The Unicorn Girl

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by Michael Kurlalnd

We went into the main building to go back up to our rooms, after Sylvia promised Adolphus that she’d be down to give him a good brushing as soon as she could find a curry comb. The front hall was crowded with people in a great variety of costumes, obviously the day’s group of “visitors.”

  “Michael!” somebody called. “Theodore Bear!” I turned around to look.

  I didn’t faint. I admit to turning white and shaking for a minute, but I didn’t faint. There, pushing his way through the throng toward me, was Chester.

  “Chester?” I croaked.

  “What?” Tom said. “I thought you told me....”

  “Grapgh,” I said. “Argh. Chester.”

  “Hello there,” Chester said, slapping me on the shoulder. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I thought,” I said. “I mean, you...that is, the last time...hello.” I looked around for someplace to sit down.

  “I must have startled you,” Chester said. “I apologize.”

  “Let’s, ah, go upstairs. We can talk there.”

  “Fine. One second. Dorothy! Oh, Dorothy!” Another figure separated herself from the crowd, and Dorothy joined us. She and Sylvia embraced wordlessly.

  “Let’s, please, go upstairs,” I said. “I don’t even want to think about this until I’m sitting down.”

  “The last thing I know,” Chester said, sitting comfortably on the bed with us gathered around him, “is the last thing you know, only the other way around. You and Sylvia were killed—we saw you killed, I won’t describe it—and then the last tank went blip. We weren’t hurt beyond being shaken up a bit. We blipped a minute later, and found ourselves in the middle of a town. The locals were a suspicious type, they locked us in the hoosegow. We were there for two days, when they decided we were responsible for the disappearance of a little girl. They were coming to lynch us and do other unfriendly things, when we blipped again.

  This time we were in the middle of a deep wood, and spent a day hiding from Indians. Then we blipped again, to this world; and here we are.”

  “Just think,” Tom said. “Somewhere, in some universe, you’re both dead. It gives one pause. Wee paws for station identification.”

  “I guess that’s it,” I said. “You and I must be from time tracks that lie next to each other; and your Michael and my Chester must actually be dead. Wow.”

  “The reason I wasn’t surprised to see you,” Chester said, “is that after I told my story to a Captain LeClerk, he told me that you were here; so I was looking for you. We’ll have to compare notes sometime, dredge our memories to see where our worlds differ, if at all. It furthers one to seek the truth.”

  “They must coincide almost exactly,” I said. “Otherwise our history through the blips would be different. Besides, I know the way your memory works. You remember three impossible things before breakfast.”

  “Yup, that’s my Theodore Bear,” Chester said. We solemnly shook hands.

  With that the meeting broke up and we went back to our rooms. Tom was unusually silent.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  That afternoon Sir Thomas called a meeting, to which we were invited. I introduced Chester to him, and told him what had happened. He hemmed, and nodded. “It had to happen. Perhaps not to you, but it had to happen. It’s further proof that you are the perfect people for what we have in mind.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  We gathered before a large blackboard, and Sir Thomas rolled up his sleeves. “With the assistance of my good friend, Dr. Immanuel Capabella,” here the portly little man stood up and took a brief bow, “and the forms of mathematics developed in his world, I—or I should say we—have developed a rather complete theory. We find that it not only explains the, ahem, time-slips sideways that have been taking place, but the prevalence of what we shall call ‘magic’ on this world and the absence of it on others.” He turned to the blackboard. “We have postulated the existence of a new basic particle, which we call the probitron. It does not behave like what we normally think of as a particle. If you prefer, you may consider it a local node in the fabric of the universe. A node that propagates itself at what I am forced to call the ‘probable’ speed of light, in all directions through the six-dimensional continuum. The basic formula turns out to be extremely simple, which is only right.” He wrote:

  (hex)2 W = 0

  “The (hex) squared W,” he explained, “simply represents the sum of the second partial derivatives of W, the wave function, with respect to the six coordinates of the continuum. Zero, of course, represents nothing. Now, to get an expression for one element of the continuum, we would use:

  ds2 = dx2 + dy2 + dz2—c2 dt2-b2 du2-a2 dv2

  “And further, from the basic laws of magic, we have come up with a third necessary formula, which nicely ties the whole mess together. It may be stated:

  C = 4Kp2 q2 /r5

  “From these, it can easily be seen that,” he said, and filled the blackboard with formulas. Dr. Capabella nodded and smiled, while the rest of us stared and looked baffled. At one place Dr. Capabella made a small correction, and Sir Thomas looked pained, but made the erasure.

  “Yes,” someone called, “but what does all that mean?”

  “Wait a minute,” Sir Thomas said, going on with his writing. He made a final mark and looked up. “It means that we know what’s happening, and what to do about it. At least, what to try.”

  “What is happening?”

  “Someone,” Sir Thomas said, “or some group, on some time line, discovered this before we did. Probably way before. For some reason, they don’t like us. Before I get to that, let me try to explain how all this works.

  “The probitron is the particle of probability. You may think of it as an anti-entropy effect of nature. Out in the, hem, void, where complete randomness and entropy are the rule, there are few probitrons formed. On planets, where there is a mass of matter, a strong gravity field, and more chance for one event causing many other events, the flux of probitrons will be stronger. When the planet develops life, which is the second strongest anti-entropy effect known, the flux is even stronger, and the chance of parallel time track formation increases. Ordinarily a time split, caused by a probitron, will be self-cancelling, and the tracks will close together in, at most, a few microseconds.”

  “What’s the strongest anti-entropy effect?” Chester asked.

  “The effect of intelligence. When intelligence develops, even low-order intelligence, parallel time tracks become a fact of the local universe. Their number quickly approaches infinity, as a series of fractions within the unity of the six-dimensional universe. It would be a good way, if we ever explore space, of locating intelligence in any sector. That is, if we can find a way of spotting these fields.”

  Sir Thomas leaned on the desk and looked serious. “Now, as to what’s happening to us. This group, whoever they are, have closed off this, hem, section of time. They’ve taken a group of parallel time tracks and tied them into a bow. I don’t know how large a group, but I’d say it was quite large. Of course, no matter how large it is, since the total number of lines is infinite, the effect is to be thought of as quite localized.”

  “What does that mean?” someone demanded. “What will that do to us here?”

  “It means that the lines aren’t parallel any more. They’re at acute angles, and getting closer together. In some places they are already, so to speak, rubbing together. That is, the coordinates for places in two lines are becoming congruent, and transfers are happening.

  “As my colleague and I see it, what this means is that the lines will finally merge.”

  “You mean we’ll all be thrown together? The whole population of all these worlds will be combined on one? How can we live?”

  “I’m afraid it’s even worse than that. The probitron flux is different on each world. A high probitron flux here, which means a slight control of probability, is what makes magic possible; even common. In some lines the flux is low enoug
h so that these effects are erratic and uncontrollable. When they come together the fluxes will even out. When the last of them come together, the fluxes will randomize. We will disappear. We will have become improbable.”

  Lord Gart stood up. “Disappear? Are you sure?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “How much time do we have? What can we do?” He looked as if he was ready to run out and mobilize the army.

  “I estimate that we have two weeks, and one chance. We are preparing to take that chance.”

  “What is it?”

  Sir Thomas nodded to us. “Please stand up.” We did. “These people,” he said, “visitors to our world, are going to become our secret weapon. These five men and women have, in our estimation, the best chance of saving our world—and perhaps the whole human race. I haven’t asked them yet; I shall do so now. It will be very dangerous, and I have no way of estimating your chances. I must ask even the ladies, since five is such a small number, but better than three.”

  “Try leaving us behind,” Sylvia stated clearly.

  “Then you’ll agree to help?”

  I tried to think of an appropriate heroic speech.

  “Yes,” the others said in unison.

  “Yes,” I agreed lamely.

  “Fine. Here’s what we have to do. Everyone here was invited for a reason, and will be able to help. First you should know that the latest information confirms our suspicion that our opponents are not human.”

  A brief babble swept the room and then stopped. Everyone stared at Sir Thomas.

  “Our enemies are the inhabitants of what our friends here call the flying saucers. They seem to be survey ships, observing the results of the squeeze. Yesterday one landed a few leagues from here, and some farmers observed the creatures leave the ship. I don’t know what they were doing: perhaps effecting repairs, perhaps testing the ground, perhaps eliminating garbage, perhaps eating a picnic lunch; it doesn’t matter. Two of the observers are still in shock, but we were able to get a coherent description out of the third. He says they’re dragons.”

  “Dragons?”

  “At any rate, they look like dragons. That will do. They are the enemy. Now, here’s what we do. First, all military personnel will concentrate on gathering reports on flying saucer activity and interview all ‘visitors’ on their experiences with the flying saucers. We need all the data we can get. Second, we start an intensive training program on our, hem, assault troops here. We must teach them everything we can about practical magic. Unfortunately, they come from a world where it is in little use.”

  “Excuse me,” someone asked. “But wouldn’t it be better, then, to use someone already proficient in the art?”

  “We can’t. The reason we’re using these people is because they have the greatest chance of success. We need people with a high flux of probitrons, people who have gone through as many time changes as possible. These are they.”

  Lord Gart asked, “Their probability patterns have changed?”

  “These five are so improbable,” Sir Thomas said, “that if they were to fade away right now and disappear, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  I felt my arm to make sure I was still solid.

  “How does that help?” asked Lord Gart.

  “In two ways. First, the strong probitron flux will make them highly capable of utilizing the magic we must teach them.”

  “How long do we have for that?” A man in a peaked wizard’s hat asked.

  “I estimate that our margin of safety leaves four days.”

  “Four days! Why, it takes fifteen years to achieve any sort of competence.”

  “I know. It’s quite a challenge, isn’t it? Luckily we can concentrate in certain fields. Second, it makes it much more likely that they’ll be able to get picked up.”

  Something went cold inside of me. “Picked up?”

  “Yes, of course. By a flying saucer. That’s the whole point.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  * * * *

  The four days went fast. I don’t remember much except getting yelled at a lot and not sleeping. When it was over, we had learned certain spells and methods that would be of most use to us. How to disappear. How to blip from one place to another (excuse the word blip). How to create and use a simulacrum, if we got the chance. Things like that. Sylvia turned out to be the most apt pupil, Tom next, Dorothy next, then Chester and me. Chester, during the final day of instruction, had occasion to refer to the I Ching, and his instructor got excited and called in Sir Thomas.

  “Do you know how to use that book?” Sir Thomas asked.

  “I’ve been using it for years,” Chester said, insulted.

  “Well, remember, now, it has much stronger powers than you’re used to. It may come in handy.”

  Then we got a good, solid four hours sleep, and it was time for our final indoctrination.

  “We’ve done the best we can,” Sir Thomas said. “Now it’s up to you. We’ve plotted the appearances of the flying saucers, and found a pattern. We can take you to the area one will most certainly appear in. You have to get aboard, but don’t worry about it. With your pattern, it’s almost inevitable that they’ll take you. To this small extent, their weapon will work against them.”

  “What then?” I asked.

  “Use your eyes and other senses that come in handy. You must find and destroy the machine that’s doing this. It has to be a machine of some sort, and it has to be located right in the center of the closing time lines, which is where their base must be. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “If we succeed in this,” Sylvia asked, “what will happen to us?”

  ‘Everyone who is displaced along the continuum should return to their own world. This will happen within two minutes of the time you destroy the machine, and it will happen all at once, with a snap. If it happens at all. If the process has gone too far, if the lines are permanently warped, nothing will happen. The process will continue to its inevitable end. Good luck.”

  “That means we’ll separate,” Sylvia said, holding my hand.

  “Well, hem, if you wish to remain together, try holding hands tightly when the snap comes. That may equalize the fluxes and send you all to the home line of whichever of you has the least probitron pattern. I promise nothing, but it may work. If it doesn’t, with the information I have now I should work out a method of traveling between the lines fairly soon. A few years at most. I’ll come to visit all, of you.” He shook hands with each of us in turn. “I repeat, good luck. I wish we could have done more.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sylvia said a long good-bye to her unicorn, and promised it that it would be home soon. I could have sworn I saw a tear in the corner of the beast’s eye as we walked away. We were taken by coach to a nearby town and instructed to go up to the roof of the town hall. There we waited. Below us, the town went through its usual market-day activities, the only abnormality being the large number of people in unusual clothing. This was one of the towns where the visitors were being billeted.

  Sylvia pointed to the sky. “Look!”

  A saucer was descending straight down over the town square. A few seconds later the townspeople saw it, and went shrieking off in all directions. The saucer darted down, and thick purple beams flashed out, drawing people and any loose objects they hit into the ship.

  “The thing doesn’t see us!” Sylvia shouted. “Come here, thing!” She picked up a couple of loose roofing tiles and hurled them at the saucer. They fell far short, and it kept ignoring us. In a few minutes it stopped collecting, as the square was empty, and rose ponderously into the air, heading away from us.

  “This is unfair!” Sylvia said.

  Dorothy got up and waved. “Come here, little saucer.” A second later we were all up and waving like lunatics. The saucer paused for a moment, seeming to make up its mind, then it flashed toward us, darting out a purple beam.

  We were in a whirlwind. We were motionless in free fall, surrounded by black. Then we
were in a large bin, surrounded by people. It was as quick as that.

  Most of the people were yelling or screaming hysterically, or kicking and clawing at the walls; we were an island of calm in the midst of the storm.

  “Well,” Chester said, “step one.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now we wait until we get where we’re going.”

  The saucer made several more stops on the way. We could tell because every now and then new people would appear in the bin, until finally there was hardly enough room to sit down. Aside from that there was no sensation of motion.

  We were yanked out of the bin by the same method we had been put in, and found ourselves in a large hall of some sort. It could have been an underground cavern, or merely a gigantic building, we had no way of telling. We were on polished concrete that stretched off in all directions. Above us, suspended from the high ceiling, were metal catwalks like the ones used in prisons. Scattered throughout the giant room were circular, waist-high cubicles that I found out contained toilet facilities.

  “Humph,” I said, sitting down next to where Chester was squatting on the floor. “Again, oh leader, what now?”

  “Again we wait,” Chester said. “They must have brought us here for something.”

  “Yes,” Tom said. “Probably for food.”

  “Tom!” Dorothy said, looking shocked. “Surely they’re not cannibals.”

  “How do you know? Besides, for a dragon to eat a human is not cannibalism.”

  “If you can’t think of something cheerful,” Sylvia instructed him, “don’t think at all.”

  There was a clanking sound above us, and I looked up. One of the dragons was approaching on the catwalk. As it got closer, I could see what it was. A ten-foot dinosaur, wearing a bright red belt. It passed by us humming a high-pitched note monotonously.

  “That’s funny,” Dorothy said, staring at the creature as it went by.

  “Hilarious,” I agreed.

  “What’s funny, Dorothy?” Sylvia asked.

  “I could hear it.”

  “So could I,” Chester said. “Most unmusical.”

 

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