Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"You got us out-thanks. I did get dazzled; I've got purple blotches in front of my eyes. New standing order: At each rotation all hands close eyes and duck heads for that moment needed to be sure that we have not again run into dazzle. Zeb, that need not slow you up since you are setting by touch and click anyhow-but if we do hit dazzle, rotate us out; don't wait for my orders. And-All Hands!-we are all free at all times to use any of the escape programs to get us out of danger."

"Next rotation set, Captain."

"Thank you, Copilot. Hilda, do you or Deety have any notion as to what we fell into?"

"No, Captain," my daughter answered.

"Captain Jacob, I have three hypotheses, none worth much."

"Let others judge that, my dear."

"Interior of a glObal star cluster-or near the nucleus of a galaxy, or-

possibly-the early part of an expanding universe when new stars are almost rubbing shoulders."

"Hmm- Real garden spots. Zeb, could we have picked up excessive radiation?"

"Captain, the shell of this buggy is opaque to most radiation, and that windscreen is heavily leaded-but no way to tell."

"Zebadiah, if the film in the camera is ruined, some heavy stuff got through. If the next picture is okay, we're probably okay."

Hilda said, "I'm glad you thought of that, Deety. I don't like the idea of radiation while I'm pregnant. You, too, hon."

"Aunt Hilda, we're almost completely shielded where it matters. It could addle our brains but not our bellies."

"Hilda, do you wish to shoot one frame?" I asked.

"No, Jacob, it would waste film."

"As you wish. My eyes are coming back. Deety, put us through one PigeonTumble."

My daughter did so; I saw nothing. "Report! Hilda?"

"Lots of big beautiful stars but nothing close."

"Me, too, Pop-but what a beautiful sky!"

"Null report, Captain."

"Hilda, mark it down as 'promising.' All hands, stand by for fifth rotation. Keep eyes closed and heads down. Execute!"

Zeb gasped. "Where in Hell are we?"

"In Hell, maybe, Zebbie."

"Captain!"

"Hilda may not be too far off," I answered. "It's something I could not have believed three weeks ago: some sort of inside-out universe."

"Pellucidar!" said Deety.

"No, my dear daughter. One: We are not inside our home planet; we are in another universe. Two: This universe has physical laws that differ from our own. The inside of a spherical shell cannot have a gravitational field by the laws of our universe. Yet I see a river and we seem to be falling toward it. Deety, are we in air or in vacuo?"

Deety wiggled the controls. "Got some air. Probably could get support with wings fully spread."

"Then do so." Deety brought the car into a dead-stick glide.

Zeb said grimly, "I don't want to homestead here! So big-ten thousand kilometers across at a guess. Yet it's all inside. No sky! No horizons. Never again a night sprinkled with stars. That light in the center- Looks like our sun but it's too small, much too small. When we leave, I don't want to come back; the god who takes care of fools and explorers let us arrive in empty space instead of maybe ten kilometers underground. But next time- I hate to think about it."

I said, "It may not have been luck, Zeb, but logical necessity."

"Huh. You've lost me, Captain."

"You're thinking of this as a spherical shell. But there is no basis for assuming that it has an outside."

"What? Endless millions of light-years of solid rock?"

"No, no! Nothing. By 'nothing' I do not mean space; I mean a total absence of existence of any sort. Different physical laws, a different topology. We may be seeing the totality of this universe. A small universe with a different sort of closed space."

"I can't visualize it, Jake."

"Deety, my dear, rephrase it for your husband."

"I'll try, Pop. Zebadiah, the geometry of this place may require different postulates from those that work back home. I'm sure you have played with Möbius strips-"

"A surface with only one side, one edge. But this is a sphere."

"Pop is saying that it may be a sphere with only one side, the inside. Have you ever tried to figure out a Klein bottle?"

"I got cross-eyed and a headache."

"This could be a Klein-bottle sort of thing. It might turn out that if you tunneled straight down anywhere down there, you would emerge at the opposite point, still inside. And that straight line might be shorter than the distance across. Maybe much shorter."

"Point three-one-eight-three-zero-nine is the ratio by the simplest postulates," I agreed. "But the geometry may not be that simple. However, Zeb, assuming that this is a total universe, our chances of arriving in open space were far greater than the chance of conflicting with a mass. But I would not wish to homestead here-pretty as it is. Nevertheless we might check for obstetricians."

"No obstetricians," Zeb answered firmly.

"Why?" I demanded.

"If there are human beings here, they do not have an advanced culture. Deety has been following that river. Did you notice where that other river joined it? Also look ahead where it meets the sea. No cities. No warehouses. No river traffic. No air traffic, no signs of roads. Yet this is choice real estate. Therefore, no advanced culture anywhere and a small population, if any. If anyone wants to refute me, please do so in the next two minutes; Deety can't hold this heap in the air much longer without using juice."

"I check you, Zebbie. They might be so advanced that they can make the whole joint look like a park. I wouldn't bet on it."

"Deety?" I asked.

"Aunt Hilda is right, Captain. But it's so pretty!"

"Hilda, expend one film, as a souvenir. Then we rotate." My daughter nosed the car down to permit a better picture.

A click- "Got it!" Hilda cried. "GaySagan!"

Mars of Universe-zero lay to starboard. Zeb sighed. "I'm glad to be out of there. Sharpie, did you get a picture?"

"Can't rush it," my wife answered. "Nnnn, yup, picture coming."

"Good!"

"Zebbie, I thought you didn't like that inside-out world?"

"I don't. If that picture is sharp, you two knocked-up broads weren't hit by radiation where it counts. Any fogging?"

"No, Zebbie, and brighter color every second. Here-look."

Zeb brushed it aside. "My sole interest is in radiation. Captain, I'm having misgivings. We've tried five out of fifteen and only one was even vaguely homelike. The pickings have been slim and the dangers excessive. But we know that Earth analogs Tau and Teh axes are Earthlike-"

"With monsters," put in Hilda.

"Tau axis, probably. We haven't explored Teh axis. Jake, are we justified in exposing our wives to dangers we can't imagine?"

"In a moment, Copilot. Astrogator, why did you rotate? I don't think I ordered it. I have been trying to run a taut ship."

"So have I, Captain. I must ask to be relieved as astrogator."

"I am sorry to say that I have been thinking along the same lines, my dearest. But you had better explain."

"Captain, three times you have replaced me at the conn without relieving me. The last time I let it continue, wondering and waiting. Just now we were losing altitude, dangerously. So I acted. Now I ask to be relieved."

Hilda seemed calm and not angry. But resolved. Had I really done anything out of line? It did not seem so to me.

"Zeb, have I been overriding the officer at the conn?"

Zeb took too long to answer. "Captain, this is a time when a man must insist on written orders. I will make a written reply."

"Hmm-" I said. "I think you have replied. Deety, what do you think? More written orders?"

"I don't need written orders. Pop, you've been utterly stinking!"

"You really feel so?"

"I know so. Aunt Hilda is right; you are dead wrong. She understated the case. You assign her responsibilities-then ignore her. Just now she carried out her assigned duties-and you chewed her out for it. Of course she wants to be relieved."