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October 27, 2008
August 3, 2008
Maria awoke screaming. For a few seconds she couldn’t remember where she was, couldn’t think of anything except the pains, one stabbing into her abdomen, just below her right breast, the other spreading slowly round into her lower back. Her eyes were stuck together as if she had been crying in her sleep. After a few seconds of panic she remembered the breathing exercise they had taught her in the antenatal clinic and began panting, her mouth wide open, forcing herself to relax. It’s just a contraction Maria, she told herself. Don’t worry. The panic subsided but fear replaced it. She couldn’t fool herself. It wasn’t just a contraction. Something was very wrong down there.
Still panting, still dopey with sleep, with her eyes still stuck shut, she tried to feel her bump. Her right arm wouldn’t move no matter how much she yanked. It was fixed down by her side. The panic came back and grew as she found her left arm also wouldn’t move. She forced her eyes open like oysters. Her head was shrouded in orange plastic. Through the aperture she saw a man’s chest close beside her, his body at right-angles to hers. She could not see his face. His head and shoulders were hidden by a shifting pattern of green, red and black patches. The instant she saw it she went cold. The coloured areas glowed so brightly they hurt her eyes and made her squint. I must be having some kind of migraine. After all the stress of this morning it’s not surprising. But at least she knew who he was and where she was.
‘What’s happening, Robert?’ Maria gasped, hardly able to speak from the pain. He did not answer. What’s wrong with him? She had never had any confidence in Robert Moore. ‘He’s very experienced,’ the chief firefighter George had said, peering down at her as she lay in the stretcher on the balcony high up on the ATLAS cavern wall. ‘He’s an ambulance man as well as a firefighter. He helped deliver a couple of babies in England before he came to CERN. I think they have babies the same way there as we do here so you’ll be in very safe hands. We’re going to attach a rope to the stretcher and winch you up through the shaft. You’re well strapped in so you’ll be perfectly safe.’ But when Robert climbed over the handrail he almost slipped into the cavern and as George let out his rope and they swung away from the balcony Robert had seemed confused. He didn’t speak French very well and couldn’t follow what they were saying on the radio. Now he wasn’t even answering her. She glanced up out of the stretcher. The strange, coloured pattern didn’t look like any migraine she had ever had before, but today was unlike any day she had ever lived through.
‘Robert,’ she called, louder than before. ‘What’s happening?’
# # # #
‘I can hear something, Lord.’
‘What?’ Sam could hear the excitement in Michael’s voice.
‘A woman screamed and then I think she said What’s happening, Robert? She was a bit muffled.’
‘Is it Maria Kissov? The pregnant woman with the broken ankle?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘She’s no use to me. I want someone healthy. Isn’t there anyone else?’
‘I don’t know, Lord. I haven’t looked through all the crystals yet.’
‘Then look, Samuel, and for both our sakes be quick. They could arrive any second.’
It took Sam several minutes to look through every one of the sixty or so crystal walls that made up his cavern. As he did so he kept wondering what Michael meant: They could arrive any second.
# # # #
Robert still didn’t answer. Why can’t I see his face? A red harness was strapped around his grey uniform and clipped to a metal ring that supported the stretcher. Maria could see a rope, straight and taut, coming down through the pattern and descending to the ring. The rope from the shaft, she decided, and there was another rope running across from the ring, curving slightly, and going out through the side of the pattern. It had to be George’s rope. He had been using it to control their descent as they swung out from the balcony into the centre of the cavern. Four thick yellow straps were tied to the bottom of the ring and came down to the corners of the stretcher.
But that strange pattern cut across the top of Robert’s torso, at about shoulder level. She moved her eyes but still she could not see anything above his chest. Normally a migraine only affected one part of her vision. She should be able to see his face if she moved her eyes, but this time, no matter where she looked, she still could not see it. The pattern kept getting in the way. This is the strangest migraine I’ve ever had.
Another odd thing was how the whole pattern seemed to surround her, enclosing her, adding to her feeling of being trapped. It’s like being inside a bubble, she thought. Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like, a slowly changing, gigantic, glistening soap bubble. It enclosed the stretcher and most of Robert’s body, everything but his head and shoulders, hiding her view of the rest of the cavern.
The contraction grew stronger and pain encompassed her lower body. As it intensified, she tried to concentrate on the pattern, hoping that would help her to relax and take her mind off the pain. The green areas were the largest. They sprawled about like a child’s splash-daubed painting. Narrow red bands ran between the green, rippling and glowing with their own inner light. In sharp contrast, the heart of each green area was totally black. It’s quite beautiful really, she told herself, trying to make herself relax.
This certainly didn’t look anything like her usual optical effects from migraine. For one thing, it was not flickering. Instead, the green areas were moving slowly, the red bands parting to let them pass, then merging behind them. The red is like a river. A river of blood? No, she reassured herself, it’s not the right colour for blood; it’s more like red wine! The contraction began to fade as she tried to imagine the taste of it, a good strong Cabernet, and suddenly realised how thirsty she was. She started calling Robert again.
# # # #
‘No, Lord, I can’t see anyone else.’ Sam was bitterly disappointed. He had looked through every crystal and not seen Catriona, but at least Maria was alive.
‘Then it will have to be the Kissov woman. Is the firefighter Robert Moore still with her?’
‘Yes, she was calling him.’
‘Help her get out of the stretcher and see if she can revive Moore. He’s our best hope.’
‘Help her? How? I can’t even see her.’ All Sam had seen was a white sheet of plastic with metal rivets.
‘Talk to her. If you can hear her then she can probably hear you.’
Sam moved his head, trying to find again the crystal which contained the white plastic. He only heard Maria when he was looking straight at that. As he found it he heard Maria calling.
‘Can you hear me? Help, Robert!’ Maria sounded desperate.
‘I can hear you,’ Sam said.
‘Oh thank God. What’s happening? What was that blue flash? Why have–’
Sam moved his head to one side so he could not hear her. He hoped that she would not be able to hear him as he said ‘She thinks Robert’s talking to her, Lord.’
‘Is she still in the stretcher?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Try to get her out and revive Moore.’
‘Can you get out of the stretcher?’ Sam said into the centre of the crystal.
There was a pause. ‘Who’s there?’ Maria’s voice was not very clear but Sam thought she sounded frightened.
She knows I’m not Robert, Sam thought. ‘It’s all right, Maria.’
‘Who are you?’ Sam heard her very clearly this time. She was screaming.
‘She’s frightened, Lord. She wants to know who’s talking to her.’
Michael thought for a few moments. ‘Tell her you’re an angel who’s trying to help her.’
‘I can’t say that! Why can’t I just tell her the truth?’
A dark shadow crossed Michael’s face. ‘Do you know the truth? And if you did, is this the right time to explain it all to her? She needs urgent help and so do we. She was raised as a Roman Catholic. She’ll believe you. Tell her you are an angel. You can tell her the truth later, once we have saved the Earth.’
‘I am an angel,’ Sam said into the crystal, thinking she’s never going to believe this. ‘I’m trying to help you, Maria. Please trust me. You need my help and I need yours. Can you get out of the stretcher?’
There was a long pause. Then very slowly she said ‘Who are you?’
‘She doesn’t believe me, Lord. I’m going to have to tell her who I am.’
‘All right then do it. Tell her we need the crystal. Tell her it’s urgent.’
# # # #
It was a man’s voice, muffled and hard to hear. He was speaking English and at first she assumed it was Robert Moore. The firefighter hardly spoke any French. But when he said ‘I am an angel,’ she knew it wasn’t Robert.
‘It’s Sam Fitzpatrick, Maria,’ the voice said.
‘Mr Fitzpatrick?’ She lifted her head as much as she could and peered out of the aperture in the stretcher cover. All she could see was Robert’s chest and the bubble. ‘I can’t see you. Where are you?’
‘I don’t know, Maria. We were absorbed by the black hole and…’
Maria’s mind went numb. Ever since the LHC had started up people had been talking about making black holes. Every scientist was hoping they would make one and every crank was afraid they would. As an Official Guide it was her job to reassure visitors. She used to stand in the centre of the large round Globe of Innovation and repeat what she had been told to say. ‘Scientists believe there are two types of black hole. There are large ones formed by collapsing stars out in the Galaxy. They last a long time. And there are very small ones, such as we might make here in CERN, which will only last for a very short time, a tiny fraction of a second. They are so small and so short-lived that they would be perfectly safe.’ So it had been a complete shock this morning when Michael Zhang said they had created a persistent black hole that could last for hours.
‘…Zhang says we need the crystal,’ Sam was saying. ‘He says it’s urgent.’
‘Michael Zhang? Has he been absorbed too? This doesn’t make any sense. If you were absorbed by a black hole you would be killed.’
‘No, I know we should have been but we weren’t. Now listen, Michael says we need the–’
‘I need a doctor, Sam. Something’s wrong. I’ve got a terrible pain in my, in my…’ She couldn’t think of the English for abdomen. ‘…where the baby is.’
‘Is Robert still alive?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He won’t answer.’
‘Can you get out of the stretcher?’
‘No, I’m strapped in. I can’t move my arms.’
‘You’ve got to get out, Maria. Try to get out. I can’t do anything to help you.’
‘I’ll try,’ she said. She twisted her head forward as far as she could, examining the orange flaps to see how they were fastened, and her eyes fell on something dark. A dark patch, where the cover reached over her bump. ‘Oh God!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ With an effort of will she put it out of her mind.
She looked at the stretcher cover again, keeping her eyes away from the stain. The two halves of the cover overlapped, buckled together on the outside. For several minutes she wriggled and strained, making room by breathing out, finally managing to push one hand through the gap, undo one buckle with straining fingers and free one arm. She reached up to touch Robert’s chest. ‘Robert?’ His chest wasn’t moving. She shuddered. He isn’t breathing! She slipped her hand under his harness but could feel no heartbeat. You’ve got to be alive, Robert! In desperation she slid her hand up his chest as far as she could. You’ve got to help me! Her fingers touched the bubble and she felt a hard surface then a sharp, tingling shock flashed through her finger-tips and she pulled her hand away.
Her eyes travelled across the pattern, more afraid than before, but she had the measure of it now and could see how it wrapped around her, or rather, around the baby. That’s where the middle of it seemed to be, although it was hard to judge with the pattern constantly shifting.
She poked Robert like an obstinate horse and shouted but he still didn’t move. All that effort to free my arm has got me nowhere.
‘Have you got out?’ Sam said.
‘I’ve got one arm out. Robert won’t move.’
‘Try to get out.’
With fresh determination she pushed the flap open a bit more, managed to yank her other arm out and reached forward, bending towards the other buckles. Excruciating pains shot through her abdomen and ankle. After trying several times she managed to open the plastic cover. Oh God! Her crumpled gaping jacket revealed a large mark, dark against her white blouse. In the light from the bubble it looked dark brown. It’s just a flesh wound, she told herself, struggling to calm the rising tide of fear. Looks worse than it is. She closed the jacket and tried to button it, to hide the stain, to seal it away. It’s not serious. The pain isn’t too bad, not really. I’d be in agony if something had gone into my womb. It can’t have hurt the baby. First thing is to talk to Robert. He knows about birthing babies. He’s my best hope of getting help.
Pushing the orange cover aside, Maria raised her hand, grasped Robert’s harness and began to pull herself out of the stretcher. Pain throbbed through her ankle. She looked down, moved her leg to avoid scraping her foot on the cover, pulled the harness again, looked up and gasped. The bubble was moving up Robert’s neck and the pattern had completely changed. Red and green rings were swirling round, completely encircling her. New little red and green circles appeared in the bubble above her, opened out like coloured ripples and moved down the bubble until she was completely enclosed by moving circles of glowing colour. She stopped pulling but the bubble kept moving slowly up Robert’s face. She saw his chin, his mouth open in a silent shout, his flared nostrils, his eyes wide and staring, his face frozen in an agonised death-mask.
She grasped the harness to stop herself moving as a long low moan escaped her lips.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sam said.
‘He’s dead.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ she screamed.
‘I’m sorry. Stay calm, Maria. Everything’s going to be all right. Are you out of the stretcher?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you safe? You won’t fall will you?’
She looked down. ‘No. I seem to be floating.’ For a moment she felt dizzy then realised that the stretcher below her was slowly spinning round on the ends of the four yellow straps. As it spun the bottom part of the bubble turned with it and a blue light swept across Robert’s body.
‘I can see a blue light,’ she said.
‘Where’s it coming from?’
‘From under the flaps of the stretcher.’
She heard Sam say ‘She can see a blue light, Lord,’ and something inside her head seemed to shift to one side. Was he talking to God? Without thinking she began to pray quietly, her eyes closed. ‘Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade, der Herr ist mit dir.’ Guiltily she began wondering how long it had been since she had said these words.
‘Michael thinks it’s a piece of crystal. Try to get it, Maria. It will help us.’
Michael? She pulled on the straps running down to the stretcher. Was it Michael that he was calling Lord? The stretcher began to float easily up towards her. The bottom half of the bubble moved too, coloured rings running down and closing behind the stretcher. The pattern on the top half of the bubble stayed in random blotches. Then she noticed a circular ridge where the two halves of the bubble met and realised she was looking through a round window, looking out of one bubble into another one. A second bubble! The two bubbles overlapped and merged together at the ridge, making a shape like a figure of 8. The bottom bubble was centred on the stretcher, the top one on her bump. She was so engrossed in watching the ridge move towards her that the stretcher almost hit her. She had to fend it off, then grasp and hold it to stop it floating away.
She opened the orange covers and looked inside. Something was sticking up through the hard white plastic base, something that glowed pale blue, deep down inside, near where her feet had been.
‘I can see you, Maria!’ Sam said. ‘What can you see?’
‘It looks like a piece of glass.’
‘Can you get it?’
She pushed the flaps back and ran her fingers over the glass. It was smooth, with straight clean edges poking through the stretcher’s base. It glowed with an inner light, casting shadows across the flaps.
‘No, it’s stuck in the plastic.’
‘You must. Michael says you must get it.’
She tried again but her trembling fingers could not pull it out. With a sudden inspiration she turned the stretcher over and reached across the bottom of the base. A larger chunk of the glass was sticking out. She grasped it and pulled. It came away in her hand.
‘I’ve got it.’
‘Good girl! Now you can escape. Use the rope to get up to the surface.’
With a shudder of relief she put the glass into her jacket pocket, eager to get away from the dead man. As she did so the two bubbles seemed to merge into one. She pulled on the rope, leaving the stretcher and the firefighter behind. She glanced back. Robert’s dead face was slipping away behind her, disappearing from sight as the coloured ripples closed over him. I wonder what killed you, she thought.
She pulled herself along the rope as fast as she could, hand over hand. It wasn’t hard work. The amazing thing was that she didn’t fall back down again. It was as if she was weightless, floating like the stretcher. The red and green rings ran quickly past her. It wasn’t until she reached the balcony that she realised she was pulling the wrong rope.
August 3, 2008
A sharp contraction of terror gripped Sam Fitzpatrick’s bowel as the hollow tube swung the other way, its thick electrical cable was torn from his grasp and he was hurled out of the tube, his suit jacket flapping against his body like slow hand-claps. So it was true. Time really does seem to slow down when your life is at stake. Coloured raindrops stung his face one at a time like a swarm of lazy wasps as he tried to stop himself shitting his pants.
The rain sprayed from a dense spiders web of pipes surrounding him. The pipes appeared to be transparent for he could see the coloured raindrops moving along inside them. As he spun slowly through the air he saw the web curving away into the distance like a thick blanket surrounding the planet. Sam’s incontinence problem got worse as his field of vision moved and he saw how high he was. The pink planet was so far away it looked as smooth as a billiard ball. The thick legs supporting the spiders web seemed to dwindle away to nothing as they ran down to it.
Sam kept spinning and something else came into view, a long white oval shape floating in the air below him like an airship. Two human-looking arms and legs stuck out sideways from its long curving flanks. One of the hands was holding the tube he had been hiding in. Sam saw the hand swing the tube and smash it into one of the rain pipes. Fragments of broken pipe fell away towards the distant ocean in a long line of tiny sparkling dots.
Sam’s stomach heaved as gravity pulled him over the smooth apex of his flight and he began to accelerate downwards. A moment later the whole scene was lit by a white flash so bright it hurt his eyes. All the pipes surrounding the planet had lit up as if somebody had thrown a switch on an enormous neon sign. He closed his lids tight against the blinding light but still he saw every detail, black against a white background; the row of dots, the oval airship, the spiders web of pipes, the thick legs.
Then something brushed gently against Sam’s chest, he put out his arms and pushed the thing away. Whatever was touching him pressed harder against his body. It felt like a long smooth cylinder with many flat sides. It had to be one of the rain pipes. It was the wrong shape to be part of the airship. Sam made himself relax, giving himself up to it, realising that this was his only hope of salvation. He opened his eyes. The rain had stopped.
He was sliding head-first at high speed along the smooth pipe. The flash was fading from his retinas revealing a faint blue glow within the pipe beneath him. The coloured raindrops had all gone. The pipe was as transparent as blue glass. Dead ahead, about a kilometre along the pipe, was a place where dozens of other blue pipes met this one. They radiated out from a central point like a star-burst. If he fell into that junction Sam knew he was going to be crushed in the narrowing crevice between the pipes.
As he neared the junction he felt the pipe he was sliding along bend so that he began going up hill and slowing down. By the time he reached the junction he was moving very slowly. At the centre of the star-burst he saw a gap, a place where one pipe was missing. The junction appeared to be hollow. At the last moment the pipe he was on tilted over and dropped him through the gap into the hollow space. The crystal directly below him moved to break his fall. He slithered across the floor and finally came to rest against one wall.
He lay still, dazed and amazed, looking around. He was in a sort of crystal cave made from the flat ends of many transparent pipes. Through them he could see how they radiated away into the distance. Their far ends joined other pipes forming further star-burst junctions. There was just one gap in the cave high above him, the gap he had dropped through, a place where one pipe appeared to be missing. He was certain that these pipes had caught him, stopped him falling to his death and deposited him safely in this place, but how and why? But uppermost in Sam’s mind was Catriona. The last time he had seen his step-daughter she had been looking down at him from a balcony high up on the cavern wall. Was she still alive, or had she too been absorbed by the black hole?
Sam felt the wall beside his arm move away and turned to see the wall swing out, turn and move quickly back. Before he had time to move it hit the floor beside him and sliced a neat strip out of his jacket sleeve with a ringing musical chime. If his hand had been a few centimetres further along it would have been chopped off. He pulled his arm away from the wall and looked around in alarm.
All the pipes around him were moving, gently striking one another. Even the floor was rocking, lifting and falling. This motion was accompanied by more musical tones, like a child playing a glockenspiel. The wall beside him moved again, a yawning gap opened up and slammed closed. Frightened of falling through or having an arm or leg chopped away, he chose his moment and pushed himself away from the wall. The pipes’ movements were growing more violent all the time. Within a minute they were hammering into each other with the deafening clangs of cathedral bells. The floor was shaking so much that Sam was tossed about like a pea on a drum, his balding head and crumpled suit unable to stop him sliding across the smooth surface, slippery as ice, towards the edges where the walls were crashing into the floor like guillotines.
The noise from the clashing pipes was so loud that Sam hardly noticed the other noise at first, but when he did it resonated in his soul. It was a primordial blast of pure hate, the angry bellow of an insane bull, so frightful he turned his head, unable to stop himself searching for the thing that was sending out this terrible siren of disaster. The airship was bending and thrashing about franticly trying to escape from a dense net which surrounded it. The spiders web had collapsed around it and was now holding it fast. The metal tube had fallen from the airship’s hand and the little arms and legs protruding from its curving flanks were pulling and kicking the web. It was almost doubling up as it bent from side to side, twisting and distorting the net. It was this struggle, transmitted through the network of pipes, which was causing his crystal cave to shake. As the airship almost doubled up, Sam glimpsed both ends of its long white body and each was a vision of horror.
On one end was a face, huge as a monument carved into a mountain. A man’s face. A Chinese man’s face. It was unmistakably the face of Dr. Michael Zhang. Sam’s heart almost stopped when he saw it. How had Zhang’s face been blown up to such enormous proportions and fixed on the airship like the figure-head on a Viking warship? Then the airship bent the other way and the rear end of its body came into view. Sam stared at it, unable to believe his eyes. It was shaped like a pair of buttocks, human buttocks, and there was a dark dot in the cleft between them. This was not an airship, it was some sort of animal.
Disbelief turned to horror when he saw the gondola hanging below them in the shape of a man’s private parts. They were huge, much larger than the legs sticking out above, and were swinging from side to side as the airship tried to escape from the net. Sam tried to swallow down the vomit that rose in his throat but his mouth was completely dry. He watched the monster thrash about for a few more seconds, white, naked, bloated as a dead whale, its futile efforts to escape shaking even the little hollow cave in which he lay.
He looked at the monster and with an effort called ‘Stop!’ The sound came out of his dried lips as a stifled gasp. Even as he tried once more he felt the floor lift like a trampoline and he was airborne, hurtling across the cave towards one crystal wall surrounded by gaps. The noise that erupted from his throat surprised him; the visceral shriek of an animal being taken to slaughter. It echoed around the crystal cave. The monster heard him and stopped struggling. The last wave of vibration travelled across the network, the walls of the cave hammered together for the final time, the shaking ceased and silence descended, broken only by the dull thud as Sam’s head crashed into the wall, followed by the crumpled mass of his limp body. With a groan he slid down the wall, across the smooth floor and a short way up the opposite wall before falling back and gliding gently to a halt, trembling and breathless, battered and bruised, but still alive.
Then a voice like thunder rolled around inside the crystal cave. ‘Get up, Samuel!’
Sam turned his head. The distant monster was still trapped in the crystal net but it had stopped struggling.
‘I know you can hear me, Samuel. Come on, get up! I need your help and we don’t have much time. Stand up! Don’t you want to save the world?’
‘Of course I do, Dr. Zhang, but how–’
‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’
‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought, but now you’ve gone totally insane.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick. You were born in a labourer’s cottage on Paddy O’Hearns’ Farm at Ballycallen, near Cork, at 2:54 in the afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of an alcoholic called James Rossiman Fitzpatrick and a depressive woman Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding. Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. On August 9th, 1965…’
Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out, including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’
Sam stared at Michael’s enormous face, his bloated body trapped in the crystal network, helpless, naked and obscene. How can I use such a word for such a monster? But Michael has clearly been changed physically and he certainly knows a lot about me. Who knows, perhaps he really is a god. And I haven’t got a clue what to do, so I need him as much as he seems to need me. ‘Very well,’ Sam said, ‘I will call you Lord if that’s what you want. Now tell me, Lord, is Catriona still alive?’
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out.’
‘You mean you don’t know? I thought you knew everything?’
‘I know everything that happened in the Universe from its creation until the moment we left. I do not know–’
‘We left…’ Sam couldn’t take this in. ‘We’ve left the Universe?’
‘That is the Universe.’ Sam looked at Michael. His little arm was pointing straight down at the pink planet. ‘But I do not know what happened to it after we were sucked into the black hole.’
‘Was the Earth absorbed too?’ Sam said, afraid of the answer.
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up! We don’t have much time.’
Sam tried to get to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back onto the shiny crystal floor.
‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said.
Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand.
‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him. ‘If the Earth is still there you should be able to see it.’
Sam chose one of the crystal walls at random and moved his head sideways, not sure where the middle of the wall was. At first he saw nothing but the long pipe tapering away into the distance. It had seven flat sides and their edges seemed to meet in a point. He moved his head so the converging lines looked symmetrical and for a moment he glimpsed a small rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside the pipe. Slowly he moved back and saw it again. It was only visible when one eye was in exactly the right position. It was very small, as if it was very far away. What was it?
He put his hand inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put them on and saw it slightly more clearly, a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you might see in a smart garage workshop, but it was still very small and very far away. At the sight of it Sam’s heart stopped beating for a second. This was beyond his wildest hopes. It obviously belonged on the Earth, not on this weird pink planet. He leaned forward, trying to get a better view, and the cabinet moved towards him so rapidly he gasped and moved back, afraid of being hit. The cabinet moved away from him. Its movement, he realised, was some sort of optical illusion. He leaned forward again and once more the cabinet moved towards him, so close that he could see marks on its doors; four deep dents, two marked with a scratch.
Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. Once more he moved his head so the vanishing perspective of the pipe’s edges looked symmetrical and a red metal box came into view, fixed to a white concrete wall, a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out of the other. Sam stared at it. How could he see things which seemed so earthly when he clearly was not on the Earth? Eager to see more, Sam began looking around at the other crystal walls. In one he saw a yellow metal girder, the sort you might see a crane moving along in a warehouse. In another wall there was a red cabinet with Savox on the glass door. Another showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. Sam’s heart soared. The last time he had seen Catriona she had been standing on a balcony, half-way up the tall cavern wall. He was leaning forward, eager to see more, when Michael’s voice boomed across the sky like a thunderclap.
‘What can you see?’
‘I can see the cavern.’
‘Call me Lord.’
‘I can see the cavern, Lord.’
‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’
Sam described each image in turn.
‘Can you see any people?’ Michael asked.
‘No, Lord.’
‘Have you looked through every crystal?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must look into all of them. Be quick!’
Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give him something to live for. Once again he began peering into the crystals, wondering why this urgency, checking them all methodically. It was after about a dozen crystals, as he was looking at a sheet of white plastic punctured by large rivets, that he heard a woman scream.
June 24, 2008
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‘Are you Dr. Michael Zhang?’
The little man didn’t answer. Francesco Romani waited, trying to control his impatience. Michael was deeply engrossed in one of the three large computer screens on the desk before him, where a counter was ticking once a second across a box labelled EVENT COUNT: 225, 220, 218.
Michael’s short stubby fingers pushed his mouse over the desktop and he clicked a button labelled STOP RUN. The counter fell to zero.
Francesco tried again. ‘Excuse me, Dr. Zhang–’
‘I’m busy,’ Michael sang in falsetto like a mother pestered by her least-favourite child as he changed a box labelled RUN TYPE from Commissioning to Calibration.
‘But surely you could spare me a couple of minutes?’ Francesco let his impatience resonate in his voice. ‘This is very important.’
‘So’s this.’ Michael clicked a button labelled START RUN. The counter began ticking again: 223, 227, 224. They both watched it for a few seconds then, apparently satisfied, Michael’s balding head turned and his heavy-lidded eyes fell upon Francesco’s prominent stomach. They paused as if examining the weave of his dark blue Italian suit, then moved slowly up the deep chest to the Director General’s frowning face. Recognition flashed into Michael’s coffee-coloured eyes and he scrambled to his feet, his face cooling from cream to milk. ‘Oh, excuse me, Professor Romani. I did not realise it was you.’
Francesco held out a hand, looked down on him, forced a smile. ‘So pleased to meet you, Dr. Zhang.’ Michael Zhang’s tiny hand trembled in his. ‘I understand the Muon Spectrometer is on line now?’ A chair groaned as Romani sank into it.
Michael looked at him with a puzzled expression as he sat beside him. ‘Yes, Professor. I…we have just started calibrating it.’
Francesco frowned again and looked round as if searching for the others who made up the ‘we’, then stared at the little Chinaman.
‘The rest of my team will be back soon,’ Michael said hurriedly. ‘They’ve just gone for breakfast. I’m sure they won’t be long.’ He glanced at the screen.
‘No no, it is you I want to speak to,’ Francesco said, following his gaze. Numbers still ticked across the EVENT COUNT box: 219, 221, 234. ‘Am I right in thinking you are of Irish nationality?’
Michael’s face turned towards him, turning paler still. ‘I can explain about that, Professor Romani. I was planning to renew my work permit next week–’
‘Work permit? No, that is of no interest to me, Dr. Zhang. Talk to our Human Resource Office about that. Look, I have a little favour to ask you. I am looking for an Irish scientist and you are the only one I can find. As you know, we don’t have many in CERN since Ireland is not yet a member state.’
‘But I’m not really Irish,’ Michael said. ‘The only Irish things about me are my forename, my place of birth and my passport. The rest of me is pure Chinese. Why do you need an Irish scientist specifically?’
‘Do you know the new Irish Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva?’
‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t have much time for politics.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’ Francesco leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘I have invited her Excellency Brigit Fitzpatrick to visit CERN this morning and watch the first run of the LHC this season. I am very keen for Ireland to become a member, as I am sure you are also. Am I right?’
Michael shrugged. ‘I really don’t care. I’ve never had any affection for the land of my birth.’
‘Oh come come, Dr Zhang. You work in Cambridge now, don’t you? If Ireland was a member you could work for one of the Irish universities. You might even be able to lead your own particle physics department.’
Michael hesitated. ‘To be honest I don’t really think I would go back to Ireland even if the country did join. My future is in Cambridge and here in CERN.’ Michael checked the screen once more and his eyes widened.
His expression was so comical Francesco couldn’t resist looking too.
227, 12987, 2656, 2843
‘That looks odd,’ he said. Michael didn’t answer. ‘Glad I’m out of all this technical stuff now,’ Francesco went on. ‘When you get to my age you’re better suited to administration.’ Michael kept staring at the screen, his skin paling. ‘So the reason I wanted to see you, Michael, is that I would deem it a great personal favour if you could just speak to Madame Fitzpatrick…’ He could tell Michael wasn’t listening. ‘…if you could spare me five minutes to explain to her the benefits of Ireland becoming a member from a scientist’s point of view.’ I’m wasting my breath. Michael’s eyes and mind were fixed on the counter.
Francesco saw a few more numbers tick by, 2743, 2687, 2712, before a computer generated voice began to echo around the Control Room: ‘Level Zero Alarm. Data Storage System Overflow.’ Then it repeated itself in French.
Gasps of disappointment filled the ATLAS Control Room from the many visitors crowding around the resident scientists’ desks. Oh God, this is all I need, Francesco thought. Michael’s going to be busy for the next few hours. ‘So would you talk to her for me?’ he said.
‘What? Oh, very well, Professor Romani.’ Michael was opening a Mercator window. Francesco could hardly hear him above the noise. People were calling across the room to each other, trying to work out what had gone wrong. Did Michael say ‘very well’ or ‘go to hell?’
‘So you will speak to her?’
Michael nodded.
‘Excellent, Dr. Zhang. Thank you very much. I will bring her over here later on this morning. Will you be here about ten-thirty?’
‘Yes,’ Michael said absently and began rapidly typing commands.
Francesco stood up and walked towards the door past the translucent blue window that ran the length of the long narrow room. The hubbub was dying down now but there were signs of anxiety on the faces of the dozen scientists and engineers sitting at their wide curving desks. Dozens more scientists were crowding around them, leaning over their shoulders. Francesco assumed these were visitors. It happened every spring on the first run. They came to make sure that their part of the detector worked perfectly, stayed for a few days, then went back to their laboratories to start analysing the data.
A man in his mid thirties was standing holding the door open, looking back down the room as if trying to decide whether to go or stay. Francesco recognised him but could not remember his name. There were thousands of people working in CERN. He glanced at the man’s badge.
Danny Kissov.
ATLAS Run Co-ordinator.
This was lucky, meeting the shift leader. Always best to let these people know when a VIP is expected. ‘Ah, Danny,’ Francesco said, pausing in the doorway. ‘I will be bringing the Irish Ambassador over later in the morning, if that’s all right with you.’
Danny Kissov looked at him with sunken, dark-shadowed eyes. ‘Oh yes, Professor Romani, I’m sure that will be fine. I won’t be here myself. Seline’s just taken over the shift.’ He nodded down the room. Francesco glanced back at the hard-faced woman sitting at a central desk. Half a dozen visitors were bending over her, pointing at her screens, all talking at once. Her long black hair flicked out as her head moved rapidly from screen to screen. A look of panic was growing in her eyes.
‘I wonder if she’ll have sorted this problem out by the time the Ambassador arrives?’ Francesco said. ‘It won’t look good if she sees the place in uproar. Do you know what the problem is?’
Danny shrugged. ‘It could be anything. I’ve never seen a Data Storage System Overflow error before but you never know what problems we’re going to hit on the first run after the winter shut-down.’
‘Of course. But I understand that all the sub-detectors are running now, so it sounds like you did a good job last night. Well done!’ Always best to encourage and reward the staff, especially if it didn’t cost anything.
‘Thank you Professor, although it looks like we’ve got a bit more work to do. I was just wondering whether to go back and help Seline or go and find Maria. I’m a bit worried about her.’
Maria? Francesco looked at his name badge again. Of course. Maria Kissov. I heard she married a member of staff a couple of months ago. So this is the chap. Lucky fellow. ‘Worried?’ he said. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘I’m not sure. She went to the antenatal clinic this morning. I couldn’t go with her because I had to supervise the start-up shift. Seline hasn’t got enough experience to do it and José Rodriguez has the vomits that are going around. She was supposed to phone me at nine when she came out, but she didn’t call and I can’t get an answer on her mobile. She was due to open the Globe at nine-thirty and it’s–’ he glanced at his watch ‘nine-forty-one now. You’re not going past the Globe are you, Professor?’
‘Yes, I’m going back to Reception to meet the Ambassador. She’s due to arrive in a few minutes.’
‘Could you see if Maria’s in the Globe and ask her to phone me?’
‘Of course.’ Francesco smiled at him grimly. ‘I’m glad you warned me about this. I’m planning to take the Ambassador into the Globe. If it had been locked she would not have got a very good impression of us. I’ll check it on my way past and if it’s locked I’ll take the key and open it myself.’
‘Thank you very much. I’ll stay here and make sure Seline can handle this problem. It’s the first shift she’s ever run. I appreciate your help with this, Professor Romani.’
‘That’s no problem at all. I’m very fond of Maria. I hope everything is okay with the baby.’ He patted Danny on the back and walked past him down a short corridor. In the ATLAS Observation Room he just managed to avoid an unwanted conversation with one of CERN’s suppliers in a garish yellow shirt who obviously wanted to rustle up some more trade. Francesco escaped into the spring sunshine and paused to light a cigarette, admiring the huge wooden Globe of Innovation reflecting in the glass frontage of the ATLAS Control Building and thinking about this overflow problem.
He was not an ATLAS expert but he knew that the Storage System was designed to hold data coming out of the ATLAS detector. The event count he had seen on Michael’s screen had started in the low 200s. Then Michael changed the run type and soon afterwards there had been a data spike of around 12,000. Could these two things be connected? Francesco did not know. He could think of only two possible causes for a data spike.
One was that some sort of new particle had appeared in the detector. That was the whole purpose of ATLAS, to create hitherto undiscovered particles. A new particle could easily account for the 12,000 reading. If this was the case it would be a wonderful thing to show to the Ambassador. ‘Look, Your Excellency,’ he could imagine himself telling her. ‘ATLAS has found yet another new particle, and the Irish scientist Michael Zhang was the first one to see it!’ Then he frowned. A single particle could have caused a 12,000 event spike, but it should have been a transient effect. The data flow should have returned rapidly to its earlier level. But it hadn’t. Instead it had settled at around 2,000. What kind of particle could cause the data flow to stay high after the spike? This seemed impossible. Francesco sadly dismissed the idea of a new particle.
The other possibility was that this was a fault, either with one of the sub-detectors inside ATLAS or with the software that processed and stored the data they produced. The whole system was incredibly complex, and this was the first run of the season. The scientists always changed things during the winter shut-down, and it was easy for somebody to make a mistake. An error was the most likely cause of this residual 2,000 data level. It must have been this high level, ten times higher than normal, which had overwhelmed the Data Storage System.
Francesco threw away his cigarette and walked down the car park that fronted the building, feeling happier now he understood enough about the problem to explain it to Ambassador Fitzpatrick, and show her it was not serious. It was just what you would expect on the first run of the season. He entered the ATLAS Walkway. Sunlight permeated through the plastic arch curving overhead. Nobody was playing on any of the expensive new interactive exhibits. The Walkway was obviously not yet open. He hurried down the winding tunnel, his short legs pumping, his heavy stomach wobbling. When he emerged from the tunnel he checked the Globe’s back door. Locked. He went round to the front but that door was locked too, a small crowd of visitors waiting patiently on the drive. Maria obviously had not yet returned from the clinic.
He crossed the Route de Meyrin which sliced the Globe and ATLAS buildings off from the main CERN site. Ahead of him an elegant woman in a red trouser suit was just walking up the steps of the Reception building. Even from the rear she was unmistakable. The Irish Ambassador had arrived.
June 24, 2008
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Cjingha was in faculty meetings all morning, but as soon as she entered her little at lunchtime office she called the Staff Health Clinic. To her surprise they answered, and to her even greater surprise they said they had a free slot in an hour’s time. Could she get there? Yes, she could, but if she was going to collect those free universes she would have to be quick. She flew into the autumn szemzion-shine still cramming lunch into her eater, her long professor’s gown flapping behind her. She decided to keep it on despite the heat, hoping it would be her passport into the Festival of Science, gaining her priority ahead of the general public.
With strong sweeps of her sleek black wings she flew to the entrance marked ‘Ticket Office’ in the Arts and Culture Centre which the Macroverse Science Association had taken over for the week. She found the shortest queue and while she waited for the two elderly Entroilians to buy their tickets she browsed a nearby poster listing dozens of lectures for this afternoon.
How does Science affect the Being?
Alcohol-induced sterility among Argolaths and their future reproductive viability.
Our life-giving Szemzion: the flow of energy to Entroilia.
Why Argolaths degenerate at puberty but Entroilians do not.
They all look interesting, she thought, wishing she had time to attend some of them. The elderly Entroilians moved away and she stepped towards the counter.
‘Can you tell me where they’re giving away the free universes?’
A young female sat on the other side, pretty and casually dressed but with multiple pins, rings, badges, animated gizmos and decorations piercing her tentacles, face and body. Cjingha couldn’t take her eyes off them, feeling her lunch rise in her throat.
‘Do you like body piercing?’ the girl asked, seeing her staring.
‘Oh, yes,’ she lied. ‘I’ve only ever seen it on the multiweb. It’s not allowed at Sedtia University.’
‘Well now you’ve seen it in the flesh,’ the girl said, and laughed. ‘Entrance 34C, round the back of the marquee.’
Cjingha flew off still feeling queasy. I hope Oesirisi doesn’t start asking for rings through her tentacles, she thought. And if she ever has a pin through her ngja I’ll murder her. A wave of incredulity spread over Cjingha as she thought of this latest fashion, piercing of the genitals among both females and males. I can understand a drunken Argolath having it done, but not a sensible Entroilian.
She flew round to the vast marquee which the Festival organisers had erected on the sports fields at the back of the Sedtia University campus. Hundreds of children, both Entroilians and Argolaths, were streaming out of the doorway marked 34C, accompanied by their teachers. Thousands were already lying around on the grass outside, eating their packed lunches or playing games as they enjoyed the unseasonably warm szemzion. Cjingha wondered why her local school hadn’t organised a visit. Oesirisi and Glagnump would have loved all this. I wish I’d known about it before. I could have mentioned it to their teachers. But then science isn’t my subject and I never realised what a big event this Festival was going to be.
Cjingha was struck by how excited the children here were, even the Argolaths. Why was it, she wondered, that when these boys reach the age of thirteen or fourteen thousand they would lose all interest in any intellectual pursuits? It saddened her to think that Glagnump would soon reach that age, and change from being an inquiring, lively intelligent boy to a dull, drunken moron. She still hoped that somehow she could stop him going to Argolathia.
Once more she thanked her lucky szemzions that she had been born an Entroilian. Females never lost their sense of magic and wonder. Perhaps it was because we have to bear children and raise them, she thought as she flew towards entrance 34C, whereas the Argolaths have nothing more to do than father our children once a year and get drunk and fight the rest of the time. But it all seemed such a waste of their intellectual potential. She had never felt comfortable with this way of organising society, and now it was about to affect her own son, she felt an increasing desire to do something about it. But how? I’m just one Entroilian in the whole Macroverse. What can I do to change anything?
Nobody challenged her as she flew into the marquee. Inside it seemed even larger than it had looked from the outside. She hovered near the entrance, searching for the place where the universes were being given out. Thousands of stalls lined the walls, each showing scientific and engineering toys, gifts, ornaments, synthesized foods, lifestyle-products, brain enhancers, tentacle extenders, transcendental games, multiweb worlds, science and engineering careers, hobbies and holidays.
With the children having gone outside, most of the stalls were quiet, the staff sitting around eating their lunches. Eventually she spotted a long queue winding towards a booth on the far side of the hall. She could just make out the words on a printed banner hanging above it.
Cosmogenist Moshendiar.
She instantly recognised the second of these words. It was the Moshendiar Foundation who were giving away the free universes. She flew across the hall, thinking about the word Cosmogenist. It took her a few seconds to work out that a cosmogenist must be somebody who makes cosmoses.
As she flew closer she saw another sign pinned beneath the first. It was an improvised banner:
Today only – Free Universes.
The queue waiting at the booth consisted mostly of Argolath children, and it was growing longer all the time as others finished their lunches and came in to collect their free gift. There were a few adult Entroilians waiting patiently too; teachers, Cjingha thought. She spread out her grey gown and flew straight to the head of the queue.
Behind the counter stood an Argolath, his tentacles grey with age, pushing little boxes over the counter into the eager clutches of excited children. Those must be the universes, Cjingha thought as she landed nearby and stood watching him. He was the strangest Argolath she had ever seen. His robes were as grey as his tentacles, not white like most males. Even though they were usually drunk, Argolaths were so vain they always made their Emergents keep their clothes spotlessly clean, but not this one. His robes looked as if he had not washed them for weeks, perhaps months. His feet were bare, his wings looked tattered and moth-eaten. He obviously cared nothing about his appearance.
But the most astonishing things about him were that he appeared to be totally sober and he was working. She had never seen an adult Argolath do any work before. She moved closer, deeply curious about who he was and where he had come from. She noticed that he did not smell of alcohol, as most Argolaths did, nor could she see any apple-brandy bottles nearby. He was truly an extraordinary specimen. She resolved to look him up on the multiweb. He should not be difficult to find; Moshendiar was not a common name.
He was lifting the little boxes out of a large crate. Cjingha looked into it. It was almost empty. There were just a few dozen left. I got here just in time, she thought.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Can I take two of those for my children?’
The Argolath frowned at her, glanced down at her professor’s gown, nodded and turned back to his work.
She bent and lifted two of the boxes in her tentacles. She had never actually held a universe before. Her expertise lay in economics, not science. Until this moment she had felt no interest in them but the enthusiasm of her children and the appearance of this strange Argolath pricked her curiosity. She studied them closely.
Each universe was enclosed in a little metal-edged box about the size of a heffletward-trap, but unlike a trap these boxes had six clear windows and no door. They were dark inside, as if they were filled with black ink, but that was obviously not the case because within the centre of each box she could see something small, floating in the darkness. She brought one box close to her strongest eye and peered inside.
The thing was a spherical blue ball. It was only as big as the tip of one of her thinnest tentacles, and quite difficult to see, but by squinting she could just make out a tangle of what looked like blue threads. That must be the universe. She was surprised at how tiny it was, like a tiny ball of coloured cotton wool.
The box itself was elaborately made. Each metallic edge was engraved with intricate markings, so fine they were on the edge of her vision. How can he afford to give this away free, she wondered. It’s obviously cost a lot to make. He doesn’t look rich. Where did he get the money for his Foundation? Perhaps he got a grant from the Council? But how–
These thoughts were interrupted by the Argolath saying loudly ‘I am sorry.’ She looked up. Moshendiar was standing with his tentacles raised over his head. ‘All the universes have gone now,’ he said.
A river of sighs and groans ran down the queue. The adult Entroilians and children began to clamour around the stall, asking whether there would be any more tomorrow. ‘No. There will be no more,’ he said and began to dismantle his stall and pack it into the crate. Some of the adults seemed quite put-out and many of the children were in tears, but after a few minutes the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
Cjingha stepped forward. ‘I am Professor Itoodoo. I don’t remember seeing you before, Doctor Moshendiar.’ She called him doctor out of courtesy. She had never heard of an Argolathian doctor. ‘Do you work at this University?’ She was certain he did not, of course. If an Argolath had worked here, or anywhere else in Entroilia for that matter, he would have been famous and she would already have heard about him. Argolaths never worked. Everyone knew that.
Moshendiar shook his head once, closed the crate and grunted as he heaved it up onto a small trolley.
‘So where do you come from?’ she asked.
‘Argolathia,’ he said with a tone of finality and began laboriously to pull the trolley across the uneven marquee floor towards the door.
Cjingha was appalled. Most Argolaths were charming when they spoke to Entroilians, even when drunk, but Moshendiar’s manners were no better than his dress sense. She flew after him. ‘Which part of Argolathia?’ she said.
He did not answer.
‘I didn’t know there were any scientists there,’ she said, walking beside him and waiting for a reply which did not come. ‘I am a professor in the Economics Department here,’ she persisted, spreading her gown to show him her authority. ‘I was wondering how you manage to finance these gifts. Do you receive a grant from the Council?’
The longer she waited for an answer, the more exasperation and frustration tightened in her chest. She quickly controlled these base emotions, telling herself that she needed to know the answer. It was a matter of professional research now, not just idle curiosity. He was obviously hiding something. His silence made her all the more determined to find out about him. Getting grants from the Council was difficult. How had he managed to do it? Why was he being so secretive? Maybe there was something more sinister to his silence. What was he hiding? Were these universes safe? Should she really give them to her children, or take them to the authorities and have them tested?
As Cjingha watched him with these thoughts running round in her head, the heavy crate wobbled and began to topple sideways. Moshendiar gasped. Seeing an opportunity to gain his favour, Cjingha ran forward, put her tentacles on the crate and steadied it. Then she helped him to heave the trolley out of the rut and continued to push from behind as he pulled it across the marquee. Their eyes met and he nodded a silent thank you.
Cjingha switched to a more friendly tone. ‘You’re giving away a small fortune here, my dear chap.’ His eyes were fixed on her. ‘The mother of one of my son’s friends paid something like a thousand tribrenha for a universe after the mating last New Year. I haven’t seen it myself but from what he told me I don’t think it’s such good quality as yours. The materials alone must have cost you a thousand each.’
Still he did not speak. She kept talking, explaining how excited her children were about getting one, but nothing she said elicited any response from him except veiled glances through his tangled grey tentacles.
Eventually they reached the marquee exit, he turned left and began wheeling the crate along the path. It was smooth and he could cope without her. The Staff Health Clinic lay in the opposite direction and she was already late for her appointment.
‘How do I contact you, if my children happen to find an Emergent?’ she called after him.
He paused and, to her great surprise, spread his tattered grey wings and flew back to her.
‘Show me your universes,’ he said.
She held them out to him. He took one and brought it close to his face. At the same time one of his tentacles dipped into a pocket of his grey robe and came out curled around something very small. Cjingha thought she saw one of the windows of the universe’s case flip open for a second, but within the grey tangle of his tentacles she could not be sure. The curled tentacle passed in front of the others, there was a flash of light and a click.
Moshendiar handed the box back to her. ‘There is no need to call me,’ he said. ‘If they find an Emergent the container will let me know.’
She reached out to take the box off him, but he held on to it and for a moment their tentacles touched. ‘Thank you for helping me with the trolley,’ he said, then let go of the universe. ‘Good luck!’ A twisted smile crossed his face, then he flew back to his crate, pulled the trolley along the path and in a few seconds disappeared from sight round the end of the marquee.
Cjingha watched him go, still intensely curious about him, then looked at the universe he had held, examining it closely. She tried pulling on all the edges but still could not find the door. Perhaps she had been mistaken. Perhaps there was no door. She looked at the other box. It looked identical. She sighed, put them into her pocket and flew towards the clinic.
She was sitting in the waiting room when she realised that here was a possible subject of study for one of her post-graduate students. She began to think of suitable titles.
The financing of science engagement.
Cosmogenical economics and Council budgets.
What price communicating science with children?
Something like that would do, and she had several students who would be able to work on this type of project. However none of them would return to the University until next week and by that time the Festival would be over and the organisers would have left town. She had to find out as much about Moshendiar as she could now, while these people were on her doorstep. If possible she wanted to meet him again. She decided that, after seeing the doctor she would go back to the ticket office. Somebody there must know where he came from.
June 24, 2008
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The tiny speck of silver dust, which Moshendiar’s tentacle had dropped into the box, curved through the inky blackness and rapidly approached the universe at its centre. What had appeared from outside like a tiny tangle of thin blue threads consisted in fact of long thick crystal pipes. They enclosed the whole enormous universe and dwarfed the speck to insignificance.
Glowing dots of light flickered back and forth along these pipes, bright with the hues of limes and marigolds, of cherries and saffron, optical signals running from pipe to pipe like multicoloured fireflies trying to escape from a bizzare transparent maze, their lights joining and forking within the intricately interconnected mesh.
When the speck reached the outer pipes it sparkled with their reflected light, as if it was happy to see them, and began to fall between them. They were arranged in layers like busy motorways stacked on top of each other hundreds of levels deep. As it fell the speck hit many of the pipes, bouncing away with a tiny ping before curving downwards once more on its long descent. And it was not the only thing falling towards the inner universe.
From beneath every pipe there emerged a fine spray of coloured droplets, each one glowing brightly with its own hue, apricot or asparagus, beryl or bronze, droplets which fell and bounced and dripped off the layers of pipes below until the speck was falling in a dense chromatic mist.
Although far smaller than any of these droplets, yet the speck exerted a powerful influence over them. Those nearby felt a strong inward force and moved towards it, merging together to form first a drop then a ball so large that air resistance distorted it, pulling out a tear-shaped tail. This ball periodically collided with one of the pipes, splattering itself back into a thousand droplets. As the speck descended so the mist around it increased in density, supplemented by fresh supplies spraying out from every new layer of pipes until it formed a heavy shower of coloured lights.
After a long fall, the speck reached the lowest layer of pipes and emerged into a clear space filled only by the glowing rain. Now it fell freely towards the universe, gaining speed. Once more it gathered nearby droplets into a ball which, lacking horizontal pipes to collide with, grew larger than ever before. It was now falling so fast that air resistance began to evaporate droplets from its lower surface, dragging them out into a long tail, until an equilibrium was reached and the ball obtained its maximum size hundreds of metres in diameter and with a tail several kilometres long.
This liquid comet headed rapidly towards a fluffy layer of cloud which lay like a thick blanket over the inner universe far below. The cloud appeared white, the result of mixing all the colours in the droplets which it contained. From this cloud there arose dozens of huge vertical pipes, like the trunks of giant trees in a tropical rain forest, supporting the overhead pipe network like the canopy of branches in the forest. Coloured dots ran up inside these massive trunks, filtering out into the overhead pipes and spraying down to maintained the endless supply of falling rain.
It took the speck’s comet several minutes to reach the cloud. As it descended the atmosphere around it became increasingly dense. When it penetrated the cloud the comet was going so fast that it created a sonic shock wave. This precipitated a thunder storm unlike any this universe had ever experienced. Lightening flashed around it like a police escort accompanying an important new visitor.
The comet, with the speck still enclosed, fell rapidly through the cloud and, less than a minute later, finally reached the universe itself. It struck a pink layer of material which was neither a liquid nor a solid but somewhere in between, like a huge ball of pink jelly. When the comet plunged into this glutinous surface the energy of its impact immediately evaporated the droplets, boiling them into a steam-cloud which blasted a hole in the pink surface. This created a slow-moving tsunami which began to spread out from the point of impact across the viscous ocean.
Meanwhile the speck, released from its enclosing liquid comet, sank rapidly into the pink surface and entered the universe proper. It now found itself in a radically different environment. The pink ocean and feeder pipes were nowhere to be seen. Instead the speck was hurtling across a huge open space surrounded by distant walls of light. It was moving faster than it should have been possible to move, according to the laws of physics inside this universe. In a journey that should have taken hundreds of millions of years it traversed the empty space in a matter of minutes and approached one of these walls.
The wall contained what looked like millions of tiny dots of light arranged in clusters. These dots, however, were radically different from the dots of light falling from the pipes outside the universe. For one thing, these dots were all white. Also their smallness was a delusion, caused by their huge distance from the speck. Their true size only became clear when the speck, hurtling between them, actually collided with one of them.
What from a distance had seemed like a tiny white dot proved, from inside, to be a huge oval array consisting of billions of smaller glowing balls of light, red, blue and white. The speck had found a galaxy of stars, each star far larger than the speck itself. As the speck traversed this galaxy, still travelling at unnaturally high speed, the passing stars exerted upon it a weak gravitational force but the speck was so tiny that this force had almost no effect.
However the stars also had another field of force around them, a magnetic field, and this had a profound influence on the speck. It was pulled out of its previously straight path into a curve, following the lines of magnetic force, and at the same time it slowed down. Each star it passed took away a little of its energy, yet it was still travelling at colossal speed when it emerged from the galaxy. It passed through several more galaxies, giving up more and more of its energy in each one, before it completely left the wall of galaxies and travelled out into another huge empty space.
Once more it traversed the space and reached the opposite wall. The whole universe was organised into a honeycomb-structure, almost empty spaces separated by sheets of millions of galaxies arranged in clusters. The speck crossed many spaces, passed through many walls, entered many galaxies, passed close to many stars, gradually slowing down. At lower speeds its path curved more and more, following the invisible lines drawn through space by the stars’ magnetic fields.
Eventually the speck was travelling so slowly that it did not have enough energy to escape and found itself orbiting round inside one of the galaxies. Like many another it had passed through, this galaxy had the shape of a pancake whose bulging centre was crossed by a shining bar packed with stars. From the ends of this bar two long arms of gas, dust and stars were being flung out like the spiral spray from a Catherine Wheel. Newly formed blue stars glowed within the molecular clouds in these spirals, creating beautiful three-dimensional sculptures in space.
Guided by magnetic fields, the speck passed through these spiral arms many times, as well as several minor arms, loosing energy whenever it came close to any star. In the end, near the edge of one minor arm, it was captured by the field surrounding one of the stars and went into orbit. Ahead of it was a tiny dark round object. A planet. A planet so small that its gravitational field alone would not have held the speck. But the little lump of rock had something else, something emanating from its nickel and iron core, a magnetic field which pulled the speck inwards along its curving field lines.
And so it was that, after a journey lasting only a few hours, the speck reached the surface of planet Earth.
June 24, 2008
Chapter 1: Festival of Science (23 June 2008)
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Free Universes — Today Only
Cjingha Itoodoo could hardly believe her eye as it read the headline, but then it was not one of her best and it seemed to have a mind of its own this morning. Dark and sullen, the eye crouched on the lower left of her face, near her eater, and kept straying away from the screen it was supposed to be reading. All her other eyes were obediently scanning every word on every page of the Sedtia Morning Herald, but not this one.
She was busy, deliberately busy, eating breakfast and simultaneously processing the data from all of her eyes so she did not always notice when this eye’s gaze went wandering off the screen and down the bright yellow dressing robe she wore, following the voluptuous curves of her six bulging baby-feeders. Each time she realised where this recalcitrant orb was looking she would force it away from her breasts and back onto the browser with a shudder.
Normally Cjingha did not read every part of the Herald. She usually just scanned the News and then read the Business Section in detail, but today was not a normal day. This morning she was forcing herself to read everything, immersing herself in the news, blotting out everything else, even her daughter’s moans about having to go back to school. It was in the Science Section that the eye read this headline. Cjingha was shocked.
Free Universes? Impossible! Universes were notoriously expensive, play-things for the spoilt children of the cream of Entroilian society, or a gambling investment for the poor who borrowed money to buy one, hoping to get rich quick. Universes were so expensive she had never even considered giving them to her children. A university lecturer’s salary was not large, even for a senior professor. Her economic instinct was piqued and her ego outraged. How could something that expensive be given away free? She swivelled her best eye (the big one just above her talker) to the foot of the browser, checking she was not mistaken. When it saw the same headline she read the short article below.
The first few lucky visitors at the Macroverse Festival of Science this morning will be given their very own free universe! ‘This is a wonderful opportunity for several hundred children to acquire a valuable gift,’ said Professor Karolinda, the President of the Macroverse Science Association. ‘We are grateful to the generosity of the Moshendiar Foundation for giving children a life-long interest and a marvellous learning opportunity.’
That’s all it said, apart from giving the telespeaker I.D. and opening hours of the ticket office. Cjingha’s mind was churning, her professional curiosity washing away the fears that had been clinging to her since she came out of the shower this morning. Her other eyes stopped scanning the screen, all focussing now on this one article. How much does it cost to manufacture a universe, she wondered. What’s the Moshendiar Foundation? I never heard of it. A few of her eyes swivelled across the kitchen to the door of the video room and she called ‘Glagnump!’
Her son’s face appeared in the doorway, a bowl, a spoon and a game controller in his tentacles, his eater chewing.
‘Didn’t one of your friends get a universe last New Year?’ she asked him.
‘Yes Mum, Koddlezine did. Why?’
Cjingha already knew his name. His mother was one of the richest Entroilians in this part of town. ‘Do you know how much his mother paid for it?’
‘About a thousand tribrenha I think. Why?’
‘Oh nothing,’ Cjingha said, trying not to show how jealous she was. Koddlezine’s mother ran a luxury underwear shop in the centre of Sedtia. During the weeks leading up to the New Year Festival you couldn’t move in there for naked Entroilians trying on sexy underwear. For her a thousand tribrenha would be small change whereas for Cjingha it was over a month’s salary.
‘But why, Mum, really?’
‘It’s just that they’re giving free universes away at the Festival of Science today and I was wondering how much–’
‘Universes?’ Glagnump dropped the game controller and flew across the kitchen. ‘Free ones? Really? Can I have one?’ He pushed his mother’s tentacles aside and looked over her shoulder at the browser screen. His eager eyes quickly found the article. ‘Is that the Festival thing they’re advertising all over town? The one at the University?’
Cjingha nodded. ‘Umm hmm.’
‘Then you can get me one on your way to work!’ He was obviously enthralled at the prospect.
‘No I can’t. I’m in meetings all morning and it says they’ve only got a few hundred. They’ll probably all be gone by lunchtime. And anyway I don’t think you’re old enough to look after one yet, Glagnump,’ she said when she saw the disappointment on his face. ‘Now hurry up and finish your breakfast. You don’t want to be late for school on the first day of term.’
‘But I’ll be ten thousand next year. That’s old enough!’ Glagnump snorted indignantly, fragments of cereal shooting out of his eater onto the multiweb browser screen. ‘Koddlezine’s the same age as me and he’s already got three. It isn’t that much work. He said he only checks them once a day.’ Her son’s tentacles began waving excitedly. ‘Please can I have one?’
‘What about me?’ The voice came from the other side of the breakfast table.
One of Cjingha’s eyes, black and dour, flicked across at her daughter. The girl was peering at herself in a little mirror, a brush poised in a delicate tentacle.
‘You’re not wearing make-up to school!’ Cjingha snapped, aghast. ‘You know it’s not allowed. Go and wash it off.’
Oesirisi stared defiantly at her mother but did not move. ‘It’s only a bit of blusher. Nobody will notice.’
All Cjingha’s eyes turned and scowled at her daughter. ‘I’m not going to argue with you, Oesirisi. I’ve already got enough on my plate this morning. If you want to get into trouble on the first day back at school then just carry on.’
‘So can I have a universe?’ Oesirisi said dabbing the red powder onto her cheeks. ‘I look after Glagnump when you’re not here. Looking after a universe would be much easier than him.’
‘But why do you both want one?’ Cjingha spoke as if she didn’t already know. ‘There’s nothing you could do with it except look at it and you’d have to check it every day.’
‘But just imagine what it would be like to find an Emergent, Mum!’ Glagnump said. ‘I’d love to have my very own being from another universe!’
Cjingha couldn’t argue with that. She had seen them on the televiewer, those children who were lucky enough to own a universe where beings had evolved, beings who were sufficiently intelligent to find their way out. The experience of looking after these Emergents had transformed those children’s lives, making them rich and famous overnight.
But is that what I want for my kids? There’s more to life than being a celebrity. They need a solid career behind them, not overnight fame. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I know exactly what would happen. If you didn’t find one in the first week you’d both get bored and I’d have to monitor them myself. You know how busy I am.’ She got up and began to clear the table. ‘And you can’t leave a universe more than a day without checking for Emergents.’
‘Of course not!’ Oesirisi said, running a pencil over the brows of her largest and most beautiful eye. ‘That would be worse than leaving a heffletward to starve to death in a trap! I promise I’ll check mine every day. Honestly!’
‘And me!’ Glagnump said.
Cjingha sighed. She knew that if one of her children did actually find an Emergent it would be an incredible learning opportunity. At the very least they would get to visit the Council, to appear on Entroilian televiewer and maybe even to meet the Being. After that, she thought, they could either sell the Emergent or go with it, becoming its proxy parent as it was educated in the ways of the Macroverse. And anyway (she thought, brushing crumbs off the table) the discipline of checking a universe every day without fail would be good for them, especially for Glagnump. He seldom does anything except play video games. And if they’re free, how can I refuse when the Festival is right on my doorstep in Sedtia University?
‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘But I just can’t do anything this morning. I’ll see what I can do at lunchtime, but I’m sure they’ll all be gone by then. I suggest you make your minds up you aren’t going to get one. Now hurry up you two. You’ll be late for school.’
She began loading the breakfast dishes into the washer, still not certain she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to discourage her children’s enthusiasm. They were getting to an age, especially Oesirisi, where going out with friends and having fun were beginning to look more interesting than doing homework. And as for Glagnump, at least watching a universe would get him away from playing stupid adventure games for a minute every day.
She went into her sleep-room, slipped out of her dressing robe and stood for a moment looking at her naked body in the mirror. A round face surrounded by long and strong tentacles. She had often been told she was beautiful, so she had to believe it. Her black skin was shining and with almost no creases or wrinkles. She spread out her large leathery black wings and let her tentacles run over them. They felt in perfect condition. She folded them and let her eyes move down over her baby-feeders. She had always been proud of them, large and heavy with prominent dugs. Below them two long, strong legs reached down to a set of carefully manicured hooves.
Not bad for an Entroilian of your age, she told herself. It wouldn’t be difficult to attract an Argolath at the next New Year Festival, if that’s what you wanted. But she dismissed the idea immediately. She had decided when Glagnump was born that she did not want any more children. Two was enough, and she already had one of each.
Then she felt it again. Without her realising what it was doing, one of her tentacles had moved down her body and found again the lump in one of her baby-feeders. No, she had not been mistaken in the shower this morning; it was still there. She lifted the breast, trying to see the spot in the mirror but it was on the bottom left, near her ngja, in a very difficult place to see. She would have to go to the doctor, but this was not the right time. There was too much to do today, and anyway the implications were so horrible she just could not think about it. She shuddered, let the baby feeder fall from her grip and forced the lump out of her mind.
She pulled on her underwear and yanked her new blue satin skirt and her favourite pale pink blouse out of the wardrobe. She put them on and checked herself once again in the mirror. As she had suspected, they not only matched perfectly but also brought out the beauty of her eyes. She slipped her long dark grey professor’s gown over them and pouted at the mirror to check the lipstick on her talker and her eater, then stood back for one last check.
‘What would your children think of you if you didn’t get them a free universe?’ she asked herself. The thought of what Oesirisi would say made her tentacles writhe around her shoulders in anxiety. It just might be the trigger that would turn her daughter against her. There had already been signs of rebellion. She could not risk losing control now, with so many other things on her mind. When she went back to the kitchen she was astonished to find her children washed, dressed and ready to go. Oesirisi had even washed off the make-up! They were obviously making a big effort to impress her.
They all flew together to the school and when she dropped them off they begged her once again to fetch them a universe each. She promised she would try and they went through the gate waving and flipping summersaults like new-born vandricks. She spread her large black wings and flew on to the University feeling quite pleased that they were so enthusiastic about something, but still with misgivings over the wisdom of giving such a responsibility to such young children.
Black smoke billowed around her from the tall chimneys as she flew over the industrial sector. Entroilians in overalls were flying down through the smoke to work in the factories and workshops. Sedtia was renown for its heavy industry. Not far beyond it lay the river, oily black with pollution from these industrial estates. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of it as she flew over to the University on the far side. Just before she flew down to the Economics Building she paused and hovered in mid-air, staring in amazement at the huge white structure that stood on the playing fields at the back of the campus, her first glimpse of the magnificent marquee which had been erected during the holiday for the annual jamboree known as the Macroverse Festival of Science.
June 12, 2008
Following feedback from Tehun, made a few small changes.
‘They’re giving universes away at the Festival of Science today,’ Cjingha said and immediately regretted it.
‘Universes? What, free ones?’ Oesirisi pushed her mother’s tentacles aside and looked over her shoulder at the front page of the Sedtia Morning Herald. ‘Can I have one?’
‘I don’t think you’re old enough to look after one yet, darling,’ Cjingha said quietly. Idiot, she told herself. Why didn’t I keep my talker shut?
‘Of course I am!’ Oesirisi snorted indignantly. Fragments of breakfast cereal shot out of the child’s eater onto the multiweb browser screen. ‘I look after Fuzzdark all by myself, and he takes a lot of work. Looking after a universe would be much easier than him.’
‘That’s true,’ Glagnump called from the video room. ‘Koddlezine only checks his once a day.’ He peered through the doorway, his tentacles waving excitedly. ‘Can I have one too? I’ll be ten thousand next year. That’s old enough.’ He went back to playing his adventure game.
‘But why do you want one?’ Cjingha said to her daughter, as if she didn’t already know. ‘There’s nothing you could do with it except look at it. And you’d have to check it every day.’
‘I know,’ Oesirisi said. ‘But Rokyh’s got one, and lots of my other friends. They say it only takes a minute every day, and just imagine what it would be like to find an Emergent, Mum! I’d love to have my very own being from another universe!’
Cjingha couldn’t argue with that. She had seen them on the televiewer, those children and adults who were lucky enough to own a universe where beings had evolved who were sufficiently intelligent to find their way out. It had transformed their lives, making them rich and famous overnight. But is that what I want for my kids?
‘I know exactly what would happen,’ she said, getting up to clear the table. ‘If you didn’t find one in the first week you’d both get bored and I’d have to monitor them myself. You know how busy I am, and you can’t leave a universe more than a day without checking for Emergents.’
‘Of course not!’ Oesirisi said. ‘That would be worse than leaving a heffletward to starve to death in a trap! I promise I’ll check mine every day. Honestly!’
‘And me!’ Glagnump called.
Cjingha sighed. She knew that, if one of her children did actually find an Emergent, it would be an incredible learning opportunity. At the very least they would get to visit the Council, appear on Entroilian television and maybe even meet the Being. Then they could either sell the creature or go with it, becoming its proxy parent as it was educated in the ways of the Macroverse. And the discipline of checking them without fail would be good, especially for Glagnump, who seldom did anything except play on his computer.
But universes were very expensive, and only one in a billion would produce an Emergent, so she had never considered it worthwhile to buy her children one. However, if they were free, how could she refuse?
‘All right,’ she said at last, brushing crumbs off the table. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Now hurry up you two. You’ll be late for school.’
She began loading the breakfast dishes into the washer, still not certain she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to discourage her children’s enthusiasm. They were getting to an age, especially Oesirisi, where going out with friends and having fun were beginning to look more interesting than doing homework. And as for Glagnump, at least watching a universe would get him away from playing stupid adventure games for a minute every day.
She went into her sleep-room and pulled her new blue satin skirt and her favourite pale pink blouse out of the wardrobe. She slipped out of her dressing robe, put them on and checked herself in the mirror. As she had suspected, they not only matched perfectly but also brought out the beauty of her shining black skin. She slipped her long dark grey professor’s gown over them and pouted at the mirror to check the lipstick on her talker and her eater, then stood back for one last check.
Her tentacles were long and strong, her wings in perfect condition. Her baby-feeders were large and heavy, her sitters small and neat. Not bad for an Entroilian of your age, she told herself. It wouldn’t be difficult to attract an Argolath at the next summer mating, if that’s what you wanted. But she dismissed the idea immediately. She had decided when Glagnump was born that she did not want any more children. Two was enough, and she already had one of each.
But what would they think of you if you didn’t get them a free universe? The thought of what Oesirisi would say made her tentacles writhe around her shoulders in anxiety. It just might even be the trigger that would turn her daughter against her. There had already been signs of rebellion. She could not risk losing control now, with so many other things on her mind.
When she dropped her children off at school they begged her once again to fetch them a universe each. She promised she would try and they went through the gate waving and flipping summersaults like new-born vandricks. She spread her large black wings and flew on to the University feeling quite pleased that they were so enthusiastic, but still with misgivings about the wisdom of giving such a responsibility to such young children.
She was in faculty meetings all morning. After cramming her lunch into her eater while checking her video mails, she flew out of her office into the autumn szemzion-shine, her long professor’s gown flapping behind her. She decided to keep it on despite the heat, hoping it would be her passport into the Festival of Science, gaining her priority ahead of the general public. She did not have much time. This afternoon she had to prepare for the start of term next week.
With strong sweeps of her sleek black wings she flew to the entrance marked ‘Ticket Office’ in the vast marquee the Macroverse Science Association had erected on the sports fields at the back of the Sedtia University campus. She found the shortest queue and while she waited for the two elderly Entroilians to buy their tickets she browsed a nearby poster listing dozens of lectures for this afternoon.
- How does Science affect the Being?
- Alcohol-induced sterility among Argolaths and their future reproductive viability.
- Our life-giving Szemzion: the flow of energy to Entroilia.
- Why Argolaths degenerate at puberty but Entroilians do not.
They all look interesting, she thought, wishing she had time to attend some of them. The elderly Entroilians moved away and she stepped towards the counter. A young female sat on the other side, pretty and casually dressed but with multiple pins, rings, badges, animated gizmos and decorations piercing her tentacles, face and body. Cjingha felt her lunch rise in her throat. She had only ever seen this kind of thing on the multiweb. It was not the kind of things students did at Sedtia University. She swallowed hard. Well now I’ve seen them in the flesh, she thought and smiled at the unintended pun.
The girl directed her to entrance 34C, which she said was round the back of the marquee. Cjingha flew off still feeling queasy. I hope Oesirisi doesn’t start asking for rings through her timbrails, she thought. And if she ever has a pin through her ngja I’ll murder her. She had heard this was one of the latest fashions, piercing of the reproductive organs both among females and males. She could understand a drunken Argolath having it done, but not a sensible Entroilian.
Hundreds of children, both Entroilians and Argolaths, were streaming out of the huge marquee, accompanied by their teachers. Thousands were already lying around on the grass, eating their packed lunches or playing games as they enjoyed the unseasonally warm szemzion. Cjingha wondered why her local school hadn’t organised a visit. Oesirisi and Glagnump would have loved all this. I wish I’d known about it before. I could have mentioned it to their teachers. But then science isn’t my subject and I never realised what a big event this Festival was going to be.
Cjingha was struck by how excited the children here were, even the Argolaths. Why was it, she wondered, that when these boys reach the age of thirteen or fourteen thousand they would lose all interest in any intellectual pursuits? It saddened her to think that Glagnump would soon reach that age, and change from being an inquiring, lively intelligent boy to a dull, drunken moron. She still hoped that somehow she could stop him going to Argolathia.
Once more she thanked her lucky szemzions that she had been born an Entroilian. Females never lost their sense of magic and wonder. Perhaps it was because we have to bear children and raise them, she thought as she flew towards entrance 34C, whereas the Argolaths have nothing more to do than father our children once a year and get drunk and fight the rest of the time. But it all seemed such a waste of their intellectual potential. She had never felt comfortable with this way of organising society, and now it was about to affect her own son, she felt an increasing desire to do something about it. But how? I’m just one Entroilian in the whole Macroverse. What can I do to change anything?
Nobody challenged her as she flew into the marquee. Inside it seemed even larger than it had looked from the outside. She hovered near the entrance, searching for the place where the universes were being given out. Thousands of stalls lined the walls, each showing hundreds of different scientific and engineering toys, gifts, ornaments, synthesized foods, lifestyle-products, brain enhancers, tentacle extenders, transcendental games, multiweb worlds, science and engineering careers, hobbies and holidays. With the children having gone outside, most of the stalls were quiet, the staff sitting around eating their lunches. Eventually she spotted a long queue winding towards a booth on the far wall.
She could make out the words on a printed banner hanging above it.
- Cosmogenist Moshendiar
She frowned, not recognising either of these words. After thinking for a seconds she worked out that a cosmogenist must be somebody who made cosmoses. Pinned beneath that sign was another, improvised banner she could not read from this distance, but she had no doubt that it was the place she was looking for. She flew across the marquee and the words became clearer as she approached the booth:
- Today only – Free Universes
The queue consisted mostly of Argolath children, and it was growing longer all the time as others finished their lunches and came it to collect their free gift. There were a few adult Entroilians waiting patiently too; teachers, Cjingha thought. She spread out her grey gown and flew over their heads to the head of the queue. She had no time to wait. She had a lot of work to do this afternoon.
Behind the counter stood an Argolath, his tentacles grey with age, pushing little boxes over the counter into the eager clutches of excited children. Cjingha landed nearby and stood watching him in utter astonishment. He was the strangest Argolath she had ever seen. She had never seen an adult Argolath do any work before. Also he appeared to be totally sober. His robes were as grey as his tentacles, not white like most males. Even though they were usually drunk, Argolaths were so vain they normally managed to keep their clothes spotlessly clean, but not this one. His robes looked as if he had not washed them for weeks, perhaps months. His feet were bare, his wings looked tattered and moth-eaten. He obviously cared nothing about his appearance.
When she recovered from her surprise she moved closer, deeply curious about who he was and where he had come from. She noticed that he did not smell of alcohol, as most Argolaths did, nor could she see any apple-brandy bottles nearby. He was truly an extraordinary specimen. She read his name again, Moshendiar, resolving to look him up on the multiweb. He was lifting the little boxes out of a large crate. Cjingha looked into it. It was almost empty. There were just a few dozen left. I got here just in time, she thought.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Can I take two of those for my children?’
The Argolath frowned at her, glanced down at her professor’s gown, nodded and turned back to his work.
She bent and lifted two boxes in her tentacles. She had never actually held a universe before. Her expertise lay in economics, not science. Until this moment she had felt no interest in cosmogeny, but the enthusiasm of her children and the appearance of this strange Argolath pricked her curiosity. She studied them closely.
Each universe was enclosed in a little metal-edged box about the size of a heffletward-trap, but unlike a trap these boxes had six clear windows and no door. They were dark inside, as if they were filled with black ink, but that was obviously not the case because within the centre of each box she could see something small, floating in the darkness. She brought one box close to her strongest eye and peered inside.
There was a spherical blue ball. It was only as big as the tip of one of her thinnest tentacles, and quite difficult to see, but by squinting she could just make out a tangle of what looked like blue threads. That must be the universe. She was surprised at how tiny it was, like a tiny ball of coloured cotton wool.
The box itself was elaborately made. Each metallic edge was engraved with intricate markings, so fine they were on the edge of her vision. How can he afford to give this away free, she wondered. It’s obviously cost a lot to make. He doesn’t look rich. Perhaps he got a grant from somebody? But which charity or research council would sponsor–
Her thoughts were interrupted by the Argolath saying loudly ‘I am sorry.’ She looked up. Moshendiar was standing with his tentacles raised over his head. ‘All the universes have gone now,’ he said.
A river of sighs and groans ran down the queue. The Entroilians and children began to clamour around the stall, asking whether there would be any more tomorrow. ‘No. There will be no more,’ he said and began to dismantle his stall and pack it into the crate. Some of the adults seemed quite put-out and many of the children were in tears, but after a few minutes the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
Cjingha stepped forward. ‘I am Professor Itoodoo. I don’t remember seeing you before, Doctor Moshendiar.’ She called him doctor out of habit. ‘Do you work at this University?’ She was certain he did not, of course. If an Argolath had worked here, or anywhere else in Entroilia for that matter, he would have been famous and she would already have heard about him. Argolaths never worked.
Moshendiar shook his head once, closed the crate and loaded it onto a small trolley.
‘So where do you come from?’ she asked.
‘Argolathia,’ he said with a tone of finality and began laboriously to pull the trolley across the uneven marquee floor towards the door.
Cjingha was appalled. Most Argolaths were charming when they spoke to Entroilians, even when drunk, but Moshendiar’s manners were no better than his dress sense. She flew after him. ‘Which part?’ she said.
He did not answer.
‘I didn’t know there were any scientists in Argolathia,’ she said, walking beside him and waiting for a reply which did not come. ‘I am a professor in the Economics Department here,’ she persisted, spreading her gown to show him her authority. ‘I was wondering how you manage to finance these gifts. Do you receive a grant from the Council?’
The longer she waited for an answer, the more exasperation and frustration tightened in her chest. She quickly controlled these base emotions, telling herself that she needed to know the answer. It was a matter of professional research now, not just idle curiosity. He was obviously hiding something. His silence made her all the more determined to find out about him. Was he trustworthy? Were these universes safe? Should she report him to the authorities, ask them to issue a recall on all free universes?
As Cjingha watched him with these thoughts running round in her head, the heavy crate wobbled and began to topple sideways. Moshendiar gasped. Seeing an opportunity to gain his favour, Cjingha ran forward, put her tentacles on the crate and steadied it. Then she helped him to heave the trolley out of the rut and continued to push from behind as he pulled it across the marquee. Their eyes met and he nodded a silent thank you.
Cjingha switched to a more friendly tone. ‘You’re giving away a small fortune here, my dear chap.’ His eyes were fixed on her. ‘The mother of one of my son’s friends paid over a thousand tribrenha for a universe after the mating last New Year. I haven’t seen it myself but from what he told me I don’t think it’s such good quality as yours. The materials alone must have cost you a thousand each.’
Still he did not speak. She kept talking, explaining how excited her children were about getting one, but nothing she said elicited any response from him except veiled glances through his tangled grey tentacles.
Eventually they reached the marquee exit, he turned left and began wheeling the crate along the path. It was smooth and he could cope without her. Cjingha’s office lay in the opposite direction and she knew she would have to go back to work soon.
‘How do I contact you, if my children happen to find an Emergent?’ she called after him.
He paused and, to her great surprise, spread his huge grey ragged wings and flew back to her.
‘Show me your universes,’ he said.
She held them out to him. He took one and brought it close to his face. At the same time one of his tentacles dipped into a pocket of his grey robe and came out curled around something very small. Cjingha thought she saw one of the windows of the universe’s case flip open for a second, but within the grey tangle of his tentacles she could not be sure. The curled tentacle passed in front of the others, there was a flash of light and a click.
Moshendiar handed the box back to her. ‘If they find an Emergent there will be no need to call me,’ he said. ‘The container will let me know.’
She reached out to take the box off him, but he held on to it and for a moment their tentacles touched. ‘Thank you for helping me with the trolley,’ he said, then let go of the universe. ‘Good luck with this.’ A twisted smile crossed his face, then he flew back to his crate, pulled the trolley along the path and in a few seconds disappeared from sight round the end of the marquee.
Cjingha watched him go, still intensely curious about him, then looked at the universe he had held, examining it closely. She could not see the door. She tried pulling on all the edges but still could not find it. She repeated the search on the other box, with the same result. The two boxes looked identical. She was not even sure which one he had taken off her. She sighed, put them into her pocket and flew towards her office.
She was halfway back to work when she realised that here was a possible subject of study for one of her post-graduate students. She began to think of suitable titles.
- The financing of science engagement.
- Cosmogenical economics and Council budgets.
- What price communicating science with children?
Something like that would do, and she had several students who would be able to work on this type of project. However none of them would return to the University until next week and by that time the Festival would be over, the organisers would have left town. She had to find out as much about Moshendiar as she could now, while these people were on her doorstep. If possible she wanted to meet him again. She flew back towards the ticket office. Somebody there must know where he came from.
June 12, 2008
‘They’re giving universes away at the Festival of Science today,’ Cjingha said and immediately regretted it. She said it because she was surprised, almost speaking to herself, but her daughter heard her.
‘Universes? What, free ones?’ Oesirisi pushed her mother’s tentacles aside and looked over her shoulder at the front page of the Sedtia Morning Herald. ‘Can I have one?’
‘I don’t think you’re old enough to look after one yet, darling,’ Cjingha said quietly. Idiot, she told herself. Why didn’t I keep my talker shut?
‘Of course I am!’ Oesirisi snorted indignantly. Fragments of breakfast cereal shot out of the child’s eater onto the multiweb browser screen. ‘I look after Fuzzdark all by myself, and he takes a lot of work. Looking after a universe would be much easier than him.’
‘That’s true,’ Glagnump called from the video room. ‘Koddlezine only checks his once a day.’ He peered through the doorway, his tentacles waving excitedly. ‘Can I have one too? I’ll be ten thousand next year. That’s old enough.’ He went back to playing his adventure game.
‘But why do you want one?’ Cjingha said to her daughter, as if she didn’t already know. ‘There’s nothing you could do with it except look at it. And you’d have to check it every day.’
‘I know,’ Oesirisi said. ‘But Rokyh’s got one, and lots of my other friends. They say it only takes a minute every day, and just imagine what it would be like to find an Emergent, Mum! I’d love to have my very own being from another universe!’
Cjingha couldn’t argue with that. She had seen them on the televiewer, those children and adults who were lucky enough to own a universe where beings had evolved who were sufficiently intelligent to find their way out. It had transformed their lives, making them rich and famous overnight. But is that what she want for my kids?
‘I know exactly what would happen,’ she said, getting up to clear the table. ‘If you didn’t find one in the first week you’d both get bored and I’d have to monitor them myself. You know how busy I am, and you can’t leave a universe more than a day without checking for Emergents.’
‘Of course not!’ Oesirisi said. ‘That would be worse than leaving a heffletward to starve to death in a trap! I promise I’ll check mine every day. Honestly!’
‘And me!’ Glagnump called.
Cjingha sighed. She knew that, if one of her children did actually find an Emergent, it would be an incredible learning opportunity. At the very least they would get to visit the Council, appear on Entroilian television and maybe even meet the Being. Then they could either sell the creature or go with it, becoming its proxy parent as it was educated in the ways of the Macroverse. And the discipline of checking them without fail would be good, especially for Glagnump, who seldom did anything except play on his computer.
But universes were very expensive, and only one in a billion would produce an Emergent, so she had never considered it worthwhile to buy her children one. However, if they were free, how could she refuse?
‘All right,’ she said at last, brushing crumbs off the table. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Now hurry up you two. You’ll be late for school.’
She began loading the breakfast dishes into the washer, still not certain she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to discourage her children’s enthusiasm. They were getting to an age, especially Oesirisi, where going out with friends and having fun were beginning to look more interesting than doing homework. And as for Glagnump, at least watching a universe would get him away from playing stupid adventure games for a minute every day.
She went into her sleep-room and pulled her new blue satin skirt and her favourite pale pink blouse out of the wardrobe. She slipped out of her dressing robe, put them on and checked herself in the mirror. As she had suspected, they not only matched perfectly but also brought out the beauty of her shining black skin. She slipped her long dark grey professor’s gown over them and pouted at the mirror to check the lipstick on her talker and her eater, then stood back for one last check.
Her tentacles were long and strong, her wings in perfect condition. Her baby-feeders were large and heavy, her sitters small and neat. Not bad for an Entroilian of your age, she told herself. It wouldn’t be difficult to attract an Argolath at the next summer mating, if that’s what you wanted. But she dismissed the idea immediately. She had decided when Glagnump was born that she did not want any more children. Two was enough, and she already had one of each.
But what would they think of you if you didn’t get them a free universe? The thought of what Oesirisi would say made her tentacles writhe around her shoulders in anxiety. It just might even be the trigger that would turn her daughter against her. There had already been signs of rebellion. She could not risk losing control now, with so many other things on her mind.
When she dropped her children off at school they begged her once again to fetch them a universe each. She promised she would try and they went through the gate waving and flipping summersaults like new-born vandricks. She spread her large black wings and flew on to the University feeling quite pleased that they were so enthusiastic, but still with misgivings about the wisdom of giving such a responsibility to such young children.
She was in faculty meetings all morning. After cramming her lunch into her eater while checking her video mails, she flew out of her office into the autumn szemzion-shine, her long professor’s gown flapping behind her. She decided to keep it on despite the heat, hoping it would be her passport into the Festival of Science, gaining her priority ahead of the general public. She did not have much time. This afternoon she had to prepare for the start of term next week.
With strong sweeps of her sleek black wings she flew to the entrance marked ‘Ticket Office’ in the vast marquee the Macroverse Science Association had erected on the sports fields at the back of the Sedtia University campus. She found the shortest queue and while she waited for the two elderly Entroilians to buy their tickets she browsed a nearby poster listing dozens of lectures for this afternoon.
- How does Science affect the Being?
- Alcohol-induced sterility among Argolaths and their future reproductive viability.
- Our life-giving Szemzion: the flow of energy to Entroilia.
- Why Argolaths degenerate at puberty but Entroilians do not.
They all look interesting, she thought, wishing she had time to attend some of them. The elderly Entroilians moved away and she stepped towards the counter. A young female sat on the other side, pretty and casually dressed but with multiple pins, rings, badges, animated gizmos and decorations piercing her tentacles, face and body. Cjingha felt her lunch rise in her throat. She had only ever seen this kind of thing on the multiweb. It was not the kind of things students did at Sedtia University. She swallowed hard. Well now I’ve seen them in the flesh, she thought and smiled at the unintended pun.
The girl directed her to entrance 34C, which she said was round the back of the marquee. Cjingha flew off still feeling queasy. I hope Oesirisi doesn’t start asking for rings through her timbrails, she thought. And if she ever has a pin through her ngja I’ll murder her. She had heard this was one of the latest fashions, piercing of the reproductive organs both among females and males. She could understand a drunken Argolath having it done, but not a sensible Entroilian.
Hundreds of children, both Entroilians and Argolaths, were streaming out of the huge marquee, accompanied by their teachers. Thousands were already lying around on the grass, eating their packed lunches or playing games as they enjoyed the unseasonally warm szemzion. Cjingha wondered why her local school hadn’t organised a visit. Oesirisi and Glagnump would have loved all this. I wish I’d known about it before. I could have mentioned it to their teachers. But then science isn’t my subject and I never realised what a big event this Festival was going to be.
Cjingha was struck by how excited the children here were, even the Argolaths. Why was it, she wondered, that when these boys reach the age of thirteen or fourteen thousand they would lose all interest in any intellectual pursuits? It saddened her to think that Glagnump would soon reach that age, and change from being an inquiring, lively intelligent boy to a dull, drunken moron. She still hoped that somehow she could stop him going to Argolathia.
Once more she thanked her lucky szemzions that she had been born an Entroilian. Females never lost their sense of magic and wonder. Perhaps it was because we have to bear children and raise them, she thought as she flew towards entrance 34C, whereas the Argolaths have nothing more to do than father our children once a year and get drunk and fight the rest of the time. But it all seemed such a waste of their intellectual potential. She had never felt comfortable with this way of organising society, and now it was about to affect her own son, she felt an increasing desire to do something about it. But how? I’m just one Entroilian in the whole Macroverse. What can I do to change anything?
Nobody challenged her as she flew into the marquee. Inside it seemed even larger than it had looked from the outside. She hovered near the entrance, searching for the place where the universes were being given out. Thousands of stalls lined the walls, each showing hundreds of different scientific and engineering toys, gifts, ornaments, synthesized foods, lifestyle-products, brain enhancers, tentacle extenders, transcendental games, multiweb worlds, science and engineering careers, hobbies and holidays. With the children having gone outside, most of the stalls were quiet, the staff sitting around eating their lunches. Eventually she spotted a long queue winding towards a booth on the far wall.
She could make out the words on a printed banner hanging above it.
- Cosmogenist Moshendiar
She frowned, not recognising either of these words. After thinking for a seconds she worked out that a cosmogenist must be somebody who made cosmoses. Pinned beneath that sign was another, improvised banner she could not read from this distance, but she had no doubt that it was the place she was looking for. She flew across the marquee and the words became clearer as she approached the booth:
- Today only – Free Universes
The queue consisted mostly of Argolath children, and it was growing longer all the time as others finished their lunches and came it to collect their free gift. There were a few adult Entroilians waiting patiently too; teachers, Cjingha thought. She spread out her grey gown and flew over their heads to the head of the queue. She had no time to wait. She had a lot of work to do this afternoon.
Behind the counter stood an Argolath, his tentacles grey with age, pushing little boxes over the counter into the eager clutches of excited children. Cjingha landed nearby and stood watching him in utter astonishment. He was the strangest Argolath she had ever seen. She had never seen an adult Argolath do any work before. Also he appeared to be totally sober. His robes were as grey as his tentacles, not white like most males. Even though they were usually drunk, Argolaths were so vain they normally managed to keep their clothes spotlessly clean, but not this one. His robes looked as if he had not washed them for weeks, perhaps months. His feet were bare, his wings looked tattered and moth-eaten. He obviously cared nothing about his appearance.
When she recovered from her surprise she moved closer, deeply curious about who he was and where he had come from. She noticed that he did not smell of alcohol, as most Argolaths did, nor could she see any apple-brandy bottles nearby. He was truly an extraordinary specimen. She read his name again, Moshendiar, resolving to look him up on the multiweb. He was lifting the little boxes out of a large crate. Cjingha looked into it. It was almost empty. There were just a few dozen left. I got here just in time, she thought.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Can I take two of those for my children?’
The Argolath frowned at her, glanced down at her professor’s gown, nodded and turned back to his work.
She bent and lifted two boxes in her tentacles. She had never actually held a universe before. Her expertise lay in economics, not science. Until this moment she had felt no interest in cosmogeny, but the enthusiasm of her children and the appearance of this strange Argolath pricked her curiosity. She studied them closely.
Each universe was enclosed in a little metal-edged box about the size of a heffletward-trap, but unlike a trap these boxes had six clear windows and no door. They were dark inside, as if they were filled with black ink, but that was obviously not the case because within the centre of each box she could see something small, floating in the darkness. She brought one box close to her strongest eye and peered inside.
There was a spherical blue ball. It was only as big as the tip of one of her thinnest tentacles, and quite difficult to see, but by squinting she could just make out a tangle of what looked like blue threads. That must be the universe. She was surprised at how tiny it was, like a tiny ball of coloured cotton wool.
The box itself was elaborately made. Each metallic edge was engraved with intricate markings, so fine they were on the edge of her vision. How can he afford to give this away free, she wondered. It’s obviously cost a lot to make. He doesn’t look rich. Perhaps he got a grant from somebody? But which charity or research council would sponsor–
Her thoughts were interrupted by the Argolath saying loudly ‘I am sorry.’ She looked up. Moshendiar was standing with his tentacles raised over his head. ‘All the universes have gone now,’ he said.
A river of sighs and groans ran down the queue. The Entroilians and children began to clamour around the stall, asking whether there would be any more tomorrow. ‘No. There will be no more,’ he said and began to dismantle his stall and pack it into the crate. Some of the adults seemed quite put-out and many of the children were in tears, but after a few minutes the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
Cjingha stepped forward. ‘I am Professor Itoodoo. I don’t remember seeing you before, Doctor Moshendiar.’ She called him doctor out of habit. ‘Do you work at this University?’ She was certain he did not, of course. If an Argolath had worked here, or anywhere else in Entroilia for that matter, he would have been famous and she would already have heard about him. Argolaths never worked.
Moshendiar shook his head once, closed the crate and loaded it onto a small trolley.
‘So where do you come from?’ she asked.
‘Argolathia,’ he said with a tone of finality and began laboriously to pull the trolley across the uneven marquee floor towards the door. Cjingha was appalled. Most Argolaths were charming when they spoke to Entroilians, even when drunk, but Moshendiar’s manners were no better than his dress sense. She flew after him. ‘Which part?’ she said. He continued to pull his load towards the door but did not answer.
‘I didn’t know there were any scientists in Argolathia,’ she said, walking beside him and waiting for a reply which did not come. ‘I am a professor in the Economics Department here,’ she persisted, spreading her gown to show him her authority. ‘I was wondering how you manage to finance these gifts. Do you receive a grant from the Council?’
The longer she waited for an answer, the more exasperation and frustration tightened in her chest. She quickly controlled these base emotions, telling herself that she needed to know the answer. It was a matter of professional research now, not just idle curiosity. He was obviously hiding something. His silence made her all the more determined to find out about him. Was he trustworthy? Were these universes safe? Should she report him to the authorities, ask them to issue a recall on all free universes?
As Cjingha watched him with these thoughts running round in her head, the heavy crate wobbled and began to topple sideways. Moshendiar gasped. Seeing an opportunity to gain his favour, Cjingha ran forward, put her tentacles on the crate and steadied it. Then she helped him to heave the trolley out of the rut and continued to push from behind as he pulled it across the marquee. Their eyes met and he nodded a silent thank you.
Cjingha switched to a more friendly tone. ‘You’re giving away a small fortune here, my dear chap.’ His eyes were fixed on her. ‘The mother of one of my son’s friends paid over a thousand tribrenha for a universe after the mating last New Year. I haven’t seen it myself but from what he told me I don’t think it’s such good quality as yours. The materials alone must have cost you a thousand each.’
Still he did not speak. She kept talking, explaining how excited her children were about getting one, but nothing she said elicited any response from him except veiled glances through his tangled grey tentacles.
Eventually they reached the marquee exit, he turned left and began wheeling the crate along the path. It was smooth and he could cope without her. Cjingha’s office lay in the opposite direction and she knew she would have to go back to work soon.
‘How do I contact you, if my children happen to find an Emergent?’ she called after him.
He paused and, to her great surprise, spread his huge grey ragged wings and flew back to her.
‘Show me your universes,’ he said.
She held them out to him. He took one and brought it close to his face. At the same time one of his tentacles dipped into a pocket of his grey robe and came out curled around something very small. Cjingha thought she saw one of the windows of the universe’s case flip open for a second, but within the grey tangle of his tentacles she could not be sure. The curled tentacle passed in front of the others, there was a flash of light and a click.
Moshendiar handed the box back to her. ‘If they find an Emergent there will be no need to call me,’ he said. ‘The container will let me know.’
She reached out to take the box off him, but he held on to it and for a moment their tentacles touched. ‘Thank you for helping me with the trolley,’ he said, then let go of the universe. ‘Good luck with this.’ A twisted smile crossed his face, then he flew back to his crate, pulled the trolley along the path and in a few seconds disappeared from sight round the end of the marquee.
Cjingha watched him go, still intensely curious about him, then looked at the universe he had held, examining it closely. She could not see the door. She tried pulling on all the edges but still could not find it. She repeated the search on the other box, with the same result. The two boxes looked identical. She was not even sure which one he had taken off her. She sighed, put them into her pocket and flew towards her office.
She was halfway back to work when she realised that here was a possible subject of study for one of her post-graduate students. She began to think of suitable titles.
- The financing of science engagement.
- Cosmogenical economics and Council budgets.
- What price communicating science with children?
Something like that would do, and she had several students who would be able to work on this type of project. However none of them would return to the University until next week and by that time the Festival would be over, the organisers would have left town. She had to find out as much about Moshendiar as she could now, while these people were on her doorstep. If possible she wanted to meet him again. She flew back towards the ticket office. Somebody there must know where he came from.
