The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (42 page)

“Lazarus, why do you say such dreadful things?” The voice came from behind us; I had no trouble identifying it as Hilda’s warm contralto.

Lazarus looked around. “Oh, there you are! Hilda, will you please put a stop to this dadblasted racket?”

“Lazarus, you can do it yourself—”

“I’ve tried. They delight in frustrating me. All three of them. You, too.”

“—simply by walking three paces beyond the door. If there is another musical salute that you would prefer, please name it. Dora and I are trying to find just the right tune for each of our family, plus a song of welcome for any guest.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Dora enjoys doing it. So do I. It’s a gracious practice, like eating with forks rather than fingers.”

“‘Fingers were made before forks.’”

“And flatworms before humans. That does not make flat-worms better than people. Move along, Woodie, and give Gershwin a rest.”

He grunted and did so; the Gershwin stopped. Hazel and I followed him—and again music sounded, a pipe-and-drum band blaring out a march I had not heard since that black day when I lost my foot…and my command…and my honor: “The Campbells Are Coming—”

It startled me almost out of my wits, and gave me the mighty shot of adrenaline that ancient boast before battle always does. I was so overcome that I had to force myself to keep my features straight, while praying that no one would speak to me until I had my voice back under control.

Hazel squeezed my arm but the darling kept quiet; I think she can read my emotions—she always knows my needs. I stomped straight ahead, spine straight, barely steadying myself with my cane, and not seeing the interior of the ship. Then the pipes shut down and I could breathe again.

Behind us was Hilda. I think she had hung back to keep the musical salutes separated. Hers was a light and airy tune I could not place; it seemed to be played on silver bells, or possibly a celesta. Hazel told me the name of it: “Jezebel”—but I could not place it.

Lazarus’s quarters were so lavish that I wondered how fancy the flag cabin of “Commodore” Hilda might be. Hazel settled down in his lounge as if she belonged there. But I did not stay; a bulkhead blinked, and Lazarus ushered me on through. Beyond lay a boardroom suitable for a systemwide corporation: a giant conference table, each place at it furnished with padded armchair, scratch pad, stylus, froster of water, terminal with printer, screen, keyboard, microphone, and hushfield—and I must add that I saw little of this bountiful junk in use; Dora made it unnecessary, being perfect secretary to all of us while also offering and serving refreshments.

(I could never get over the feeling that there was a live girl named Dora somewhere out of sight. But no mortal girl could have kept all the eggs in the air that Dora did.)

“Sit down anywhere,” Lazarus said. “There is no rank here. And don’t hesitate to ask questions and offer opinions. If you make a fool of yourself, no one will mind and you won’t be the first to do so in this room. Have you met Lib?”

“Not formally.” It was the other strawberry blonde, the not-Deety one.

“Then do. Dr. Elizabeth Andrew Jackson Libby Long… Colonel Richard Colin Ames Campbell.”

“I am honored. Dr. Long.”

She kissed me. I had anticipated that, having learned in less than two days here that the only way to avoid friendly kisses was by backing away…but that it was better to relax and enjoy it. And I did. Dr. Elizabeth Long is a pleasant sight and she was not wearing much and she smelled and tasted good…and she stood close to me three seconds longer than necessary, patted my cheek, and said, “Hazel has good taste. I’m glad she brought you into the family.”

I blushed like a yeoman. Everyone ignored it. I think. Lazarus went on, “Lib is my wife and also my partner starting back in the twenty-first century Gregorian. We’ve had some wild times together. She was a man back then and a retired commander, Terran Military Forces. But then and now, male or female, the greatest mathematician who ever lived.”

Elizabeth turned and caressed his arm. “Nonsense, Lazarus. Jake is a greater mathematician than I and a more creative geometer than I could ever hope to be; he can visualize more dimensions and not get lost. I—”

Hilda’s Jacob Burroughs had followed us in. “Nonsense, Lib. False modesty makes me sick.”

“Then be sick, darling, but not on the rug. Jacob, neither your opinion, nor mine—nor that of Lazarus—is relevant; we are what we are, each of us—and I understand there is work to be done. Lazarus, what happened?”

“Wait for Deety and the boys, so we don’t have to discuss it twice. Where’s Jane Libby?”

“Here, Uncle Woodie.” Just entering was a naked girl who resembled—Look, I’m going to stop talking about family resemblances, hair red or otherwise, and the presence or absence of clothing. On Tertius, through climate and custom, clothing was optional, usually worn in public, sometimes worn at home. In the Lazarus Long household the males were more likely to wear something than the females but there was no rule that I could ever figure out.

Red hair was common in Tertius, still more common in the Long family—a “prize ram” effect (as stockmen say) from Lazarus…but not alone from Lazarus; there were two other sources in that family, unrelated to Lazarus and unrelated to each other: Elizabeth Andrew Jackson Libby Long and Dejah Thoris (Deety) Burroughs Carter Long—and still another source that I was not then aware of.

People who favor the Gilgamesh theory have noted how redheads tend to clump, e.g., Rome, Lebanon, south Ireland, Scotland…and, even more markedly, in history, from Jesus to Jefferson, from Barbarossa to Henry Eighth.

The sources of resemblances in the Long family were hard to sort out, other than with the help of Dr. Ishtar, the family geneticist—Ishtar herself looked not at all like her daughter Lapis Lazuli…not surprising once you learned that she was no genetic relation to her own daughter…whose genetic mother was Maureen.

Some of the above I learned later; all of it I mention now in order to dismiss it.

That panel of mathematicians consisted of Libby Long, Jake Burroughs, Jane Libby Burroughs Long, Deety Burroughs Carter Long, Minerva Long Weatheral Long, Pythagoras Libby Carter Long and Archimedes Carter Libby Long—Pete and Archie—one borne by Deety and the other birthed by Libby and these two women sole parents to both young men—Deety being the genetic mother of each and Elizabeth the genetic father…and I refuse to sort that one out at this point; let it be an exercise for the student. I would rather offer you one more; Maxwell Burroughs-Burroughs Long—then conclude by saying that all these weird combinations were supervised by the family geneticist for maximum reinforcement of mathematical genius and no reinforcement of harmful recessives.

Watching these geniuses at work had some of the soporific excitement of watching a chess match but not quite. Lazarus first had Gay Deceiver testify, bringing her voice through Dora’s circuits. They listened to Gay, examined her projected tapes, light and sound, called in Zebadiah, took his testimony, called Hilda in, asked for her best estimate of Zebadiah’s anticipation of the bomb.

Hilda said, “Somewhere between a shake and a blink. You all know I can’t do better than that.”

Dr. Jake declined to express an opinion. “I did not watch. As usual I was backing up the spoken orders by setting the vernier controls. The penultimate order, being a scram, aborted the run and then we went home. I did not set the verniers, so nothing more appears on my tapes. Sorry.”

Deety’s testimony was almost as skimpy. “The scram order preceded the explosion by an interval of the order of one millisecond.” On being pressed she refused to say that it was “of the close order.” Burroughs persisted about it and mentioned her “built-in clock.” Deety stuck out her tongue at him.

The young man (an adolescent, really) called Pete said, “I vote ‘insufficient data.’ We need to place a rosette of sneakies around the site and find out what happened before we can decide how close to the tick we can set the rescue.”

Jane Libby asked, “After the scram, was the nova bomb already visible from the new point of sight, or did it appear after Gay’s translation? Either way, how does that fit the timing at Checkpoint Beta? Query: Is it experimentally established that irrelevant transportation is instantaneous, totally nil in transit time…or is it an assumption based on incomplete evidence and empirical success?”

Deety said, “Jay Ell, what are you getting at, dear?” I was bracketed by these two; they talked across me, obviously did not expect opinions from me—although I had been a witness.

“We are trying to establish the optimum tick for evacuating THQ, are we not?”

“Are we? Why not pre-enact evacuation, time it, then start the evacuation at minus H-hours plus thirty minutes? That gets everyone back here with gobs of time to spare.”

“Deety, you thereby set up a paradox that leaves you with your head jammed up your arse,” Burroughs commented.

“Pop! That’s rude, crude, and vulgar.”

“But correct, my darling stupid daughter. Now think your way out of the trap.”

“Easy. I was speaking just of the danger end, not the safe end. We finish the rescue with thirty minutes to spare, then move to any empty space in any convenient universe—say that orbit around Mars we have used so often—then turn around and reenter this universe at a here-now tick one minute after we leave for the rescue.”

“Clumsy but effective.”

“I like simple programming, I do.”

“So do I. But doesn’t anyone see anything wrong with taking whatever length of time we need?”

“Hell, yes!”

“Well, Archie?”

“Because it’s booby-trapped, probability point nine nine seven plus. How it is booby-trapped, depends. Who’s our antagonist? The Beast? The Galactic Overlord? Boskone? Or is it direct action by another history-changing group, treaty or no treaty? Or—don’t laugh—are we up against an Author this time? Our timing must depend on our tactics, and our tactics must fit our antagonist. So we must wait until those big brains next door tell us whom we are fighting.”

“No,” said Libby Long.

“What’s wrong. Mama?” the lad asked.

“We will set up
all
the possible combinations, dear, and solve them simultaneously, then plug the appropriate numerical answer into the scenario the fabulists give us.”

“No, Lib, you would still be betting a couple hundred lives that the big brains are right,” Lazarus objected. “They may not be. We’ll stay right here and find a safe answer if it takes ten years. Ladies and gentlemen, these are our
colleagues
we are talking about. They are not expendable. Damn it, find that right answer!”

I sat there feeling silly, slowly getting it through my head that they were seriously discussing how to rescue all the people—and records and instruments—in a habitat I had seen vaporized an hour ago. And that they could just as easily rescue the habitat itself—move it out of that space before it was bombed. I heard them discuss how to do that, how to time it. But they rejected that solution. That habitat must have cost countless billions of crowns…yet they rejected saving it. No, no! The antagonist, be he the Beast of the Apocalypse, or Galactic Overlord (I choked!), or whatever—he must be allowed to think that he had succeeded; he must not suspect that the nest was empty, the bird flown.

I felt a remembered sensation in my left leg: Lord Pixel was again challenging the vertical front face. Furthermore he was driving in a fresh set of pitons, so I reached down and set him on the table. “Pixel, how did you get here?”

“Blert!”

“You certainly did. Out into the garden, through the garden, through the west wing—or did you go around?—across the lawn, up into a sealed spaceship—or was the ramp down? As may be, how did you find me?”

“Blert.”

“He’s Schrödinger’s cat,” Jane Libby said.

“Then Schrödinger had better come get him, before he gets himself lost. Or hurt.”

“No, no. Pixel doesn’t belong to Schrödinger; Pixel hasn’t selected his human yet—unless he has picked you?”

“No. I don’t think so. Well, maybe.”

“I think he has. I saw him climb into your lap this noon. And now he has come a long way to find you. I think you’ve been tapped. Are you cat people?”

“Oh, yes! If Hazel lets me keep him.”

“She will; she’s cat people.”

“I hope so.” Pixel was sitting up on my scratch pad, washing his face, and doing a commendable job in scrubbing back of his ears. “Pixel, am I your people?”

He stopped washing long enough to say emphatically, “
Blert!
”

“All right, it’s a deal. Recruit pay and allowances. Medical benefits. Every second Wednesday afternoon off, subject to good behavior. Jane Libby, what’s this about Schrödinger? How did he get in here? Tell him Pixel is bespoke.”

“Schrödinger isn’t here; he’s been dead for a double dozen centuries. He was one of that group of ancient German natural philosophers who were so brilliantly wrong about everything they studied—Schrödinger and Einstein and Heisenberg and—Or were these philosophers in your universe? I know they were not in all parts of the omniverse, but parallel history is not my strong point.” She smiled apologetically. “I guess number theory is the only thing I’m really good at. But I’m a fair cook.”

“How are your back rubs?”

“I’m the best back rubber in Boondock!”

“You’re wasting your time. Jay Ell,” Deety put in. “Hazel still walks him on a leash.”

“But, Aunt Deety, I wasn’t trying to bed him.”

“You weren’t? Then quit wasting his time. Back away and let me at him. Richard, are you susceptible to married women? We’re all married.”

“Uh—Fifth Amendment!”

“I understood you but they’ve never heard of it in Boondock. These German mathematicians—Not in your world?”

“Let’s see if we’re speaking of the same ones. Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg—”

“That’s the crowd. They were fond of what they called ‘thought experiments’—as if anything could be learned that way. Theologians! Jane Libby was about to tell you about ‘Schrödinger’s Cat,’ a thought experiment that was supposed to say something about reality. Jay Ell?”