the view, and didn't notice her until she reached out and touched his arm.

  “Frannie?”

  “Leroy... hold me.”

  He held her as a faint glow formed around the station, then grew brighter, and as they watched, there were many small explosions as it broke up and became a thousand shooting stars in the night sky of the earth below.

  Peter and Penelope happened to be out for a midnight swim, and looked up to see the fiery wreckage of Earth Orbit Station Beta plunging through the atmosphere.

  “Ooh, pretty!” was all they said.

  The next day, the Winnebago once again floated gently on the water, the jump window was not for another thirty hours, so William extended the deck so that the crew could come out, in small groups and breathe some of earth's air, a few had been down here before, but for most of them, it was a new experience.

  Sally and William sat on the deck, dangling their feet in the warm tropical water.

  “I'm think I'll go for a swim.” said Sally, and started to unbutton her top, but William stopped her, “You should go put on a swimsuit, we don't know how they feel about nudity.”

  “I'm wearing it.” she said, and took off the top and pants, she was wearing a modest one-piece swimsuit, and she dove into the water. When she surfaced, she saw a familiar face looking at her, “Penelope?” she asked.

  “Hi, Sally, you came back, and you brought friends. I didn't know you could swim. Will you be staying this time?”

  “Just until tomorrow, we're giving our new friends a ride to a new home, their last one was destroyed.”