James Hogan - Mission to Minerva

"Would it be feasible to create some kind of complementary M-wave that interferes destructively everywhere except at the target distance?" Shilohin wondered aloud. "Would that preserve the transmitted object as a standing resonance? It would probably still extend through many segments… but so what? Maybe you could fine tune your connection to any one of them." Nobody could argue with the thought, certainly; but just at the moment, it was purely abstract.

"It's an interesting idea. I'll bounce it off Eesyan," was all Hunt could offer in reply.

"You're still firing blind, though," Jassilane pointed out. "You called it a 'target.' But there's no form of feedback to identify one." He looked around. "You see what I mean? Suppose you wanted to send… oh…" he waved a hand, "the orbiting relay that this other universe sent to you. It seems to have appeared where and when it was supposed to. How did the senders know how to get it to where they wanted it?"

"I don't suppose we know enough about the Multiverse structure to preprogram the device to recognize features it's looking for?" Monchar ventured. "Like terrain-following flyers."

Hunt shook his head. "It depends too much on the way change occurs from one segment to the next-gradually or abruptly. And that varies with the MV dimension you move in. You could have practically stasis going one way, and total discontinuity if you choose another-a single quantum event being magnified, maybe, and triggering a transition to an entirely different reality. We have no idea how to model effects like that."

"To get where you want, you need a map. But you have to be there to draw one," ZORAC commented.

"Does this mean you're about to deliver one of your profound insights, ZORAC?" Hunt asked it.

"No. Just my take on the situation."

"Thanks."

There was not a lot more to be said on that for now. The talk shifted to the work of Garuth and his administration on Jevlen. The program was progressing well, with the Jevlenese getting over their total dependency on JEVEX and learning to mange their own affairs competently. Hunt had noticed from some of the outside views showing on the Command Deck's display screens that the city was looking cleaner and in better shape than the run-down, decaying condition it had been in when he last saw it. He wondered what Garuth and his people would do when their task here was complete. It seemed a question best not brought up at a time like this. But the Shapieron was not decommissioned or stood down from being launch capable in any way. It had played key roles in the ruse that had brought down Broghuilios's Jevlenese regime in the Pseudowar, and afterward, in defeating the mass mind-invasion of Jevlenese that the mental transplants from the Entoverse had intended. Hunt got the feeling that they would be hankering for an excuse to fly their ship again.

And then, after the usual promises to stay in touch more regularly that busy people are always making but seldom keep, they exchanged farewells for the time being. Moments later, Hunt was back in the recliner in the neurocoupler next to the Multiporter at the Quelsang Institute. "Thanks for the ride, VISAR," he said by way of signing off.

"We try to please."

Hunt stretched to take in a yawn, held the pose for a few seconds, and flexed his limbs a few times before getting up and ambling out into the lab area. "Who's still around?" he asked, reverted to avco mode now.

"Only Thurien techs," VISAR replied. "Eesyan left earlier. Josef Sonnebrandt and Madam Xyen Chien have gone on ahead and will see you at dinner with the rest of the Terran group."

"Ah, yes. How long do I have?"

"Little over an hour."

"Does that give me time to get back to the Waldorf to freshen up and change first?"

"No problem. There are some available flyers on the terrace outside the cafeteria area two levels below where you are. Take the door at the back and turn right, follow the wall with the windows in it to the concourse, and step onto the downgoing g-line."

The venue for dinner was a semi-garden setting of flowers and shrubs, glazed on two sides to look out among the city's heights, which incorporated high-level urban rivers and waterfalls shaped by invisible contours of force. Only the seven Terrans were present, the Thuriens having withdrawn for the evening to leave them some time to themselves. Since this was Thurien, the fare was vegetarian-but delicious. Meat-eating was unknown among Ganymeans, since land carnivores had never evolved on early Minerva. Apparently there were Jevlenese-run places in Thurios that catered to the tastes of visitors of their own kind, but the group from Earth hadn't considered it an especially important matter. The most talkative was Mildred, still enthralled by her recent experiences.

"Do you have any idea how many light-years Christian and Victor and I traveled today?" she said to the others at the table. "VISAR told me it took in a sizeable part of our region of the Galaxy. Yet I feel as fresh as a spring morning in the Alps. And nobody even had to pack a bag! it really is amazing. Can you imagine what it would be like if this kind of thing was extended one day to include the whole Multiverse-you know, all these other realities that I keep hearing about? We'd be able to travel around in history-even all the ones that never happened… Well, they do happen, if I understand it all correctly, but not where we are. Is that it?… Oh, you know what I mean."

"Connecting all the VISARs together," Duncan said in a slow voice. He stared at her, obviously fascinated by the thought. It evidently hadn't occurred to him before. As the junior element of the team, he and Sandy had been delegated the chore of organizing the work space that the Terran group would be using. Things there were going smoothly, which didn't leave much to report, and they were happy to leave the talking to others. Sonnebrandt and Chien were strangely quiet, and Hunt thought he detected some strain between them. Danchekker was absorbed in investigating the Thurien organic preparations. Hunt stared at Mildred, his mind boggling at what she had just said. It hadn't occurred to him either.

She went on, "But the part about it that I don't buy, I'm afraid, is this business about every one of these little jiggly… what do you call them? The changes that can go one way or another."

"Quantum events?" Hunt supplied.

"Yes. I just can't accept that they lead to every reality that could possibly exist. Every combination that all the atoms that make up the universe could conceivably create. That's how you're saying it is, isn't it?"

"It's what the mathematics says," Hunt replied, treating it cautiously. He didn't want to get in a situation of having to contradict.

"Well, I'm not a mathematician," Mildred declared. "So I don't have to believe it,"

Danchekker eyed her curiously for a moment, seemingly thought better of getting involved, and returned his attention to dissecting a bulbous curiosity garnished with a yellow sauce, vaguely suggestive of a purple artichoke. Hunt smiled. "Numbers that are totally beyond anything you can grasp are just something you learn to live with after a while in this business," he told Mildred.

She shook her head. "It's not the numbers. It's the believability. You're telling me that every universe that could possibly physically happen does happen somewhere. But I don't believe it. I don't believe that a universe exists in which, say, my books are printed with all the pages blank, and they're stocked on shelves, and customers buy them. You see what I mean?" She looked around the table, inviting anyone to comment. Nobody did. "Your mathematics might say there's nothing to stop quantum… jiggles from making atoms come together to make a universe like that, but I don't believe it will happen. It just doesn't make any sense. The people in it would never behave that way."