Mission to Minerva

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Duncan Watt christened it the "Conveyor Belt." The Thuriens launched a succession of probe devices off into the Multiverse from the MP2 station, each being projected as a component of a standing wave function, which in theory should cause it to materialize in another reality somewhere. Each of the probes possessed some variant of a communications transmitter set up to send back a recognition code as confirmation that it was at least continuing to exist "somewhere" as a coherent, identifiable object. This signal was sent from wherever the probe found itself in the aggregate of realities making up the Multiverse-the realm the scientists termed "M-space"-relayed back to Thurien as a signal through ordinary h-space by the remote-operated equipment at MP2. However, because of the time line lensing effect that this equipment produced in its vicinity, the parts of the incoming transmission being processed from instant to instant were from different versions of the probe, launched by different versions of MP2 existing in other realities. Since they were all designed to transmit their own unique identifying codes, nothing intelligible could be made of the resultant jumble from all of them.

The main object of the exercise was to provide VISAR with data to attempt construction of what Hunt had described to Mildred as a "quantum signature" unique to a given reality. If such a function could be defined, the hope was that MP2 might be able to "lock on" to one of the converging time lines, selecting only the universe associated with a given signature. This would be demonstrated when a coherent, decodable signal was received, instead of the scrambling of signals from different universes that was coming in at present.

The probes being sent out via the Conveyor were just that-simple signaling beacons. Unlike the instrument package that had been glimpsed briefly after coming the other way, they didn't at this stage carry detectors and sensors to find out something about where they had arrived at. One thing at a time. All the scientists were interested in at that point was being able to establish that a probe had arrived somewhere. The rest could come later.

Hunt's awareness of all this had tended toward a somewhat abstract immersion in trying to follow Thurien mathematics. Its more palpable meaning was brought home one afternoon, when VISAR came online suddenly while Hunt was using the neurocoupler in his room at the Waldorf, taking a break to get in some virtual sightseeing around Thurien.

"Josef asked me to interrupt. Something's just happened that he thinks you should be in on."

"What?"

"Another intruder has been detected. It's a long way out from Gistar, not anywhere near Thurien. There are just a few long-range readings at present. I'm shifting more detectors through h-space to get a closer look at it."

"Okay, take me there, too."

The tower city that Hunt had been staring up at from the sprawl of suburbs and parkland surrounding its base vanished, and he found himself sitting in a glass-enclosed observation room looking out into space. The room didn't really exist; VISAR knew that even the illusion of being out in the void unenclosed and unprotected made biological beings feel insecure and had decided that something more substantial than a maintenance platform would be in order.

The object that had materialized was represented for now by a featureless white oval standing out against the black backdrop, appearing the size of an egg held at arm's length. Sensors were still evidently gathering the details. Hunt got up and moved to one of the stools at the virtual bar that VISAR had considerately provided along one wall, where he poured himself a virtual drink. He didn't have to pour it, of course. He could have asked VISAR to simply produce it. But omitting it would have made the familiar ritual seem incomplete. The smooth, mellow sensation of Irish whiskey warming his palate was induced perfectly. And with no negative after-effects to be concerned about. It still never ceased to amaze him. For a moment he fought with the temptation to add a virtual cigarette, then dismissed it. The thought of VISAR's probable sarcastic comment, had he yielded, was enough to affirm his resolution.

"It's showing more stability than the previous device," VISAR reported. "Stress gradients and energy distribution in the surrounding h-space manifold are consistent with a standing wave pattern." The patch enlarged and began resolving itself into discernible structure as the vantage point closed. "Envelope dimensions in the order of ten feet by six feet, and eight feet deep. You're fifty feet away from it now. A flat base with pagodas pointing outward on both sides. This is very different from the one we saw before. It's not so loaded with instruments. More for communications. We're picking up strong h-resonances. It's trying to access the Thurien interstellar grid and get our attention. I think it's succeeding." A comical scene flashed in a temporary visual window of Eesyan's scientists elsewhere on Thurien frantically falling over each other to get to terminals or neural couplers.

Hunt got up from the bar and carried his glass over to the observation window. Moments later, Eesyan appeared, standing a few feet away. Hunt realized that this grandstand that VISAR had invented would where it would "bring" everyone else to who was neurocoupled into the system (it was the information, of course, that went to them) and who wanted to be in on the event too. As usual, VISAR had been ahead of him in its anticipations.

"I assume you got VISAR's update," Hunt said, turning his head to acknowledge Eesyan's presence. "It's beaming out in h-band. Stable this time. It sounds as if we might be doing something right. Chien's standing wave idea seems to be the right way to go."

Eesyan didn't reply. Hunt was still preoccupied with studying the object outside, and it took him a moment or two to register that the Thurien was just standing and staring at him strangely. He turned to face the other fully. Eesyan seemed too overpowered by something to speak. Hunt realized there was something odd. He had talked with Eesyan only a short while before; Eesyan had been dressed differently then. And his crown texture, which Thuriens periodically trimmed back in the same way that Terrans had haircuts, was more full. He looked around wonderingly, and then spoke at last, in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "This is really there?" Hunt was still trying to make sense of it when another Eesyan materialized in the floor area behind them. At least, this one looked "right."

Then VISAR came in, a little belatedly. "Sorry. I'm having a lot to deal with here. It seemed the best place to put him. The relay out there is communicating in virtual-travel protocol. They must be coupled in neurally at the other end."

Another Thurien appeared, sitting in one of the seats. Danchekker popped into existence, positioned incongruously behind the bar-one of VISAR's whimsical touches. It evidently didn't have time to make the announcements that would normally have been customary. The two Eesyans stared at each other. The second to arrive took the initiative. "Well, welcome to our world, as I believe a Terran song says. And congratulations. You're obviously ahead of us. What date is it where you are?"

Hunt had to take time out to remind himself, step by step, of what was going on. None of this was really happening. It was all inside his head. He was lying in a recliner in his room at the Waldorf in the city of Thurios. A device sitting out somewhere in the Gistar system, relaying to Thurien via h-space, was connecting the Thurien virtual-reality net into that of a different universe. VISAR was bringing together transmissions originating both from that universe, and within this one, that Hunt and the second Esyan existed in.

"Ah, Vic." Hunt looked back. Danchekker was coming out from behind the bar, where coffee and fruit juices had been added to the selection. "It seems we progress."

Hunt wasn't sure how to answer, since he didn't know which universe this Danchekker belonged to. "Hi, Chris. Which team are you with? Home or away?"

"What?" Danchekker apparently didn't appreciate the situation yet. He came closer, then realized that the two Thuriens with Hunt were both Eesyan, and stopped dead. "Good God!"

Hunt was about to suggest to VISAR that it ought to make them different colors or something, when another Danchekker filled the space behind the bar that the first had just left. The first whirled about as if about to be attacked, and the two gaped at each other. More Thuriens were appearing around the room, as had Josef Sonnebrandt, Sandy Holmes, and two copies of Duncan Watt. The chatter among them grew as those with some grasp of what was going on tried to clue in the others. The throng was growing faster than Hunt could keep track of, while at the same time the room enlarged subtly to accommodate it. His alter egos in other universes surely wouldn't be far away from something like this, he told himself, and scanned around. Sure enough, another Hunt was coming across from the area where the seats were, smirking shamelessly. "I see you found the bar first," he said. "What is it, Irish? How close does VISAR get in this universe?"

"Oh, I think you'd find it up to standard." Even after Hunt's brief experience at the Happy Days back on Earth, this was uncanny.

"No doubt. But today I think I'll settle for a beer." A glass appeared obligingly in the away-team's Hunt's hand. "Cheers." He tasted it, nodded approvingly, and seemed about to say something; but then instead, he frowned and stared in obvious puzzlement from one to the other of the two Eesyans, who were talking intently.

"What's wrong?" the Hunt who belonged here asked. "Can't remember which one's yours?"

The other Hunt ignored the flippancy. "I don't get this." He looked again and shook his head. "Neither of them is."

"This is preposterous!" Danchekker's voice came from behind, rising above the rest. The two Hunts turned. Now there were four Danchekkers, all glowering indignantly at the others as if they had no right to be there. Then one of them vanished. Another seemed to change position instantly by several feet.

Hunt turned back in bewilderment to his other self. "What in hell's…" But he was talking to thin air. "Where'd he go?" he demanded, cuing VISAR with a mental prompt.

"He disappeared out of the datastream from MP2. I only inject what comes through."

One of the Eesyans had also disappeared; Hunt was too nonplused to know which. A Hunt appeared fleetingly by the bar and was gone again, leaving three Duncan Watts staring in bemusement-then four, then three again, and then back to two. A new Hunt on the far side of the room was being assailed by a Danchekker who looked like a reincarnation of the first one. The same thing was happening with the Thuriens. The whole room was a madhouse of figures appearing and vanishing, shifting randomly from one place to another, some gesticulating and arguing incoherently.

VISAR came through. "I appreciate that this may not be the best time, Vic, but I've got Lieutenant Polk on the line again and-"

"I've never told a computer to perform impossible biological acts with itself before, VISAR, but…"

"Yes, sir! I'll take care of it."

Hunt turned and stared out again at the relay hanging in space, where the datastream that VISAR had referred to was coming from.

Incoherence…

Behind him, the confusion of voices cutting in and out blended into a meaningless hubbub. And then it was gone.

He was back in the recliner in the Waldorf, amid sudden quiet and stillness. For a few seconds he lay savoring the feeling. It was like waking up from an insane dream. But the thought that had started to form was still there.

The images of other persons that VISAR injected into the perceptions of a user coupled into the system were animated by activity monitored in the speech and motor centers in the brain of the individual that the image pertained to. Thus, a user saw and heard what the other users elsewhere thought they were doing and saying. The difference in this case was that a part of the perceptual experience that VISAR was creating for each of the users coupled in to the situation-Hunt, for example-was coming not from the regular Thurien virtual net in this universe, but through the relay device from another universe. Or "universes."

The relay device had to possess some kind of communications channel back to its universe of origin-achieving what the scientists in this universe were still struggling with. And that channel would terminate at some kind of multiporting projector: the other universe's MP2 or equivalent. But that Multiporter was mixing up the pasts represented by different time lines. So the scientists in the universe the relay was from hadn't solved the convergence problem yet.

So why had Hunt been suddenly cut off like this? As far as he could see, the job of generating the composite images would be no different from what VISAR normally did. it shouldn't make any difference where the inputs were coming from. Once the relay materialized, the link to it would function the same as to any other part of the Thurien h-net. Having clarified that much, he called up VISAR to check.

"I thought you didn't have technical hitches."

"I don't. But something was obviously wrong with the experiment that you bioforms were conducting at the other end. They pulled the plug."

"You mean that device didn't destabilize and break up?"

"No, they seemed to have that problem licked. It wasn't a dispersion pattern. The whole thing just wasn't there suddenly, as if it had been switched off. Since things were getting a bit out of hand and everyone was confused, it seemed better to terminate the show. There's nothing left to see out there now, anyway."

"You're probably right. But I hadn't even finished my drink."

"Couple back in. I can fix that."

Hunt sat up, swung his legs down, yawned, and stretched. "No, I think that after an episode like that I could use a shot of the real thing. Is anyone else heading that way downstairs?"

"Duncan, Josef, Sandy… it seems most of them have the same idea. Be warned, though. It's got Chris Danchekker going."

"Oh, I think I'm used to dealing with that."

Yes, convergence was the most important issue. Nothing else was going to matter much until they had that cracked. Hunt's other self had tried to pass on the right advice, all that way back at the beginning. In view of that, it seemed odd that whoever had sent the device responsible for the recent pandemonium should have fitted it for communications capability while the convergence problem still remained evidently unsolved. Hunt could only suppose that the inhabitants of different universes would find reasons for going about things differently. Or, of course, there was always the possibility that the particular team he was a part of would find out why in good time.

Others were already in the bar area, including a few Thuriens, with a vigorous debate already in progress. Hunt could hear Danchekker remonstrating above the rest as he approached. He wondered if there were other realities out there in the Multiverse in which the inhabitants had not been so prudent as to operate their MP2 remotely, confining timeline effects to streams of neurocoupler information, not the actual bodies. If there were, then the kind of chaos he'd just witnessed could be real, not just a virtual experience. How would anyone deal with four Danchekkers in their universe, three of them marooned and unable to get back? It didn't bear thinking about.