Anatoli nodded, lip quivery. “The last of it was in the hands of a Nazi family. Denton bought that for me.”
That wasn’t quite how it happened, but Denton didn’t sweat it.
“But how did Kobinski come up with his equation and the… the ‘law of good and evil’?” Dr. Talcott asked. “He didn’t have access to the technology necessary to even begin to—”
“Meditation,” Anatoli interrupted. “He used to say meditation provides the insight and physics enables you to make sense of it.”
Dr. Talcott was looking at Anatoli like he’d just sprouted horns. “You said the fifth dimension stretches across the multiverse. Did Kobinski have proof that ours was not the only universe? Mathematical proof?”
Denton thought he knew. “Kobinski mentions a vision in the manuscript. He saw a whole continuum of universes, which he called Jacob’s ladder, and our universe was in the middle.”
“There have been theories that there are other universes,” Nate said, leaning forward eagerly.
“Pure speculation,” Dr. Talcott tsked.
Anatoli’s voice rose, upset. “There are other universes, and they have different balances of good and evil. The rebbe said this is where the religious traditions got the idea of ‘heavens’ and ‘hells.’ Mystics get visions of these other universes, or maybe we remember having lived there, down deep in our soul.”
Dr. Talcott opened her mouth to protest, but Nate spoke up, his face alight. “Cool! Think about it, Jill. The one-minus-one we discovered is exactly matched, crest and trough. But why couldn’t there be universes that had different one-minus-one waves, different balances of crests and troughs, creative and destructive urges?”
Dr. Talcott actually considered it. She spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “Even if there are other universes, any other balance of the one-minus-one may be physically impossible. Or such a universe might exist, but it might never have experienced a big bang. Or it may have expanded but not have stars or planets.” One eyebrow peaked with interest. “The fifty-fifty balance might be necessary to create any meaningful universe.”
“No,” Anatoli said simply. “There are universes with other balances of good and evil. And they have stars and planets and intelligent life. Kobinski worked all of that out in his book.”
Dr. Talcott glanced at the manuscript. She looked, Denton could swear to god, intimidated! That look told him all he needed to know about the legitimacy of Kobinski’s physics. But the rabbi was still hoarding the manuscript in his lap like a freaking Pekingese.
“This is all fascinating,” Rabbi Handalman said. “An inexhaustible mine of wisdom, no doubt. But for one moment, if it’s not too much trouble, can we get back to this universe? Did Reb Kobinski work out the implications of a weapon using this technology? Because the Mossad has some of the manuscript.”
Nate nodded, looking worried. “I think I can answer that. At least, I have an idea what could be done with our work—”
“Nate!” Jill warned.
Nate put a hand on hers in the vee of her lap, which, Denton noticed with a smirk, shut her up quite nicely, since it sent her absolutely rigid.
“Basically, you can use a wave pulse to increase the destructive power of the one-minus-one. If you did that with sufficient energy in an enemy’s country it would cause all kinds of terrible things to occur. And the thing is, they wouldn’t even know you were doing it. If they didn’t know about the technology it would probably just look like they were having a series of unrelated problems and natural disasters.”
“Could it be as dangerous as atomics?” the rabbi insisted, eyes piercing.
“I have no idea what the technology could do at really high levels,” Nate admitted. “But we’re talking about doubling or tripling or quadrupling the destructive tendency in all matter.”
The rabbi’s mouth tightened into a grimace. Anatoli’s eyes were lost in La La Land. Denton himself was intrigued by the concept. It had great scare potential, journalistically speaking. But he wasn’t particularly frightened himself. Who would make a weapon like that? How stupid would that be?
“We don’t know that it could do anything of the sort,” Jill protested, yanking her hand from Nate’s with fire in her eyes. “We’ve only begun to examine the potential of the wave.”
Everyone ignored her.
“Unfortunately, it might be too late,” Nate said. “The Department of Defense knows about the technology, though we’re not sure they have the actual equation. And as Rabbi Handalman just mentioned, the Mossad has a few pages of the manuscript, too. All they need are the basic principles, and they could build machines to manipulate the one-minus-one quite easily.”
“Um… wouldn’t the U.S. and Mossad share information?” Denton said, rubbing a bruise on his face. “They’re allies, aren’t they?”
Aharon snorted. “Ha! The Americans want to remain the big guns on the block. How can they do that if their allies know all their secrets? No, the Americans, if they find this, won’t share it in a hurry, and the Mossad, if I know the Mossad, will do whatever they have to do to get a piece of the pie. Especially since Kobinski was a Polish Jew. If this technology belongs to anyone, it belongs to Israel.”
“Now just one minute,” Dr. Talcott said, her face getting very stern. “Let’s all give the paranoia a rest for a moment, shall we? Just because—”
From outside came the unmistakable sound of cars pulling into the driveway. They were going fast, with brakes squealing and the sputtering of gravel. Before the rest of them could move, Anatoli was on his feet.
“This way!” he hissed, “Hurry! Schnell! Schnell!”
His panic was infectious. He shoved and pushed, and before Denton could even get his head around the danger, they were out the back door. A flight of steps led down to a bare yard and the yard opened onto a forest. Anatoli picked up a broom from the side of the house and whacked at the porch light, putting it out with a crunch of glass. “Kommen sie!”
He raced away. The rest of them glanced around at one another in confusion.
“Nate, this is silly,” Dr. Talcott said. Her eyes darted toward the front of the house.
Nate grabbed her hand. “We don’t know who it is. It might be the guys who tried to kidnap you, and there’s no time to hang around and find out!”
Denton agreed wholeheartedly but found he was frozen solid. Rabbi Handalman, his face drawn and white as a sheet, ran after Anatoli without a word. There was the sound of car doors slamming, and Denton got a visceral flash of fists pounding into him.
That got him moving. He lurched from the porch in a shuddering start. Once he was in motion he recovered some semblance of grace and found himself running hell-for-high-leather—directly into the woods.
He heard Nate and Dr. Talcott coming behind him.
13.4. Aharon Handalman
It was freezing, absolutely freezing. None of them had coats. The ground was crunchy with frost and ice, but there was, thank god, a moon to light the way.
Aharon was not doing well. His heart was thumping dangerously—not so much from the exercise of sprinting through the woods but from terror. And he was still clutching Kobinski’s manuscript—a smoking gun if ever there was one. What could he do with it? He couldn’t throw it away—Anatoli had been clear that “they” must never find it.
He passed a chain-link fence. The wire had been cut through and was slightly bent. Aharon reeled backward, shaking his head. He knew what it was—it was the camp. That’s why Anatoli lived out here, so he could be close to the grounds. And this, this must be where he went through at night for his digging. There was no way; nothing on earth, was going to get Aharon through that fence. Lord God!