by Neil Clarke
“Parchment?”
“Or wood pulp. Or plastic. Or flexible glass sheets.”
His eyes jumped about the screen. He would probably be able to read the words, at least taken singly. But the subject and cumulative oddness had to leave him miserably confused.
“This town isn’t a large community,” she mentioned. “But I like to think that we have a modest, thorough collection.” Mary smiled for a moment, relishing her chance to boast. “Anyone is free to walk through our door and print copy of any title in our catalog. But I’ll warn you: If we made paper books of every volume, and even if each book was small enough to place in those long hands of yours, George . . . well, this library isn’t big enough to hold our entire collection. To do that, we’d have to push these walls out a little farther than the orbit of Neptune.”
The news left the poor man numb. A few labored breaths gave him just enough strength to fix his gaze once again on the reader, and with a dry, sorry little voice, he asked, “Is this Heaven?”
“As much as any place is,” she replied.
George was sharp. Confused, but perceptive. He seemed to understand some of the implications in her explanation. With a careful voice, he read aloud, “‘Endless Avenues. A thorough study of the universe as a single quantum phenomena.’”
“Your home earth,” she began. “It happens to be one of many.”
“How many?”
“Think of endless worlds. On and on and on. Imagine numbers reaching out past the stars and back again. Creation without ends, and for that matter, without any true beginning either.”
Poor George stared across the enormous room, voicing the single word, “No.”
“Every microscopic event in this world splits the universe in endless ways, George. The process is essential and it is inevitable, it happens easily and effortlessly, and nothing about existence is as lovely or perfect as this endless reinvention of reality.”
The reader made a sharp pop when he dropped it on the floor. “How do you know this?” he asked.
“Centuries of careful, unsentimental scientific exploration,” she replied.
He sighed, his long frame leaning into her desk.
“My earth is rather more advanced than yours,” she continued. “We have come to understand our universe and how to manipulate it. Everyone benefits, but the richest of us have the power to pass to our neighboring worlds and then back again.”
Once more, he said, “No.”
She touched him for the first time—a fond, reassuring pat delivered high on his back, the coat still wet from the river. “It takes special machinery and quite a lot of energy to travel through the multiverse,” she admitted. “Tying the natural laws into a useful knot . . . it’s the kind of hobby that only certain kinds of people gravitate towards.”
Poor George wanted to lie down. But he had enough poise, or at least the pride, to straighten his back before saying, “My angel.”
“Yes?”
“He was just a man?”
She laughed quietly, briefly. Then with a sharp voice, she warned, “My world embraces quite a few amazing ideas, George. But there’s no such notion as ‘just a man’. Or ‘just a woman’, for that matter. Each of us is a magnificent example of what the infinite cosmos offers.”
This particular man sighed and stared at his companion. Then with his own sharpness, he confessed, “You look just like my wife.”
“Which is one reason why your angel chose this world, I suspect.”
“And your voice is exactly the same. Except nothing that you’re telling me makes any sense.”
About that, she offered no comment.
Instead she gave him another hard pat. “There’s a private elevator in the back,” she told her new friend. “And first thing, we need to get you out of those cold clothes.”
Once his coat and shoes were removed, she set them inside the conditioning chamber to be cleaned and dried. But George insisted wearing every other article on his body, including the soaked trousers and the black socks that squished when he walked.
She stomped the snow off her tall boots and removed her coat. Then before hanging up the coat up, she slipped the little pistol from its pocket and tucked it into the silk satchel riding on her hip.
He didn’t seem to notice. For the moment, George’s attention was fixed on the single-room apartment. “I expected a little place,” he muttered.
“Isn’t this?”
“No, this is enormous.” Her ordinary furnishings seemed to impress the man, hands stroking the dyed leather and cultured wood. Artwork hung on the walls and in the open air—examples of genius pulled from a multitude of vibrant, living earths—and he gave the nearest sculptures a quick study. Then he drifted over to the antique dresser, lifting one after another of the framed portraits of her family and dearest friends.
She followed, saying nothing.
“Who are these two?” he asked.
“My parents.”
George said, “What?”
“I take it those aren’t your wife’s parents.”
“No.”
She quoted the ancient phrase, “‘The same ingredients pulled from different shelves.’”
George turned to look at her, and he gave a start. His eyes dipped. He was suddenly like a young boy caught doing something wicked. It took a few moments to collect his wits.
“My DNA is probably not identical to your wife’s,” she assured. “Not base-pair for base-pair, at least.”
He wanted to look at her, but a peculiar shyness was weighing down on him.
She said, “George,” with a reprimanding tone.
He didn’t react.
“You know this body,” she pointed out. “If you are telling the truth, that is. On this other world, you married to somebody like me. Correct?”
That helped. The eyes lifted, and his courage. With more than a hint of disapproval, he said, “When I found you . . . ”
“Yes?”
“Where were you going?”
“To a pleasant little nightclub, as it happens.”
His hand and her smiling parents pointed at her now. “Dressed like that?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have . . . ”
“What, George?”
“Underwear,” he managed. “Where is your underwear?”
Every world had its prudes. But why had that anonymous ‘angel’ send her one of the extras?
George quietly asked, “What were you going to do . . . at this club . . . ?”
“Drink a little,” she admitted. “And dance until I collapsed.”
George dropped his gaze again.
“You were married to this body,” she reminded him. “I can’t believe you didn’t know it quite well by now.”
He nodded. But then it seemed important to mention, “We have children.”
“Good.”
“Your figure . . . my wife’s . . . well, you’re quite a bit thinner than she is now . . . ”
“Than she was,” Mary said.
His eyes jumped up.
“In your old world, you are a drowned corpse,” she said. “You must have had your reasons, George. And you can tell me all about them, if you want. But I don’t care why you decided to throw yourself off that bridge. Your reasons really don’t matter to me.”
“My family . . . ” he began.
“They’ll get by, and they won’t.”
He shook his head sorrowfully.
“Every response on their part is inevitable, George. And neither of us can imagine all of the ramifications.”
“I abandoned them,” he whispered.
“And on countless other earths, you didn’t. You didn’t make the blunders that put you up on that bridge, or you pushed through your little troubles. You married a different woman. You married ten other women. Or you fell deeply in love with a handsome boy named Felix, and the two of you moved to Mars and were married on the summit of the First Sister’s volcano, and you and yo
ur soul mate quickly adopted a hundred Martian babies—little golden aliens who called both of you Pappy and built a palace for you out of frozen piss and their own worshipful blood.”
George very much wanted to collapse. But the nearest seat was the round and spacious bed.
He wouldn’t let himself approach it.
But she did. She sat on the edge and let her dress ride high, proving if he dared look that she was indeed wearing underwear after all.
“This club you were going to . . . ?”
“Yes, George?”
“What else happened there? If you don’t mind my asking.”
Jealousy sounded the same on every earth. But she did her best to deflect his emotions, laughing for a moment or two before quietly asking, “Did your Mary ever enjoy sex?”
Despite himself, George smiled.
“Well, I guess that’s something she and I have in common.”
“And you have me in common too,” he mentioned.
“Now we do, yes.”
Then this out-of-place man surprised her. He stared at her bare knees and the breasts behind the sheer fabric. But the voice was in control, lucid and calm, when he inquired, “What about that tiny gun? The one you took out of your coat and put in your purse?”
“You saw that?”
“Yes.”
She laughed, thrilled by the unexpected.
Pulling open the satchel, she showed the weapon to her guest. “Every earth has its sterling qualities, and each has its bad features too. My home can seem a little harsh at times. Maybe you noticed the rough souls along Main Street. Crime and public drunkenness are the reasons why quite a few good citizens carry weapons wherever they go.”
“That’s terrible,” he muttered.
“I’ve never fired this gun at any person, by the way.”
“But would you?”
“Absolutely.”
“To kill?” he blubbered.
“On other earths, that’s what I am doing now. Shooting bad men and the worst women. And I’m glad to do it.”
“How can you think that?”
“Easily, George.” She passed the gun between her hands. “Remember when I told you that our richest citizens can travel from earth to earth? To a lesser degree, that freedom belongs to everyone, everywhere. It was the same on your home world too, although you didn’t understand it at the time.”
“I don’t understand it now,” he admitted.
“You are here, George. You are here because an angelic individual took the effort to duplicate you—cell for cell, experience for experience. Then your wingless benefactor set you down on a world where he believed that you would survive, or even thrive.” With her finger off the trigger, she tapped the pistol against her own temple. “Death is a matter of degree, George. This gun can’t go off, unless the twin safeties fail. But I guarantee you that right now, somebody exactly like me is shooting herself in the head. Her brains are raining all over you. Yet she doesn’t entirely die.”
“No?”
“Of course not.” She lowered the gun, nodding wistfully. “We have too many drinkers on this world, and with that comes a fairly high suicide rate. Which is only reasonable. Since we understand that anybody can escape this world at any time, just like you fled your home—leap off the bridge, hope for paradise, but remaining open-minded enough to accept a little less.”
George finally settled on edge of the bed, close enough to touch her but his hands primly folded on his long lap. “What are you telling me?” he asked. “That people kill themselves just to change worlds?”
“Is there a better reason than that?”
He thought hard about the possibilities. “This angel that saved me. He isn’t the only one, I take it.”
“They come from endless earths, some far more powerful than ours. There’s no way to count all of them.”
“And do they always save the dead?”
“Oh, they hardly ever do that,” she admitted. “It is a genuine one-in-a-trillion-trillion-trillion occurrence. But if an infinite number of Georges jump off the bridge, then even that one-in-almost-never incident is inevitable. In fact, that tiny unlikely fraction is itself an infinite number.”
He shook his head numbly.
She leaned back on her elbows. “Most of these benefactors . . . your angel, for instance . . . throw those that they’ve saved onto earths that feel comfortable with refugees like you. My world, for instance.”
“This happens often?”
“Not exactly often. But I know of half a dozen incidents this year, and that’s just in our district.”
George looked down at his cold wet socks.
“Unlike God,” she promised, “quantum magic is at work everywhere.”
“Do you understand all the science, Mary?”
She sat up again. “I’m a librarian, not a high-physics priestess.”
That pleased him. She watched his smile, and then at last she noticed that her guest was beginning to shiver.
“You’re cold, George.”
“I guess I am.”
“Take off those awful socks.”
He did as instructed. Then laughing amiably, he admitted, “There. Now you sound exactly like my wife.”
They were both laughing when something large suddenly moved beneath the big bed.
George felt the vibration, and alarmed, he stared at Mary.
“My cats,” she offered. “They’re usually shy around strangers.”
“But that felt . . . ” He lifted his bare feet. “Big.”
“Kitties,” she sang. “Sweeties.”
Three long bodies crawled into the open, stretching while eying the newcomer from a safe distance.
“What kinds of cats are those?” George whispered.
“Rex is the miniature cougar,” she explained. “Hex is the snow leopard. And Missie is half pygmy tiger, half griffon.”
With awe in his voice, George said, “Shit.”
“I take that to mean you didn’t have cats like this on your earth?”
“Not close to this,” he agreed.
She sat back again, sinking into the mattress.
And again, this man surprised her. “You mentioned Mars.”
“I guess I did. Why?”
“On my earth, we thought that there could be some kind of simple life on that world.”
“You didn’t know for certain?”
He shook his head. “But a few minutes ago, you mentioned something about Martians. Are they real, or did you just make them up?”
“They’re real somewhere, George.”
He frowned.
Then she laughed, explaining, “Yes, my Mars is home to some very ancient life forms. Tiny golden aliens that drink nothing but peroxides. And my Venus is covered with airborne jungles and an ocean that doesn’t boil because of the enormous air pressure. And Sisyphus is covered with beautiful forests of living ice— ”
“What world’s that?”
“Between Mars and Jupiter,” she mentioned.
George blinked, took a big breath and burst out laughing.
That was when Mary told her blouse to fall open.
He stared at her, and the laughter stopped. But he was still smiling, looking shamelessly happy, begging her, “But first, Mary . . . would you please put your gun? Someplace safe. After everything I’ve been through, I don’t want even the tiniest chance of something going wrong now.”
About the Author
Robert Reed has had eleven novels published, starting with The Leeshore in 1987 and most recently with The Well of Stars in 2004. Since winning the first annual L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest in 1986 (under the pen name Robert Touzalin) and being a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1987, he has had over 200 shorter works published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. Eleven of those stories were published in his critically-acclaimed first collection, The Dragons of Springplace, in 1999. Twelve more stories appear in his second collecti
on, The Cuckoo’s Boys [2005]. In addition to his success in the U.S., Reed has also been published in the U.K., Russia, Japan, Spain and in France, where a second (French-language) collection of nine of his shorter works, Chrysalide, was released in 2002. Bob has had stories appear in at least one of the annual “Year’s Best” anthologies in every year since 1992. Bob has received nominations for both the Nebula Award (nominated and voted upon by genre authors) and the Hugo Award (nominated and voted upon by fans), as well as numerous other literary awards (see Awards). He won his first Hugo Award for the 2006 novella “A Billion Eves”. He is currently working on a Great Ship trilogy for Prime Books, and of course, more short pieces.
The Dying World
Lavie Tidhar
1. Bonsai
It’s a beautiful world, easily worth killing for, but what would be the point? The world, encased in vacuum and glass, is blue-white, a miniature Earth, with a marble-sized sun rotating around it. It has a tiny atmosphere, tiny, lovingly-sculpted seas, three continents, numerous tiny islands, tectonic plate activity, miniature volcanoes, and some seriously large creatures for a world so small. It’s a hot, humid place, this world. The glass orb that contains it protects it perfectly. Touching the surface of the orb, the old man magnifies a part of the tiny planet, watching, completely engrossed, as a sea creature the shape of a disc wraps itself around a creature shaped like a ball with many circular mouths full of sharp teeth. The ensuing fight attracts other creatures, and for a moment this particular point under this particular sea is swarming with life.
The man is so engrossed in his creation that he fails to hear the doors of the old church opening behind him. Outside it is dusk, and an enormous red sun is visible on the horizon, setting slowly. The man had always loved this place, with its ancient mausoleum and church spires shaped like ice-cream cones and its wide open square. It has an aura of faded grandeur, of stories having been worn deep into the stones by the passing of countless humans.
When he does hear the light footsteps approach it is already too late. Something cold touches the back of his head; he has only enough time to think he would like to be reborn as a butterfly before the assassin squeezes the trigger and the old man’s head explodes all over the glass orb, covering an entire world in a violent red haze.