"Blert."
"He's Schrodinger's cat," Jane Libby said.
"Then Schrodinger had better come get him, before he gets himself lost. Or hurt."
"No, no. Pixel doesn't belong to Schrodinger; Pixel hasn't selected his human yet-unless he has picked you?"
"No. I don't think so. Well, maybe."
"I think he has. I saw him climb into your lap this noon. And now he has come a long way to find you. I think you've been tapped. Are you cat people?"
"Oh, yes! If Hazel lets me keep him."
"She will; she's cat people."
"I hope so." Pixel was sitting up on my scratch pad, washing his face, and doing a commendable job in scrubbing back of his ears. "Pixel, am I your people?"
He stopped washing long enough to say emphatically, "Blert!"
"All right, it's a deal. Recruit pay and allowances. Medical benefits. Every second Wednesday afternoon off, subject to good behavior. Jane Libby, what's this about Schrodinger? How did he get in here? Tell him Pixel is bespoke."
"Schrodinger isn't here; he's been dead for a double dozen centuries. He was one of that group of ancient German natural philosophers who were so brilliantly wrong about everything they studied-Schrodinger and Einstein and Heisenberg and- Or were these philosophers in your universe? I know they were not in all parts of the omniverse, but parallel history is not my strong point." She smiled apologetically. "I guess number theory is the only thing I'm really good at. But I'm a fair cook."
"How are your back rubs?"
"I'm the best back rubber in Boondock!"
"You're wasting your time. Jay Ell," Deety put in. "Hazel still walks him on a leash."
"But, Aunt Deety, I wasn't trying to bed him."
"You weren't? Then quit wasting his time. Back away and let me at him. Richard, are you susceptible to married women? We're all married."
"Uh- Fifth Amendment!"
"I understood you but they've never heard of it in Boondock. These German mathematicians- Not in your world?"
"Let's see if we're speaking of the same ones. Erwin Schrodinger, Albert Einstein, Wemer Heisenberg-"
"That's the crowd. They were fond of what they called 'thought experiments'-as if anything could be learned that way. Theologians! Jane Libby was about to tell you about 'Schrodinger's Cat,' a thought experiment that was supposed to say something about reality. Jay EU?"
"It was a silly business, sir. Shut a cat in a box. Control whether or not he is killed by decay of an isotope with a half life of one hour. At the end of the hour, is the cat alive or dead? Schrodinger contended that, because of the statistical probabilities in what they thought of as science in those days, the cat was neither alive nor dead until somebody opened the box; it existed instead as a cloud of probabilities." Jane Libby shrugged, producing amazing dynamic curves.
"Blert?"
"Did anyone think to ask the cat?"
"Blasphemy," said Deety. "Richard, this is 'Science,' German philosopher style. You are not supposed to resort to anything so crass. Anyhow Pixel got the tag 'Schrodinger's Cat' hung on him because he walks through walls."
"How does he do that?"
Jane Libby answered, "It's impossible but he's so young he doesn't know it's impossible, so he does it anyhow. So there is never any knowing where he will show up. I think he was hunting for you. Dora?"
"Need something. Jay EU?" the ship answered.
"Did you happen to notice how this kitten came aboard?"
"I notice everything. He didn't bother with the gangway; he came right through my skin. It tickled. Is he hungry?" "Probably."
"I'll fix him something. Is he old enough for solid food?" "Yes. But no lumps. Baby food." "Chop chop."
"Ladies," I said. "Jane Libby used the words 'brilliantly wrong' about these German physicists. Surely you don't include Albert Einstein under that heading?" "I surely do!" Deety answered emphatically. "I'm amazed. In my world Einstein wears a halo." "In my world they bum him in effigy. Albert Einstein was a pacifist but not an honest one. When his own ox was gored, he forgot all about his pacifist principles and used his political influence to start the project that produced the first city-killer bomb. His theoretical work was never much and most of it has turned out to be fallacious. But he will live in infamy as the pacifist politician turned killer. I despise him!"
XXVI
"Success lies in achieving the top of the food chain."
J. HARSHAW 1906-
About then the baby food for Pixel appeared, in a saucer that rose up out of the table, I believe. But I can't swear to it, as it simply appeared. Feeding the baby cat gave me a moment to think. The vehemence of Deety's statement had surprised me. Those German physicists lived and worked in the first half of the twentieth century-not too long ago by my notions of history, but if what these Tertians wanted me to believe were true-unlikely!-a truly long time to them. "A double dozen
centuries-" Jane Libby had said.
How could this easygoing young lady. Dr. Deety, be so
emotional about long-dead German pundits? I know of only one event two thousand years or more in the past that people get emotional about... and that one never happened.
I had begun to make a list in my mind of things that did not add up-the claimed age of Lazarus-that long list of deadly diseases I was alleged to have suffered from-half a dozen weird events in Luna- Most especially Tertius itself. Was this indeed a strange planet far distant from Earth in both space and time? Or was it a Potemkin village on a South Pacific island? Or even Southern California? I had not seen the city called Boondock (one million people, more or less, so they said); I had seen maybe fifty people all told. Did the others exist only as memorized background for dialog extemporized to fit Potemkin roles?
(Watch it, Richard! You're getting paranoid again.) How much Lethe does it take to addle the brain?
"Deety, you seem to feel strongly about Dr. Einstein."
"I have reason to!"
"But he lived so long ago. 'A double dozen centuries' Jane Libby put it."
"That long ago to her. Not to me!"
Dr. Burroughs spoke up. "Colonel Campbell, I think you may be assuming that we are native Tertians. We are not. We are refugees from the twentieth century, just as you are. By 'we' I mean myself and Hilda and Zebadiah and my daughter- my daughter Deety, not my daughter Jane Libby. Jay Ell was born here."
"You slid home. Pop," Deety told him.
"But just barely," Jane Libby added.
"But he did touch home plate. You can't disown him for that, dear."
"I don't want to. As pops go, he's tolerable."
I did not try to sort this out; I was gathering a conviction that all Tertians were certifiably insane by Iowa standards. "Dr. Burroughs, I am not from the twentieth century. I was born in Iowa in 2133."
'•Near enough, at this distance. Different time lines, I believe-divergent universes-but you and I speak much the same accent, dialect, and vocabulary; the cusp that placed you in one world and me in another must lie not far back in our pasts. Who reached the Moon first and what year?"
"Neil Armstrong, 1969."
"Oh, that world. You've had your troubles. But so have we. For us the first Lunar landing was in 1952, HMAAFS Pink Koala, Ballox O'Malley commanding." Dr. Burroughs looked up and around. "Yes, LAzarus? Something troubling you? Fleas? Hives?"
"If you and your daughters do not want to work, I suggest that you go chat elsewhere. Next door, perhaps; the fabulists and the historians don't mind chasing rabbits. Colonel Camp-bell, I think that you will find it convenient to feed your cat elsewhere, too. I suggest the 'fresher just clockwise of my lounge."