Galactic Dreams Page 5

  “Britain and the Allies, you mean?

  “I mean everybody, Germans too. Though that made a lot of people here mad. But the policy was no-foreign-entanglements and do business with anyone who’s willing to pay. It wasn’t until the invasion of Britain that people began to realize the Nazis weren’t the best customers in the world, but by then it was too late.

  “It’s like a mirror image of the real world, a warped mirror,” Dan said, drawing savagely on his cigarette. “While we were going around the Moon something happened to change the whole world to the way it would have been if history had been altered sometime in the early thirties.

  “World didn’t change, boys,” Reeves said, “it’s always been just the way it is now. Though I admit the way you tell it, it sure does sound a lot better. But it’s either the whole world or you, and I’m banking on the simpler of the two. Don’t know what kind of an experiment the Air Corps had you two involved in but it must have addled your gray matter.

  “I can’t buy that,” Gino insisted. “I know I’m beginning to feel like I have lost my marbles, but whenever I do I just think about the capsule we landed in. How are you going to explain that away?

  “I’m not even going to try. I know there are a lot of gadgets and things in it that got the engineers and the university profs tearing their hair out, but that doesn’t bother me. I’m going back to the shooting war where things are simpler. Until it is proved differently I think that you are both nuts, if you’ll pardon the expression, sirs.

  The official reaction in Denver was basically the same. A staff car, complete with MP motorcycle outriders, picked them up as soon as they had landed at Lowry Field and took them directly to Fitzsimmons Hospital. They were taken directly to the laboratories, where what must have been a good half of the giant hospital’s staff took turns prodding, questioning and testing them. They were encouraged to speak many times with lie-detector instrumentation attached to them-but none of their own questions were ever answered. From time to time high-ranking officers looked on gloomily, but took no part in the examination. They talked for hours into tape recorders, answering questions about every possible field from history to physics. When they got too tired to talk they were kept going on Benzedrine. There was more than a week of this in which the two officers saw each other only by chance in the examining rooms, until they were weak from fatigue and hazy from the drugs. None of their questions were answered, and they were just reassured that everything would be taken care of as soon as the examinations were over. When the interruption came it was a welcome surprise, and apparently unexpected.

  Gino was being probed by a recently drafted history professor who wore oxidized captain’s bars and a gravy-stained battle jacket. Since his voice was hoarse from the days of prolonged questioning, Gino held the microphone close to his mouth and talked in a whisper.

  “Can you tell me who was the Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln? the captain asked.

  “How the devil should I know? And I doubt very much if there is anyone else in this hospital who knows, besides you. And do you know?

  “Of course!

  The door burst open and a full colonel with an MP brassard looked in. A very high-ranking messenger boy: Gino was impressed.

  “I’ve come for Major Lombardi.

  “You’ll have to wait,” the history-captain protested, twisting his already rumpled necktie. “I’m not quite finished … .

  “That is not important. The major is to come with me at once.

  They marched silently through a number of halls until they came to a dayroom where Dan lifted one weary hand in greeting. He was sprawled deep in a chair smoking a cigar. A loudspeaker on the wall was muttering in a monotone.

  “Have a cigar,” Dan called out, and pushed the package across the table.

  “What’s the drill now? Gino asked, biting off the end and looking for a match.

  “Another conference, big brass, lots of turmoil. We’ll go in in a moment as soon as some of the shouting dies down. There is a theory now as to what happened, but not much agreement on it even though Einstein himself dreamed it up ……

  “Einstein! But he’s dead … .

  “Not now he isn’t, I’ve seen him. A grand old gent of over ninety, as fragile as a stick but still going strong. He … say, wait, isn’t that a news broadcast?

  They listened to the speaker that one of the MPs had turned up.

  “… in spite of fierce fighting the city of San Antonio is now in enemy hands. Up to an hour ago there were still reports from the surrounded Alamo, where units of the 6th Cavalry have refused to surrender, and all America has been following this second battle of the Alamo. History has repeated itself, tragically, because there now appears to be no hope that any survivors. . -. .

  “Will you gentlemen please follow me,” a staff officer broke in, and the two astronauts climbed wearily to their feet and went out after him. He knocked at a door and opened it for them.

  “If you please.

  “I am very happy to meet you both,” Albert Einstein said, and waved them to chairs.

  He sat with his back to the window, his thin, white hair catching the afternoon sunlight and making an aura about his head.

  “Professor Einstein,” Dan Coye said, “can you tell us what has happened? What has changed?

  “Nothing has changed, that is the important thing that you must realize. The world is the same and you are the same, but you have - for want of a better word I must say - you have moved. I see that I am not being clear. It is easier to express in mathematics.

  “Anyone who climbs into a rocket has to be a bit of a science fiction reader, and I’ve absorbed my quota,” Dan said. “Have we got into one of those parallel worlds things they used to write about, branches of time and all that?

  “No, what you have done is not like that, though it may be a help to you to think of it that way. This is the same objective world that you left - but not the same subjective one. There is only one galaxy that we inhabit, only one universe. But our awareness of it changes many of its aspects of reality.

  “You’ve lost me,” Gino sighed.

  “Let me see if I get it,” Dan said. “It sounds like you are saying that things are just as we think we see them, and our thinking keeps them that way. Like that tree in the quad I remember from college.

  “Again, not correct, but an approximation you may hold if it helps you to clarify your thinking. It is a phenomenon that I have long suspected, certain observations in the speed of light that might be instrumentation errors, gravitic phenomena, chemical reactions. I have suspected something, but have not known where to look. I thank you gentlemen from the bottom of my heart for giving me this opportunity at the very end of my life, for giving me the clues that may lead to a solution to this problem.

  “Solution … Gino’s mouth opened. “Do you mean there is a chance we can go back to the world as we knew it?

  “Not only a chance - but the strongest possibility. What happened to you was an accident. You were away from the planet of your birth, away from its atmospheric envelope and during part of your orbit, even out of sight of it. Your sense of reality was badly strained, and your physical reality and the reality of your mental relationships changed by the death of your comrade. All these combined to allow you to return to a world with a slightly different aspect of reality from the one you have left. The historians have pinpointed the point of change. It occurred on the seventeenth of August, 1933, the day that President Roosevelt died of pneumonia.

  “Is that why there were all those medical questions about my childhood? Dan asked. “I had pneumonia; I was just a couple of months old, almost died, my mother told me about it often enough afterwards. It could have been about the same time. Don’t tell me - I mean it isn’t possible that I lived and the president died… ?

  Einstein shook his head. “No, you must remember that you both lived in the world as you knew it. The dynamics of the relationship are far from clear, though I do not
doubt that there is some relevancy involved. But that is not important. What is important is that I think I have developed a way to mechanically bring about the translation from one reality aspect to another. It will take years to develop it to translate matter from one reality to a different order, but it is perfected enough now, I am sure, to return matter that has already been removed from another order.

  Gino’s chair scraped back as he jumped to his feet. “Professor - am I right in saying, and I may have got you wrong, that you can take us and pop us back to where we came from?

  Einstein smiled. “Putting it as simply as you have, Major … the answer is yes. Arrangements are being made now to return both of you and your capsule as soon as possible. In return for which we ask you a favor.

  “Anything, of course,” Dan said, leaning forward.

  “You will have the reality-translator machine with you, and microcopies of all our notes, theories and practical conclusions. In the world that you come from all the massive forces of technology and engineering can be summoned to solve the problem of mechanically accomplishing what you both did once by accident. You might be able to do this within months, and that is all the time that there is left.

  “Exactly what do you mean?

  “We are losing the war. In spite of all the warnings that we had we were just not prepared. We thought, perhaps we just hoped, that it would never come to us. Now the Nazis are advancing on all fronts. It is only a matter of time until they win. We can still win, but only with your atom bombs.

  “You don’t have atomic bombs now? Gino asked.

  Einstein sat silent for a moment before he answered. “No, there was no opportunity. I have always been sure that they could be constructed, but have never put it to the test. The Germans felt the same, though at one time they even had a heavy-water project that was aimed towards controlled nuclear fission. But their military successes were so great that they abandoned it along with all other far-fetched and expensive schemes like their hollow world theory. I myself have never wanted to see this hellish thing built, and from what you have told about it, it is worse than my most terrible dream. But I must admit that I did approach the president about it, when the Nazi threat was closing in, but nothing was done. It was too expensive then. Now it is too late. But perhaps it isn’t. If your America will help us, the enemy will be defeated. And after that, what a wealth of knowledge we shall have once our worlds are in contact. Will you do it?

  “Of course,” Dan Coye said.

  “But the brass at home will take a lot of convincing. I suggest some films be made of you and others explaining some of this. And enclose some documents, anything that will help convince them what has happened.

  “I can do something better,” Einstein said, taking a small bottle from a drawer of the table. “Here is a recently developed drug, and the formula, that has proved effective in arresting certain of the more violent forms of cancer. This is an example of what I mean by the profit that can accrue when our two worlds can exchange information.

  Dan pocketed the precious bottle as they turned to leave. With a sense of awe they gently shook hands with the frail old man who had been dead many years in the world they knew, to which they would hopefully be soon returning.

  The military moved fast. A large jet bomber was quickly converted to carry one of the American solid-fuel rocket missiles. Not yet operational, it was doubtful if they ever would be at the rate of the Nazi advance. But given an aerial boost by the bomber it could reach up out of the ionosphere carrying the payload of the Moon capsule with its two pilots. Clearing the fringes of the atmosphere was essential to the operation of the instrument that was to return them to what they could only think of as their own world. The device seemed preposterously tiny to be able to change worlds.

  “Is that all there is to it? Gino asked when they settled themselves back into the capsule.

  A square case, containing records and reels of film, had been strapped between their seats. On top of it rested a small, grey metal box.

  “What do you expectan atom smasher?

  Dan asked, checking out the circuits. After being stripped for examination the capsule had been restored as closely as was possible to the condition it had been in the day it had landed. They were wearing their pressure suits.

  “We came here originally by accident,” Dan said. “By just thinking wrong or something like that, if everything that we were told is correct.

  “Don’t let it bug you-I don’t understand the theory any better. Forget about it for now.

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. The whole crazy business may not be simple, but the mechanism doesn’t have to be physically complex. All we have to do is throw the switch, right?

  “Roger. The thing is self-powered. We’ll be tracked by radar, and when we hit apogee in our orbit they’ll give us a signal on our usual operating frequency. We throw the switch and drop.

  “Drop right back to where we came from, I hope.

  “Hello there cargo,” a voice crackled over the speaker. “Pilot here. We are about to take off. All set?

  “In the green, all circuits,” Dan reported, and settled back.

  The big bomber rumbled the length of the field and slowly pulled itself into the air, engines at full thrust to lift the weight of the rocket slung beneath its belly. The capsule was in the nose of the rocket, and all the astronauts could see was the shining skin of the mother ship. It was a rough ride.

  The mathematics had indicated that probability of success would be greater over Florida and the south Atlantic, the original reentry target. This meant penetrating enemy territory. The passengers could not see the engagement being fought by the accompanying jet fighters, and the pilot of the converted bomber did not tell them. It was a fierce battle and at one point almost a lost one: only a suicidal crash by one of the escort fighters prevented an enemy jet from attacking the mother ship.

  “Stand by for drop,” the radio said, and a moment later there was the familiar sensation of free-fall as the rocket dropped clear of the plane. Preset controls timed the ignition and orbit. Acceleration pressed them into their couches.

  A sudden return to weightlessness was accompanied by the tiny explosions as the carrying-rocket blasted free the explosive bolts that held it to the capsule. For a measureless time their inertia carried in their orbit while gravity tugged back. The radio crackled with a carrier wave, then a voice broke in.

  “Be ready with the switch … ready to throw it … NOW!

  Dan slammed the switch over. Nothing appeared to have happened. Nothing they could perceive in any case. They looked at each other silently, then at their altimeter as they dropped back towards the distant Earth.

  “Get ready to open the chute,” Dan said heavily, just as a roar of sound burst from the radio.

  “Hello Apollo, is that you? This is Canaveral Control, can you hear me? Repeat-can you hear me? Can you answer … in heaven’s name, Dan, are you there … are you there… ?

  The voice was almost hysterical, bubbling over itself. Dan flipped the talk button.

  “Dan Coye here-is that you, Skipper?

  “Yes but how did you get there? Where have you been since … Cancel, repeat cancel that last. We have you on the screen and you will touch down in the sea and we have ships standing by … .

  The two astronauts met each other’s eyes and smiled. Gino raised his thumb up in a token of victory. They had done it. Behind the controlled voice that issued them instructions they could feel the riot that must be breaking after their unexpected arrival. To the observers on Earth, this Earth, they must have appeared to have vanished on the other side of the Moon. Then reappeared suddenly some weeks later, alive and well-long days after their oxygen and supplies should have been exhausted. There would be a lot to explain.

  It was a perfect landing. The sun shone, the sea was smooth, there was scarcely any crosswind. They resurfaced within seconds and had a clear view through their port over the small waves. A cruiser was already
headed their way, only a few miles off.

  “It’s over,” Dan said with an immense sigh of relief as he unbuckled himself from the chair.

  “Over! Gino said in a choking voice. “Over? Look - just look at the flag there!

  The cruiser turned tightly, the flag on its stern standing out proudly in the clear air. The red and white stripes of Old Glory, the fifty white stars on the field of deepest blue.

  And in the middle of the stars, in the center of the blue rectangle, lay a golden crown.

  4:

  A CRIMINAL ACT

  The first blow of the hammer shook the door in its frame. The second blow made the thin wood boom like a drum. Benedict Vernall threw the door open before a third stroke could fall and pushed the muzzle of his gun into the stomach of the man with the hammer.

  “Get going. Get out of here,” Benedict said, in a much shriller voice than he had planned to use.

  “Don’t be foolish,” the bailiff said quietly, stepping aside so that the two guards behind him in the hall were clearly visible. “I am the bailiff and I am doing my duty. If I am attacked these men have orders to shoot you and everyone else in your apartment. Be intelligent. Yours is not the first case like this. Such things are planned for.

  One of the guards clicked off the safety catch on his submachine gun, smirking at Benedict as he did it. Benedict let the pistol fall slowly to his side.

  “Much better,” the bailiff told him and struck the nail once more with the hammer so that the notice was fixed firmly to the door.

  “Take that filthy thing down,” Benedict said, choking over the words.

  “Benedict Vernall,” the bailiff said, adjusting his glasses on his nose as he read from the proclamation he had just posted. “This is to inform you that pursuant to the Criminal Birth Act of 1998 you are guilty of the crime of criminal birth and are hereby proscribed and no longer protected from bodily injury by the forces of this sovereign state … .