take that mask off?”
“No. Not yet. Okay, the whole picture is what we call the Altiverse. Not to be confused with the Multiverse, whichmeans the entire infinity of parallel universes and all the worlds therein. The Altiverse is that slice of the Multiverse that contains all the myriad Earths. And there are a lot of ’em.” He paused, and I got the feeling he was frowning at me. “You understand quantum differentiation? Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle? Multiple world lines?”
“Uh…” We’d touched on some of it in Mr. Lerner’s science class, and I remembered reading an article on the Discover website. Plus I’d seen that episode of classic Trek where Spock had a beard and the Enterprise was full of space pirates. But all that put together made me about as much of an expert as the family cat.
I said as much; Jay waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll pick up what you need to know—cultural osmosis. The thing to remember is that certain decisions—important ones, those that can create major ripples in the time stream—can cause alternate worlds to splinter off into divergent space-time continua. Remember this, or you’ll wind up paralyzed every time you have to make a choice: The Altiverse is not going to create a brave new world based on your decision to wear green socks today instead of red ones. Or if it does, that world will only last a few femtoseconds before being recycled into the reality it split off from. But if your president is trying to decide whether or not to carpet bomb some Middle East saber rattler, he gets it both ways—because two worlds are created where before there was one.Of course, the In-Between keeps them apart, so he’ll never know.”
“Wait a minute—it sounds like you’re trying to say that the creation of new alternate worlds is a conscious decision.”
“I’m not trying to say it—I just said it. Or weren’t you paying attention?”
“But whose consciousness? God’s?”
Jay shrugged, and the molten colors of the sky swam and ran on his gleaming shoulders. “It’s physics, not theology. Call it what you want—God, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Prime Mover Unmoved. The totality of everything. I don’t care. Consciousness is a factor in every aspect of the Multiverse. Quantum math needs a viewpoint, or it doesn’t work. Just try to remember not to confuse consciousness with ego. Two completely different things—and of the two, ego’s the disposable one.”
I wanted to ask him more questions about that, but he was already moving on. “Think of that slice of the Multiverse as an arc—with several extra dimensions, of course.” He made gestures that looked like he was strangling a snake. “At each extreme of the arc are the homeworlds of two hegemonies—empires that each control a small percentage of the individual Earths in the arc. One of them we call the Binary. They use advanced technology—by ‘advanced’ I mean compared to what most of the other Earths have come up with—to radiate out along the arc, conquering as they go. You nearlymet up with a couple of representatives back on that Earth you’d Walked to—the ‘opposition is nonproductive’ boys on those flying disks. They love saying things like that. The other empire calls itself HEX. Their artillery relies on magic—spells, talismans, sacrifices—”
“Whoa.” I held up two flat palms in a T shape—the timeout gesture. “Hold up, hold up. Magic ? You mean like ‘abracadabra’? ‘hocus-pocus’?”
Jay’s body language indicated annoyance, but his tone was patient. “Well, I’ve never actually heard one of them say ‘hocus-pocus,’ but, yeah, that’s the general idea.”
I felt like my brain was leaking out of my ears. “But that’s not—”
“Possible? You sure looked like a believer to me when I pulled you off the Lacrimae Mundi .”
I opened my mouth, then decided to shut it again when nothing came out. Jay leaned back with an attitude of
“No. Not yet. Okay, the whole picture is what we call the Altiverse. Not to be confused with the Multiverse, whichmeans the entire infinity of parallel universes and all the worlds therein. The Altiverse is that slice of the Multiverse that contains all the myriad Earths. And there are a lot of ’em.” He paused, and I got the feeling he was frowning at me. “You understand quantum differentiation? Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle? Multiple world lines?”
“Uh…” We’d touched on some of it in Mr. Lerner’s science class, and I remembered reading an article on the Discover website. Plus I’d seen that episode of classic Trek where Spock had a beard and the Enterprise was full of space pirates. But all that put together made me about as much of an expert as the family cat.
I said as much; Jay waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll pick up what you need to know—cultural osmosis. The thing to remember is that certain decisions—important ones, those that can create major ripples in the time stream—can cause alternate worlds to splinter off into divergent space-time continua. Remember this, or you’ll wind up paralyzed every time you have to make a choice: The Altiverse is not going to create a brave new world based on your decision to wear green socks today instead of red ones. Or if it does, that world will only last a few femtoseconds before being recycled into the reality it split off from. But if your president is trying to decide whether or not to carpet bomb some Middle East saber rattler, he gets it both ways—because two worlds are created where before there was one.Of course, the In-Between keeps them apart, so he’ll never know.”
“Wait a minute—it sounds like you’re trying to say that the creation of new alternate worlds is a conscious decision.”
“I’m not trying to say it—I just said it. Or weren’t you paying attention?”
“But whose consciousness? God’s?”
Jay shrugged, and the molten colors of the sky swam and ran on his gleaming shoulders. “It’s physics, not theology. Call it what you want—God, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Prime Mover Unmoved. The totality of everything. I don’t care. Consciousness is a factor in every aspect of the Multiverse. Quantum math needs a viewpoint, or it doesn’t work. Just try to remember not to confuse consciousness with ego. Two completely different things—and of the two, ego’s the disposable one.”
I wanted to ask him more questions about that, but he was already moving on. “Think of that slice of the Multiverse as an arc—with several extra dimensions, of course.” He made gestures that looked like he was strangling a snake. “At each extreme of the arc are the homeworlds of two hegemonies—empires that each control a small percentage of the individual Earths in the arc. One of them we call the Binary. They use advanced technology—by ‘advanced’ I mean compared to what most of the other Earths have come up with—to radiate out along the arc, conquering as they go. You nearlymet up with a couple of representatives back on that Earth you’d Walked to—the ‘opposition is nonproductive’ boys on those flying disks. They love saying things like that. The other empire calls itself HEX. Their artillery relies on magic—spells, talismans, sacrifices—”
“Whoa.” I held up two flat palms in a T shape—the timeout gesture. “Hold up, hold up. Magic ? You mean like ‘abracadabra’? ‘hocus-pocus’?”
Jay’s body language indicated annoyance, but his tone was patient. “Well, I’ve never actually heard one of them say ‘hocus-pocus,’ but, yeah, that’s the general idea.”
I felt like my brain was leaking out of my ears. “But that’s not—”
“Possible? You sure looked like a believer to me when I pulled you off the Lacrimae Mundi .”
I opened my mouth, then decided to shut it again when nothing came out. Jay leaned back with an attitude of
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