by Tom Holt
“Hmm?”
“When I was your student,” he said, “I looked up to you. I admired what you’d achieved. I respected you as a scientist and a human being. And now you’re saying you don’t give a damn, not unless you can make a lot of money out of global catastrophe.”
Pieter gave him a sour look. “Blow it out your ear, Grasshopper,” he said. “Don’t you get it? We’re stuck here. We tried your million-to-one long shot, and, guess what, it didn’t work. No wine cellar, I checked. And there’s no way your lunatic sister can call us, because that’s impossible. We’re stranded on, as you so rightly point out, a dying planet. The moral high ground’s a bit different when there’s self-induced floodwater lapping round the foot of it. There’s nothing left to do here, Theo, it’s too late. So.” He sipped his drink and smiled. “The hell with it. Eat, drink and be insufferably self-righteous about other people’s mistakes, for tomorrow they fry. Isn’t that what being a scientist’s all about?”
“Pieter—”
“Besides,” Pieter went on, slamming his glass down on the table, “I’m beginning to have serious doubts about science in general. I mean, look at this place. Look what they’ve done to it. And who made it possible? Well?”
“Pieter—”
“People like me, is who. People with vision and imagination combined with knowledge, determination, passion and an infinite capacity for taking pains. Geniuses did this, Theo. Not fools, not people who count on their fingers and move their lips when they read. Idiots could never have figured out how to turn oozing black sludge into cheap energy, or designed the internal combustion engine. No, that took the finest minds the human race has ever produced. If we’d left it to the dumb-as-dogshit farmers, all this would be a golden ocean of frigging grain.”
“Pieter—”
“Don’t,” Pieter snapped furiously. “Don’t you dare say I’m wrong, because—”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Theo said meekly. “I just wanted to tell you, I know that woman.”
Pieter blinked at him. “Uh?”
“That woman over there. Tall, smartly dressed, about fifty. She’s something to do with Matasuntha’s Uncle Bill.”
“It’s possible, I guess,” Pieter said. “I mean, this friend of yours could have an exact equivalent in this universe. But the odds against running into the mirror-reality double of someone you know are so vast I never even bothered to consider it.”
“She’s waving at us.”
“No, that’s impossible,” Pieter said firmly. “The odds against knowing the mirror-reality double of someone you know are—”
“She’s heading this way.”
“What?”
“She’s coming to see us. She’s got a wine bottle.”
Pieter’s head slowly turned. “Does she know about—?”
“Oh yes.”
Pieter sat bolt upright so fast he poked himself in the eye with one of the spokes of the umbrella. “That’s crazy,” he said. “Why would anyone in their right mind want to come here?”
“What?”
“The bottles,” Pieter said. “They were sort of like the Mark One version of YouSpace. Each bottle is a one-off return trip to a pre-selected alternate reality.”
“I know. So?”
“So,” Pieter said, “when I chose them, I picked nice places. The sort of place you’d want to go to. Vacation spots. The sort of place, in other words, that this isn’t. So how in hell has one of my bottles brought her here?”
“Hold on,” Theo said. “You’ve been here before?”
“God, no,” Pieter replied. “It was all strictly theoretical. What I mean is, I calculated the probability needed to access a given alternate reality, and programmed the bottle’s guidance parameters accordingly. I didn’t test-drive the things.”
“Think about it,” Theo said. “One of your bottles brought us from the Vatican to here.”
Pieter looked blank. “I suppose it did, at that. Except that those bottles were in an alternate reality, so – oh, the hell with it, I give up. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”
Coming from Pieter, that was a bit like George W. Bush saying, Why don’t people check their facts before plunging into things? Even so, Theo couldn’t be bothered to comment. The woman, who was quite definitely Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz, in an elegant navy-blue suit with matching navy court shoes and shoulder bag, was bearing down on them with a look on her face that would’ve stopped a runaway train. Theo was about to call out to her when he noticed that Pieter had wriggled ninety degrees in his chair and was trying to hide his face behind his hands; curious behaviour, even by his standards –
“Mr Bernstein.”
– but so what? He turned and gave his rescuer a huge smile. “Mrs Duchene—”
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
Ah, he thought. Hostility. Not to worry, though. He’d been in deep trouble so long he was thinking of making it his domicile for tax purposes. “Am I glad to see you,” he went on. “How did you…?”
Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz sat down and put the wine bottle on the table. “Guesswork,” she said. “An extremely speculative long shot. Honestly, we’ve been worried sick about you. What were you thinking of, going off like that without telling anyone? Oh for pity’s sake, Pieter,” she added, “get a grip.”
Pieter winced and edged round, but avoided eye contact. “Hi, Dolly,” he said sheepishly.
Theo had to ask. “You know him?”
Pieter was about to say something, but he got a direct hit from a stare that would’ve done wonders for the planet’s icecaps, and subsided into meek silence. “It was Matasuntha’s idea,” she said. “He’s an idealist, she said. Try the global-warming planet. Don’t be ridiculous, I told her, nobody would be that stupid. But she insisted, and here you are.”
“Global…?”
“Yes. The planet where they reversed global warming. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“Um.”
She frowned. “We assumed you might come here so you could find out how they did it. Just the sort of quixotic stunt you’d be capable of, she said. “Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz raised an eyebrow. “That’s not why you’re here. Oh well, not that it matters. Come on, I’ll take you back. And then you can go and fetch Max.”
Theo didn’t mean to make a loud whimpering noise. It just slipped out. “Max?”
“Yes, Max. Your brother. Your brother, who you abandoned in a cave surrounded by dangerous animals.”
“It wasn’t his—”
“Quiet, Pieter.” A click of the tongue, like a bone snapping. “I suppose you’ll want to come back too. Really, you’re not safe let loose on your own.”
Pieter mumbled something. The word sorry was in there somewhere. Meanwhile, three words had just percolated through into Theo’s brain. “Reversed global warming?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Theo looked out across the bay, where gulls circled over the Minnesota Sea. “Um,” he said, “I don’t think so. Otherwise, this lot wouldn’t be quite so under water.”
“That’s what it’s supposed to be,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said briskly. “There was supposed to have been a catastrophic disaster caused by the malfunction of a large-scale scientific experiment, which raised the ambient temperature by twelve degrees. Oh well.” She shrugged. “Pieter must’ve made a mess of his arithmetic. Wouldn’t be the first time. Come on, then, if you’re coming.”
She probably owns dogs, Theo thought; she’s used to that level of obedience. “Just a moment, though,” he said. “Why are you so concerned about my stupid brother? Why is everybody—?”
“Later,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said firmly. “We don’t want to be stranded here, do we?”
Theo nodded his head so vigorously he nearly became the first man to hang himself, standing up, without a rope. “Absolutely,” he said. “How do we do that, exactly?”
Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz opened her bag and took out a
pair of reading glasses and a cork. “It’s written on here,” she said. “Different every time, which is annoying.”
“It’s all to do with the parallel vector index,” Pieter said defensively. “It’s one of the things that made me decide the one-off modules were a dead end.”
Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz made a very soft grunting noise, presumably signifying scepticism. “Right,” she said, putting the cork and her glasses back in her bag and snapping the clasp shut. “We need a waiter.”
“Of course we do,” Theo said. “What the hell for?”
“To take our order, of course.” She lifted her head, and instantly a young man in dark trousers and waistcoat came racing up to the table, holding a small notebook, thereby confirming Theo’s initial impression of Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz. He’d already decided that she was one of those quiet, forceful women. Now he knew she was a waiter-whisperer as well. It all fitted.
“Right,” she said. “To start, we’ll have prosciutto, olives, roasted garlic, peperoncini, artichoke hearts, rocket pesto, Milanese salami and thinly sliced mozzarella, with a very light dressing of virgin olive oil.”
“Si, signora. And to follow?”
“Lasagna verde, vermicelli, capellini, fusilli lunghi, tagliatelli and stuffed manicotti. But,” she added, skewering the waiter with a look that would’ve pierced tank armour, “we want all that at the same time as the first course. That’s very important. Do you understand?”
“Si, signora.”
“And on separate trays,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz went on. “That’s very important too.”
“Si, signora.”
“Both courses simultaneously, but separate.”
“Si. And wine?”
“No.” She nodded, releasing him, and he scuttled away. Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz breathed a little sigh, and folded her arms tightly. “I do hope he’s got that straight,” she said. “You never can tell with waiters.”
“Um, have we got time for lunch?” Theo asked warily. “Only, I thought we were in a hurry to get back.”
“We are. Pieter,” she snapped suddenly, “what are you doing?”
Pieter was writing frantically on the only surface available – the back of his left hand. “Not now, Dolly,” he said. “I think I’m on to something.”
“Pieter.”
Yes, a remarkable woman, able to materialise waiters and quite possibly calm thunderstorms and raise the dead. But was she powerful enough to command Pieter van Goyen? Apparently she was. “What?”
“You’re up to something. What are you doing?”
Pieter scowled, then put down his pen. “Actually, it was something you said.”
“I rather doubt that. What did I say?”
“The planet where they reversed global warming,” Pieter replied. “As it happens, I remember programming that particular bottle, purely as an intellectual exercise. I never imagined it’d be anything like this.”
“And, clearly, you got it wrong,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz replied. “Hence, as Mr Bernstein pointed out, all the water.”
Pieter smiled and shook his head. “No, it came out just right,” he said. “This is the planet where they found out how to put right the damage. It must be. I found it.”
“Hm.”
“But,” Pieter went on, “like you say, it hasn’t happened yet. Therefore, it’s going to happen, at some point, most likely in the very near future.”
“I’m sure that’s a great comfort, Pieter. Meanwhile—”
“My program,” Pieter went on, somehow managing to override her command protocols, “was designed to put a visitor down at the most interesting place and time for any given venue. Therefore, we’ve arrived at the point where they make the great discovery. Stands to reason. Inevitable.”
“If you say so, Pieter, dear.” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz made a show of looking round. “I have to say, though, it’s not looking particularly likely.”
“You think so?”
“Oh come on,” she said. “This is hardly the sort of place where you’d expect to find a scientific genius doing epoch-making work.”
Pieter lifted his head and gave her a beautiful smile. “Well,” he said. “Not if you will insist on interrupting me.”
The effect was as though she’d just found a dead frog in her terrine of venison. “You—”
“Obvious when you think about it,” Pieter said cheerfully. “I’m the key element in the program. I come here, solve the problem—”
“Pieter.”
“And as soon as I realised that,” Pieter went blithely on, “as soon as I knew I was bound to succeed, I had this really rather wonderful idea. You see, basically, what you need is two huge great refrigeration units, one at each pole. What’s the main active agent in refrigeration? Propane gas. And what vast untapped natural resource lies directly under Alaska and Antarctica? Whopping great oil fields. So, all you’d need to do is—”
Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz let out a long but entirely dignified sigh. “When we get back home,” she said, “I’ll have to write to all the encyclopedias, because the Great Wall of China will no longer be the largest man-made structure on the planet. Your ego—”
“Dolly.” Pieter’s voice was quite quiet, but it shut her up instantly. “Young Theo here was just lecturing me on what a waste it’d be if I didn’t use my exceptional talents in the service of mankind—”
“Not quite how I put it,” Theo mumbled defensively, but he still got scowled at.
“Well,” Pieter went on, “for once he’s quite right. I’m here at this place, at this time, for a reason.”
“Manifest destiny,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said sourly.
“If you like, yes. I was sent here by a superior power. Me,” he added happily. “Not someone you argue with. Well, you do, of course, but that’s just your incredibly bossy nature. No, it’s quite plain. I ordained that I should come here and do this thing. So, obviously, it’s my duty.”
“Oh for pity’s sake,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said. “Well? What do you want?”
The waiter, who’d appeared with a tray in his hand, shrank back a step. “Signora—”
“What? Oh, put it down. And where’s the pasta? I told you, simultaneously.”
“Si, signora. Un momento, per favore.” He darted away and came back a few seconds later with a second tray. When he was a yard or so from the table, Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz barked “Stop!” He stopped. “Put the tray down, and go away.”
The waiter put the tray down carefully on the ground, backed off a few paces, then turned and fled. Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz examined both trays for a moment, then turned to face Pieter. “So,” she said. “You want to stay here, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I wash my hands of you. You can stay here, work your miracles and rot, for all I care. Just don’t expect me to come traipsing round after you when you realise you’re stuck here for ever.”
Pieter grinned. “Oh, I’ll be fine,” he said. “Theo’ll come back for me, won’t you?”
“Um,” Theo said.
“Of course you will. Dolly,” he went on, “exactly what do you think you’re doing with those trays?”
She was holding one tray directly over the other, lining up the edges with total precision. “Really, Pieter,” she said. “A genius like you. You ought to be able to work it out from first principles.”
Pieter shook his head. “Not a clue, sorry.”
“Ah well.” She paused for effect, then went on: “According to the instructions on the cork, in order to get home we need to trigger a massive carbon-oxygen implosion. The only way we can do this in this particular reality is the total annihilation effect brought about by the collision of pasta and antipasta. So—”
“Dolly—”
She looked at him. “Goodbye, Pieter,” she said..
“Dolly, I was kidding. The instructions were meant as a joke. What you really need to do is—”
Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz let go of the tray. The
re was a crash, the sound of splintering crockery –
“Dolly—”
– followed by an ear-splitting roar and a sheet of white flame that blotted out everything.
“Oh,” Theo said, as his head stopped spinning. “It worked.”
He’d felt better. There had been the heat of the flames on his skin, the indescribable sensation of being poured uphill into the mouth of a narrow bottle; and then this. He took a deep breath, staggered, caught himself just in time and subsided, with some degree of control and dignity, on to the carpeted floor.
“Well, of course it worked,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said. “I followed the instructions on the bottle. Not what most men would have done, of course, but I have this strange belief that instructions are put there so you’ll know what to do. Must you sprawl on the floor like that, by the way? It’s so hard to have an intelligent conversation with someone in a different plane.”
Floor. Well, yes, she had a point there. “Sorry,” he said, and tried to stand up, but his knees wouldn’t take his weight. Fortunately, the carpet was deep and springy. “Where is this?” he said.
“Home. Well, sort of. Our reality.”
He had another go. This time, he made it, but only because someone helped him. He swung round to find out who his unseen assistant might be, and –
“Lunchbox.”
The tall, thin young man smiled awkwardly and made a grunting noise that might just possibly have been some sort of articulate speech. Theo yelped and tried to pull away, but Lunchbox’s hand was locked round his elbow. Where he kept his muscles was anybody’s guess, but he quite definitely had some.
“Don’t make a fuss,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said briskly, “you’ll only hurt yourself and it won’t do a bit of good.”
“But that’s not right,” Theo blurted out. “Lunchbox is one of Janine’s goons, surely.”
The look on the young man’s face made him feel desperately guilty, as though he’d just kicked a baby wolf cub. Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz clicked her tongue. “The term you’re groping for is private enquiry agent,” she said. “We don’t use the G-word, it’s not polite. Arthur, dear, you don’t have to grip quite so tightly. Mr Bernstein isn’t going to run away.”