Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 3 October 2006

by Baen Publishing

  "What did they see, Jackson?" Wilding asked.

  Grant's cell phone played Beethoven's Fifth.

  "The sprites!" Jackson replied cheerfully. "Water sprites!"

  "Dr. Fellows," Grant said into the phone. Ellicott gave him the composition of the mucous sample. "Good work, James." He closed the cell. "Detective, I need to talk to you."

  "Just a minute, Doctor. Do you drink, Mr. Jackson?"

  "Nothin' but good ol' well water. I won't have nothin' to do with that crap from the treatment plant. Used to be sprites all over in the old days. Everybody saw 'em out by their wells. Then they brought in the city water and the sprites mostly disappeared."

  Grant held up his phone. "I have the results."

  "Mostly disappeared?" Wilding asked.

  Jackson giggled and rubbed hands together. "Down in the woods, right down here." He pointed. "There's an abandoned open well, used to be for watering the cattle in the field."

  "Will you shut up?" Grant shouted.

  Jackson's face fell serious. He bunched his fists. "Who you telling to shut up, fancypants?"

  Wilding stepped forward as Grant retreated. "Doctor, just because I have two ears doesn't mean I can listen to two people at once," she said. "Mr. Jackson, if I go to this well, will I see the sprites?"

  He stuck out his tongue at Grant. "I'll tell ya, little miss. You might see 'em; you might not. They're a little bit invisible."

  Wilding muttered an expletive. "Invisible. Great. Doctor Fellows, what did your boy have to say?"

  Before he could speak, Jackson said, "Wait a minute. You come with me. I'll show you. Can't guarantee nothin' but if they're there and you look real careful, you just might catch a glimpse."

  "Okay, Mr. Jackson. It's the doctor's turn."

  "Ellicott tested the sample," Grant said, shooting the most evil look he could muster at Jackson. "It was composed primarily of water, glucose, and proteins."

  "And that means what?" Wilding asked.

  "It was similar in composition to human mucous secretions."

  "You mean it was snot."

  "Yes and no." He realized he was sounding like Jackson. He quickly continued. "It wasn't snot. It had more solids, so it was much thicker. More like cartilage. And it had a high mineral content unlike snot. More like cerebrospinal fluid. It was especially high in magnesium."

  Wilding held out her hands. "What the hell are you saying?"

  Grant rubbed his chin. "I don't know. I don't know what it is. Maybe Ellicott screwed up."

  "So where does this leave us?"

  He didn't have an answer. He suddenly felt very foolish standing in the woods at night with the police detective and Andy of Mayberry. He didn't belong here. He should be back in his lab, using science to find answers. Not crawling around sewers and listening to some rube blathering about fairies in his well.

  Wilding pocketed her notebook. "You finished for the night, Doctor? I can drop you at your car at the hospital."

  "Yeah, I think so. Where are you going?"

  "I'm going to follow the dots up Water Street and stop by each vic's home."

  Jackson stepped forward, waving his arms. "Y'all can't go yet! You gotta come see the sprites! It's the perfect time. They don't come out in the daylight. It's not far. The well's just down here a piece."

  A connection clicked in Grant's head. Untreated well water is often high in magnesium. The pseudo-snot and CSF are high in magnesium. His data hadn't shown significant mineral deficiencies across the board, only in the homeless, but none of the cases had the recommended levels of magnesium. Maybe the water treatment was a factor. Until a few years ago, the area was rural and even city hall had well water. He couldn't recall any research tying compromised neural systems to any specific nutritional element but it was something to look into. He clapped Jackson on the back. "Let's go take a look at your gremlins, Mr. Jackson."

  "They're sprites," he said.

  Wilding stared at him, her mouth dropping open.

  "Coming, detective?" He enjoyed her reaction.

  She leaned in close to him as they followed Jackson back into the culvert and into the scruffy stand of trees and undergrowth. "What are you doing?"

  He smiled. "I'm getting a water sample from the well."

  "That's important?"

  "I don't know. I'm just following a lead." He stumbled over a root.

  ****

  "Here it is, kids!" Jackson announced joyfully. "Find yourself a stump, have a seat and watch."

  Grant stepped through the weeds toward the concrete structure. Wilding had given him one of her zipper bags.

  "Whoa, hoss!" Jackson grabbed his shoulders. "You don't want to go near there."

  "Why not?"

  "City people," Jackson said. "Didn't your mama teach you nothin'? You don't mess with the sprites. They bite."

  Grant walked back to Wilding. "You don't suppose there's a wild animal back here, do you?"

  "Who knows?" she whispered. "The guy's obviously some kind of a nut." Aloud, she said, "Mr. Jackson, we've got it covered here. Why don't you go home?"

  "No, that's okay, little miss. I'd like to see a sprite. I ain't seen one in years. Just sit and wait. Keep your flashlight down and when you hear something in the brush, shine that light right at it." He flumped down onto a log.

  Wilding sat beside Jackson. Grant leaned against a tree, fuming because he wanted to get the water sample and get the hell out. What felt like hours, but was actually minutes, passed. The stars peeked through the treetops. Crickets chirped. The loam beneath the underbrush smelled of mildew.

  Something moved by the well.

  Before he could speak, Wilding shushed him. She shined the light onto the base. Grant wanted to say that it was probably a rat but he knew she would shush him again. He waited as she turned off the flashlight, leaving them in total darkness. A moment later, at the hint of a rustle in the dry leaves, she flicked it on.

  The light reflected on the shiny surface of a foot-high creature, standing upright, looking straight at them. In the second before it darted away, Grant saw a face that was almost human.

  Jackson danced around them. "Did ya see it? Did ya see it? Hoo-ee!"

  "What the hell was that?" Wilding shouted.

  Grant found himself speechless. He saw the creature in his mind as he tried to rationalize it. All of this talk of imps and such influenced his perception. The light shined on a skunk or a woodchuck, that's all.

  "What the hell was that?" Wilding shouted again.

  "Sprite! Sprite!" Jackson sang as he danced.

  Grant felt as if he were a bit actor in a bizarre play. He had to do something normal. Something scientific. He took out the baggie and walked toward the well.

  "Be careful, boy," Jackson said menacingly. "If'n the sprite don't get ya, you might just fall into that old well."

  "I'm taking a water sample."

  "Hope you have long arms. That well hasn't been used in years. The only water might be thirty or so feet down."

  Grant wanted to go home. He wanted to go home now.

  Wilding appeared to have composed herself enough to approach him and take his arm. "Let's get out of here, doc." As they walked away, she called over her shoulder, "Jackson, I'd go home and lock the door if I were you." She didn't speak again until they were inside the car in the plant parking lot. She started the engine. "You saw what I saw. I know. That wasn't human. And it wasn't an animal."

  Grant cleared his throat. "It was a second. A split second. We couldn't tell what it was. We need more data."

  "Doctor, use your gut, your instinct. That could be our spinal fluid sucker. The size fits with the hand bruises and the damn thing looked like it was made of Jello."

  "Earlier today you thought it was a serial killer in a medical profession. By the way, don't detectives travel in pairs like nuns? Don't you have a partner?"

  She put the car in drive and pulled onto Water Street. "I'm working this unofficially."

  Grant la
ughed. "Your superiors thought you were crazy, right?"

  She took her hand off the steering wheel long enough to show him her middle finger.

  As they drove into town in silence, Grant tried to organize in his mind what he had learned this day. Babies can spontaneously recover from hydrocephalus. Healthy young women with little brothers and boyfriends named Gerald can die suddenly from a condition that's usually not fatal. A strange gooey substance high in magnesium could be residue from a CSF-sucking sprite.

  Even though he was trying to be facetious, he couldn't help but think it made sense. If the creature required high levels of magnesium and could no longer get it from the well water, it would look for another source. The river feeding the treatment plant would be too fast moving for a small creature. The homeless in the storm drain filled that need until they were moved out. Then it headed up the street and found healthy people with higher levels of magnesium. And little brothers.

  Wilding pulled into the hospital parking lot.

  "Stop the car!" Grant yelled. "Turn around!"

  She slammed on the brakes, throwing them both forward into their shoulder harnesses. "What?"

  "The Timsburys. They have another child. The brother. What if it's still in the house?"

  Wilding spun the car around and stepped on the gas.

  ****

  Mr. Timsbury's grief had subsided enough for him to be outraged. "Leave us alone! Our daughter is dead. We just want to be left alone!"

  "We only need a minute, Mr. Timsbury, please." Wilding inched into the doorway. "Is your son home?"

  "He's gone to bed. He doesn't want to see anyone."

  Grant stepped forward. "I'm a doctor, Mr. Timsbury. A neurologist. I was in the emergency room when they brought your daughter in. Angela. I'd like to give your son a brief examination. What's his name?"

  "Matthew. Matt. Is what Angie had contagious?"

  "No, but I need to see Matt now. You can take me up to his room."

  Mr. Timsbury opened the door and led them up the stairs. He tapped on the door opposite his daughter's. "Matt? Open the door, son."

  When there was no response, Wilding reached in front of him and threw the door open. The light was off and Grant could see a shape on the bed. "Matt!" he shouted as he flipped on the light switch.

  A boy lay motionless face down on the bedclothes, his pajama top pulled over his head. Crouched on his back, a clear gelatinous creature turned to face them. Its eyes were slits; it had no nose. A needle resembling an icicle protruded from an O-shaped mouth. A high-pitched wail emitted from the creature as it slid off the child and under the bed.

  Wilding pulled her gun. Grant grabbed her wrist. "No. That won't work. Mr. Timsbury! Get Matt out of here. Call 911." He closed the door behind the father carrying his son.

  Wilding pulled the covers off the mattress and knelt on the floor to see the cowering sprite. "What should we do with it?"

  Grant thought about the composition of the sample sent to the lab. "Don't let it get away. I'll be right back." He stopped at the door. "And don't let it get near you!"

  He heard the ambulance siren as he ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. He flung the cabinets open, tossing anything in his way onto the floor. He found what he was looking for and ran back to Matt's room.

  As he slipped in the doorway and pushed the door closed with his shoulder, he saw Wilding sitting on the floor, both hands gripping a translucent leg.

  "I got it! I got it!" she shouted. "Look! It's missing a chunk. Angela must have put up a fight!" As she smiled at him, the creature twisted around, jumping on her chest, and injected the needle into her neck.

  "Amy!" Grant strode forward and tore open the pound bag of salt and dumped it over the sprite's body. It dropped away from the detective and howled as it melted into a foul-smelling puddle. The needle was the last feature to liquefy.

  Grant knelt next to Wilding and examined her wound.

  She coughed when she tried to talk. Clutching her throat, she managed to ask, "How did you know to do that?"

  He wrapped his arms around her. "It works on slugs."

  ****

  The new lab equipment took up so much of the space that Grant kept one of the covered aquariums in his office. He had gotten into the habit of reaching over and tapping on the glass without looking up from his work whenever it got noisy. It had taken him a week to realize that little Cody Allen lived on Water Street. He had to go back to the well in the woods at night to capture one of the sprites. Amy insisted on going with him. He knew he wouldn't get any federal funding with just a proposal. He had to show them that these creatures really do exist.

  Marianne leaned into the doorway. "Doctor Fellows, are you here for Detective Wilding?"

  "Very funny," he said. The staff was having way too much fun with his newly found love life. He could see Amy standing behind her. Marianne covered a laugh as Amy entered the room.

  "Okay, doc, it's quitting time." She walked over to the aquarium. "What's this?"

  "It's my new little buddy."

  The sprite shuddered as it fed on the rhesus monkey with an enlarged head, face down on the aquarium floor, eyes wide with terror.

  Grant recorded the time as the creature withdrew its transparent needle from the limp victim. As the sprite hopped off the monkey's back, it belched, sending little bubbles through its body. It almost disappeared as it hid in the glass corner.

  "He's curing monkey hydrocephalus now," Grant said, "but the little snot'll be curing babies and car accident victims in a couple of years."

  Amy grimaced, then leaned in for a closer look. "Does he have a number or a name?"

  Grant smiled. "He has a name all right. I call him Jackson. Hoo-ee!"

  ****

  Return to Top

  Great Minds by Edward M. Lerner

  Illustrated by Paul Campbell

  "It's very much as I expected," the intruder said without preamble.

  Entering my cozy den, I had encountered him seated in my massive leather wingchair, shoes up on my broad mahogany desk, savoring one of my Cuban cigars. A snifter of brandy rested on the leather blotter, within his easy reach. The aroma was Napoleonic.

  As I was unsurprised to find him. "Please, don't get up."

  "You're very gracious." He grinned. The smile was world-famous: toothy, and slightly off-kilter. I saw it every morning in the mirror. Not that there weren't differences. There always were: in haircut, clothing style, glasses instead of contacts, whatever. I found his sideburns curiously short. "I mean considering."

  Considering, as we both knew, he was here to take my life. Leather squeaked as his feet swung from the desk and he straightened his posture. Getting down to business. "The greatest minds of the millennium could not reach a common understanding what the math meant." Meaning: He couldn't have been expected to figure it out.

  He was a whiner, a self-justifier—for which I was grateful. That character flaw was the only reason I was still here. He was also wrong. Proof by counterexample: I had decided I would solve the puzzle. Eventually, he had made the same choice. And, in our own times, in our respective ways, each of us had been successful.

  His over-rehearsed rationalization tumbled out. "Bohr, Heisenberg, Einstein, Pauli, von Neumann, Schrödinger, Planck . . . them and more. Giants. You know the list. They never agreed on the physical significance of the math. Who was I to hope to understand the reality underlying the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics?"

  Meaning: He lost hope, and somehow it became justifiable that I should pay the piper.

  "And so for a long time, I gave up. I denied the problem. My career went another way." He paused for a sip. "But for years, for decades, I could not help but wonder. Every day, billions of transistors demonstrated some underlying truth to the theory. Quantum mechanics describes something. I had to know what."

  His non-smoking hand, when not busy with the consumption of my best brandy, darted from time to time to pat something unseen in his coat p
ocket. It seemed to give him confidence.

  "And so you returned to physics." I had never left it.

  He admired the many plaques and photos gracing the darkly paneled walls of the room. "And so I realized, I decided, what you had much earlier. The Copenhagen Interpretation—that certain physical specifics go beyond being unmeasurable, that to even inquire about them represented a misunderstanding of the physical universe—was, if true, an explanation inherently unprovable.

  "What was provable, if true, was another explanation altogether: the Many Worlds Interpretation. If I could detect other universes, show that events happened in all possible ways, not just in whatever random way 'the wave function collapsed' without cause or explanation in ours, the great QM debate would be resolved. But among the myriads of myriads, for which other universe would I aim? And what evidence of that other place would be unambiguous?"

  His nervous pocket-patting was growing more frequent. If my suspicions about the device in that pocket were correct—and who better than I to understand my visitor's thinking—I did not have much time. "And then you realized . . . if MWI were true, there must be other universes in which another you"—such as me—"had stayed the course." My eyes followed his to the Nobel Prize certificate and medallion in their softly illuminated, velvet-lined display case.

  Because you got greedy. You saw you need not settle for fame beginning at age fifty-five—my present age, hence your own. You could do better. Much better. By switching places, you could seize the fruits of fame from another you who had proven the MWI years earlier.

  Do you think you are the first me to have had that realization?

  Below his line of sight, I clicked my heels twice. The radio beacon thus triggered activated the mechanism hidden within my/his chair.

  ****

  There are universes without number. Among the myriads is one where a different quantum outcome was enough to change the career of an unknown microbe. Newton died there in the great plague of 1665, at age twenty-three. The development of physics was, as a result, greatly impeded. Onto that parallel, low-tech plane of existence now materialized a new occupant.