Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

If you’re concluding that I neglected him during this period, you’re probably correct. In my defense, I should mention that Virginia delivered our second child two days after the funeral and immediately fell ill. In addition, the markets went south, and I was working well into the evening on a regular basis trying to protect the bank’s investments. So I forgot about Nick until Edward Cord called.

Cord was the director of the particle accelerator lab at the University of Washington, where Nick was a researcher. “Have you seen him recently?” he asked. “He’s changed.”

“He’s still upset.”

“He’s changed . Talk to him. He needs you.”

I couldn’t get past his telephone answering system. Finally, disgusted, I got in my car early on a Friday evening, and drove over.

Lights were on in the penthouse condo, one on the deck, one in back. I parked across the street, went into the lobby, and punched his button. Punched it again.

“Who’s there?” The voice rasped. He sounded annoyed.

“Michael.”

A long pause. The lock on the security system clicked.

The elevator opened off the terrace, and he met me with drinks in his hand. The usual rum and Coke. “Michael,” he said. “Good to see you.” He managed a smile, but his eyes were bleak and wintry.

“How’ve you been, Nick?”

“Okay.” It was an unseasonably warm evening in October. A quarter moon swam among wisps of cloud. There was a taste of salt air off the Sound. “I take it you’ve been worried about me.”

“A little.”

“You have reason.” We crossed the terrace and went into the apartment. A desk lamp dropped a pool of light across a pile of notebooks and printouts. There was no other illumination in the room. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been out of touch lately.” He tried again for a smile. It wasn’t there. “I’ve been busy.”

“Cord called.”

He nodded. “I’m not surprised.”

Bookshelves lined the room. Beyond the pale cast of the lamp, the walls grew insubstantial, gave way to void. An X-ray photo of the Milky Way hung by the door, and several of Nick’s awards were mounted near the fireplace. A couple of landscapes broke up the academic character of the place.

Framed photographs stood on the desk: Terri alive and happy against a clutch of blue sky, windblown hair sparkling in sunlight. And David: on his bike at about eight, and again two years later locked in the embrace of a Mariners outfielder who had heard about the case, and a third depicting him in a baseball cap standing between Nick and me. In all the pictures the child, like the mother, looked happy. In love with life.

“Nick, you can’t mourn forever.”

He waved me onto the sofa and sat down in the big leather wingback. “I know,” he said.

“You understand what I’m saying.” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.

He shrugged. Sipped his drink. It looked like wine. Chablis, probably. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Nick, we’d like to have you over for dinner. Maybe Sunday? Virginia would like to see you again.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, Michael. But no. Not at the moment.” He took a deep breath. Straightened his sweater. “Maybe another time.”

“Nick—”

“Please, Michael. We know each other too well, so I’ll not lie to you. I have no interest just now in dinners and evenings out.”

I waited until he could not misunderstand my dissatisfaction. “Is there anything we can do for you?”

“No.” He rose, expecting me to go.

“Nick,” I said, composing myself more comfortably, “it’s been six months. You need to get your life together.”

“Just soldier on,” he said.

What the hell do you say in a situation like that? Everything sounds dumb. “I know it’s hard. But these things happen. You have to be able—.”

“They do not ,” he snarled, “ happen . Nothing simply happens .” He shook his head and his eyes slid shut. His lip trembled, and he fell silent.

The place was empty without David. Quiet. Not lifeless, because Nick possessed a relentless energy and vitality of his own. But it seemed as though direction had been lost. Point. The reason for it all.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

I had drunk very little of the rum and Coke, certainly not enough to account for the subtle sense of disquiet that had settled about me. I don’t know whether there was a modulation in his tone, or some curious juxtaposition of hand and shoulder, or a glint of terror reflected in glass. “No,” he said quietly, “nothing happens save by design.”

Curious remark: he had always been aggressively secular. Dad had provided a religious education for both of us, but in Nick’s case it had not taken.

His face twisted briefly. Grief. Rage. I couldn’t tell. But in the end it settled into a hard smile. “Michael,” he said, “what do you think lies behind the stars?”

I tried to penetrate his expression. To determine what he was really asking. “God,” I said at last. “Or nothing.”

His eyes locked with mine. “I quite agree. And I believe we’ve found His footprints.” He smiled at my confusion. He leaned forward, and his voice gained intensity. “Michael, the universe is wired. The fix is in. David never had a chance. Nor do you. Nor I. From the very beginning—.”He got up and strode toward one of the windows. Seattle glittered in the distance, a crosspatch of illuminated highways and skyscrapers and bridges.

“Nick—”

“We’ve begun to understand how it was done. Michael, there’s a complete set of instructions written into the post-quantum world, a concordance of particle harmonies, a manipulation of the more exotic dimensions. Directions , establishing the rules, setting the value of gravity, tuning the electroweak charge, establishing the Mannheim Complexity Principle. Ultimately writing the nature of Man. It’s all there, Michael. There’s a lot we don’t know yet. But someone wrote the program. The theologians were right all along—.”

“This is old stuff, Nick. Railing at God when things go wrong.”

“It comes with a twist now. We know how to make a universe. Were you aware of that?”

“No.” It was hard to know whether he was mocking me, or delirious. In the uncertain light, I could not get a good look at his eyes. “I wasn’t aware.” And after a moment: “The idea is absurd.”

“Nevertheless, it is quite true.”

I sighed. “And how would we go about doing that?”

“Quite easily, Michael. We pack a relatively modest quantity of matter, a few kilograms, into a cramped space.” He looked past me, toward the shadowy area where his bookshelves met the ceiling. “The space would have to be quite cramped, of course. It would be considerably smaller than an atomic nucleus. But after we’ve done it, we have a cosmic seed.” His lips parted in a distorted smile. “Then all you have to do is let go and stand back.”

“And you get a new big bang?”

“Yes.”

I snorted. “Come on, Nick. A few kilograms wouldn’t give you a good-sized rock .”

He set his glass down and immediately picked it up again. His fingers curled around it, gripped it. “The seed is only a seed. It contains the trigger, and the plan. Once it explodes, the process takes on a life of its own. It creates what it needs. The forces come into existence, and the physical constants lock in. The clock begins to run.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Nick looked amused. “Nevertheless, it happens. It has already happened. If it hadn’t, you and I wouldn’t be standing here.”

“You’re saying we could do this?”