The Broken Universe (20 page)

“You’ve probably thought about it as much as I have,” John said. “Why would a civilization as advanced as one that could create multidimensional travel create a device that fails as easily as this thing did?” He pointed to where the device sat strapped across his chest. “It only goes one direction, and we know that’s easy to get around. We built a device that goes both ways. This thing beams you into solid matter, if such exists on the other side. What advanced civilization would allow that sort of failure to happen?”

“None I can postulate,” Prime said.

“Exactly.” John pointed at the cadaver. “This guy died a horrible death because his technology was either broken or sabotaged.”

“What do we do with—”

“Hey!”

They turned to see someone entering the tunnel. John’s hand went to the device, and then he pulled it away. There was no way he’d ever transfer under solid rock. Not after viewing the body of the first traveler.

Prime shined his flashlight at the approaching figure, and John realized it was one of the swimmers. The guy was still dressed in dripping trunks.

“What are you doing back here?” he cried.

“What concern is it of yours?” Prime asked.

“It’s a big concern,” the guy said. He pointed at the cadaver. “I’m the appointed guardian of this guy, and I don’t like you poking around him ‘looking for fossils.’”

“Appointed guardian, huh?” Prime said. “Then you should have called the police to let them know about this.”

“Get that flashlight out of my face!” He swung his hand and knocked the light aside. Prime let it drop, and its reflection illuminated both their faces.

The guy stopped in shock. His eyes went from John to Prime and back again.

“Johnny?” he said softly, looking at Prime. “Johnny?” he said again, looking at John.

John peered closely at him. The face had aged with the change from adolescence to adulthood, leaner, more rugged. He was six centimeters taller and more muscular. The tattoo was new, but John recognized his boyhood friend. Only it wasn’t really his boyhood friend.

“Hello, Billy Walder,” he said. “But we’re not the John Rayburn you knew.”

*   *   *

“So, he’s still alive?” Billy Walder asked. They had climbed out of the cave, when Billy started shivering in the cold underground air. They stood on the bare rock above. His three friends were watching from a distance. He’d waved them off when they started toward them.

“Yes, he’s alive.”

“Damn,” he said. “That could have been me. It could have been me who disappeared like that.”

“Yeah, one of you had to press the trigger,” Prime said. “Good thing you weren’t too close to him when he did.”

“Why?”

“It would have taken half your body with it,” Prime said. “Leaving the rest here.”

Billy Walder shuddered.

“And so you two are here why?”

“Looking for answers,” John said. “We want to know where the device came from.”

“Space aliens,” Billy said.

“Uh, aliens?”

“Yeah, I been thinking about it longer than you two have,” he said. “It’s the only explanation. Cause if humans made that sorta teleporting thing, then everyone would know about it, right?”

“It’s not a teleporter,” John said.

“Whatever. It moves you from place to place, right? Teleporter,” Billy said. “If the U.S. government did it, it woulda leaked out. No one keeps a secret like this, right. So, aliens.”

“Uh, sure,” Prime said.

“So, you guys see ’em?” Billy asked. He leaned in close to them. “The aliens, I mean.”

“We’ve seen some weird things, but no aliens,” John said.

“Yeah, I guess they’d want their stuff back if you found them,” Billy said. “You still have it, so you must not have found them.”

“Good logic,” Prime said.

Billy Walder paused for a moment, looking away. “His mom took it real hard,” he said. “I mean he was fourteen, and just gone. No trace. They were pissed at me for a long time. Even though I had no idea.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Nothing. What could I tell them?” Billy said. “I still have some of his stuff.” He nodded down at the ground, toward the cave where the petrified man waited.

“His stuff?” John asked.

“Yeah, he had other things on him than the thing,” Billy said. “You want to see them?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Sure,” he said. He scratched his head. “I can’t remember where I put them. Oh, yeah.” He pointed across the street where his parents’ house stood. “Hid the stuff in a trunk at my parents’ house. Come on.”

He led them over to his three friends.

“What’s going on, Bill?” one of the girls asked.

“These guys are old childhood friends of mine,” he said. “We’re going to walk over and talk to my parents for a minute. I’ll be back in a few.”

“Bill, you said we were going to swim,” the girl said petulantly.

“And we will,” he replied sharply. “Come on,” he said to Prime and John.

The Walder house was across the street from the Rayburn house technically, though you couldn’t see one from the other due to the line of intervening trees. The Walders had always had a yard full of old cars, tractors, and appliances. And this universe was no different.

“Stay here,” Billy said. “I’ll be right back.”

John and Prime leaned against an old tractor and waited.

“I wonder what other artifacts the traveler had on him,” Prime said.

“I wonder if there’s more under the limestone,” John said.

“You want to chip him out of there?” Prime asked.

“I think we should,” John said. “If for no other reason than to give him a proper burial.”

“Yeah.”

Billy appeared a few minutes later carrying a box.

“Sorry, Mom wanted to talk.” He handed the box to John. “Those are things that he had on him. On his wrist, around his neck, on his finger.”

John opened the box. There was a ring, a wristwatch, and a simple chain necklace with a pendant hanging from it. John picked it up and saw that it was a curled snake in a figure eight, eating its own tail. The wristwatch had a display, but nothing showed on it.

“Couldn’t ever get that thing to work,” Billy said. “You’re welcome to that stuff. I was afraid to touch much, afraid I’d disappear too.”

Prime reached for the items, but Billy pulled them back.

“Can you bring John back?”

Prime stared at him, but John said, “Maybe. He’s made a life for himself somewhere else.”

Billy shrugged. “Well, you ask him for me,” he said. “I’ll give you this stuff, but you ask him if he wants to come back. And if he does, you bring him back.”

“I’ll ask,” John said.

Billy handed the traveler’s items to Prime.

“Thanks, Billy.”

“Naw, thank you,” he said. “I’ve always wondered. Now I know. But you ask him.”

CHAPTER
15

John Rayburn let the door slam behind him. It rattled in its frame, and then dropped an inch on the handle side. He should have fixed that, but he had little enough time as it was. He’d promised to help his parents out during the summer, while he took a couple summer courses at the University of Findlay. But with his father’s stroke, it looked likely that he’d be dropping those courses. Going back to Case Western in the fall seemed unlikely as well.

The day had been sweltering, and his body ached from the hours he’d spent spraying the cornfields. At least the crop looked good this year. A bad yield, combined with his father’s health issues, and his parents would have had to sell everything. John touched the back of his neck. It stung where he was sunburned.

Any way he looked at it, he was stuck here, helping his parents. At least for a year, while Dad recovered. He knew Mom was assuming the worst. But John was sure that Dad would work through it. He was home now, against the doctors’ wishes, but there was no way they could afford any more nights at the hospital. They had a nurse coming in to help with the rehab. She said he was doing better. And he seemed to be. John could understand most of his words. He was all there upstairs; controlling his body just wasn’t so easy.

John kicked at the dirt. He headed past the barn. A swarm of gnats swam around his head at the corner near the lamp there. He loved his parents. He did. But he had his own life to live. Getting into Case Western hadn’t been easy, and swinging the work-study meant he had no time for anything but bussing tables at the Faculty Club and studying physics. But it had been worth it. His parents did want him to do something other than farming, and though they’d never come out and said he should stay in the fall …

What choice did he have?

Something moved in the woods.

“Who’s there?”

A stick snapped.

John whirled. He should have brought a flashlight.

Then a light swung left and right. Someone was in the line of trees along the road.

“Who’s there?”

“Hi,” someone said. “John Rayburn?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” John said. He forced himself to relax. It was just one of his friends maybe, someone from high school. Yeah. Sure, and whose phone didn’t work.

Someone stepped out of the woods, shining a flash at the ground. He strode confidently toward John.

“Who are you?” John asked. “What are you doing out here?”

“John Rayburn, John Ten?” the person said. “I’m John Home.” He flashed the light on his own face, and John gasped. It was his own face.

*   *   *

John wasn’t sure when he went from believing the man was a loon, to believing with all his heart that what he said was true. The handful of Civil War gold coins hadn’t been it. Nor had the detailed story he had told. The identical facial features, and the same jagged scar on his calf had gotten him part of the way. But it was the calm passion, the intensity of purpose that this foreign John Rayburn—this John Home—exuded that finally brought John to believe.

“I’m really glad you’re going to Case Western,” he was saying. They had wandered back to the barn and were sitting among the hay bales. John Home had brought two bags of cheeseburgers; ketchup, pickle, tomato, just like he always ordered them. John took another bite. “If you could take some cosmology courses, that would be awesome. Quantum physics too. No way there’ll be a class on what we need to know, but that’s the foundation we need.”

“Do you have the plans for the … uh … transfer gate?” John asked.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he said. He pulled out a plastic binder from his backpack. “This is the original diagram of the device as we mapped it out. We’ve annotated what we think we know. This mass of connections is the state machine that controls the destination. I’ve marked the controls that we’ve figured out.” He turned to another sheet of paper. “This is the step-by-step instructions for building a transfer gate. You’ll notice there are huge parts of the original design that aren’t in here.”

“Why?”

“I was in a hurry,” John Home said. “I cut anything that I couldn’t understand or get to work. Our design is pared down to the basics. Understanding what else is in the original design is something we need to do.”

“Right.”

“Here’s the parts list,” John Home said. “Here’s the part list by universe. Sometimes the integrated circuits we need go by different names in different places. It may go by a totally different name here. If it does, note it.”

“Note it.”

“It’s just like freshman physics lab, but more intense and more important than that. We’re trying to figure out the nature of the universe, and I need you—and all the Johns we recruit—to help.” He smiled wryly. “I’d like to do it by myself, as you know, but that just won’t happen.”

John smiled. “Yeah, I guess you would want to do it yourself.”

“Yeah, you understand,” John Home said. “Here’s your checklist.”

John took the sheet of paper. It was an enumerated list:

1. Convert gold coins. Need plausible story for discovery.

2. Purchase quarry lot. Often owned by holding company named Sultan Rock and Gravel in Toledo. Negotiate a price of 17,500 in 7650E$ (7650 Equivalent Dollars).

3. Build a structure over the exact location of the 7651 transfer point.

4. Purchase the parts for a transfer gate in this universe.

5. Purchase an Encyclopaedia Britannica. Review summary sheets from 7651.

6. Recruit Grace and Henry.

“What’s a 7650 equivalent dollar worth?” John asked, the most inane of all the questions in his mind.

“Probably very close to what a 7601 dollar is worth,” John Home said. “Things aren’t that different between our universes.”

John looked back to the list, his mind boggling.

“Who are Grace and Henry?” he asked.

“Uh, well, their addresses are in there in the front,” John said. “You’ll like them. I promise.”

“Okay,” John Ten said. “But what is the 7651 transfer point?”

“Oh, yeah,” John Home said. “There’s a diagram.” He flipped pages in the binder to a diagram marked with precise latitude and longitude. “This is every universe we’ve settled, and how it maps to 7651, which is our station universe.”

John counted the numbers. “Ten, you’ve recruited ten of … me?”

“You’re number ten,” John Home said with a laugh. “We couldn’t find a better name for this universe, so you’re John Ten.”

“You’ve done this nine times, already?” John asked.

“Yeah. I’m pretty convincing, aren’t I?”

“You’ve got it down.”

“I know what sounds good for John Rayburn,” John said.

“Does this plan work?”

“Seems to,” John said. “You’re not that far behind the first.”

John nodded. Suddenly his suspicions rose. “Why me? Why did you pick me?”

John Home shrugged. “It was random in many respects. You exist in a universe close to mine. You’ve had similar experiences to me, up to a point. You’ll understand what I want to do, after you work through your suspicion.”

John was suddenly angry, and then he laughed. “You’ve done this before.”

“Couple times.”

“My dad…” John stopped.

“He’s had a stroke,” John Home said. “Yeah, I know. A couple other Johns have experienced the same thing.”

“Will he be all right?”

John Home shrugged. “None of these other universes is the future. But money isn’t going to be a problem. Use anything from the sale of the coins to pay for whatever procedures he needs.”