The most maddening thing about it, Kea realized, was that the situation was right out of a basic frosh psych text. An obsession directly related to his failure with Tamara. It helped that the sex was absolutely fabulous. Feeling far younger than twenty-eight and ashamed of his addiction, Kea decided enough time had passed. He paced down the corridor and entered the bridge. They were all waiting. Murph and Vasoovan and Fazlur. Behind them, Ruth threw him a kiss.
"What kept you, Richards?" came Vasoovan's irritating twitter.
Fazlur looked at him. Did he suspect?
"A little trouble in the engine room," Kea said.
"Leak in the seals again?" Murph misguessed.
"Yeah, Murph. Trouble in the seals again." Kea watched Fazlur turn away... satisfied? "What's going on?" Kea asked.
Murph thumbed at Fazlur. "Doc's got some kinda answer." He turned to Fazlur. "Why don't you run it down?"
"Yeah, Fazlur," Vasoovan prodded. "Tell us why you've had us chasing a big fat zero for five months."
"It is not a phantom, my dimwitted companion. Of this I assure you. When we started out, the signal we were picking up from the apparent discontinuity in the Alva Sector was certainly steady and strong enough. Our dilemma came only when we grew close. The steady pulse we were receiving appeared to shatter."
"I think your equipment is all screwed up, is what I think," Vasoovan said. "You were seein‘ something that wasn't there."
"Then what, you fool, do you think those blinking lights were on the monitor? That's not my equipment." Vasoovan was silent. Eyestalks astir. Wandering or not, the blips on the screen did indicate some kind of presence. Fazlur smirked at Vasoovan, then turned serious. "What I did was gather up all the recordings of Vasoovan's sightings. Then I crunched the data. To see if there was some sort of pattern."
"Which there was," Kea guessed. Otherwise they wouldn't be here talking about it.
"Which there was," Fazlur confirmed with relish. "Viewed in isolation, it appeared the signal was wandering all over the clock. One o'clock to six o'clock. To nine... When one steps back for perspective, however, one would observe that it repeats the nine, then six, and on to one, again." He sketched as he talked. The result looked a bit like a tilted U.
"What's causing it?" Richards asked.
"Some of it is due to the presence of black matter," Fazlur said. "No doubt about it. A very strong gravitational force is at work here, and I'll be the first to admit I hadn't considered it. But that's not the whole answer. I think what's really happening is that we're viewing an alternate universe bleeding through the discontinuity. It's well known that early in the life of our own universe, positive ions were so compressed that no light could escape. As the ions separated—we now imagine—light began to burst out of that dense ionic fog. I believe something similar is going on in our not-so-theoretical alternate universe. Dense ionic fog—or its equivalent in that universe. Light pushing to get through. And finding the path of least resistance through the discontinuity and into our own universe."
"Good work, Doc," Murph said. "I guess. But I'll leave that to our bosses. Tell the truth, though, what you're tellin‘ me may be the answer. But that answer don't have the ring of Bonus City. Hope you can punch it up better'n that when we get back to Base Ten."
"Oh, I can do far better," Fazlur said, preening. "I can take us there... and prove it!"
"Hey, come on, Fazlur!" Vasoovan protested, predator's grin stretched wide on her long face. "Let's not get stupid about this. I'll buy your theory. I'll even back your act with the company to earn my share of the bonus. But, we gotta face facts, here. Which is—ion fog or no ion fog—we don't know how to get from here to there."
"Yes we do," Fazlur said. He drew a line straight through the tilted U. Made a circle at eleven o'clock. "This is our course for the next jump." Silence all around. Kea saw Ruth puzzling. Judging. Then he saw her nod. She believed he was right.
Murph finally broke the silence. "Gee, Doc. That's good crap, and all. But I think we got enough. The politicos will be happy we really did something. Which means the company'll be happy. End story."
"Don't be a fool," Fazlur said. "If I'm right, we're talking about the greatest discovery since Galileo. Redefining reality itself. Forget the fame. Although every member of the crew will go down in history. Think of the fortune, man. The fortune."
Murph turned to Kea. "What's our status?"
"Engine's in okay shape. Everything else is so-so. Including fuel." Kea had no choice but to be honest.
"I don't know," Murph said. "I just don't feel right making this kind of decision myself."
"Can't buzz the Powers That Be," Vasoovan said "We're way out of range."
"If you turn back now," Fazlur warned, "I swear I'll see you fired and blackballed for life."
"Come on, Doc," Murph said. "Don't be like that. I'm just sayin‘ I feel real uncomfortable decidin' this whole thing solo."
"I'll take responsibility," Fazlur said.
"That wouldn't be right," Murph said. All he meant was it wouldn't be enough to protect his big-hammed behind. "How about we vote on it? Just the officers and you two. We don't need to ask the crew anything."
Kea almost laughed aloud. A ship's captain calling for a vote. Instead, he said, "Why not?" He raised a hand. "Start with me. I say we go."
"Crap on you!" Vasoovan said. "I vote for home."
Fazlur and Ruth joined Kea. Murph could see which way the land lay now. "Okay. I'll go along with the majority. Sorry, Vasoovan, but I gotta keep the peace. It's my job."
And so the last stage of Operation Alva was launched as cynically and halfheartedly as the first. Kea didn't care. He was determined to see the other side of God's big coin. An old line crawled into his brain: ‘This is the stuff dreams are made of."
A fine rain of fire curtained across space. And that curtain seemed to swirl and billow against a gentle cosmic wind. It was a place where two universes touched... and bled through.
Kea peered at the image on the ship's main screen and watched birth and death enacted instantly as small particles from one universe touched one from another and exploded in pinprick bursts of light. Pinbursts that played up and down the shuddering curtain that Fazlur called a "discontinuity." Kea thought, Discontinuity? No. More like the Gate to Paradise. Or Hell.
Fazlur's voice came from behind him: "Now, Richards... if you could take sweep in a bit farther..."
Kea worked the joystick. Onscreen, the sweep he'd helped Fazlur and Ruth deploy swooped into view. It consisted of a small cylindrical unit designed for use as a ‘tween-ship short-range courier, now pushing a net made of specially treated plas wires. On a bar across the bottom of the screen, numbers jumped and played.
"Just a little more..." Fazlur's voice coaxed. "A little more..."
Suddenly the sweep's net was alive with pinbursts. Anti-particles colliding against particles. A small drama being played out against the plas wires of the net. Kea kept the sweep steady on its dip-in-and-out course. It wasn't hard. The joystick's sensors showed no interference. Then the pinbursts stopped abruptly as the sweep completed its journey and returned to normal space.
Fazlur's voice gloated behind him. "I've done it! Done it!" Kea knew Fazlur was seeing his name in history books. The first scientist to explore another universe—albeit by remote. He punched in a command putting the sweep on autoreturn and swiveled in his chair.
"Done what?" came Vasoovan's annoying twitter. "We're in on this same as you, buster. It's a team. Right, Murph? We all get equal shares."