InterWorld

CHAPTER SEVEN

I fell out of a shimmering patch of sky about six feet above the ground. Jay had had the good sense to roll out of the way when he landed, so I hit the dirt hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

Jay hauled me over onto my back, made sure that my windpipe wasn’t obstructed, then sat cross-legged beside me and waited. After a couple of minutes my lungs remembered their job and got back to it, albeit grumpily.

Jay waited until I was breathing normally again, then handed me a small flask. I don’t know where he kept it—that formfitting mirror suit he wore looked like it didn’t leave room for a book of matches. I looked at the flask rather uncertainly, then handed it back. “Thanks, but I don’t drink.”

He didn’t accept the flask. “Now might be a good time to start. There’s a lot you need to know, and some of it won’t be easy to hear.” When I still didn’t take it, he said, “I mean it, Joey. You haven’t had time for shock to set in yet; but it’s coming like a freight train, and you’re tied to the tracks.” An idea seemed to occur to him then; he leaned forward and stared at me from behind that blank silver oval of a mask. “Wait a minute—you think there’s alcohol in this?” When I nodded, he burst out laughing.

“By the Arc, that’s funny. Joey, trust me—this stuff is to alcohol what penicillin is to snake oil. Why in the name of all that’s sane would we drink a teratogenic poison when there are so many other ways to construct ethyl molecules that don’t have devastating side effects?” He opened the flask, saluted me with it and took a swig. What fascinated me was that he didn’t take off that featureless mask—the golden liquid flowed through it. It seemed to swirl around just beneath a transparent membrane on the lower half—the gold drink mixing with the silver whatever in Rorschach patterns—and then faded away. Then he handed me the flask once more and this time I took a drink.

When I retire, don’t bother giving me a pension—just let me have a little tavern on a world somewhere in the middle span of the Arc and give me license to sell this stuff. It eased down my throat and cuddled up in my stomach as gently as if it had lived there all its life, and from there a sensation of relaxation, strength and confidence radiated outward that made every part of me, up to and including finger- and toenails, feel like the last son of Krypton. I wanted to leap a tall building in a single bound, juggle Volkswagens and come up with a unified field theory—and then move on to something challenging. What I did was hand the flask back to Jay. “Wow.”

“Goes down smooth,” Jay agreed. “There’s a world out near the inner edge of the HEX Hegemony, and on that world is a lake, and in that lake is an island, and on that island is a tree. Once every seven years that tree fruits, and it’s considered one of InterWorld’s most honored jobs for a team to be picked to Walk there and come back with baskets full of them apples. They’re the secret ingredient of this little pick-me-up.” He stood up. “Be right back. Gotta see a man about a horse.” He moved off about a hundred feet or so and stood with his back to me.

I wondered why he hadn’t gone behind a rock—then, as I looked around for the first time since I fell out of the In-Between, I realized there was no rock big enough. We were in the middle of a dusty plain that stretched to the horizon in every direction. A ring of distant mountains surrounded the plain, turning it into the punch bowl of the gods. I wondered how hot it got here, and glanced up at the sky, looking for the sun.

There was no sun.

There was no sky, really. Instead, colors swirled and flowed like oil on water, a psychedelic light show stretching from horizon to horizon. There was no single source of light, but everything was nonetheless lit by some subtle, unlocatable radiance.

I glanced over at where Jay stood. Now he seemed to be talking to something he held in one hand. A recorder, most likely. Faint snatches of words came to me every now and then, but none of them were understandable. I felt vaguely uneasy—was he recording what I’d done as evidence for some kind of kangaroo court? Was he really my friend? Sure, he’d saved my life, but was it just so his side could have me rather than Lady Indigo’s? I seemed to be a pretty valuable property—though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. All through school I’d been the last one picked for teams; even bullies like Ted Russell picked on me only as a last resort, after they’d beaten up everyone else.

I shrugged away the momentary paranoia. I trusted Jay. I wasn’t really sure why. There was just something about him.

After a few more minutes he came back. “Okay, pull up a rock, ’cause this’ll take a while,” he said, following his own advice. “Let’s start big and work our way down.”

“Why not start at the beginning?” I suggested.

“Two reasons. Imprimus: There is no real beginning to this little tale and probably no end either. Secondus: It’s my story and I’ll start wherever I darn well please.”

There didn’t seem to be much argument I could offer against that, so I leaned back against a rocky outcropping and waited. “Couldn’t you take that mask off?”

“No. Not yet. Okay, the whole picture is what we call the Altiverse. Not to be confused with the Multiverse, which means the entire infinity of parallel universes and all the worlds therein. The Altiverse is that slice of the Multiverse that contains all the myriad Earths. And there are a lot of ’em.” He paused, and I got the feeling he was frowning at me. “You understand quantum differentiation? Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle? Multiple world lines?”

“Uh…” We’d touched on some of it in Mr. Lerner’s science class, and I remembered reading an article on the Discover website. Plus I’d seen that episode of classic Trek where Spock had a beard and the Enterprise was full of space pirates. But all that put together made me about as much of an expert as the family cat.

I said as much; Jay waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll pick up what you need to know—cultural osmosis. The thing to remember is that certain decisions—important ones, those that can create major ripples in the time stream—can cause alternate worlds to splinter off into divergent space-time continua. Remember this, or you’ll wind up paralyzed every time you have to make a choice: The Altiverse is not going to create a brave new world based on your decision to wear green socks today instead of red ones. Or if it does, that world will only last a few femtoseconds before being recycled into the reality it split off from. But if your president is trying to decide whether or not to carpet bomb some Middle East saber rattler, he gets it both ways—because two worlds are created where before there was one. Of course, the In-Between keeps them apart, so he’ll never know.”

“Wait a minute—it sounds like you’re trying to say that the creation of new alternate worlds is a conscious decision.”

“I’m not trying to say it—I just said it. Or weren’t you paying attention?”

“But whose consciousness? God’s?”

Jay shrugged, and the molten colors of the sky swam and ran on his gleaming shoulders. “It’s physics, not theology. Call it what you want—God, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Prime Mover Unmoved. The totality of everything. I don’t care. Consciousness is a factor in every aspect of the Multiverse. Quantum math needs a viewpoint, or it doesn’t work. Just try to remember not to confuse consciousness with ego. Two completely different things—and of the two, ego’s the disposable one.”

I wanted to ask him more questions about that, but he was already moving on. “Think of that slice of the Multiverse as an arc—with several extra dimensions, of course.” He made gestures that looked like he was strangling a snake. “At each extreme of the arc are the homeworlds of two hegemonies—empires that each control a small percentage of the individual Earths in the arc. One of them we call the Binary. They use advanced technology—by ‘advanced’ I mean compared to what most of the other Earths have come up with—to radiate out along the arc, conquering as they go. You nearly met up with a couple of representatives back on that Earth you’d Walked to—the ‘opposition is nonproductive’ boys on those flying disks. They love saying things like that. The other empire calls itself HEX. Their artillery relies on magic—spells, talismans, sacrifices—”

“Whoa.” I held up two flat palms in a T shape—the timeout gesture. “Hold up, hold up. Magic? You mean like ‘abracadabra’? ‘hocus-pocus’?”

Jay’s body language indicated annoyance, but his tone was patient. “Well, I’ve never actually heard one of them say ‘hocus-pocus,’ but, yeah, that’s the general idea.”

I felt like my brain was leaking out of my ears. “But that’s not—”

“Possible? You sure looked like a believer to me when I pulled you off the Lacrimae Mundi.”

I opened my mouth, then decided to shut it again when nothing came out. Jay leaned back with an attitude of relief. “Good. For a moment I thought you were going rational on me. Always remember: In an infinity of worlds, anything is not only possible, it’s mandatory.

“To continue: The Binary and HEX are locked in struggle, both overt and covert, for the ultimate control of the Altiverse. They’ve been going at it for centuries, making real slow headway because of the sheer magnitude of the task. I think the last census we intercepted indicated somewhere in the neighborhood of several million billion trillions of Earths—with more of ’em popping out of the vacuum faster than bubbles in champagne.

“There’s a Council of Thirteen that rules HEX, and the Binary is run by an artificial intelligence that calls itself 01101. Each of them wants only one thing—to run the whole shebang. What they refuse to accept is that the Altiverse functions best when the forces of magic and science are in balance. And that’s where InterWorld comes in.”

“You mentioned it—or them—before.”

“Right. That’s who I work for—that’s where you’re leading us.”

He stopped for a breath. I had more questions than there were Earths, but before I could ask them and before he could resume speaking, we heard something roar.

It was a distant sound, unlike anything I’d ever heard before—but it was definitely the sound of a hunting beast, and probably one big enough to look at both Jay and me as blue plate specials. Jay hopped to his feet. “Come on.” Even with the mask on he looked nervous. “This world is still on the cusp of the In-Between, and that’s way too close for me.”

We started walking at a brisk pace across the baked and cracked valley floor. What baked it? I wondered. The temperature was comfortable, even a little bracing—I estimated in the mid-sixties or thereabouts. I glanced up at that crawling sky, and it didn’t look fascinating anymore. It looked like those colors could come pouring down on us at any moment, like boiling lead cascading from battlements. I shuddered and walked a little faster.

One good thing about where we were—nothing could sneak up on us. But I still didn’t like it. We were as exposed as a couple of field mice in a hockey rink. We walked and walked, and those mountains didn’t look any closer.

Then I noticed a flicker of color out of the corner of my eye.

I looked over to one side and saw something that brought me to a stop. At first glance it looked like a huge soap bubble—I mean big, the size of a basketball—drifting out of a large ground fissure. But it only drifted so high, and then it stopped and bobbled around like a balloon trying to escape its tether.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Jay turned his silver-coated head toward the bubble. I was standing far enough away that I could see my whole body reflected along the curve of his cheek and jawline. “Beats me. Never saw anything like it. Got to be a mudluff of some kind, though—which means we assume it’s dangerous and walk away.” He started to walk again, and, after a last glance at the bubble—It almost looks alive, I thought—I turned to follow Jay.

There was a rattling noise somewhere in the distance. It made me think of rattlesnakes or of someone dragging a huge length of chain over rocks.

I turned around and looked, because that was where the sound had come from. I didn’t see anything that looked capable of making that kind of racket. What I did see was the little bubble straining frantically this way and that, as if trying to escape something. Its spherical surface pulsed rapidly with variegated colors—mostly dark reds and oranges shading to purple.

It was scared. I’m not sure how I knew, but it was real clear to me that the little thing was in some kind of distress.

I turned and headed over toward the crevasse.

Behind me I heard Jay shout, “Joey! No! Come back!”

“I think it’s in trouble!” I called back. “It’s not dangerous.” And I kept going.

I came to a stop near the crevasse, which was closer and bigger than I’d thought it would be. The bubble creature, I could now see, was somehow tethered to the rocks at the edge of the chasm by a thin line of protoplasm or ectoplasm or something.

“Joey! That thing’s an In-Betweener! A mudluff! Get back here right now!”

I pretended I couldn’t hear him.

The strand was clear and thin, like a line of saliva. It didn’t look like it would take much more than a mean look to sever it and free the little bubble creature.

“It’s been tied up!” I called to Joey. “I think I can free it.”

He was coming toward me. If I was going to do this, I was going to have to do it fast. I reached out and tugged on the line. It was stronger than it looked.

“Hey,” I called to Jay. “Have you got a knife? I bet we could cut this.” He didn’t reply. Even through the silver suit I could tell he was mad.

The little bubble creature above us seemed agitated. I let go of the line. It was slightly sticky. I found myself thinking of a spider’s web.

“I know he’s harmless,” I told Jay. “Look at him.”

Jay sighed. He was maybe five, six feet away from me. “You may be right,” he said. “But there’s something about this whole thing that seems wrong. How do you think the little guy got stuck there? And why?”

The strand of web began to vibrate. Then there was a roar so loud that it nearly shattered my eardrums, and I realized that I’d summoned something by pulling on the strand of web. I thought I’d been trying to free the little mudluff, but I’d actually been banging a dinner gong.

A monster reared up out of the abyss.

“Monster” is an overused word, I know, but nothing else applies here. It had a head that looked a bit like a shark’s and a bit like a tyrannosaur’s, mounted on a centipede-like body as thick as a delivery van. I don’t know how long it was, but it was long enough to rise out of what looked like a bottomless chasm; and as each segment came sliding up the rock, it rattled and echoed through the gorge like a huge length of chain. In a lot less time than it takes to tell this, it had risen to a good thirty feet above the edge. It stared down at me with enormous compound eyes, each as big as my hand.

Then it struck.

Its head was the size of my dad’s cab; and its mouth gaped open, revealing jaws lined with multiple rows of teeth, each as long as a steak knife. For all its size it dropped toward me like an express elevator. I was just about to become an hors d’oeuvre when I felt someone smash into me from behind, hurling me forward to sprawl on the edge.

I twisted onto my back and stared—stared at Jay standing in the spot where I had stood just an instant before. Then the huge gaping maw of the beast enveloped him, started to close—

And then that little soap bubble came shooting in from over my shoulder. I realized I must’ve broken the strand that had anchored it when I fell. It hit the monster’s muzzle, splattering over it like translucent goop.

The monster reared back with a roar of rage, dropping Jay’s body. Its mouth was still open—those deadly jaws hadn’t had time to close fully on him, and now it had to keep its jaws open to breathe, because the mudluff had covered its nose with the clinging translucent substance of his body. The monster thrashed about, roaring in frustration as it tried to shake the amoebalike mudluff loose. It succeeded in flinging blobs of the thing’s substance, tethered by elastic tendrils, a few feet away, only to have them snap back and replaster themselves around its nose. Hard as it was to believe, that blob of transparent Silly Putty was actually keeping the Midgard serpent from chowing down on Jay and me!

The monster dropped back below ground level and, from the sounds and the way the ground shook repeatedly, was trying to scrape the In-Betweener off by battering its scaly snout against the rocks. I didn’t wait to find out which one would win. Instead I ran over to Jay, grabbed his arms and dragged him, stumbling and leaning on me, away from the action. I figured that overgrown soap bubble wasn’t going to last long.

I stopped a good five hundred yards away. Jay sat down hard on the sand. The roars and tremors from the now-unseen monster continued. I could see clouds of dust and occasional rock fragments being hurled into view. It would have been funny except for one other thing I now noticed: a trail of blood, thick as paint and wide as my hand, stretching unbroken from the edge of the chasm back to Jay’s body.

I gasped and knelt quickly beside him. The silver suit had been pierced through on either side of his body—two brutal punctures on his left side, three on his right, just above his hips. The monster’s teeth had each left holes over an inch in diameter, and Jay’s blood was pumping from them. There was no way to stop it, and I don’t know if it would have done any good anyway—he’d already lost so much blood.

Weakly he held up a hand, which I grasped.

“I’ll get you back to InterWorld,” I said, not knowing what else to do or say. “We’ll go through the In-Between—it won’t take long—I—I’m so sorry—”

“Save it,” Jay whispered. “It…won’t work. I’m bleeding…like three…stuck pigs. And I think the thing is venomous. You wouldn’t believe…how much it hurts….” His voice was muffled and dull.

“What can I do?” I asked helplessly.

“Put my hand on…the sand,” he said. “Got to show you…how to go…the final distance….”

I put his hand down on the ground. He drew something in spastic, jerking movements in the sand.

Then he stopped and seemed to be resting. I felt utterly useless.

“Jay?” I said. “You’ll be fine. Really, you will.” I wasn’t lying. I was saying it, hoping that by saying it I was somehow going to make it so.

He surprised me by shoving himself up to rest on one elbow—his other hand grabbed my shirtfront and dragged me with surprising strength down until my face was only an inch away from his mask. Once again I looked into the wavering reflection of my own features, grotesquely mirrored in the suit’s surface.

“Tell…the Old Man…sorry…made him…short one operative. Tell him…my replacement…gets my highest…recommendation.”

“I’ll tell him, whoever he is,” I promised. “But will you do me one favor in return?” He feebly cocked his head at a questioning angle.

“Take off your mask,” I said. “Let me see who you are.”

He hesitated, then he raised one hand to his face, prodded the suit material just under the chin with a finger. The material covering his head changed from reflective silver to a dull gunmetal gray and sort of shrank back into a ring around his neck.

I stared. It hadn’t made any difference. The mask was still in place. At least, that was my initial thought, brought on by the shock of seeing Jay’s face.

It was my own face, of course. But not exactly. Jay looked to be at least five years older than me. There was a splotch of scar tissue across his right cheek, and the lower part of his ear was knuckled with keloid growth as well. But there weren’t nearly enough scars to hide who he was.

He was me. That was why that voice had been so familiar. It was my voice. Or rather, it was what my voice might sound like in five years.

I wondered why I had not known all along, and I realized that, on some level, I had. Of course he was me. Cooler and braver and wiser than me. And he’d given his life to save me.

He looked at me with eyes dulling. “Get…moving…” His whisper was barely audible. “Can’t lose…a single operative now…too dangerous. Tell him…FrostNight…comes….”

“I will, I promise,” I said. But his eyes had closed. He was unconscious.

It didn’t matter. A promise was binding, whether Jay heard me make it or not. I had heard me make it, and I didn’t want to live the rest of my life trying to justify to myself why I hadn’t done the right thing.

I lowered his body and rocked back on my heels, feeling a sudden lump in my throat. I’m not sure how long I stood there, just breathing.

Then I looked down at the figures he had drawn in the sand.

It had to be important. But when I looked closely at the characters, they made no sense. It seemed to be some kind of mathematical equation:

{IW}:=

I didn’t understand what it meant, but the symbols seemed to take root in my brain, glowing in my mind’s eye.

It was quiet in that rocky place. I could hear Jay’s gasping breaths and the hiss of the windblown sand and nothing else. I didn’t know how long it had been that way, but I knew that unequal battle between the dinomonster and the little mudluff could have ended only one way. I felt sorry for the little soap bubble thing: first bait in a trap, then killed trying to save Jay and me from a monster.

I stood, turned and looked back. There was no sign of either critter. I took a few cautious steps forward, trying to get a better view.

Nothing but settling dust…

Jay’s skin was changing color, taking on a bluish tint. There must have been venom on that creature’s teeth, like he’d said. And if I’d listened to him, and not been stupid, he would never have put himself into the jaws of death, trying to get me out of them. I’d rushed in where angels probably really did fear to tread—and Jay was dying because of that. Because of me. It was my fault. There was no one else to blame.

I looked up at the sky, and I made another promise, to anything that was out there, anyone who was listening, that if Jay lived, if he pulled through this, if I got him medical attention and he was fine, then I’d be the best, hardest-working, nicest, coolest person anyone could ever be. I’d be St. Francis of Assisi and Gautama Buddha and everyone else like that.

But his eyes were closed, and he was not breathing, or moving, now, and it didn’t matter what I promised or how good I was going to be in the future or anything.

Nothing mattered.

He was dead.