extra bedroom in their old house where the sick ones could die in peace. If they made it to Mother’s house, they could die in peace.
Toward sunset they found a side road, followed it up a narrow valley into the comforting folds of the hills. They ate a meal of sandwiches, using a meat spread that came out of a tube like glue.
“Fine roommates you guys make,” Clio said. “Neither of you can cook.”
“We’re scientists,” Zee said.
Hillis laid out his bedroll and stretched out. Above, a few stars stabbed holes in the gathering darkness.
“Give us a science lesson, Zee,” Hillis said.
“Not dark enough. Later we’ll see something.”
They lay side by side, watching the stars gradually revealed. “We’ve been to some of those,” Clio said. “Ages ago.” A reverie settled over them, and they lay, struggling to understand what it meant, to have been there, ages ago.
“We travel to the past,” Hillis said, “but no one except the mathematicians understand how it’s possible. The rest of us poor nulls, we just go along for the ride.”
“You’ve got to have the math,” Zee said. “When you look at the math, it’s fairly simple. Once Vandarthanan worked it out, it all became so simple. It’s like Pomp and Circumstance. Sometimes I think, I could have written that, it’s so obvious.”
“Somebody still has to break past the Future Ceiling,” Hillis said. “You can still make a reputation.”
“But you can’t get to the future.” Clio said. Then, doubtfully, “Can you?”
“Well, no one’s worked out the mathematical proof,” Zee said, “but theoretically, it’s possible. Vandarthanan said that a traveler to the future would exist in a kind of quasi reality. They would be able to witness events, but not take part in them. He even said that this traveler might be invisible to those in the future, and might appear to them as a kind of apparition.”
“Ghosts?” Clio asked.
“Well, the theory can be wrong. Experimental proof is missing for so much of Vandarthanan’s work. Like traveling to the future and his other work on Cousin Realities.”
“The old parallel-universes idea,” Clio said. A shooting star, spectacular and brief, plunged across the night sky, connecting the dots of the stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini.
“Not exactly. Vandarthanan’s theories suggest that under certain conditions, a parallel universe may spring into being. Only he didn’t use the term ‘parallel universe.’ He called this a Cousin Reality. Because this reality, he says,would exist in the known cosmos, our own known space, side by side with us.”
“This is the theory that discredited him,” Hillis said. “Poor bastard came up with one last big idea and the establishment pulled the plug on him.”
“It wasn’t the Cousin Reality concept that people found hard to swallow,” Zee said. “It was his ideas of cosmic dissonance. The idea that the two realities would be inimical to each other, setting up a dissonance that would move toward resolution. That one reality would gather strength and the other diminish until the weaker one died out. Toward the end of his life he came to believe that we
did
have a Cousin Reality, and the mess we’ve made of the planet was evidence that our reality was losing a life-and-death struggle with our Cousin Reality. It’s that part that the scientific community rejected. Called it mysticism, not science.”
“Called it bad politics,” Hillis countered. “Vandarthanan made the mistake of getting quoted in the newspapers instead of just obscure scientific journals.”
Clio propped herself up on her elbow. “So they shut him out for criticizing what’s wrong with the world?”
“Yes,” Zee said. “And for using math to do it.”
After that they lay quietly, their high spirits dampened. Finally, Clio struggled out of her sleeping bag. “Gonna go take a pee,” she announced. “You guys can continue the science lesson without me.”
She made
Toward sunset they found a side road, followed it up a narrow valley into the comforting folds of the hills. They ate a meal of sandwiches, using a meat spread that came out of a tube like glue.
“Fine roommates you guys make,” Clio said. “Neither of you can cook.”
“We’re scientists,” Zee said.
Hillis laid out his bedroll and stretched out. Above, a few stars stabbed holes in the gathering darkness.
“Give us a science lesson, Zee,” Hillis said.
“Not dark enough. Later we’ll see something.”
They lay side by side, watching the stars gradually revealed. “We’ve been to some of those,” Clio said. “Ages ago.” A reverie settled over them, and they lay, struggling to understand what it meant, to have been there, ages ago.
“We travel to the past,” Hillis said, “but no one except the mathematicians understand how it’s possible. The rest of us poor nulls, we just go along for the ride.”
“You’ve got to have the math,” Zee said. “When you look at the math, it’s fairly simple. Once Vandarthanan worked it out, it all became so simple. It’s like Pomp and Circumstance. Sometimes I think, I could have written that, it’s so obvious.”
“Somebody still has to break past the Future Ceiling,” Hillis said. “You can still make a reputation.”
“But you can’t get to the future.” Clio said. Then, doubtfully, “Can you?”
“Well, no one’s worked out the mathematical proof,” Zee said, “but theoretically, it’s possible. Vandarthanan said that a traveler to the future would exist in a kind of quasi reality. They would be able to witness events, but not take part in them. He even said that this traveler might be invisible to those in the future, and might appear to them as a kind of apparition.”
“Ghosts?” Clio asked.
“Well, the theory can be wrong. Experimental proof is missing for so much of Vandarthanan’s work. Like traveling to the future and his other work on Cousin Realities.”
“The old parallel-universes idea,” Clio said. A shooting star, spectacular and brief, plunged across the night sky, connecting the dots of the stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini.
“Not exactly. Vandarthanan’s theories suggest that under certain conditions, a parallel universe may spring into being. Only he didn’t use the term ‘parallel universe.’ He called this a Cousin Reality. Because this reality, he says,would exist in the known cosmos, our own known space, side by side with us.”
“This is the theory that discredited him,” Hillis said. “Poor bastard came up with one last big idea and the establishment pulled the plug on him.”
“It wasn’t the Cousin Reality concept that people found hard to swallow,” Zee said. “It was his ideas of cosmic dissonance. The idea that the two realities would be inimical to each other, setting up a dissonance that would move toward resolution. That one reality would gather strength and the other diminish until the weaker one died out. Toward the end of his life he came to believe that we
did
have a Cousin Reality, and the mess we’ve made of the planet was evidence that our reality was losing a life-and-death struggle with our Cousin Reality. It’s that part that the scientific community rejected. Called it mysticism, not science.”
“Called it bad politics,” Hillis countered. “Vandarthanan made the mistake of getting quoted in the newspapers instead of just obscure scientific journals.”
Clio propped herself up on her elbow. “So they shut him out for criticizing what’s wrong with the world?”
“Yes,” Zee said. “And for using math to do it.”
After that they lay quietly, their high spirits dampened. Finally, Clio struggled out of her sleeping bag. “Gonna go take a pee,” she announced. “You guys can continue the science lesson without me.”
She made
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