Marek Huberath - Nest of Worlds

“My hair falls out too, but with a little egg white or sugar it stands up fine and looks like I have more.”

“And I’d hate for my wife to tie her hair up into a hundred knots. It’s soft, wonderful hair.”

“You complain it tickles your nose,” said Ra Mahleiné.

“In braids it would be worse. A braid is stiff, it can put an eye out.”

“You both dress like mice,” said Zef. “And then some dimwit broad gives you a hard time. People like that judge others by their clothes.”

“In Lavath, people dress plainly. Protective coloration.”

Zef sighed. “Maybe you’re right. That’s a style too, I suppose.” He got up from the armchair to stick something to the door. “I have to do this, with the gum, for my mother. When she sees it, she’ll feel that the world has returned to normal and that maybe you are no longer the finger of doom.”

He sat again and sighed.

“You were going to say something else, before,” Gavein said.

“Yes. It’s little Laila. They called from the hospital today.”

“More bad news?” Gavein didn’t believe in Edda’s theory, of course, but all this trouble on the heels of trouble did seem to go beyond coincidence.

“Depends on how you look at it. When she was examined, they found she was pregnant.”

“But she’s… twelve at most,” Ra Mahleiné exclaimed, looking up with surprise.

“What are you talking about? She’s sixteen, just small.”

“And?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“The father…”

“The father is me. I was the first on the scene. Earthworm tried his luck, but tried elsewhere after he got a knuckle sandwich for his efforts, and radio earphones as a consolation prize. Beanpole tried too, but with no success, so he didn’t cost me anything.”

“She’s that much of a charmer? She seems so… nondescript,” blurted Gavein.

“But mysterious, wrapped in all those white rags. She has to sit all the time, because everything hurts when she lies down.”

“You can’t even see if she’s pretty,” Gavein protested.

“She’s pretty. And she’ll be pretty on the top half, too, after they stick the skin back on. You can’t see it now.”

Ra Mahleiné sniffed her disapproval. She didn’t speak, not wanting to lose count, so it wasn’t clear whether it was Zef’s notion of feminine beauty she disapproved of or his way of expressing it.

“What will become of you two?”

“What has to. I’ll get her written into my passport as my wife, though she’s white. Just as you did with Magdalena. You impressed the hell out of me: a black man with a white woman, unheard of in Davabel. A red man with a white woman, that’s not as biff, but it’s something, don’t you think?”

“Definitely.”

“But isn’t she too young to be married?” asked Ra Mahleiné.

“A white woman is never too young.”

Ra Mahleiné guffawed at that.

“In Davabel, I meant,” said Zef, embarrassed. “I’ll tell old Mass that the girl’s moving in with me. He’ll be glad, because he hardly has room as it is. And my mother pays no attention to classifications.”

“I have a problem too,” said Gavein after a pause.

“Sexual counseling is on 5667 Avenue, a twenty-minute walk from here.” Zef had to wisecrack; it was his role.

“It’s not personal,” said Gavein, smiling. “It’s scientific.”

“Then chop away, man. I love scientific problems. Particularly if it’s physics.”

The young man had been working on his leather jacket, Gavein noticed. There didn’t seem to be any more room for skulls, but somehow Zef always found a spot for another.

“Here’s the problem, then,” Gavein said. “Ra Mahleiné told me about her voyage by sea. It appears that time on the ocean passes faster than it does in either Lavath or Davabel.”

“How so?”

“It was constant night, for one thing. On rare occasions the night would turn a black-blue, and without clouds in the sky. That may have been day. The women with good eyes could see airplanes overhead, not moving. Each seaplane was motionless at first, then accelerated as it descended, braking only on the water. I think that time goes faster at sea level than on land. What do you say to that?”

“It sounds right. A guy by the name of Mill has calculated that equilibrium must be preserved, that is, if things slow down above us, below us they will speed up. In other words, Lavath and Davabel are connected only by a thin layer of real time, or common time, since both are at the same level. Determining the width of that layer is actually my homework assignment.”

“How do we know there exists a layer of real time? How do we know that time in Lavath and Davabel is the same?”

“I love the way you flex your cerebral biceps. No one else in this shanty does that,” said Zef admiringly.

“All right, now it’s your turn.”

“How can you stand the way he talks?” asked Ra Mahleiné with a groan.

“He has no choice,” Gavein told her. “He’s wired that way.”

“You could try ear mufflers,” advised Zef.

“I’ll make myself a pair.”

“To work, then. This is really not known,” said the young man, commencing. “A common layer of time appears to exist, because there is fairly good agreement among different clocks. But, you know, a pilot’s hand jerks, and say good-bye to the accuracy of time measurement taken on the plane.”

“What about this speedup of time on the ocean? Doesn’t it contradict the common-layer idea?”

“You’re caught in a froze.”

“A what?”

“A mental froze. Because it’s all beautifully logical.”

“I’m afraid this froze won’t let go of me.”

“The point is, why should the effect stop at the Earth’s surface? If time slows in the absence of mass, then it should speed up in its greater presence. Did you notice that the coast is a cliff of several hundred meters? How does one get to a boat? By elevator.”

“I was never on the coast.”

“Neither was I. But I read about it in a book.”

“You’re right,” Ra Mahleiné chimed in. “The elevator drops through a tunnel in the rock. It goes fast, and it goes for a long time. You have to be careful not to put out your hand, because the railing is not high, and fifty, sixty people are packed inside. For the elevator back up, I had to wait a month. That was in addition to the quarantine.”

“You see, Gavein?”

“Miners far below the surface must get a lot accomplished,” Gavein said. It was not a brilliant observation.

“Not necessarily. The deeper you descend into the Earth, the weaker the gravity. Calculate the gravitation of a spherical body, and you’ll see. At sufficient depth, there’s a play between the dependence of time on distance and the fall in the mass contributing to the gravitational force, and no one knows which of these wins out. So far in mines, even in the lowest, no appreciable change has been observed.”

“In that case, why should the effect at the surface of the sea be stronger than it is beneath the ground at the same altitude?” Gavein asked, unconvinced.

“Use integral calculus. Ever gnawed on that nut? The y-axis does funny things near the coast.” Zef wasn’t making too much sense, and his forehead was beaded with sweat, as Haifan’s face had been before.

“Why don’t we write this Mill a letter, with the question?” Gavein suggested, as if holding out a life preserver.

“Mill happens to be in our college. I’ll talk with him as soon as he returns. He’s out on some geodesic study.”

Their conversation was ended by the appearance of Beanpole, who stood in the doorway, as pock-faced as ever and glummer than usual, chewing gum.