Jane Libby asked, "After the scram, was the nova bomb already visible from the new point of sight, or did it appear after Gay's translation? Either way, how does that fit the timing at Checkpoint Beta? Query: Is it experimentally established that irrelevant transportation is instantaneous, totally nil in transit time... or is it an assumption based on incomplete evidence and empirical success?"
Deety said, "Jay Ell, what are you getting at, dear?" I was bracketed by these two; they talked across me, obviously did not expect opinions from me-although I had been a witness.
"We are trying to establish the optimum tick for evacuating THQ, are we not?"
"Are we? Why not pre-enact evacuation, time it, then start the evacuation at minus H-hours plus thirty minutes? That gets everyone back here with gobs of time to spare."
"Deety, you thereby set up a paradox that leaves you with your head jammed up your arse," Burroughs commented. "Pop! That's rude, crude, and vulgar." "But correct, my darling stupid daughter. Now think your way out of the trap."
"Easy. I was speaking just of the danger end, not the safe end. We finish the rescue with thirty minutes to spare, then move to any empty space in any convenient universe-say that orbit around Mars we have used so often-then turn around and reenter this universe at a here-now tick one minute after we leave for the rescue."
"Clumsy but effective."
"I like simple programming, I do."
"So do I. But doesn't anyone see anything wrong with taking whatever length of time we need?"
"Hell, yes!"
"Well, Archie?"
"Because it's booby-trapped, probability point nine nine seven plus. How it is booby-trapped, depends. Who's our antagonist? The Beast? The Galactic Overlord? Boskone? Or is it direct action by another history-changing group, treaty or no treaty? Or-don't laugh-are we up against an Author this time? Our timing must depend on our tactics, and our tactics must fit our antagonist. So we must wait until those big brains next door tell us whom we are fighting."
"No," said Libby Long.
"What's wrong. Mama?" the lad asked.
"We will set up all the possible combinations, dear, and solve them simultaneously, then plug the appropriate numerical answer into the scenario the fabulists give us."
"No, Lib, you would still be betting a couple hundred lives that the big brains are right," Lazarus objected. "They may not be. We'll stay right here and find a safe answer if it takes ten years. Ladies and gentlemen, these are our colleagues we are talking about. They are not expendable. Damn it, find that right answer!"
I sat there feeling silly, slowly getting it through my head mat they were seriously discussing how to rescue all the people- and records and instruments-in a habitat I had seen vaporized an hour ago. And that they could just as easily rescue the habitat itself-move it out of that space before it was bombed. I heard them discuss how to do that, how to time it. But they rejected that solution. That habitat must have cost countless billions of crowns... yet they rejected saving it. No, no! The antagonist, be he the Beast of the Apocalypse, or Galactic Overlord (I choked!), or whatever-he must be allowed to think that he had succeeded; he must not suspect that the nest was empty, the bird flown.
I felt a remembered sensation in my left leg: Lord Pixel was again challenging the vertical front face. Furthermore he was driving in a fresh set of pitons, so I reached down and set him on the table. "Pixel, how did you get here?"
"Blert!"
"You certainly did. Out into the garden, through the garden, through the west wing-or did you go around?-across the lawn, up into a sealed spaceship-or was the ramp down? As may be, how did you find me?"
"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!"