The Broken Universe (40 page)

“You hope,” Prime said.

“I hope, yes. I hope.”

“But we’re not going to sit idle and hope they don’t find us,” John said. “We need to find them first. We need to take the fight to them.”

“How?”

“More surveys, farther afield. More universe mapping,” John said.

“You gotta be careful,” Prime said. “There’s … bad stuff out there.”

“We know,” John said. “I know what you’ve run up against.”

“Not all of it,” Prime said softly, but before John could ask him more, Grace Home spoke up.

“So keep the idea transfers between universes to a minimum?” she said. “Don’t develop new ideas. Don’t make a difference in the universes.”

“That’s my best guess as to how they found us,” John said. “We need to also protect ourselves. Travel in pairs. Go armed at all times.”

“Sounds grim,” Grace Quayle said. “Like we’re running scared.”

“Running safe,” Grace Home said.

“This universe must be the safest,” John said. “There’s no human population here save us. There’s no way an outsider wouldn’t be spotted. Universe 7650 has got to be our biggest risk. We’re visible there. We’re in the open. We can’t hide Grauptham House. But we can’t give it up either.”

“It’s our revenue stream,” Grace Home said.

“And what do we do when we find them?”

“Negotiate?”

“No!”

John shook his head. “We understand them. Then we deal with them.”

*   *   *

John again went to see the news reporter Joe Cursky in Universe 7539.

“Oh, shit, you again,” he said. Cursky looked the same as he always did—weary and wary, tattered and solid—but he had a tired feel about him this time.

“I need some help,” John said. They stood at the bar of The Loose Mongoose, just a few minutes after the day shift from the newspaper had left their offices, not that John had seen any swell in the crowd at that time as he waited. The room had been packed at three and was still packed with reporters.

“You gave me a heart attack the last time I helped you. What now? I know you found Saraft. She disappeared.”

“You watched for it?”

“I wanted to see what happened.”

“I took her someplace safe, for her and her daughter.”

Joe shrugged. “What do you want now?”

“If I wanted to see a body at the morgue, a murder victim, who would I ask?”

“What murder? There hasn’t been a murder in Toledo in seven days,” he said. “Oh, you mean…”

“Yeah.”

“If it’s like this … uh … place, you go to the night-shift clerk tomorrow after ten o’clock in the evening. Guy by the name of Bob Lauric. Medical student, or was about twenty years ago. Handles the night morgue shift on the weekends. Slip him fifty dollars.”

“Lauric.”

“Yeah, Lauric,” Joe said. He reached out and grabbed John’s arm. “Now you gotta do something for me.”

John looked at the tight grasp Cursky had on his wrist, but didn’t shake it off. “What?”

“I wanna see my dad.”

“He’s dead,” John said.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know where your dad is.”

“Find it out, buddy,” Cursky said. “I want to visit him.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” John said.

“You owe me now.”

*   *   *

John called the morgue in 7351 and asked if Bob Lauric was there.

“He’s not on till tonight at six,” the woman said blandly. “Wanna leave a message?”

“Nah, I’ll call back.”

It was Thursday, not Friday, but if Lauric was on duty, he’d take fifty dollars to tell him about the body of the enemy soldier shot by the police, or any of the victims of the explosion. John checked his watch. Three hours until Lauric was at the morgue.

John transferred to Home Office.

*   *   *

John sighed as he entered the apartment. Something was cooking on the stove. He heard music playing on the stereo. He couldn’t explain to himself how good it felt to be there with Casey.

“Hey, baby,” he called.

“Hey, hon,” she called back from the second bedroom, their office.

He dropped his coat over the couch, and checked what was on the stove.

“Have you seen these sales projections for our computers?”

“No, but I can guess,” John said. “I’ve seen universes where the personal computer is ubiquitous.”

“Yeah, we’re going to sell millions of them.”

“And make it clear for universes around that we’re here,” John said.

“And deal with it, just like we dealt with those bastards in Universe Champ, just like we dealt with the Alarians.”

“When did you become so confident in us?”

“I got it from you,” Casey said.

John lifted the pot lid and wafted some of the smell into his nose.

“Casey’s famous tomato sauce?” he asked.

“World’s famous, actually. I’m helping in the cafeteria in Pleistocene this weekend.”

“Funny.”

“Speaking of which,” she said. “I think we should have the wedding there.”

“You realize there are no justices of the peace, no priests, nor any ministers there,” John said.

“We can do it officially here,” she said. “But the real ceremony, for our friends, should be there.”

“Your parents won’t be able to attend.”

“We’ll let them throw us a big party afterwards,” Casey said.

“Good thinking,” John said. “I need to run back to Champ after dinner.”

“Dangerous.”

“There’s gotta be some clue, some indication of the enemy’s presence there,” John said. “They lost lives there. They screwed up. But they launched a huge effort to find us, to hurt us. Something has to be left there. Some clue.”

“Or this was some small expeditionary force, and now their real army is there waiting for you to come look,” Casey said.

“If they had that sort of force in the first place—”

“The universe is a big place. Maybe we’re in such a backwater we don’t even see the wars being waged,” Casey said. “We just don’t know.”

“I hope not,” John said. “We just
don’t
know. Which is why I have to look.”

She kissed him, her arms wrapped around his neck. “Just be careful.”

*   *   *

By eight that evening, the morgue was empty of all its employees save the cleaning staff. John trailed a pair of Slavic cleaners through a first-floor entrance and followed signs to the morgue. The inner room smelled of disinfectant and other less clean smells.

No one was at the front desk, but some sort of rock-and-roll music played from the speaker of a transistor radio.

“Hello?” he called.

No answer came back.

He pushed through a door that said
COLD CHAMBER.

The room was twenty meters long and ten meters wide. The temperature was near freezing. Wheeled tables lined one wall and meter-square doors lined the opposite wall.

A bearded, long-haired man in scrubs was leaning over a table with a corpse on it.

“Yeah?”

“You Bob Lauric?”

“Yeah, and what do you want?”

“I want to take a look at a body you have here.”

“Shit. Another one?”

“What?”

“It’s been a regular turnstile in here this week,” he said. “Let me guess. You want to see the death-by-police victim.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Which paper you from?”

“No paper.”

“You’re not a reporter?”

“No.”

The man came around the table and peered at John. “Then what do you care?”

“I’m an investigator. I’m investigating.” John reached into his pocket and handed Lauric fifty dollars.

“Nah, the price is up this week. Supply and demand. I need a hundred.”

John shrugged. He’d brought more than fifty in case. He fished another bill from his pocket and handed it to Lauric.

“Fine,” Lauric said. He pointed at a door. “Number twelve.”

There was a handle. John grabbed it and pulled. A pale cadaver lay within. Four bullet holes adorned the body’s chest. He had no tattoos, no identifying marks, no jewelry, no clothing. No transfer device.

“Has he been identified?” John asked.

“Hell if I know. No next of kin have been by to see him though.”

“Did he have anything on him? A wallet, tools?”

“Keep pulling.”

John pulled the corpse out another half meter. There was a plastic box at the body’s feet. Inside was a watch, a wallet, a flashlight. Beneath that were a folded shirt, folded pants, and a jacket.

“Police took the guns and ammo.”

“Normal guns?”

“As normal as guns can be.”

John looked at the watch. No logo. The wallet had no ID, no credit cards, just seventy dollars in cash. There were no tags at the nape of the shirt, nor at the waist of the pants.

“Weird,” John said.

“Yep. Nothing on that guy,” Lauric said. “You want to see the other one?”

“What other one?”

“Number thirteen,” Lauric said.

John glanced at the drawer below twelve. He pushed twelve in and pulled thirteen out.

It looked like a slab of beef.

John realized in a moment it was the soldier John Prime had sliced in half with the gate.

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, we don’t have the other half of him,” Lauric said. “Very odd.”

John knew where the other half was.

“How many died in the blast? Where did those bodies go?”

“FBI took the bits and pieces we could find,” Lauric said.

“How many died?”

“Three? Five? Seven? Dunno.” Lauric looked quickly at the clock. “All right, you gotta go.”

“Why?”

“Because … because my manager is coming by to meet with me,” Lauric said. “I can’t have you here then. You saw, now go.”

John didn’t have a reason to argue. There was no clue to be had on the corpses. They were clean of any sort of identifying mark. There was no abnormal technology. No clue. There was nothing to find here.

“Thanks, Bob,” he said.

He left the morgue and headed back the way he came. Exiting the door, he found himself face-to-face with three men dressed in black leather jackets. They pushed past him and into the city building. John thought nothing of it, until he saw the black van idling near the curb.

He walked quickly, head lowered as if to avoid the cold, toward his car. He couldn’t see if someone sat at the wheel of the van, but he didn’t make himself obvious by staring. His rental was in the lot across from the city building, not quite with a clear view of the van. John pulled out and found another slot a little farther down and with clear sight of the front door and the van.

Ten minutes passed, and no one entered or exited the building or the van. Finally, one of the three who had squeezed past him appeared and waved.

The van dropped into gear and drove slowly down the street until it reached an alley. John pulled out of his spot and followed. He peered down the alley but did not turn into it.

The van had backed up against a loading dock. John looked in the rearview mirror; no one was behind him. He stayed there for a few seconds. Bob Lauric appeared, pushing a gurney. The three men grabbed the bagged body and settled it into the back of the van. A minute later, Lauric appeared with a second body bag.

John pulled a little way forward and waited. When the second bag had been placed in the van, the three men entered the side door and the van turned back toward the main street.

John ducked down as the van pulled past, then followed at a leisurely pace. It accelerated onto the interstate and headed north for several kilometers before it pulled off onto a state highway.

It was just John’s car and the van, so John let himself fade back a little. The van couldn’t go far without his seeing its taillights.

About ten kilometers along the highway, the van turned into a long driveway. John noted the address as he passed and continued on.

He pulled off at the next drive and watched the van’s lights disappear into a patch of trees. Even through the trees, he could see its headlights wash tree trunks and patches of white snow on the ground. It stopped not too far into the trees.

John left his car where it was, at the end of the driveway of a dark house, hoping it would be fine there.

He ran across the frozen, tundralike field. Severed cornstalks grabbed at his feet.

John reached the driveway and paused. He could smell the exhaust smoke of the van, and just ahead, he heard the rumble of the van’s engine.

The driveway dropped off to either side into a drainage ditch filled with drifted snow. He had no choice but to take the driveway. Ducking low, he followed the gravel path.

He’d only gone a few meters when he heard arguing voices. Definitely not English, he decided, not Alarian, nor anything he recognized.

As he came nearer, lights flared. He thought the van had turned around toward him, but no. Overhead security lights now illuminated the open area in front of a large barn. Farther up the drive was an old farmhouse. But it was the barn that the van was parked in front of. Four men from the van were talking with a fifth that had emerged from the barn.

Inside the barn was a vehicle the likes of which John had never seen. It looked like a harvester at first, but no combine bristled with weapons like this one did. John could only assume those were weapons. It was dull black, two stories tall, and sitting atop six huge, studded wheels. It was wider than three normal cars. A ramp led up to a gaping doorway, but he could see little of the interior.

The vehicle was a war machine of some sort, he was certain. But what point was there to bring such a thing to this universe? Its very appearance would have excited comment and immediate response. Why bring the thing through at all?

John scooted off the driveway and into the ditch. Trying not to disturb the snow, he took shelter under a pine tree. The trunk was sappy, but the ground immediately below the branches was free of snow. It felt like a bunker from which he could observe the enemy.

Whatever conversation the five were having ended and two of them started dragging the body bags from the black van. They dumped them on the ground. There was no ceremony involved, no ritual. They hadn’t retrieved the bodies to honor them.

The fifth man wore a mask over his face. John had assumed it was for the cold, but the mask looked like a gas mask. It was black and the shield was reflective. He stood back from the other four as if he were in charge.