The Edge

by Jacob Wenzel

  Finally, they came to worlds with no life at all, totally barren, all lacking an oxygen atmosphere, so that, if they had wanted to go outside, they would have needed environment suits. William began to think that the edge, at least this edge would be totally lifeless, and perhaps they had just been wasting their time.

  45.

  They landed in the universe which Bob had calculated was the farthest from the center of the macroverse, and therefore the least like the universe from which they had started. It was not at all barren, a complete change from what they had been expecting. The first thing they noticed was how remarkably unremarkable it was. No meringue ground, no jewel encrusted trees, or plaster beavers, no singing flowers. They were in a forest of pine, fir, and spruce trees, off the side of a two lane paved road with a yellow stripe down the middle.

  William turned to Sally, “This sure looks like home, I wonder what’s different, shall we go North or South?”

  “South, I have a good feeling about South.”

  “I concur,” said Bob

  They almost hit a deer that ran across the road in front of them, but continued on their way, William driving a little more slowly. Sally saw the sign first, but neither one of them could tell what it said. They slowed almost to a stop as they approached it. It was in English, it said, “Western Edge Highway, Viewpoint, 2 miles”.

  They continued on around a curve and the forest on their right gave way to open space, but it was foggy, and they couldn’t see anything a few feet past the shoulder. They pulled off the road into the viewpoint parking lot, it was mostly empty and there was only one person at the guardrail looking out at the fog. William stepped out of the Winnie, but Sally went to get Fluffy, so he could get some fresh air. William walked over to the rail and wondered aloud if it was always this foggy here. The man at the rail, without turning, said, “It’s not fog, look down.”

  William leaned out over the rail, looked down the cliff, it was perfectly clear for at least a few hundred feet, to where the rocky surface curved back, out of sight. He looked back at the “not fog”, and then up. Straight above was blue sky with a few clouds, but the sky ended abruptly at sharp line where the gray started, occasionally clouds would appear to be drifting out of the gray.

  The man said, “It’s nothing, literally. This is the edge of this world and the Macroverse, beyond this point, there is nothing, no space, no time, no dimension, nothing, weird, huh? But not moist like fog.”

  William looked back at the man at the rail, who was now looking at him, he looked very familiar, someone who William had never met, but had seen many times on television, he said, “Philo?”

  Philo smiled and said, “It’s good to finally meet you, I’ve been looking forward to this day.” Just then, Sally stepped out of the Winnie and started walking with Fluffy over to them, but then stopped in her tracks, she felt her throat tighten, her eyes welled up, and she started trembling, and gasped out in her native language, “Daddy?”

  “Hello, Trali, I’ve missed you.” No one else had ever called her Trali. They hugged, for a long, long time, Sally was crying, “I thought you were dead, you disappeared.”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” he said, stroking her hair, “I had to go, I don’t have a lot of choice as to when I go. I stayed there a lot longer than I’m usually allowed. When I first arrived, and saw your mother, I fell totally in love, it’s the only time it’s ever happened, she was so beautiful and gentle, you're so much like her. I knew I’d have to leave her someday, but I didn’t know that she would be gone before I left. When I knew that you and your brother would be alone, I gave you Fluffy, I see he’s taken good care of you. I assume you still have the necklace.”

  She reached into her top and pulled out the shiny thing.

  “It’s a transponder that only Fluffy and I can tune into so he could always find you to protect you, and I would always know where you were.”

  “Fluffy can tune into a transponder?” William asked.

  “Fluffy is a robot, haven’t you ever noticed that he never ages or eats?”

  Sally said, “I thought he was just eating whenever he wandered off, and the aging thing, well, I haven't been around many Thofn… I mean, tigers, I don’t know anything about how they age. What about Skikkinik Woot-Woot Kex? You just left me to take care of him!”

  “I knew he’d be alright with the clan, he fits in, he’s a good kid, but, Trali, you got the brains in the family.... I’m going to have to leave soon, I have a lot of worlds to get through. I’ve given Bob some tips on shortcuts between universes where he has no nodes, I know them all. I’m sorry it’s been so brief, but if we choose the right paths, we’ll see each other again.” He gave her a final hug and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Be nice.”

  At the same time, William asked, “Who are you? What are you?”

  As he began to fade, he said, “That depends on how you slice it. And, by the way, it’s twins.”

  After a pause, Sally asked, “I’m pregnant? Twins?”

  “You know, Sam and Janet.” and he was gone.

  She knew what she had to do, and she walked over to the Gift Shop.

  46.

  Later that night, the Mecha-Med confirmed that Sally was pregnant with twins.

  Sally turned to William, “William?”

  “Yes, Sally?”

  “How did I get pregnant?”

  “I believe it was the usual way.”

  “I mean, you had a vasectomy.”

  “I know, apparently, when I was injured in the timeline where you were killed, the Mecha-Med rebuilt that part of me without the alteration.”

  “You were injured there?”

  “Yes it was pretty bad.”

  “That must have really hurt, I'm sorry.”

  “I'm not, as Bob said, it was necessary to get where we needed to go, and I think he meant more than just to the edge.”

  47.

  When the Winnebago descended from the sky and landed at the edge of the village of the Whongi-soot maki-maki fut, the people scattered, some hid in the forest, some in their huts, Darrell threw himself on the ground and tried to hide under a large leaf, only Sally’s brother, Skikkinik Woot-Woot Kex, stayed where he was. Sally stepped out. She had left the village a banished, frustrated, beaver-pelt clad cave woman with a tiger. She returned a clean, sophisticated, well-dressed, time-traveler, with a robotic tiger. She hugged her astonished brother for a long time, the walked over to Darrell, nudged him with her foot a couple times, until he stood up. His eyes grew wide as he recognized her.

  “I made it to the Edge of the World, I’m back, here, I brought you a souvenir, it's called a t-shirt.”

  She stayed long enough, to explain to the clan that her brother was now of age, and the rightful Finnwibbit, she took Darrell’s duck feather headdress, and put it on Skikkinik Woot-Woot Kex, gave him another hug and went back inside and took a shower to get the mud off.

  William started the Winnie, they lifted off and steered toward the East.

  48.

  The wedding ceremony was held in cyberspace, so that William’s whole family was able to attend, and they convinced Sally’s brother to come into the Winnie, and into cyberspace, which confused him terribly, especially when he could talk to no one except Sally and Bob, who had figured out how to enter cyberspace as an avatar (technically, he had always known how, but had never done it until now). Annie was the flower girl, Venus officiated, and Cindy was Sally’s Matron of honor, and William’s best man, or rather men, were two different Alexander Fergus’, the one they had met in ice age Oregon, and the one from the world to which they had returned, the two of them got into a furious argument during the reception, and had to be kept apart.

  The biggest surprise was when Philo appeared just in time to walk Sally down the aisle, which ice-age Fergus had been about to do, but gladly stepped aside for Philo, who was on an assignment doing something, but was in a timeline which contained one of Bob’s nodes and with Bob’s help, was ab
le to come into this timeline’s cyberspace without actually leaving his separate timeline. He and Bob had some sort of hyperdimensional connection which no else except Sally understood. So, in addition to a wedding, it turned into a family reunion all around.

  When Philo was introduced to Donald and Aurora, he greeted them in Latvian.

  49.

  In the clearing where Sally had almost stayed long ago, (and in at one timeline, did stay) William and Sally sat in lawn chairs outside the Winnie drinking lemonade. It was a warm autumn evening, and there was a pleasantly cool breeze coming from the west.

  The twins, Sam and Janet were swimming in the pool down in the creek with Fluffy keeping an eye on them. The family spent most of their time here, occasionally they would take a trip to the future to do some shopping, or into Cyberspace to visit William’s family, or to go to visit Sally’s brother who had turned out to be a very good Finnwibbitt, and had started a family of his own.

  Every few years, Philo managed to stop by between gigs. No-one except Sally understood who he was, and she wouldn't share it with William, or anybody else. They just knew that that he was family, and had an important job.

  Sally turned to William, “William?”

  “Yes, Sally?”

  “This is nice, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, very nice.”

  She reached out, and they held hands.

  William and Sally (and Sam and Janet) had many more adventures over the years, far too many to chronicle here, especially considering the unimaginably large number of parallel Williams and Sally's. Perhaps in another time.

  Epilogue I

  It was a warm evening in the autumnal month of Terwilliger (in the new sixteen month, four-hundred and eighty-day year) as Sam and Janet, The Guides, looked out over the world they had saved and the civilization they had created. The new Sun was setting in the west, and there was a gentle breeze. It had been a long journey, they had traveled nearly twenty thousand years, taking almost fifty years of their lives, but it had worked, they had saved mankind, leading a timeline to a future with the technology to move an entire planet to a different solar system. Twenty thousand years of civilization, of technological and scientific growth, concentrating on space exploration. As The Guides, they were able to influence population growth, so that the planet’s ecosystem was never significantly impacted by man’s presence, but a big enough population to support the infrastructure needed for the long term goal. The population was never more than a hundred million. There was no poverty in their world, no wars, no disease, lifespans had been increased to four hundred years or more. True, the people were a bit dull, but that was necessary for the needed long term stability.

  They had known from the time they were children that the Sun was going to explode, obliterating the inner planets, and frying the outer ones, Jupiter and Saturn exploding in secondary nuclear bursts, ignited by the shock wave from the sun.

  They had managed to keep their world isolated from other timelines, and their plans secret from everybody except Bob, who had told them of the future they would create, and Grandpa Philo who gave them guidance, and kept them focused on the ultimate goal. They had even kept it from their parents for the first few years, so they would not be burdened with the knowledge of the impending doom of the Earth in almost all timelines, but found it was becoming too difficult to hide it from them and still have use of the Winnie. It had been imperative that that knowledge be kept from those timelines, as there was no possible way to save them. It was even more important that their world have no contact from other worlds that might corrupt the citizens, or distract them from the goal.

  Other worlds could not be saved, this one could if it were kept isolated. Mankind would survive in the Macroverse. Fortunately, William and Sally understood, and reluctantly agreed to keep the project secret. William asked Bob (who controlled all time travel, everywhere) to never allow anyone else to jump from other worlds to theirs, except the one he and Sally had taken so long ago. Bob said he had already done that.

  William and Sally had retired to cyberspace joining William’s parents and Annie. Their bodies and minds could be kept alive for several times the duration of a normal lifespan. They had convinced an ailing Skikkinik Woot-Woot Kex (Chuck) to come with them. Sam and Janet had them all transferred to a new section of the Winnie, so to keep the family together, as once the Earth and the moon had been towed out of their orbits on the way to the Centauri system, jumps back to the old timelines would become impossible.

  After they watched Centauri A set, a dimmer, and much more distant Centauri B was high in the sky providing a little more light than the moon, and tiny Proxima was a bright reddish star just showing in the East, they went inside to go visit the family in cyberspace where they were all going to a picnic in Annie’s meadow.

  Epilogue II

  In another timeline:

  Tralalililea Mundopote Exni-Slodge was content in the clearing in which she had stayed with Fluffy years ago. She had been there about two years, when a young man approached her camp, his name was Wiluk, and he had been banished from his clan. He had not recited a chant to the god of fire before he made one, and his people believed that someone would be burned as a consequence, he had explained that people usually were burned because they were careless or stupid, not because of the gods.

  His banishment had not been as polite as Tralalililea’s, but he had escaped without significant injuries. His language was similar to Tralalililea’s and they were able to communicate effectively and hit it off quite well.

  Tralalililea and Wiluk had a reasonable number of children and grandchildren, who were intelligent and creative and would go on to invent the wheel, written language and agriculture, all within Tralalililea and Wiluk’s lifetimes, within three hundred years a civilization would arise as a result, millennia before they would have arisen in Africa, Asia, or Europe.

  Their descendants would explore extensively, colonizing the rest of the Americas, and then the rest of the world, the primitives living there would eventually be assimilated into their culture. Within eleven hundred years, they had developed space travel, and would deflect a comet that, in William's timeline, destroyed most of the large mammals in North America. Thousands of years later, an astronomer would spot the wandering neutron star that would go undetected in other timelines, long before it collided with the Sun. A large rocket with an antimatter warhead would be launched in time to deflect its course enough to miss the Sun and direct it out of the Galaxy. Time travel would never be discovered, but faster than light travel would be, and eventually Tralalililea and Wiluk’s descendants would colonize the galaxy, never finding any other life-forms beyond primordial slime.

  One night when Tralalililea was old, she looked up at the stars and wondered what might have happened if she had followed the urge to leave the clearing, she never would have met Wiluk or had her children, she’d had a good and happy life and had no doubt she had made a good decision.