Miki started this one, and I just tried to catch up. If you think that certain names or places are misspelled, keep in mind that this story is taking place in alternate universes, none of which are the one we live in. We've tried to keep them consistent. -- Jennie
The Lost Pilot
By: Miki Yamuri and LilJennie
In Memory of Patrick H.
The mission was a huge accomplishment. The new Alcumberry / Vasimer FTL plasma drive had been a huge success as well. Even the new frame dragger that neutralized all inertia had performed beyond expectations. They had achieved something that had only been the purview of science fiction, they had managed to exceed what Eisenstein's theories had postulated as possible and achieved 4 times light speed before the pilot decided to back off and return to earth. Alpha Centauri was now a huge mass of stars ahead of them as they changed course and headed back to Earth.
According to the math, the faster the ship went, the faster it could go. The continuous and ever-increasing thrust from the Vasimer/Plasma drive created some type of field that surrounded the ship creating a frictionless environment that also aided in warding off atomic particles and dust, thereby keeping the hull from degrading due to nuclear energy impact dispersal.
This was also a trip of discovery since none had ever used this type of drive before on a crewed vessel, nor did they know of the possible effects the oscillating and highly energetic field permeating the ship and crew would really have. The hull of the ship had begun to store huge amounts of energy like a capacitor. In the future, this effect might be quite useful in reducing the power requirements if it could be redirected and safely stored. As it stood now, it was a complete unknown.
The pilot, Captain David Legette, reached over and pressed a button on the console that surrounded his gravity couch, and said, “Texas Space Port Approach Control, This is Wildcat FTL Shuttle requesting traffic information.”
“Roger that,“ came the quick reply, “Welcome back, Wildcat. Please attain 76 thousand feet and maintain until you reach epsilon beacon. From that point you are to do a spiral decent until you reach 10 thousand feet. Then use page blue in your map book. Follow that flight course until you touch down. Runway niner niner four is clear with the emergency vehicles standing by just in case.”
“Roger that, approach control. Approaching outer atmosphere. Will experience comms blackout in 3 minutes. Will contact you after this phase.”
“Roger. Comms B/O in 3 minutes. Approach control out.”
Descent continued normally as the first plasma fires formed and obscured the visuals, and of course all telemetry and comms were out while reentry burn continued.
What happened next none of the remaining crew of the shuttle could give any detail that was in the least helpful. What they saw was a very strange blue/white glowing sphere surround David. A blacker than black line appeared and drew some type of shape in the air around the pilot; this shape turned blacker than black, then David vanished just before the shape closed and the flight deck returned to normal.
The seven remaining crew tried not to panic as the co-pilot immediately took over the command couch and stabilized the shuttle. The engineer and navigator took over the other two stations since they really had no jobs during reentry. They did what they’d been trained to do in case something happened to the pilot, and they didn’t ask each other what had happened, because they had a shuttle to land, and they all knew that nobody else knew either.
The orbiting satellites that were tracking the shuttle actually saw the strange phenomenon as it unfolded outside the craft. What appeared to be a massive discharge of some type of energy jumped from the shuttle toward Earth. One of the electromagnetic bands surrounding the planet intercepted the powerful bolt. It created a huge bloody red hole in the ionosphere, where the massive energies finally were absorbed, then returned a bolt of energy of its own to the shuttle. They had volumes of data on this ultra strange phenomenon – the only issue was that it made no sense to anyone.
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In a hospital room, a man with many broken bones, bandages, and rather serious contusions sat up with a loud yelp. The nurse in the room dropped the tray she was carrying in shocked surprise at the suddenness of it.
She gasped out, “You’re finally awake. Don’t move, please – you’re rather severely injured. I’ll be right back, I have to get a doctor.” The nurse picked up the tray and quickly dashed out of the room.
The man looked around the room in a daze. What had happened? He was piloting the shuttle … and that was the last thing he remembered. He must have blacked out. As a test pilot he’d blacked out many times under intense accelerations, but he didn’t recall anything like that happening, or being about to happen. Something must have gone very wrong. Where was the rest of the crew? Why wasn’t he in the med unit at the Cape?
The only situations they weren’t prepared for are the kind you don’t walk away from. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was not where he should be, but he didn’t know where he could possibly be. As he began to get out of bed and untangle himself from the many tubes and electrodes, causing many alarms and buzzers to go off, the nurse and a doctor quickly entered the room. The doctor took the man by his shoulders and restrained him.
The doctor gasped with the strain of it. “Please, sir, relax. I promise we will answer any questions we are able to.”
The man continued to struggle. “I … I must get to Florida,” he said.
The nurse, who by this time was aiding in holding the man as the orderlies she had requested dashed in the room to help and with a shot of tranquilizer to keep the man from further injury. The nurse quickly and professionally administered the shot. The man quickly relaxed and laid back in the bed.
The doctor asked, “Who are you, what happened that injured you so badly? Where did you come from, and what was that strange outfit you had on?”
The man replied, “I’m Captain David Legette. I’m a NASA test pilot on the new FTL plasma shuttle.”
Everyone looked at everyone else. “Nassa? Plasma shuttle? FTL?” the nurses and orderlies asked each other.
The doctor replied, “Please relax, Mr. Legette. We’ll worry about your … impressions later.”
“Im … pressions? …” David said vaguely. His consciousness was starting to feel fuzzy, probably due to the shot they’d given him. “Not … delusional … telling truth …”
As he faded into unconsciousness again, David could hear them say, “I dunno, in sci-fi, FTL means faster than light … that’s impossible according to all known science … heard the government was going to try to launch a satellite or something again …” Then all went black.
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In a very large conference room, many doctors, high ranking military officers, and a few others who were impeccably dressed in what were obviously extremely expensive tailored business suits, all sat in the many tiers of seats and watched expectantly as a middle-aged man dressed in a spotless military uniform with 5 gold stars on each shoulder board stepped up to the podium and adjusted the mic. So far they’d been able to keep the press in the dark, but that time was going to run out any minute. This was the first and quite likely the last briefing the US government would have before the news went public.
He looked around the large room at the many people, then said, “Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, esteemed Congressmen, Senators, and military leaders. My name is General Eastlesslake, and I have been appointed by the President to preside over these matters. Before we get started, I will put to rest one major topic on the agenda. Wherever our visitor originated, he is human, same as we are, although his genetics are unique on our world with no genetic familial ties we have been able to find in our archives.”
Immediately, many of the comm lights on his lectern began flashing, indicating that many wanted to ask something or make a comment. The general pointed to one of the Senators and said, “Yes, Senator James Realto of Mistersippi.”
James stood and asked, “What do you mean, ‘our world?’ And what do you mean that his genetics are the same but unique on Earth? Doesn’t that sort of lend credence to all the conspiracy theories floating around this room that the gentleman in question is indeed a traveler from outer space?”
The general smiled as he replied, “Since you brought up the subject, let’s discuss his extremely unusual arrival. First off, in direct sight of at least a dozen members of the military, there was what they all have more or less stated was a huge explosion of some type of blue energy. The gentleman appeared about four meters above the ground and hit the earth with tremendous force, resulting in his beng seriously injured. Hardly an ideal form of transportation. His outfit at the time was badly damaged, but I can tell you now, nowhere on our planet can you find anything similar. It’s got a completely self-contained life support unit, like a deep-diving suit, but meant to maintain pressure within rather than keep it out. And, before you ask, yes we do have the technology to build such a suit – however, it would take several years’ lead time to develop the means to accomplish it.”
Many voices burst out as a huge conversation about extraterrestrials began. The general allowed this to continue for a few minutes before he banged his gavel loudly, “Order, please, We need to get back to the facts first, then we can start speculating.”
The general pressed another comm button. One woman in the middle of the crowd stood and said, “My name is Cynthia Crawford. I’m a representative from Flower Peninsula. What facts have you? From what the brief shows, he just magically appeared and slammed into the ground.”
The general picked up several things from the shelf under the podium, held them up for all to see. “In my left hand is something all pilots are familiar with; it’s the map binder usually strapped to their left leg for reference while flying.” He held up another object, and even as battered and burned as it was all could tell it was a helmet of some sort. The general continued, “And this unique device is obviously a pressure helmet. Printed on it is something he’s been asking for, and we have no idea who or what they are, or how to contact them. Even burned and damaged, the large red, white, and blue flag emblem and large letters N.A.S.A. can plainly be seen. This NASA logo was also on an arm patch on the individual’s suit.”
One of the generals with 4 stars on his shoulder boards asked, “Sir, with all due respect, are we about to be invaded? I mean, outside of fiction, nothing like this has ever happened before in all recorded history. He appeared like … magic, or some kind of Biblical phenomenon.”
There was considerable hubbub among the audience, but the general banged his gavel again and said, “There is no evidence of that at this time. His NASA emblem may be foreign to us, but you can see that the flag emblem is the same as ours. What our science team has theorized is that he is from … another Earth.” The hubbub returned until he banged his gavel again.
The comm lights on his lectern were lit up like a Christmas tree, but he had to pick one. A man in a suit stood up. “Sam Reynolds, CEO of Enercorp. Do they mean another Earth as in a parallel universe, or another planet in another solar system, or the theory that there’s another Earth on the opposite side of the Sun from us?”
“A parallel universe is exactly what they’re theorizing,” the general replied. “I’m sure they’ll release any findings in the usual way once they’ve completed their scientific research or … whatever it is they do, I’m not a scientist. I know what they’ve told me, and that’s it. They think that the strange blue energy was another result of whatever process caused him to travel from this parallel universe to ours. It’s another Earth, where the course of history ran differently from how it did here – but not so different that there isn’t a United States. He’s American, sort of like all of us, but his America has had a different history. How different and in what ways, we don’t know much about yet. They don’t think he’s from another planet in our universe because there’s no trace of a vehicle, craft, or spaceship of any kind – not one particle of metal, plastic, or anything else that wasn’t directly on his person.”
He pressed another lighted button, and a woman in a sharp business suit stood up. “Senator Helen Nelson, of the great state of Potatoland. If he’s not from outer space, why was he wearing a suit that’s obviously made to protect him from outer space? Look, I was in the Air Force. I wore pressure suits when I was training for high altitude flight missions. That suit looks like one of those, only, well, more so, and with a self-contained atmospheric system, that’s obviously for space.”
The general replied, “Well, yes, that’s what they’re theorizing. The suit may be for space, but it isn’t a vehicle. We’ll have to see what he’s willing to tell us, but everything he was wearing tells us that he was either preparing for a trip to space or … returning from one.” There was noise from the audience for a moment. “I know, it seems fantastic. Traveling in space is something out of science fiction. The only space travelers from Earth are robot space probes. But study after study has shown that there’s no reason why human space travel would be impossible – it just hasn’t been shown to be profitable or worth the risk. A huge effort would be required to solve the immense technical hurdles, and there just hasn’t been the impetus or momentum to go to that effort, when there are so many other demands for taxpayer money. It would cost billions of dollars. Hundreds of billions, probably. Unmanned probes are expensive enough.”
When the general pressed another button, a man with a white mustache and a colonel’s eagles on his shoulders stood up. “Col. Franklin Wilburforce. Sir, you say he’s from an Earth where history went differently and they did go to the great effort to develop manned space travel. What happened in this man’s history that made America feel that it had to do that? What impetus could there be that’s worth hundreds of billions? What kind of threat did his America see that required that kind of response? Were they invaded from outer space – or from another parallel Earth? Or by another very terrestrial nation with weaponized space travel technology? Who’s to say that couldn’t happen here?”
Banging his gavel to quiet the immediate wave of chatter, the general replied, “All valid questions, Colonel, but at this point we just don’t know. Our intelligence community is robust and would have brought us news long ago if any other nation had even made a move toward manned space travel. No, the Soviet Union is the only other country with the economic wherewithal for such a thing, though perhaps China or India, or a united Europe, might one day, but so far none of them has shown the slightest interest. Time for one more question.”
He pushed one more button. A blond-haired man in a suit and wire-rimmed glasses stood up and said, “Yes, I’m Representative Alan Schroeder from Siliconia, and I’m just wondering when our … visiting friend will be available to answer questions. So many of our questions could be answered if we could only ask him directly.”
“Well, the doctors say he’s still in serious but stable condition,” the general said. “They’ve told me that interrogations will have to wait until he can stay awake for more than five minutes at a time. He’s on a lot of painkillers, but he’s making progress – and yes, they say he’s healing at about the same rate and responding to the same medications as the average one of us. Luckily he seems to have been in excellent health before the … accident. Perhaps he was chosen for his mission because of his physical condition, but that’s just speculation on my part – though if I were picking people for a space mission I’d pick only the best of the best, physically and mentally. But we’re not going to antagonize him or badger him. He’s got so much information that we need to know. We’ll just have to wait until his doctors give us the go-ahead. Then we’ll have to handle him diplomatically. We’ve already assigned one of our best intelligence agents. She’s successfully infiltrated terrorist organizations, and all she’s got to do here is get on one man’s good side. But she can’t do that until he’s conscious.”
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Agent Anna Phillips sat in her seat on the aircraft as the monotonous sound of the Lycoming engine and props droned on and read one of the most amazing pre-mission reports she had ever seen. There wasn’t very much solid data, but the pictures and the details of how it came into their possession was remarkable beyond reason.
She marveled at the pictures of the suit the individual was wearing when he appeared and impacted the earth. She was positive the only reason the man survived the impact with the ground was due to the strength and durability of the suit, although it had sustained considerable damage.
The many pictures of the seriously injured man were remarkable in the fact he had survived the impact with as little damage as he had, although what had happened was serious in its own right. The transcripts of what witnesses had related he had said and the places he had asked for were another mystery.
As best as any of the medical professionals could determine, the man was genetically the same as all others on the planet, with the exception that his genetic makeup was completely unique. The red, white, and blue flag symbol on his helmet and shoulder patch showed that he had at least come from a place where America existed, although she was absolutely positive not from here and no one had the slightest idea what a NASA was or where it could possibly be located.
Anna took out a map and was attempting to try and piece together where the individual may have been asking about in his seeming delirium. He had given some indications of where it might be located. As best she could determine from what the man was asking for, the place in his reality had to be located someplace like Flower Peninsula.
It would stand to reason after she looked into it a bit. Flower Peninsula was the perfect place to launch a space vehicle and use the planet’s rotation to aid as a large boost with minimal usage of fuel, although fuel burn still would have been tons per second even under those conditions.
She couldn’t fathom why her country, or this man’s reality’s version of it, would spend the many trillions of dollars it must have cost to build rockets and launch humans into space. The man had said something about a plasma engine and FTL. Her mind boggled to think that this man came from a place that had figured out how to break one of her planet’s best known theoretical space speed limits set forth by the renowned physicist Esienstine, who stated that it was impossible for anything to travel faster than light.
According to this theory, the original value for H0, the Hubble constant measuring the expansion of the universe, was 500 km (311 miles) per second per megaparsec (one megaparsec was 3,260,000 light-years). Modern estimates, using measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the big bang, placed the value of H0 at about 67 km (42 miles) per second per megaparsec. This was incredibly fast by itself, but now there was an individual claiming they could exceed 186 thousand miles a second.
She closed her briefing folder and returned it to her briefcase. The plane had landed. She’d faced incredibly tense life-threatening situations and made decisions that impacted the lives of millions, although none of them would ever know about it. Now, the most exciting thing to ever have happened to her was just a short drive away: meeting a man … who was not from her universe.
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David woke up again to the realization that this hospital seemed to be holding him captive. He also realized that they might just be trying to help him heal, of course, but he had his career and the advancement of American space science to consider. He just had to get back to NASA to … to … to what? What information did he realistically have? Most of his space suit hadn’t even survived re-entry, and by all rights he shouldn’t have either. He assumed the shuttle had exploded; what if he was dead and in Heaven, or the other place? Or some kind of strange Limbo or Purgatory?
His eyes fluttered open. He was in a private room, so there were no nurses bustling about checking on other patients. It was quiet, and no one was watching him, though of course there was a security camera in the corner near the ceiling. That wasn’t unusual – hospital rooms often had those. Hospitals were public buildings, after all, and anyone could get in. Security needed to keep the patients safe.
He heard footsteps and voices outside. “Ma’am – I’m sorry, but I think your brother is in a different wing – I really can’t let you go in there – err …” Presumably that was the voice of a nurse, as a dark-haired woman walked past his open doorway, briefly glancing in at him before continuing down the hall. Her steps echoed and faded as she continued on. The nurse following her said into her mobile phone, “Security, I don’t think she’s a threat, but we have a very determined visitor on 3 North who’s determined to check every room for her brother … can you send someone? Thanks.” Stopping in front of David’s room, the nurse looked in and said, “Oh – David, you’re awake. How are you feeling? Do you need anything? There’s always a glass of water on the table by your bed.” He looked, and there was one. He was thirsty, so he drank some of it. Every move made his body ache.
“Still hurts,” he said, his voice creaky. He’d been spending a lot of time asleep, not using it. At least they weren’t keeping him sedated. “But not as bad as before.”
“That’s good to hear,” said the nurse, smiling. “You’re on the mend. We’ll get you up and out of here soon, don’t you worry.” David didn’t believe her. Wherever this place was, it wasn’t home. They’d never heard of NASA – who hadn’t heard of NASA? They’d said he was in America, but … was that a lie? Was some foreign government playing some kind of elaborate game, trying to get secrets out of him? But the nurse went away, back to her station,
Suddenly the dark-haired woman quietly slipped through his door and into his room, holding her shoes in one hand. She quickly moved around his bed and hid behind it, out of view of the security camera.
“What are you doing here?” asked David.
“Shhh!” she replied. “I guess this isn’t the floor my brother is on, but have you seen him? He’s got dark hair and a complexion like mine. He wears a mustache. His name’s Arthur. He’ll tell you all about trains if you let him.”
“Sorry, but I’ve been unconscious for I don’t know how long,” David said, quietly. “I don’t remember anyone like that.”
She sighed. “It was worth a try,” she whispered. “They won’t tell me where he is. They say he doesn’t want to talk to me. His own sister!”
“I can’t imagine why not,” he said quietly. “You’re already more interesting to talk to than the doctors.”
“Why, thank you,” she whispered. “Next time you see me, I was never here. OK?”
“OK, your secret’s safe with me.”
“Oh – I’m Anna,” she said.
“David.”
And just like that, she was back out the door, possibly into another room out of sight of the nurse and the security officer she’d called for. A few minutes later, a security officer did appear, glancing into David’s room but clearly seeing nothing unexpected and moving on.
What was Anna’s deal? She wanted to see her brother, who was in the hospital somewhere, but he didn’t want to see her, for reasons that were probably complicated and full of family history and none of David’s business. How did she know he was here? Probably another family member had told her, one who was on better terms with Arthur than Anna was. But there he went again, speculating about something that was none of his business. He’d probably never see her again. But he was bored and had nothing else to think about, other than where he was and what was going on, but he’d already gone over all that, completely unproductively.
After about an hour, he was even more bored, and then the doctor came in, the same one who had talked to him before, accompanied by a nurse and two orderlies. “David, hello,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to harass you. I just want to check on your progress. But I still can’t help you find NASA. Though I think we call your ‘Florida’ the ‘Flower Peninsula’ here. I’m told that ‘Florida’ means ‘flowery’ in Spanish. Nurse, can you record his vitals?”
“Of course, Doctor,” the nurse said and went about taking his heart rate and blood pressure.
“You’re seriously telling me that I’m in a place where Florida has another name,” he said disbelievingly.
“Well, you’re telling me that you’re from a place where Flower Peninsula has another name,” the doctor said. “But we’ve been over all that. Dr. Lamb, the psychiatrist who talked to you earlier, doesn’t think you’re delusional; he just thinks there are problems with your memory. You did have quite a fall.”
“I’m thinking quite clearly,” David replied. “There’s nothing wrong with my memory.”
“Well, we’re not going to start that again,” the doctor said. “I’m here to focus on helping you heal. Which you seem to be doing, and that’s good. We’ll keep feeding you nutritious food and giving you pain meds as needed, as well as changing those bandages and keeping those broken bones immobilized. In time you’ll be fine – when we doctors say you’re responding well to treatment, we mean that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“Do you have anything to read, or can I watch TV when I’m awake, or something?” David asked. “Now that I’m conscious I’m finding it extremely boring doing nothing but lying here.”
Chuckling, the doctor replied, “I imagine so. As a test pilot, you must be used to an exciting life. But if you are a test pilot, this probably isn’t your first hospital stay.”
The doctor was right – David had been in some pretty bad crashes before, though usually those were inside some kind of vehicle rather than slamming into the ground wearing nothing but a space suit.
“So you know how it goes. But we’ll see if we can get some kind of reading material in here, or maybe some books on tape.”
“This wing’s awfully quiet,” he said.
“Yes, this area’s for long-term convalescence,” the doctor said. “You’re out of critical condition, so no more ICU for you, but I expect you’ll be serious but stable for a week or two more, and then we can talk about moving you to some sort of outpatient arrangement, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. First, rest and get better. I’ll keep checking on you, and the excellent nursing staff here will keep taking care of you. I’m seeing nothing unusual in your numbers, and that’s good. I’ll be by again tomorrow.”
Tomorrow! NASA would certainly be looking for him – unless they’d assumed he was dead. How long would they keep searching for him? How long would Anna keep looking for Arthur? Why was he thinking about her?
“Well, OK, Doctor,” he said. “I’ll do my best. But we’ll have to agree to disagree about Florida and my memory.” The doctor wished him well and left.
No sooner had their footsteps vanished than Anna was back. “I’m sure Arthur’s on this floor,” she said in a whisper, hiding behind his bed again. “You see, he thinks I’m an annoying busybody, but I really truly want what’s best for him. I just want to know that he’s OK.”
“I mean, it’s a hospital,” David said. “I’m sure they’re doing everything they can for him. Hi again, by the way.”
“Oh – hello,” she said. “David, was it? You look pretty banged up. Car accident?”
“A bit more serious than that.” He described what had happened to him.
“You … were in a plane of some kind, and then you weren’t?” she asked. “Did something happen to it? Did it break up in midair? You slammed into the ground? You’re lucky to be alive. No wonder you’ve got all those broken bones.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Only it was a NASA FTL shuttle, and nobody here has ever heard of NASA.” At her puzzled look, he said, “Come on, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It’s been around since 1958. President Eisenhower signed the bill into law that created it. I mean, that was before my time, but what I’m saying is that it’s famous, and it’s existed since before everyone now alive was born.”
“Since … 1958?” she asked. “What year do you think this is? This is 1947.”
“1947?” he asked incredulously. “Did I somehow travel in time? The war just ended?”
“War? What war?” asked Anna. “I mean, sure, the world’s a mess, with conflicts breaking out here and there now and then, but the League of Nations tries to get everybody to the negotiating table or whatever. Trying to keep the shooting down to a minimum, I guess?”
“League of Nations?” David asked. “President Wilson proposed that after World War I, to keep anything like that from happening again, and I guess you know how that went – or do you? What’s going on? Am I in the Twilight Zone?”
“What’s that?” Anna asked.
“Never mind,” said David. “But the level of technology – you’ve got Internet and smart phones; this can’t be 1947. Unless … am I in some kind of alternate timeline where history went differently?”
“Wait, did you just say World War I?” asked Anna. “The Great War happened, but that was decades ago, and mostly in Europe. Some dictatorships tried to start trouble, but the League of Nations took decisive action, and they were contained.”
“Germany? Italy? Japan?” David asked.
“Uh … if you’re talking about Rhineland, Rome, and Nippon,” Anna replied. She was pretending to be quite confused, but in reality she was learning more all the time about the nature of the alternate universe that David was from. Apparently the League of Nations had been quite ineffective in his timeline. From the sound of things, there had been a second world war there. Had the dictatorships gotten out of control? Had they even perhaps joined forces? But finding that out wasn’t her mission. “So wait, tell me about this NASA. Do they send people into outer space? In, like rocket ships?”
“Yeah, launch vehicles are still rocket propelled, though there’s talk of building a space elevator with tethered satellites,” he said, “but the materials issues for that are still unsolved. We assemble a lot of space vehicles in Earth orbit now, using materials mined from the Moon and asteroids. Wait, how can this be 1947? I’m still confused. Did I travel in time?”
If this was truly an alternate timeline, who could say what had gone differently? The progression of events was different. Perhaps with no World War II, there hadn’t been technological setbacks, but it seemed that the war had also caused important advances. But there may have been other differences in the timeline; maybe the Dark Ages hadn’t been as dark here.
“What?” she asked. “That’s like … something out of sci-fi. But you’re already talking like something out of sci-fi. Either you’re totally bonkers, or you’re really from, I don’t know, some kind of other world with different history like you said, and now I’m talking like sci-fi too.”
“Look, I’m starting to wonder what’s going to happen in a couple of weeks when I’m well enough to be sent home from this hospital – except I don’t have a home here, if this is really some kind of alternate timeline where I was never born. I’m going to need a place to stay. You’re the only person I’ve talked to who wasn’t a doctor, nurse, or some kind of cop or government agent. Do you have any ideas?”
Good, he didn’t suspect she was a government agent. Anna replied, “Me? I can’t go taking in strays. Although … let me see what I can come up with. I don’t want you to really have nowhere to go. Now that I’ve met you, I don’t want you to be out on the street.”
“Thanks in advance for whatever you can think of,” said David.
Of course, Anna’s employers, MI-8, had a plan for housing David as part of the effort to get as much information from him as possible. If he had really come from a timeline that had FTL spacecraft, it behooved the US to learn as much about that technology as they could – even if the act of flying in space wasn’t profitable in and of itself, the associated technologies could put the US miles ahead of the competition. But of course Anna didn’t want him thinking she was anything more than a woman who had randomly bumped into him while looking for her brother.
“I’ve still got so many questions.”
“So do I, and they’re actually about the world that I’m currently miraculously alive in,” said David. “So … Hitler? Mussolini? Hirohito? Stalin? Do they exist?”
“I think I remember hearing about them on the news,” Anna said. Yes, they were the leaders of their respective nations, but the League of Nations and the actions of organizations like MI-8 kept them from becoming a worldwide problem. Actually, her instincts told her that finding out more about David’s timeline might help with that job, but those weren’t her orders. “One of them or another is always causing trouble, I think. Except … wasn’t Mussolini deposed a couple of years ago? Am I remembering that right? There’s that Branco guy in Spain too.”
“Wow, this is a dangerous time, then,” said David. “Assuming I’m not dreaming. The idea of being in an alternate timeline is … I mean, it seems impossible. But then, traveling faster than light was supposed to be impossible too, and yet we’ve done it.”
“Yeah, that sounds like science stuff,” said Anna. “I was never that good at science. Look … David, I’ve got to find my brother. But I promise I’ll come back to talk to you. I can actually come as an official visitor, if they’ll let me. The way you say you’re from some kind of other world, maybe they won’t let me in to see you. So I might have to sneak in again. But it’s not as if they’ve got guards, other than regular hospital security.”
“Well, with these casts and stuff, it’s not too easy for me to go anywhere right now,” David said. “Maybe that’s why there aren’t guards.”
Actually, there were guards, but they were easy to slip past for someone with her skill set. She could have informed them of her mission, and they would have had to let her through, but it was more fun to pit her skills against theirs. “I’ll see you again soon,” she said, and quietly slipped out of the room.
------------------------------
In a place unbelievably close, yet astronomically and interdimensionally separated, a very familiar looking planet circled a yellow G2V star. In an almost familiar looking administration building with the huge circle with a schwash and the large letters NASA on the sign at the gate, many men and women from many disciplines had gathered for a meeting of the utmost importance.
The quiet buzz of voices ended and silence ruled as the Head Administrator of the Plasma/ Vasimer project, Dr. Edward Blake, came to the lectern and quickly glanced through the many pages in front of him. He looked up and said , “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I know everyone is expecting us to announce a finding that should show exactly what happened and if there is any possibility of recovering the pilot alive. Unfortunately, we have no idea exactly what happened that caused him to vanish.”
One of the men in the front row raised his hand and was recognised. He stood and said, “My name is Dr. Anthony Belkins. I was operator of the Valkyrie GEOS satellite that was observing the re-entry trajectory of the returning shuttle. We all knew the blue/green glow around the hull of the ship was energy accumulation caused by a combination of the frame dragger’s nullification of inertial effects that also created a force shielding of sorts that protected the ship’s hull from microstrikes from dust particles and high energy subatomic particles with the addition of other cosmic high energy particles that struck the barrier. Something we didn’t know at the time was the ship’s hull had been supercharged with temporal energies. Apparently there was some form of discharge from the hull of the super-energized ship to one of the protective electromagnetic belts that surround our planet, which in turn counter-discharged back to the ship. Like lightning, this continued back and forth until the electric charge imbalance was normalized and the ship had completely discharged.”
A voice rang out, “That doesn't explain what happened to the pilot.”
The man responded, “From the testimony of the other crew members, for reasons as yet unknown to us, the pilot was unfortunate enough to be right in the conflux of the discharge. What caused him to be the only one on the flight deck to be affected is a complete mystery. From what the cameras show, and they were operational during the entire flight, the massive energy discharges surrounded the pilot. It is thought that his flight suit is what saved him from being cooked alive at that moment. As best as we can tell from the unprecedented energy spikes and the types of energies that danced all around him, some form of singularity formed, and he was sucked into it.”
A woman raised her hand and was recognized. “My name is Samatha Kirck. I’m a theoretical physicist on the Plasma/ Vasimr project. Part of what the frame dragger does is solve the time dilation issue with FTL speeds as well as inertia. As best we can tell from these frankly bizarre readings at the time, it appears some as yet unknown temporal energy discharge opened a rift. To where this rift went and whether the pilot survived the transition is anyone’s guess.”
Dr. Blake replied, “To the best of my understanding of this accident, we have no way to recreate the singularity safely, nor do we have the ability to control it should we create it. We have two options at this point. One: we can declare the pilot simply missing, or Two: Declare him dead with the provision that there is a possibility of recovery.”
A man raised his hand and was recognized. “As you know, I’m Hammond Ingres, mission specialist in charge of personnel at NASA. We do not give up on our own if there’s any chance of life.” There was a determined wave of murmuring. “If we don’t declare him dead, that implies that we’ll be mounting a rescue mission – to whatever extent it takes. If it means rewriting the laws of physics, then so be it. We will not give up on him. If it was possible for him to go through that rift, whatever it was, and survive, then it’s possible to get him back. And that’s what we’ll do. If we declare him dead … well, I for one won’t be satisfied, but if that’s the decision I’ll have to live with it. And whoever makes that decision will have to live with themselves.”
Several of the administrators looked at each other, thinking about budgets and Congressional oversight, but also thinking about the optics if they gave up on Captain Legette. Either the public would be calling for their heads, or some Congressional panel would. Every man and woman among them came to the same silent conclusion: if Congress used their power of the purse to stop the search, every Congressman on that committee would lose their next election … and those Congressmen probably knew that. The administrators also knew their phones would be ringing soon, trying to get them to take the fall in order to prevent such a situation. Ultimately … there was only one choice.
Suddenly, Dr. Samantha Kirck raised her hand again and was recognized. “I just want to say that from a physics standpoint, what has just happened is huge. It means something that we never suspected before is true about the universe. Every physicist on Earth is currently speculating about what they’re already calling the Legette Event, and there are already dozens of hypotheses flying around about what it means. The entire physics community would be on board with any experiment we choose to perform. The data we take will be analyzed by every spare cycle of every computer at every lab, institute, and university in the world. We are on the verge of learning something unprecedented about the nature of our universe.”
“You really think he’s alive?” asked Ingres. He hadn’t asked to be recognized, but Dr. Blake allowed the very human question.
“I don’t know,” said Kirck, shaking her head. “But what I do know is that we’ve never seen a violation of conservation of energy this huge before. Either one of the fundamental assumptions of physics is wrong, or … the universe just got a lot larger. The prevailing hypothesis is that the mass making up his body, flight suit, and so forth went somewhere … in a way that we don’t understand at all. If what happened is survivable, there may be a means of travel that makes the Alcumberry/Vasimer drive look like a leisurely Sunday walk in the park.”
There was a growing murmuring in the crowd as she spoke. She was right. Whatever physics was behind this phenomenon, if it could be harnessed … if it could be understood. This could be an even bigger revolution than the FTL plasma drive.
------------------------------
Not many people watched it live on television anymore, but it was everywhere on social media, racking up more views than the latest Tyler Swoft video. The President of the United States took the podium in the Rose Garden and made an announcement. “My friends, my fellow Americans … as you know, one of our nation’s best vanished in a strange flash of light and energy a few days ago. You may have seen the latest press release from NASA: this unprecedented event may lead us to an even deeper understanding of the world around us. We may discover new science that leads us to a new drive even faster than the plasma drive NASA was testing. And furthermore … we must find our man. Our friend, our colleague, our countryman Captain David Legette is either out there somewhere, or we must find out what happened to him. Ideally, we find him and bring him home. But this is not always an ideal world, and this endeavor will be full of unknowns. But, as a great President said in the past, we choose to do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard. One way or another, we will have our answers, and one way or another, the rewards will be great, possibly greater than we can imagine today. Future students will study the science we’re about to learn. And that is why I’m signing this resolution, passed by both houses, Congress and the Senate, authorizing the funding for a coalition of institutions led by NASA to assemble a scientific investigation the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Apollo moon shots. Let’s bring Captain Legette home.”
------------------------------
Completely oblivious to everything that was happening in his timeline of origin, David was still recovering from his injuries, but he was only taking pills for the pain now. “It’s only a matter of time before you’ll be fit to be discharged,” said his doctor, whose name he had finally learned was Dr. Kofacs.
“Well, that’s good to hear, except that I don’t have anywhere to go,” David said. “We both know it: you’ve got no records of who I am, no birth certificate, no ID, no nothing. I can tell you that I’m a NASA astronaut, and you’ll tell me that means nothing to you. I can tell you that I was a US Air Force test pilot before that, and I know you’ve already found out that they’ve never heard of me. Because no one’s ever heard of me.”
“Well, the fact is, David,” said Dr. Kofacs, “your appearance was … sudden. There were credible eyewitnesses, but no cameras pointed at you, no scientific instruments measuring anything … the scientific community is curious about your appearance, but they have no explanations. You shouldn’t be here … yet here you are. Physicists are calling it a violation of conservation of energy, and there’s some buzz about it in medical circles too, but I’m not a physicist. I’m betting they’re all talking about you – but how they could possibly get any data from you that we haven’t gotten from our many medical tests I don’t know. The remnants of your flight suit have been analyzed … likely by people whose names I’m not authorized to know.”
“Any offers by anyone to pay me a stipend so I can have somewhere to live?” David asked.
“Several, actually,” said the doctor. “Lots of journalists want to interview you. Scientists of many different fields want to measure you with various different gear. But the government’s probably the main thing to worry about. Legally, you’re not officially a citizen of any country. You might want to consider applying for citizenship, although there are probably some government organizations that may help expedite that process in exchange for some information.”
“Well, once I’m fit for interviewing, feel free to schedule an appointment with my secretary,” said David, jokingly. “I’ll try to fit them into my schedule.”
The doctor chuckled. “Soon. I’ve been keeping them at bay, because you need to rest and recover. But soon you’ll be fit for meetings. I wouldn’t try golfing yet, though.”
“Hey, if a woman named Anna Phillips wants to visit, can you let her in?” asked David. “She’s the only friend I’ve made so far, and she said she’d come visit again.”
“This Anna visited you before?” asked Dr. Kofacs. “When?”
“Oh, a few times,” David said.
“Are you sure she isn’t a reporter?” asked the doctor. “You’re not supposed to have visitors who aren’t doctors or nurses.”
“I don’t think so?” David replied. “She doesn’t act like a reporter. But she’s been kind. Different. A breath of fresh air.”
“Well … I suppose,” the doctor said. “I’ll put her on your allowed visitors list of one. But take it easy. You get tired, you let her know you need to rest.”
“Right,” said David.
“I’m still concerned with how Anna got in,” the doctor said, “but that’s a matter for security. Maybe she was visiting another patient?”
“Her brother, she said.”
“Ah, well, that explains it,” said Dr. Kofacs. “Anyway, get rest, do what the nurses tell you, and I’ll see you tomorrow to check on your progress again.”
“OK. Thanks, Doctor.”
The moment Dr. Kofacs had left, Anna slipped into his room and put her shoes back on. “Thought he’d never leave!” she said.
------------------------------
David watched as Anna took her shoes from the purse she carried and put them back on. He didn’t understand why, but there were several red flags waving metaphorically around about this woman. David hadn’t really given it much thought over the last month as he recovered from his severe injuries, but several things now seemed somehow at odds.
The biggest one was her supposed brother. If he had in fact denied her visitation – hospital security wasn’t lax, from what he knew of it … although that wasn’t much, not to mention other checks the hospital had on rooms and hallways – how did she manage to evade it all, and why was she so interested in him?
He obviously understood he was sort of a celebrity, since everyone who knew of him also knew he wasn’t of this world. But still, this woman kept coming to see him every day, as difficult a proposition as this might have been.
David asked, “How’s your brother? He recovered? I’ve been in here quite some time, and he probably got discharged by now.”
Anna waved her hand dismissively as she replied, “He was discharged over a week ago. From all the fussing he did, they determined all that was wrong with him was he had indigestion. He’d thought it was his heart and had managed to convince a doctor that he was right.”
“What!? Indigestion? That’s all?” David gasped out in disbelief.
They both laughed.
Anna nodded as she wiped tears from her eyes from laughing, “Yeah, he was complaining of chest pains. All they found was he had a rather nasty case of upset stomach. After they threw him out of here, I had a bigger reason to come and visit … you.”
OK, this sounded a bit weak, but David decided that if she was some type of agent, she was here more to keep him company and check on his recovery, as all the reading materials and the small TV she had managed to get in for him to watch proved, which didn’t bother him in the slightest.
David said, “Doc told me it’ll only be a few more days before I’m healed enough for discharge. But … that leaves me with a small bit of an issue.”
Anna added, “Yeah, I know. I might have a solution, since you’ve said you worked for a place called NASA. We have a place called Goodard Rocket Works. It’s a place we’re just now starting to expand on Dr. Goodard’s liquid-fueled contraptions well enough to launch an object into a ballistic orbit.”
He rubbed his chin, “Yeah, I might be able to procure myself some type of employment in a place like that.”
Anna replied, “As far as housing goes, I live in a two-story brick house with a full basement and even a wine cellar, and although I haven’t ever used the cellar, it’s as large as a one-bedroom apartment. Don’t use the basement for that matter, and it has the same floor area as a full-sized single-story house.”
Anna and David chatted for a long time before she left. What he didn’t know was that she went immediately to her superiors and made a plan for his future job opportunities and living arrangements.
In a nondescript office building, Anna sat down with her handler, an older agent she knew as Mike. He was a famous agent – that was the problem. His cover had been famously blown by an idiot politician, so he couldn’t be a field agent anymore. But he was still devoted to the way he’d opted to serve his country, so he’d been given the job of overseeing field agents such as what he used to be.
“So have you found out what happened differently in his timeline?” asked Mike. “What made the United States send people to space?”
“He’s talked about something called the ‘space race,’” Anna replied. “After this ‘World War II,’ the Soviet Union, which had been allied with Western Europe and the United States, made itself sort of an enemy of its former allies … who knows why. It had forces all over Eastern Europe, so it took over all those nations. I gather this was their Joe Stallin’s doing.”
“This is why we keep him off balance,” said Mike. “Sounds like that version of him was very much the same as this version.”
“Sounds like,” said Anna. “The United States developed the nuclear bomb first, and used it to end the war.”
“They … actually used it?” said Mike, astonished. “On people?”
“So it seems,” Anna said, “but then, it was war, and it was even larger in scope than the Great War. It really was a world war. The USA got the bomb to work first, but I guess the USSR was working on it too, and shortly after the war they announced their successful nuclear test, so now there were two nuclear powers in the world, and that plus the takeover of Eastern Europe basically made it the USA and its wartime allies vs. the USSR in a new kind of war, and the technology race was on. The USSR was the first to put a satellite in orbit, first to put a human in space, first to put a human in orbit around the Earth and return them home safely, and from what I’m gathering, the USA was desperate to keep up.”
“I see,” Mike said. “So the USSR was the impetus.”
“Yes,” said Anna. “The USA created NASA to organize its space program and focused on human travel in space, but with the USSR continuously beating it to important milestones, the USA kept losing the PR battle. So the US President took a gamble.”
“Let me guess, that was when they decided to send people to the Moon,” said Mike.
“Exactly,” Anna replied. “He announced to the world that the USA was going to land humans on the Moon before the decade was up. If they’d failed, the US would have become the laughingstock of the space race, perpetually in the USSR’s dust. But … they succeeded. Beyond everyone’s wildest dreams, they did land ‘astronauts’ on the Moon, performed experiments, and returned them safely home to Earth, along with some sample Moon rocks – and they did it multiple times. I gather there were some casualties along the way, but the USSR had a few too, though they tried to cover them up.”
“I guess the USSR of this other timeline is just as restrictive of the press as the one in this timeline,” said Mike.
“Well, this is in David’s past,” said Anna. “By David’s time there isn’t a USSR anymore, just a Russia. But yes, both have kept a pretty tight lid on their people’s freedom to print and say what they want.”
“So that’s how it happened,” said Mike. “Whereas here, nuclear weapons were pretty much developed everywhere at the same time. There were dozens of nuclear powers in a matter of weeks.”
“And only Stalin was crazy enough to actually use the bomb,” said Anna. “He provided an example to the rest of the world of what happens when nuclear weapons are actually used. He stayed in power, though.”
“Well, who’s going to challenge him when he has control of the nuclear button?” asked Mike. “After all, he used the bomb on his own people when they dared rebel against him. And now a large portion of land just outside Moscow is uninhabitable. But anyway, does David seem amenable to the idea of helping our space program along?”
“Seems like it,” said Anna. “Goodard Rocket Works is privately owned, but government contracted, and maybe he can help with the issues they’ve been having.”
“That sounds like the best fit,” said Mike. “The house we had you describe to him will be ready by the end of the week. This is a lot easier than putting humans on the Moon by the end of the decade. I hope their President had the sense to announce this Moon program early in the decade.”
“I’m not sure about the year, but I gather that’s what happened.”
------------------------------
“This result shows promise,” said Dr. Kirck, pointing to a scientific paper on the screen of her tablet. “A combination of accelerators at CERN was able to produce energy consistent with the Henderson-Wu hypothesis. See, this electron-positron beam simulates the solar wind, this magnetic field stands in for Earth’s magnetic field to produce a simulation of the Vin Aleen radiation belts … and then the plasma drive is activated nearby so its field impinges on this whole setup. The energy produced is at least in the ballpark of emitting the right color of light, and it is something that we’ve never seen before – the next step is figuring out exactly what it is, because even if it isn’t what happened to Captain Legette, it’s still something new.”
Dr. Blake looked at the paper and replied, “I’m going to have to read this carefully, but this sounds promising. Does anyone have any hypotheses about exactly what form of energy that is?”
Dr. Kirck replied, “Several have been proposed, and some of them even fit the data in this experiment. In my current opinion, Wu in China and Umikawa’s group in Japan have put together something that most closely approaches being an actual theory so far. It’s consistent with string theory, meaning that if it turns out to be right, it’ll be the first time string theory’s actually predicted a measurable result. What’s more, if they’re right, what we have here is a type of string vibration that no one’s seen before – one that’s a superposition of two oscillation states. It’s a particle they’re calling a duon, and they’ve even predicted its rest energy and decay modes.”
“This particle … does it have an antiparticle?” Dr. Blake asked.
“Is there symmetry in the interaction, you’re asking?” asked Dr. Kirck. “I can see why you’re asking that; if the duon is associated with a trip to another universe, an anti-duon would be associated with an arrival in our world from another. But they’re proposing that the duon number is a conserved quantity – anything leaving our universe must be balanced with an equal amount of mass-energy simultaneously entering it, somewhere, and vice versa.”
“David could have gone to another of the worlds of the many-worlds interpretation?” asked Dr. Blake.
“Well, that’s according to the hypothesis that’s currently best supported by the data,” said Dr. Kirck. “We’ll need more experimental data to confirm, and there are dozens of experiments that are about to start around the world. But this one at CERN was the first.”
“Other universes …” mused Dr. Blake.
“Not really,” Dr. Kirck replied with an incline of her head. “If they can interact, they’re not separate universes, are they? They’re different parts of a bigger, stranger universe than we thought we lived in.”
“Hmm, true,” said Dr. Blake. “Are you involved in any of these experiments?”
“I’ve been working with the CERN team, and also with the MIT-Laurence Livingmore one. But as I said, there are dozens of others gearing up to start shortly. You would not believe how excited the physics world is right now. We’re all positively giddy.”
“Let’s hope the enthusiasm doesn’t fade too soon,” said Dr. Blake. “Ultimately what we really want is to find Captain Legette.”
Dr. Kirck nodded. “Of course. But this is a monstrously huge problem, and you know how scientists love solving problems. We’ll be fascinated by it until it’s solved.”
------------------------------
David sat in front of the Goodard Rocket Works CEO and was having an in-depth technical conversation about the way they were supplying their engines with fuel and the type of fuel they were using.
David said, “I don’t want you to think I’m knocking your achievements – pressure feeds of the fuels to the intermix chambers will accomplish the necessary thrust for lift off and flight, but it’s highly ineffective at low atmospheric pressures and can result in some catastrophic failures should the gas metering valves freeze or malfunction.”
Anthony Dillion sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. David was right; he recalled several recent launches when the engines had suddenly flamed out during probe launches, and one or two that had merely exploded like multimillion-dollar skyrockets.
Anthony said, “I can relate to that. We’ve lost several over the last year to some type of malfunction. Best we can tell, before the rocket destroyed itself and the readings ended, was that there was some type of fuel distribution issue. You say you have a solution to this problem?”
David replied, “Yes. Instead of relying on a pressurized tank to feed the fuel through a metering valve, use what my world calls a turbo pump.”
Anthony asked questioningly, “You mean … rotodynamic pumps? Such a concept can solve the fuel distribution and supply issue caused by low atmospheric pressures and still supply adequate fuel to the motor? We have managed to have superior results using solid fuels.”
David smiled. “Solid fuels work, but the turbo pump solves many of your issues with liquid fuels. On my world, they were initially developed in Germany in the early 1940s during a war you never fought. The purpose of a turbo pump is to produce a high-pressure meterable fluid for feeding a combustion can or other uses. While other uses exist, they are most commonly found in liquid-fueled rocket engines in my world. High pressure fuel turbo pumps, which are about the size of a car engine, are used to pump fuel to the engine's combustion chamber, where the fuel mixture and oxidizer mix and generate 70,000 horsepower alone. These pumps work on the principle that gas molecules can be given momentum in a desired direction by repeated collision with a moving solid surface. In a turbo-molecular pump, a rapidly spinning fan rotor 'hits' gas molecules from the inlet of the pump towards the exhaust in order to create or maintain a vacuum. A rocket engine turbo pump receives liquid propellants from vehicle tanks at relatively low pressure, high pressure tanks are no longer necessary, and supplies the same to its combustion chamber at a specific injection pressure and flow rate. The high-pressure gases involved in this chamber expand to power the turbine of the turbo-pump. Another thing, from what I’ve seen of your pressure fed rockets, this is a huge improvement. There is another design feature that you can modify to aid it keeping optimal thrust as the atmospheric pressure drops.”
Anthony was highly impressed. He had heard the stories about Mr. Legette being from another world and also being a pilot of a ship capable of traveling faster than light. He now understood why the President had called and informed them they would be hiring a new employee that would advance their rocketry program well beyond anything previously achieved.
Anthony asked, “What can you do to maintain an optimal thrust even in a vacuum?”
David drew a picture of a rocket with the arm he could currently use and detailed its exit cone. He explained, “In an atmosphere, air tends to inhibit the exhaust gases getting out of the engine. This reduces the thrust. However, in space, since there is no atmosphere, the exhaust gases can exit much easier and faster, thus increasing the thrust. Therefore, the rocket engine actually works better in space than in atmosphere. Expansion of gases passed by the nozzle exit is very important in deciding the thrust produced. In normal atmosphere, pressure of the gas at the exit is negative gauge, and hence the nozzle is under-expanded, which produces minimum thrust. In vacuum, it’s over-expanded, producing higher thrust.”
Anthony nodded in understanding. “That’s why our rockets are so low-powered. The pressurized tanks making the thrust vector need to change delivery rates as barometric pressure drops, due to the changing thrust production. We’ve been unable to increase the fuel flow beyond tank pressure, and thrust suffers at altitude.”
“Well, the turbo pumps will help, as will a multi-stage approach with varying nozzle expansion geometry,” said David. “Here, let me draw some diagrams …”
------------------------------
David’s diagrams became computer models, and the simulations were promising. There were soon prototype models being tested in vacuum chambers under different pressures. “Everything going well?” asked Anna one day when David came home to his basement apartment. One of his arms was still in a cast, and Anna had to help him with several things still, but he was healing every day.
“It’s a shoestring budget compared to NASA, but they’ve got a lot better technology than NASA did when it was getting started,” said David. “How is it that it’s 1947 but you’ve got technology comparable to my world – except for space travel? A lot of the technology we have was first explored for use in the space program.”
“Well, I’m not sure, because I’m not a historian or anything,” Anna said. “I guess a lot of things are probably different. But you say that there are major historical figures that are the same in both?”
“Well, yes, like General Eisenhewer, only his name’s different, and that Adolpho Hitler person who runs Germany is like the Adolf Hatler who took over Germany in our world,” David said.
“You said that Eisonhower was going to be President someday or something, right?” asked Anna.
“All I can say is that he was elected President in my world in 1952 and again in 1956,” said David, “or a guy like him was, anyway. I don’t know what’s going to happen here. I guess Trueman is President now, and that’s a lot like my world too. But in your world Hatler or whatever his name is here, didn’t take over most of Europe.”
“He tried,” said Anna, “but everybody saw what was coming and was prepared for it. They could tell what kind of leader he was.”
“How did they know?” asked David. “Had anything like him happened before?”
“Not exactly,” said Anna, “or, not that I know of. But how did your world miss the warning signs? You said he was locking up Jews and homosexuals and basically anybody he could blame his country’s problems on. How can you look at that and not see a guy who’s crazy for power and will do anything to get it?”
“I guess we had our own problems at the time,” said David. “I don’t know; I wasn’t alive then.”
------------------------------
About six months later - current time
David watched for months as the Goodard Rocket team became better at manufacturing the precision parts that went into the turbo pumps. They had finally reached the milestone of 70,000 horsepower per pump, which was well more than they needed to put humans on the moon, if they could add several pumps working together.
He was also present in the VIP bunker for every launch using his new designs. All were in amazement as the rockets developed hundreds of times more horsepower using the new pumps than they ever had using pressurized supply tanks. It also reduced the carry weight by several tons, since the heavy pressure tanks and supporting equipment were no longer necessary, so they could carry more payload or fuel.
He did notice their difficulty in mixing up the proper hydrogen / benzene ratios. There had been quite a few accidents and massive energetic explosions using this fuel. The fact that it was also a deadly poison and static sensitive to the Nth degree didn’t help matters any, but it provided the flash David wanted ... mostly for show , and it performed extremely well. David didn’t want anyone getting hurt just because he wanted a big showy launch, so he was going to approach the issue from a different angle.
As David watched the exhaust plume along with the bright flame of the engine’s exhaust vanish into the early morning sky and heard the ever-diminishing roar, he began thinking of an alternative fuel … there were many choices. He remembered something from his high school model rocket building days about paraffin and … most any other low grade fuel, including an alcohol mixture.
David knew kerosene was a clear low-viscosity liquid formed from hydrocarbons obtained from the fractional distillation of petroleum between 300 and 525 °F, like gasoline but with different parameters. It was miscible with petroleum solvents but not with water. It was composed of hydrocarbon molecules that typically contained between 6-20 carbon atoms per molecule, predominantly containing 9 to 16 carbon atoms. This also included what his world commonly called mineral oil and lamp oil.
Not only was candle wax able to be made into large shapes to satisfy whatever situations called for, or any other size or shape, it was easily liquefied on demand, and it was safe to transport in blocks, pellets, or even liquids without massive safety requirements. He remembered mixing denatured alcohol with wax pellets to produce the fuel he used in his model rockets as a teenager.
David attended the after-launch briefing held in the administrator’s office. David raised his hand, and the admin immediately recognized him.
David stood and said loudly, “Esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.” He held up several large stacks of documents. “I am here today to propose another type of fuel for your rockets that is far safer and not nearly as hard to handle as the current hydrazine has proven to be.”
A voice called out, “Does it produce the same amount of thrust over the same duration?”
David typed on the small computer in front of him. The large screen on the far wall came to life and showed many diagrams with accompanying mathematical figures, “As you can see here, it may be that we’re reverting from a high performance racing vehicle to a more sedate family vehicle …” There was a round of twitters and laughter, “but it performs in much the same way and is far safer for handling and transporting.” The picture changed and showed an animation of a rocket and its engine devouring themselves as fuel. “As this shows, paraffin wax, with several additives for structural support, can be the very engine itself as well as fuel. At the end of the burn, the engine, and if desired, the rocket itself is gone, with no debris. The payload is all that’s left to be ballistic or orbital.”
A loud discussion broke out as many top people in the Fuel Division quickly left the briefing. David hoped that was good.
------------------------------
“Good to see you, Ed,” said Dr. Kirck.
“Samantha,” said Dr. Blake, shaking her hand. “What’s the news from the experiments? If we have some kind of direction to go in, we could start building something here at NASA.”
“Well, there are two main findings, but only one of them’s from the experiments,” said Dr. Kirck. “First of all, check this out. As we know, when Captain Legette disappeared, there was a simultaneous spike in detection events at numerous neutrino detectors, proton-decay experiments, and such throughout the world. But the results have been studied in more detail since then. Sources of measurement time inaccuracy have been found and compensated for.” She tapped her tablet, and graphs and maps started appearing on Edward’s projection screen.
“Two blips?” Dr. Blake asked. There were clearly two centers of activity on the heat map.
“The original hypothesis, that there was only one source of energy, turned out to be muddling the interpretation of the data,” said Dr. Kirck. “Once Leblanc and Rosario realized that there could be more than one, everything fell into place. There was a second source. It was on Earth. And it was nearby. Near here, in fact.”
“Here at NASA?” asked Edward. “That must be that center,” he said, pointing to the data blob that Samantha’s map showed over eastern Florida. “The other one … that must be David.” He pointed to the blob over Texas, where David’s shuttle had been coming in for a landing when the incident occurred.
“Yes. Remember how Wu and Umikawa’s theory said that any transfer to this universe – or this duon phase, as they’re calling it now – must be accompanied by a simultaneous transfer in the opposite direction?”
“Yes, I remember. It must be an exactly equal amount of mass-energy,” said Edward.
“Right,” said Samantha. “That’s probably what we’re looking at. Now, there’s no reason why the transfer would all have to be in one place; it could be scattered all over the universe and thus virtually undetectable. In fact, that would probably be far more likely if it were a chance event. But what we have here is a human-sized amount of mass gathered in one place.”
Edward paused. “You’re saying it was deliberate.”
“I’m saying that it’s extremely, vanishingly unlikely for it not to have been,” said Samantha. “And … that a human-sized amount of mass appeared here, at Canaveral, right at that moment.”
“A person,” said Edward. “A person who was deliberately sent here, from the universe David’s in now. And no such person has been reported, which means they disappeared immediately – so they’re someone who knows how to hide.”
“They may or may not know how to control the phenomenon,” Samantha said, “so it’s unclear whether they intended for David to cross over in the opposite direction. They may not have meant for any individual to cross over.”
Edward was on his phone. “Joe? This is Ed. We have a security problem.”
------------------------------
It turned out that the men from the Fuel Division who had walked out had done so because they were so excited by the concept that they had to run some calculations, and what they’d come up with did them credit.
“I’m really liking what you’ve come up with here,” said David. “True, we can’t have human spaceflight with a rocket that burns itself up – but that doesn’t mean that the first stage can’t be one of these self-burning rockets, or even the second stage. In my world the first and second stages were separated and discarded once they’d done their work – the hulls fell back to Earth, burning up on re-entry. We’ve got better technology now, but the fact is that I may be a mission specialist and have an engineering degree, but I didn’t design what we’re using. It would take a whole team to explain how that works. I daresay no one person understands it all anymore.”
“But these older systems, you can tell us about those because they’re simpler,” said Anthony. “Comparatively, anyway.”
“Right. And because they’re in the past. The technology is well known now, and well tested. Everything’s based on it.”
“So if the third stage is the capsule containing the payload,” said Anthony, “whether that’s humans plus a life-support system or some automated satellite or probe – all we need is a first and second stage that can get that into orbit. But with these improvements in engine and fuel design … the maximum third stage is fantastically larger than we’ve ever managed. We could launch a craft that could support human … astronauts, is that the word? … for several days, allow them to maneuver in orbit, then do a controlled deorbit burn and return to Earth in the craft.”
“Yes, and even more,” David said. “Look at the allowable mass. That’s far more than we used in our Moon missions. That allows for a lot more flexibility.”
“I think our next plan needs to be to put some people into orbit,” said Anthony.
David added, “Perhaps start making plans to put men on the moon too.”
------------------------------
“We might have a problem,” Mike said when Anna met with him, in a different building this time.
“Did one of the other countries find out about David?” asked Anna.
“Not exactly,” said Mike. “Look, some of our science experiments picked up the flash of energy when David arrived, so some other countries’ experiments did too. But look at this.”
“That’s in the Flower Peninsula,” said Anna. “At the same time David appeared over Sacred Tree?”
“Same moment,” Mike said. “What’s more, we were tracking a Russian agent in that area around that time whose whereabouts are unaccounted for after that moment.”
Anna was shocked. “Are you telling me that the USSR has technology that can send people to … wherever David came from?”
“We think they may have something rudimentary that accidentally worked once,” said Mike. “From what I can tell, our most advanced theoretical physics can’t explain what happened that day. But that doesn’t mean that the Soviet Union’s tinkerers haven’t come up with something they’re not sharing with the world.”
“And there’s no way we can warn David’s world that there’s an agent from our world there trying to steal their space secrets.”
“No way that we know of, no,” said Mike.
“Who’s the agent?” asked Anna.
“Saprykin,” Mike said.
“Oh no,” Anna replied, looking a bit pale. “He’s the one who assassinated Henry Fourd. I managed to stop him from one of his missions and he got away from me by a very lucky accident.”
“Yeah,” said Mike. “He’s very dangerous. But we can only hope that David’s world has people who can find him before he does too much damage, or steals their space travel secrets. They wouldn’t have sent him without some way to bring him back, but that way must be on our side.”
“What about the way he left here?”
“Oh, there was probably another agent or group of agents who set up and tore down the apparatus,” said Mike. “After all, that location in Flower Peninsula is probably nothing important in our world. We’re wondering how they found out about David’s timeline and where to go there.”
“There must be some way to gather information about the other timeline, or at least catch a glimpse,” said Anna.
“Didn’t David say they’d been using this FTL shuttle for a while?” asked Mike. “Maybe it emits something somebody with the right equipment can detect in this timeline …”
------------------------------
David watched as the newest rocket’s exhaust plume grew dim far off in the sky. To the best of his knowledge, a rocket with two lower self-consuming stages had never been launched, even in his world. The two extra externally-mounted solid fuel booster pods added another 280K horsepower to the liftoff and enabled the Goodard Rocket Works engineers to do something new. The pods also consumed themselves, and the craft’s weight was reduced proportionately, which added much more speed toward escape velocity without a loss of thrust with the added bonus of no orbital debris.
The large fuel tank atop the main engine of the third stage had been designed not to be jettisoned. Since they were no longer using hydrazine for fuel, there was no longer a danger to the astronauts. Paraffin had proven invaluable and could be made to fit any shape as necessary.
The fuel tank itself had been filled with wax pellets, several large mix tanks filled with alcohol for mixing with the wax pellets, and both had been meticulously designed to easily be converted into living space, providing the four astronaut volunteers on board with a large environmentally controlled space for their living quarters, communal social areas, and laboratories for research.
It had been designed to land on the surface of the moon much as a probe. Once it had been established on the lunar surface, the Astronauts would set down at a later time with the crew landing module, and these tanks would be easily converted into their habitat.
With this new technology, they were ready to set up a base on the Moon and were on their way to accomplishing it, something David’s Earth was still only talking about, although his Earth did mine materials from the moon and had several orbiting stations in lunar orbit, not to mention several fueling and construction stations at various Lagrange points throughout the system.
“Gooding Space Control, this is Venus One. We have achieved stable circumpolar orbit as planned. Instruments are giving great views and data we have never been able to record before.”
Space Control replied, “What have you discovered, Captain Allen?”
Captain Allen replied, “From what the science officer Lt. Vin has shown me, there are two high-energy electromagnetic energy bands surrounding the planet. One is a high level high energy band, and the lower one is still high energy, but of a different nature than the one in higher orbit.”
Space Control replied, “Very good. Those spectrographs and energy readings are excellent. Far better than any of our previous probes. Congratulations, The Astronomy Department has officially named them ‘The Allen - Vin Belts’ in commemoration of your discovery and in recognition of this flight.”
Lt. Vin’s voice came over the channel, “Well, gosh, thank you for the honor. Captain Allen’s speechless for once. But back to business for now – based on current calculations, once we make the deorbit burn, travel time to lunar insertion will be approximately 78 hours. At that time we will survey the lunar surface and determine a good location for the placement of our base.”
Anthony turned and said to David, “This has been by far the greatest success this company has ever had, and we’ve got you to thank. What a stroke of luck that you came here – however it happened.”
------------------------------
Agent Sergei Saprykin was keeping a low profile, quietly collecting data about this “FTL shuttle” in preparation for extraction, which was to happen at a prearranged date and time in a prearranged spot. He’d have no contact with his timeline of origin until then, the scientists had explained to him back home during his briefing for this mission.
Knowing that he couldn’t possibly impersonate a member of the scientific or engineering staff for such an extended duration, as the pickup time was months away, he’d chosen to covertly assassinate and replace a member of the maintenance staff. He’d then discovered that even the maintenance people here at “NASA” were highly trained, and it was taking every ounce of his considerable impersonation talents to get by undiscovered.
With the microcamera he’d been provided, he’d taken photos of every drawing, design and blueprint he’d seen, and since he had after-hours access to every office and lab, that was quite a lot. He’d been unable to get into the computer center; apparently, the “Sam Sweeney” he was pretending to be didn’t have access.
But there was remote access to the computers from every office, and a shocking number of these scientists and engineers didn’t lock their screens when they left. When he returned home, the Soviet Union of his world would be able to build this FTL shuttle or at least duplicate its engines. They’d win the space race before the Americans even knew there was one … But until then, he’d have to go undetected.
However, files had been appearing on the scientist’ computers of a nature that disturbed Saprykin. He wasn’t a theoretical physicist by any means, but he recognized some of the equations as being the same as those back home – these were very similar to the math used by those who had figured out how to send him here. Did that mean that “NASA” was trying to discover the secret to traveling between parallel worlds? He’d had no inkling that they’d discovered his presence here, or he’d suspect that they were trying to capture him or send him home early. He took photos of those equations too, in case they were important. There was no shortage of storage space on his microcamera.
Otherwise, he did Sweeney’s job and bided his time. Staying under the radar was of utmost importance. But if anyone found him, he’d been trained in thousands of ways to kill a human being. Not that he enjoyed murder – but he believed that what he was doing was for the betterment of Mother Russia.
The world was a dangerous place, what with everyone having nuclear bombs nowadays, and his homeland needed every possible advantage if it was going to survive the dangers posed by Rhineland, Gallia, Albion, Rome, Nippon, and the USA, among others. And he would do anything he possibly could to complete his mission.
------------------------------
“So your theory is that some agency in another ‘duon phase’ somehow detected the particle emissions of the FTL shuttle, wanted that technology, and sent an agent to our phase,” said Special Agent Underwood, “but that an equivalent amount of mass has to be exchanged, so they pointed the other end of the transfer at where the shuttle was coming in for a landing, hoping they’d be able to steal whatever they got and perhaps make use of that too?”
“In a nutshell, yes,” said Dr. Kirck. “More and more evidence is supporting the theory that the universe we know is only one of an unknown number of duon phases and that the FTL shuttle’s plasma drive may send out ripples that affect other nearby phases. So although this suggests that there may be a way to bring Captain Legette home, it also suggests that there’s an agent here in our phase, probably trying to steal the secrets of the FTL shuttle for their own government in their own phase. Presumably they wouldn’t have been sent unless those secrets were of great value for their country, whatever their world is like.”
Dr. Blake added, “If he survived the transfer, this also suggests that David may be in great danger.”
Underwood leaned back in his chair at his desk and steepled his fingers. “As bizarre as it sounds, we’ve actually got plans for dealing with agents from a parallel universe. Of course, they were plans developed at an extreme scenarios exercise – which I cannot confirm or deny that the FBI performs in order to hone our counterintelligence skills for more conventional scenarios.”
“All our security sweeps of the Cape facilities have come out clean,” said Dr. Blake. “If we’ve got a spy, we can’t find them. They could just be really good, though.”
“They’d have to be,” said Agent Underwood. “There’s no reason why they wouldn’t send the best they had. From the sound of things, they’d be out of contact for the duration, so they’d be someone trained and proven in long-term unsupervised deep-cover operations. But the fact that your security staff hasn’t found anything means the agent is in one of three places. One, they infiltrated the security staff.”
“I know everyone on the staff personally, and there haven’t been any new hires since the incident,” said Dr. Blake.
“It was an unlikely possibility,” said Underwood, “and now we can almost completely rule it out. Two, they’re not even at the Cape anymore. They’re lying low somewhere in the world, having already exfiltrated the information they came for, waiting for extraction.”
“Wouldn’t that mean they’d have needed to know exactly what they wanted and where to find it?” asked Dr. Kirck.
“Yes, this is the second most unlikely possibility. I suppose it’s possible that in their world there’s also a NASA facility at the Cape, but if that NASA already had FTL shuttle technology, this foreign power wouldn’t need to transfer to our phase to get it; they’d just steal it from their NASA.”
“I’d like to point out,” Dr. Kirck said, “that there’s no reason to assume that the Earth of their duon phase is geographically similar to ours at all, or that there’s even a planet at this same part of space. Theories differ about the alignment of reference frames in one phase relative to another.”
“Interesting,” Agent Underwood said. “So they might have had to put their agent in a spaceship and fly it to the proper point in space, maybe even matching velocities.”
“Maybe,” Dr. Kirck said. “There are many, many unknowns here.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said the agent. “But anyway, what I’m saying is that unless they have a NASA that’s close enough to ours that the agent would be able to quickly find the information about the FTL shuttle and abscond with it during the confusion surrounding David’s disappearance, but different enough that it doesn’t have the information itself, possibility two is off the table. Possibility three: they’re still at the Cape, as a member of the maintenance staff.”
“But none of the maintenance staff is missing,” said Dr. Blake.
“Do you know them all personally?” asked Underwood.
“No, just the supervisors,” Blake replied. “But they’ve been questioned, and no one is missing, and no one’s been hired since the incident.”
“Was anyone hired just before the incident?” asked Agent Underwood.
“One man, named Sam Sweeney, was hired about a month before,” said Dr. Blake. “But wouldn’t it be difficult to impersonate them? They have to be licensed electricians, for one thing, since they don’t just clean up; they maintain the utilities and plumbing.”
“These people would be sending their very best, meaning they’d be trained in the fundamentals of every profession in case of a need to impersonate someone,” said Underwood. “Sweeney’s the prime suspect. But we don’t want to tip him off that we’re onto him. He’s a highly trained spy, likely a deadly killer if cornered. Make sure to get every second of security camera footage backed up to an off-site storage facility so he can’t see it, and we’ll have people go through it to analyze his daily pattern of activity.”
“Got it,” said Blake, making a note.
“Now,” Underwood said, turning to Dr. Kirck, “have we detected any transfers since the incident?”
“No, now that we know what to look for, we’ve gone back through the detection logs and haven’t found anything like it since then.”
“I figured you’d have told me if you had, but I wanted to make sure. So he really is still here, somewhere. It’s probably Sweeney, but we have to gather information about him before we can make our move.”
“What will that move be?” asked Dr. Blake.
“The plans will have to be made,” said Agent Underwood.
------------------------------
“Welcome home,” said Anna as David walked in the door.
“Oh, hi, Anna,” David said. “Hey, thanks for letting me stay here.”
“No problem,” said Anna. “How was work at the … rocket factory or whatever?”
“Really good,” David replied. “There’s a lot I shouldn’t tell you, but the project is underway, and so far everything’s working.”
“Great! I guess you’re … making bigger and better rockets.”
“That would be a logical assumption,” David said with a smile. “I do wonder, though … wouldn’t other countries be able to detect our launches? Wouldn’t they be … trying to find out what we’re doing?”
“I don’t know, but I guess if I were some other country I’d be watching for anything unusual,” said Anna. “We’ve probably got people watching them. Everybody’s got atomic bombs, after all.”
“Right, so we’d have to assume they’re aware we’re launching rockets,” said David. “Hmm. Well, chances aren’t good that they’re recovering any pieces of our launch vehicles.”
“I hope they’re not!”
------------------------------
Agent Sergei Saprykin stood in an extremely remote and isolated swampy area and nervously checked his locator equipment one more time. As best he could determine, this was the dimensional cross-over point. He checked his very elaborate multifunction timepiece one more time as well.
He began to worry seriously badly. He wasn’t sure what had gone wrong. He knew he was where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, but the portal never appeared. He swore quietly under his breath as minutes turned into several hours while his ever-increasing trepidation over it deepened.
Sergei abandoned his wait after several long hours and returned to Sweeney's living quarters. He had no way to contact the other side of the rift, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to impersonate the individual he’d replaced for much longer. The mistakes he made in the impersonation were small, but he was positive that under the scrutiny placed on all the employees, he was sure to be found out soon, if he hadn’t been already.
This world was so much like the one he came from, yet so radically different. He even though of the possibility of seeing if there was one of him alive in this place, he had to do something and fast. He gathered all the equipment and data, changed into his transfer suit, and quickly left the apartment.
If Mother Russia existed in this timeline, this emergency I.D. code had to be accepted here too. He went to the local Russian consulate – interestingly not a USSR consulate – and requested asylum, offering the code as assurance. To his total and complete astonishment, it was himself that came to the security station and greeted him.
------------------------------
In a very similar swampy area in another duon phase, a dozen scientists were pulling their hair out. “We did everything exactly the same,” said one of them in Russian. “Same as when we sent Saprykin through. Why didn’t the device open the portal?”
“All diagnostics show that the device is working well above operational norms,” said another. “And yet each time we energize the coils we get the same error from the system: Critical Quantum Bonded Mass Displacement Deficiency. What is that?”
“I have no idea,” said the first. “What is Quantum Bonded Mass, and what does a deficiency in it mean?”
“I have sent a message to the greatest physicist on our planet, Alex Eisenstein,” said another, “but he only said something having to do with insane action at a distance. What does that mean?”
------------------------------
Dr. Blake picked up his phone. “We’ve detected another signal,” said the voice of Dr. Kirck.
“Another transfer?”
“It’s weak,” she said. “The coordinates are – here, I’ll send them to you via encrypted text.” Blake got a message on the encrypted app they’d all started using since they found out that NASA might have been infiltrated. He immediately forwarded it to Agent Underwood. “Anyway, I don’t think it could have been a transfer. It could have been a transfer of something smaller – or it could have been an attempted transfer that didn’t work.”
“A memory card wouldn’t be very big but could contain crucial data,” Blake said grimly. “They might have sacrificed the agent to get the data.”
“Quite possible,” said Dr. Kirck on the phone. “No way to know from here. I’m at MIT.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Samantha,” he said. “Oops, I’m getting a call from Agent Underwood. Talk later.”
“Got it.”
“Agent,” said Blake. “Dr. Kirck said they detected a signal at those coordinates.”
The FBI agent said, “On my way with backup. I assume Sweeney took the day off as planned.”
“Yes, he requested it weeks ago,” Blake replied. “There was no reason not to grant it, would’ve looked suspicious if we hadn’t. Dr. Kirck said the signal was weak, so he may not have gone himself – he might’ve sent a micro memory card.”
“Could be he never expected to go home,” said Underwood. “The data’s too important.”
“That’s what I said to Samantha,” said Blake. “Well, we’ll check it out,” said Underwood.
Underwood drove up in a black SUV, accompanied by two others, stopping when the terrain got too swampy. Eight FBI agents got out and fanned out around the area with handheld detectors. But they all returned to the vehicles empty-handed. “Nothing,” said Underwood. “Either the detectors Dr. Kirck gave us the schematics for don’t work, or there was no transfer today.”
“I found an eyewitness,” said one agent. “Birdwatcher said there was a man matching his description just standing out there for hours. Kept looking at his watch. Then he just got in his car and left.”
“Where would he go?” Underwood asked. “Foreign agent makes it to his extraction, no extraction, he’s all alone. He might know we’re onto him.”
“He goes to ground,” said another agent. “Hiding out. He could be anywhere.”
Underwood swore. “Well, we know what he looks like, we know what car he’s driving, get an APB out on him.”
------------------------------
“Your emergency code, it’s an old KGB code,” said Saprykin’s duplicate, in Russian. “How is it you look like me?”
“I am you,” said Saprykin. “Agent Sergei Saprykin – that is one of my names, anyway – on a mission for Mother Russia. Another Russia, in another timeline.”
“Another timeline, you say,” said his duplicate skeptically. They were in the Russian consulate, in a private room with a table, a pitcher of water, and two glasses. Tasteful Russian artwork hung on the walls. Of course there were cameras behind the art, recording the conversation. At least some of the cameras were of Russian origin. “There is much chatter among scientists about such a thing lately.”
“So how is it that you came here?” they both asked at the same time.
“You first,” they both said.
Each man sat and looked into the face of his exact double. His duplicate stood and walked to a large cabinet hung on one wall and opened the door. He took from it a finger print kit and a genetic sampling kit. Saprykin Two, the one native to David’s home timeline, said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I would like to take a genetic sample and compare fingerprints.”
Saprykin One, the one sent by the timeline David was now in, held out his hand and said, “Fine by me. But I think you will find we are as close to being the same genetics as twins are.”
The other man quickly opened the kit and took fingerprints, then swabbed his double’s cheek. Another man in a white coat had arrived by the time the procedures were finished and picked up the samples.
Saprykin Two said, “Give us about an hour to complete the preliminary genetics testing, My fingerprints are on file.”
After a short passage of time, another man in a white coat entered the room and stood with an amazed expression as he stared at the two men, identical except for the clothes they were wearing.
He said with obvious incredulity in his tone, “They are an exact match.” he placed a small device on the table and tapped a few keys. On the wall, the device displayed a micrograph side-by-side comparison of the prints, “He continued, “As you can plainly see, they are the same prints. If not, they’re so close our equipment can’t find a difference.”
Saprykin Two asked, “How long on the complete genetics comparison?”
He replied, “The time required to perform a DNA test and prepare your result depends on the kind of DNA testing. However, our laboratory is well equipped and has top of the line diagnostic capabilities. You have requested a rather unique and complete test. Our laboratories usually process the test sample and get that type of DNA result ready between 3 to 12 weeks, counting from today when they received your sample. Sorry it takes so long, but we do have to grow more sample as we go along and insure they remain uncontaminated; that takes time.”
Saprykin One asked, “What am I supposed to do until then?”
The man in the white coat replied, “Preliminary blood work and other testing proves ... you and he are ... the same person ... and that’s insane.”
The two men looked at each other with incredulity on one face and knowing on the other.
Saprykin One said, “What would you do if you had to tell someone something that was so fantastic it was almost unbelievable … but still true?”
Saprykin Two replied, “Tell me. With the evidence I have now ... I know I will believe you.”
So Saprykin One told him the tale. “So,” said Saprykin Two, “it would appear that you are stuck here, for the moment, but I’m sure our scientists would love to know whatever you tell them about the technology that sent you here.”
“I will tell you all I know with one condition,” said Saprykin One, “that you strive wholeheartedly to send me home.”
“I will discuss this with my superiors,” Saprykin Two said, “but in the meantime, allow me to show you to more comfortable quarters.”
------------------------------
Meanwhile, Goodard’s space travelers had become the first human beings in that timeline to see with their own eyes the far side of the Moon. There had been probes that had sent back photos and other data, but no other humans had been where they had before. They were now on their way back toward Earth. They had become the first human beings in space and the first to orbit Earth as well, all in one mission.
“Truly remarkable,” said Anthony. “And you say this isn’t even the technology that you’re using where you come from?”
“No, this is something that was just on the drawing boards,” said David. “Much better payload delivery with these autophage engines. Of course, by now they could be using them; I’d have no way to know.”
“I wonder how they’re coming in their search for you,” Anthony said, “assuming they are.”
“Yes, assuming I’m not presumed dead,” said David, “but as long as there’s any possibility in their minds that I survived … whatever it was … they’ll keep trying.”
“Oh – did you see this?” said Anthony, pointing to a news article on his computer screen. “Looks like they caught a group of Russian spies in the swamps near here with some strange equipment.”
“Really?” asked David. “I wonder where they were when I came here. I’m guessing … Texas. Or … whatever you call it here. Sacred Tree, I guess.”
“I’d sure like to get a look at that equipment they mention,” Anthony said. Just then, his phone rang. Taking it out, he said, “Yes. Yes, I’d heard. Really? Well, I can’t say I’m not eager. We’ll put our best researchers on it. Great.”
“Dare I ask …?” asked David.
“Speak of the Devil,” said Anthony. “We’re being contracted to perform an analysis on the equipment captured from those Russian agents. I know, I’m amazed too. It’s being delivered under maximum security next Wednesday. I’ve got some calls to make to prepare a secure area for study.”
“I’d be glad to help out, though I’m not sure it’s my area of expertise, whatever the stuff is,” said David.
“We’ll find out,” Anthony replied. “But for now … I’m about to be very busy. Your task should probably be to oversee the travelers’ return to Earth.”
“Of course,” David said. “Good luck. I’m heading back to Mission Control.”
------------------------------
A week later, after the Moon crew had successfully made it back to Earth and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean, retrieved by a cargo ship Goodard had contracted, David was called to the R&D laboratory about an hour after he had arrived at Goodard Rocket Works for the morning.
There were several armed escorts who had arrived to insure David got to the lab safely. The FBI had captured several dozen Russians, of which most were scientists ... it was the armed soldiers they had captured who worried everyone the most.
David entered the huge R&D laboratory and stopped dead. His eyes grew large in total shock. He pointed at the device that had been captured out in the swamp and said, “That’s … that’s something that looks like a quantum field coil.” He pointed to the device sitting next to it, “And that has to be the system that focuses the plasma wave and tunes it to whatever frequency is required. It fine-tunes powerful radio frequency waves launched by couplers – those special antennas over there – that heat propellant gas, turning it into plasma. A strong, externally-applied, magnetic field confines, guides and ultimately accelerates the plasma, letting it escape to provide useful high energy tuned frequency waves for injection into the plasma collector. In my timeline, that’s the pre-injector for the gas particles used in the Vasimer part of the FTL Vasimer/Plasma drive. Were they … the Soviets … working on anything like that?”
“My contacts in the government say they aren’t aware of any such thing,” Anthony replied. “It’s unlike any known Soviet technology, they say. From what little information they’ve been able to extract from the captives, that device opens a portal into another dimension that has the same energy resonance that the device creates. They keep saying something is malfunctioning, though. They keep getting a Critical Quantum Bonded Mass Displacement Deficiency. Just what in all of reality is that?”
David looked thoughtful for a minute, then replied, “That’s how I came to be here in this timeline.”
Anthony looked at David with surprise on his face, “Something like that brought you here?”
David shook his head, “No – in our FTL shuttle, we have a device that creates bonded plasma particles. Those particles resonate at a certain frequency. At the exact time the shuttle was entering the atmosphere, what I now think was a huge quantum mass singularity opened and shifted me to this timeline … and displaced someone else of the same frequency and mass in my place. No matter what, the scales of quantum energy transference must balance. Distance and location become meaningless.”
“So you were brought here because … these guys sent somebody over to your timeline, and the scales had to balance?” asked Anthony.
“Basically, yeah,” said David. “Though out of the whole universe, it randomly picked the atoms that made up my body and suit? That’s pretty darn unlikely. Unless they had advance knowledge of where I’d be and when ….”
Anthony frowned. “But how could they know that?
“Well, the shuttle’s engines do throw out a great deal of energy in various forms,” said David. “We’ve never been able to account for it all. There’ve been several theories … but what if the truth is that they go to one or more nearby alternate timelines?”
“So they detected your engine … they could tell where it was, and where it was going … and maybe they even sent agents to collect you, hoping for a two-fer, but it didn’t work.”
“Well, maybe there were too many people around,” David said. “But still, the total mass-energy has to be exactly the same. So suppose they add or subtract a little weight from the agent they’re sending? An extra coin in his pocket or something. Where exactly did they find these guys? Like, on a map?”
Anthony brought up his tablet to show David the location. “Right … there.”
“That’s exactly where the Cape is in our world,” said David. “That’s where NASA launches its rockets. We’re a little further inland than that. So they were trying to get their agent into NASA. Probably to steal whatever research they could.”
“Makes sense,” said Anthony.
“One thing’s still bothering me, though,” said David. “They said they didn’t know what a mass displacement deficiency meant. Yet they must have compensated correctly the first time.”
“Good point,” Anthony said, thinking. “Could they just have gotten lucky the first time? Or … what if these aren’t the same group of people who did it the first time? But that doesn’t make sense … the Russians would have wanted to maximize the chances that it would work, so they’d have made sure to send the same people … unless … huh. Who knows?”
“Not me,” said David. “I’m guessing they just got lucky.”
“Maybe,” said Anthony. “Now, what do we do about it, though? Could it mean that we could build one of your FTL shuttles now that we’ve got some of the technology to copy?”
“Well …” said David, “we’d need quite a bit more than just these components, but we can test with …”
Over the next week or two, David tried to remember all he could about the FTL shuttle, though he knew it would take dozens or hundreds of people to know everything about how it worked. And the engineers at Goodard did their best to build whatever David could remember, based on the Russian gadgets they were studying. They built some mockups using 3-D printers and circuit board fabricators. But David was wondering whether the devices could be used to send him home. Of course, an equivalent mass would have to be brought back, but it could just as easily be a chunk of rock or a volume of water. And … he was wondering whether perhaps someone back home was putting the pieces together too …
------------------------------
Meanwhile, in David’s home timeline, “Sam Sweeney” had failed to show up for work, their FBI had tracked his car to the Russian consulate in Washington DC, and they now had the place under heavy surveillance, even more than usual. And physicists around the world had managed to generate low-level “duon signals” and detect them in various experiments, but nothing even close to the magnitude of even the failed transfer that had just happened in Florida.
But then one day Dr. Kirck called Dr. Blake with some startling news …
Dr. Kirck’s almost hysterical voice said when Dr. Blake answered the phone, “You wont believe it. We figured out how to solve the Quantum Mass Deficiency Error. No joke ... it actually works.”
Dr. Blake replied, “OK, OK, calm down. I’m going to collect some equipment, and I’ll be at the lab shortly.”
Dr. Kirck replied, “Great. I’ll have the equipment warmed up and give you a demonstration. I can actually open a portal … although we have been unable to find a way to tell where the portal leads. Will see you when you get here.” The phone went dead.
Dr. Blake immediately gathered up his laptop and several memory sticks he placed safely in a padded and very secure storage box before he left the house and made a rapid trip to the lab where Dr. Kirck’s group worked. As soon as he entered the physics lab, he knew immediately that something major had happened.
Many armed military soldiers stood guard and kept very tight security over the whole area. It was sort of a hassle for Dr. Blake to find his access badge; as it had been so long since this area had been a high security location, it took several minutes for him to find it.
After he presented his access badge, a young soldier was dispatched to escort Blake while he was there. As soon as the door whooshed open, Dr. Blake’s mouth fell open as his eyes grew large in total shock. He had seen the equipment before on the FTL Vasimer/Plasma shuttle engine, but it had been reworked, and a new device had been added to the bonded plasma injector.
Dr. Kirck rushed up and grabbed Dr. Blake by the hand and pulled him into what was obviously a control room.
She said excitedly, “We invented a super cold magnetic bottle and created a unique state of matter within it. The term ‘magnetic’ will be used metaphorically here to point to the unexpected quantum properties that are made visible by these energy frequencies. Similar to the spin of an electron, the stable ground states – the lowest energy configuration in which no particles or excitations are present – a variety of supersymmetric quantum field theories were explored based on the apparent ability of the energy states to create bonded matter according to QFT. These QFTs, with their simplified space-time symmetries, created real physical systems of subatomic bonded particles but have certain mathematical properties that facilitated further calculations. From that research we created a state of matter we named a Boise-Eisenstein Condensate after the theorists who envisioned it, using sodium and cesium molecules, cooled to just five nanoKelvin and it remains stable for an indefinite amount of time as long as the temperature is maintained. This achievement opened up our ability to explore various exotic quantum phenomena.”
Dr. Blake said, “Ok, so you created a super cold state of quantum molecules that produces the ability to bond matter and energy frequencies and maintain them indefinitely. It sounds as if there’s no need to balance the equation because the matter is technically in both duon phases at once.”
Dr. Kirck gushed with joy, “Yes! And in so doing we can adjust the frequency and matter densities within the BEC. This gave us the ability to adjust the mass and frequencies of the bonded matter to the transfer subject at will. No need for there to be another from one side to balance out the equation, it’s held in perpetuity within the BEC, and we can manually adjust it as needed.”
Dr. Kirck turned to the intricate control consol and began pushing buttons and throwing leavers. Blake could feel the frequencies change within the BEC containment chamber he was standing near as Dr. Kirck turned a rheostat to a higher setting. Suddenly a giant spark of blue energy ignited and became a large ball. A blacker than black line appeared and expanded into a blacker than black space within the reality of the large blue sphere of energy. It was so black it appeared to absorb all the light around it.
Dr. Kirck said as she held her hand towards the black hole in reality, “I have no idea where it opened to, but that is a portal. The real deal.”
Dr. Blake’s mind boggled with the possibilities. “This is … astounding. It’s reproducible – you just reproduced it before my eyes. This result has to be published. And then there’s the next step – sending something through. But it would have to be something verifiable, to prove it got through to the other side somehow.”
“Right now our thought is to build a duon signaling device,” said Dr. Kirck. “If we can make it small and relatively cheap to produce, we could run multiple trials. Gina’s working on the design. Meanwhile, yes, Tim’s writing the paper. And while the portal’s open, the computer’s taking more data.”
“I can see that,” said Dr. Blake, watching the nearby computer screen. “Looks like you’ve got a resonance in the duon field. Probably around 36.7 TeV.”
“That’s just what theory predicted,” said Dr. Kirck. “What are the power values?”
As Dr. Blake read the numbers off, Dr. Kirck adjusted the controls, and the portal enlarged and stabilized.
------------------------------
“Wh-what is that?” asked Anthony. The sphere of blue energy that had appeared in the lab had acquired a bright white center. Then a small aerial drone emerged, its fans humming. It appeared to have a camera of some sort aboard, and perhaps other sensors as well. It had appeared right on top of the reconstructed Russian gadget they’d been testing.
“That’s … a portal,” said David. “I don’t pretend to understand the physics, but the theorists said something like this was possible. These things are one-way, they said – and from the way the center is so bright, I’m guessing it leads here from somewhere else.” He walked up to it. “Hello,” he said, looking directly at the drone’s camera. “If you’re from home … I’m alive!”
------------------------------
“Now all we do is wait for its program to complete, and if it works it’ll collect data for five minutes, then come back through,” said Dr. Kirck. The minutes ticked by, and then Gina’s customized camera drone came back through. “All in one piece! That’s a positive result.” Gina, Tim and the others whooped, cheered, and high-fived each other. The drone flew across the lab and lowered itself to the table it had started from, shutting down.
“OK, let’s hook it up and read the data,” Dr. Kirck said, and as Dr. Blake watched, Gina connected a data cable to the drone, downloading its data. Everyone clustered around Gina’s monitor as she played it back.
It showed what looked like a modified hangar with equipment similar to what was around them now. There were people in lab coats talking to each other and working on the machinery. “Wait, is that …?” said Dr. Blake.
Then one of the people walked up to the camera. “Hello,” he said. “If you’re from home … I’m alive!”
“It’s David! He’s alive!” shouted Dr. Blake, who was now the one whooping, cheering, and high-fiving everyone.
------------------------------
“Something’s coming through again,” said one of the researchers. “It’s … that drone again. Only … this time it’s got a phone on it?”
“They’re not assuming a phone signal will make it through this thing, are they?” David asked.
“No, it’s stopped in place, and … oh, the screen’s lit up, and it’s playing a video.”
As David, Anthony, and the others watched, the tiny phone screen showed a number of scientists, and David recognized Dr. Blake from NASA, who said, “David, this drone’s programmed to play this message, then record for five minutes, then return. If you’re still there, this is Dr. Samantha Kirck, who works with MIT and various labs, and her team. We’ve been working like crazy trying to find out if you’re alive and what happened. We think some government from the world you ended up in was behind your disappearance, and they sent an agent here, whom we haven’t captured, but we’ve tracked them to the Russian consulate in DC. Right now this portal goes the wrong way to bring you back – Dr. Kirck figured out how to send something through temporarily, but it has to return and is the only thing so far that can traverse both directions. We’re working on it!”
Dr. Kirck said, “David, we think you’d activated some sort of similar equipment on your end, drawing our portal to you. If you can activate it on a regular schedule we can establish a communication schedule as well as take readings that will help us understand this phenomenon. But for now, you can record a message for us.”
The screen switched to a view of David and his surroundings – it was now recording. “OK. Dr. Blake, it’s great to see your face!” David said. “I’m on an alternate Earth. There’s a USA here, but history is different. There’s too much to explain there. There was a Soviet agent – there’s still a USSR here – and this USA’s version of the FBI captured the team of Soviet scientists that sent him and was trying to bring him back, but it didn’t work because they didn’t have the mass balance right. We have their equipment, and we’re trying to understand how it works. They don’t have a NASA here, but I’m working for a private company that’s a government contractor for the US space program. We’ll run the equipment every 24 hours at this time. Please tell my family I love them –”
The camera switched off, and the drone reversed course back through the portal.
“Wow!” said David. “Looks like they haven’t abandoned me for dead after all. But they still haven’t figured out how to bring me back just yet. Looks like you’re still stuck with me for now!”
Anthony laughed. “Look, we still need you! I understand that you miss your home and family, but I’m just glad we’ll still have you for a while longer.”
------------------------------
Over the course of the next few months, both duon phases communicated and shared data. David’s original phase had to teach the one he had found himself in a brand new way to look at physics. The new duon learned a great many things about computers and other sensing type equipment.
There had been postulations in Anna’s and Anthony’s phase, attempting to explain the accelerated expansion of our universe. Dark matter and Dark energy had been a curveball that had been added to theories to try to solve the issues with the math. The only problem was that dark matter and dark energy had never been detected in any way, nor in any indisputable way been proven to exist.
Now, here, handed to them on a gilded plate, was sort of a proof that their universe was somehow bonded to another. The whole principle of expansion coupled with the ability to open portals to the other universe seemed to be simple proof.
But it created a serious question as to why particles had the same polarity – in other words, everything was made of matter and not of antimatter in the other phase, just as in theirs. Each entire universe, as far as the scientists involved in the research could tell, did oscillate at a different energy frequency, but each of them was put together in basically the same manner.
One morning, an army colonel came into the lab where David was hard at work trying to design a better X-56Y induction coil for the duon transference module.
He walked over to David and held out his hand, “Hello. It is a great honor to meet you, Captain David Legette. I never would have ever imagined meeting someone from another dimension.” David took his hand and shook it warmly. He continued, “My name is Colonel McKinney. I have come to inform you that we’ve determined that the Flower Peninsula location at the coordinates you had previously given us would in fact make the perfect place to begin launching our rockets.”
David offered the Colonel a chair as he leaned back and steepled his fingers. He said, “I can understand that. In my home world, Cape Canaveral was chosen for rocket launches to take advantage of the Earth's rotation. The linear velocity of the Earth's surface is greatest towards the equator, of course; the relatively southerly location of the Cape allowed rockets to take advantage of this by launching eastward, in the same direction as the Earth's rotation. It was also highly desirable to have the downrange area sparsely populated, in case of accidents; an ocean is ideal for this. The east coast of Florida, the place this earth calls the Flower Peninsula, has logistical advantages over potential competing sites.”
The Colonel placed a large manila envelope in David’s lap and said, “You will be glad to note, I’ve pressured one of my extremely wealthy friends to start a campaign to raise funds to create and support a launch facility at the coordinates you say a place called NASA is in your world. The idea took on a life of its own as all the reports of your many successful launches from Goodard Rocket’s test facility spread. It has even impressed the President, who signed into law the funding and construction of the Legette Rocket Base. As we speak, construction of the highway there is midway to completion. Of course, the highway has to be completed before we can begin transporting the materials to construct the main base, although we have set up a mobile base complex there in the meantime.”
David dropped his hands, picked up the envelope, and removed their contents. It not only detailed trillions of dollars to the Legette Project, it also named him as the head of the program and the leader of the facility. David sat basically in shock. He couldn’t believe it, but he had set things in motion that eventually would become the NASA of this world … only under his name.
The colonel pointed to the very intricate device sitting on the test stand in the shielded area of the lab and asked, “What is that thing supposed to be? Looks like a technician's nightmare.”
This brought David back from his thoughts. He knew he was under the strictest orders from the FBI not to divulge any type of information about the trans-portal device. He replied, knowing the colonel would have no way to know one way or the other, “I’m working on a new power source. I was hoping to generate energy without the use of fossil fuels or carbon producing chemicals.” David wasn’t lying at all, actually – he was actually working on such a power source, but that wasn’t what the colonel had pointed at.
The Colonel smiled, “Oh, that supposed global warming thing. Good idea, the sooner we can come up with viable solutions, the better.” He took David’s hand and shook it warmly once again, “It’s been a great honor, Mr. Legette. To have met someone from another world is beyond my wildest fantasies. I will keep you informed of the construction developments. You need to know the United States is fully behind your project and has fully funded it. Goodard Rocket Works will be one of the project’s major contractors.”
With this, he turned and left David with a whole new perspective on current events.
------------------------------
“Sounds like they want to keep him,” said Dr. Blake after listening to David’s latest message to home. The news that David was alive had electrified the nation, and indeed the world, because it was impossible to keep this news under wraps. There had been a collective sigh of relief, of course, but there was still tension as scientists worked to find a way to bring him home safely.
What most people didn’t know was the theory that foreign agents from the other phase had been trying to steal NASA spaceflight technology from their phase. The government had managed to keep a lid on that particular angle, and the fact that the actual equipment the foreign agents had used was being studied in the other phase definitely helped with that.
“Surely they don’t think he can stay there forever,” Dr. Kirck remarked. “There has to be a thought in their minds that David will want to go home once there’s a way.”
“Yes, but perhaps they don’t think a way will be found for years,” said Dr. Blake.
“Well, maybe if we do find a way, he can commute to work,” Dr. Kirck suggested.
------------------------------
“Right on schedule,” Dr. Kirck said when the readings showed that Bravo Phase, as they’d taken to calling it, had turned on its duon-generating transfer equipment. “Power up the portal, phase angle 252.4 degrees.”
Her team immediately activated all the necessary devices, and soon the blue sphere hovered above the emitter array, as expected.
“Portal stable,” said Gina.
“Ready for trial number 17-A,” said Tim.
“OK, let’s do it,” said Dr. Kirck. “Modulate to pattern 17-A.”
“Shifting frequency pattern,” Gina announced, executing the pre-programmed changes. The blue sphere enlarged into a rectangular prism, large enough for a few people to stand in. Its center glowed brightly, then dimmed to a grayish color.
“Well, that’s promising,” Dr. Kirck said. “Readings?”
“Portal appears stable in new mode,” Gina replied.
“No measurable fluctuations,” replied Tim.
“OK, well, here’s test number 17-A-1,” said Dr. Kirck. She picked up a chair and held it up, partially within the rectangular volume above the emitter array. It seemed to have entered the space and was still visible. So she let go of it and set it down. It stood there within the glowing space.
Another chair appeared in the space, of a different design. “Yes!” Dr. Kirck shouted. “All the calculations showed that this was possible, and it looks as if they were right!”
Gina asked, “Are you sure you want to go through with the next step?”
“Well,” said Dr. Kirck, “I don’t see how everything else would have worked if this won’t. Just record everything.”
“Recording data from all instruments,” said Tim.
“OK, then,” said Dr. Kirck. “I believe in science.” She stepped into the space, and sat down on the chair.
Then David stepped in and sat down in his chair too.
Dr. Kirck took a deep breath. “David,” she said. “Wow. It worked.”
David replied, “Wow indeed! Dr. Kirck, I presume.” He held out his hand, and she shook it.
“Yes, Dr. Samantha Kirck, experimental physics, MIT and Laurence Livingmore Labs. With this temporary ‘pocket’ duon phase, we can suspend the quantum bonded mass displacement requirement, but only while the emitter is running, and only within this limited space. Unfortunately, when you leave this space you’ll still be in that duon phase, and when I leave it I’ll still be in this one. But it’s a big step. We can talk in person.”
“What happens if the power cuts out?” David asked.
“In every experiment, what happens is that things from your phase are ejected into your phase and things from my phase are ejected back here, but pretty unceremoniously, so I imagine it would be uncomfortable. I don’t recommend it. But for now, I think we can call this test a success. It’ll pave the way for getting you home.”
“Great!” said David. “They really want me to stay here. I have to figure out how to get back before they find a way to entice me to stay.”
“You don’t think they’d … keep you there, do you?” asked Dr. Kirck.
“So far I haven’t seen any indication that they’d actually detain me,” said David, “or at least the USA of this world wouldn’t. If the worst happened and I got captured by their version of the USSR, or Nazi Germany, which still exists here, I don’t think that could be said.”
“Wow,” said Dr. Kirck. “Sounds as if the USA has managed to stay in one piece despite all of that.”
“Yes, Germany didn’t manage to take over all of Europe, Japan never bombed Pearl Harbor, there was no real World War II, and the free world has pretty much just been keeping fascism contained and off balance. The USA and its allies have gotten as many Hebrews out of Germany as possible, along with all other persecuted groups. Europe isn’t in great shape, but at least it’s not at war. Well, not a shooting war, anyway. There are lots of tensions.”
“Easy to see why the USA wants some kind of technological advantage over there,” said Dr. Kirck. “Well, things are pretty much the same over here. They’re continuing to test and improve the FTL shuttle project, but I’m not directly involved in that so I don’t know the details. We’ve learned a lot more about the phenomena that got you sent there – and there’s still a spy at large from over there. I guess he’s from the USSR.”
“Right, and he’s probably in hiding by now, it sounds like,” said David. “I’m not sure where he would be …”
------------------------------
The new reality David had been thrust unwillingly into had many differences, it was true, but there were some other things that were still horribly the same, with a bit more of a dangerous twist to them. In a country known in this duon phase as the Unity Soviet Social Republic, they too had the unique microwave device known as radar, with which they kept vigilant observations of their airspaces.
Many countries in this reality had also developed a great number of different types and sizes of nuclear bombs. Almost everyone had aircraft of various sorts, with various designs to carry the nuclear weapons as gravity weapons. Only one country, the USA, had developed usable nuclear-tipped rockets with anything resembling the kind of range and accuracy that would lead them to be called nuclear missiles.
Other countries’ attempts were more like skyrockets that burned a solid cordite and rubber mixture for fuel. Some had placed explosives on them and launched them towards targets only to miss by very significant amounts and land in useless locations. The expense and inaccuracy of those missiles sort of stopped other countries from further explorations due to the extremely high cost of materials.
In a war council room of The Soviet High Military Command, the leader of their military, Generalissimus of the Soviet Union or Generalissimus Sovetskogo Soyuza, brought the huge meeting to order by banging his wooden gavel. The murmur of voices died away.
( Translated to English for our readers’ benefit )
The General said in a deep voice, “Comrades in arms, Mother Russia faces a very serious security problem, part of which I feel we brought on ourselves.” He looked down and typed on a small keypad on his podium, and the large screen on the wall lit up and displayed the statistics of their very best agent, code named Saprykin. No photo was displayed, as was common for agents. “I am aware many of you don’t know of the top secret and extremely dangerous mission we had sent him on to recover a technology we desperately needed to insure the sovereignty of our borders.”
A quiet wave of voices washed through the large gathering as the picture on the wall changed and depicted a device that appeared to be advanced alien hardware, along with several other devices that appeared to be some type of advanced radar units and a small group of scientists.
The general continued, “We discovered a new type of unit that can detect certain types of hitherto unknown energy ripples. Further investigation revealed that another … let us say plane of existence, had discovered a way to travel faster than light.” A loud round of discussion washed through the room. The general allowed it, and it died on its own shortly. He continued, “Through much trial and error we invented a device that would allow one individual to traverse to this new location in hopes of acquiring the data necessary to produce the FTL engine.”
A voice called out, “What happened to Saprykin? He was my partner and has vanished for over a year.”
The General responded to the question without anger but with some concern. “We do not know what happened to him. We do know he made the transference from a swampy place in the USA known as the Flower Peninsula. We know he made it through alive due to the reciprocal frequency return that happens within 5 minutes of the transfer. We aren’t sure exactly what transpired, but at the exact same moment, our instruments read a huge energy flash over another part of North America. We feared some sort of military reprisal, but none ever came.”
Another voice asked, “We did attempt to retrieve our agent, didn’t we?”
The General’s face took on an expression of more concern as he replied, “At the exact place and proper time we attempted to open a retrieval portal. According to the attending scientists, they began getting some sort of error message that none of our physicists can explain precisely. Needless to say, we never could get a portal to open. As for Saprykin’s final disposition, we have no clue.”
A general dressed in an impeccable military uniform with many medals stood and said, “I too have a report that is causing us much fearful speculation.”
The High General held his hand towards the next general and said, “Let me introduce you to General Nikol Brinkoph. He is in charge of our radar units throughout our fair country. Continue, General Brinkoph.”
General Brinkoph continued, “Within six months of the failed return attempt, my sections began noticing a large number of launches coming from the USA. During the most recent one, they sent men to the moon and actually placed modules there to become their base when next they return. The improvements in their rocket propulsion systems are seemingly miraculous, well beyond our black powder solid-fueled missiles. Their range seems to be unlimited, and they produce tremendously more thrust than we can achieve. We have images of their latest launch, and they are using some sort of external boosters. We have been unable to find any debris. Apparently they destroy themselves in some way. From the best our telemetry and radar can tell, the rocket increases in speed as the missile mass seems to mysteriously drop the longer the burn happens far more than fuel consumption can account for.”
The Generalissimus asked, “These missiles, are they controllable? Or are they ballistic?”
General Brinkoph replied, “Both, depending on what they are attempting to do. Another thing – they have managed to capture the retrieval team and the squad with them, along with all of our portal equipment. Since that moment, our detectors have noticed a spike in the unique energies that make up a portal almost every day at the same time.”
A very loud tumultuous cacophony of voices ensued, until The Generalissimus banged his gavel, “There will be silence in chambers!” The loud roar of voices ceased. The Generalissimus continued, “And they can, I am sure, place a nuclear weapon as a payload on one of those guidable rockets and deliver it to almost any location on the planet at will; is this not also true?”
General Brinkoph replied, “This is our greatest fear. We should strike them before they strike us. A rocket with a nuclear weapon payload is a lot harder for us to stop than an aircraft loaded with gravity weapons. Since we only have prop and piston type aircraft with gravity weapons, it is my considered opinion that we should strike them before they develop a means of using this rocket technology to bring down aircraft and then strike at us.”
------------------------------
On a test range at Goodard Rocket Works, David had just completed testing his newest missile with excellent results. The new tracking system may have been primitive to David’s way of thinking, but it sought out, tracked, locked on to the heat signatures of the target drone aircraft’s engine exhaust, and impacted perfectly. Thus far, David had had only one failure and that was due to a bird strike that damaged the missile’s heat sensor.
This duon phase already had many types of prop and piston type fighter and bomber aircraft. Most of the aircraft worldwide, were prop and piston, with a few turbo-props on the largest aircraft. Jet engine technology was just starting to be played with and not more than a few lucky under powered accidents were in use.
It was almost simple to modify a bomb rack to launch a group of 12 missiles per rack. Four racks gave an aircraft plenty of firepower. Once David had drawn the crude plans and convinced the weapons shop to start constructing an eight-barrelled minigun he was calling an auto-cannon, the need for a newer type of fighter arose.
They were mounting two cannons on each aircraft. With 16 barrels firing that much ordinance that quickly coupled with the missile load, Prop and piston no longer filled the bill. David showed them how to improve the first round of jet engines from injected axial flow to turbofan radial flow with an after burner fuel ring coupled with another radical design ... what David called a thrust attenuator exhaust cone ... that radically increased the engines thrust and gave the pilot directional control unheard of before.
David then aided in the creation of a totally new line of fighter aircraft designed specifically to be armed with the rocket pods and auto-cannons. It was also something else far in advance of a prop and piston fighter, including a new use for turbo-pumps. To those engineers and scientists designing and building the components from Daivd’s rough sketches and written descriptions, this was a radical departure from any they had built previously. There were science fiction stories about Earth scientists who got hold of alien tech, and this was reminding them of those … and they weren’t far off from that.
In the several months it took to construct and test the new equipment, those particularly armed aircraft had become the most formidable weapons of war in this duon phase, next to nuclear weapons. David was seriously worried about what he was doing as he watched yet again another successful test.
( later that day )
“Oh hello, David,” said Anna as he got home. “How was work?”
“Oh, Anna, I don’t know,” David replied. “I’m not sure about what I’m doing.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, inwardly alarmed but not showing it outwardly.
“Well, they’ve got me designing some new weapons systems,” said David, “and for one thing that’s not really my area of expertise, but mainly I’m not sure I’m really helping. This world had sort of a balance of power, and I might be upsetting that balance. What if other countries detect our improved capabilities and decide to strike first before we get too far ahead for them to ever catch up? They’d probably go all out, make what they think is a last-ditch effort to blow us all up before it’s too late.”
“Wow, I can see how that might alarm you,” said Anna, who knew that the USSR was talking about exactly that in what they thought was a secret meeting, probably right that very minute. She also knew that the new smaller tracking rockets and rocket packs David had been working on along with the new auto-cannon, as it had been named, would provide a major shield against most incoming aircraft that could possibly be a nuclear threat. But she also wondered where this would all lead.
“In your world,” she asked him, “are there also some fascist dictatorships and some democracies?”
“Yes, of course,” said David. “The United States and its allies are among the most powerful nations in the world, and those are democracies, but the dictatorships and other non-democratic nations have a few powerful countries among their number too. And the worst part is that far-right pro-fascist parties are actually making inroads in the democratic nations – including the USA.”
“That’s … chilling,” said Anna. “Well, here, it’s much the same, except that I’m not sure you’ve noticed, but the dictatorships, all told, are more powerful than the democracies. We don’t attack except in self-defense, if they attack first, but Iberia, Rhineland, Rome, Nippon, the USSR, and others are all dictatorships. If they allied with each other, we’d have a problem. But they’re not allies; they all hate each other. Each one of them thinks they should be the one ruling the world. And it’s not as if that’s a secret; their leaders make speeches saying that every day. But … I don’t know. It’s a scary world.”
“My world too,” said David as he slowly shook his head. “My world too.”
------------------------------
The new construction was immediately noticed by many countries as the United States began to build defenses against aggressives. Strange, very large dome-shaped buildings began to appear all over the country, as well as other signs of construction, along with many rocket emplacements. It became obvious that they were preparing for some sort of aggression – either they were going to launch against other nations, or they were readying themselves to defend against an attack from them.
The antimissile weapon the auto-cannon had evolved into was linked to a new approach to radar that had been introduced from the other duon America and linked to their newest fluidic super computer system. The current iteration of cannon’s computer system was immune to EMP and the cannon was deadly to anything its new very sensitive sensors locked on to
Its only serious issue was that its AI couldn’t differentiate between hostiles and friendlies better than about 80%, even with the new concept of IFF – ID Friend or Foe. The issue lay in the signals from its sensor array somehow being interfered with. Apparently microwave cross-interference from other radar units set at different frequency ranges created the 20% degradation. That problem was being worked on as rapidly as possible since their current filtering processes didn’t help.
The only obvious candidate for the aggressor position was the Soviets. To the rest of the world, its massive buildup of bomber-type aircraft and smaller accompanying fighters, along with other arms buildups, made it quite clear.
It took almost another year and a half before the Soviets had begun to procure uranium in extremely large quantities. Those smaller countries with large uranium deposits either sold the uranium, or the Soviets would come in and take it, the latter always resulting in the country no longer being viable.
The world trembled in fear as it watched both countries preparations. If an all out confrontation between the Soviets and the Americas actually did occur as was feared, all knew that no one would be left to claim victory. Every little blip or stray radio signal became suspect as tensions mounted.
It wasn't long before the Legette class fighter was built and deployed in full force and sent on patrols. For those few who actually got to see one, they looked more like a fantasy spacecraft than a fighter. When they rapidly passed overhead, those even fewer who manage to witness it, would swear the aircraft was almost silent.
One day, it inevitably happened. DEW line radar reported a fast mover approaching the Alkasan coast across the strait at wave top level obviously trying to avoid detection. Its radar ID resembled a nuke type bomber.
One of the Legette fighters was in the area, because constant patrols had been flying the perimeter due to intelligence suggesting that it would be needed. The pilot got orders to seek out and destroy the bogey. The Legette fighter’s new radar suite pinged on the incoming aircraft after a short space of search. It took less than a minute for the targeting computer’s threat assessment computer to locate the approaching fighter bomber.
The pilot flipped a bright red toggle switch. Instantly, the Legette class fighter was no longer a jet, but a twin turbopump-driven rocket plane with over 140,000 horsepower as the jet engine flamed out and the aircraft lunged forward amid a loud popping sound and a showy roar from the ignition of the twin turbo-pumps. It immediately began approaching faster than any aircraft the Soviet pilot had ever seen.
The pilot of the Soviet aircraft had barely enough time to realize exactly how fast this aircraft was approaching. In seconds, it rapidly changed from a blip on his radar to a small dot off in the distance to a large, well-armed, extremely advanced, seriously exotic looking fighter almost on top of him, before some type of weapon tore him and his entire cockpit to shreds.
The Soviet aircraft went down in flaming pieces in American territorial waters by several hundred miles. There was no question as to its location or which aircraft had invaded whose territorial waters. Thick black smoke rose from the burning oils and fuel left on the water below as the last resting place of one of the Soviet Unity’s top-of-the-line fighter bombers that had the ability to be armed with nuclear gravity weapons.
“This is Shiva 1, control. Splash and burn one … say again, splash and burn one.”
“Roger that, Shiva 1, splash one. Return to base. Our lab boys are really hankerin’ to see those wing tip pictures you have.”
The pilot banked sharply back toward his home base as the twin turbo-pump engines flamed out and the jet engine ignited. “Roger that, Control. Heading back to the barn.”
------------------------------
In an advanced physics class, Anthony was giving a lecture on the new quantum physics the other Earth had been showing them. As Anthony scrawled an advanced quantum equation on the large chalkboard, one of the young doctoral students shouted, “That’s it! It’s noise. Plain and simply, too much interference due to quantum-based noise!”
Anthony turned with a patient, but angry expression as he replied, “The only noise the class can hear is your yelling.”
A twitter of laughter filled the room as the young man came to the chalkboard, commandeered the chalk from Anthony’s hand, and began to scrawl a complicated equation of his own. The rest of the class stared on with open mouthed amazement.
The student explained as he scrawled, “Current work presents a more versatile quantum teleportation technique that effectively shows the need to mitigate quantum environmental noise.”
Anthony smiled a patient smile that turned to an eyebrow raised one as he looked over the young man’s equations. “How would you go about fixing that issue? Seems to me the cosmic background microwave radiation will be with us mostly forever. We can reduce it, but never have we been able to get rid of it.”
The young man turned and replied, “Ultimately, through classical communication. The researchers involved in the quantum portal project executed suitable unitary operations on the retrieved quantum bits that the computer systems use to restore the transmitted quantum state. They achieved a measured fidelity approaching 90%. The polarization states never violated Beall’s inequality, indicating quantum teleportation based on hidden quantum nonlocality. But some unknown instability in the frequency modulations prevented us from sending a living object through our portals. The signal frequencies were always corrupted by about 10%.”
Anthony asked in a truly impressed tone, “How can we bypass the 10% energy dispersal instability? Everything we’ve tried to date has failed miserably.”
The student replied as he completed the massively complex equation on the board, “If you examine the equation I formulated, by employing a fully controllable phase decoherence quantum ground loop noise isolator, the researchers will then have the ability to introduce specific custom phase modulations into the environment and prepare a dual-photon polarization-frequency hybrid entangled initial state. This is necessary for the portal to become a true doorway, allowing matter to cross both directions without quantum static interference. Subsequently, those photons depicted in my calculations, according to the math, were distributed to two separate user terminals, where each underwent decoherence evolution, without the 10% quantum frequency degradation.”
The equation was long and the math complicated, but Anthony doggidly went over it with scrutiny as close to a fine toothed comb as he could. He was astounded that this young student had apparently discovered the solution to a quantum energy dispersal instability that had been plaguing both worlds. Rather than causing a duon backlash of the type that had brought David here, or creating temporary overlap zones of the sort they’d been using, an actual two-way portal could now be a possibility.
The particular noise loop isolator device to which the student referred was already in use in all major radar, radio, and communications arrays. Anthony looked at the young student with admiration. The next major quantum theorist had just flexed his muscles and showed there truly was no box if one didn’t allow his thought processes to become so ensnared. Sometimes, the simplest seemingly impossible things were the correct things. Followed Occam’s Razor postulation perfectly … the simplest is almost always the proper.
“Good heavens,” said Anthony to the student. “Mr. Innteiser, your equation appears sound. The engineers will have to produce a quantum version of the noise loop isolator, but you’ve just proven it theoretically possible. We’ve just seen the birth of a revolution today. Everyone, Mr. Innteiser’s name will be first on a ground-breaking paper that will be published soon, I have no doubts.”
But it wasn’t published soon. It would be a decade before the paper saw the light of day. Only a few were privy to the discovery that was made that day. The graduate student, Henry Innteiser, was immediately hired by the Defense Department and enticed via large sums of money to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Anthony was firmly reminded by his Defense Department contacts of the many such agreements he’d already signed. There was only one person who was free to talk about it … and he couldn’t talk about it with anyone from that world.
------------------------------
“A quantum decoherence noise isolator?” asked Samantha, next time she talked to David. “Something that … low tech?”
“Look, I don’t know,” said David. “Anthony knows lots more quantum mechanics than I do. I couldn’t reproduce the equation if I tried. But that’s what he was talking about.”
Dr. Kirck reached out of the visible frame, and her hand returned holding a stack of paper. She took out a mechanical pencil and started to quickly write. “Did it look like this?” She turned the page over and slid it across the table toward David.
“It looked a lot like that,” he said. “I can’t be sure it’s exactly the same.”
“Huh,” she said. “Could that be all it takes? Filtering out the noise? We’ll get right to work on that. They’ve silenced one promising young grad student for national security … but frankly, you’ve got no idea how much of the world is behind getting you home. The physics we’ve been exploring is worldwide; there’s no silencing it now. Not in our version of the world. We’re getting you home, David. No ifs, ands, or buts. Dr. Blake and I are spearheading it, sure, but every particle physicist in the world is part of this. Even the ones working on the antimatter problem are spending some of their time thinking about duons.”
“I’m grateful,” David said. “It’s … of … ne … ng …” David’s image within the overlap zone started to degrade.
“What’s going on?” asked Samantha. But David disappeared. “Well, that’s worrying. Might as well shut down the overlap zone for today.” She got up and stepped out of the white room into her lab. “Keep trying to contact them via the pinhole. Meanwhile, I’ve got a few emails to send …”
------------------------------
“It’s been days since we’ve heard from David,” said Dr. Kirck. “I think they’ve either captured him or seized the equipment he was using to talk to us.”
“Or both,” said Dr. Blake, thumping his desk with his fist. “This is frustrating. Can’t we find him?”
“Maybe,” Dr. Kirck said. “Gina – that’s Gina Ridley, who’s officially going to be Dr. Gina Ridley when she graduates next week – has a scanning method that might be able to tell us where he is. It can send a pulse of duon particles with a specific waveform and report on what reflected back with that waveform. We know David’s waveform better than any other duon waveform on record. It’s like … radar, but very specific, and across the barrier between worlds.”
“What do we do when we find him?” asked Dr. Blake.
“We … fly by the seat of our pants,” Dr. Kirck replied.
------------------------------
“... and then they just came in and started taking the equipment away,” David said. “It was very frustrating. How can we make any progress without the template?”
“That does sound frustrating,” Anna replied. “Are you sure you can tell me this?”
“Well, I didn’t say what the equipment was for,” said David. “But you’re right, I can’t talk about what it does.”
“I worry now that I might never get home,” David said. “I’m …”
Suddenly a portal opened, and when it closed, neither David nor Anna were there.
------------------------------
“And we’re clear,” said Tim.
“Wait, are there two people in there?” asked Gina.
“David, thank goodness!” said Dr. Kirck. “But … who’s this?”
“This is Anna,” David said. “I’m living in her basement, basically. I met her while I was recovering in the hospital.”
“Uh …” said Anna, looking around and trying to make herself look like some average person who had gotten caught up in something totally beyond her. “I’m … kinda freaking out right now …”
“OK,” David told Anna, “first of all, don’t worry, this is Dr. Samantha Kirck. She’s an experimental particle physicist, and this is her lab. We’re at … where are we?”
“This is at Laurence Livingmore National Laboratory,” said Dr. Kirck.
Dr. Blake couldn’t stand it anymore and burst into the room. “David! Thank all that’s holy!” He reached out and shook David’s hand, putting his other arm on David’s shoulder.
“Dr. Blake! I knew you’d never give up,” said David.
------------------------------
What the viewers of those assigned to monitor Agent code name Anna and her subject Captain David Legette observed happen, none could believe. The surveillance cameras couldn’t directly image the portal, but it could image the massive energy distortions of reality, and the fact Anna and David vanished from all the monitoring equipment. The huge blue ball of energy vanished along with the both of them and left no traces taking the very best agent and the very best military asset the country had.
The military personnel in charge of security were going nuts. They had already confiscated all the portal equipment and data they could get their hands on, trying to prevent the nation from losing David in this manner … but it had happened anyway. There was nothing anyone could retaliate against, or even make credible threats to. They didn’t know where he and Anna had gone, but they had guesses.
This was news that the government knew it couldn’t allow to get out. As sure as they were that the Soviets were going to launch an all-out nuclear offensive against them, they knew for a positive fact that if it became known they had lost their source of superior technology, war would become more than just a fear almost instantly.
A very few days after that, as if America didn’t have enough issues to deal with, the DEW line radar indicated a massive air assault approaching across the strait towards the Alkasian coast at wave top radar avoidance altitude once again. This time, however, it wasn’t just one lone fast-moving nuclear-capable fighter-bomber. This time there were a dozen heavy lift long range bombers, accompanied by 15 smaller nuclear-capable fighter-bombers, and many support and defense fighter aircraft.
All showed every indication that they were prop-and-piston aircraft, except for three of the largest of the heavy bombers, which showed indications of turbo-prop driven aircraft. They may have had jet engines, but if so they were crude, low horsepower, and produced only a minor bit more horsepower than the 24-cylinder rotary housing engines the rest of the heavy bomber fleet were equipped with.
DEW line Radar operators swore and commented on how the idiots, always the cowards, try to sneak in the back way.
Four squadrons of fully armed Legette fighters were launched on an intercept course with orders to seek out and destroy all targets. The Soviets began to sweat heavily as the massive attack force showed on their radars and rapidly approached as fast as some of the rockets they had seen videos of.
The memory of their Black Demon fighter-bomber and how quickly and easily it had been taken out in the last encounter with this type of fighter was still fresh in their minds and caused a real tingle of fear to shoot up their spines.
The men in the Soviet fighter escorts quickly assumed attack formation. The last thing the first round of attackers saw was something like two rockets igniting where each of the approaching fighters had been. Faster than the remaining crew of the surviving aircraft could comprehend, most of the escorting fighters were burning, crashing, exploding debris. The Legette fighters danced gracefully among the remaining aircraft dealing serious damage.
The previous encounter had been one Soviet craft vs. one Legette fighter. This time there were many of the advanced fighters, and they had wisely targeted the Soviet fighter escorts first. Soon there were no escort, just the fighter-bombers, the long-range bombers, and a few support craft, and the fighter-bombers were quickly being winnowed away.
One of the support aircraft fired a rocket in what turned out to be a lucky direction. Now, several of the other aircraft had tried to do something similar, but the Legette fighters had simply targeted and destroyed these rockets as a matter of course. They could have been weapons, after all. But these actually weren’t weapons. They carried the video footage that had been taken of the Legette fighters in action. But each of these recon rockets was shot down – until, finally one wasn’t. Its tiny powder-propelled engine carried it clear of the dogfight, where it unfurled a small parachute shortly before splashing down into the water, where it floated and activated a radio transponder. Some time later, it would be picked up by a Soviet submarine under cover of night.
The squadrons of Legette fighters made short work of the rest of the battle group. None of the aircraft ever made it anywhere near the Alkasain coast nor back into Soviet airspace. This time, there was no way for the USSR to wiggle out of it – what they had just committed was an act of war. Diplomats leapt into action, demanding to know why the USSR had attacked the USA unprovoked with nuclear-capable aircraft and why the USA shouldn’t immediately retaliate.
“Well, those negotiations should buy us some time,” said Mike, speaking to his superior agent Polly in an office in an undisclosed location. Of course, Mike knew that wasn’t her real name, just as she knew Mike wasn’t his, but they had to use some sort of names.
“We knew David’s world would be looking for him and would eventually bring him back,” said Polly. “We had plans for this. What we didn’t have plans for was Anna getting pulled with him.”
“So you think that’s what happened?” asked Mike. “David’s back in his home universe, timeline, or whatever we’re calling it? And Anna was just too close and got caught up in the … effect, portal, whatever?”
“Our analysts consider that the most likely scenario,” said Polly, “and when they ran the numbers, it was more likely than the next one by far, so they’re pretty sure.”
“So what’s our plan?” asked Mike. “Of course I don’t expect you to tell me everything in the plan. What I mean is, what do I do as part of this plan? What are my orders?”
“We’ve already had the science types scan the building Anna and David lived in for any residual energy,” said Polly. “We believe Anna will try to return as soon as possible, and since her cover with David is still intact, there’s no reason for him to believe she’s anything more than an innocent bystander who got caught up in the portal. So the energy signature will let us know when she returns. Your mission is to set up this monitoring equipment in the building they vanished from.” Polly pushed a briefcase toward Mike across the desk. “Then you must listen for a detection signal and make contact with Anna as soon as possible when she returns, assuming it’s Anna who appears.”
Mike opened the briefcase and examined the devices within it, picking up a mobile-phone-sized receiver that he knew would alert him when the detectors sensed anything. “All right,” he said. “What about damage control?”
Polly nodded. “That’s being taken care of,” she said. “All our intelligence indicates that the Soviets never knew David was even here. They’re confused on the highest levels about how we could possibly have made such advancements in rocketry in such a short time. Well, that hasn’t changed – they still don’t know he was here. In a way, this is good – Stallin won’t have him, and neither will Hitler, Branco, Hirohito, or anyone else.”
“What about Saprykin?” asked Mike. “Do we know anything about what happened to him?”
“We don’t,” Polly replied. “The science division thinks his people tried to pull him back here with their portal device, but it didn’t work for some reason they didn’t understand. Our science types think they understand why now, but don’t ask me to explain it. They showed me all these equations, and it was like reading Chinese. So the point is that Saprykin is still in the other world, and we don’t know where.”
“What if they don’t know he’s there?” asked Mike. “Shouldn’t we warn them? I mean, they’re another United States. They’re not exactly the same as us, but they’re certainly more like us than the USSR, and we’re more like them than … whatever enemies they’ve got over there.”
“Well, whether we should warn them is a decision that’s above my pay grade,” said Polly, “but even if I said yes, how on God’s green Earth would we go about doing that?”
“I guess you’re right there,” said Mike. “Well, I’m off to install the detectors. I’ll keep you apprised.”
“And I’ll contact you for a meeting if anything changes, as always,” Polly said. “Good luck, Mike.”
“You too, Polly.”
------------------------------
“Um, you wanted to see me, Agent … Underwood?” Anna read the name plaque on his desk. Anna was worried. It looked as if this government agent was a professional investigator. If anyone was going to see through her assumed identity, it would be someone like this. Fortunately, there was no way for him to go through her credentials or background, as she had none in this world.
“Yes, I’m just curious how you ended up being Captain Legette’s landlady,” said Underwood. “I’ve heard his side of the story; I just want to hear yours.”
Anna told the story of how they’d met, then how he’d needed a place to stay when he was discharged from the hospital.
“Yes,” said Underwood, “that’s exactly what David says. But what I want to know is, when he got a job at this Goodard Rocket Works, why they didn’t offer to house him, when he was so valuable to them.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Anna. “I assumed they’d offered him some kind of housing, but he’d turned it down. He never brought it up, and I didn’t ask. What he was doing was pretty secret, I gathered, so I didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“Of course, of course,” said Underwood. “But David said they never even offered. They never asked where he was staying, in fact. He was absolutely crucial to their rocket program, and yet every night he went back to your home, an ordinary, unsecured facility. I know you’re not an intelligence agent or anything like that, but imagine that you were – wouldn’t that seem strange? To let such an important asset out of your sight for 12 of every 24 hours?”
“I – I don’t know,” Anna pretended to stammer. “I guess if I were worried about that kind of thing … I’d have him watched? Are you saying they probably had people watching my house? But of course, if there were, they were our people doing the watching, not the Nipponese or Rheinlanders or anything, so that’s actually kind of a relief.”
“Or the USSR,” said Underwood. “What sort of threat would you say the USSR of your world is to the USA of your world? I’m just curious. I know so little about the place you’re from, the place David spent so much time in. Of course, I’ve talked to David about it, but you’re from there. You know it so much better.”
“I, well, I only know what I read in the papers and see on TV and the computers,” said Anna. “All these tyrannical foreign countries … they all want to get more power, I suppose. But the democratic countries like the USA, Albion, Gallia, Botany Bay, and others, try to keep the dictators from having their way. I guess the USSR is pretty dangerous. That Joe Stallin has all that territory but wants to make it even bigger, and even though they pretend to have elections, he’s always reelected.”
“Well, what do you think the USSR would do if they suddenly had a huge technological boost?” asked Underwood. Anna knew that he was asking her about the technology they had sent Saprykin here to steal, which he’d failed to do, but of course she wouldn’t be expected to know about any of that.
“I’m … not sure,” said Anna. “Again, I only know what I see in the news, but I guess Stallin would try to use it to … get more territory? Become more powerful? I know he doesn’t get along well with China or Nippon, so maybe he’d use it to attack one of them?”
“Would he attack the USA, do you think?” asked Underwood.
“Well, I’m not sure,” Anna replied. “Maybe, if it gave them better airplanes. That’s the only way they could attack the US. Or … maybe better submarines, I guess? They probably have those. The US Navy’s got submarines, so they probably do too. But they could only shoot at our ships, or maybe the coasts? I don’t know.”
“So you don’t know if they had people watching your house?” asked Underwood. “The US government, I mean?”
“Well, no, I don’t know,” said Anna. “I guess it sounds reasonable that they would, but I never saw them. I guess I wouldn’t, though, if they were doing their jobs right. They’d be secret agents, and they wouldn’t be very good secret agents if I could notice them.”
Underwood suddenly flipped his pen at her across the room, with a quick flick of his fingers. Anna reflexively dodged it. “I think that if they could escape your notice, they’d be very good agents indeed,” said Underwood. “So, what was your mission? Was it merely to safeguard David? Or were you also pumping him for information about our world and the technology he knows about?”
“I have no idea what you mean,” said Anna, “and I resent the implication that I’m not being truthful with you.”
“Naturally, you aren’t authorized to tell me anything about your instructions,” Underwood said. “Well, it was worth a try. The point is that your USA is certainly more like our USA than our Russia. But I was hoping you could tell me something about the Soviet agent from your world we almost captured. He’s disappeared, and we have no idea where he’s hiding. We know he didn’t make it back to your world with the information he gathered, but that’s it. If he does, that would be quite dangerous for your USA.”
“I’d … love to help you with that problem, Agent Underwood,” said Anna, “but I really don’t know where he might be. You don’t have a USSR here, but you do have a Russia … that used to be the USSR, right? Maybe he tried to get help from them?”
“Maybe,” said Underwood, “but of course they’re not very forthcoming with information. We asked. They politely declined to reply.”
“Well …” said Anna. He was right; if the USSR got that information, it would be very bad. Joe Stallin with space flight technology that was head and shoulders above the rest of the world? He’d use it to threaten every nation; he’d rule the world. “If that agent, whose name may or may not be Sergei Saprykin, were to go to the Russian embassy, and if he had some way to convince them that he was who he claimed to be, for example by using some kind of code that our USSR uses and the USSR here used to use, do you think they would help him in exchange for information?”
“Did you say Sergei Saprykin?” asked Underwood. “There’s a Russian agent who often goes by that name. But would they help your Saprykin? I think that depends on the information,” said Underwood. “Russia knows all about the FTL shuttle; it’s open science that every nation in this world has access to. Information about how to interact with other phases of reality, parallel universes, or whatever you want to call them … that’s something that we’re only just beginning to understand. Your USSR seems to have stumbled upon that discovery first. Russia might be interested in knowing what he knows before the rest of our world’s scientists discover it.”
“It seems you’ve made some advances, though,” said Anna. “I would like to go back home, of course. But … you’re right; that agent must be stopped. Perhaps there’s something we can do together.”
------------------------------
Sergei sat in his very plush quarters and fretted over his current situation. It had been proven that he and Agent Saprykin were exactly identical in every way but the frequency of his Kryllian energy. That and the fact he knew one of the old emergency codes and many other aspects of top secret things he should not and could not have known proved to the Soviet superiors that the both of them were basically one and the same person. The one with the weird Kryllian frequency was obviously the one from the other … location.
This had afforded Sergei with almost the same freedoms as his local counterpart. The few restrictions that had been placed on him were completely understandable under the circumstances. However, he hadn’t been able to give his interrogators any new or upgraded data that they didn’t already have, which made Sergei feel inadequate somehow.
It was more than obvious that this timeline had many more advancements than his did. More than likely due to several wars and skirmishes this timeline had fought that his hadn’t. War often spurred developments.
Sergei marveled at their rocket programs, and the fact they had orbital habitats and construction facilities. It doubly impressed him that the Soviets of this time line had even established a mining colony on several of the larger asteroids.
Sergei knew he had to get back to his proper world with the data he had collected. It did sort of surprise him at first that the Soviet Special Agents didn’t pay closer attention to him. Apparently he had convinced them that he was as loyal to the … Russians, as they were called here, as he was to his Soviets.
Using the same devices as before, Sergei managed to collect many secrets on many types of weapons and delivery systems unknown to his timeline. The bigger issue was what had happened in his timeline that had prevented them from opening a return portal. Try as he might, he had found no indication of any type of research into interdimensional travels, except in fiction stories.
He really wished he knew more about the portal tech, but he could swear that many of the engine components of the FTL drive were very much like …. YES!! Like a bolt out of the blue, it dawned on him. That was why they wanted the data on the FTL drive. One part of it was just the preliminary, with the second part redirecting the energies in another direction.
He wouldn’t need much to build one either. One of those unused factory warehouses would work perfectly and already have the necessary equipment to build the required items. The only real issue was building the proper equipment and utilizing it without being caught. This was an obstacle he couldn’t overcome. He would need a complete highly specialized team to pull it off, and there was no way … unless he shared what he knew with them.
Well, what would be wrong with that? What if they’d be interested in what he attempted to build? He was no physicist, but what if the Russians had some he could borrow? Maybe he could get them to help him build a device to portal himself home in exchange for having the device once he didn’t need it anymore? He left his room to go talk to some of his … handlers, he supposed they were.
------------------------------
“You think he’d really go to the Russian consulate?” asked Underwood. He and Anna were watching a bank of monitors linked to the many security cameras they had all around the consulate, and some few of them inside it. They both knew that the Russians had discovered some of the cameras and left them there, so they could stage false conversations and give the Americans misinformation. They also knew that some of the cameras were actually undiscovered. The art was in knowing which were which.
“I think he’d have no choice,” said Anna. “Given an unfamiliar world with unfamiliar countries, he’d pick the least unfamiliar. And he’d think that his old Soviet codes would give him some sort of ace in the hole. Couple that with the fact that there’s another version of him here, and he’s probably still there.” Anna pointed to a monitor showing this world’s Saprykin walking down the street near the consulate, He was in disguise with a wig and false mustache, but Underwood noticed that she picked him out instantly despite never having seen this world’s Saprykin before. Clearly she was a highly trained agent and had encountered her world’s Saprykin in the past.
“But the Russians aren’t our enemies here,” said Underwood. “I mean, yes, we keep them under surveillance, but every nation does that with every other nation. It’s just expected. Everyone wants to know what everyone else is up to.”
“So is it possible that Saprykin … the agent from my world … may not have any information that the Russians of this world actually want?” pondered Anna. “You’ve got interdimensional portal technology that works; I’m living proof of that.”
“It’s not exactly … interdimensional,” said Underwood, “but … oh, never mind. I’m not Dr. Kirck. I don’t understand it.”
“But no,” said Anna, “he’s of interest to them or they wouldn’t have him. And he is there. He must be. There’s nowhere else for him. So what do they want from him? Wait … that’s it … it has to be! That’s why they want him!” She stood up.
“What? What do you know?” asked Underwood.
“He’s the same as the other Saprykin,” Anna said. “He’s got to be genetically identical to him. Every scientific test will show him to be the same person.”
“You think they plan to …?” Underwood began.
“Of course!” Anna said. “And if anyone has suspicions … he was somewhere else in plain sight! The perfect alibi! And that’s why they haven’t let him out of the consulate in all these months. They don’t want anybody to know there are two Saprykins.”
“Except … we do,” said Underwood. “And we can make use of the fact that they don’t know we know.”
“So in exchange for his help, they’d help him get home,” said Anna, “and we’ll have to stop him before that happens.”
“I’ll help you if you help us,” said Underwood.
“Deal,” Anna said. “Mutual assistance pact. I have no reason to help this world’s Russians, or anybody else, really, and I’d like to stop our Saprykin from getting away with your world’s technology. Meanwhile, I know my world and I know how he thinks. He’s probably already talking to them about setting up a portal to send him home. You, meanwhile, probably don’t want more of this world-crossing happening. It’s dangerous and destabilizing.”
“Got that right,” said Underwood.
------------------------------
“You showed them how to what?” asked Dr. Blake.
“Build autophage rocket engines,” said David. “Something we should probably have tried back at that stage. But we’re beyond that technology now. But wow, I’m glad you got me out of there when you did. They’d taken away the captured portal tech. I didn’t have any way to contact you anymore. I guess Dr. Kirck and her team figured out how to zoom in on me.”
“They did,” said Dr. Blake. “You and they had communicated so many times that they had a really good sampling of your … energy signature or something? I know about space; I don’t know what she knows about these … duon particles, duon quantum tensor field, whatever. What I do know is that one of the energy transmission stages within the FTL shuttle’s engine resonates with the duon field. We thought at first that the Soviet agents in the other phase had chosen you to bring back, to counterbalance sending their agent – but when they failed to bring him back, that showed that they didn’t know about that. So now we think it was the shuttle’s FTL engine, reacting to the backlash from their sending their agent, that was responsible for the phenomenon.”
“It picked someone on the FTL shuttle, and I guess it turned out to be me,” said David. “I guess if there hadn’t been an FTL shuttle in operation at the moment, sending the agent wouldn’t have worked in the first place. But what do we do now?”
“Well, we have to get your friend Anna back home,” said Dr. Blake.
“The other phase … it was looking pretty scary,” David said.
“You mean, with the tensions with Russia?” asked Dr. Blake.
“The Soviet Union was starting to attack the USA,” David said, “despite the fact that they had super primitive aircraft compared to the ones I was showing them how to make. I think they thought the USA was going to attack them so they had to attack first.”
“You were destabilizing that world just by knowing what you knew,” said Dr. Blake. “Imagine if Dr. Kirck went to that world, or even worse, an actual engineer.”
------------------------------
Saprykin One sat totally disgusted after the last meeting with higher officials. It was totally incredible the Russians of this timeline had so little interest in what he offered them. The High Council of Science listened with polite, seeming interest in how the Vasimer / Plasma FTL motor could be adapted. They asked what seemed to Saprykin to be very pertinent questions. They were extremely interested in a few of the math equations, but other than that, the other data raised little interest.
There was one ray of hope. Saprykin had managed to convince a super wealthy type to fund a small endeavor to build a small portal device. Allan Most, the richest philanthropist in this duon, was very willing to fund the research and endeavor. The next step was finding a place. Du Miksk Manufacturing was perfect. The equipment and construction floors were still either totally intact, or in need of only minor repairs.
The scientific staff and equipment were easy. It appeared scientists from all around the globe wanted to be involved. As Saprykin went about the daily business of the admin for a scientific R&D department, he began to feel like all the others knew something he didn’t and were secretly talking behind his back. Finally, he called a conference; attendance was mandatory. A few high-minded professors thought differently, but learned fast when they received their termination papers and a swift armed escort from the premises.
The huge, multi-tiered conference room was filled almost to capacity. The soft murmur of voices filled the room with a quiet wave of voices that rose and fell. When Saprykin walked out to the podium, it became so silent you could have heard a pin drop.
Saprykin adjusted the mic, then said, “Welcome to Interplanetary Incorporated. As all of you already know, my name’s Saprykin. I am the head of this particular endeavor. Now, it has come to my attention that most, if not all, of you know something I don’t and are are taking great pleasure in making me the butt of the joke … now, you will tell me this big secret, or I will have you all shot.”
About that time, a large contingent of armed Russian military arrived, and the crowd had no escape except into the muzzles of many .50 calibers.
One young woman stood and snorted with disgust, “You mean to tell me it isn’t a joke? You really don’t know, do you? The thing you’re attempting to do right now is being perfected by an international coalition as we speak to be used as a transportation system to any location within the database, instantly. Nothing you’re attempting to do is groundbreaking nor earth shattering. Technically, it’s old news.”
Saprykin was speechless for about half a second. But as a highly trained agent, he was skilled at thinking on his feet. He laughed. “Of course it was a joke! Always open with a joke, they say.” There was only a smattering of lukewarm laughter. “I plan to go even farther. I plan to make this worldwide. Imagine a transportation network that eliminates every car, truck, bus, plane, and ship. Imagine roads and airports, even public transportation, completely obsolete. Freight instantly transported from source to destination. People transported from home to office – or to see family on the other side of the globe. This will literally change the world.”
There was a stunned silence as people thought about that. Saprykin realized that he had recovered, at least in the eyes of the audience. He’d have to think about how to recover from his serious miscalculation about the value of his knowledge later.
“He’s terrible at jokes, but that’s a brilliant idea,” he heard one person in the audience say.
------------------------------
Saprykin Two, meanwhile, had his own mission. He was going over the video and audio clips recorded by the various self-destructing surveillance devices he’d been planting all over the various NASA offices at Cape Canaveral and in Washington, DC. He was listening to the voice of David, wherever he went, describing the world that he’d returned from. The microphones and cameras were now all smoke and dust, and if anyone had managed to spot him planting them, all the consulate had to do was point at the spectacle that his other-world self was making at his pointless conference somewhere else in plain sight.
So, it was a world where World War II had never happened, and in fact it was slightly time-shifted so that it was 1947 there. The USSR was slightly different from what it had been here, and someone named “Joe Stallin” was in charge. There was a League of Nations instead of a United Nations. Instead of Germany, there was a Rhineland, whose leader was someone named Adolpho Hitler, instead of Adolf Hatler. That was all very interesting, but what of value was there? He got up from the hardened laptop computer that he was using to view all of this and walked around the room, trying to calm his frustration.
Wait. He stopped. He went to one of the video clips and played it again. David spoke about the Soviet scientists from the other phase and their equipment, the equipment that had transferred the other Saprykin here and transported David to that other phase. He spoke about how the other scientists had said that it was unlike any Soviet technology they’d ever seen. He spoke about how his company’s contacts in the American government of that world had no knowledge that the Soviets had been working on any such technology.
Saprykin began to have a sneaking suspicion.
His phone rang. “Yes?”
“Mr. Saprykin,” said a receptionist. He knew her; she would only be calling him at this time if there were a sensitive diplomatic matter that somehow involved him. That meant that he had somehow been identified on one of the security cameras as he had been planting his surveillance devices. That in turn meant that something unexpected had happened, as he had been very careful to avoid all known security cameras. She went on, “There are some high-level American officials making some fairly serious allegations against you. But rather than going through channels, they’ve come to see you in person. They’re in your office on the fifth floor.”
That was unusual as well. Did they know he had a double? They must. “I will be there in five minutes.”
------------------------------
“Mr. … Saprykin,” said Special Agent Underwood, rising to shake his hand. “If I may use that name for you today.”
“Ah, Special Agent Underwood,” Saprykin said, entering his office and shaking hands with the American agent. “That name will be sufficient. I believe we have a matter to discuss. And I believe you may know something that I had not thought you knew, or you would not be here but instead would be going through diplomatic channels.”
“I think so,” said Underwood. “And I doubt you would have agreed to see us if you didn’t have something of mutual interest to discuss with me.”
“I may,” Saprykin said. But then he turned to Anna. “And … I am unfamiliar with you. I make it my business to know all American field agents. Impressive that I have not seen you before.”
“Anna Phillips,” Anna said, shaking Saprykin’s hand. It was subtle, but she could tell that this was not the Saprykin of her world, whom she’d met and studied. He was more businesslike, less clandestine.
“Agent Phillips is in … a different agency,” said Underwood. “We have reason to believe that you know the whereabouts of, shall we say, a body double of yourself who arrived in a most unusual way.”
“I may or may not know of such a person,” Saprykin said, leaning against his desk. “But … you are undoubtedly here because of some recent activities of mine. Let me tell you of a suspicion that has just formed in my mind as a result. I am telling you this even before I have informed my superiors, because I have suspicions about why you are here as well.”
“By all means, go on,” said Underwood.
“David Legette seems to have the opinion that the Soviet Union of the other … phase, as I believe the scientific terminology has it, was not pursuing portal technology, nor was the captured Soviet equipment anything like any other Soviet technology currently in development,” explained Saprykin.
Anna and Underwood looked at each other in astonishment. “With everything that’s been going on,” said Underwood …
“... we’d overlooked that detail,” said Anna. “I mean … it’s not as if that was unknown, but … I think I understand your suspicion …”
“Are you suggesting that the Soviets of the other phase … didn’t develop that technology themselves?” asked Underwood. “It would explain why they were unable to retrieve their asset; perhaps they weren’t as familiar with the technology as someone who had really developed it would have been. Could someone else have given it to them?”
“Someone from this world,” said Anna, “or perhaps even from yet another phase?”
“The possibilities are numerous,” said Saprykin, “but, as I said, it is only a suspicion, and I have no real evidence of it, let alone further information. However, considering how disruptive the incident it caused has been to both this phase and the other, I must conclude that if this suspicion is correct, there is another player in this game, one who wishes to see us all lose. And we have all been their pawns.” Metaphor was not his forte, but all three of them were thinking furiously about what to do if Saprykin Two’s suspicion was correct.
------------------------------
“The American government is apologizing for a missile test gone awry,” said the BBC news anchor. “Penetrating deep into Soviet territory, it hit and exploded at this location, precisely at the third corner of a triangle whose other two corners are at Leningrad and Moscow. For commentary we turn to foreign policy expert Henry Wonk.”
“Thank you, Phyllis. Fortunately, the missile carried only conventional explosives and not a nuclear warhead, and fortunately it landed in an abandoned stone quarry, so there was no loss of life or even significant property damage. Although the Soviets are understandably furious about this violation of their airspace, the Americans are still in a strong diplomatic position considering the unprovoked violation of American airspace last month by a nuclear-armed Soviet airborne battalion. If it had not been shot down over the sea, it could have caused a nuclear conflict. As it is, the Americans have warned the Soviets that their airspace is not secure and that they can in fact target their missiles with unprecedented precision.”
“You think there’s evidence of that?” asked the anchor. “They missed, didn’t they?”
“This ‘miss’ was deliberate, Phyllis,” said the expert. “That target location was precisely at the third corner of an equilateral triangle formed with the exact centers of Leningrad and Moscow. Stallin must have been advised of how precise this so-called accident really was. But let’s hope this is the last round of saber rattling – if the United States had wanted to strike at Moscow with a nuclear warhead, they clearly could have done so, and again, the world would have seen a nuclear conflict the likes of which it has never seen, and I fervently hope will never see. These are tense times, and in my opinion the world stands at the brink of nuclear war.”
------------------------------
It had been many months since Saprykin One had arrived in this duon phase. He had no idea what the situation in his home timeline might be, but certainly the data he had would be very welcome there. After the near miss over the portal construction in this one, the point to point transportation cover went very well. He smiled to himself as he looked over the prototype of the very special Traveler, as it had been named. This particular one was set to the specialty frequency that would take him back home. Soon, he would be back and give the data to the Soviets ...
A large blue ball of energy engulfed Saprykin without warning. The deep ebony darkness of a portal opened and sucked Saprykin and his Traveler in. The entire device vanished with him, leaving no trace that he or it had ever existed. All the workers and scientists stood with wide-eyed, open-mouthed incredulity over what they had just witnessed. The device hadn’t even been activated yet. One of the professors had the presence of mind to hit a large red button on a counter. Immediately alarms began to sound as yellow lights began to strobe …
------------------------------
In Moscow of the other phase, the leaders of the Soviet regime were seriously sweating. What they thought was going to be a massive nuclear sneak attack had turned into one of the most expensive disasters in the country’s history. Current losses had yet to be tallied, but according to immediate estimates they had lost over 99% of their total nuclear capabilities. All that was left were those extremely expensive solid fueled ballistic rockets with explosive payloads and a few gravity nukes.
The fact that they couldn’t hit the broad side of a mountain with one of those rockets if it were painted red didn’t matter. They loaded those missiles with very large high yield explosive warheads of mass destruction. Didn’t matter if they missed by 50 or 60 miles, they would still come close to their intended target, and close was fine this time. But what the Soviets had yet to see in action were the anti-missile cannons. Even this assault was ill-conceived at best, although they didn’t yet know that.
The Soviet missile station received the word to launch. As with any model rocket, the tech pushed the launch button, and the nichrome igniter did its job to the solid fuel mixture in the missile as it left the launch rack in a plume of exhaust smoke. Many of these missiles all fired at the same time, making a huge gray cloud that darkened the already dim sky of the day.
The world held its breath as they saw the launch on their radars. As soon as the missiles had reached a certain imaginary line, the roofs of those very strange dome buildings America had been building so many of opened. An extremely futuristic missile rack extended, along with a radar array. The fast-tracking servos locked onto each missile with scary precision.
A line of smoke from the missile rack showed not rockets, but the Auto-Cannon, with a super sophisticated computer system in control. The Soviet missiles became rapidly moving debris as the 100 thousand rounds a minute slammed into them. Radioactive debris rained down, but at least there were no nuclear explosions.
------------------------------
“Excuse me, but my double is WHERE?” asked the agent we’ve labeled Saprykin Two, the one who originated in David’s home phase.
“We don’t know, Sir,” the assistant replied coolly, showing him the camera footage again. “The device was not yet active, and yet both he and it vanished.”
“Not yet active, you say,” Saprykin said, his fingers on either side of the bridge of his nose, probing for a sinus headache of the sort that tended to appear at times like this. “And the device wasn’t designed to transport itself, then?”
“No, Sir, just its passenger,” replied the assistant.
“Then both my duplicate and his machine were spirited away,” he said, “by person or persons unknown. This is beginning to look like a pattern.”
“Your instructions, Sir?”
“How many sensors and data recorders were active when this took place?” he asked.
“All of them, Sir,” said the assistant. “He was about to test the prototype for the first time.”
“A stroke of luck,” Saprykin said. “I want a copy of all the data from every detector, packaged together with every video we have of the incident, as soon as possible. On an encrypted thumb drive.”
“Right away, Sir,” said the assistant, sending a message with her phone.
------------------------------
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” said Anna, opening the envelope. Underwood had wordlessly handed it to her the day before. Inside was … a thumbdrive. Inserting it into a hardened laptop she’d talked Underwood into giving her a week before, she waited until the system was done scanning it and was then informed that it contained an encrypted filesystem and required a password to access it.
Just then she got a text on her burner phone. It said only, “f0Uv#n7[Pa@mQ38>”. The sender was a random phone number. She entered this password, and the thumbdrive opened. She saw the videos. She saw the data files. Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw Saprykin, doubtless the one from her world, vanishing into what looked like one of those portals, until she also saw his portal device also vanishing. It didn’t take her long to put together what had happened here.
She called Dr. Kirck. Anna had no way to analyze these data files, but she bet Dr. Kirck’s people could.
------------------------------
“Dr. Kirck,” said David, “you wouldn’t happen to have a way to just see into the other phase and tell me what’s going on there, would you? I really worry about all the technology I gave them and what it might be doing to their political stability.”
“No, I’m sorry, Captain Legette, we haven’t managed to achieve that degree of control over the portal,” Dr. Kirck began when her phone rang. “This is Dr. Kirck.”
“Dr. Kirck, it’s me, Anna,” said Anna’s voice.
“Anna,” Dr. Kirck said. “You know we can send you back to your native phase as soon as we get clearance. Has that happened?”
“It’s not that,” Anna said. She explained about the data files she had. “Do you think you could go over them, or have your lab go over them, to see if you can find anything out about what exactly happened?”
“Certainly, send the data to me, or bring it over if you don’t feel secure doing that wirelessly.”
“I’ll be there when I can,” said Anna, buying a plane ticket as they spoke. She hung up.
“What was that about?” asked David. “Was that Anna?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Kirck. “Apparently she’s gotten her hands on some footage showing the agent from her phase vanishing, but she doesn’t think he went back home. She’s got some data taken at the same time. She wants to know if we can find anything out about where he did go. And she says it’s on a thumbdrive, and she’s bringing it to me.”
“Wait, isn’t she in Washington DC, meeting with the FBI?” asked David.
“She sure is,” Dr. Kirck said. “So I expect we’ll see a visit from her in … about 6 hours.”
“Sure wish I knew what was going on in this phase,” said David. “I don’t suppose you have a portal that can show me what’s actually going on in the world I’m in right now, do you?”
Dr. Kirck smiled. “I know what you mean, Captain Legette.”
------------------------------
David was there to meet Anna at the airport. “Oh!” she said. “David! I … you know, I’ve missed you.” It wasn’t even a lie. As far as Anna knew, there was no duplicate of David from her own phase, so it was refreshing to see the guy she’d been housemates with for months – even if she’d technically been spying on him. It wasn’t as if she’d been stealing information from him; he’d been freely sharing it at work every day.
“I realized that I did too, and that’s why I decided I’d come pick you up and give you a ride to the lab,” David said. “We can talk, catch up on old times, and who knows, maybe I can help with … whatever. You said something about that agent?”
“Let’s talk in the car,” Anna said, picking up her single bag from the baggage claim. The thumbdrive was in a secret pocket she’d personally sewn into her clothes that hadn’t been there when she’d entered the airport. Agents had to know how to do a lot of things. If someone had stolen or rifled through her carryon, they wouldn’t have gotten it.
“David … there’s something I have to tell you,” said Anna. “I’m a federal agent.”
“You’re what? I thought you were just a mild-mannered landlady with a hypochondriac brother,” David replied.
“You already knew, didn’t you?” said Anna, her face in a wry smile.
“I had some suspicions,” David said. “It was also possible that you weren’t, and I didn’t want to chase you off by confronting you about it. I figured they’d replace you with some other handler I wouldn’t like as much.”
“You’re saying you like me?” asked Anna.
“I think I just said that, yeah. Oops. Let slip some confidential information.”
“Uh-oh, good thing you’re not a spy.”
“Anyway … I take it you’re after that agent who came here,” said David.
“Not originally,” Anna said. “I’m here because I just happened to be too close to you when Dr. Kirck portaled you back here. That really was an accident. I haven’t been sent home because Agent Underwood and his people at the FBI wanted to find out what I knew first. And then … things happened.”
“Oh, that Underwood guy,” said David. “He’s been all over this. He asked me so many questions as soon as he got a chance. He must have been assigned to this case.”
“Looks that way,” Anna replied. “Anyway … we met an interesting person at the Russian consulate, which it turns out was where the agent from my world has been hiding out, until recently.”
“Recently? Does this have something to do with the data you want Dr. Kirck to analyze?”
“Sure does,” said Anna. “He vanished. And I don’t mean in the we-can’t-find-him sense. He literally vanished. Into a portal that looked a lot like the ones Dr. Kirck has been making. And … so did the machine he’d made, which means someone else took it. And him.”
“Someone … else?”
“David, the Soviets in my world weren’t working on anything like this portal tech, and then suddenly they had it. Like it came out of nowhere. Then they used it, and they weren’t ready when you suddenly arrived in our world as soon as they sent their agent to this world – as if they didn’t know that would happen. And then … when they tried to retrieve him, they didn’t know something very important about the tech that caused it to fail. What does all this tell you?”
“They … they didn’t invent it!” said David. “Somebody gave it to them! And didn’t explain it adequately. Some unknown party left it for them to find, or left them partial information about how to build it.”
“Right, and why would somebody do that?” asked Anna. “I’m still putting the pieces together myself, so that’s not a rhetorical question.”
“Well, they might be someone from this phase, or your phase, or some third phase,” David started. “Their goal might be some kind of political destabilization, though it seems to me as if it’s destabilized your phase more than this one. They might be planning to invade one or both phases, though this seems too complicated – why not just set off a nuclear bomb somewhere and plant evidence to blame somebody for it? It seems like too much could go wrong with this plan.”
“Or there might be more about duon phases that we haven’t discovered yet,” said Anna, “and that’s why we can’t figure it out. This is why Dr. Kirck has to be involved. There are plenty of scientists working on this, but she’s the only one in my Rolodex.”
“What’s a Rolodex?” asked David. “Some kind of watch?”
“Never mind.”
“I was kidding anyway. Those things are still a cultural icon. They’re in lots of old movies.”
“Oh, you!” Anna giggled. “Wait … what if there’s already some kind of cold war between two other duon phases, or even more of them, and this is some kind of chess move in that war?”
“What on Earth would it accomplish, though?” asked David.
“I don’t know yet,” said Anna. “Oh, we’re here. Let’s ask Dr. Kirck.”
------------------------------
After Anna gave Dr. Kirck the data from the thumb drive and they’d all viewed the videos, Dr. Kirck said, “All right. We’ll analyze that data and see what we can determine. Maybe we can get a bead on what the portal parameters were. But for now … I agree, it doesn’t look as if the agent went where he meant to go. That machine was clearly supposed to send him home to Anna’s phase. But before he could even power it up, our unknown friends yanked both him and his machine off to the data knows where, so he’s not back home, or not yet, anyway.”
“Why would somebody even do this?” asked David.
“Well, the things we know or suspect they’ve done are: give the Soviet government incomplete knowledge of duon technology, manipulate them into sending an agent to this phase and sending David to Anna’s phase, manipulate them into being unable to retrieve their agent, and then, months later, steal that agent along with his portal device,” Dr. Kirck thought aloud. “Their objective can’t have been to steal the portal device, can it? They clearly already had one, or how did they send the portal technology to the Soviets of Anna’s phase in the first place? So no, that can’t be it. Maybe it’s the agent himself.”
“The agent himself!” said Anna. “He’s got identical DNA to … uh, someone else. In some third phase. Do they need that for something?”
“What if they grabbed him because he was about to take knowledge about the FTL drive to the other phase,” suggested David. “They didn’t take him until just before he was going to do that.”
“Information control,” said Anna. “Maybe they really don’t want that information to get to my phase, or at least, not into the Soviets’ hands. If that’s the case, though … they wouldn’t have wanted David there, right?”
“You forget,” said David, “I don’t really know how that thing works. I’m no theoretical physicist. I’m a test pilot and an aerospace engineer.”
“So if we really wanted to test this theory,” mused Dr. Kirck, “we’d try to send information about the FTL drive to Anna’s phase in some form. We can try that. All we need to do is print out all the papers about the Vasimer/Alcumberry drive and attempt to send them to Anna’s phase via portal. If something stops us, then we’ll know whether this hypothesis is correct. But first let’s wait for the data analysis.”
------------------------------
The USSR leadership was in a real tizzy. Never had they seen aircraft such as the ones they encountered against the Americans. What transpired with the last of their nuclear arms was uncanny, with trillions of rubettes worth of missile and nuclear equipment lying in a huge radioactive garbage heap created a glaring wake up call.
They started to reevaluate the conventional missile that had been explained as an error and a total miss. The more their recon aerial scans were examined, the more obvious it became that the missile had struck its calculated target straight and true. As many times as the scientists ran the tracking data for the missile, the more the evidence began to conclusively show that the abandoned rock quarry had, in fact, been the missile’s intended target.
The math was checked and rechecked; there was no mistake. America had sent a not so subtle warning: they could have hit Moscow with a nuclear missile if they’d wanted to. Instead, they hit an uninhabited site with a conventional explosive. Therefore they didn’t want to hit Moscow with a nuclear missile. America had clearly stated that they didn’t want a war, but they could give the USSR the war to end all wars if pushed far enough.
The world watched as a sleeping giant awakened and became filled with wrath, but also with a great deal of restraint. The USSR of this duon phase could no longer mount any type of reasonable defense. Almost their entire air force had been eradicated in the fist assault before it could even start.
America mobilized immediately as it flexed muscles the rest of the Earth in this duon phase had yet to realize they had. War machines armed with extremely powerful rapid fire tracking weapons, and autonomously controlled AI began to prove their worth on this battlefield. Only way the Soviets had found to destroy one, is run it out of ordinance. Even then, it was a very extremely risky thing to attempt.
Small drone craft would flash overhead, each armed with a rapid-fire weapon and many small, yet deadly ballistic rockettes. Super Advanced Fighter aircraft that inspired many sci-fi movies proved able to outmaneuver and outfly the fastest prop and piston fighters that remained in the Soviet arsenal.
------------------------------
Very close, but unbelievably far away, another breed of Russia was in a turmoil. They had lost a perfect genetic copy of one of their best resources. Many clandestine operations were scrapped due to their alibi having vanished mysteriously.
At first, Russian scientists believed the USA had used the advanced portal technology that several nations were now known to have. Dr. Kirck carefully analyzed the data, the Russians did too, and Anna acted as the go-between, proving conclusively that some other duon frequency currently unknown to them had caused this issue.
And this highlighted the question that inquiring minds wanted answered – just how had the USSR of Anna’s duon phase arrived at the ability to create a portal type device, even though they didn’t really know the details about how to use it? Now that they had listened to several knowledgeable people ask that same question, and make major comments about the massive frequency mismatch from all duon frequencies known currently to physics …
A great fear rose among the planet’s leadership as invasion conspiracy theories suddenly abounded. The only conclusion was there was another duon phase in the mix for reasons unknown, and they apparently had far better control of the portal than even the USA.
------------------------------
“David, we’ve got a new mission for our best test pilot,” said Dr. Blake. “But this is different from anything you’ve ever flown before, so we’re sending along some mission specialists to handle the new hardware.” He’d summoned David to his office now that the furor about his return had died down and some new developments had been made in the labs.
“Well, I’m up for anything, Ed,” said David, who was sitting by the window. Behind him in the distance, Launch Pad 39A was visible – it had seen so many historic NASA launches over the years, and what looked like the Wildcat FTL shuttle was sitting there, only with redesigned engines. There was an odd metallic glint to the rocket booster nozzles, and the Wildcat itself seemed to be covered in some kind of platinum-toned shiny filigree. “What the heck have you been doing to the Wildcat?”
“Since Dr. Kirck got you back, the engineers have combined the FTL drive with the duon portal technology,” said Dr. Blake. “This thing can match duon phases with any known frequency and even explore unknown phases. They tell me the navigation is insanely complicated, which is why there’s a new multiphase nav computer and a mission specialist to run it.”
“Hi, Captain Legette,” said Dr. Kirck, walking into the room. “Got room for a physicist?”
“Always,” said David. “I was getting a bit worried there, but if you’re coming along, I know we’ve got someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“So your mission, once you achieve Earth orbit, is to test the phase component of the drive system by going to an unknown quantity – the phase we’re calling Anna’s phase,” Dr. Blake explained. “We’ve communicated with it so many times that we’ve got a pretty good lock on its phase frequency. You’ll go there and do a series of observations to make sure you’re in the right place.”
“Sounds straightforward so far,” said David.
“Next, you’ll do the dangerous part,” said Dr. Blake. “After you return to this phase for data transfer, you’ll go to the unknown phase frequency where that Soviet agent from Anna’s world got spirited away to. Here you’re just looking for any information you can find, since we don’t really know what to expect. You’re to return to this phase at the first sign of danger. Don’t be a hero; anything you discover we need to know back here. You can always go back again once we analyze whatever you get.”
“And they’re sending another mission specialist with you,” said Anna, entering the office.
“You’re coming too?” asked David. “I thought you’d be heading back home to your world … not that I’m sorry to see you again.”
“They thought I’d be the logical choice due to knowing my world in addition to knowing my Agent Saprykin better than anyone else around here,” Anna said. “So they talked me into staying long enough to help with some recon.”
“Ever been to space?” David asked Anna.
“That’s classified,” Anna replied.
“That sounds like a yes,” said David. He wondered when she’d managed to sneak onto a space mission, considering that he’d been involved in all of them … unless there had been secret launches that her intelligence organization had been party to. That wasn’t an impossibility. He was now quite certain that the alternate USA’s spooks had been watching everything he’d done very closely while he’d been there. And why wouldn’t they? His advancements were directly improving their national security.
“Can’t confirm or deny,” Anna said with a grin.
------------------------------
David found himself sitting in the pilot’s couch of the Wildcat FTL shuttle once again. It felt really nice to be back in a familiar place. He looked around at the rest of his crew. One way or the other, they were going to discover what had transpired with Anna’s Saprykin.
When his eyes fell on Anna he said over the comms, “Maybe it’s classified, but I can tell this is your first ride.” He could see it in the expression of her face, visible through her helmet’s faceplate.
Anna smiled weakly as she admitted, “Yes, this is my first flight. And to think, you’re the whole reason it’s possible.”
David replied with a laugh, “Barring anyone snatching me from my seat, I promise to keep it safe.”
The launch controller’s voice came over shipwide comms, saying, “Attention … countdown T-minus 60 seconds and counting.”
David went through a flurry of button pressing and lever pulling. “Hold on to your shorts, people. This is going to be fast and dirty.” That was just how the Wildcat flew, and he knew it, having launched in it over a dozen times previously. It had been pretty rough the first couple of times, but the engineers had improved it slightly each time – however, it was still like riding a wild horse, or so he assumed. Wild horses weren’t actually something he’d ridden.
When the countdown clock hit zero, David flipped the enable button, and the acceleration told all of them the tale of their journey into Earth orbit. David carefully watched the readouts on the panels as he felt the familiar sensation of being pressed backward into his seat. But the launch went properly; the primary boosters fell away as planned, and the secondary engines completed the orbital insertion.
David saw that everything checked out on the readouts. “Mission Control, reading all green on orbit trajectory,” said David.
“Roger that, Wildcat,” came the launch controller. “You are cleared for phase transition.”
“Roger,” said David. “Talk to you when we’re back.”
The control deck was almost the same as it had always been, but now there were several new panels for duon-related maneuvers, which Dr. Kirck was monitoring. “Guess it’s my turn now,” she said, turning a rheostat to a well-known frequency on one of the new panels. A huge ball of blue energy engulfed the ship, and a blacker than black hole opened in the middle of the energy ball’s reality. When the ball of energy dissipated, the ship was gone.
Instantly, the ship appeared in another reality.
Dr. Kirck began running her sensors and scanners. She turned and said happily, “You’ll all be glad to know we’re now in Anna’s phase. The energy ranges are all in the proper frequencies.”
Anna felt a bit useless, as she had nothing to do while everyone else was suddenly very busy. David began taking orbital readings, the computers performed several scans of the alternate Earth, and Dr. Kirck took readings of the duon state of the ship and its surroundings, things that Anna couldn’t understand, and David didn’t either.
“All right, all my readings are recorded,” David said. “Anna, is the computer done?”
Anna could tell that David was trying to help her feel useful, as he could probably have just looked at it himself, but she looked at the screen and replied, “Yes, scans complete.”
Dr. Kirck added, “I’ve collected all my data as well. Time to report back?”
“Affirmative,” said David.
Dr. Kirck once again adjusted the frequency modulator panel and hit the enable switch. In a bright blue flash of energy, the ship returned to its place in orbit around David’s Earth.
“Duon phase matches expected value,” said Dr. Kirck. “All the readings well within normal range.”
David replied, “Alcumberry/ Vasimer plasma drive functioned above and beyond expectations. OK. Calling Mission Control.” He flipped a switch. “Control, this is Wildcat. First part of mission a complete success. Sending you the data dump now.”
Dr. Kirck transmitted all the data to Mission Control’s receivers.
“Copy that, Wildcat. Data received and stored. You are go for phase two.”
David replied, “Copy that, Control, phase two a go.”
Dr. Kirck said, “Setting to new frequency 45991.” She hit the enable switch. Once again, when the large blue sphere of energy dissipated, the shuttle was gone.
It instantly appeared in another place. As before, David and Dr. Kirck took readings while the ship’s multispectrum cameras and sensors scanned the planet. The pictures they got astounded them. The planet was studded with cityscapes that were so far advanced that their minds boggled. There were even large cities visibly floating in the air like clouds, impressing everyone on the Wildcat crew.
A voice came over the ship’s comm that shocked everyone. “Welcome to Gaia, Wildcat shuttle. We have been expecting you – for a great many years, in fact.”
David replied, “This is Wildcat. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking? You may already know this, but we are of another … space-time continuum. We come in peace and hope to gather some useful data and get to know you and your people.”
Anna leaned over and whispered horsely, “David, I know people don’t know the sound of their own voice, but that’s … you on the comms.”
David almost wet his jockeys. He said to the person on comm, “You – you’re David Legette, Captain, US Space Command.”
The reply came with a laugh, “I am David Legette, but this is Orbital Traffic Command, and I’m the one who was appointed to meet you when you finally got here. Welcome. You’re cleared for landing – transmitting coordinates now. A group of engineers will be there shortly to aid you out of the shuttle. You and I have a great deal to talk about.”
------------------------------
The landing had been picture-perfect, and there had been no strange phase-shifting incidents; David found himself having memory flashbacks at the moment when it had happened earlier, but they landed normally at a facility that was super-advanced. The shuttle landed horizontally on wheeled landing gear, but the surface was incredibly smooth and resilient, and there was some kind of force that braked the vehicle much more quickly and smoothly than usual.
In the moments after landing, David said, “Now, I’m an experienced astronaut, and I can tell very clearly that we didn’t feel anything like the G-forces we should’ve, decelerating that fast.”
Dr. Kirck replied, “That’s … astounding. That shouldn’t be physically possible, and yet it just happened. More evidence of this Earth’s scientific advancement.”
Anna added, “I recommend we all assume we’ve just been welcomed into the spider’s parlor. These are the people who arranged to send my world’s Saprykin to your world, send David to my world, and pulled Saprykin here, where he still is, as far as we know. They may seem friendly, and they may have their version of David, but we don’t know their motivations, and until we do, we can’t trust them. Let’s be diplomatic, but they’re manipulators with unknown goals.” Anna suddenly felt useful again. This was her element: dealing with mysterious adversaries. What did they want? Why had they done what they had done? What had Saprykin told them?
“Agreed,” said David, performing standard post-flight checks out of a matter of course. He figured the best thing to do was the expected procedure – no point in behaving oddly to raise any suspicions that he didn’t trust them.
“I’ve already learned a lot about their science,” Dr. Kirck said. “Enough to write a dozen papers. But will they let me leave to write them, I wonder?”
“Here they are,” Anna said. In the viewports and viewscreens they could see an automated stairway levitating into position by the hatch. Several uniformed people, probably the engineers who had been mentioned, were walking toward the shuttle.
Once all the checks were done, David unbuckled himself from his flight seat and moved to open the hatch, just as he or one of the other crew would after any other landing. “Well,” he said to the approaching engineers, trying to be friendly, “always good to meet new folks. I’m told we’re expected.”
There were five of them, and the engineer in the lead said, “You sure are, Captain Legette. I’m Flight Squad Seven Lead Engineer Gene Alumbro, and these are Engineers Salazar, Hue, Giradian, and Foss. It’s an honor. Have to admit I really want to get a look at your vehicle. I love seeing how other people get things to work.”
David emerged from the shuttle and accepted the engineers’ help removing his helmet. “Help yourself,” he said. “Looks like you’ve got lots better stuff anyway.”
“I wouldn’t say better,” said Gene. “I’d say different. Yes, we’ve seen people from a lot of different phases, and because of that we know that maybe we’re more advanced in some areas, but others are advanced in other ways. For example, these suits you’ve got. We’ve got a different way to go about life support, so in terms of suits, this is better than what we’ve got.”
“How do you do life support in space, then?” David asked.
“We’ve got more of an automated approach,” said Gene. “More of a self-mobile cabin with controllable exterior toolsets. Shirtsleeve environment in the vehicle cabin with sub-enclosures that deploy in case of depressurization.”
“Interesting,” said David. “But point taken – different history, different developments. I suppose you’ve got this kind of FTL drive already.” They had descended the staircase, while the other engineers were helping Anna and Dr. Kirck out of the shuttle.
“Yeah, that was developed after the duon phase portal, about 80 years ago,” said Gene. “But on a base level it’s the same tech we use today. Though as with anything, it’s gotten more energy-efficient and compact with time.”
They continued their engineering small-talk, but the engineers were clearly eager to bring them indoors. The sky above was a deep blue with few clouds, clearly different from both David and Anna’s worlds. “Well, here we go, time for the big entrance,” said Gene, leading them to a large entrance with transparent doors. They could tell that several people were assembled inside to greet them.
------------------------------
When the doors were opened and they were escorted inside, what they expected wasn’t what greeted them. The huge room was decorated with many balloons, streamers, and a huge banner that said, “Welcome.” There were many people inside, who all began cheering and applauding all at the same time.
David looked around open-mouthed and wide-eyed. The place looked more like a huge celebration or party than a meeting of strangers. The tables were laid out with many choices of foods and drinks, many of which no one had ever seen before.
A general with many medals on his immaculate uniform entered the room, came to the place the mic had been set up, and beckoned for the group to approach. Anna almost wet her panties as she realized the general was David … but she expertly hid her surprise. She turned and looked at the David in her group.
David put his hand on her arm gently and said softly, “I know, I know. We need to talk to him, like he said. Might clear up some of this ... unusual circumstance.”
Before the group could get to the mic, another individual had been brought in. This man was in shackles and handcuffs along with being very well guarded with armed escorts.
Anna gasped out in surprise, “Agent Saprykin!”
He had heard her and looked up and said with a sneering lilt, ”Well, well, if it isn’t Agent Anna Phillips. Should have known it would be you coming after me. So far, you’re the only one who ever thwarted me or almost caught me, except for these guys, who have a real serious advantage …”
That was when General Legette had reached the group and extended his hand to the other David, saying, “Welcome. I must say it is a very odd sensation to greet oneself this way.”
Captain Legette took the general’s hand and shook it warmly. “I have to agree. Who would have ever thought or believed?”
General Legette said, “Well, relax and enjoy yourself for now. Drink Klugh and make sleemorph. I will explain everything shortly, and I know you won’t believe that either.”
Anna said, “Well, how about if I and this handsome man partake of some of these celebrations?” She took Captain Legette by the elbow. “I would ask that you not allow Agent Saprykin there out of your sight.”
General Legette cut his eyes and looked angrily at Agent Saprykin. “Trust me. For all the time, resources, and energy wasted searching for the proper one of him, I’ll not allow this one to go pee without armed escorts.”
Captain Legette and his crew snorted a quick laugh as they wandered off and were welcomed by the throng. David and his party rapidly realized that they were the guests of honor as they were congratulated and offered many toasts to their health.
David was glad that out of all the drinks he had consumed, none appeared to be poisoned or alcoholic. He did notice that General Legette made himself easily accessible the whole time. It did kind of put Captain Legette at ease, but he was still leary.
Time passed, and the general came to David. “Come to my office. Bring the rest of your group. I do have things to tell you and a rather large apology to make.” He didn’t give any of them time to ask any questions as he led them from the large banquet hall into a smaller and a much quieter antechamber at the end of a long hallway.
Off in one corner was some type of energy cage or something of the sort. Within, Agent Saprykin sat sullenly, still handcuffed and shackled. His armed escorts were standing attentively round about.
The general said, “Now, for a wee bit of explanation. First off, each place we have traveled has been for the explicit purpose to repair a serious breach in time.”
Dr. Kirck asked with a seriously amazed tone, “You can travel in time?”
General Legette smiled as he replied, “I see you haven’t yet figured it out. Depending on which frequency and spin on the bonded duons, you can basically travel forward or backward … but you can also travel skewed.”
Dr. Kirck said, “Tell me about skewed.”
The general waved his arms in a slow sweeping arch, “That’s the part you already know – traveling across time from one parallel timeline to another. You can follow any path of deviation your mind can think of.”
David asked, “OK, fine, so how is it you’ve been expecting us here for ... I think it’s 80 years?”
The general offered each of them a seat in a very plushy chair. “My civilization had just invented a device that produced certain quantum bonds and energy transfers. The engine worked quite well until one day we had some type of celestial event that bombarded our system with high energy. The interaction of the two energy waves opened a portal through which the drone was taken to another time zone and alternate reality, where it crashed. Before we discovered to which it had gone, the crashed drone had been recovered by the indigenous population and some of its internal mechanisms repaired.”
Dr. Kirck said, “That explains why they couldn’t recover him.”
David was confused, “What?”
Anna whispered to him, “He’s talking about my world. The device the Soviets found. They didn’t send it there deliberately. It was lost there by accident.”
The general said sadly, “The first few times around, Agent Saprykin’s people did recover him, causing them to develop their own duon technology, which they used unwisely, and that created a huge anomaly – a paradox in time. As we managed to slowly correct the damage we discovered time is more fluid than we ever thought and had things we called ripples. The very last thing we had to do was stop Agent Saprykin and his reworked portal device. Because of skewed travel and the ripples it caused to traverse that way, created many instances, but there was only a particular one we needed to stop. If we missed again, time would once again be out of phase, while knowledge would get out to those areas not destined to ever create them.”
“Wait, the first few times around?” asked David.
“Basically, his people got lucky,” said the general. “They didn’t figure out how the portal device properly worked – they just happened to use it at the right time again, just as they did when they sent him. That meant that someone from his world went to another world at the moment that world’s people were making use of a duon transport device of one sort or another. Using the technology for time travel, skew travel, or faster-than-light jumps, anything like that allows an imbalanced device to function at that moment.”
“So that meant that someone working near a functioning duon device would be transferred,” said Dr. Kirck. “And who in Anna’s world would have been near such a device? Only someone who was experimenting with that technology.”
“Yes,” said the general. “So at that moment one of the scientists in Anna’s USSR or America, usually, would suddenly be transferred to another world. This would then upset the destination world’s timeline. Not to mention the damage to Anna and Saprykin’s world’s timeline when Saprykin came back with the FTL shuttle schematics.”
“So you found a way to fix it, didn’t you?” Dr. Kirck asked. “And it didn’t work as you expected, so you had to try again?”
“We didn’t fully understand skew travel or the ripples it created at the time,” replied the general. “We tried interfering with the timeline, preventing an experiment in the nation of Rheinland from happening at the same moment. But we didn’t check the USA. So The second time was the same – an American from Anna’s world was sent to yet another timeline. So we had to fix that too, resetting things, and the third time we managed to alter the timetable of both the Rheinland and American experiments – and that time, the Soviet attempt failed.”
“I believe I see,” said Dr. Kirck. “In each of those cases, David was already in Anna’s world, but when Saprykin returned, someone from Anna’s world went to some other timeline, not to our world. That restored the balance, and as a result David was then stranded.”
“Yes,” the general said. “As opposed to now, when both your worlds are still imbalanced. Anna’s world is still missing both Anna and Saprykin, and your world has those two extra people. Dr. Kirck, you managed to increase the imbalance by pulling both David and Anna through. And I believe you might be able to teach our physicists something, actually – because there were several intervals when we couldn’t detect either you or Captain Legette. We suspect you created a temporary interstitial pocket dimension.”
“It was just a matter of extending the uncertainty in the virtual duon quantum state that already exists,” replied Dr. Kirck. “Does the imbalance pose a problem?”
“An unbalanced universe is a universe that allows skew travel far more easily,” said the general. “Basically you invite intrusions from elsewhere. As long as Anna and Saprykin are gone from their world, that world is potentially an easy target for invasions from other timelines … if anyone is looking and notices. As long as the skewed drone from our world is in Anna’s world, that also contributes. And as long as you, David, and the Wildcat shuttle are gone from your world, your world is in imbalance as well.”
“Then as long as we’re all here, this world is too,” said Anna.
“Yes, but we have technology to detect skew intrusions and defend ourselves from them,” said the general.
“But why have you been expecting us all this time?” asked David.
“Because of your next experiment,” the general replied.
“Huh?” David asked, not understanding.
Dr. Kirck nodded. “I believe what he means is that there will be a failure in the next transfer experiment, one that results in sending people, a drone, or even just a message to this world, at some point in the past.”
The general smiled. “To say more would be telling. But there’s another way to restore the balance.”
“Of course – it’s all about mass-energy,” said Dr. Kirck. “We just transfer the right amount of mass-energy to each timeline, not necessarily the people, and they become balanced again.”
“Yes, and much more difficult to reach – at least by accident,” the general replied. “With effort we managed to disentangle Anna and Saprykin’s timeline, 2A, from timelines 18137C and 2845D, but at this point there’s no way to disentangle 17B – yours, Dr. Kirck and Captain Legette. But we can still bring them back into balance.”
“But Saprykin can’t make it back to my world!” objected Anna. “The Soviets can’t have the FTL drive technology!”
“No, that would be destabilizing to timeline 2A,” agreed the general. “Until that is, that timeline discovers that technology itself. That will happen sooner or later, because the USA in 2A now has the repaired drone remains, so it’s only a matter of time until they discover its ramifications.”
“Um, won’t that be a timeline where madmen like Hatler have FTL drives?” asked David.
“Every timeline has its dangerous individuals,” said General Legette. “And by the time he gets his hands on the technology, a democracy like the USA will have had it for a long time. However … it needs people like Anna. Their world is only as balanced as it is because of people like her.”
“Our USA has a lot of talented and dedicated individuals like myself,” said Anna. “But yes … I will have to get home, as soon as I can be sure that Saprykin isn’t going to wreck things with what he knows. But I have a question … what is your interest in all of this? What do you get out of smoothing out rough patches in time like this?”
General Legette smiled, “I see. You don’t yet understand.” he typed on a small device seemingly made into the desk. Many complicated mathematical formulas, schematic diagrams, and a computer generated frequency map appeared. He turned and continued, “Your duon time line is 80 years in the past in relative position in the cosmological order compared to our location within the same river.”
Dr Kirck asked, “You call the time stream a river? I thought it was more like an energy wave.”
The general replied, “A wave would be sort of different, in that the leading edge would be a tremendous energy wall of some sort that would constitute the spike for a wave. However, from what our research on the time stream shows, it’s more like a huge all-inclusive flatline river with eddies, currents, and ripples leading off to infinite locations.”
Dr Kirck said, “OK, so what exactly tipped you off that we would be here? I must say it sent a huge thrill through all of us that you know who we are.”
The general replied, “I can’t actually reveal more without creating yet another anomaly. I will say this – the fact that I’m still here and that you arrived tells me that we’ve corrected the timeline enough that it isn't going to cause the eradication of most of the earth if left on its own. All the duon time continua will more or less continue as originally, with a few minor changes and adaptations to the new reality.”
Dr Kirck asked, “Hold on just a bit. You said most of the earth eradicated. How can you have started trying to fix things if the past that is the foundation of the future had changed radically … or even in minor ways?”
The general hit several keys on the desktop. The image changed to a complicated drawing of several planets and their associated locations in space and time.
“We have the same issues with three-body equations as the other duon phases do. We have discovered that time flows like a river. It also has tributaries, backwashes, and simple ripples. By the time all the mess began, before the war that almost entirely destroyed two worlds – some of our more dramatic scientists call it a time tsunami – began due to the radical changes in the past …”
Captain Legette interrupted to ask, “How did you manage to escape the massive carnage that had to cause?”
General Legette replied, “Technically, at first, I didn’t.” The other’s mouths fell open and their eyes got large as saucers – were they talking to a ghost? As if it wasn’t weird enough having two Davids in the same room. “I’m not exactly sure, but there is a backwash safety location we found through exploration. For some reason we have yet to understand, the command center is located in a local pocket of sidereal skewed time. It took our team several tries at repair before I returned to the scene. After the last two tries, however, it appears three time’s the charm, because you arrived as you're supposed to have. As far as the ripples, backwashes, and eddies, I’m not really sure if we fixed it all exactly, but close enough that the timeline should proceed more or less along the same path. We do have this back eddy we’re currently in as a safe haven, where the time issues didn’t happen. Good thing too, or not much would have been left. We have recordings we could show you, if you choose.”
They viewed the recordings. There was one ripple where half the Earth slid into another timeline, exposing the planet’s core and causing cataclysmic destruction as the rest of the planet’s gravity pulled it back into a spherical shape. There was another where there was merely a thermonuclear exchange that contaminated most of the Earth’s surface with radioactive fallout – hugely destructive, but not on the same scale. In another ripple, the Moon’s orbit was destabilized, causing it to crash into the Earth, which was bad enough, but the impact altered the Earth’s orbit too and set it on course for an eventual collision with Venus. They didn’t see that collision, though, because the people of timeline 1 had managed to smooth out that ripple and prevent it from occurring.
“Of these events,” said the general, “only these recordings remain. Those timelines no longer exist, as they were prevented. They only ever occurred because of imbalances. So … that’s the long way of answering your question about why we try to smooth out these imbalances in time. Because if we don’t, this happens. To us, or to someone else.”
“Why did a thermonuclear war happen as a result of a time imbalance?” asked Anna.
“The imbalance caused an excision in a city whose nation was on one side of an already-tense nuclear cold war situation,” explained the general. “You also saw a major excision that cut away almost half the Earth – well, this was a relatively minor one; only about 1000 cubic kilometers were excised. But as that included most of a city, that nation considered it an attack and blamed their enemy, launching their missiles, and of course their enemy launched theirs. By the time the fallout settled, you couldn’t tell the excision had happened.”
“An excision,” said Dr. Kirck, “that’s what you’re calling it when part of a timeline’s universe is cut out and goes to another timeline?”
“Yes, in an excision a section of space is removed and becomes part of another timeline, including whatever matter or energy may be in it,” said the general. “But if the timelines can be balanced before this happens, the excision can be prevented. This is why we’ve taken the liberty of transferring Saprykin and Anna’s equivalent mass in rock from this timeline and timeline 17A to timeline 2B – we don’t want the timelines to balance themselves.”
“What about us?” asked Dr. Kirck. “We’re missing from timeline 17A, and we’ve come to timeline 1.”
“Ah, but I’ve seen your equations, Dr. Kirck,” said the general. “You always intended for your mission to return home, and you’ve already calculated the safe excursion time for the amount of mass that departed – namely, the three of you and the shuttle, minus the fuel you’ll use while here in this timeline.”
“That was theoretical – but now I know what it means,” said Dr. Kirck. “Our two timelines will be OK as long as we return within about four days.”
“We’ll make sure to get you back well before then,” said General Legette.
“And if we don’t get home by then, the timelines will balance themselves, probably catastrophically?” asked David.
“That is correct,” replied the general. “That’s not something we want. If you were in danger of outstaying your welcome, so to speak, we have automatic systems that will compensate, transferring an equivalent mass of rock from here to there, in order to prevent an excision. But we’d prefer not to have to do that.”
“And Saprykin, he stays here?” asked Anna.
“For now,” the general replied. “Once the United States of timeline 2B achieves FTL travel to the extent of what he knows about, his information becomes worthless, and we’ll transfer him back, and bring back the rocks and dirt we sent there to balance him out. His country will build FTL ships, but the USA will already have them.”
“How do we set up some kind of communication protocol between here and home?” asked David. “We might want to confer with you about, you know, whether any of our actions are about to cause a spacetime earthquake or something.”
“I believe Dr. Kirck already knows how to do that, and we now have one another’s frequencies,” said the general.
“Yes, it’s a matter of –” Dr. Kirck began, and then an alarm sounded and every light in the place turned from white to red. The general was immediately on his communication device, giving orders and asking questions.
“What’s going on?” asked David, standing up.
“It’s Saprykin,” said Anna. “I’ll bet he’s gotten loose somehow. And what I’d do if I were him is steal our shuttle and get home in it.”
“How would he know how to do that?” asked Dr. Kirck.
“He’d have watched very carefully,” Anna replied. “He already knows how to fly the shuttle in normal space, from the espionage he did. And he’s probably observed enough while he’s been here to figure out how to skew it – or so he thinks, anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter if he really knows how to get home in it,” said David. “He’s going to cause havoc just trying.”
The general said, “Precisely,” and activated several monitor screens in the room that had been sitting idle. They saw their shuttle, the Wildcat, as it began to move along the futuristic tarmac surface it had been parked on. “I’d like to avoid having to destroy your beautiful ship, but if it’s that or disaster …” There were soldiers chasing after it on foot with hand weapons, firing at it ineffectively. Another screen showed the scrambling of some sort of advanced fighter aircraft.
“No, no, no,” said David. “He can’t be doing this. This can’t be happening.” The shuttle accelerated on the runway. “He doesn’t even have enough space to take off. And the Wildcat isn’t capable of powered flight.”
“As you said,” Anna told him, “it doesn’t matter if he can or can’t do what he’s trying to do. It’s bad enough that he’s trying.” And then the shuttle began to shimmer and sparkle … and it vanished, taking a chunk of runway with it. General Legette swore.
Dr. Kirck swore too, but added, “That wasn’t any kind of skew duon transition. That was an FTL jump. That’s what he knows how to do. He could be anywhere within a few light years by now. He’s going to use the time it’ll take you and us to find him to figure out how to get home to his timeline. Meanwhile, we’re stuck here, and it’s going to cause an excision if we don’t get home in four days.”
“That isn’t a problem, at least,” said the general. “Assuming we don’t get the Wildcat back, we have technology that can send you home. And even failing that, we can send back equivalent mass to balance the timelines. And if he does get home, giving his knowledge and the Wildcat to the USSR of timeline 2B, all it’ll do is cause political turmoil. It won’t destroy this timeline or that one if he gets it right. The bad thing is what happens if he gets it wrong.”
“I see,” said Dr. Kirck. “If he doesn’t get the skew transition right, he goes to some other timeline that we can’t predict, because we don’t know what mistakes he’s going to make.”
“And if we don’t find him, “said the general, “we won’t be able to scan the space he left from in order to figure out where he went. And then …”
“Excision,” said David. “An unregulated excision. Some huge and random amount of matter slides back here from that timeline to this one, and who knows what happens? I guess the good part is that he’s likely nowhere near Earth right now.”
“No, that’s not good,” said the general. “Not at all. The excision could appear anywhere along his recent world line. Anywhere he’s been during the time leading up to his departure.”
“And he spent a good amount of that time here on this planet,” said Dr. Kirck.
“Space Traffic Control is scanning for him,” said the general, “but he could be far enough away that even the photons emitted or reflected by the Wildcat won’t get here for years.”
“Wait,” said Anna. “I know how he thinks. I’ve studied him extensively. I think I can figure out where he’d go. You’ve got FTL ships, right?” The general nodded. “So let me think for a few moments.” She walked over to a far corner of the room to look at some of the art the general had hanging on the wall, concentrating.
“Let me think as well,” said Dr. Kirck. “Maybe the shuttle can’t be detected from here, but … what if you sent out multiple FTL ships in a search pattern? I’m just going to work out a pattern that should find him in much less time than it’ll take currently, at least.” She started scribbling equations with a pencil on a pad of paper, leaving the two Davids to talk.
“Thank you,” said the general. “We’ve never had quite this situation happen before. I can’t believe he got free. But then, he’s an expert at such things … a technology, if you will, that we aren’t really that well versed in here.”
“You haven’t told us much about the political situation on this version of Earth,” said David, “but I think I can guess that it isn’t as tense as it is back home.”
“No,” the general explained. “With the threats to this world from other timelines, Earth’s population has united under a single government for survival. Of course there are differences, but they’re worked out via debate, not war. We have no one to spy on, and no one to spy on us.”
“So, in a way, Anna’s the one among us with the most valuable knowledge right now,” David said. “Dr. Blake was right. We needed a Saprykin expert. And … I’m just glad she came along.”
“Ah, yes, I notice how you look at her,” the general said. “She looks at you too, you know. When you aren’t watching.”
“She does?”
------------------------------
While every thing went sort of chaotic around Saprykin’s current location, Captain Legette leaned back in his comfortable chair and slowly rubbed his chin. He looked Anna over from head to toe. She was an extremely shapely young woman with shoulder-length red hair, which she currently had in an easy to manage ponytail.
David wasn’t completely sure what thoughts and emotions ran through him as he observed her fluid feminine grace, overlaid with an athleticism that he found truly attractive. He definitely wasn’t expecting her to look around, directly into his eyes. It was like some kind of electricity passed between them as David felt the intensity of the mysterious connection run through him several times, causing him to catch his breath.
Anna almost fainted when she turned as clandestinely as she could to catch a glimpse of the captain, only to find that he was looking directly into her eyes. She wasn’t exactly sure what happened in that instant, but it rushed intensely all through her, causing her to gasp involuntarily.
As the two of them stared at each other, locked into whatever was happening, the general came to David and patted him on the shoulder, breaking the spell for the moment. “Go ahead,” he said. “I promise it will turn out really well for you. Anna’s already given us her suggestions for how Saprykin might be thinking, and we already have ships following Dr. Kirck’s search pattern for the shuttle.”
The captain smiled, “It would be pleasant, I am sure …”
The general interrupted, “Don’t worry. Even if we don’t find the shuttle, we do have the technology to make an interdimensional commute possible. Go and talk with her. I promise it will be magical.”
The captain turned a sidelong glance at the general. “How can you be so insistently sure?”
The general bent low and whispered so only David could hear, “Because, silly man, you have forgotten about time, displacement, and skew. I’m so certain because another version of her is my wife.”
David was astonished. Yes, he had forgotten about the strangeness of traveling across timelines. A resolve filled him as he stood. “If you will excuse me, General,” he said, giving a sharp formal salute, “I think I have something to tend to.”
The general returned the salute and said, “Go for it. From experience, I can tell you it will be exciting for many years to come.”
David crossed the room. To onlookers it would have seemed a casual stroll. Within David, however, he was rushing as fast as circumstances and protocol allowed. He came to Anna, who hadn’t taken her eyes off him, took her by both hands softly, and said, “Over there are two French doors that lead out to a quiet veranda. From what I hear, there is a full moon out, and something very special, flying sparks.”
Anna felt totally helpless as she took David’s hands. She wasn’t sure, but it felt like some kind of energy was passing though her into David as some tingly return of energy passed from him into her. She said in a dreamy lost sort of way, “Lead the way. I wonder what those sparks are?”
David opened the door to what appeared to be a magnificent garden, complete with a flowing fountain and surrounding fishpond. All around, some type of flying insect would ignite in a bright blue/ green flair before moving off to another location and repeating the flair. It was beautiful thing to watch. Even more fascinating was when the double hand sized, bright lime green, glowing Luna Moths appeared and started a wonderful dance above the crown of the fountain. The main highlight was the huge orange full moon just rising off in the far distance.
David escorted Anna to a secluded spot, “Anna, I need to tell …”
She interrupted him by giving him one of the most passionate kisses he had ever had. It took his breath away and made his head buzz with the passion of it all. “No need to tell me, I already know. I will tell you I have no problems … except for one.”
David raised an eyebrow, “And, what, pray tell, might that be?”
She replied with a glint in her eye, “I refuse to portal anywhere in just my undies. Too unladylike.”
David burst out laughing until Anna once again gave him one of those passionate kisses. The only thing he regretted was not having a bedroom lined up for them this time. But with any luck, this would be only the first encounter like this.
------------------------------
A few hours later, after moonset, they were still sitting and enjoying the starlight with their arms around each other, when Dr. Kirck came out and found them. “They’ve found where Saprykin activated the skew jump,” she said. “He’d just been there. They were able to scan and determine the jump frequency to high precision. And might I just add … finally! It’s none of my business, but you two have been eyeing each other long enough that it’s gotten quite irritating, waiting for this to happen.”
“Where did he go?” asked Anna, suddenly serious. “Home to timeline 2B?”
“Nowhere near it,” replied Dr. Kirck. “He has no idea how to operate those controls at all. And no wonder – they’re completely new since the last plans he managed to photograph and study. It took him hours just to figure out how to activate them in any way.”
“Won’t he just jump again and again, hoping to lose pursuit?” asked Anna. “It’s what I’d do.”
“He can try, but the ships they have in this timeline are so much more advanced,” Dr. Kirck said. “And they have better tactics as well. Multiple ships can link up and jump each other, giving the others’ engines time to cool down.”
Anna and David got to their feet. “Well … I guess the party’s over for now,” said David. “We’ve got a shuttle to catch up to.”
The general packed the three of them on board a small FTL-capable destroyer, and they all marveled at how easily its pilot maneuvered it to the exact location in space, time, and duon phase where the Wildcat had been chased down and disabled. A veritable armada of other ships had it surrounded, and they had enclosed it in some kind of inflatable bubble made of some sort of super-plastic and filled with air. It was easy to see what this was for – the assembled soldiers were about to force the airlock and rush the shuttle.
Saprykin clearly tried to activate the skew jump, but they’d somehow dampened its efficacy with some sort of field that the ships were beaming at it. He was no match for the assembled troops. Saprykin had acquired a space suit somewhere and attempted to leap from the hatch toward one of the pursuit ships that was inside the bubble, but they were on him too quickly. He managed to slash some of their suits, but within the air bubble that had little to no effect. They had him in wrist and ankle cuffs in minutes and packed him aboard a high-security prisoner transport.
After a sweep for any booby traps he might have set, the troops told Anna, David, and Dr. Kirck that they were free to board their shuttle. “Our sincere apologies for allowing this to happen,” said the pilot who had informed them of this. “Will you be returning to your home phase immediately? Or, the general has extended his invitation to return for a farewell dinner, should you choose.”
------------------------------
While Captain Legette and his new fiance Anna Phillips attended one of the most lavish affairs of their lives, put on by General Legette in honor of their engagement, on another Earth, separated not only by time but by a dimensional barrier, that Earth's America had not only subdued their version of the Soviets, but occupied the land. The Soviet general population came to enjoy the American occupation as it basically removed the hold the government had over them.
The other nations had all watched with trepidation as the America from which Anna hailed smashed one of the strongest forces on the planet with new types of weapons never before encountered. The aircraft, auto-cannons, missiles, and a new type of armored autonomous drone were real eye-openers to the rest of the planet and brought fear at their superior performance in combat.
Pursuing their normal policies, that version of the United States had then ceased all aggressions and had begun restorations and rebuilding what had been damaged or destroyed once occupation had completely filled the city and they had arrested and detained the Soviet leader, who was named Stallin in this timeline. This led to the other nations collectively relaxing and continuing on … without the constant threat of Soviet reprisals as they argued what punishment would fit Stallin’s crimes.
Stallin was forced to stand trial for his many crimes and had been found guilty on all counts. Due to the nature and cruelty of his crimes, plus the use of nuclear weapons on his own population that had resulted in the contamination of many places in Europe, death was the only penalty. A different method for execution had been devised that was far more painful than any punishment currently in use by the League of Nations and their many representatives.
As Stallin was led into the heavily fireproofed room, he saw through the thick observation window two large turbo-pumps and the steel exhaust tubes running to the side of the enclosure they had strapped him into before they left and the huge thick door closed with a shuddering boom. The sound of large objects locking into place within the door was heard.
Two 140,000 horse power turbo-pumps ignited. The only thing the representatives from the League of Nations could see through the super thick leaded glass were large gouts of flame. For a full five minutes the fire was seen swirling around behind the glass like an angry thing, then the pumps turned off and the area within the chamber was evacuated, then refreshed with cold air before the thick chamber door unlocked and slowly opened.
A certified M.D., a reporter for Faux News, and a League of Nations official entered the large chamber. It was obvious where the fire had spouted from, the marks were clearly visible. The room had a strange odor of alcohol and toluene, two of the solvents added to the powdered paraffin that fueled the turbo-pumps.
The place the chair had stood was the focal point of the exhaust jets for the turbo-pumps. What was left was a small pile of melted metals and a charred C2 axis vertebra, called the atmaram bone in the Hindu religion, the one bone in a human's body that often survives cremation.
It had not been a second world war of the sort that some had been warning was coming; the imbalance of power enjoyed by the United States was simply overwhelming, and the Soviet Union had legitimately launched a full-scale nuclear assault leading to justifiable retaliation. Many troops had died on both sides, though the casualties were vastly more Soviet than American.
When it had ended, the United States had withdrawn and left the League of Nations in charge, an organization that on this version of Earth had far more legitimacy as a representation of the world’s nations than it ever had in some other timelines.
The execution of Stallin had been gruesome, but he had used nuclear weapons on his own native soil, and the majority of the world’s nations agreed with the verdict and sentence. Of course, the rogue nations of the world claimed not to accept the authority of the League of Nations, and they continued to exist, but they simultaneously feared and envied the newfound power of the United States. As the League prepared the Soviet Union for free and democratic elections, the world continued to turn.
------------------------------
“So … Saprykin is being held on this other Earth?” asked Agent Underwood.
“Yes,” said Anna. “His knowledge is too dangerous for now to return him to our home phase. They’re monitoring, though, and the moment my USA develops the FTL engine, they’ll call me to take him home, because at that point his knowledge will become superfluous.”
“Now, if I understand this correctly,” said Dr. Blake, “duon phases can’t have a surplus of mass relative to other phases, or there can be a catastrophic rebalancing event they call an excision.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Kirck, “but the people of timeline 1, as they call themselves, have figured out how to balance it out and how much of an imbalance seems to be acceptable. They’ve already rebalanced for Saprykin and Anna not being home at present, and they calculated how long we and the Wildcat could be there before they’d have to take action. Turns out we weren’t gone nearly long enough.”
“Now, does that mean we’ll soon have time travel along with dimensional travel?” Underwood asked.
“Probably,” Dr. Kirck replied. “The genie of duon physics is out of the bottle. Practically every nation on Earth is experimenting with it. There’s really nothing we can do other than urge responsible use of the technology. After all, if there’s an excision, it’s going to harm the whole world, starting with the country who didn’t do things right. Though I suspect that Anna’s phase isn’t truly out of sync with ours time-wise; I think events just happened differently, causing the year A.D. 1 to happen later in their history. But that’s just my theory.”
“Now, I hear congratulations are in order,” said Dr. Blake, turning to David, who was next to Anna. They were all gathered in Underwood’s office, where they could speak freely because it was regularly swept for bugs by government security experts.
“Well, I did propose,” said David, “and Anna accepted. She’s going to be traveling between this universe and her own, meaning we’ll have the most interesting long-distance relationship in history, but we’ll work something out.”
“Once our respective governments figure out how to handle immigration from one duon phase to another,” said Anna, “I’ll probably be moving here. David’s done enough damage back home, and maybe I can find a job as an agent.”
“I’ll certainly put in a good word for you,” said Underwood. “I suspect your resume would terrify even me.”
------------------------------
In the weeks that followed, David and Anna had become the hot news item. Something entirely unique, a man marrying a woman … who came from another time and place. Neither of them questioned as maids and tailors and seamstresses arrived. Anna was meticulously measured for a fantasy wedding dress made from the fibers of a moth’s cocoon they had discovered during one of their travels.
The fabric it created when woven was finer than silk and sheer as gauze. It had a beautiful glow and enhanced Anna’s already beautiful figure. After it had been made and she had tried it on the first time, all stood in sheer amazement. It caused Anna to look like a goddess of some kind.
David had a similar thing happen to him and the uniform that had been made for him from the same fibers. He had gotten a special dispensation to wear it in place of the standard uniform, but it hadn’t been difficult, as David was by this time a multiply-decorated hero and explorer. The two of them together were a sight to behold.
What David and Anna didn’t realize until later, was who was footing the bill for the lavish arrangements. General David Legette stood in front of David and Anna. Anna looked like an angel, and Captain Legette looked like an Adonis figure. He said solemnly, “There are some duties I have due to my rank. But when those duties become both an honor and a pleasure it is no longer just a duty.” He opened a gilded book with red pages to a bookmarked place. “Do you, Captain David Legette, take this woman to be …”
------------------------------
In a well guarded-energy cell sat a lone figure. Once again he was in cuffs and shackles, this time also chained to the floor with a chain whose links were as thick as Saprykin’s wrists. He had no clue as to what fate awaited him. He didn’t realize freedom and a trip home was very close at hand, as the America in his duon phase of origin had made its first FTL flight. Shortly, no data Saprykin might think he had would mean anything.
A brand new government organization was born, the Bureau of Duon Transit Affairs, which also included the offices of all Duon Phase Ambassadors. Due to the newly discovered portal transport, a new order and set of strict rules had been established to covering inter-phase migrations and relocations. And a new phase of existence began for Timeline 17B …
------------------------------ THE END ------------------------------
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