Mission to Minerva

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bryom Calazar had a silver-gray crown flecked with white, extending down at the sides to bracket a pair of large, vertically elliptical, violet eyes. His protruding lower face with its blend of hues from mahogany to ebony always put Hunt in mind of ancient Egyptian depictions of Nubians. He arrived in the tower block next to the Multiporter building accompanied by Eesyan and a small retinue, clad in a short open coat over a tunic of embroidered green. It had never ceased to amaze Hunt that the effective head of at least an entire planetary administration-he wasn't sure how Calazar fitted in with the running of other Thurien-inhabited parts of the Galaxy-would travel as casually as a sightseeing tourist and show up with less fuss and ceremony than a regional manager back home visiting the local office. It seemed that Thuriens were as unimpressed by pomp and symbols of grandeur as they were by overassertiveness or attempts at intimidation. Reputation was what counted.

All of the Terran team were present to greet him, with the exception of Sandy, who had gone down with a Thurien bug or rebelled against something in the diet, and was holed up back at the Waldorf. There was also a heavy attendance of Thuriens, both from the project itself and other parts of the Institute, eager to pay their respects or simply to be part of the occasion. Hunt, Danchekker, and Duncan were old acquaintances of Calazar's from the time of the Jevlenese troubles and then afterward, when the first Thurien delegation came to Earth. Despite the demands for a word here, an introduction there, Calazar made a point of finding time to get to know Sonnebrandt and Chien better, to their unconcealed surprise and delight.

"This is unbelievable," Sonnebrandt said to Hunt when Calazar had moved on. "I've just talked to an interstellar overlord. He was interested in my fish and wanted to know if Berlin was like Geneva."

"Stick around. I said you'd be joining the right team… What fish?"

"I keep tropical fish."

"I didn't know that."

"You see. And he found out already!"

After the social preliminaries, Eesyan's scientists updated Calazar and his companions on the latest developments. Then it was time for the visitors to proceed to the adjacent part of the complex to see the Multiporter itself. Eesyan had arranged for some demonstrations of the machine in action. As the throng around the labs began thinning out, Hunt noticed that Danchekker was missing from the group assembling with Calazar to follow Eesyan across. "What's up?" Sonnebrandt asked, seeing the way Hunt was looking perplexedly around.

"We seem to have lost Chris." A mental nudge activated his avco. "Hey, Chris? It's Vic. Where are you? The party's moving on."

"What?… Oh." Danchekker came through on audio only, presumably not wanting to be distracted by visuals just now. "I'm in the office." He and Hunt had opted to share office space adjoining the area that the Thuriens used; Thuriens seemed to prefer working communally to being isolated in individual cubbyholes. "I'll catch you up."

"Lost something?" Hunt inquired.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Sandy made some notes that Eesyan will be needing later. I thought I'd brought them in, but I can't seem to lay my hand on them. Maybe I forgot to pick them up at the Waldorf. It's extremely annoying."

"I'll come back there and help you look."

"Really, there's no need."

"No problem. I've seen the show enough times before, anyway. I'll be there in two minutes." Hunt cleared down and looked back at Sonnebrandt. "He's in the office, looking for something. You carry on, Josef. I'll go back and give him a hand." He winked. "You know how it is with Chris. I'd hate it if he got lost trying to find his way over."

He found Danchekker rummaging around among piles of papers and boxes from Earth that had not yet been emptied. The working space was bright and spacious, with an attention to detail in the fittings that was not functional in any utilitarian sense and carried the surreal feel of an almost Victorian fondness for ornamentation that blended with the quasi-oriental decor of traceries and pointed arches. But it was a hard scientific working environment nonetheless. The walls were graphically active-in effect, complete floor-to-ceiling screens-that could be directed to display images, text, communications windows, lighting panels, or when nothing more demanding presented itself, background designs of whatever mood suited the moment. Just now, one of the larger mural areas was showing a scene from a world that had taken Danchekker's fancy in one of his "travels." It showed a stand of strange trees looking like ice-cream cones made out of broccoli, except that they stood two hundred feet high, their tops fashioned into nests for leathery, long-snouted flying creatures vaguely reminiscent of pterodactyls.

Things had been shifted around in the muddle of moving in, and a few sheets of notes could have been put anywhere. "One of the more exasperating characteristics of the female of the species," Danchekker grumbled. "Here we are on a planet who knows how many millennia in advance of our own, with universal access to a system capable of transferring any information instantly between star systems, and she resorts to handwriting notes. Is there any hope for our race, do you think?" Hunt noticed with amusement that Danchekker was searching inside a briefcase full of papers that he himself had brought from the Waldorf, but said nothing.

"Have you tried calling her?" he inquired instead.

"VISAR says she's blocking calls. Probably sleeping it off."

"Oh… right. Okay."

They went over the office one more time and satisfied themselves that the notes were not there. "I'll have to go back to the Waldorf and get them," Danchekker said. "It shouldn't take too long. If I leave right away I'll be back before Eesyan's bit."

"Want me to come along, too?"

"No, Vic. This time I insist. It was my own stupidity. You go on over and explain what's happened. They're probably missing both of us by now."

"Okay, then. Catch you later." Hunt turned to leave.

"Oh. There is one thing you could do for me, though," Danchekker said.

Hunt checked himself. "What?"

Danchekker opened the briefcase again and took out a book with a red, cloth-bound cover. "Sandy asked me to give this to Duncan."

"Ko's autograph book?" Hunt said, recognizing it.

"Yes. Duncan said he'd try and get Calazar to put his in it."

"Oh, dear, it wouldn't do to forget that, would it? Okay, Chris, I'll pass it on."

"I would appreciate it."

Hunt flipped curiously through the pages as he went back out and along the corridor. The collection included an assortment of names from the entertainment world, some notable public figures, various artists and writers, and a number of news celebrities. A youngster with some initiative and energy, Hunt thought approvingly. He found the entry belonging to Bressin Nylek, First Officer of the Ishtar, and also the Ishtar's commander. Hunt wondered what Calazar's autograph might be worth back home in years to come.

He exited the tower about a hundred feet above ground on a g-conveyor that deposited him on the terrace outside the cafeteria two levels below the Multiporter, and went up to the lab area with the square chamber standing in its frame at the focus of the array of projector tubes. The machine was running. Hunt seemed to have arrived just at the completion of one of the demonstrations. Eesyan was taking questions from Calazar and his company, who were standing with some of the project scientists. Others, were scattered loosely in the general vicinity, including Sonnebrandt and Duncan, with Chien standing a short distance away, the total numbering perhaps twenty individuals. One of Calazar's company was speaking.

"Let's think ahead and assume that you do find a way of stabilizing a transported object. That means it will stop in some particular universe. It will have rematerialized there-unlike that whatever-it-was just now that was just traveling through."

"Yes," Eesyan agreed.

"Fine. But suppose the process is subject to some kind of positional error, such that it doesn't reappear in precisely the same corresponding place there? It might not be inside their detection chamber at all. Or it could be a universe so different from ours that it doesn't even have a chamber."

"That's possible."

The questioner sent around a quick appealing look that said this could be serious. "Then it could rematerialize inside solid matter. So what happens when you start sending larger objects than these little specks that you've been showing us? You'd have an explosion!"

"We plan to move the project off-planet and operate it remotely in space when we reach that phase," Eesyan said. "A scaled-up projector is being designed as we learn from this one."

"I hope that our neighbors in their other realities are equally considerate," one of the Thurien scientists remarked, which brought laughter.

"Does it have a name?" someone asked.

"We just call it MP2 at the moment," Eesyan said.

As Hunt began edging toward the three Terrans, he passed by Othan, who had met them at the Waldorf on their arrival there, and another of the technicians. They were muttering irascibly in a way that was strange for Thuriens.

"I wish you wouldn't keep repeating yourself, Othan. I'm really not deaf or slow, you know." VISAR automatically supplied any background that would normally be overheard. It seemed to be another part of the Thurien obsession for authenticity. Hunt had grown so used to it by now that it no longer registered as a translation.

"I am not repeating myself."

"Why do you deny it? I heard you perfectly well the first time. It's not as if…"

Hunt moved on and drew up beside Duncan. "How's it going?" he asked.

"They've transmitted a few molecular configurations. Now we're going to go to try some crystal structures."

"What was that about something passing through?"

"A bit of excitement. There might have been a transient of something coming in a few minutes ago. VISAR's analyzing the detector data now." Hunt raised his eyebrows. If confirmed, it would mean the fleeting trace of something passing through from parallel experiments being conducted in a nearby universe. There had been some previous instances but they were very rare.

"Did you and Chris find what you were looking for?" Sonnebrandt asked.

Hunt shook his head. "No luck. It was some notes of Sandy's that he was supposed to give Eesyan. He thinks he must have left them at the Waldorf. He's gone back there to get them."

At that moment, VISAR came in on the general-address channel. "Attention, please. A positive detection is confirmed. We have evidence of an object passing through from a different reality."

A ripple of murmurings and some applause went around. "Your visit here has been marked as auspicious," one of the scientists said, smiling, to Calazar. "Let's hope it's a good omen."

"I wonder if we've been considerate enough to send them one back," Calazar mused.

"Highly improbable, if my understanding is correct," one of Calazar's party said. Another of the scientists was interpreting further details from VISAR. Eesyan took the opportunity to detach himself and come over to where Hunt and the others were. At the same time, he was turning his head from side to side and looking puzzled.

"Where did Professor Danchekker go, Vic?" he asked. "He's supposed to have something that I'll be needing later."

"You mean some notes from Sandy?"

"Yes-on possible biological implications. It sounded interesting."

"It looks as if he left them at the Waldorf. He's gone back for them," Hunt said.

"Oh. Very well… I hope he won't be too long."

"I shouldn't think so. He's probably halfway there already."

Eesyan snorted. "Then he must be propagating through h-space. He was here just a moment ago."

Hunt frowned. "Chis? No."

"Sure he was, Vic. I saw him come in with you."

"You couldn't have. He left the tower at the same time I did, heading back into town."

Eesyan looked to Sonnebrandt and Duncan in appeal. "Gentlemen, tell me I'm not imagining things. Didn't Vic arrive here with Professor Danchekker a few minutes ago?" They looked at each other, then back, and shook their heads.

"Vic was on his own," Duncan said.

Chien, who was watching and had partly overheard, came closer. "Professor Danchekker was here," she said. "I saw him."

"There!" Eesyan proclaimed.

This was getting silly again. Sane, intelligent adults unable to agree on what was happening literally in front of their faces. "There's a simple way to settle this," he said. "There is obviously one person who ought to know where he is. VISAR, connect me through to Chris Danchekker."

"Yes, Vic?" Danchekker's voice responded in Hunt's head a few seconds later.

"This may sound like a strange question, Chris, but where are you exactly?"

"There's no need to be sarcastic. I'm on my way. I'm sorry I wasn't there when Calazar arrived, if that's what's bothering you. I was nearly there and then realized I'd forgotten some notes from Sandy that Eesyan needs, so I turned around and went back for them. Is that permissible, might I ask?"

Hunt faltered. The others with him, who were also tuned in, looked equally baffled. Danchekker wasn't making any sense. "Chris… what do you mean, you turned around and went back? You mean you were here and went back, yes?"

"I meant precisely what I said. Shall I spell it out? I took a flyer from the Waldorf, as I am now about to do again. I was almost to the Institute when I realized I'd forgotten Sandy's notes. And so I turned it around and went back to Thurios. No, I haven't been there at the Institute yet this morning. What is this, another of your aberrations?"

"But, Chris, I talked to you myself here, across in the tower."

"You're being absurd."

Chien came in. "Professor, Eesyan and I both saw you in the machine area too-which is where we are now. You came in with Doctor Hunt. But he insists he was alone."

"Then all I can say is that you're all living in different realities. I know where I am, for God's sake. And I'm just in the process of boarding a flyer again, in the roof-level lobby of the Waldorf." A view of the surroundings extracted from Danchekker's neural system and superposed as a window upon Hunt's visual field confirmed it.

It was all going from "strange" to plain crazy. They could go on arguing like this all day and get nowhere. Hunt struggled for some continuation. Then he remembered the autograph book that Danchekker had handed to him when they were in the tower. He ran his hand down over his jacket and felt its solid outline in his pocket.

"Chris," he said. "Bear with us. There's another thing. Ko's book. Sandy wanted you to give it to Duncan."

"The autograph book?"

"Yes."

Danchekker sounded surprised. "How did you know about that? You were already gone when Sandy gave it to me this morning. She told me that Duncan should have collected it from her last night."

"Never mind for now how I know," Hunt said. "But do you still have it?"

"Of course. It's in my briefcase, where I put it."

"Could you check that, Chris?… Please. It's important."

Muttered sounds came over the audio of Danchekker grumbling beneath his breath. The window appeared again, showing his hands opening the briefcase and searching among the contents. They found the red-bound autograph book and drew it out into view. "There," Danchekker's voice pronounced. "Is that satisfactory? And now may I ask what the purpose is of this melodramatic cross-examining and interrogation?"

For a moment, Hunt's mind seized up. Stunned, he drew the book from his pocket and stared at it to reassure himself. Yes, it was the same. He was even more stunned when Duncan, moving as if in some kind of trance, produced another one.

"I did collect it from Sandy last night!" Duncan said numbly.

Danchekker arrived around fifteen minutes later. Three copies of the book lay side by side. The ones from Hunt and Danchekker were identical. The one that Duncan had supplied contained in addition as its most recent entry the signature of Serge Kaleniek, the lead tenor of the Estonian choir visiting Thurien. Duncan had obtained it at breakfast in the Waldorf that morning. He had thought that Ko would be pleased.

So had Duncan collected the autograph book from Sandy the previous evening, or had she given it to Danchekker that morning? Hunt called her to find out what her version was. Her account tallied with Danchekker's: She had given the book to Danchekker that morning, but he had forgotten to pick up her notes for Eesyan. He had returned for them without reaching the Institute, and then departed again.

Everyone was still too shocked and befuddled to begin debating coherently what it all meant. But Hunt was hearing again the chance words that Danchekker had used earlier: "Then all I can say is that you're all living in different realities…" His thoughts went back to the bizarre conversation in the Happy Days parking lot on that memorable Saturday morning. "The main thing you need to know about is the convergences," his briefly appearing other self had said, and then never had the chance to elaborate.

The glimmer of a suspicion of what might be happening began forming in Hunt's mind. But he didn't say anything. He wasn't sure himself if he believed it yet.